The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication by Alexander Larman

You see, the man is mad. MAD. He could see nothing but that woman.~Prime Minister Baldwin quoted in The Crown in Crisis

Drawing from newly released archival sources, interviews, letters, and diaries, here is the full story of Edward VIII whose love for American divorcee' Wallis Simpson caused him to give up the throne, threatening the stability of the British government and the monarchy.

Edward was charming and beloved by the common people, but he preferred pleasure to work and freedom to upholding the narrow conventions expected from a monarch. He had no intellectual interests, no Christian faith (although head of the state church), and hated the drudgery of being a monarch.

Readers learn about Edward's personality and weaknesses, his gay life and affairs, and how Wallis came to be his obsession.

The British newspapers would not publish stories about Edward's affair with the married Wallis. The couple took a pleasure cruise across the world with friends, the foreign press filled with photographs and stories about them.

Wallis found herself trapped by Edward's compulsive addiction, trying valiantly to talk him out of his determination to marry her if her divorce was granted. He was too powerful; he would not listen to her pleas; and the divorce and the abdication went through.

The once-king lost his homeland, his property, his power, and his family to gain the woman he loved. Wallis was imprisoned in a marriage she had hoped to avoid.

In that moment, I realised how heavy was the price I had paid... ~Edward VIII quoted in The Crown in Crisis

This is more than a love story, more than a history of a deeply flawed man. It tells the story of a government in crisis, struggling to deal with the most unexpected challenge. It is riveting as history, and disturbing as a portrait of a self-centered leader who put the personal above their duty to nation.  

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication

by Alexander Larman

St. Martin's Press

Pub Date  January 19, 2021   

ISBN: 9781250274847

hardcover $27.99 (USD)

From the publisher

The thrilling and definitive account of the Abdication Crisis of 1936

On December 10, 1936, King Edward VIII brought a great international drama to a close when he abdicated, renouncing the throne of the United Kingdom for himself and his heirs. The reason he gave when addressing his subjects was that he could not fulfill his duties without the woman he loved—the notorious American divorcee Wallis Simpson—by his side. His actions scandalized the establishment, who were desperate to avoid an international embarrassment at a time when war seemed imminent. That the King was rumored to have Nazi sympathies only strengthened their determination that he should be forced off the throne, by any means necessary.

Alexander Larman’s The Crown in Crisis will treat readers to a new, thrilling view of this legendary story. Informed by revelatory archival material never-before-seen, as well as by interviews with many of Edward’s and Wallis’s close friends, Larman creates an hour-by-hour, day-by-day suspenseful narrative that brings readers up to the point where the microphone is turned on and the king speaks to his subjects. As well as focusing on King Edward and Mrs. Simpson, Larman looks closely at the roles played by those that stood against him: Prime minister Stanley Baldwin, his private secretary Alec Hardinge, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang. Larman also takes the full measure of those who supported him: the great politician Winston Churchill, Machiavellian newspaper owner Lord Beaverbrook, and the brilliant lawyer Walter Monckton.

For the first time in a book about the abdication, readers will read an in-depth account of the assassination attempt on Edward’s life and its consequences, a first-person chronicle of Wallis Simpson’s scandalous divorce proceedings, information from the Royal Archives about the government’s worries about Edward’s relationship with Nazi high-command Ribbentrop and a boots-on-the-ground view of how the British people saw Edward as they watched the drama unfold. You won’t be able to put down The Crown in Crisis, a full panorama of the people and the times surrounding Edward and the woman he loved.

 

The Violence Inside Us: A Brief History of an Ongoing American Tragedy by Chris Murphy

In 1764, my sixth great-grandparents were murdered and scalped by Simon Girty and a group of Native Americans whose reign of terror was waged to scare settlers out of the Shenandoah Valley. The Rev. John Rhodes, a Swiss Brethren and a pacifist, was an early settler in the valley. 

Unable to defend themselves, the community built underground cellars, but eventually they were converted by a visiting Baptist. One advantage of this change in faith was that they were allowed guns for self-protection.

Our immigrant ancestors employed guns for hunting game and to defend themselves against the people whose lands they stole. Guns were safeguards in far-flung lawless frontiers and they were needed by state militias before a centralized government created the first American army. 

American has long embraced gun ownership. In The Violence Inside Us, Senator Chris Murphy notes that the Pilgrims required every man to have a gun.

Murphy's life was changed with the shooting of school children in Newtown. As a newly elected senator, he saw the pain close up. Gun violence became his bailiwick.

Our son was in junior high at the time of the Columbine shooting. A student at his school talked about bringing a gun to school. Our son insisted he stay home the next day. The threat was investigated and the student punished. But our son never again felt safe at school.

Years later, and many school shootings later, we still can't guarantee our children that they will be safe in their classrooms.

This passionate and well-thought out book addresses the central questions behind violence. Is it human nature to be violent? Why is America the most violent nation in the industrialized world? What can we do to alter the violence? Why are our political leaders loathe to pass legislation that protects innocent victims of gun violence? He looks beyond our borders to how America has taken violence abroad through war and weapons sales.

Carefully building an understanding of the use and misuse of guns as rooted in human nature and American society, Murphy argues for reasonable legislation, on which the majority of Americans agrees, and explains the forces that prevent that legislation from passing.

Murphy's personal transformation makes a connection and the stories he shares grabs you by the heart.

Hear an audio excerpt here.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Violence Inside Us: A Brief History of an Ongoing American Tragedy
by Chris Murphy
Random House Publishing Group - Random House
Pub Date: September 1, 2020
ISBN: 9781984854575
hardcover $28.00 (USD)

from the publisher

In many ways, the United States sets the pace for other nations to follow. Yet on the most important human concern—the need to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe from physical harm—America isn’t a leader. We are disturbingly laggard. Our churches and schools, our movie theaters and dance clubs, our workplaces and neighborhoods, no longer feel safe. To confront this problem, we must first understand it. In this carefully researched and deeply emotional book, Senator Chris Murphy dissects our country’s violence-filled history and the role that our unique obsession with firearms plays in this national epidemic. 

Murphy tells the story of his profound personal transformation in the wake of the mass murder at Newtown, and his subsequent immersion in the complicated web of influences that drive American violence. Murphy comes to the conclusion that while America’s relationship to violence is indeed unique, America is not inescapably violent. Even as he details the reasons we’ve tolerated so much bloodshed for so long, he explains that we have the power to change. Murphy takes on the familiar arguments, obliterates the stale talking points, and charts the way to a fresh, less polarized conversation about violence and the weapons that enable it—a conversation we urgently need in order to transform the national dialogue and save lives.

Superman's Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It by Erin Brockovich

Erin Brockovich warns us that we the people are the only ones who can save us. Grass roots efforts by moms have stood up to power to save their children. Lois Gibbs, the Love Canal mom, and Leeann Walters of Flint, Michigan are two of the most recognized citizens who have stood up to power in defence of families. For change to happen, more ordinary people need to become involved.

Superman's Not Coming describes the problem of providing clean water under a dysfunctional EPA and climate change. Brockovich offers resources to empower Water Warrior wannabes.

I have spent a good deal of my life a few hours drive (or less) from one of the Great Lakes, the largest freshwater source in the world. I grew up boating on the Niagara River, and later vacationed at Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, and Lake Huron.

I also remember in the 1970s seeing yellow foam at the base of Niagara Falls. I remember algae blooms poisoning Toledo's water, Love Canal, and the Flint Water Crisis. I have lived near lakes made toxic by industrial waste. My state is dealing with PFAS contamination.

Across the country, Americans--today--discover their water isn't safe to drink. And they endure limits on water use because it is in short supply.

It's only going to get worse as temperatures rise.

Brockovich presents her information and argument with passion. The book is upsetting but it is also empowering. If we have the will, we can create change. It starts with people like us.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

from the publisher

From environmental activist, consumer advocate, renowned crusader, champion fighter-maverick, whose courageous case against Pacific Gas and Electric was dramatized in the Oscar-winning film--a book to inspire change that looks at our present situation with water and reveals the imminent threats to our most precious, essential element, and shows us how we can each take action to make changes in our cities, our towns, our villages, before it is too late.

In Erin Brockovich's long-awaited book--her first to reckon with conditions on our planet--she makes clear why we are in the trouble we're in, and how, in large and practical ways, we each can take actions to bring about change.

She shows us what's at stake, and writes of the fraudulent science that disguises these issues, along with cancer clusters not being reported. She writes of the saga of PG&E that continues to this day, and of the communities and people she has worked with who have helped to make an impact. She writes of the water operator in Poughkeepsie, New York, who responded to his customers' concerns and changed his system to create some of the safest water in the country; of the moms in Hannibal, Missouri, who became the first citizens in the nation to file an ordinance prohibiting the use of ammonia in their public drinking water; and about how we can protect our right to clean water by fighting for better enforcement of the laws, new legislation, and better regulations. She cannot fight all battles for all people and gives us the tools to take actions ourselves, have our voices be heard, and know that steps are being taken to make sure our water is safe to drink and use.

Superman's Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It
by Erin Brockovich
Pantheon/Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Pub Date: August 25, 2020
ISBN: 9781524746964
hardcover $28.95 (USD)

Blowout Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russian, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth by Rachel Maddow

I thought I should read Blowout by Rachel Maddow. Should being the giveaway word to my motivation. Instead of a dose of medicine that's good for me but hard to swallow, it was a terrifying funhouse ride that totally engaged my attention! Maddow weaves together a narrative of how we 'got to here' that illumines the present.

Maddow lays out the oil industry's history from Standard Oil to fracking to Putin's dream of Russia becoming the world's fuel provider to trolls on Facebook disseminating discord.

The oil industry has always been too big and wealthy and powerful to control, starting with John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil which drove out or took over the competition. The values have not changed; anything goes in the pursuit of increased production and mindboggling wealth. And power. Don't forget the obscene power.

The oil industry has always looked for better ways to get to the oil, using nuclear bombs and ocean drilling and fracking. Sure, messes happen. The best clean up tool they have developed is a big stick of paper towels.

Fracking was going to save the day! Years worth of 'clean' gas. So what if Oklahoma suffered 900 earthquakes in 2017?

I didn't know how Putin had gambled everything on the fossil fuel industry bringing Russia money and power across the globe. But they needed the technology to make it happen. And Rex Tillerson and Exxon/Mobile were planning to help him. Those pesky sanctions got in their way.

Business and capitalism is amoral; politics and justice and fairness are irrelevant. The prime directive is making money. You lobby for the best tax deals, pay workers the lowest wages possible, make deals with the Devil--if you are killing people, or the entire planet, cover it up and carry on making the big bucks.

The damage fossil fuels are doing to the planet is happening NOW, has been happening for a long time before we wised up to it. It isn't just when we take a jet or when we eat a half-pound burger or drive the kids to school. Getting that gas out of the ground it escapes. Lots of it. From the get-go, fossil fuels damage our world.

Maddow writes, Coal is done, and so is gas and oil but they don't know it yet.

Oh, the last desperate gasps of the old world struggling to hold on.

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

"...the oil and gas industry is essentially a big casino that can produce both power and triumphant great gobs of cash, often with little regard for merit. That equation invites gangsterism, extortion, thuggery, and the sorts of folks who enjoy these hobbies. Its practitioners have been lumbering across the globe of late, causing mindless damage and laying the groundwork for the global catastrophe that is the climate crisis but also reordering short-term geopolitics in a strong-but-dumb survival contest that renders everything we think of as politics as just theater. It's worth understanding why. And why now."~from Blowout by Rachel Maddow

from the publisher:

Rachel Maddow’s Blowout offers a dark, serpentine, riveting tour of the unimaginably lucrative and corrupt oil-and-gas industry. With her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the globe—from Oklahoma City to Siberia to Equatorial Guinea—exposing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas. She shows how Russia’s rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia’s rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the United States, and the West’s most important alliances. Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, but ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson emerge as two of the past century’s most consequential corporate villains.

The oil-and-gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers, and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, “like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can’t really blame the lion. It’s in her nature.”

This book is a clarion call to contain the lion: to stop subsidizing the wealthiest industry on earth, to fight for transparency, and to check the influence of predatory oil executives and their enablers. The stakes have never been higher. As Maddow writes, “Democracy either wins this one or disappears.”

Blowout
Rachel Maddow
Crown
Published Oct 01, 2019
Hardcover $30.00
ISBN 9780525575474

The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy

"In the first full account of this American tragedy, The Poisoned City recounts the gripping story of Flint’s poisoned water through the people who caused it, suffered from it, and exposed it. It is a chronicle of one town, but could also be about any American city, all made precarious by the neglect of infrastructure and the erosion of democratic decision making. Places like Flint are set up to fail—and for the people who live and work in them, the consequences can be fatal."--from the publisher

A woman who was a high school classmate posted on Facebook about her work distributing bottled water in Flint, Michigan through the American Red Cross. Day after day people came for a case of water. The had to make daily trips because they were only allowed one case a day. The people needed an I.D. to get the water. It was the middle of a brutal winter, and many of the people were elderly or disabled or had no cars. Church pastors came, hoping to get cases of water to deliver to their shut-ins who could not make it out.

Lori told me that the people were uninformed about the toxic water and how to be safe. Actually, the Red Cross workers didn't know what the Health Department standards would recommend. Could one bathe in the water? Use it to mix baby formula? Filters and water purifiers were distributed, but not everyone knew how to install or maintain them, and the filters only fit on certain kinds of faucets.

Setting up the warehouses and creating a system from scratch was 'chaotic,' 'hell'. Some warehouses were overstocked while others emptied quickly leaving people without water.

It was heartbreaking, Lori said.

Flint once had the highest per-capita incomes in the nation. GM founder and Flint mayor Charles Stewart Mott developed a renowned school system. The city boasted the Flint Symphony Orchestra and the Flint Institute of Arts.

My father-in-law grew up in Flint and worked for Fisher Body. His widowed mother found work at GM and participated in the Woman's Brigade during the Sit-Down Strike. His eldest son opened his professional offices in Flint and raised his family there.

When GM closed its auto plants over twenty thousand residents left. Businesses closed. The city tax base was gone and revenue sharing was sidelined to balance the state budget. An economic turndown and mortgage crisis devastated the country.

Still, Flint was Michigan's seventh largest city with 49,000 residents. The community was not down yet and neighborhood civic programs for change and betterment were led by the University of Michigan Flint, Habitat for Humanity, and church groups.

The state assigned an Emergency Manager to oversee Flint and solve its budget crisis. Buying treated water from Detroit Water and Sewerage was costly. It was decided to switch to the Karegnodi Water Authority, drawing water from Lake Huron, and process the water by reopening Flint's water treatment plant. Until the new source of water was in place they would draw water from the Flint River.

The state's environmental agency had warned that using Flint River water was a bad idea. The decision was based on cost-effectiveness. As the Detroit Free Press observed, the state had "voted for a business person" when they voted for Governor Snyder, the "bottom line" being his priority. "Governing a state as well as governing a nation is not like running a business. He and the people of Flint have found out the hard way."

Residents complained of bad smelling coffee-colored tap water, skin rashes, and illnesses. Children lost hair, suffered aches and pains. For eighteen months, the city, state and federal governments delayed action, claiming the water was safe.

Michigan is surrounded by the Great Lakes which hold one-fifth of the world's freshwater yet Flint residents were drinking tap water that was toxic.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality had suffered staff and budget cuts although monitoring the largest number of community water systems in the country.

People came down with Legionnaire's disease for years but there was no public notice about the outbreak. Forty-six patients at McLaren Hospital in Flint became ill and ten died of the disease. Four years passed before a Wayne State University investigation traced the outbreak to the switch to Flint River water and corrosion in pipes. 

Every governing authority had failed the people of Flint. Water quality tests were skewed to lessen the amount of lead found. Citizens with the highest amount of lead found their test results eliminated from the results.

In 2015 the State Integrity Report Card from the Center for Public Integrity ranked Michigan dead LAST. Snyder signed bills "that did more to conceal the actions of state government," including political donors. Journalism was undergoing deep cuts, with fewer local journalists employed--a loss of local watchdogs.

The Poisoned City puts the crisis in the context of the history of Flint, the development of water sources, and legislation for environmental protection. It tells the story of the grass-roots activists who demanded justice. And how the media brought the story to the public, beginning with Michigan Public Radio which first reported the problem to Rachel Maddow who brought it to national attention.

Liability for causing environmental hazards rarely punishes the polluter.  In the case of Love Canal, the New York State neighborhood poisoned by Hooker Chemicals' leaking toxic waste storage,  the courts held Hooker responsible for cleanups but not punitive damages for the harm the residents suffered. The law requires evidence of intent to cause harm.

In Flint, lawsuits were filed over the poisoned water, Legionella, damaged plumbing, lost property values and paying for water only fit, as one said, to flush toilets.

The devaluation of Flint, mostly poor and African American, was evident when the EPA made the decision not to provide financial aid for buying filters because then other cities would demand them and Flint was not "the kind of community we want to go out on a limb for."

Children were being poisoned by lead in the city water lines. Dr. Hanna-Attisha studied the records of children treated at Hurley Medical Center in Flint and discovered a rise in blood-lead levels in 27,000 children. There is no 'cure' for the damage from lead poisoning.

In 2016, Governor Snyder admitted, "Government failed you--federal, state, and local leaders--by breaking the trust you placed in us. I am sorry most of all that I let you down. You deserve better." High ranking Michigan officials have legal immunity.

A class-action lawsuit did settle a deal which included $87 million for Flint to locate and replace water lines by 2020 at no cost to the homeowners. Criminal investigations brought indictments of authorities who had falsified or buried information or obstructed investigations.

Before Flint, Washington, D.C. struggled with lead in their water. Another predominately African American community was allowed to be poisoned for years before the issue was addressed.

Two American cities have been proactive about removing lead water pipes, Madison, WS and Lansing, MI. Lansing had the advantage of a city-owned system, The Board of Water and Light, and was able to completely overhaul the system, removing all lead pipes. Mayor Virge Bernero said, "...the poor suffer the most...the rich can insulate themselves...they can move out...Though ultimately, when we have a complete and utter infrastructure failure...no one is safe."

Recently, the distribution of bottled water to Flint was ended. The water lead levels have been brought to standards. But the residents no longer trust the authorities to protect them.

Nestle', who draws Michigan spring water for $200 a year for resale will provide several months of water to Flint. Actors Will and Jaden Smith have been providing water to Flint.

Flint is not the only city with lead pipes. And I shudder to consider what lies ahead if we are not able to address the aging infrastructure of America.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy
by Anna Clark
Henry Holt & Company
Pub Date 10 Jul 2018
ISBN 9781250125149
PRICE $30.00 (USD)

Janesville: An American Story

"History. Vision. Grit."  Janesville City Hall Mural

Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein has won many accolades, including 100 Notable Books in 2017 from the New York Times Book Review and the McKinsey Business Book of the Year. 

Goldstein presents the story of a town and its people coping with the closing of the GM factory and how the town and families worked to reinvent themselves. 

Janesville, WI was a tight-knit community with a successful history of factories beginning with cotton mills in the late 19th c, including Parker Pens and the GM auto assembly plant and the factories that supplied it.

The book covers five years, beginning in 2008 with Paul Ryan, a Janesville native, receiving the phone call from GM informing him of their decision to close the Janesville plant. Goldstein portrays the impact on employees and their families: the cascading job losses, the ineffectual retraining programs, the engulfing poverty, the men who take employment at plants in other states and see their families a few hours a week, teenagers working to help keep food on the table while preparing for college.  

This is one of those non-fiction books that is engrossing while being informative, bringing readers into the struggles, successes, and failures of individual families. If you want to know about the people who have lost the American Dream, the impact of business and political decisions, and what programs 'work' and which have not delivered, then Janesville is for you.

Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein
Simon & Schuster
$16 paperback
ISBN 9781501102264

Getting Personal

I married into a GM family. My father-in-law had a white-collar job at Fisher Body in Flint and ordered supplies to be sent to Janesville, WI. My husband worked as a welder on the line several summers while in college.

My father-in-law's Fisher Body pins

In 1931, my thirteen-year-old father-in-law lost his father to TB. His mother soon remarried and a year later was divorced. She had a Fourth Grade education and was sixteen when married. She had two sons to support. That is when she went to work for GM in Flint.

I noted her family all called her Girl. I learned the nickname dated to when she was the only woman on the floor and when the men wanted her help, they would call, "Girl!"

Girl was part of the Woman's Emergency Brigade and delivered food during the 1936-7 sit-down strike and was a proud Union member.

Girl's oldest boy, like his dad, had TB. Her youngest son worked for the CCC, took classes at Baker College, and got a job as a clerk at the auto factory where his mother was a machine operator. Together, in 1940, their income was $2,228.

When my husband and I would visit his folks sometimes they would take us on a drive to see the old factories. And over the years we were very aware of how, briefly, the auto industry offered our families great opportunities. My father-in-law sent three boys to college and had a comfortable early retirement. My own father had relocated to Metro Detroit for a job in the auto industry, and we had a good working-class life and important benefits as my mother suffered from chronic health issues. 

from the publisher's website:

* Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year * 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year * A New York Times Notable Book * A Washington Post Notable Book * An NPR Best Book of 2017 * A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2017 * An Economist Best Book of 2017 * A Business Insider Best Book of 2017 *

“A gripping story of psychological defeat and resilience” (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post)—an intimate account of the fallout from the closing of a General Motors assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, and a larger story of the hollowing of the American middle class.

This is the story of what happens to an industrial town in the American heartland when its main factory shuts down—but it’s not the familiar tale. Most observers record the immediate shock of vanished jobs, but few stay around long enough to notice what happens next when a community with a can-do spirit tries to pick itself up.

Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Amy Goldstein spent years immersed in Janesville, Wisconsin, where the nation’s oldest operating General Motors assembly plant shut down in the midst of the Great Recession. Now, with intelligence, sympathy, and insight into what connects and divides people in an era of economic upheaval, Goldstein shows the consequences of one of America’s biggest political issues. Her reporting takes the reader deep into the lives of autoworkers, educators, bankers, politicians, and job re-trainers to show why it’s so hard in the twenty-first century to recreate a healthy, prosperous working class.

The Opposite of Hate: Learning to Find Commonality in a Divisive World

The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guild to Repairing our Humanity by Sally Kohn was a hard book to read, delving into the roots of hate, and yet I was given hope by stories of recovered haters and the offered toolkit of how to move beyond hate.

I was a freshman in high school in 1967 when my Civics teacher Mr. Warner taught us that there is no such thing as 'race', that we are all one 'race'--the human race. I was a sophomore in college when Dr. Sommers told my anthropology class the story of a community who believed they were God's Real People and across the hill lived sub-human others. Two stories that succinctly sum up social conflict: are we connected or are we disconnected?

In my late 20s, working in an all black office, I learned that, even raised in a home and school culture that did not teach hate towards perceived 'others', hate is so ingrained in our society that one cannot escape it. To rise above hate one must be on perpetual guard, thoughtful of our unvoiced thoughts and emotions as well as our spoken words and deeds. We all hate. It is a choice every day what we do with this knowledge.

Kohn reflects on her own childhood acts of bullying and her training as a community activist who found hate was a "useful tool in their civic-engagement tool belt." Catching herself in hateful hypocrisy made her reflect on hate--its universality, its manifestations from name calling to hate crimes, and how the dehumanization of  'others' creates a deadly climate.

Kohn sat down and talked to people who held beliefs that were diametrically her opposite, learning their story. We all know how hard this is to do. We cut off Facebook friends and even relatives, and avoid certain gatherings were we may run into people whose opinions we object to--even hate. Kohn shares a technique from Compelling People by Matt Kohut and John Neffinger. Instead of arguing or telling folk they are wrong, follow ABC. Affirm: find a mutual concern; Bridge with an 'and' statement and follow with Convince, in which you present your view. She calls it connection-speech, a friendly and respectful way of communicating.

Several times over the last year I have found myself fumed at something an acquaintance has said. I stated my case and apologized if they felt attacked, saying I feel passionate about the issue. Reading ABC makes me recall a professor, who when a student said something he did not agree with, calmly said, "that could be" or "that is interesting" and then stated his convincing argument. I have been forgetting to affirm.

Each chapter addresses aspects of hate:Why We Hate, How We Hate, Hating Is Belonging, Unconscious Hate, When Hate Becomes Pandemic, Systems of Hate, and The Journey Forward.

The opposite of hate, Kohn contends, is not love or even liking those we don't agree with. It is not giving up one's passionately held ideals. It is connection--treating others with respect as fellow human beings.

I appreciated Kohn's honest confession, how she drew lessons from the people she interviewed, and especially for a blueprint of how to overcome America's most dangerous threat.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity
by Sally Kohn
Algonquin Books
Pub Date 10 Apr 2018 
ISBN: 9781616207281
PRICE: $27.95 (USD)

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World

Jeff Goodell traveled the world to report on how rising sea levels are impacting human society across the globe. His new book The Water Will Come takes readers to shrinking Alaskan glaciers with President
Obama and into the flood-prone homes of impoverished people living in Lagos, Nigeria.

"By that time, I'll be dead, so what does it matter?" Quote from a Florida real estate developer, The Water Will Come 

I long wondered how bad it would get before people broke down and changed how we live and do things. I consider how Americans gave up comforts during WWII rationing, all pulling together for a great cause we all believed in. I don't see that happening today.

As Goodell points out, "fossil fuel empire" Koch industries money has swayed government. Private citizens can recycle and lower the heat and ride bicycles but the impact is small. As long as governments are more worried about big business than national security endangered by climate change we can't alter what is coming.

What? you ask; national security?

Well, consider that military bases across the nation and world are located in areas that WILL FLOOD. Like the Norfolk Naval Base, the Langley Air Force Base, and NASA's Wallops Flight Facility! Along with the financial district of New York City and expensive Florida beach front homes, we will be losing the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site in the Marshall Islands, where 12,000 Americans operate space weapons programs and track NASA research.

So if the loss of Arctic ice and habitat and the Inuit way of life doesn't concern you, perhaps this information will.

So many issues are raised in the book. Consider: We have not established how to deal with climate change refugees. Where are these people going to go? Countries in Europe, along with the U.S.,  are closing borders--the same countries whose fossil energy use is the primary cause of climate change behind rising sea levels! What is their responsibility?

There are a lot of ideas of how to deal with rising sea levels, including the building of walls and raising cities. It seems, though, that people are more interested in coping with the change than addressing the root cause of climate change. We just don't want to give up fossil fuels.

The book is highly readable for the general public. Although the cover photo made me think of an action disaster movie, the books is a well-researched presentation of  "fact, science, and first-person, on-the-ground journalism."

I received a free book from the publisher through Goodreads.

Hear an interview with Goodell with NPR at https://www.npr.org/2017/10/24/559736126/climate-change-journalist-warns-mother-nature-is-playing-by-different-rules-now

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World
by Jeff Goodell
Little, Brown & Company
$17.95
ISBN-13: 9780316260206

Meeting the Enemy

Propaganda dehumanizes our enemy to provide justification and motivation for war. Monstrous things happen in war. War can turn decent human beings into killing machines, and groups will commit horrid acts in war that the individuals would never have considered in peacetime. The enemy becomes the object of all our hate and fear.

The question is, who is our enemy? Is every citizen in a hostile country to be considered dangerous? Can we face our fear and find a commonality?

The Abu Dhabu Bar Mitzvah by Adam Valen Levinson appeared in my mailbox courtesy of W. W. Norton & Company. I have been reading it for some time now. It is sometimes funny and always interesting.

Levinson, a young man of Jewish heritage, reacts to 9-11 by-- according to most--risking his life by visiting countries considered dangerous to Americans. What he discovers is that people are people everywhere. He encounters hospitality in places considered hostile to Americans.

As a mother, I am appalled that the author disregards personal safety in search of knowledge; as an American citizen I appreciate his pulling back the curtain to show real faces of those we fear.

Early on, Levinson realizes everyone he meets was 'performing,' considering how to act and talk. Anyone could be a spy, an informer. He assumes an identity that he hopes will pass off as Lebanese, keeping his mouth shut and head down when on dangerous roads.

Levinson obtained work at a university in Abu Dhabi and from that home base traveled across the Middle East. So far I have read about his trips to Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Iran. Coming up is Egypt, Yemen and Somalia. He includes actual names and dialog and draws from his recordings and notes taken on the road.

I read about camel races with robots jockeys, Levinson's belated Bar Mitzvah in Abu Dhabi, strangers who show him the sights, and his visits to ancient places decaying with time.

Photographs from the book can be found at Levinson's website.

*****
Who is our enemy? Are our fears justified? What risks are we willing to take?

My weekly quilting and craft group held a potluck. I was sitting with the two vegetarians, women from India. One was dressed in an ornate sari and dripped in her finest gold; the other wore Western clothing. I asked about their roots in India and learned about their immigrant experience.

Both are married to men with PhDs and are mothers to successful and highly educated adult children. One attended an Indian school taught in English, and the other taught herself the language watching soap operas after her immigration to America.

I heard about a child encountering prejudice in school when a classmate complained they would not be on a team with 'that child' while the mother, through her silence, showed tacit approval of he son's racism. I heard about a bright child's needs ignored because the teacher 'had' to treat all children the same. A change in schools gave the child the advanced coursework he needed.

And I heard about a honeymoon trip to the mountains of Kashmir. I was told that in India newlyweds seek out the cooler, moderate climate of the mountains for their honeymoon. (Relatives in India can not believe she now lives "in Kashmir" all the time!)

On the way to their destination their bus encountered a bridge which was closed. The couple had to either cross the bridge, return to their last hotel, or move on to the next town. All choices included a long walk with all their suitcases.

A van load of young Sikhs from a military base on a day's frolic were also stopped by the closed bridge. They offered the newlyweds a ride back to the town where they had been the night before.

It was explained to me that the Sikhs were considered terrorists. The Sikhs also make up the bulk of the Indian military force. And yet the bridegroom accepted their offer, and in great fear, his young wife climbed into the van.

Four large young men, one willowy groom, and one young woman. She feared rape.

The Sikhs chattered among themselves, and the bride could just make out some words, knowing a little Punjabi. Then, a Sikh turned and asked the groom, "Why did you come with us?" And he answered, "If I can trust the protection of my country to you, I can trust you will protect my wife."

They were stunned and thanked him. And the young wife feels goosebumps go up her arm to this very day recalling his words.

*****

I will continue to read Levinson's journey into hostile territory, learning about places and people I will never see, an armchair voyager in an easy chair with a cup of tea at my side, cuddled under a hand made quilt, grateful that someone else's son risked everything to face his fears.

I received a free book from the publisher.

The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah: Fear and Love in the Modern Middle East
by Adam Valen Levinson
W. W. Norton & Company
Hardcover $25.95
ISBN 978-0-393-60836-6

A Warm and Humorous Accolade to Joe Biden

The Book of Joe: The Life, Wit, and (Sometimes Accidental) Wisdom of Joe Biden by Joe Wilser was a fun read that also educated me about Biden's career.

Jeff Wilser is admittedly a long time fan of Joe Biden, and his appreciation shows in The Book of Joe.

I had a lot of fun reading the stories of Joe's gaffs and greatness of heart.

Wilser succinctly covers Biden's career and contributions in an agreeable and accessible presentation. He extrapolates The Wisdom of Joe from Biden's life, replete with stories that illustrate Biden's core values.

I laughed and had to share stories, and I was inspired and impressed by Biden's character. Wilser does address Biden's errors and faults, yet the man's humanity and warmth shine through in a lasting impression. I read the book in a few days, a welcome feel-good book in a troubled world. The book makes me want to learn more about Joe Biden.

I received a free book from Blogging for Books in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West

For National Wolf Awareness Week I read American Wolf by Nate Blakeslee. It is the story of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park and the battle between state and Federal agencies over wolf hunting. By telling the story of one wolf, O-6, Blakeslee engages the reader's heart and mind while revealing the complicated political process that determines American law that is too often independent of informed knowledge.

O-6 became a favorite of wolf watchers and her life is well documented. Blakeslee introduces readers to National Park Service employee Rick McIntyre who every day watched and recorded the activities of the wolves. And we meet those who rely on elk hunting for income or food or sport and who hate the wolves.

The hunters believe that wolves decimate elk herds and that banning any hunting leads to ending all hunting, therefore the end of any need for guns, therefore the banning of guns. In other words, they are fighting for their way of life. States arbitrarily determined how many wolves could be taken and how many were 'needed', totally unbased on any scientific understanding.

While one Federal agency reintroduced wolves into the Yellowstone ecosystem, another leased land contiguous to the park for ranchers to graze their livestock. Wolves don't understand imaginary boundaries and often their territory went into non-park land where they could be hunted. When packs are decimated and weak they take easy prey, which include the grazing livestock. The ranchers are then reimbursed for their losses. It is a vicious cycle that makes no logical sense.

I was appalled whle learning how Washington politics impacted the Yellowstone wolves. Congress overruled the court regarding the hunting of wolves. It had cost $117 million  to restore wolves to the ecosystem. The results were dramatic; flora and fauna flourished as the environment returned to its natural state. Fewer elk ended overgrazing and brought a flourishing of fauna that brought back the beaver and rodents and consquently raptors. Yet no fewer elk were taken in the hunt, it just was not easy to find them. Legalizing hunting adjacent to the park land was like throwing that money and environmental stability to the wind.

Toward the end of the book, Rick realizes that wolf 21 had returned to die where his pack had once ruled. It puzzled him until he recalled the story of Hachiko, the Japanese Akita who had always waited at the train station for his owner, and after the owner's death had continued to come every day for nine years. 21 was waiting for his mate.

"Can a wolf in the wild experience what we know as joy and happiness?  Rick said, his voice breaking noticeably. "And my answer is yes."

Blakeslee's book is a wonderful study both of the wolves and the complicated human reaction to wolves.

I received a free book through Blogging for Books in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

See photos of O-6 at Shumway Photography at http://www.shumwayphotography.com/Yellowstone/Wolf-06/

*****

Reading about the death of O-6 was sad because two days previous we let go of our last Shiba Inu. The Shiba is an ancient breed and according to DNA research is closest to the wolf.  Kamikaze had spent seven years as a puppy mill breeder before we adopted her through a rescue shelter. She was only 14 but had multiple health issues, some the results of bad breeding or early living condition. We lost our Suki, another puppy mill breeder rescue, at age 15 in June. Kamikaze had gone down hill significantly after Suki's loss. Both dogs were blind and spent their time cuddled together, drinking from the same bowl at the same time, and going in and out together.

As a girl I loved reading animal stories, especially Ernest Thompson Seton's Wild Animals I Have Known. Yes, I loved those Disney nature films. I was nine years old when my grandfather took me to see his hometown and the 'last of the Lobo wolves'. The creatures in their small pens looked like large, gentle dogs, not the killers that had been hunted into extinction. Here is my empehmera of the Last of the Lobo Wolves, Milroy, PA

The Last of the Lobo Wolves postcards circa 1963

The Cuban Affair by Nelson DeMille

Nelson DeMille's first book with his new publisher Simon and Schuster is The Cuban Affair. I have previously read several of DeMille's books, including The General's Daughter.

DeMille's character-driven story introduces Daniel "Mac" McCormick, a veteran of the Afghanistan war who has settled in the Florida Keys to run a chartered fishing boat. His mate Jack is a Vietnam Vet. Mac is up to his ears in debt, and frankly, he's a little bored.

Mac is contacted by an anti-Castro group of Cuban exiles who want his help for a covert mission to recover money hidden by exiles when they fled the revolution. "Behind every great fortune is a crime," Mac thinks, not wanting to know how the money had been made. It's a dangerous mission, but the idea of the reward of three million dollars is enticing--as is Sara Ortega who will be his accomplice. They will go to Cuba undercover as part of a Yale tour group.

After a trip to Cuba, DeMille wrote this book to give a portrait of the country and to show the tenuous 'thaw' in American-Cuban relations. Readers tour the island along with Mac, Sara, and the tour group. The island is full of Hemingway places and references, including Islands in the Stream in which Hemingway wrote, "The Cubans double-cross each other."

The 'affair' is a double entendre, for not only is this an episode or event in Mac's life, he also has a love affair with Sara.

The story is told in the first person by Mac, who has a welcomed dry sense of humor, but a decidedly masculine sensibility that did not always sit well with me. Sara is a character who will appeal to women: strong, sure, smart, and brave.

There is more an atmosphere of threat for most of the book, with a thrilling sea chase conclusion. Character, place, and the love story are the hallmarks of the bulk of the book.

Will the love affair survive Cuba, land of daiquiris, danger, and palm trees? Or was it a holiday fling more based on proximity and an awareness that death could be waiting for them? Read it and find out.

I received a free book from the publisher through a Goodreads giveaway.

The Cuban Affair
by Nelson DeMille
Simon and Schuster
Publication Sept 19, 2017

The Far Away Brothers: The Journey of Twin Teenage Migrants

To solve a problem one must understand what caused it and address its root causes. That is a hard thing, requiring work and effort and creative thinking. Why not just make the problem illegal?

We have been trying that and it does not seem to work. "Just say no" to sex or drugs, prison sentences for drug possession, throwing a pregnant teenage daughter out of the house--none of these ever solved anything.

Illegal immigration has become the issue of the day under the present administration. Migrants have been arrested, abused, sent back, and yet more come. Build a wall, we are told, that will keep them out. I doubt it. There is a reason why people leave their homeland and family, and the reasons are rarely trite.

In her timely book The Far Away Brothers , Lauren Markham tells the story of  the twin Flores brothers who flee El Salvador to join their undocumented migrant brother in America. We learn about their lives in El Salvador, about their families, the challenges they faced on their journey north, and the multiple difficulties of their lives in the United States.

Markham, who has reported on undocumented immigration for a decade, spent two years researching for this book, plus she draws from her experience working with immigrant students at Oakland International High School. She chose to write about twins to illustrate how each immigrant has their own motivation and individual response to the experience.

In the past the draw to the United States was for economic opportunity and security. Today migrants leave their homes to escape the domination and violence of the gangs who have taken over power. Last year 60,000 unaccompanied minors entered the United States, most from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador--the 'murder capital of the world'.

When one of the Flores twins is targeted by their uncle's gang he decides he must leave to survive, and his twin brother joins him. The boys' family puts their livelihood at risk by offering the their land as security to raise money for transport to the border. They falsely assume the debt can be paid off quickly once the boys get jobs, but the interest blows their debt up to $20,000.

The journey leaves its psychic scars; one twin has nightmares and cannot talk about what he had seen.

To stay in America the boys must be in school, under their older brother's authority. Somehow they must also earn money to start paying off their debt to the coyotes. They are teenagers, too, who are finally 'free' and they don't always handle that freedom well. Readers may not always like the boys, but hopefully they will understand their fears, confusion, and motivations.

The author is not afraid to offer a paragraph on American policies that have contributed to the Central American 'catastrophe', by supplying weapons and by creating free-trade deals that hurt small farmers. Then there is the legacy of large corporations that bought up land for farming, controlling resources and the economic benefits.

As Markham writes, "People migrate now for the same reason they always have: survival." Investment in improving educational and economic opportunities, addressing the root causes of migration, would be a better use of federal funds than building a wall.

I read Enique's Journey by Sonia Nazario about ten years ago. Here is what she had to say about The Far Away Brothers:

“Powerful…Focusing primarily on one family’s struggle to survive in violence-riddled El Salvador by sending some of its members illegally to the U.S.,…[this] compellingly intimate narrative…keenly examines the plights of juveniles sent to America without adult supervision….One of the most searing books on illegal immigration since Sonia Nazario’s Enrique’s Journey.” —Kirkus

I received a free ebook through First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Far Away Brothers
Lauren Markham
Crown
Publication Date: Sept 12, 2017
Hardcover $27.00
ISBN 9781101906187

Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times

I was attracted to Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times because of the outstanding contributors, including Junot Díaz, Lisa See, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Jane Smiley, and Celeste Ng. A firm believer that writers are the key to maintaining society's highest aspirations, I hoped to find inspiration and affirmation in these pages.

The letters are written to leaders of the past, to real and and to imagined future children, to strangers and to the known. Each contributor speaks of their personal journey and agony. They share a fear of our government's agenda that threatens hard-won rights and protections.

The letters are divided into three sections: Roots, which "explores the histories that bring us to this moment," and Branches, considering present day people and communities, and Seeds, considering the future who will inherit the system and world we will leave behind.

Frankly, many of these letters were hard to read, confronting us with the pain and misery inflicted upon people because of their color, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. I could only read an essay or two a day. Yet there is also in these letters a strength, a commitment, a vision of hope.

The message, says Katie Kitamura, is that this is not a time for complacency, and yet we must be open and not mired in certitude, to think and not be compelled to "ideological haste."

"Beware easy answers," warns Boris Fishman, "Lets get out of our comfort zones...let's lose our certainty--perhaps our arrogance."

"Be kind, be curious, be helpful...stay open," Celeste Ng writes to her child.
"Please promise me that you will, insoar as any person can, set your fear aside and devote yourself to a full, honest life. That, my child, is the first and most important act of resistance any of us can undertake," advises Meredith Russo to her child.

The struggle for human rights is ongoing, continual. We have seen the backlash against hard gained protections and equality. The battle continues.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Radical Hope
Edited by Carolina De Robertis
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
May 2 2017 publication
$15.95 Paperback
ISBN: 9780525435136

The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency

I found Chris Whipple's book The Gatekeepers to be a fascinating review of history, showing how the presidents' staff organization impacted the efficiency and effectiveness of their tenure. It helped me put into perspective the presidential legacies of my adulthood, and I could clearly see how the lessons of their choices can shed light on the weaknesses and potential strengths of the current and future administrations.

Whipple's research is impressive, including information from exclusive interviews. Each president from Nixon through Obama and their chiefs of staff merit a chapter, resulting in a synopsis of their tenure that, in an hour's reading, gave me a great overview.

Although I have been reading presidential biographies for many years, I had little knowledge of the importance of the chief of staff. I found The Gatekeepers to be an original and surprising book, not at all dry or arcane, but a lively and interesting addition to understanding the American presidency.

I received a free book from Blogging for Books in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Gatekeepers: How The White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency
Chris Whipple
Crown Publishing Group
$28 hard cover
ISBN:9780804138246

Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman: Imagining a Better World

We have lost our vision, Rutger Bregman writes, mired in old paradigms and blind to the possibilities we should be imagining. We could be realizing the world predicted by 20th c thinkers.

Subtitled "How We Can Build The Ideal World," Utopia for Realists is an international best seller, first published in the Netherlands where it ignited a debate and inspired a movement.

Bregman begins by reminding us of how recently life was a "vale of tears," "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," as philosophers wrote in the 16th c. With the explosion of new technology and prosperity over the last two hundred years, humanity has achieved a standard of living that Medieval folk would consider Utopia; indoor heat and cooling, flush toilets and clean water alone would make them marvel. So would obesity from an overabundance of easily obtained food, the magical ability to protect ourselves from smallpox and polio, and paved roads we travel at 70 mph--without fear of highwaymen robberies.

Have we reached Utopia? Or is there something we can do to make life even better? How can we solve the problems that remain: fearfulness, unemployment, quality of life, poverty.

The welfare state 'from a bygone era' doesn't work today. Globalization and the cost of higher education have impacted the stability of the Middle Class. Upward mobility for the poor no longer happens.

Bregman wants to "fling open the windows of our minds" to discover "a new lodestar." He presents studies and experiments about how we treat the homeless and the poor and challenges our traditional mindset that people are to be blamed for their own poverty--they just have to work hard and save. We have created welfare programs for those in need, which are costly and do not solve the basic problem. What happened to the expectation of the 15-hour workweek? Why are we spending more time working, impacting our health and our families?

Bregman wants us to dream new dreams and embrace ideas that can change the world for the better. Thinking outside the box has made a difference: abolition, universal voting rights, and same-sex marriage, he reminds, were all once considered impossible. All it takes is "a single opposing voice.

The basis of Bregman's new Utopia is a guaranteed basic income. He presents studies that demonstrate the success of such programs. In 1967 universal basic income was supported by 80% of Americans and President Nixon submitted a bill to eradicate poverty.

Other changes he offers include shorter work hours, proven to increase productivity, reconsidering the importance of the Gross Domestic Product as our economic standard of success, improving quality of life, open borders, taxing capital instead of labor, and adjusting salary to a job's societal value. At a time when productivity is a record levels, there are fewer jobs and lower salaries. "We have to devise a system to ensure that everybody benefits," he writes.

There is an old saying: Insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting different results. Instead of holding more tightly to the old ways we need to envision innovation. Perhaps books like this will spur discussions and reevaluations.

One can only hope.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Bregman's TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIL_Y9g7Tg0

Utopia for Realists
Rutger Bregman
Little, Brown & Co.
$27 hardcover
ISBN:9780316471893

High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic

You know the film. Sheriff Kane has married a Quaker beauty and is hanging up his gun and turning in his badge to run a shop. Then Kane learns that a gang is out to get even--Kane's life to pay for his arrest of their leader, now out of jail.

Get out of town, everyone advises. This two-bit town wasn't worth dying for.

Kane knows you can't escape the past. He had to face the danger and end it once and for all. As he tries to form a posse Kane discovers he is alone; everyone else in town justifies retreating into their protective shells.

Clocks tick off the minutes until noon when the train carrying his nemesis arrives. Kane is left alone on the empty street of a town without moral conviction, friendless; even his pacifist wife is leaving town without him. It is Kane alone against four armed men bent on murder.

The simple song with the hoofbeat rhythm tells the story, and its melody morphs and evolves, becoming menacing and persistent, until it is High Noon.

Stanley Kramer owed United Artists one more film to fulfill his contract, then he could get on making movies under his own studio. Screenwriter Carl Foreman had been working on an idea for several years, High Noon. They secured the over-the-hill but still box worthy actor Gary Cooper to play the lead, and newbie Grace Kelly to be his wife.

No one thought the film would amount to much. Cooper's acting lacked oopmh, Kelly was too young, and, used to emoting to the back row in the theater, over-acted. The early film version was deemed awful and needed cutting and remaking.

I was thrilled to read Glenn Frankel's book High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic. High Noon is a favorite film in my household. I know it scene by scene. Frankel's account of how the film was made was fascinating and exciting. Frankel portrays Gary Cooper as a handsome Lothario, also described as one of the nicest, greatest guys; Carl adores Coop.  Frank Cooper was the son of a Montana lawyer who wanted to be an artist but could not afford art school. He went to Hollywood after learning they needed stunt artists. He was a quick study. His handsome good looks caught the eye of Clara Bow for her famous movie It. Gary Cooper was born.

What really makes this book relevant and important is learning how the Cold War fostered an era of fear that allowed wholesale persecution.

Before High Noon was complete Carl Foreman's name was given to the House Un-American Committee as a member of the Communist Party. Carl had been a member, drawn to its Anti-Fascism and promotion of the rights of minorities, Jews, immigrants, and unions. Carl had signed an oath in 1950 saying he was not (then) a member of the Communist Party.

The Communist Party of the early 20th c attracted progressive liberals and intellectuals who supported such 'un-American' ideals as unionizing and workers rights; their agenda did not include the overthrow of the United States. The Communist Party was seen as a social club, a place for making connections. When Russia became an ally against Hitler, Hollywood was called upon to portray positive images in films like Song of Russia and Mission to Moscow.

The House Un-American Committee 'quizzed' accused Communists, rewarding those who cooperated with reprieve, but not always forgiveness. Milton Berkeley gave the Committee 150 names and was their darling; yet when his son graduated from Yale he was denied acceptance into the Navy's Officer Training Program, blacklisted because his father had once been a Communist!

Carl could have played their game, admit his sins and name several Communist party members they already knew about. He'd be off the hook, perhaps with his career damaged, but not over. Carl would not bend his convictions; he'd rather go to jail. Alone and afraid he faced the tribunal. They were not pleased.

Carl was a liability. Kramer fired Carl; no studio could afford to be associated with Communism. Cooper, a Republican anti-Communist, believed in and supported Carl and wanted to help him start his own company; the deal fell through. Even Cooper couldn't defeat the HUAC and stand up to the threat of blacklisting. Foreman went to England and went on to write The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Guns of Navarone, The Mouse that Roared, Born Free, and Young Winston.

The HUAC's abuse of power was finally addressed by the Supreme Court in an a1957 ruling, stating that "There is no general authority to expose the private affairs of individuals without justification in terms of the functions of Congress. Nor is the Congress a law enforcement or trial agency." Senator Joseph McCarthy's fall also damaged the HAUC's credibility.

Carl Foreman had lost his job; his name was expunged in the credits of High Noon and The Bridge on the River Kwai; his passport had been revoked; and his marriage damaged. And yet years later, back in America, he ran into John Wayne, an ardent anti-communist. They embraced as old friends. When Carl asked how he could accept an old enemy so nicely he replied that Wayne was a patriot and had only been doing what he thought was right.

In times of national stress fear manifests in attacks against perceived threats, which in hindsight are seen as ill-advised, unconstitutional, and morally suspect. The red-baiting witch hunts of the 1950s were such a time. Frankel's book reminds us of the cost of allowing our fear to negate the rights guaranteed by our laws and warns against the misuse of power.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

High Noon
Glenn Frankel
Bloomsbury
Publication February 21, 2017
$28 hard cover
ISBN: 9781620409480

What We Do Now: Standing Up for Your Values in Trump's America

The election of Donald Trump has been a wake-up call for complacent progressive liberals who were sure that 'it can't happen here' would never happen here. America has had its brief love affairs with the right before--Father Coughlan, Joe McCarthy, George Wallace--but as Dennis Johnson says in the introduction of  What We Do Now, "Americans have always, ultimately, resisted the call to calamity by listening, instead, to what Lincoln called 'the better angels of our nature.'"

My high school history teacher warned us that history is like a pendulum: it swings to extremes, settles in the center, but swings again. He predicted a new 'Victorian' age would follow the 1960s. And it did, and birthed the Evangelical Christian movement which was brought into the Republican party.

America established stunning progressive policies and elected the first non-white president. Concomitant, another movement was afoot which candidate Trump tapped into, and now in power, government is being dismantled by old rich white men in the name of the disenfranchised masses who put them in power.

What do progressives do now? "How can the defeated majority rouse itself to overcome its sincere grief and disillusionment?" Johnson asks.

Twenty-seven progressive leaders in brief essays offer strategies and hope for the struggle ahead.

Part One, Setting a New Liberal Agenda, begins with an essay on financial reform by Senator (and presidential candidate) Bernie Sanders. After the 'too big to fail bailout' three of the largest financial institutions are 80% bigger than before the bailout. Teddy Roosevelt, he writes, would say "Break 'em up."

Remarks to the AFL-CIO Executive Council by Senator Elizabeth Warren addresses the major issues facing Americans today, and reminds that 72% of Americans believe "the American economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful," including tax breaks for billionaires while rejecting a minimum living wage.

David Cole of the ACLU calls for an engaged citizenry and vigilant media and reminds that grassroots protests and activism can push change.

Racial Justice articles include Cornell William Brooks of the NAACP concerning voting rights and Brittany Packnett of Campaign Zero and Teach for America calling on white people to become aware of the privilege that protects them and to confront it.

Concerning Immigration,  Ilhan Omar, Somali American member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, reminds us that we are all emigrants and Cristina Jimenez of United We Dream addresses Undocumented immigrants.

Gloria Steinem's article under Women's Rights calls on media to take responsibility and rallies women to boycott Trump interests. Ilyse Houe of the NARAL reminds that "the history of social movements shows that the path to justice and equality is always marked by setbacks" and calls for women to take on leadership.

Civil Liberties articles include Anthony D. Romero of the ACLU calling to defend the Constitution and Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation addressing free speech and digital security under Trump.

Environmentalist Bill McKibben essay on Climate Change says science is not 'opinion' and "one man is preparing to bet the future of the planet in a long-shot wager against physics." Sierra Club director Michael Brune reminds that the president can't "alter the fact that both public opinion and the marketplace strongly favor clean energy" and calls to fight on state and local levels.

Religious Freedom is addressed by Linda Sarsour of the Arab American Association of New York who begins, "I am a Palestinian-Arab-Muslim-American, daughter of immigrants, a political activist, and a woman--basically, you don't want to be me in 2016." She calls for "perpetual outrage" at systemic and religious profiling and working on relationships. Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum's pastoral essay on grief also reminds of small victories, She encourages education, strengthening personal faith, and connecting with others. M. Dove Kent, director of Jews for Racial & Economic Justice shares what she has learned about turning fear into power: grassroots organizing, focusing on the local level, partnering for the common good, understanding paths to power, participation, reconsidering financial paths of support, and working together.

Economics writers include Paul Krugman of the New York Times who warns against the belief that America has a divine providence that always returns to justice. Quietism and turning from politics is dangerous. Economist and professor Robert Reich, with experience as Clinton's Secretary of Labor and working under Presidents Ford and Carter, offers a first 100 days resistance agenda. I found his essay the most focused on direct actions citizen can take, with 14 points. John R. MacArthur of Harper's Magazine wants to "make blue states blue again." He considers free trade deals impact on American workers.

LGBTQ Rights essays include Rea Carey of the National LGBTQ Task Force, writes, "Let's dust each other off and start our journey again...together." Mara Keisling of the National Center for Transgender Equality calls to continue the fight for justice.

Media Malpractice 2016 by Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation calls for an accountable media that puts public interest over profit, and an obliteration of lines between news and entertainment.  Allan J. Lichtman of American University considers the misuse of polls by the media. I found his article of particular interest with its critique of the failure of Democrats and insight into what the party should do next and his call for a new way of campaigning with articulated policy. (Amen!) Author George Saunders addresses 'the Megaphone,' how ideas become dominant and change thought. "What I propose...is simply: awareness of the Megaphonic tendency, and discussion of same." In other words, Media Literacy.

Part Two is Reframing the Message. Linguist George Lakoff breaks down how "Trump used the brains of people listening to him to his advantage" through repetition, framing, familiar examples, grammar, and metaphor. It is a fascinating essay. He then considers how the media is complicate and how journalists can become more accurate in language. His example is that regulations protect public from harm and fraud; calling for an end of 'regulations' sounds less threatening that calling for an end to 'protections.'

Nato Thompson of Creative Time essay on the role of Artists and Social Justice reminds that artists articulate what it means to feel in this world and that their work is vital.

Dave Eggers' essay Travels Through Post-Election America in the Coda, to me, was particularly meaningful. He writes about his encounters with Trump America, including in Detroit, sharing people's stories. 110,000 Michigan voters did not choose a presidential candidate. Clinton lost Michigan by 13,107 votes. Those are telling statistics. Eggers writes, "Because the voting had split so dramatically along racial lines, how could an African American of Latino pass a white person on the street..and not wonder, "Which side are you on?"

That really got to me. It was my life after the election. Knowing my county went Democratic but my state put Trump in the White House, I felt, well, guilty. We went to a multi-cultural Thanksgiving community event at a Buddhist Temple where we heard grateful refugees tell harrowing stories.

I was extra nice to the people of color in line at Aldi, to the immigrant clerk at CVS. And I noted that others were also on better, more aware behavior. A man held a door open for me, respectfully, as if to say "I don't denigrate women." People were small talking. My community is small town like, but we usually proscribe to 'don't look 'em in the eye, don't talk to them.' I felt we were telling each other messages, making connections, countering the threat of hate.

Perhaps there is hope. If we can see each other, know each other, help each other, fight for each other. Maybe we will be stronger for this setback.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

What We Do Now: Standing Up for Your Values in Trump's America
ed. Dennis Johnson
Melville House