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| 4.17
| 6,243
| Oct 17, 2023
| Oct 17, 2023
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really liked it
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‘Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in my Country’ by Patricia Evangelista is a scream of frustration and rage. She does not hold back in wr
‘Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in my Country’ by Patricia Evangelista is a scream of frustration and rage. She does not hold back in writing of her disgust and horror about ex-President Rodrigo Duterte and his open support for the murdering of addicts and dealers of drugs, encouraging neighbors and police to kill addicts on sight, without a trial. She writes of eyewitness declarations, videos of speeches and murders, and a lot of reporting by reputable journalists as proof. Not to mention the piles of tied-up dead bodies that were found everywhere in neighborhoods, seen by any of the locals who cared enough to take a look. She has good reasons for her frustration and rage. Philippine people were not only openly murdered by police with the encouragement of their former President Rodrigo Duterte. Victims were murdered with the full-throated support of many of the Philippine people. Evangelista writes of some of the history of previous Presidents of the Philippines as well as a brief biography of Duterte. She writes of how his campaign of supporting the street murders of accused drug addicts by police played out. While the author provides proofs of the murders, she also shows how Duterte and others, such as the police, used verbal semantics to avoid being arrested for murder. I was flabbergasted. What Philippine politicians and police do linguistically to lie and coverup crimes in a democracy makes other politicians the world over look like amateurs. I have copied the book blurb: ”About a nation careening into violent autocracy—told through harrowing stories of the Philippines’ state-sanctioned killings of its citizens—from a reporter of international renown. “My job is to go to places where people die. I pack my bags, talk to the survivors, write my stories, then go home to wait for the next catastrophe. I don’t wait very long.” Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte. Some People Need Killing is Evangelista’s meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippines’ drug war. For six years, Evangelista chronicled the killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the name of Duterte’s war on drugs—a war that has led to the slaughter of thousands—immersing herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of fear created when an elected president decides that some lives are worth less than others. The book takes its title from a vigilante whose words seemed to reflect the psychological accommodation that most of the country had “I’m really not a bad guy,” he said. “I’m not all bad. Some people need killing.” A profound act of witness and a tour de force of literary journalism, Some People Need Killing is also a brilliant dissection of the grammar of violence and an important investigation of the human impulses to dominate and resist.” While I understand the frustration, pain and losses of those injured by the criminal behaviors of the chronic drug- and alcohol- addicted, should such destructive activities be handled with addicts being shot to death or tortured to death by police officers acting as judge, jury and executioner in neighborhood streets? If a country decides through voting for a guy with a policy to murder anyone of any age linked to either the selling or using of drugs, no matter if such use or selling is even occasional or in the past, is this thus legal, even if the crime info is based on gossip only, as well as a past of arrests for drug use or sales? Is such a policy of murder by street justice worth it even if the cost includes the murder of innocents mistakingly shot dead in the killing of the one addict or ex-addict in a family? If the policy does not actually punish the top-of-the-chain drug lords, but only destroys permanently the alleged addict or seller and their innocent family/friends caught being in the vicinity of the murdering, is it still a public Good? And if people are still becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol which are still being produced or imported and sold by drug lords, so that the numbers of addicted, as well as those who occasionally indulge at a party, are forever being added to the list of the numbers of drug users, it is still worthwhile to kill all of the people who might be addicts or are said to be addicts in a neighborhood? Most who voted for Duterte really did want the addicts and the pushers to be murdered by street justice, no trial. Full stop. They did not know Duterte lied about being “one of them” when he talked to the poor. He came from a privileged family. His reputation as having been a mayor of a town where addicts and pushers were murdered by the police was true, though. Duterte allegedly did personally kill drug users and pushers. Voters did not know police officials contacted local thugs and desperately poor men to form off-the-books kill squads, who then killed people with the permission of the real police. The police gave the vigilante death squads permission, awarding them with titles of being police adjuncts, because Duterte gave the police permission to kill drug users and pushers in many public speeches and private visits by him, supposedly justified as long as the purported pusher or addict “resisted arrest.” Vigilantes were paid money by the police for killing “addicts.” Many police and vigilantes ended up killing “addicts” in the night, without witnesses or lights, for some reason. Voters did not know that the murdered included people innocent of being drug users or pushers, including children. Gossip about suspected drug use was enough for a person to be placed on a police kill list. Speaking out against the police or Duterte by a reporter or a neighbor was enough to be accused of being a drug dealer, and thus added to the police kill list. Grudges against a person for reasons unconnected to any actual drug or alcohol use could get an innocent added to a kill list. Coveting a business or being a political competitor was enough reason for someone to accuse someone else of being a drug addict, and thus people were added to the police kill list. A payment system of collecting a payment per murder from local officials was incentive. The death squads and police often provided false evidence like putting a gun in the hand of a murdered unarmed kid. In time, as evidence of videos showing police and masked gun men on bikes or in vans killing unarmed young kids and innocents without cause began to circulate, Duterte began to speak out against “corrupt police officers” murdering non-addicted or non-violent, unresisting people. Many people continued to support Duterte because he said he did not, apparently, want the innocent or young children murdered. He still only wanted those who were said to be addicts murdered. However, the alluring thrill of street justice, as the kidnapping/torture/murder of unresisting and unarmed young kids was filmed on cellphone and camera video and passed around until some of it made it to TV, it all became kind of tarnished in the eyes of law-and-order believers anyway. Grieving families crying and young skinny unarmed small men/children being videoed as police or vigilantes beat them up and shot them bloodily dead in front of your eyes changed many minds about vigilante justice. How is it a law-abiding democracy of mostly low-income uneducated Catholic voters, who voted knowingly for a self-described braggart of off-the-books murders of poor people (maybe some of whom were addicts who were accused of crimes mostly without evidence) who were purportedly addicted to drugs, supported a wealthy liar and self-outed politician who confessed to murder on camera? How is it the majority of Filipinos voted for such a man who hoped more people would become murderers into the office of the President? Idk. How is it that American voters, mostly religious Protestants, mostly low-income, mostly high-school graduates, many self-declared constitutionalists who know nothing about lawyering or have ever read the Constitution much less the Bibles they supposedly live by, who want to “Make America Great Again” - vote for an easily proved liar, a convicted conman of for-profit fake colleges and charities and illegal tax breaks, a married sexual predator of many women who brags of it on tape, who has many divorces, a tax and military dodger, with a history of constant business failures, who is living off his father’s wealth and a lot of still ongoing cons like his political PAC (funded by supporting taxpayers) which he is using to pay off his personal bills, with a personal reputation of not paying or slow-paying the bills of small businesses and his employees, forcing them into bankruptcy, and a racist, and a rapist, all witnessed and spoken of by close associates in the room, with a lot of the evidence against him having been proved in a court of law? Again, idk. I am very very sad for the Human race. No wonder we are in an environmental spiral of heat and pollution heading for extinction. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 04, 2024
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Jan 18, 2024
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Jan 04, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| B06XVWZ136
| 4.11
| 40,054
| Oct 17, 2017
| Oct 17, 2017
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it was amazing
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‘The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives’ by Dashka Slater is about an incident which attracted a lot of inte
‘The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives’ by Dashka Slater is about an incident which attracted a lot of intense media interest. Almost every news show in America had a segment on this incident. There are YouTube videos and news articles on most newspaper websites about this story. Inexplicably, this book is being banned by conservatives in Republican Party controlled states. Librarians in Republican Party controlled states can not only be fired for having this book on shelves, in one state they can go to prison. I have copied the book blurb: ”Dashka Slater's The 57 Bus , a riveting nonfiction book for teens about race, class, gender, crime, and punishment, tells the true story of an agender teen who was set on fire by another teen while riding a bus in Oakland, California. -A New York Times Bestseller -Stonewall Book Award Winner -Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award -YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist” The two teenagers, eighteen-year-old Sasha Fleischman and sixteen-year-old Richard Thomas, did not know each other. In 2013, they happened to be riding the same bus in Oakland, California. Sasha was asleep in the back of the bus. Richard was goofing and joking with two friends near where Sasha was asleep. Sasha identifies as agender. They were wearing a gauzy white skirt with a T-shirt, jacket, and a newsboy cap. They attended a private high school where they were recognized by many at the school as a genius kid. Richard was a poor student who skipped a lot of school at the Oakland public high school where he was enrolled. He had a number of friends, all of whom were sort of a gang-wannabe clique. Richard was known as a joker who played pranks, always smiling. As a joke, Richard set Sasha’s skirt on fire. This is a YouTube link to a televised news report by KRON 4: https://youtu.be/pOy5UYQA1rs?si=BaU1H... Oakland High School kids and sport coaches, the high school where Richard was enrolled, began a NoH8 campaign. Below is a link to a YouTube video produced by the campaign: https://youtu.be/aOUQIqURO3k?si=PFMLD... Below are some of the news articles printed on various news websites: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/... https://www.kqed.org/news/10582017/ju... https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openfo... Why did Richard ever so casually, as a prank, without having met Sasha before that bus ride, set him on fire with a borrowed cigarette lighter? Sasha endured burn treatment for 2nd and 3rd degree burns on their legs. Richard was arrested quickly as his crime was recorded on video. Many wanted Richard tried as an adult, not a juvenile. But would that have been justice? Slater examines the history of the two kids and their families. She conducted interviews with people involved in Richard’s and Sasha’s lives at their schools. Readers will feel the story is one of stereotypes, but it actually happened the way it happened. Slater also researched juvenile institutions where kids who commit crimes are incarcerated. How do juvenile institutions heal and help the kids, if they do, who are sentenced to be there until they are 21 years old? Is putting juveniles in adult prisons justice? Slater is an excellent investigative journalist. She did not want to simply tell the story of Richard and Sasha, but she also wants to expose the US juvenile incarceration system - how it works, what is its success/failure rate of rehabilitation and/or psychiatric care. The book is written for teens and young adults, so it is a fast, even breezy, read. It is extremely interesting, especially since it is a true-crime non-fiction, with courtroom documentation and police interviews (very brief excerpts). Frankly, Richard is still a cypher to me. Setting someone’s clothes on fire as a joke, for a laugh, is OMG for me. What kind of socialization and environment makes anyone find fun in life-threatening or hurtful cruelty? But we see it every day in every way from many many people. A lot of comedians who do extremely vicious cutting insult humor are popular and they have well-attended gigs. Many teenagers and young adults participate in sports clubs and fraternities and military organizations that do life-threatening hazing. I don’t get it. The context of Richard’s crime is one society immediately tsks tsks easily, blaming his family, or his poverty, or his neighborhood environment. My brain immediately went to how Richard’s actions would have been, maybe, considered less due or attributed to a bad childhood if he had been participating in a elite college fraternity game. Setting people on fire with your university bro’s or military teammates is also heinous, but we put a different spin on the whys and whodunits. Fascinating stuff, yes? But of course, there is a crucial question - how old is the miscreant? We all are aware human brains do not come into full flower until the age of 25 years. One only has to look back at oneself (I’m going into my 7th decade) to see the progression of one’s personal brain intelligence and awareness of the world outside of oneself. The world of officialdom has never had a good handle on youth behaviors. When America had the military draft, 18-year-olds were sent to Vietnam to shoot people to death, or at least seriously maim and wreck the body of individuals as messily as a serial killer through bullets, bombs and knives. The same military man -kid?- could not legally drink alcohol in the States because of their youth, ffs. Then there is the difference of how White kids are handled by the law and how Black kids are handled by the law (and school officials, and businesses, etc.). It is verifiable through statistics police treat White kids with softer hands. The legal system treats White kids with softer punishments, giving them the benefit of doubt and taking their youth into account much more than the system gives Black offenders. In addition, Black cultures have not been very kind to the LGBTQ folks much the same as almost every race and culture under the spell of the Bible or the Quran religions in the world. In Africa, several countries on that continent have made the LGBTQ person illegal, imprisoning them and legally killing them with the death penalty for their sexuality. How can cultures all over the world condemn a person to death for something which is as as nature has made them the same as the color of their eyes, and ffs, btw, skin, which doesn’t hurt anyone? People who feel the prejudices of others because of the color of their skin, a harmless condition, are not immune from prejudices of the harmless condition of sexuality and gender identity, which also doesn’t harm anyone else. Legal punishments should be reserved for those who actually commit harmful crimes. Minors who commit crimes need to be handled differently than actual adults, I believe, because minors have not finished becoming adults with adult brains. Kids still have a brain with a lot of plasticity, still connecting brain areas physically. Kids need different resources and psychiatric care than adults do, plus time to grow up in a safe environment. Isn’t this common sense? ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 12, 2023
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Sep 15, 2023
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Sep 12, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 0063142198
| 9780063142190
| B09SHW5Y9J
| 4.10
| 1,047
| Sep 13, 2022
| Sep 13, 2022
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it was amazing
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‘Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice’ by David Enrich is a great expose of the American history and i
‘Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice’ by David Enrich is a great expose of the American history and internal workings of one particular law firm, Jones Day. The title of the book is hyperbolic, but the research for the book is spot on. Every fact is backed up by interviews, newspaper, TV and magazine articles, and fact-finding reports issued by several government agencies and committees, as well as internal documents from Jones Day. The history of how the system of corporate legal firms developed in America is also briefly outlined. Laws passed by Congress changed not only how law firms functioned, they enabled sole-proprietorship law firms to change from morally responsible advisors into immoral, vastly wealthy partnerships of ambulance chasers and politically-biased evaders of the law. I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate: ”From the New York Times’s Business Investigations Editor and #1 bestselling author of Dark Towers comes a long-overdue exposé of the astonishing yet shadowy power wielded by the world’s largest law firms, following the narrative arc of Jones Day, the firm that represented the Trump campaign and much of the Fortune 500, as a powerful encapsulation of the changes that have swept the legal industry in recent decades. In his acclaimed #1 bestseller Dark Towers, David Enrich presented the never-before-told saga of how Deutsche Bank became the global face of financial recklessness and criminality. Now Enrich turns his eye towards the world of “Big Law” and the nearly unchecked influence these firms wield to shield the wealthy and powerful—and bury their secrets. To tell this story, Enrich focuses on Jones Day, one of the world’s largest law firms. Jones Day’s narrative arc—founded in Cleveland in 1893, it became the first law firm to expand nationally and is now a global juggernaut with deep ties to corporate interests and conservative politics—is a powerful encapsulation of the changes that have swept the legal industry in recent decades. Since 2016, Jones Day has been in the spotlight for representing Donald Trump and his campaigns (and now his PACs)—and for the fleet of Jones Day attorneys who joined his administration, including White House Counsel Don McGahn. Jones Day helped Trump fend off the Mueller investigation; challenged Obamacare; defended Trump’s Muslim ban and border policies; and handled Trump’s judicial nominations. Jones Day even laid some of the legal groundwork for Trump to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election. But the Trump work is but one chapter in the firm’s checkered history. Jones Day, like many of its peers, have become highly effective enablers of the business world’s worst misbehavior. The firm has for decades represented Big Tobacco in its fight to avoid liability for its products. Jones Day worked tirelessly for the Catholic Church as it tried to minimize its sexual-abuse scandals. And for Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, as it sought to protect its right to make and market its dangerously addictive drug. And for Fox News as it waged war against employees who were the victims of sexual harassment and retaliation. And for Russian oligarchs as their companies sought to expand internationally. In this gripping and revealing new work of narrative nonfiction, Enrich makes the compelling central argument that law firms like Jones Day play a crucial yet largely hidden role in enabling and protecting powerful bad actors in our society, housing their darkest secrets, and earning billions in revenue for themselves.” There was a lot of things in the book I didn’t know before. The lawyers and their firms who advise and support clients who have hired them are not often much focused on in news stories. The role of legal firms in enabling politicians, and others, to push out into the various news media their edited spin on unsavory activities, or the advice and financial support lawyers give on how to tell and conceal lies and hide financial wrongdoing is eye-opening. Even worse, is how legal firms are orchestrating the funneling of money to politicians, including coercing their own, normally impartial, employees to give money to people the controlling partners of a law firm openly and proudly support. The days of corporate law firms, at least some of the larger ones, being impartial stewards of the law is gone. Some corporate law firms proudly align themselves only with clients who are members of only one political party. Impartiality and independence was the original moral stance of legal firms and individual practicing lawyers. They felt they had a duty to serve their communities - ALL of the people in their city or town. Many early lawyers were imbued with a feeling of having a religious calling. Part I in the book details the history of how some individual lawyers who decided to work together around 1900 began the law firm of Jones Day. Jones Day originally was Jones, Day, Cockley & Reavis. In its beginnings, Jones Day consisted of lawyers who felt they had a duty to the law, and to help people who hired them by providing them with wise advisors. The author describes a few cases the firm handled which gave the company much respect, particularly how they helped one of their clients, East Ohio Gas in 1944, after a massive explosion. One hundred and thirty people were killed and 225 were hospitalized. Part II describes how new partners took Jones Day into new directions in the 1980’s and 1990’s - a biased politically conservative one. For instance, helping a tobacco company cover up the studies showing smoking caused cancer. And helping Charles Keating, a politically connected businessman, ‘correct’ his accounting to cover up his illegalities in handling the Lincoln savings-and-loans bank. They helped the Catholic Church cover up rapes. They helped Big Pharma cover up its pharmaceuticals which harmed people. In part III, the author describes how Jones Day created political action committees during the late 20th century, giving money to conservative politicians. They opened an office in Washington, D.C., and started lobbying. They began hiring federal ex-regulators, ex-judges, and ex-Supreme Court clerks, rewarding them with a job and a high salary at Jones Day for helping to decide cases favorably towards clients of Jones Day in their previous government jobs. And they decided to become Donald Trump’s lawyers, becoming one of the major players in getting him elected and fighting off everyone who has tried to point out all of the ways Trump has and is breaking the law. This is not a book describing how corporate law is upholding or defending democracy. This is a book describing an intentional destruction of constitutional democracy crafted by some of the smartest, most educated men (they are mostly men). These are lawyers dedicated to obscuring and hiding legal immorality and in breaking, not just bending, the law. The following are my opinions, not in the book. Along the way to making themselves each billionaires or as close to being a billionaire as they can, many corporate law firms are quietly f**king all American citizens behind falsified screens of legal justice without most of us even knowing what is happening. Corporate law firms helped cause the deaths of, maybe, your father or mother, by assisting in hiding the proved fact FOR DECADES that smoking causes cancer. Is your brother or dad addicted to opiates or dead from an overdose? Jones Day helped to make pharmaceutical opioids continuously available to your family members, without much of any oversight, long after the fact that some of these opioids were known to become easily addicted to by unknowing people. Jones Day became a very wealthy firm from defending or helping Trump in his many many many many lawsuits and court cases, although some judges are tossing them out of court or demanding Trump admit to being wrong. Many court employees have been caught either on video or on recordings expressing, with a lot of eye-rolling, disbelief at Jones Day conduct and their ‘supportive' arguments of Trump’s cases. Corporate legal firms are not supporting Trump by using the law, they are supporting Trump with often ridiculous and frivolous arguments that play well to his conservative, less legally-educated, base. Of course, they hope they win, and sometimes they do, to their utter surprise in many cases, attested to by off-the-record remarks. It helps that these giant corporate legal firms have been able to convince politicians to hire the legal firms’ ex-employees into positions of power in government oversight agencies, who rule in favor of their ex-legal firm employers. Who also give them their old jobs in the firm back when they leave their government jobs. If you have a strong stomach, this is a very revealing book about the intertwining corruptions in the connections between politicians, businesses and corporate lawyers. Through describing the history of one corporate legal firm, a lot of how business and politicians conspire to screw American citizens over, and out of hard-earned financial and physical well-being, and shoveling taxpayer and client money into their own personal bank accounts without most of us being aware of how we are being harmed, is demonstrated. I am incredibly disgusted and dismayed. Although bits and pieces are often published by the media here and there over decades of corporate and political wrongdoing, having some of it all pulled together in a book brings a lot of enlightenment about the ongoing downgrading of American democracy. This book has extensive Notes and Index sections. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 13, 2022
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Nov 26, 2022
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Nov 13, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| 0393245594
| 9780393245592
| B08D1NW7G9
| 3.83
| 1,557
| Feb 02, 2021
| Feb 02, 2021
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really liked it
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'Small-time' by Russell Shorto fills in some blank areas about organized crime during the 1920's - 1970. He writes from the point of view of a Jonesto
'Small-time' by Russell Shorto fills in some blank areas about organized crime during the 1920's - 1970. He writes from the point of view of a Jonestown, Pennsylvania grandson, whom he is, of a grandfather and great-uncle who were mobsters. His father Tony was intentionally kept out of the business by Russell Shorto, the author's grandfather and one of the two so-called crime bosses, whom the author was named after. Although the author is a journalist, he had never asked about his father's life or his grandfather's or his great-uncle Joe, "Little Joe". He makes the realization he has been avoiding this discussion after his mother's cousin, Frankie Filia, challenges him to write a book about his grandfather during a family holiday get-together. It necessarily meant talking to all of his relatives, which he didn't want to do. The author could not understand his reluctance which persisted even when he had committed to writing this book. He knew it had something to do with his relationship with his father, Tony. Anyway, he does the investigation first using official legal records, libraries, newspapers stories, etc. Then he tracks down witnesses and does interviews over several visits. Most of the individuals are elderly at this point. The women are generally more forthcoming, and some of the men tell their stories very cautiously. But only after he has accumulated stories from outside sources does he tackle his mom and dad, siblings and relatives. What he learns amazes him! Shorto had understood things were a certain way from overheard conversations or he had been told what had happened in an expurgated version as a child growing up, but he discovers his understanding was wrong in writing this book. For me, a woman, the environment as described in this book that these guys operated in is one of hyper masculinity. Pool halls, bars, cigar stores, and private clubs were fronts for all kinds of gambling - horses, sports, card games, pinball, tip seals. Politicians - male, of course - were paid off by goods and cash. Before these criminals branched out into gambling, they made their start in selling illegal alcohol cooked up in backyard stills by their wives, originally. Their wives needed money, especially when these men enlisted to go to war. It was the era of Prohibition, too, and then the Great Depression. The economic environment in the 1920's in small industrial towns like Jonestown centered on the needs of the men working in the mills and mines. Italians were considered the lowest on the social scale, just under Black people, and were paid appropriately. Most of the employees of the mills and mines were undereducated immigrants who came from extreme poverty in European countries. Shorto's great-grandfather came from Sicily to work in the mines. The work was hard and life at home was harder, with entire families of six living in a single small apartment. Honestly, I can see how gambling and drinking attracted so many of these people! Children became runners for the mob, of course, not attending much school. The men who were in what eventually became the mob were respected and looked up to. They felt they were chiseling the rich upper-class chiselers of the Gilded Age, and they felt they gave the lower classes hope of winning a score. They didn't own the mills and mines like the rich chiselers, they owned the small neighborhood shops, and provided loans the shop owners needed when banks refused them. Of course, the shop owners ended up paying off loans by allowing the mob to put in pinball machines, and sponsor other gambling, sometimes. Or what Shorto's grandfather and great-uncle also did, becoming a part owner of the business, becoming a partner of sorts. Shorto gives the impression the mob was really an organic growth of many small illegal businesses coming from the bottom rungs of the impoverished working classes. They provided what people wanted but couldn't get because it was illegal, like alcohol and gambling. They weren't evil crooks, they were desperately poor. Some became very successful and rich, and rubbed shoulders with the legal crooks. But, the Kennedys, yes, the President and the Attorney General, changed everything, bringing Federal investigations. Small-time mobsters in small-towns couldn't handle the pressure. The world was changing around them as well - rock and roll music, and educated third-generation kids unaware of their family's mob activities or unwilling to get involved in the family's illegal businesses. Shorto has written an interesting memoir. Many of these people were just ordinary people who didn't know how to make a living wage any other way. Running a gambling business was work that didn't destroy them like working in the mines and mills destroyed their health. Many men loved the hyper-masculinity of the bars and pool halls. One had to be smart and tough, and of course, it was challenging work that brought community respect and wealth. Men loved it. They really did. But being arrested and convicted and sent to prison, or the threat of being sent to prison, did break down a lot of these men. But they loved the illegality and rough and tough interplay of controlling their empires, whether it was small-town or Big City, even more than the money they could make. I will never understand many of these aspects of male biology! Never never never! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 12, 2022
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Mar 15, 2022
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Mar 12, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| B002AWX6UM
| 4.16
| 189,491
| Feb 13, 2007
| Apr 01, 2007
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it was amazing
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'A Long Way Gone' by Ishmael Beah describes the horrific wars of Sierra Leone from the point of view of himself when a boy soldier. The wars began for
'A Long Way Gone' by Ishmael Beah describes the horrific wars of Sierra Leone from the point of view of himself when a boy soldier. The wars began for the author after his home village was attacked when he was twelve years old. The wars went on and on. For him, he had a brief lull from the fighting for a year when he turned sixteen, during which time he endured a partial deprogramming and the pain of withdrawal from many drugs, but then the wars began again. He was a refugee once again at age seventeen. The book is non-fiction. Ismael hides few details. It is a graphic autobiography. Dead bodies were a common sight to the author even before he became a child soldier of Africa while on the run from soldier attacks. At age thirteen Ishmael was starving, having lived for a year by running from village to village in the forest away from the brutal soldiers. He was with a group of children who had all lost their families. Villagers were terrified of roaming children because many of the murderous soldiers were children too, led by military men. So the traveling group of frightened boys stole and hid wherever they could, trying to avoid the rebels and the government soldiers, sleeping often in the forest. But the starving weakened them, the terror wore them down, and they all were grieving, plus, hello, they were children. They didn’t know what the wars were about since most of them had been only in village secondary schools, living with loving parents when the wars started. When Ishmael finally was captured by government soldiers, he became a ‘willing’ soldier at age thirteen, soon killing his first victim by cutting the throat of a rebel in a government boot camp of sorts for child beginners at soldiering. If one of them failed to kill, it was a bullet in the brain immediately, killed in front of the other children. He eventually was killing defenseless babies, children, women and men, but since he was high on drugs 24/7, going without sleep for days, eating irregularly, it was meaningless to him. He attacked civilian villages for food and engaged rebel soldiers in combat, suffering bullet wounds skimming his body all over. Blood and bleeding was a constant. It was nothing to him. He and the other boys laughed at how funny people died and had brutality contests of the worst death. He and his fellow soldiers were fourteen years old, seemingly completely psychotic and mentally ill, under the influence of PTSD and drugs. He was originally raised in a very small village of simple farmers, miners and traders, surrounded by forests and a river, with other small villages nearby (actually, miles apart - people walked a lot, sometimes hitching a ride with the occasional vehicle). They were without steady electricity except that of generators, with some modern conveniences such as radio and tape players, and occasional movies and music videos shown in nearby towns in foreigners’ quarters. Ishmael lived with his father and stepmother, with visits to his mother, and a grandmother also in a nearby village. Everybody knew everybody. They had celebrations, parties, fun nights of storytelling. Ishmael had many school friends near his age, all boys. They played at games, talent shows of dancing and singing. There were feasts of rice and fish soup. They had begun to hear about a war that was happening, but not near them. Occasionally they met refugees, haunted and starving, passing through, warning them to leave. But one day in 1993 when Ishmael had gone to Mattru Jong, a town sixteen miles away from his home for a talent show and dance practice with other boys, rebels attacked his village. The soldiers burned his village and killed or chased away all of the people. After his village was attacked by soldiers, Ishmael was separated from his family. The rebel soldiers went from village to village, killing and burning. He ran and hid in the forest. Eventually he found a brother and four other boys. They did not know if any adults or their other brothers and sisters in their family had lived. Traveling from place to place, stopping wherever to sleep - beneath trees, near villages which were too nervous to accept them or they snuck onto the verandas of nervous strangers, who were fearful of their intentions, to sleep, leaving before dawn. Eventually, the boys were caught at one of the soldier checkpoints which terrorized all who had to pass. Soldiers beat, robbed and shot civilians who were escaping rebel and government raids on their home villages. But they took the children with them unless they were too little. Too little meant younger than eight years old. Ishmael was thirteen. I remember the news stories about these civil wars of Sierra Leone when they were happening. To us Americans, the descriptions of these continuous coups one after another, instigated by military factions in this part of Africa, apparently based on tribal affiliations and led by uneducated psychopathic military sergeants, fought by indoctrinated and drug-stupefied child soldiers from 8 to 15 years old, was freakish and bizarre. Stories of hands being cut off every man in a village as a normal war tactic of these soldiers with machetes sounded beyond insane. This was a real-life dystopia of madness beyond American comprehension. It still is. ‘A Long Way Gone’ sheds insight on how boy soldiers were created and molded into Junior Terminators (but real ones who could easily die). Beah does not describe politics of the wars or why they happened at all. No wonder. These wars, still sporadically erupting here and there in uneasy and impoverished Sierra Leone, are beyond all sanity and reason. From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_... “Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002)” “...in total 1,270 primary schools were destroyed.” In October 1990, owing to mounting pressure from both within and outside the country for political and economic reform, president Momoh set up a constitutional review commission to assess the 1978 one-party constitution. Based on the commission's recommendations a constitution re-establishing a multi-party system was approved by the exclusive APC Parliament by a 60% majority vote, becoming effective on 1 October 1991. There was great suspicion that president Momoh was not serious about his promise of political reform, as APC rule continued to be increasingly marked by abuses of power. The brutal civil war that was going on in neighbouring Liberia played a significant role in the outbreak of fighting in Sierra Leone. Charles Taylor – then leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia – reportedly helped form the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under the command of former Sierra Leonean army corporal Foday Saybana Sankoh, an ethnic Temne from Tonkolili District in Northern Sierra Leone. Sankoh was a British trained former army corporal who had also undergone guerrilla training in Libya. Taylor's aim was for the RUF to attack the bases of Nigerian dominated peacekeeping troops in Sierra Leone who were opposed to his rebel movement in Liberia. On 29 April 1992, a group of young soldiers in the Sierra Leone Army, led by seven army officers — Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, Captain Valentine Strasser, Sergeant Solomon Musa, Captain Komba Mondeh, Lieutenant Tom Nyuma, Captain Julius Maada Bio and Captain Komba Kambo—launched a military coup that sent president Momoh into exile in Guinea, and the young soldiers established the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC), with 25-year-old Captain Valentine Strasser as its chairman and Head of State of the country. Sergeant Solomon Musa, a childhood friend of Strasser, became the deputy chairman and deputy leader of the NPRC junta government. Strasser became the world's youngest Head of State when he seized power just three days after his 25th birthday. The NPRC junta established the National Supreme Council of State as the military highest command and final authority in all matters, and was exclusively made up of the highest ranking NPRC soldiers, included Strasser himself and the original soldiers who toppled president Momoh. One of the highest ranking soldiers of the NPRC Junta, Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, a trusted ally of Strasser, was assassinated, allegedly by Major S.I.M. Turay, a key loyalist of ousted president Momoh. A heavily armed military manhunt took place across the country to find Lieutenant Sandy's killer. However, the main suspect, Major S.I.M Turay, went into hiding and fled the country to Guinea, fearing for his life. Dozens of soldiers loyal to the ousted president Momoh were arrested, including Colonel Kahota M. Dumbuya and Major Yayah Turay. Lieutenant Sandy was given a state funeral and his funeral prayers service at the cathedral church in Freetown was attended by many high-ranking soldiers of the NPRC junta, including Strasser himself and NPRC deputy leader Sergeant Solomon Musa. The NPRC Junta immediately suspended the constitution, banned all political parties, limited freedom of speech and freedom of the press and enacted a rule-by-decree policy, in which soldiers were granted unlimited powers of administrative detention without charge or trial, and challenges against such detentions in court were precluded. The NPRC Junta maintained relations with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and strengthened support for Sierra Leone-based ECOMOG troops fighting in Liberia. On 28 December 1992, an alleged coup attempt against the NPRC government of Strasser, aimed at freeing the detained Colonel Yahya Kanu, Colonel Kahota M.S. Dumbuya and former inspector general of police Bambay Kamara, was foiled. Several Junior army officers led by Sergeant Mohamed Lamin Bangura were identified as being behind the coup plot. The coup plot led to the firing squad execution of seventeen soldiers in the Sierra Leone Army including Colonel Kahota M Dumbuya, Major Yayah Kanu and Sergeant Mohamed Lamin Bangura. Several prominent members of the Momoh government who had been in detention at the Pa Demba Road prison, including former inspector general of police Bambay Kamara, were also executed. On 5 July 1994 the deputy NPRC leader Sergeant Solomon Musa, who was very popular with the general population, particularly in Freetown, was arrested and sent into exile after he was accused of planning a coup to topple Strasser, an accusation Sergeant Musa denied. Strasser replaced Musa as deputy NPRC chairman with Captain Julius Maada Bio, who was instantly promoted by Strasser to Brigadier. The NPRC proved to be nearly as ineffectual as the Momoh-led APC government in repelling the RUF. More and more of the country fell to RUF fighters, and by 1994 they held much of the diamond-rich Eastern Province and were at the edge of Freetown. In response, the NPRC hired several hundred mercenaries from the private firm Executive Outcomes. Within a month they had driven RUF fighters back to enclaves along Sierra Leone's borders, and cleared the RUF from the Kono diamond-producing areas of Sierra Leone. With Strasser's two most senior NPRC allies and commanders Lieutenant Sahr Sandy and Lieutenant Solomon Musa no longer around to defend him, Strasser's leadership within the NPRC Supreme Council of State was not considered much stronger. On 16 January 1996, after about four years in power, Strasser was arrested in a palace coup at the Defence Headquarters in Freetown by his fellow NPRC soldiers. Strasser was immediately flown into exile in a military helicopter to Conakry, Guinea. In his first public broadcast to the nation following the 1996 coup, Brigadier Bio stated that his support for returning Sierra Leone to a democratically elected civilian government and his commitment to ending the civil war were his motivations for the coup. Promises of a return to civilian rule were fulfilled by Bio, who handed power over to Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), after the conclusion of elections in early 1996. President Kabbah took power with a great promise of ending the civil war. President Kabbah opened dialogue with the RUF and invited RUF leader Foday Sankoh for peace negotiations. On 25 May 1997, seventeen soldiers in the Sierra Leone army led by Corporal Tamba Gborie, loyal to the detained Major General Johnny Paul Koroma, launched a military coup which sent President Kabbah into exile in Guinea and they established the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). Corporal Gborie quickly went to the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Services headquarters in New England, Freetown to announce the coup to a shocked nation and to alert all soldiers across the country to report for guard duty. The soldiers immediately released Koroma from prison and installed him as their chairman and Head of State. Koroma suspended the constitution, banned demonstrations, shut down all private radio stations in the country and invited the RUF to join the new junta government, with its leader Foday Sankoh as the Vice-Chairman of the new AFRC-RUF coalition junta government. Within days, Freetown was overwhelmed by the presence of the RUF combatants who came to the city in thousands. The Kamajors, a group of traditional fighters mostly from the Mende ethnic group under the command of deputy Defence Minister Samuel Hinga Norman, remained loyal to President Kabbah and defended the Southern part of Sierra Leone from the soldiers.” And on and on.... ...more |
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Kindle Edition
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| 0312950446
| 9780312950446
| 0312950446
| 4.05
| 11,989
| 1992
| Mar 15, 1993
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it was amazing
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‘Whoever Fights Monsters’ by Robert K. Ressler and Tom Shachtman, while a True Crime genre detailing the lives and crimes of a few famous serial murde
‘Whoever Fights Monsters’ by Robert K. Ressler and Tom Shachtman, while a True Crime genre detailing the lives and crimes of a few famous serial murderers, is really a history of how Ressler came to believe profiling serial killers would be important to do and how he slowly convinced the FBI to create a profiling department. Difficult as it may be to believe, almost all police and justice forces never examined perpetrators psychologically or thought it at all important to solving whodunnit until recently. A crime is committed, nearby people are interviewed, suspects are rounded up and questioned based on their likelihood of having a reason to kill - money, jealousy, sex, rage, especially past convictions involving violence - done. Police had no interest in profiling. Indeed, most police were suspicious of profiling, even today. Crime scene facts and physical evidence are what matters, along with witness statements, if any. Who cares why killings happen if the perpetrators can be convicted by physical evidence and/or confessions? Serial murderers are a different kind of killer than with whom the police usually deal. Even the FBI, the agency Ressler worked for as an agent, could not grasp how different serial killers are for a long time. Or that even though serial killers are individually quirky, there are psychological categories and subset categories that they each can be fit into. Or that by identifying a killer’s psychological style could help in identifying a serial killer. But most important, knowing how to talk to a serial killer can lead them to confess. Many serial killers have psychological twists that normal people are not able to believe a person could possibly have. Police have allowed serial killers to walk free out of sheer disbelief of their confessions or even the evidence of their own eyes, as in the Jeffrey Dahmer case. There is the issue that many serial killers move their killing from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, state to state. Police hate sharing cases with other police agencies, and they are reluctant to discuss active investigations with others. If murder A was exactly like murder B in another town, in the past cops would never know it. It still happens today cops in town A are unaware cops in town B have the same kind of crime with the same physical evidence discovered at the scene of the crime. A lot of new ideas about detecting and collecting evidence, and computers, and police-friendly for-profit genealogical research companies which process DNA kits, have met the challenge of identifying similar styles and physical evidence in murders, as well as tracking cases across state lines from different jurisdictions. But cooperation between police departments, from what I’ve read in newspaper exposés, is sometimes still a problem. Although computers can compile cases with similar attributes from a national or regional database, police departments have to pay to buy access, and not all can afford to buy access. Police also need to hire extra employees to fill out and send in the paperwork forms regional and national databases require to input cases. Police in many small jurisdictions still refuse to participate in sending local crime information to regional or the national FBI and other criminal justice databases. But how did police agencies begin to accept profiling? That is what this book is about. I copied the cover blurb below. It is an accurate description: ”Face-to-face with some of America's most terrifying killers, FBI veteran and ex-Army CID colonel Robert Ressler learned from them how to identify the unknown monsters who walk among us--and put them behind bars. Now the man who coined the phrase "serial killer" and advised Thomas Harris on The Silence of the Lambs shows how he is able to track down some of today's most brutal murderers. Just as it happened in The Silence of the Lambs, Ressler used the evidence at a crime scene to put together a psychological profile of the killers. From the victims they choose, to the way they kill, to the often grotesque souvenirs they take with them--Ressler unlocks the identities of these vicious killers of the police to capture. And with his discovery that serial killers share certain violent behaviors, Ressler's gone behind prison walls to hear the bizarre first-hand stories countless convicted murderers. Getting inside the mind of a killer to understand how and why he kills, is one of the FBI's most effective ways of helping police bring in killers who are still at large. Join Ressler as he takes you on the hunt for today’s most dangerous psychopaths. It is a terrifying journey you will not forget.” Well, ok, the blurb is a little bit more breathlessly dramatic than the book is, actually. The tone of ‘Whoever Fights Monsters’ is closer to a flattened ‘just the facts’ voice of an academic professional. Nonetheless, I thought it fascinating. There is an Index. ...more |
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Mass Market Paperback
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it was amazing
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Frankly, the issues surrounding the Rohingyas are astonishing and confusing. The social and political repression going on in Myanmar is happening to a
Frankly, the issues surrounding the Rohingyas are astonishing and confusing. The social and political repression going on in Myanmar is happening to all of its minority communities, but especially the Rohingyas. Why the Burmese want to kill all those who they believe are non-Buddhists and who recently immigrated to Myanmar (at least what their propaganda would have us believe), or why the Rohingyas in particular out of several dozens of minority communities in Myanmar have become what the Myanmar government believes to be its worst enemy of all its many minority communities, is incomprehensible to me. Without question a genocide of the Rohingyas has been ordered and carried out by the Myanmar government. After having listened to the audiobook 'First They Erased our Name' by Habiburahman, who is a Rohingya born in a small village in Western Myanmar, I know now the Rohingyas are being exterminated in a similar progression of how the Jews of Europe in World War II were almost utterly wiped off the face of Europe (and were successfully totally erased from Poland - fact). The Muslim Rohingyas are perceived by the Burmese Buddhists and Myanmar's military government in exactly the same way as the Nazis perceived Jews. The Nazis gradually passed laws over a period of years and added more and more onerous conditions under which the Jews had to live, until finally the Nazis launched their endgame campaign of total extermination of the Jews. The Burmese have been following the Nazi gamebook of genocide since at least the 1940's against the Rohingyas. Pogroms of increasing ferocity have been occurring for decades against Rohingya villages. The murderous attacks and oppression led to the formation of small Rohingya terrorist groups. Other minorities (animists, Christians, small ethnic tribes) in Myanmar also formed groups of terrorists who are staging raids on Burmese police and military installations to this day. They all want independence from Myanmar. The Rohingya terrorists hope at minimum to restore to the Rohingyas their inherited lands which have been stolen and sold illegally village by village, territory by territory, to Burmese Buddhists. I think the Rohingyas are finished as far as being citizens of Myanmar. The Rohingyas, contrary to Burmese propaganda, have been in the territory of Arakan since the 9th century. Arakan was first settled by a people called Rakhine. Later the Rohingyas arrived. The area was a crossroads for a lot of different ethnicities traveling through, including Arabs. The current tribal majority of Buddhists took charge of Burma after the British, who had formed a country out of the various local tribes, left. Revenge attacks by some continuously persecuted minorities, who formed small terrorist groups, killed some of the majority tribal Buddhist-populated police and military members stationed on what were ethnic-minority inherited lands. This led to more burning down of Rohingya villages, and more rape, imprisonment and impounding of Rohingya property. Laws were passed stripping the Rohingyas of citizenship and any rights to leave their villages to hunt and travel in nearby forests and farms. They were forbidden education in state schools. These acts of government-sanctioned reprisals impoverished the Rohingyas, reducing their ability to feed themselves and participate in economic activities. Then, another Rohingya terrorist attack in 2015 killed many police and military members. The Final Solution of a Rohingya genocide began, regardless of the innocence of most Rohingyas in having committed any violence against the government. Habiburahman narrates the story of his life from his birth in a quiet Rohingya village to becoming a refugee as a young adult in 'First They Erased our Name.' He does not have to embellish or lie about the growing hellish life of the Rohingyas and his childhood - it has been documented by brave journalists, NGOs, and many witnesses. If you have read any books about how the Nazis slowly stole away the rights of Jewish citizens by passing laws forbidding them from more and more social, educational and economic activities over several years in the countries of their birth before they began the "The Final Solution", gentle reader, you will see the similarity immediately to what happened in Myanmar for the last forty years in Habiburahman's autobiography. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingy... "The Rohingya people (/roʊˈɪndʒə, -hɪn-, -ɪŋjə/) are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and speak Bengali language and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar (previously known as Burma). There were an estimated 1 million Rohingya living in Myanmar before the 2016–17 crisis. Described by the United Nations in 2013 as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, the Rohingya population is denied citizenship under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law. They are also restricted from freedom of movement, state education and civil service jobs. The legal conditions faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar have been widely compared to apartheid by many international academics, analysts and political figures, including Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu, a South African anti-apartheid activist. The Rohingya maintain they are indigenous to western Myanmar with a heritage of over a millennium and influence from the Arabs, Mughals and Portuguese. The community claims it is descended from people in precolonial Arakan and colonial Arakan; historically, the region was an independent kingdom between Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent.[36] The position of the Myanmar government is that Rohingyas are not a national "indigenous race", but are illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. It argues that the Muslims of precolonial times are now recognized as Kameins and that the Rohingya conflate their history with the history of all Muslims in Arakan to advance a separatist agenda. In addition, Myanmar's government does not recognize the term "Rohingya" and prefers to refer to the community as "Bangali" in a pejorative manner. Rohingya campaign groups, notably the Arakan Rohingya National Organization, demand the right to "self-determination within Myanmar". Various armed insurrections by the Rohingya have taken place since the 1940s and the population as a whole has faced military crackdowns in 1978, 1991–1992, 2012, 2015, 2016–2017 and particularly in 2017–2018, when most of the Rohingya population of Myanmar was driven out of the country, into neighboring Bangladesh. By December 2017, an estimated 625,000 refugees from Rakhine, Myanmar, had crossed the border into Bangladesh since August 2017. UN officials and Human Rights Watch have described Myanmar's persecution of the Rohingya as ethnic cleansing. The UN human rights envoy to Myanmar reported "the long history of discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya community... could amount to crimes against humanity", and there have been warnings of an unfolding genocide. Probes by the UN have found evidence of increasing incitement of hatred and religious intolerance by "ultra-nationalist Buddhists" against Rohingyas while the Myanmar security forces have been conducting "summary executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and ill-treatment, and forced labour" against the community. Before the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis and the military crackdown in 2016 and 2017, the Rohingya population in Myanmar was around 1.0 to 1.3 million, chiefly in the northern Rakhine townships, which were 80–98% Rohingya. Since 2015, over 900,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to south-eastern Bangladesh alone, and more to other surrounding countries, and major Muslim nations.More than 100,000 Rohingyas in Myanmar are confined in camps for internally displaced persons. Shortly before a Rohingya rebel attack that killed 12 security forces on 25 August 2017, the Myanmar military launched "clearance operations" against the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state that, according to NGOs, the Bangladeshi government and international news media, left many dead, many more injured, tortured or raped, with villages burned. The government of Myanmar has denied the allegations." Habiburahman's book is not one of continuous horror. He was a loved child of a normal village family. He had a grandmother, father and mother, and younger siblings. He had lots of friends, enjoyed school despite the occasional abuse from Rakhine students, and went to play and explore the nearby forests and streams. He sometimes cut classes to go on an adventure with a friend, earning punishment from his father. His father appears to me to have been a very intelligent man with many useful skills he could use to support his family. He operated a herbal shop. However, his success drew the eyes and attention of corrupt police officers who demanded frequent bribes. They also stole items from the shop. As the years passed, the abuse, physical and social, steadily increased. Basically, it appears to me Habiburahman always had the boot of the Myanmar government pressing down on him and his family his entire life. But he was a typical boy, unaware and playful. Until the age of about twelve, when the oppression, brutality and corruption was too overt and awful for Habiburahman to not understand anymore that the lives of his family and village were becoming unbearable and impoverished by evermore draconian laws restricting his family and other Rohingya villagers to their houses. His father's business was constantly being robbed by the police, and other authorities demanded his father give up his land and store to be used by the military for a latrine. Finally, Habiburahman had to leave the village. He wanted a college education to become a lawyer. However, he could only attend school in a larger city with false documents. It worked for awhile. Then things got really really bad. Eventually Habiburahma ended up as a refugee. The story is harrowing and terrible. His journey led him to very bad times and places. I can't understand how Habiburahman survived. There was torture, starvation, slavery, and all of the physical humiliations any American slave from the antebellum South would have recognized. Every Religion and mythological belief system ever invented by men since men have been around has now resorted to the use of genocide at some point in History in the getting of Power and wealth over weaker men. And as usual, everybody looks away or gives sermons with more impotent moralizing to make us forget and feel better about yet another display of the vicious rapaciously greedy nature of people and our complicity in ignoring it. Again. I wonder where the next crusading genocide of righteous murder of an entire people will happen. Central or South America? Africa again? The Middle East again? Maybe America and not just the South again? Comments are welcome below. It is very sad. It also highlights the evil people do and continue to have done for millennia with impunity despite lots of high-minded moralizing. There is no God to save the soul of Humanity or any weaker human tribe or culture from torture, murder, rape, robbery, injustice and cruelty from a more murderous and more richer and militaristic tribe, whatever the religion one is part of, gentle reader. People suck. Just saying. All religions are simply a cover for individuals who desire power and wealth. Even peaceful religious Buddhists are succumbing to the siren call of power and the use of torture, a 1984 blueprint of social manipulation and genocide to get it. Guardian interview with Habiburahman: https://www.theguardian.com/world/201... Refugee Council of Australia: https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/mya... ...more |
Notes are private!
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May 17, 2020
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May 19, 2020
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May 17, 2020
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Audible Audio
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| 067974472X
| 9780679744726
| 067974472X
| 4.55
| 106,087
| Jan 31, 1963
| Dec 01, 1992
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it was amazing
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The fact of James Baldwin having written 'The Fire Next Time' (water was first, gentle reader) in 1963 and that this essay about America's racism is s
The fact of James Baldwin having written 'The Fire Next Time' (water was first, gentle reader) in 1963 and that this essay about America's racism is still relevant in 2020 is disheartening to me. But then I've never been a "glass is half-full" type. I find myself in my sixties still full of rage at all types of cultural injustices, past and present. I realize social progress has been made, but damn, it's so slow! And I believe Humanity has killed itself, too, in environmental destruction, thinking long-term. We are a failing form of life. We shit where we live. Humans are a bag of strengths and faults, a product of imperfect and uneven steps in evolution. Below is a link to the review which for me best describes my view of Baldwin's book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Gorfo says most of what I think about the book for me. My own thoughts below, in addition to those being mirrored in Gorfo's review, are about religion, specifically and generally. The book 'The Fire Next Time' consists of a letter 'My Dungeon Shook' - a letter to Baldwin's nephew - and an essay titled 'Down at the Cross', as in kneeling below the cross of Jesus. Both letters reminded me of Ta-Nahisi Coates’ Between the World and Me published in 2015. In my opinion, these essays are about Power over people and what the ingredients of Power are. The letters tell what can be done to overturn power structures. Religion is one such tool used by Power. Baldwin discusses it as part of his overall discussion, that religion is one thing among many tools of Power. He says religion is used by Power to enforce racism. Excerpt from Baldwin's book: "Nothing that has happened to me since equals the power and the glory that I sometimes felt when, in the middle of a sermon, I knew that I was somehow, by some miracle, really carrying, as they said, “the Word”—when the church and I were one. Their pain and their joy were mine, and mine were theirs—they surrendered their pain and joy to me, I surrendered mine to them-and their cries of “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” and “Yes, Lord’ ” and “Praise His name!” and “Preach it, brother!” sustained and whipped on my solos until we all became equal, wringing wet, singing and dancing, in anguish and rejoicing, at the foot of the altar. It was, for a long time, in spite of—or, not inconceivably because of—the shabbiness of my motives, my only sustenance, my meat and drink. I rushed home from school, to the church, to the altar, to be alone there, to commune with Jesus, my dearest Friend, who would never fail me, who knew all the secrets of my heart. Perhaps He did, but I didn’t, and the bargain we struck, actually, down there at the foot of the cross, was that He would never let me find out. He failed his bargain. He was a much better Man than I took Him for. Baldwin discusses his early childhood infatuation with first the religion of Christianity and later his explorations of Elijah Mohammad's Nation of Islam movement. I think he was full of questions about the use of religion (as a tool). His subsequent belief is religion is, ultimately, another overall subjugation and chaining of Black minds whether used by Whites or Blacks. I agree with this conclusion. One of the hidden outcomes of religion is its power structure - the leader holds power over the congregation. The religious leader's interpretation of God makes the leader a powerful authoritive god himself. Baldwin doesn't say this exactly as nakedly as I do here, but I believe that is one of the things he was saying. The essay is much more than this, though gentle reader. Read it. Since I became an adult and finally had the freedom to study world religions and myths, I have often wondered at the embrace of Christianity and Islam which, in my opinion, infected Black people with complacency and acceptance of their pain and deprivation. It is a world described by Whites and Arabs that ignores the unrecognized contributions of Black people everywhere in all times.. The built-in foundational philosophy of Christianity and Islam is the message to accept one's place, no matter what your place is. Full stop. God put you there. Full stop. The religious dogma leads to the logic of the idea poverty and cruelty is part of God's unknowable plan -often interpreted as a teaching moment or punishment by imans and ministers. Rich people being powerful and rich is God's plan. Full stop. Do not question it. Full stop. Even if God's plan is not understood by common folk, a human minister/iman's can interpret it because they are special humans with more intelligence. Full stop. No questions. Full. Stop. Accept and obey, despite your ignorance of the Plan. No questions. Both Christianity and Islam claim to have God's ultimate authority. Each religion claims to fulfill God's plan with sacred rites and rituals not to be questioned no matter how asinine or painful. Each religion claims God has mapped out our lives, apparently no matter how awful and sad or short a child's life is. We are to accept this plan without question. This plan is unknowable by our own understanding, beyond us. Our job is to accept it. We are to make ourselves be obedient to God's will, whatever it is for whatever unknowable mysterious plan. So. How has this doctrine worked out over two thousand years? The history of Mankind is nothing but stories of how powerful men with military and financial prowess invade and overpower weaker men and communities in order to enslave, rob and torture. Once domination by military force is established, some kind of religion to not be ever questioned is usually then imposed on the defeated and enslaved culture. Repeat onto infinity. What makes this religious imposition of a powerful overbearing culture on top of an underlying defeated culture succeed, repeated in every human civilization for at least 10,000 years we know of because of written records and art, is mystifying to me. WHY do the defeated cultures quickly embrace and internalize foreign gods, even if they are the wrong language and appearance to themselves? The pagan Romans and the patriarchal Chinese did it to their conquered tribes and people. The Christian Whites did it to Black and Brown and Asian people all over the world. The Arab Muslims have done it also to Black and Brown people all over the world. Why do defeated people eventually internalize the conquering rulers' enforced beliefs? White people learned about Christianity AFTER Catholic leadership transformed Jesus into a White man with blue eyes through art. Jesus was a Semitic Jew. But many Europeans and Americans have been trained to think of Jesus as a White European man. Arabs learned about Islam and Mohammed as being an Arab man, although pictures or representations of people are forbidden in Islam. Mohammed was indeed an Arab. Both religions thought of Black people as damned people by their Christian and Islamic God, and both religions often taught this doctrine to Black people as well to as their own adherents. The Christian religion was written down in Latin in most European Bibles (which originally was in Greek and Hebrew), and church services were in Latin only originally. Common people, whatever their language, learned what was in the Bible through their church leaders' interpretation only for centuries. The Qur'an was and is written in Arabic and interpreted by imans to their congregations whatever their origin language. Must I say there have been translation issues in both religions? And the difficulties of making primitive unscientific religions written in languages unknown to most believers that were created 2,000 years ago to fit the countless individual interpretations and re-interpretations and countless translations of millennia and political and religious leaders interpretations have been really, really entertaining to me. However, gentle reader, one must see how tragic this has been for Humanity, and especially Black people, who are the damned race in both Islam and Christianity originally. So, wtf? Why did Black slaves embrace Christianity so incredibly close? Today, the most faithful Christians who still completely embrace Christianity fundamentally are Africans. The fastest-growing churches are in Africa. Members tithe all of their money to the coffers of their local African churches. Often, their Bibles depict a White God and a White Jesus. Even if some of their Bibles show a Black God and Jesus sometimes, why on Earth do they choose to worship the God which White Christians introduced to them as White gods, with sentences in the scriptures interpreted by Whites as their God(s, since Christians still argue over the Trinity concept) damning Black people to Hell from birth? I don't get it. But cultural patterns of the conquering and the conquered are written large on the historical record. Proselytizing by the sword is extremely effective. All bow down at the foot of the stabbed bleeding tortured man dying slowly by asphyxiation, suffering horribly from lack of food, water, rights, freedom or enough air to breath for all the rest of his days until death - an example to us all. ...more |
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Feb 26, 2020
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Feb 24, 2020
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| 006080503X
| 9780060805036
| 006080503X
| 4.32
| 31,614
| 1973
| Oct 01, 1979
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it was amazing
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I am surprised, no, shocked actually, at how perfectly constructed, researched and organized Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn's 'The Gulag Archipelago' is. H
I am surprised, no, shocked actually, at how perfectly constructed, researched and organized Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn's 'The Gulag Archipelago' is. He methodically describes the entire scheme developed in the Soviet Union from being arrested to examination and conviction in a legal court of judges to transportation to the awful Siberian prisons. Stalin perfected this legal political police state in order to legally murder or enslave millions of Russian citizens, but he only continued what others began. I have no doubts the Communist revolutionaries used communism like a drug or a religion to develop a religious and sexual ecstasy in themselves. Destroying free will and independence in their victims involved lots of nakedness and torture and starvation - to break down pride in their victims (and do what to watchers, hmmmm). Their version of communism became a legalized tool to utterly destroy any tendency to think for oneself in any human head, especially brains resistant to religious ecstasies. The novel '1984' 1984 is based on historical fact, gentle reader. The Soviet Union's history. This is a stomach-churning story of insanity and torture, gentle reader. Solzhenitsyn's scholarship cannot deaden the horror of a police state. Unlike the Nazis, the Communist revolutionaries passed laws which were totally bonkers. This was done in order to ensnare ANYONE who actually expressed any sort of opposition, or who might be thinking in the future of opposing, or maybe they simply cross their legs looking like they oppose the revolutionaries. These insane laws fed victims into an assembly line of institutionalized slavery madness by Stalin and his government. Perhaps the communists were trying to literally create metalic robots from living flesh through torture and starvation. Survivors were certain to be broken mentally after the systemic methodologies the revolutionaries developed to make human brains incapable of all thought. Honestly, if the revolutionaries and Stalin really wanted to only transform people into the type of citizen they wanted, they should have driven spikes into the eyes of their entire population. It works. Lobotomy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy Instead, I think they WANTED to keep their people busy in the daily work of torture and killing. What, I can hear you say, that is crazy! Yes, gentle reader, I agree. Yet it happened and was sustained by a human government and an entire country of compliant citizens. The Soviet Union later invaded all of eastern Europe and influenced many countries all over the world to change their governments into similar police states the Soviets had perfected. It is a mistake to blame the political theory of communism for this, gentle reader, in my humble opinion. This is male genetics gone wild. These are men given license to act on those impulses to make war on their fellows and control other people's bodies through violence. In 'The Gulag Archipelago' it was a Communist government. This madness has also been expressed by: -the Catholic Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisi..., -America's Red Scares https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sca... and Salem witch trials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_w..., -Idi Amin's Uganda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin, -Cambodia's Khmer Rouge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_R..., -China's Cultural Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultura... -North Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_K... and many many many many many other instances of human history, too numerous to list. Truly. Too numerous to list. Think about it. The insanity of these systemic institutionalized regimes of terror is clear to see. The mistake you might be making every day, gentle reader, is to assume this stuff could never happen again. It will happen again. It will. I strongly recommend reading 'The Gulag Archipelago' at least once in your life. At minimum, read '1984', a shorter fictional read which nonetheless mirrors the reality of many many many instances of human history. ...more |
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| 0446530204
| 9780446530200
| 0446530204
| 3.35
| 26
| Sep 23, 2002
| Sep 23, 2002
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really liked it
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'25 to Life' is an autobiography by a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice (this book was published in 2002). Leslie Crocker Snyder has very interesting st '25 to Life' is an autobiography by a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice (this book was published in 2002). Leslie Crocker Snyder has very interesting stories to tell! Because she became a New York City criminal court judge, working her way up through the ranks, the cases she handled sometimes involved notorious gangland characters - famous local street thugs and New York Mafia killers. She was forced to sometimes tolerate constant police security - even occasionally her entire family had police security assigned to them, plus sometimes they were living in 'safe houses' - depending on the threat and the proven murderous rapsheet of the criminal. Contracts were put on her life during trial and after conviction. Snyder grew up, attended school and began her career in an area - law - and in an America which does not welcome women in STEM or law/philosophy/business. Her struggles are not only revealing of a 1960's/1970's America, which still today does not apply the Constitution to women, they echo my own experiences in the 1960's/1970's. I would like to take a moment to remind readers this was not a hundred years ago - women did not begin to really break glass ceilings in substantial numbers until about 2000. Snyder was more fortunate than me - middle-class resources despite her academic father's moderate income as a scholar and a college teacher, highly educated environment, and an extremely supportive mom. She is extremely smart - which unfortunately wasn't part of my skillset! ; p In the book, Snyder describes the tactics of some defense lawyers and prosecutors, some of which are very funny or shocking. She describes the limits and the freedom she has as a judge to decide cases, sentencing and law. Jurisdiction can overlap, politics from above her paygrade and the outside world can interfere with internal mechanics of running a courtroom, gangland defendants can menace juries and lawyers and witnesses. She also describes in some detail the crimes of certain murderers, thugs and drug lords who controlled entire neighborhoods for decades before finally coming before her in court. These are horrific crimes - drug-dealing turf murders, forced prostitution and rape, terrorized neighborhoods. Snyder concludes her book with thoughts about how law works and what should be done to fix the problems. She talks about drug addiction - she agrees it is THE driving force behind most of the cases clogging the legal system and prisons with criminals and crime. She believes better probation options, drug treatment, educational opportunities, jobs, reintegration programs, and sentencing reform, are the answers to reducing crime. However, these common conclusions, which many public figures have discussed, cost money and many years of time to accomplish, as well as a focused effort to restructure entrenched interests and institutional customs. Believe it or not, gentle reader, there are Scandinavian countries who have and are doing what many incarceration experts in America recommend - and they work! https://www.theatlantic.com/internati... The book is for general readers, and it is well written and organized. I do not think the issues and cases she discusses are at all dated. Only names have changed in these familiar-sounding crimes, many of which in Snyder's career involved the drug called 'crack' (cocaine). Today, there are many many more drug-related crimes clogging our courts. Opioids are the new top seller of gangs. As I write this, local cities are enduring an upsurge of gang wars, drugs being a growth market which is very competitive and lucrative. Gang units in police departments are being re-constituted. However, despite the often diligent and earnest police activity, mules, street sellers and prostitutes who are murdered by their drug dealers are considered victimless crimes, in my humble opinion. Drug cartels have taken over Mexico turning it into a narco-state. Drug cartels are incredibly violent, powerful and evil, and currently, they often possess better weapons than police officers. There are/were other narco-state countries, too, past and current - Guinea-Bissau, Colombia, Suriname, Bolivia, and Venezuela for example. Through the years, I have read articles which posit maybe Pakistan and Afghanistan are narco-states as they are top producers of opium, even though drugs laws have been passed making any illegal drug production forbidden in these countries. And then there is The Golden Triangle, well known to Vietnam veterans. If you are old enough to remember The Golden Triangle, I imagine you believed they had been put out of business! No, not. From Wikipedia: "There is the Golden Triangle, well known to Vietnam veterans. The Golden Triangle is the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers. The name "Golden Triangle"—coined by the CIA—is commonly used more broadly to refer to an area of approximately 950,000 square kilometres (367,000 sq mi) that overlaps the mountains of the three adjacent countries. Along with Afghanistan in the Golden Crescent, it has been one of the largest opium-producing areas of the world, since the 1950s. Most of the world's heroin came from the Golden Triangle until the early 21st century when Afghanistan became the world's largest producer." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_... Changing the subject to another intractable and unsolvable area of crime - even though very rarely seen by judges in court - rape. Snyder established the first sex-crimes prosecution division in the country! Back then, there were few laws making rape a crime at all and few cops or lawyers were interested. But rapes are as ignored and unprosecuted today as they were in the 1990's despite the recent media interest in top chattering-class sex scandals. Today, it is the fault of labs being flooded with collected biological evidence that prosecutions are slow or none. The labs are unable to process rape kits in a timely manner because there are few dollars budgeted to process them. Rape is considered too common and not violent enough, and often hard to prosecute due to the situational witlessness of victims, to be given a large portion of small investigation budgets. Snyder's book is an interesting snapshot of a late 20th-century judge's life and cases, but there is surprisingly not much difference between those decades and today. ...more |
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Oct 23, 2019
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Hardcover
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| 0767903269
| 9780767903264
| 0767903269
| 3.96
| 4,435
| Aug 28, 2000
| Sep 05, 2000
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really liked it
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I can understand why a movie was made of 'The Informant' by Kurt Eichenwald! This FBI/Department of Justice case is very bizarre! Eichenwald, a New Yo
I can understand why a movie was made of 'The Informant' by Kurt Eichenwald! This FBI/Department of Justice case is very bizarre! Eichenwald, a New York Times reporter at the time, followed the true story for years. Initially, it was all about a typical white-collar price-fixing crime involving top-level respectable and powerful company executives. However, the whistleblower Mark Whitacre was no "deep-throat" informant! He was chaos personified, to put it mildly. Because of his antics, the FBI agents who worked with him never knew if he was simply suffering from fear and loss of nerve, or if there was something else going on with him. There was something else going on with him... Here is a link to the movie trailer. It seems like the movie is mostly accurate, especially in spirit to the character of Mark Whitacre: https://youtu.be/AGx7iw6y86s Mark Whitacre, thirty-four years old, an elite employee of the powerful agriculture company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and president of its Bioproducts Division, was an amazingly self-destructive executive. Eventually, no one knew when he was lying or telling the truth, including his poor betrayed wife, Ginger. He seemed incapable of revealing facts without either adding unnecessary embellishments or strange impossible falsehoods. (view spoiler)[Whether the mental illness he was finally diagnosed as having, bipolar disorder, was the correct one or not, he certainly made a mess of ADM's schemes in the mid-1990's to fix prices on necessary feed additives needed by farmers! Along the way, he unraveled in such a spectacularly and peculiar manner, he ended up going to prison longer than any one of the other convicted conspirators. (hide spoiler)] Whitacre was THE "cooperating witness" for the FBI. He wore taping devices and microphones into ADM meetings, and recorded meetings and conversations. With his undercover assistance, the FBI was able to set up cameras in some of the hotel rooms as well - indefectible evidence. But was Whitacre a good guy or bad? He was strangely reluctant for many days, but then suddenly he was wild with enthusiasm and suggestions. His stories about the prize-fixing scheme constantly changed, as did his explanations for mysteriously going off the grid. At one point, he said he was being blackmailed by a Japanese company into sabotaging ADM's bacteria vats, another time he said he'd been beaten and kidnapped. It all sounded suspiciously like a book by John Grisham, The Firm. Who WAS this guy? The FBI discovered he lied about his birth family, telling some people he was adopted. He lied about some of his education, claiming degrees he didn't have. His non-ADM business associates and friends had been told conflicting explanations for business deals and Swiss/Bahamas bank accounts he talked them into fronting for him. His wife believed him he was doing a good thing, exposing ADM corruption, but she thought the FBI agents and Department of Justice lawyers were throwing Whitacre under the bus because of the complaints he voiced at home, most of which turned out to be lies. Was Mark Whitacre sane? Wtf? (view spoiler)[Then they heard rumors about a letter from a Nigerian Prince Whitacre had received back before all of this started... (hide spoiler)] From Wikipedia: "The Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) is an American global food processing and commodities trading corporation, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The company operates more than 270 plants and 420 crop procurement facilities worldwide, where cereal grains and oilseeds are processed into products used in food, beverage, nutraceutical, industrial, and animal feed markets worldwide." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_... Today, 2019, ADM appears to be doing well under new management, no longer making illegal conspiracies with other agriculture-commodity companies around the world (Japan, China, South Korea, etc.). However, the main price-fixing plot for which ADM was eventually brought to justice involved at first a product called Lysine. "Lysine production for animal feed is a major global industry, reaching in 2009 almost 700,000 tonnes for a market value of over €1.22 billion. Lysine is an important additive to animal feed because it is a limiting amino acid when optimizing the growth of certain animals such as pigs and chickens for the production of meat. Lysine supplementation allows for the use of lower-cost plant protein (maize, for instance, rather than soy) while maintaining high growth rates, and limiting the pollution from nitrogen excretion...Lysine is industrially produced by microbial fermentation, from a base mainly of sugar. Genetic engineering research is actively pursuing bacterial strains to improve the efficiency of production and allow lysine to be made from other substrates." from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysine The lysine price-fixing conspiracy was an organized effort during the mid-1990s to raise the price of the animal feed additive lysine. It involved five companies that had commercialized high-tech fermentation technologies, including American company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Japanese companies Ajinomoto and Kyowa Hakko Kogyo, and Korean companies Sewon America Inc. and Cheil Jedang Ltd. A criminal investigation resulted in fines and three-year prison sentences for three executives of ADM who colluded with the other companies to fix prices. The foreign companies settled with the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division in September through December 1996. Each firm and four executives from the Asian firms pleaded guilty as part of a plea bargain to aid in further investigation against ADM. The cartel had been able to raise lysine prices 70% within their first nine months of cooperation. The investigation yielded $105 million in criminal fines, a record antitrust penalty at the time, including a $70 million fine against ADM. ADM was fined an additional $30 million for its participation in a separate conspiracy in the citric acid market and paid a total fine of $100 million. Three former high-ranking ADM executives were convicted in September 1998 after a ten-week jury trial. Buyers of lysine in the United States and Canada sued and recovered $80 to $100 million in damages from the five cartel members, and ADM paid $38 million to settle mismanagement suits by its shareholders. The lysine cartel was the first successful prosecution of an international cartel by the U.S. Department of Justice in more than 40 years. Since then, the DoJ has discovered and prosecuted scores of international cartels. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysine_... Kurt Eichenwald, the author and investigating reporter of this story, included an extensive Notes and Sources section. There also are multiple media hits on Google if the gentle reader cares to search for further reading. This was a popular news story! Trust me, it IS so incredibly amazing. Mark Whitacre is one of those people who could have easily been a reality TV star - definitely the equal of any Trump-involved production - if he had been a media influencer in these Ott years. ...more |
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Aug 23, 2019
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Aug 18, 2019
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Hardcover
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| 067080889X
| 9780670808892
| 067080889X
| 3.91
| 352
| 1999
| Nov 01, 1999
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it was amazing
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If readers are interested in how business is conducted in the United States, a capitalist democracy, ‘Empire Express’ by David Hayward Bain will be in
If readers are interested in how business is conducted in the United States, a capitalist democracy, ‘Empire Express’ by David Hayward Bain will be instructive. Although the business was the construction of the first transcontinental railroad from Sacramento, California in the ancient and long-forgotten or unknown American era of 1863, and it was ultimately successful (although costly in lives and sweat besides costing millions of nineteenth-century public and private dollars), it couldn’t have been done without the mental and physical endurance of middlemen surviving destructive personal drama and strife, political corruption, and even more greedy and wealthy powerful men with strong psychopathic and narcissistic tendencies who insert themselves into the project hoping for opportunities for theft and self-aggrandizement. Stories of Pure Altruism are only for the rubes reading the front pages of local spin-doctored sources, reader. How and why people conduct themselves in getting actual business done is generally not often or only for the welfare of the public. Business majors especially should put this book on their TBR list, although, in theory, stuff that happens like what happens in this book are now prevented by new laws and regulations, and a lot more watchdog institutions. Not. It was interesting to me that it was newspapers and journalists who broke the story publicly of the corruption of some members of the U.S Congress and some of their Wall Street investment enablers who supported the successful completion of a railroad stretching across 2,000+ miles. These journalists did so in the heightened political atmosphere of America’s post-Civil War era (1869), after the assassination of an American President, the still ongoing struggle to end slavery, and the dramatic creation of new western states. Three cheers for a Free Press!!! Without the Constitutionally-protected journalists and historians this book would not have been written and published. Without free access to government records, without democratic legal mechanisms of law, without the uncensored research of academics, without libraries, without voluntary contributions of willing family members who desire to reveal family history warts and all, this American-foundation story would be unknown. See? I am not entirely negative about American history and accomplishments, and I believe Americans are certainly not all mean and selfish capitalists out to screw everyone for money and power! But I will note, gentle reader, do the paperwork. We all need to learn and succeed by doing the backup paperwork and legal research in a democracy. Turning in the required forms, doing the grunt work of talking to lawyers and bank managers and city officials and, regrettably, politicians - reading and filing the Paperwork - is the true start of success in any endeavor in any capitalist democracy. Founding geniuses, inventors and dreamers of all business ventures pretty much will founder when they f*kc up on the paperwork, social connecting, advice getting and legal leg-work. Some one with charisma, chutzpah, but not much ethics, and maybe they know a lot about paperwork,,will certainly slip past you and claim your dream and work for their own. Hopefully, history will be kinder to you then the unscrupulous are. Free-press journalists and honest historians love paper trails... Many of the stories behind major contributions to social happiness and class uplift begins with altruistic dreamers, technological geniuses, and genuine heroes who freely pursued their goals, helped by far-seeing folks with money and power. The story of the first American transcontinental railroad definitely begins and ends with happy and admirable chapters included with many heroic engineers, workers and risk-taking businessmen, giving of themselves and their fortunes in a seemingly impossible Herculean task! But finding and buying nuts and bolts (and bullets, which helped eliminate millions of the pesky Indians angry at the uncompensated theft of their country by the railroad companies and emigrants), screwdrivers and equipment, require the skills and compromises of hard-nosed businessmen, lawyers and politicians. Dreamers cannot do it by visionary imagination and wishes alone. Does the end justify the means? In America, frequently. Personal enrichment and powerful egos hungry for public acclaim often fuel huge paradigm-shifting technological achievements. When such an individual creates or makes possible a wonderful New Thing that also benefits millions of ordinary people, hooray, right? We can’t all be an Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, or Steve Jobs, so good thing some people are amazing or amazingly lucky despite their personality faults. However, when hundreds of different men, each with the complex ambitions of an Emperor Napoleon, need to yoke themselves together in order to build something as huge as a Wonder of the World (or just a railroad across a country with four time zones with a hellish nightmare of topological landscapes), things get complicated. And nasty. Gentle reader, if you are a kid or of a Pollyanna disposition, you can read heroic and patriotic versions of this particular story of Great Men, with the help of the U.S. government, who accomplished a miracle of engineering. However, if you are curious about how building enormously important historical structures which did indeed helped to empower and strengthen the American experiment, read this book. Gentle reader, entire forests were cut down for the ties, workers were scalped, tunnel collapses and bad weather killed hundreds! Millions of dollars in vapor financing and stock deals with politicians frequently were negotiated, fell apart, and we're negotiated again hundreds of times. Communications were messed up, refuted, retracted or purposefully obfuscated previous approvals, responsibility and plans were unmade. Towns were created, like Reno, that did not exist until the railroad was built. 'Hell on Wheels' was a real thing, a movable town which followed the ten thousands of track workers, full of prostitutes, gambling halls, bars, theaters, alcohol, criminals - and no laws whatsoever. Interestingly, EVERYBODY was, profoundly disturbed and horrified by the Mormon towns, over and over, considering them more depraved even than 'Hell on Wheels'. No one who met Brigham Young left feeling very clean. It wasn’t a pretty story. Sausage making never is. However, 'Empire Express' is a very pretty history book written by an author not afraid of dense and convoluted research. This book is not only a doorstopper physically, it is thick with seemingly day-by-day facts, figures and biographies, backed by journals, diaries, letters and historical documents, of the decades-long birth of the first intercontinental railroad. It ends with the creation of two rival railroad companies - the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific - who despite their lurid bastard beginnings, was a fantastic contribution to America. Trips which had taken three months of travel, for example, from New York City to San Francisco, whether by boat or in covered wagons, now took a few days. Everything changed. The book has an extensive Notes, Bibliography and Index sections. There also are pictures which are extremely interesting of the main 'characters' - the good guys and the horrible crooks - as well as of the rough terrain - mountains, deserts, rivers, canyons and deep valleys and hills, granite and clay and rocks and sand and high altitudes - that the surveyors, engineers, and workers (Irish and Chinese) struggled and blasted through to lay down track. It's a mind-blowing book! ...more |
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Aug 09, 2019
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Aug 14, 2019
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Aug 09, 2019
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| 006059537X
| 9780060595371
| 006059537X
| 4.10
| 7,593
| Feb 2003
| Jan 16, 2004
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it was amazing
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'Couldn't Keep It To Myself' by Wally Lamb is a sad book of short autobiographical stories written by eleven imprisoned women attending a memoir-writi
'Couldn't Keep It To Myself' by Wally Lamb is a sad book of short autobiographical stories written by eleven imprisoned women attending a memoir-writing class. They are racially White and Black. They come from the underclass and the middle-class. Their writings are edited, but unfortunately the real lives of these women were not. The convictions? Credit card fraud Embezzlement Assault Drug trafficking Manslaughter Homicide Commonalities: Childhood traumas, mostly because of shit parents, even if those parents didn’t mean to be terrible. Some of the writers' parents supposedly loved their, generally in number, four kids, some totally didn't. Some of the prisoners claim to love their own, generally numbering about four, kids. Generally the moms of the imprisoned writers worked hard at either outside jobs and/or at trying to guide their kids without much ability, time or knowledge about talking to their kids. Some of the incarcerated women also worked outside the home before their convictions, holding down jobs. Dads generally did not act as if they loved their kids despite their stated vows of deep affection and honorable intentions. Sex education appears to be non-existent, being limited to parental threats without any explanations or efforts to give their daughters birth control. In reality dads, and some moms, acted either with constant punitive violence or selfishness, and often both. Dads almost never provided any funding or time for their kids, despite their claims of eternal love of family and their significant other. Actions speak louder than words, parents... -Most of the women had been raped before age twelve, several by dads, stepdads, or adult friends of the family. -All of the women were involved with a boy or a man in a sexual relationship before age sixteen, feeling it was true love. -All of them were deserted by the fathers of their children. -Most of the women dropped out of high school, primarily because they hated school. -They clearly did not read much before being incarcerated - I can tell, as probably most Goodreads members can when meeting new people - lack of perspective and introspection being the primary clues, especially when these women were in their teens. Plus, excessive reliance on ignorant passed-around social and family tropes and beliefs, without examination or educated knowledge. -Most have four children, and a couple of divorces/separations or several true-love relationships before they were convicted of crimes and imprisoned. -Most had many many many ‘homes’, their parents moving a lot. -Most have ADHD, or learning disabilities, or personality disorders. Stereotypical, you may be indignantly thinking? Absolutely. Because most real prison inmates often actually do have the same type of family dramas again and again, as verified by outside family members and described by researchers and journalists. The details differ, but not the outlines. Many stereotypes are based on reality, sometimes exaggerated, but real nonetheless. If we want to hear different stories from and about prison inmates, we need to finally fix the causes of criminal behavior. What are the causes? DID YOU READ THE ABOVE EXPERIENCES I RELATED ABOUT THESE WOMEN? So far, America has little to show in improving the situation despite many thousands of so-called fixes I have seen, read about or tried, by religious authorities, NGO's or government programs. Republicans generally think more beatings, punishment, shaming and blaming will fix criminals - as if that hasn't been the child education methodology go-to that most of these women's parents already have done. I do not understand how a substance-addicted or learning-disabled high school dropout coming out of prison decades later still unable to read, write or add figures will somehow be able to become a tax-paying, morally-respectable citizen [and parent] after being warehoused, raped, neglected, deprived, punished and beaten while imprisoned; and never having used an up-to-date computer or smart phone or having been given a meaningful education or mandatory psychiatric treatment. Accept it that the punitive actions many conservatives DO, even if not publicly admitted, actually result in a permanent population of those who are driven to resort to criminal behavior through either mental problems or financial poverty. Many progressives almost never follow through or continue the often fantastic success-proven educational prison programs they initiate, since they dry up funding after a quarter of a year or after they've been reelected, dropping the ball. Some progressives and conservatives are fucking crazy, believing in granola- or prayer-lifestyles is all it takes. Very few businesses truly want an ex-prisoner for an employee, given the issues enumerated above. Women also must face gender discrimination and predations of men bosses and peers, especially if they have children to support and a criminal record, an easy blackmail opportunity. The women in this book who no longer are incarcerated, alas, all seem to be working for NGO’s as councilors, a notoriously low-paid employment, for other women who are substance-addicted and abused by their male lovers. I am using the term “male lovers” satirically, given the evidence of these women. We demonize and condemn the mothers for lack of moral values, while wink-wink, excuse the fathers because 'boys will be boys', both genders actually acting out often in the same behaviors (as well as in gender-specific behaviors despite whatever we liberals do to erase some female/male differences). But, we do almost nothing (except relying on using moral misdirection or Pollyanna fixes of temporary hope), to resolve the actual dysfunctional family foundation of generations: No. Financial. Or. Enrichment. Resources. We refuse, absolutely refuse, to provide any real laws or enforcement of laws, or any long-term funding, for mandatory psychiatric care. Personally, I am beginning to believe all parents should be absolutely licensed, with proofs of having the ability to support children financially and psychologically, particularly since we are tending to make abortion a moral issue and illegal, or as nearly impossible to get as a free college education. If you think abortion should be illegal, then why is crap parenting not made illegal? Crap parenting is absolutely a crime, too, despite Pollyanna thinking. SUPPORT WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN WITH FINANCIAL RESOURCES AND EARLY EDUCATION. MEN, KEEP YOUR GD PENIS IN YOUR PANTS UNLESS YOU USE BIRTH CONTROL AND SUPPORT YOUR KIDS COMPLETELY FOR EIGHTEEN YEARS WITH GD MONEY AND TIME WITHOUT ABUSE. Wally Lamb is a well-known author, and Dale Griffith has taught at the York Correctional Institution School, both supporting writing workshops at prisons. An example of ‘involved’ fatherhood: https://youtu.be/jHPbOGEUvZA ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jun 15, 2019
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Jun 18, 2019
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Jun 15, 2019
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Paperback
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| B003L77UI4
| 3.91
| 8,831
| 1989
| May 11, 2010
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it was amazing
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'Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein' is one of those books almost all of you, my primarily gentle and, sad to say, mostly duplicitous readers
'Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein' is one of those books almost all of you, my primarily gentle and, sad to say, mostly duplicitous readers, will deny having the stomach to read at all. Many of you already insist that books in the true-crime genre are beneath you, especially ones like this one, which describe the factual events of crimes so gruesome and insane most people will have nightmares after *not* reading, for sure, guaranteed. Yet, as we *do not* eat such stories up with secret avidity, somehow these type of true crime murders are the source materials for the majority of the fictional plots in movies, books and TV shows, not to mention the actual real-life 2,625 (est.) serial killers currently walking around in America. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/t... * * marks the lies we tell Ed Gein was a real person whose recorded police interviews in 1957 and the collected evidence in his Plainfield, Wisconsin, farmhouse about his insane crimes have been acknowledged by thousands of media producers and writers to inspire them creatively. What does that say about them? About us, who plunk down billions of dollars to buy books, movies and DVDs with gruesome murders? Never mind, gentle reader. It's all * *. Alfred Hitchcock's fictional movie 'Psycho' and the iconic movies 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' and 'The Silence of the Lambs' have all been acknowledged to be directly influenced by Ed Gein's crimes. I know, gentle reader, all of you know of or have seen these movies or read the fiction novels upon which the movies are based. This is a fact that Google and/or Facebook probably does really know about you, gentle reader, whatever lies you tell me as well as your mom or your more intellectual arty associates. Movie trailer of 'Psycho' (Hitchcock really sets the mood): https://youtu.be/DTJQfFQ40lI Movie trailer of 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' https://youtu.be/Vs3981DoINw Movie trailer of 'The Silence of the Lambs': https://youtu.be/W6Mm8Sbe__o Remakes or sequels, which by the very fact so many exist because they cost millions to make, also put the lie to your supposed aversion or good taste, gentle reader: Psycho = Six, officially https://bloody-disgusting.com/reviews... The Texas Chainsaw Massacre = Eight, more or less https://www.imdb.com/list/ls077342584/ The Silence of the Lambs = Four https://www.imdb.com/list/ls068786041/ Of course, these movies are all so low-brow. Few would dream of soiling their intelligence with watching or reading such trash! Right? Right? *Ahem* In case, though, you are curious about the trash some readers root around in, I highly recommend 'Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein'. It is well-written, the tone is calm and reasoned, and the research is impressive (I wish a bibliography had been added though). It is icky, too. However, there are no exaggerations other than what newspaper and television journalists made up, which the author graphically describes with barely concealed snickers, well-deserved in my opinion. The actual depravities of Ed Gein are terrible even when described in the factual manner the author is careful to maintain throughout the book. Only mentally-ill people can easily do necrophiliac stuff like this. Even hardened combat soldiers and toughened police officers get lifelong PTSD if they endure burial duties too often. Seriously, gentle reader, we need to know and understand that these type of crimes are committed -often- in real life, in every type of family in small towns and in large cities. No place where people exist is immune from 'evil' if these acts are evil. Four out of ten people in any room have experienced childhood abuse. Personally, I think they ARE evil acts, horrific and damaging. Worse, violence and cruelty are often passed down for generations, cracking apart the most normal but vulnerable minds in childhood, passing on the trauma in different ways in adulthood to following generations. We truly are a society which is paying for our sin of not treating mental illness quickly or adequately, before it turns into something monstrous. And so many of us live in denial of cruelty and evil created by mental illness. In this sense, such evil is the fault of most of us. Hiding your head in a hole in the ground to avoid reality may mean the rest of you will follow, in pieces. The adult crimes which were caused by mental illness enhanced by childhood abuse or poverty is common, gentle reader. I have been touched by such crimes - and I bet you have too, however you may have softened it in your mind, or denied it, or reframed it only happening the one time...etc. I direct my childhood anguish into black humor and a fascination with the macabre, still trying to make sense of it all, maybe mixed in with some neurotic OCD, probing over and over like one does with a tongue on an aching tooth. But I also love reading well-written books like this one, being seduced by its literary language, slightly amused tone, and research. It is a very good book, not only about Ed Gein, but also about the indifference of neighbors, the social circus of media and legal professionals driven by an obviously salacious, but publically only righteous, population of consumers without any true sense of what personal decency and responsibility is, and the benefits of psychiatric care received BEFORE bad trouble starts. The author does not convey any opinions but those of the people involved. The opinions above are only mine. I recommend this book, but with severe warnings to those still experiencing any flashbacks from any personal traumas. Harold Schechter, the author, is a professor at Queens College, the City University of New York. ...more |
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1
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Sep 18, 2018
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Sep 19, 2018
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Sep 18, 2018
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Kindle Edition
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| 1492649368
| 9781492649366
| B01N7KMS7X
| 4.15
| 159,015
| Jun 2016
| Apr 18, 2017
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really liked it
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I have read many sad and horrifying books, gentle reader. But I believe the saddest non-fiction that now tops my list of horrifyingly sad reads is ‘Th
I have read many sad and horrifying books, gentle reader. But I believe the saddest non-fiction that now tops my list of horrifyingly sad reads is ‘The Radium Girls: the Dark Story of America's Shining Women.' What was done to these girls, and they were girls, reminded me of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuske... on Wikipedia. White men were involved once again, except in this case they were White businessmen of 1916 -1978 instead of United States government scientists, in using young girls and women in work which was secretly poisoning them. Radiation slowly killed the girl workers while they earned fortunes for the male company management and the men of Wall Street. The female employees of radium factories and 'studios' where watches and dials were painted with radium paint (thus the girls were called artists) were nothing but faceless interchangeable and cheap components of a manufacturing process which created value for stockholders and paychecks for the managers of the company. The company was originally named Radium Luminous Materials Corporation, but it changed its name and owners later. (view spoiler)[The managers knew the girls (from age 14 to 28) were also daughters and sisters, human beings, who were dreaming and working for a future of marriage, children and of owning a house, supporting parents - goals with which they used to motivate the girls to work as fast as they could. They were paid for piece work production, not a salary. These men feigned humanitarian motives in giving these girls jobs all the while they were mercilessly exploiting them for labor which would kill all of the women in less than two to thirteen years on average. Their unborn children died in the womb when they became pregnant as they married later in their short lives. Radium poisoning generally took two years to begin destroying the marrow and bones, destroying white blood cells and growing out-of-control sarcomas. The women had no idea they were radioactive. They enjoyed the glow radium dust gave their faces, bodies and clothes as they walked home in the dark. They certainly had no way to wash the fine particles off at work. They would find it was all over their skin every night, as well as in their food as they ate their lunches near the benches where they worked. There was an awareness based on laboratory accidents and sicknesses reported by male technical employees working with radium every day that the 'miracle paint' made people sick. These incidents were ignored at first when radium was still simply considered 'fun' by most people eager to find uses for it when it was newly discovered. Later the growing evidence of harm was purposefully covered up when managers noticed their workers were strangely ill. No one really recognized radium was a radioactive substance at first, except for a few European scientists, or knew what radiation did to flesh - it simply was pretty and a pretty useful mineral because it glowed. Applications of radium in small amounts for a limited number of days seemed to actually cure some physical ailments and aches. It became a widespread 'healthy' condiment additive for drinks and cooking recipes, as well as a 'healthy' additive to many manufactured foods and medicines. The mysterious but pretty glowing in the dark effect of radium had many clothing, shoe and makeup manufacturers adding it to their products. The military realized mechanical dials could be read in the dark interiors of ships, planes and submarines. Creative manufacturers of watches, clocks and other household gimcracks and doodads thought it the perfect marketing paint to bump up sales. Painting watch dials with radium seemed like a cool idea - those little glowing numbers 1-12 were easy to see, and that entrancing glow was so pretty! (The public also snapped up the glowing clothing, makeup, food condiments and syrups and pills.) Later, the military was signing multi-million dollar contracts for glowing machine dials with radium production companies. However, a minor snag in production - small but adept hands were required to paint those little numbers - so girls suddenly were in demand as a work force for painting the numbers on all kinds of dials. The fastest and cheapest way to paint while at the same time reusing paint brushes, was to have the girls suck on the brushes to re-point the tips of the brushes. Some of the girls complained about having to eat the radium paint, and about its taste and gritty texture, but it was the job. Nobody knew, at first, alpha, beta and gamma rays were being radiated from the radium paint and ingested, but later the company knew - and then covered it up for decades. (hide spoiler)] The author Kate Moore focuses her book on telling the individual biographies of several of the doomed girls (most became unknowingly poisoned with atomic radiation when they were age 15 to 17). They were ordinary working class girls - giggly, building trousseaus, dating, dancing, smoking cigarettes, saving and hoping for gorgeous dresses, shoes and purses and feathered hats. It was the 1920's. Girls wore cute bobs - the latest in fashion - and oh, so freeing! They could move their heads about without the weight of hair slowing them down, and work at paying jobs like men! Many of them wrote eagerly of their lives and hopes in diaries and journals (which the author uses as source material), happily posed for photographs when the opportunity arose - photography! So cool! So modern! Progress was wonderful! (view spoiler)[When the horrible illnesses began, the girls were isolated from each other (couldn't compare notes) and mystified by their joint aches and teeth falling out, but not really concerned until their jawbones burst out of their mouths. Many had quit working at Radium Luminius Materials, now called United States Radium Corporation (1921) to get married or for better jobs, so they did not know their illnesses were caused by radium poisoning. The company knew the truth by this time - and lied and lied and lied and lied for the next 25 years, denying radium was radioactive, denying the girls compensation, denying the girls validation or justice. The medical expenses of the women was destroying the women's families' lives, and not only the women - as their fathers mortgaged their houses, and husbands emptied their savings accounts. Plus, as the lawyers discovered, when the girls found some lawyers who believed them, there were no laws covering this new situation. But before the dreadful lack of justice which the girls endured happened, was the horrible lack of belief by anyone that they had been poisoned by the radium. One girl suffered the indignity of being accused of having syphillis. Others were diagnosed with rheumatism and consumption. Their sufferings are graphically described in awful detail, and are terrible. Only one amazing Doctor correctly diagnosed radiation poisoning - and he was laughed at and ignored. Local newspapers and politicians blamed the women for hysterics or being mental cases - while supporting a company which was providing jobs to the community over the women's complaints. (hide spoiler)] There is such a huge litany of horrors piled on top of horrors of crimes committed against these innocent girls, gentle reader, fueled by the financial greed of a few businessmen who tried to bury the truth that they were poisoning their workforce with malice and intent for decades, even after they knew the truth after about three years. I can only conclude it was because that that workforce consisted of young females these men were so adamant in refusing compensation or persisted in stripping all human dignity from these women. Their heartlessness was not just inexcusable, it was monstrously lacking in any sympathy or sense of fairness. These men wanted to humiliate and destroy these women, show them as ridiculous and unworthy of respect. It wasn't only greed. They refused compromises which many observers knew were doable. These businessmen could not accept 'being beaten' in court or being forced to deal with women as human beings with rights to lives equal to themselves, imho. As I read this shocking nightmare of a historical event but yet entirely true story, I couldn't help but see how little has changed in how many businesses function today. I was also amazed to learn it was this incident with radium poisoning and the physical ravages the girls experienced which informed the researches into radiation damage by the scientists on the Manhattan Project during World War II in the development of the atomic bomb. The girls' bodies were dug up for examination. Not only were the bodies somewhat preserved, they glowed and crackled with radiation. There are extensive Notes and Bibliography sections, as well as pictures of the girls before and after, with some of their tumors. ...more |
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Mar 30, 2018
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Apr 04, 2018
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Mar 30, 2018
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Kindle Edition
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| 1400097460
| 9781400097463
| 1400097460
| 3.68
| 9,380
| Apr 01, 1997
| May 03, 2005
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really liked it
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‘Starvation Heights’ is as much about the general human capacity for self-delusion as it is about a particularly spectacular and charismatic lunatic c
‘Starvation Heights’ is as much about the general human capacity for self-delusion as it is about a particularly spectacular and charismatic lunatic criminal. It will be easy, I suspect, for most of us to wonder at the credulity and gullibility of people, especially young women, in reading about this amazing true crime story which occurred at the turn of the century (1910). Deadly health cures were being touted as fabulously effective by so-called ‘scientists’ and ‘doctors’, most of whom did not even have a high school diploma. Unfortunately, there were no shortage of willing victims any more than there were lawyers willing to prosecute or police officers wanting to do arrests. As usual in such cases where victims hold some responsibility for their fleecing and/or destruction, even if not anything near as much responsibility for it all as their beloved villainous crook, courts are reluctant to spend much time and especially money prosecuting these bad guys even today unless evidence is overwhelming and dead bodies are piling up. Sham health cures and fake doctors who lure in hypochondriacs and ‘beautiful people’ wannabes are low on the list for those pursuing criminal action against lawbreakers, especially in poor counties or states. Purveyors of illegal, dangerous and unproven weight-loss schemes for improving health and beauty easily would overwhelm every court in the world if prosecutors vigorously pursued convictions. Advertised health-improvement claims from ‘legitimate’ spas, meditation centers, health resorts and fat farms of today do not raise from most people hardly a passing doubt despite their obvious hokum. So, looking back at a time where social media consisted of newspapers only, and education was either shallow or nonexistent, think of how much easier it would be to convince customers of the health benefits of unproven practices when knowledge was spread by mostly gossip and rumor, ads and fads. Sisters Dorothea and Claire Williamson were orphaned while young, but in 1910 they were in their mid-thirties. Unmarried, wealthy, having gone to the best finishing schools in Europe and England, they were traveling first across Canada to Vancouver, British Columbia, and then down to the United States and Seattle, Washington. Although they had relatives, money and property all over the world, they yet were naive and trusting, especially Claire. Their journey was ostensibly about visiting relatives, but they were also very much interested in improving their digestive health by visiting popular health institutes for the upper classes which were all the rage at the time. (For an excellent satirical, but well-researched, fictional novel about the 1900’s fad of ‘healthy’ cleansing of one’s digestive tract in America, read T. C. Boyle’s The Road to Wellville.) The sisters had already stopped at several famous and small sanitariums, institutions and ‘hospitals’ that promised to cure many kinds of aches, pains and nebulous, scientifically described, diseases which haunted the bored and inactive moneyed classes. At the turn of the century, most of the health institutes of the time cured their patients of excess money through the most recent fad of expensive treatments of cleansing diets and enemas. Women of wealth often went to these digestive health and diet clinics for such ‘diseases’ as occasional discomforts of the uterus, diagnosed by mercenary fake and real medical doctors. One such ‘doctor’ was at work in Seattle. ‘Dr.’ Linda Burfield Hazzard advertised in the local Seattle newspaper about her institution in Olalla, Washington, and offered her book, Fasting for the Cure of Disease. She was well-respected, politically and socially powerful with highly-placed supporters and deep pockets. Under her care, people often fasted for over 30 days and more. Her treatments involved ‘meals’ of ‘fresh’ tomato and asparagus juice, with gallons of hot water enemas which lasted hours. Her patients were apparently so grateful to her for curing all of their bodily cares, they sometimes signed over all of their worldly goods to her (view spoiler)[shortly before they disappeared forever, leaving her institute feet first, carried out by the Hazzards’ favorite discreet local funeral director, perhaps, or their bodies may have been cut up and the flesh boiled away in kitchen pots. (hide spoiler)] Many of those who survived truly were grateful to Linda, utterly convinced that having been reduced to 60 pounds helped their health improve. It took awhile, but reporters, witnesses and detective work eventually revealed Linda and her husband, the handsome Sam, were not exactly what they claimed. Who were they, really? Did Dora and Claire survive? Read the book. It is fascinating, and all true. The author Gregg Olsen, an investigative reporter, wrote the book in the style of a fact-based fiction novel. It sometimes led him into creating assumed but logical scenes. I get it - he wanted to humanize the victims of the Hazzards. While the story is backed up with research, actual documents and newspaper reports of the time, and he does really try to keep to the story as told by witnesses, I felt sometimes he wandered too much into fictional territory. Nonetheless, what an incredible true crime! ...more |
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1
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Nov 05, 2017
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Nov 07, 2017
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Nov 05, 2017
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Paperback
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| 0062269488
| 9780062269485
| 0062269488
| 3.24
| 1,054
| Jan 12, 2015
| Jan 12, 2015
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really liked it
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I liked ‘Whipping Boy’, but it is a difficult book to categorize in several ways. There is no way I can predict how the book will be for you, gentle r
I liked ‘Whipping Boy’, but it is a difficult book to categorize in several ways. There is no way I can predict how the book will be for you, gentle reader, at all, since personal predilections will come into play in a truly big way, I think. Because of several content oddities, readers may be irritated or bored after reading a hundred pages, and end up skimming or returning the book to the library as a ‘dnf’. The publishing company's marketing department has done a bit of descriptive bait-'n-switch. 'Whipping Boy’ is marketed as a non-fiction story combining the library classifications of memoir and true crime, which are partially true. The author, Allen Kurzweil, relates his life story and his research into a fraud case which went to trial and resulted in convictions. My library classified the book as a biography, which it partially is, as it tells the life story, briefly and incomplete, of the ‘bully’, Cesar Augustus, who was involved in the fraud case. Other libraries classify the book simply as an autobiography. In my opinion, half of the book could be classified and placed where libraries file books about financial scandals such as those about Enron, Lehman Brothers, UBS, HSBC and LIBOR, and frauds by members of the Big Five accounting firms. Libraries usually sort such book's under Social Sciences (300 in the Dewey Decimal System). This book contains a lot of detail about a similar type of financial fraud, including author interviews with some of the case’s principals and investigators. The subject matter is interesting if readers enjoy reading trauma autobiographies and business histories and books about white-collar crime, which usually are in separate books but not always, as in this book. The material of the book includes an autobiographical first-person narration of Allen Kurzweil’s life, as I previously mentioned; a history of the decades-long search by the author, using Google and personal contacts, to find the whereabouts of the bully, Cesar, who haunts Kurzweil’s mind and his entire life; and research by the author leading to a in-depth description of a white-collar bank fraud committed by a company called Badische Trust. The story is excellently organized as far as the timeline of events, although some general readers may hate the stitching together of genre types. The tone of the book veers wildly between journalistic, even sometimes academic, competence, and trembling juvenile uncertainty. Adding to the mixing up of emotional tone in the book, the people who were behind the fraudulent Badisch Trust presented themselves in the manner of vaudevillian actors. They inhabited the roles of aristocrat gentlemen as if they were intentionally performing as obvious stereotypes from central casting, so a feeling of amazement that they succeeded in tricking smart people is definitely appropriate. Every true story begins with a person remembering what happened, and then talking about it. The longer a person speaks, the more indirect information a listener hears and sees - verbal ticks, facial expressions, tone of voice, habitual tells - all that stuff between the lines which communicates so much visually to observers. Harder to figure out and put in context are the more general or opaque expressions and body movements, many of which are open to a number of interpretations, which is why knowing a person helps. Between-the-lines communication clues also occur with memoirs and autobiographies, except that indirect information is transmitted by word choices and what incidents and emotions are emphasized or diminished, what pictures and documents are included, and if there was a ghost writer or a translator. The reproducible research, memories which are verified by other witnesses, and documented events a book includes, the length of time covered in a book, the credentials of involved interview subjects, what the book describes that Google searches find elsewhere that back up described scenes, facts and incidents - all can be very important to many autobiographies (of course, some autobiographies are completely unverifiable and must be taken on trust). A good grasp of potential human behavior, developed through experience, helps. Despite the marketing of the book advertising it as being about a search for a childhood bully, which it is, it seemed to me the bully incident, while maybe affecting the author’s mentality for the rest of his life, is sort of a mcguffin in final analysis of the book’s material. Kurzweil is a writer of children's books and science articles. He has received much academic recognition and rewards in grants. Frankly, he speaks in conversations using a dialogue approach as if he were still a young boy of ten given the impression I have reached from this book, but nonetheless he is a fantastic detective and a productive journalist when he is on the job. Somehow. Plus he is married with a son. E and his family all are highly educated. I really think the book is a three-star and a half rating in considering his personal style of composing speech, if the way he self-reveals in the book is accurate, but the book is five-star as far as rating his research and perseverance, sporadic as it is. He paints his tenacity as occurring because of his anxiety and panic issues. Omg, does his anxiety really show, and man, it really grates and annoys in the reading of his memoir sections. I can see why he might prefer to stick to children's books. Although it is non-fiction, lengthy dialogue is included, most of which reminded me of the speaking manner of the childish and ignorant criminals in Elmore Leonard novels. Although the book’s conversations are between the author and family, contacts, and professionals, the impression I got of the author is one of an insecure juvenility. For me, this was very annoying. It may not be true, but that is how it seemed to me, and I was very irritated. I actually checked out both the audiobook and the hardcover of ‘Whipping Boy’ by accident. For fun, I listened AND read along. As it happened, the audiobook is narrated by the author. He has a speech cadence of talking in three - words, syllables, phrases - with a pause between each set of three, regardless of the sentence. This added to the impression of juvenility because it was done in such a nervous anxious manner! Kurzweil admits to having an anxiety disorder, as well as probably being obsessive. This book would not have been written, I think, if those two things about the author were not true, but yikes! What made me feel the author himself was an annoying human being was the author’s tone of dancing around in a hot skillet when discussing his reaction to his personal history - before, during and after ‘the whipping incident’. He appears to be someone uncomfortable with ‘owning his feelings and emotions’ as they say in publicity-speak. I know we GR reviewers are supposed to be circumspect in discussing living authors. So. Allen Kurzwell comes off as an odd duck. He may be an overly anxious person. He may be obsessive, too. He might ‘try too hard socially’ as well. He might have hobbies that he obsesses over, the obsession of which deeply embarrasses him, similar to a collector of silver spoons who is embarrassed he is obsessive and collects silver spoons. He might be none of these things in real life, but it is how he appears when writing of himself. It is annoying on the page whenever the subject is his reaction to events. It seems SO painfully awkward and wrong-footed, it is like dealing with a teenage nerd in middle school to read these parts of his book. In the end, I am not surprised he was ultimately picked on by his roommates in a boarding school if my impression from his memoir portion is correct. That said, I do NOT accept bullying in any shape or form, especially that involving torture. However, I kept wanting to reach into the pages and swat the author upside his head. *ahem* There is a graphic scene of boy wolfpack violence early in the book, and pictures of the people the author profiles (not of the violence, which happened behind closed doors when the author was a ten-year-old student). A lengthy section of Acknowledgements make clear the author went to many experts and principals involved in the fraud and at the Swiss boarding school he attended. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 31, 2017
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Sep 2017
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Aug 31, 2017
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Hardcover
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| 0307267148
| 9780307267146
| 0307267148
| 4.28
| 55,219
| Sep 08, 2008
| Sep 08, 2009
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it was amazing
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'Half the Sky' is about the 'cultural', 'customary' and 'religious' abuse of women because they are women. The life stories of dozens of women around
'Half the Sky' is about the 'cultural', 'customary' and 'religious' abuse of women because they are women. The life stories of dozens of women around the world are told through anecdotes of their childhood, marriage and culture. The authors personally visited the homes of many of these women, using translators when necessary. The writers also flesh out the heroic struggles of these abused women to overcome their cultures with additional explanatory history and facts. Many of these women escaped torture and cruelty from their own families and government laws, and from religious authorities and community customs. The authors make heroic efforts to spin these autobiographies into happy or positive upbeat endings, which should satisfy the sensitive Pollyannas and religious apologists, if not the scientists or statisticians or sociologists. The writers also try to avoid making gothic tales out of these true stories of woe. I am not under any such restriction. These women were tortured. Rape is torture. Being raped as a childbride is torture. Being raped by 20 men a day while locked in a room is torture. Being gang-raped by soldiers is torture. Sending boys to school but keeping girls untaught and ignorant in the home is criminal. It is intentionally making a slave of females simply because they are female and the family wants slaves to do the scut work of the family. Religious reasons are a lie to cover up the need for unpaid slaves for the dirty, disrespected and despised labor given to women because it is labor which is dirty, disrespected and despised by men. Half the Sky' is a book full of anecdotes by women around the world, especially those from China, India, and the African continent, especially from those who live in Islamic theocracies and those who are followers of Muslim culture. Before you decide to get huffy at yet maybe another anti-Muslim diatribe, there is a reason many of these narratives involve Muslim believers. It is because forms of Islam are still being taught to many Muslim believers to hurt women because they told it is permitted and encouraged by their god. This is just plain fact. Christianity is my country's primary religion - and under Christianity, I was also enslaved and harmed and abused because Christianity gave men the right to do it. 'Christian 'culture', which has been filtered into American government laws, continued to view women as legal incompetents fit only to cook, have sex and raise children for almost three centuries. I have read negative reviews of 'Half the Sky'. Many of them puzzle the shit out of me. I understand those who did not like the book because of its anecdotal shape - it is tiresome to read chapter after chapter of unending pain and agony and loss and grief. So many women, so much abuse, although the authors were bending backwards to avoid sensationalism and to emphasize any positive outcomes. I suppose some readers wanted a more scientific study approach with chapters and chapters of charts and measurements, perhaps even with blind studies and experiments. I really don't understand how this would have improved the book, actually, but the authors have included a large note section that shows academic and journalism sources. Other reviewers have said the book is Smug. Heavy-handed. Exploitive. Racist-love. Infantilizes readers. Really. Really?!?!? In my opinion, as usual, Truth is too raw for some. It is not decent or loving to cut girls' vaginas up. However, this is a reality for many Muslim women. Shushing up or covering up any explicit conversation about these 'cultures' and 'customs' and religions to avoid blaming communities because of the possibility of ethnocentrism is vile and evil to me. Spinning rape and slavery as something we must understand through the background of culture and religion is not only vile and evil, it is absolutely impossible for me. Real life is often gothic, horrific and, yes, politically incorrect. Being politically correct to avoid ethnocentrism might work for some, especially Pollyannas and for those whose heads are so full of cultural tolerance that their brains are leaking out of their ears, but this is not for me. Many of the women in the book are now supporting themselves by starting small businesses after Western NGO's and charities assisted them in health benefits, education, and temporary housing. After all, they could only expect help from outside of their families and community and religion and government. It was the government, community, religion and family who tortured and oppressed them (my words). This book, and many politically correct liberals and conservatives, would rather use different words instead of abuse - words like 'discrimination' or 'cultural norms' or 'religious faith'. However, anybody who follows my reviews will need to understand I do not generally use euphemisms when it comes to abuse, nor do I believe in watering down my language in order to not offend because of readers' sensitivities or my so-called prejudiced opinions if I feel things must be said. I willingly accept being called prejudiced and biased if I am outraged upon seeing a nine-year-old being married to a 30-year-old man, or a woman being flogged because her ankle showed below the hem of her burqa, or discover the Somalian student with whom I am talking is hurting because of the stiffened scars from Female Genital Mutilation. Abuse is not only about not being hired to work as a clerk because you are not white or a man. Abuse is having your clitoris cut off with a razor because you are nine-years-old and live in Africa or live in America with African parents who became American citizens. I don't give a damn about being culturally sensitive when it comes to torturing women in the name of religion and custom and culture. I am a woman. I was abused as a child. Most of the abuse came because I was female, and it was permitted by people around me because I was female, and I accepted it because I had no rights and no place to go; and people who were appalled could not help me because there was literally no laws on the books forbidding the abuse, and much of the abuse was by men who had all of the rights. They got away with it because America, yes, America, was a racist, misogynist, discriminatory culture. The rights given Americans in the Constitution did not apply to women or to people of color or many who were poor. If a man gambled or drank away his paycheck, his wife and kids starved. Women were not hired at most of the available jobs in the 1950's because 'culture' and 'custom' meant employers only hired men, although women could have done the work. When women were hired, it was for only 25 cents for every $1.00 men were paid for the same work. But rarely were women working next to men at the same work. Women could be housecleaners, waitresses, secretaries, nurses or teachers. Not much of a list of available jobs for women, is it? If a woman got married, a woman was expected to quit working, a 'cultural' custom, which pushed many families into deep poverty and starvation. To give a more 'benign', non-triggering, example of past American gender discrimination, for example, about money: I was not legally allowed a credit card until 1976, and then I was permitted a credit ceiling of $300. As a comparison, my husband had seven credit cards at the same time, each with a limit of $20,000. I could not buy a car or get a student loan under my own signature. I could only get a loan to attend college or buy a car if my brother, father or husband signed the contract. In 1995, my sister-in-law tried to buy a car for her own use, but she was turned away "until your husband can come in". When I married, whatever credit I had built immediately disappeared. I no longer had an identity. The 'custom' of America in 1980 was that any wife in America legally no longer existed as living human being, much less an adult. I was only the Mrs. belonging to my caretaker Man husband, who was the only legally recognized living human in my marriage. The bank took my name off my credit card and my bank accounts and put on my husband's. He could access all of my money, wherever it was, work, pensions, banks - but I could not access his accounts without his signed permission. I no longer had the means to pay rent or a mortgage or for food, much less electricity, water or sewage without my husband's authority to do so, despite my full-time job and my education. America's custom of treating married women as wards under the management of their husbands rendered me officially into a nameless powerless baby again even though I was 25 years old and I had been living by myself for seven years. I was welcomed as his new house slave, though. I guess I could count my 'blessings' that it was the 1970's and 1980's. I was accepted by the University of Washington to begin, hopefully, working towards a Bachelors degree in the 1970's, after I had busted my ass scholastically for thirteen years, despite family opposition and the 'culture' and 'custom' and religious norms of America for women's roles, limiting me to being a teacher or nurse if I got a college degree. However, my father, who was the only one who could legally apply for a college loan for me, said to me when I handed him my acceptance letter, "No man would want you!" and tore up my letter and loan papers. Warning. The following might be a trigger for you. But it is real and true. As an American toddler, I was prostituted. I remember the judge saying to the adults guilty of this, "Goddamn it. I can only sentence you to three months in jail for Pandering. Goddamn it all to hell. If I could I would put you away for the rest of your goddamn life." You see, gentle reader, there were literally no laws on the books for prosecuting adults who prostituted children from their own family, just as no police ever arrested men for breaking the bodies of their wives and children by beating them with belts, cords, metal hangers, steel-toed shoes or furniture. It was the 'custom' and the 'culture', based on Christian bible verses in America. It was the 1950's. No, gentle reader. Personally, I am NOT very gentle of 'culture' and 'custom' and 'religion'. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Sep 03, 2016
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| 0393059804
| 9780393059809
| 0393059804
| 3.61
| 5,884
| 2006
| Apr 13, 2006
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it was amazing
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'A Death in Belmont' is guaranteed to be a great book club selection for discussion! In 260 pages it manages to offer several possible topics for a vi
'A Death in Belmont' is guaranteed to be a great book club selection for discussion! In 260 pages it manages to offer several possible topics for a vigorous airing of opinions: 1. A white man, Albert DeSalvo, confessed to a dozen of the rape-strangulation murders of women around the Boston, Massachusetts area from 1963 to 1965. He was sentenced - first to a mental institution, and then later he was moved to a hardcore prison called Walpole. All of the murders had similar clues - rape, and strangulation, with stockings around the neck tied into a bow. Later, he denied he was who the newspapers had called 'the Boston Strangler' and rescinded his confession. Did he commit murder or not? Was he the Boston Strangler? Should he have got a second chance at another trial? (view spoiler)[All the law had was DeSalvo's confession. (hide spoiler)] 2. A black man, Roy Smith, who was a career criminal, was convicted of the murder of Bessie Goldberg in Belmont, a suburb of Boston. She had been raped and strangled by her stockings, which were wrapped around her neck and tied into a bow. He maintained his innocence until he died. He was in Walpole for part of his incarceration. My thoughts: murders happen in any community every week, as do accidental deaths, but we focus often on The Big Sensational One. People were worried about the attacks of the Strangler (not to mention, ANY black-on-white crime), but at the same time, lots of deaths were occurring in Boston every day that were ignored. 3. Both DeSalvo and Smith were in Belmont the exact same day and time of Goldberg's murder. Smith was hired to clean Goldberg's house, which he did, and after which he said he left. DeSalvo was a few blocks away from Goldberg's house, working as an itinerant construction worker on a building for Sebastian Junger's mother. She told her family DeSalvo scared her. Junger still has a photo taken of himself as a baby sitting on his mother's lap. DeSalvo is standing behind her. 4. During Smith's trial, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Racial tensions in America were explosive. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were in the news for advocating for civil rights. Smith's jury was all male and all white. My thoughts: Moving trials to a distant calmer locale and/or delaying trials, which might help in getting a fairer trial done, instead often causes local citizens to go red-eyed with fury and local law to go mean with insulted rage. Juries should have women and people of color, not just white men. 5. The newspapers had printed every detail of the Boston Strangler's murders previous to the capture of both men. My thoughts: Freedom of the Press and Right-to-Know can make the job of the police and the courts harder to do within our legal system. Junger explains how the arrests of both men happened, what kind of lawyers each had, the laws regarding murder and evidence at the time, and how their trials proceeded. He also describes their childhoods. Smith's family were poor southerners during the time lynchings were common in the South and black men were being tortured in prisons not fit for animals much less humans, but the bastard (my words) who called himself DeSalvo's father was a sexual sadist. Smith became a criminal because he was poor and an alcoholic, and he was rotating in and out of horrific Southern institutions. Under the influence of alcohol, he tried to kill a person. DeSalvo, well, he was a crazy person. The question is what kind of crazy? The kind who confesses to crimes he didn't commit? The kind who was delusional? Or the kind who was a psychopathic serial killer? Besides the obvious debate of who actually killed Goldberg, Junger is also researching the questions of racial discrimination and bias in law and in society through these two murder trials. In my mind the role of poverty, lack of education and opportunity, and cruel childhoods, as well as substance abuse can be added to the discussion. Plus, last but not least, is how dismal the American legal system might be at determining anyone's guilt or innocence under certain circumstances such as when the entirety of the physical evidence is circumstantial, and deciding on an answer is based on lawyers' spin and jury prejudices and guesses at what seems possible. Personally, for me, if there is a discernible pattern of behavior noted and that is all one has that is remotely factual, I'd go with using the typical behavior of a person's life if I am judging a person I know. However, if I was on a jury that had nothing but circumstantial evidence before them, it would be hard for me to vote to convict someone officially to prison for life, or with a possibility of the death penalty if convicted. I would hate sending someone to hang by the neck because a witness saw the defendant, who had a past of criminality, walking two blocks away from a crime into a store to buy beer, for example, and there was no physical evidence whatsoever that he was at the crime scene. However, if I was not on a jury, but simply talking and gossiping with people at work, I might think and say this fellow could have done it because it was his kind of crime. For the record, I have been on a jury. No matter how much I adore Batman, no matter how valid the case may be for a vigilante response, a honest and timely trial which follows the rules rigidly without corruption of any kind (unlikely as it may be) is probably the best option we have as a society. However, I'm awfully happy there are now lawyers and NGOs who are taking second and third looks at convictions, along with more juries with commingled mixed races and sexes. But I know, too, even when absolutely certain evidence shows up later which exonerates a convicted individual, shockingly, all it may mean is BOTH the innocent defendant and the actual criminal can both end up serving full sentences for a crime everyone knows only one of them committed! It is CrAzY that our legal system can continue to keep an innocent person locked up even after someone else has been shown to have committed the crime! This is a serious wrong in our legal system which apparently no one knows how to fix?!? Gosh, this subject depresses me. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jul 19, 2016
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Jul 24, 2016
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Jul 19, 2016
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Hardcover
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| 1619024799
| 9781619024793
| 1619024799
| 4.06
| 494
| Oct 23, 2012
| Dec 30, 2014
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it was amazing
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I am no doubt writing an opinionated essay under the guise of a review, gentle reader. No doubt many of you will disagree with my 'review'. Canadian Gr I am no doubt writing an opinionated essay under the guise of a review, gentle reader. No doubt many of you will disagree with my 'review'. Canadian Graeme Smith's book, 'The Dogs are Eating Them Now - Our War in Afghanistan' is readable and as factually accurate as far as I, an armchair observer, can tell. He traveled in Afghanistan from 2005-2011; he was not embedded with military minders on many of his 17 journeys; he relates eye-witnessed events to understand causes and purposes. This book is an award winner. I have read several other books about the American invasion of Afghanistan, the handoff of the Afghanistan war to NATO, and/or the travels of individual Westerners in Afghanistan. Graeme repeats the problems all of the books I've listed below about Afghanistan do too. Some of the books below are about other Islamic theocracies with the same problems. One is about WWI and the Middle East. The problems mentioned in every book about Afghanistan are corruption, poverty, a complete lack of any education except for the elite, the constant punishing terror and blackmail of the Islamic fundamentalists and the Afghanistan police, the lack of infrastructure and jobs, the obliviousness and confusion of NATO troops about who to kill, the cruelty of some NATO military soldiers and Afghan military/police forces, the opium poppy farming, the deadly conflicts of cultural mores, the predominance of tribal loyalties and ties which go back for millennia, the inability to literally communicate in a common language or social customs, and the interference of foreign Muslims from Pakistan, which the Pakistan spy agency ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) support. Every book made the following points: -The war is a feud of tribal affiliations. -Air strikes cause people to join insurgencies because of the thousands-year-old code of revenge older than Islam...Pashtunwali. -Destroying poppy fields made it worse. -Taliban nationalism (hatred of modernity and the outside world) is not ISIS. I wonder if any Western governments, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, read any of these books by Western journalists and writers. If they are, they do not act as if they are analyzing them. Maybe they are skimming them without any deep examination beyond the authors' repeated mea culpas and about the guilt-infested Western ideas about how it's all our responsibility to fix our previous attempted fixes to fix Islamic countries. Non-fiction which takes place in Afghanistan: No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes The Photographer Fiction which takes place in Afghanistan: Green on Blue The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul The Kite Runner Non-fiction about the Middle East: Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East The Complete Persepolis Fiction about the Middle East: Redeployment The Reluctant Fundamentalist I'm still a liberal, but my heart has quit bleeding despite the West's acknowledged stupidity, greed, cruelty and mistakes in Afghanistan (and in the Middle East). I read books, and studied religions, and read about WWI and WWII. I read articles that went beyond the usual statements about how appealing and open the village Muslims were - beyond to the facts that these same kind people are selling their 12-year-old daughters to 30-year-old men as wives, or are giving away their young boys to be prostitutes in all-men dances. Then there is the stoning and the burning and the beatings and the whipping of women for sins that are not sins in our culture. And there is the accepted torture and rape of young child wives. I looked for any stories about females in these usually sympathetic books about Islamic culture and countries by male journalists traveling in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries. Women are mentioned in some chapters, sometimes, as being silent servants wearing burqas or observed starving and begging on streets https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqa, and maybe there is an included female's story of escape from torture by her relatives, if women appeared at all in these books. A story might be told (not witnessed by the authors) about how girls are being killed by relatives, and raped, sold or 'martyred' in the war. A young girl toddler may be trotted out for the journalist, or the author might be shown a girls' school, burned down. Whether educated or not, women are invisible in most of these narratives, locked away in women's quarters, without any vote or voice. The male journalists often sing the praises of the gentle honest village men and the male translators they meet, and the authors often go back later concerned about the Afghan men's survival - but not hardly a word said about the women. These journalists are so angry at the treatment and betrayal of the ordinary village Afghan men by the politicians, warlords, soldiers and terrorists - but where is their outrage at how these same men are mistreating and betraying their wives and daughters? No, gentle reader, there is not the same sense of disgust and outrage whatsoever about the invisible women, because maybe it wrecks the sympathy their narratives are meant to arouse for the poor average normal Afghan villager. Now, after years of reading these informative books by sad journalists and sorrowing authors of fiction, my conclusions are: Women are usually barely seen in these narratives. Their difficulties because of the crippling of their lives under Islamic cultures are usually discussed in a slim chapter, if mentioned at all, and not ever referred to again. The authors/journalists, however, cry massive amounts of tears repetitiously and write of their deeply felt anguished pain and sorrow for the village Afghan men. I've read lots of articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Magazine, The New Yorker, National Geographic, the BBC, Al Jazeera, and have seen countless television news reports and youtube videos about Muslim and other countries. I've read history books, comparative religion books, books about colonialism and about war. Originally, I approached all of these stories from the viewpoint of a bleeding-heart liberal, completely in love with the theories the West caused all of this turmoil, death and destruction, as do many of the journalists. However, I'm now overwhelmed by rage by the treatment of women under Islam, and by the primitive qualities of Islam overall when Muslims are fundamentalists or are living in a Muslim theocracy. I can no longer ignore the evidence crying out to be noticed of the enormous crimes being committed against women in Muslim cultures by Muslim men in all Muslim countries. Sigh. Graeme Smith also discusses the use of torture during the Afghan war in a chapter, as do many of the afore-mentioned books. Whatever the NATO forces or their intelligence services were up to in dirty acts of interrogation, apparently the real dirty-art-of-torture experts were from the sadistic Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS). I want to pull the focus of my opinions at this point onto a larger field: The Middle-East. The general average person of the West is accepting the narrative that the Islamic wars are entirely the West's fault and responsibility because of the following: The wars are our fault because of past colonial enslavement of Muslim countries 100 years ago, stealing resources without compensation (well, not true - the leaders and kings got money, goods, college educations or Western tutors and advisors and services, and chose to spend it on themselves - but we conveniently ignore that because it wrecks the purity of the evil West narrative). The wars are our fault because of how we drew the boundaries of these countries (although these new countries could have redrawn the boundaries themselves later because these countries are in possession of their own countries as recognized legal sovereign nations - but we conveniently ignore that because it wrecks the evil West narrative). The wars are our fault because we sell armaments to the Islamic buyers of them (continuing the evil West narrative that it is all our fault that Islamic leadership picks up the phone and calls out for Western weapons salesmen to visit and Muslims spend thousands of dollars of their countries' funds on the West's arms). The wars are our fault because of business contracts Westerners sign with Islamic tribes and leaders buying oil today (the money going into the Islamic king's or leader's personal bank accounts). The wars are all our fault because of many many other non-oil legal business deals with Islamic leaders and kings and aristocrats. Supposedly business deals with Westerners today lead the aforementioned leaders and kings and aristocrats to abuse, kill, rape and rob their nations' rightful, but poor, property owners, tribes and citizens who actually own the resources of their nations. It is all the West's fault because of the legacy of disturbing the hierarchical aristocratic/peon order of these ancient Middle-eastern kingdoms with modern ideas. ...and so on. If it isn't obvious, I will say it plainly: I no longer have these 'it's all the Western World's fault' guilts anymore. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_... The truth of it is while the West in the recent century tried very very hard to conquer and control Middle-Eastern countries and dictate policy to them which benefited the West over the people who live there, the West failed to conquer any Muslim country. The truth is the Middle-Eastern countries and other Muslim theocratic cultures and tribes and nations all kicked the West out, again, and again. The Muslims have been in charge of their nations now for almost 70 years, with some made absolutely wealthy with the West's investments. Contrary to what we Westerners think of as common knowledge about the colonialism of the Middle East before WWI, Middle-eastern Muslim tribes and nations were completely in charge of their territories with few Westerners knowing anything about them or caring much. Actual history of the Middle-East - Ancient Mesopotamia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middl... Rise of Islam: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad Splitting of Islam into sects and the beginning of the constant internal conflicts of Islam: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_... The Crusades: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades The Ottoman Empire: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottom... World War I destroyed the grip of the Muslim Ottoman Empire over the Middle-East. Europeans and Russians tried to then take over control of the Middle-East, and to a degree, they succeeded. World War II, however, removed European powers from the Middle-East. The United States tried to fill the vacuum, but we have never been good at colonies. Current status: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/7... The leadership of Muslim theocracies use the iron manacles of fundamental Islam to keep their people in ignorance, turmoil, poverty and enslavement, whether cynically or because the leadership truly believes in keeping to the strictures and rituals of 8th-century Islam. Western countries are witting and unwitting accomplices, with delusions that regime turnovers will solve everything when there are problems. In my opinion, whatever we believe or think we know, the West can't fix the problems in Islamic countries. Most Westerners refuse to face or deal with the utter truth obvious to me that it is the strict adherence to an ancient 8th-century religion that is now the problem. Full stop. There can be no solution to the Islamic wars until the Islamists themselves relax their rigid hierarchical class and caste structures and fix their religious belief in male-dominated social dictatorships and reliance on Sharia laws. They have to stop themselves from unleashing the discriminatory military crackdowns and the letting loose the genocidal wars between Sunni and Shia and Kurds and Sufis. Does any of this sound like a Western-caused problem? The religion which is at fault for the wars in the Middle-East happens to be Islam. But the things wrong with Islamic theocracies and Islam were ALSO wrong with Christian and Jewish theocracies and religions in the past, in my opinion, until those nations/tribes/settlements/organizations stopped being fundamentalist theocracies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histo... Many Christian theocracies finally relaxed and discontinued required religious practices in public governance, rules and rituals in the 19th century. Decoupling religion from governance seems to have led to unobstructed scientific exploration and business expansion. Secular laws were developed after decoupling religion from legal institutions. Laws only began following democratic principles after secularism. We shrink from talking honestly about the results of theocratic governments - of entrenched tribal loyalties; 8th-century medieval societies regarding law and business and social practices; patriarchal authority emphasizing class superiority, obedience and respect over justice and equality; lack of even minimum education among the poor who are the majority in these societies; fundamentalist religious governments who still cut off heads for blasphemy, apostasy, sexual orientation and often any bare skin beyond hands or even having long hair and shaved chins (the rules about hygiene, sex, relationships, food, dishes, furniture, sitting, standing, clothes, are beyond belief - even describing which hand is acceptable to be used for what activity - the obsessive-compulsive rigidity of rules alone is too much for most Westerners). Endemic corruption permeates throughout all classes and groups and organizations of their religious societies, of which corruption has been made even more endemic through war economies, but in fact corruption has existed in these theocratic societies for millennia long before. When it comes to what the West considers technological and social progress, it looks like Muslim countries cannot find a way to embrace technology or secular freedoms or social equality because of Islam and its rigid rules and rites. We westerners are often exhorted to solve the wars between Islamic governments, because 'it's all our fault', and we try and re-try all kinds of humane and inhumane methods, which all fail because the actual root of the problems - Islamic fundamentalism - is the elephant in the room which we tiptoe by. Westerners do not want to speak or make a push for the last thing which has not been tried - decoupling religion from these governments and putting in place secular governance and laws - because they are, after all, NOT us at all or under our control. We keep trying to interfere anyway, because of our supposed 'guilt', our actually real greed, and our financial web of connections and treaties and contracts with the elite Muslims. So, why does the West ultimately, in realpolitic terms, in my opinion, keep sending military troops and/or bombs and/or keep trying to stop Muslim countries from trading internationally or why do we restrict access to finance companies to punish or attempt regime change in the Muslim theocracies? From what I can tell from these different sources I've studied about different Western invasions of different Muslim countries in different eras, the number one reason we involve ourselves is that some Muslim group threatens Western business interests on some level, either by providing material support to terrorists attacking Western business or military interests or by attacking Muslim governments who permit Western businesses to make money in their country - from the Nazis - to anti-Israel extremists - to attacks on the Suez canal or Western military bases placed in a foreign country - to al-Qaeda - to ISIS. Behind the scenes, Western political and business leaders panic over their possible Western World financial losses and so, they stir up their local populations by whatever means possible in order to support Western interference. Btw, Christian 'Crusading' is NOT a realpolitic reason. It is contrived morality. Christian figureheads have no idea or don't care they are being used to draw fire away from the real reasons of Western interests and maneuvers. What is primarily used to 'force' the middle-class Western masses to agree to Western involvement is humanist do-gooders (of which I was one) insisting we help the women and children who have become pawns by the various military groups. Women and children are: raped; enslaved; tortured; starved; murdered - seen in pirated videos released to social media or described by eyewitness accounts. The resettlement camps load up with injured and the old and the starving kids and abused women. The NGOs and do-gooders (me, too, once) think if the West comes sailing in or flying in with our military, and 'advisors', bringing weapon sales and infrastructure, and our trucks of doctors and food, we will somehow stop the killing, despite the lessons of past invasion disasters, which have led to dismal failure and blame over and over. Must I remind readers that Islam fractured into Shia and Sunni sects when Mohammed died? That these two Muslim sects -the Sunnis and the Shias -have been at civil war since around 632? As I write this, it is 2016, and these two sects are STILL murdering each other in the Middle East. Only strong dictators and cruel police states controlled the murdering, which we have too late found out to our shocked surprise. The Muslim wars were started by Muslims killing each other. We have interrupted their wars, we have enhanced their wars, we have encouraged their wars - but they have had some sort of bloody genocidal civil or tribal war in almost every Muslim country between Muslim sects because of differing religious rituals for centuries. Since the 700's they have never moved past the issue of proving who has the REAL Muslim religion - the Sunnis or Shia. We Christians also had our murderous genocidal wars about who had the REAL Christian religion all during the Middle Ages. Now the rules of Christianity are mostly fought in essays, opinion threads and twitter wars. We generally enjoy our cherrypicked and relaxed Christian rituals on ceremonial and customary holiday occasions today, most of us quickly forgetting what our religious denomination is by the next workday.. We Westerners need to STOP being needled into involving ourselves in Muslim wars because 'it's all our fault'. No, it isn't. Bleeding hearts - I understand your pain. I once was a complete and total bleeding heart - until I realized we can't save people who reject us, and who are suspicious of us (for good reasons), and who hate us because we are Westerners no matter what else is happening. Please read through the Wikipedia links. (I know about the criticisms of Wikipedia, but I use Wikipedia because while little details are wrong or can be argued about, the gist of truth is there, plus Wikipedia links probably will still be there in a few years from the time I wrote this, and are corrected and updated periodically. ) We Westerners have tried and tried and tried to interfere for dozens of reasons. We only make it worse. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jul 13, 2016
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Hardcover
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aPriL does feral sometimes
>
Books:
true-crime
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| 4.17
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really liked it
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Jan 18, 2024
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Jan 04, 2024
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| 4.11
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it was amazing
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Sep 15, 2023
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Sep 12, 2023
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| 4.10
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it was amazing
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Nov 26, 2022
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Nov 13, 2022
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| 3.83
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really liked it
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Mar 15, 2022
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Mar 12, 2022
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| 4.16
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it was amazing
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Oct 08, 2020
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Oct 03, 2020
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| 4.05
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it was amazing
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Jul 29, 2020
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Jul 25, 2020
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| 4.49
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it was amazing
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May 19, 2020
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May 17, 2020
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| 4.55
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it was amazing
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Feb 29, 2020
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Feb 24, 2020
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| 4.32
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it was amazing
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Feb 17, 2020
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Feb 09, 2020
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| 3.35
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really liked it
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Oct 23, 2019
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Oct 17, 2019
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| 3.96
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really liked it
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Aug 23, 2019
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Aug 18, 2019
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| 3.91
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it was amazing
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Aug 14, 2019
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Aug 09, 2019
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| 4.10
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it was amazing
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Jun 18, 2019
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Jun 15, 2019
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| 3.91
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it was amazing
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Sep 19, 2018
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Sep 18, 2018
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| 4.15
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really liked it
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Apr 04, 2018
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Mar 30, 2018
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| 3.68
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really liked it
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Nov 07, 2017
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Nov 05, 2017
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| 3.24
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really liked it
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Sep 2017
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Aug 31, 2017
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| 4.28
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it was amazing
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Sep 15, 2016
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Sep 03, 2016
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| 3.61
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it was amazing
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Jul 24, 2016
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Jul 19, 2016
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| 4.06
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it was amazing
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Jul 14, 2016
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Jul 13, 2016
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