Mueenuddin, Daniyal. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. NY: Norton, 2009.
1st Floor Smith Memorial PR 9540 .9 .M84 I52 2009.
Afzal-Khan, Fawzia. Lahore with Love: Growing Up with Girlfriends, Pakistani-Style. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2010.
Burling 2nd Floor HQ1745.5.Z9 L332 2010
R. Stuhr
I have, in the past month, read two books by Pakistani authors. I read Afzal-Khan's memoir at the request of the Multicultural Review and Mueenuddin's collection of short stories because he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and I was recently browsing through some lists of award winning (nearly award winning) authors. Both books are collections of discreet chapters, connected through time, place, characters, and theme.
Afzal-Khan's book is a memoir of her years growing up in Pakistan with a close circle of female friends. As she and her friends progress through childhood and school, Pakistan's political climate changes ineluctably to restrict the rights of and opportunities available to women. In Afzal-Khan's privileged world, the reality of these changes are slow to sink in. Afzal-Khan recounts the stories of her friends, several of whose lives ended tragically in no small part because of the oppressive conditions under which they lived. Afzal-Khan's life turns out differently, if not without her own inner darkness, in part because of her rebellious nature and in part because she leaves Pakistan for the United States to attend graduate l, ultimately marrying and settling there.
Afzal-Khan does not presume to have the answers; she is humble. She honors her friends and recognizes that she would not be the person she is if they had not been part of her childhood.
Mueenuddin's collection of short stories are all connected through the presence of the character K. K. Harouni, an industrialist and landowner. Mueenuddin writes about a Pakistan where the social heirarchy is a determining factor in one's well being. The wealthy thrive and the less fortunate derive ways to prosper through the largesse and inattention of their wealthy employers and benefactors. Success is as much about scheming and plotting as it is about birth and connections--it must be one or the other. The status of women is a significant aspect of each story. Mueenuddin's women rely on their intelligence and instinct to survive, but also prosper and fail according to the desires and whims of the men in their lives.
Some of the stories revolve around the lives of the servants of K. K. Harouni and others focus on his far flung family and others in the land owning classes. Rich or poor, no one has what they want and disappointment accompanies death. Power and peonage with their attendant and relative privileges and hardships provide a structure to each story.
Both Mueenuddin's and Afzal-Khan's books can be read as a whole or dipped into for a chapter here and there. But, if you start at the beginning, you are certain to want to read both in their entirety.
Afzal-Khan writes on literature and the condition of Muslim women. This is Daniyal Mueenuddin first published collection. His stories have appeared in Granta and The New Yorker.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The Yacoubian Building
Alaa Al Aswany. The Yacoubian Building. NY: Harper Perennial, 2006.
R. Stuhr
This book is currently on display at Burling Library as part of our display of summer reading recommended by staff. Cecilia Knight recommended this along with the trio of books published posthumously by Stieg Larsson. I just finished this book too, and so these comments are mine. Written about Cairo during the time leading up to the first Iraq war, Alaa Al Aswany touches on the history and politics of Egypt, regional differences, the intensification of Islamic identity that goes beyond nationalism or simply religious ferver, the extensive gap between rich and poor, political corruption, the plight of women, individual hopes and dreams, and dashed hopes and dreams. The author, in his narrative, crosses back and forth among the stories of a range of characters, the privileged and the underprivileged. Although a dark story, it is also romantic and in the end the purest of hearts finds some happiness.
This book, in some ways, also tells the story of the twenty-first century, with one of the shaping factors of this century being the rise of fundamentalist Islam. In reading about the limitations of one society, we can recognize some of the same failings in our own society, the importance of influence (oil, pharmaceuticals two name just two for instance) and money in politics, the treatment and expectations for women, the widening gap between rich and poor... we are all implicated.
Despite my representation, this is definitely a recommended read for summer or anytime. Burling library has both the book (currently on display) and the film (wander down to the listening room).
R. Stuhr
This book is currently on display at Burling Library as part of our display of summer reading recommended by staff. Cecilia Knight recommended this along with the trio of books published posthumously by Stieg Larsson. I just finished this book too, and so these comments are mine. Written about Cairo during the time leading up to the first Iraq war, Alaa Al Aswany touches on the history and politics of Egypt, regional differences, the intensification of Islamic identity that goes beyond nationalism or simply religious ferver, the extensive gap between rich and poor, political corruption, the plight of women, individual hopes and dreams, and dashed hopes and dreams. The author, in his narrative, crosses back and forth among the stories of a range of characters, the privileged and the underprivileged. Although a dark story, it is also romantic and in the end the purest of hearts finds some happiness.
This book, in some ways, also tells the story of the twenty-first century, with one of the shaping factors of this century being the rise of fundamentalist Islam. In reading about the limitations of one society, we can recognize some of the same failings in our own society, the importance of influence (oil, pharmaceuticals two name just two for instance) and money in politics, the treatment and expectations for women, the widening gap between rich and poor... we are all implicated.
Despite my representation, this is definitely a recommended read for summer or anytime. Burling library has both the book (currently on display) and the film (wander down to the listening room).
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Making the Rounds with Oscar
Dosa, David, M.D. Making the Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat. NY: Hyperion, 2010.
Reviewed by Sharon Clayton
Dr. David Dosa was a non-believer. He didn't like cats. He was a dog person. Oscar the cat can't know when a person is dying, he's just one of several strays that lives in a nursing home. But maybe it's true...
Oscar not only comforts dying nursing home residents with dementia, but he also touches the lives of the family members who are left behind as well as the staff at the nursing home where he resides. Dr. Dosa's book documents his quest to find out about Oscar's gift by interviewing family members who lost their loved ones on Oscar's watch. The book also explains the stages of dementia which is very informative for
people who are affected by this debilitating illness.
For more of Sharon Clayton's favorite reads see The Eclectic Review.
Available at the Grinnell's Drake Community Library
Reviewed by Sharon Clayton
Dr. David Dosa was a non-believer. He didn't like cats. He was a dog person. Oscar the cat can't know when a person is dying, he's just one of several strays that lives in a nursing home. But maybe it's true...
Oscar not only comforts dying nursing home residents with dementia, but he also touches the lives of the family members who are left behind as well as the staff at the nursing home where he resides. Dr. Dosa's book documents his quest to find out about Oscar's gift by interviewing family members who lost their loved ones on Oscar's watch. The book also explains the stages of dementia which is very informative for
people who are affected by this debilitating illness.
For more of Sharon Clayton's favorite reads see The Eclectic Review.
Available at the Grinnell's Drake Community Library
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Grinnell College in the Nineteenth Century
Joseph Frazier Wall. Grinnell College in the Nineteenth Century: From Salvation to Service. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1997.
Reviewed by T. Hatch
Manifest Destiny required a group of eleven easy going Calvinists to set out for the frontier of the Iowa Territory to spread a Congregationalist form of Christianity and New England culture. The result of their effort was the opening of Iowa College in 1850. But their openly abolitionist and temperance positions were decidedly unpopular with many in their new home of Davenport; the trustees of Iowa College were soon looking for a new location.
In a parallel development Josiah Bushnell Grinnell, whose goal was to found a Congregationalist community in Iowa, had acted on advance inside information as to where future rail lines were to be constructed. As one of five founders of the town he imagined founding both a religious and an educational community. Starting in 1855 when purchasing land in Grinnell twenty dollars over the asking price went directly to a fund for the founding of a college. J.B. Grinnell “[who] had always evinced ...an interest in both pietism and profits” (p.92) envisioned a full-blown university. Competing with seven other towns the trustees of Iowa College chose Grinnell in 1858. J.B. Grinnell, who designated himself President of the “University” as well as Professor of History, Rhetoric, and Elocution (without the benefit of any students, faculty, or campus buildings) had persuaded a group of authentic scholars to join him in efforts at institution building. In September 1858 the merger between Iowa College and Grinnell University was official. Classes began when Iowa College opened in Grinnell in October of 1861.
While this magisterial book delineates the development of Grinnell College from its founding until the end of the nineteenth century it really does much more. It is possible over a century later to trace backward in time, from the normative ideal of “truth, understanding, and shared endeavor,” to those anti-slavery, pro-temperance, pro-suffrage forbearers who set the trajectory on which Grinnell College now finds itself. Additionally, there are a number of narratives that are both compelling and stand on their own.
John Brown, whom Abraham Lincoln in an Obamaesque moment referred to as a “misguided fanatic,” visited Grinnell in February of 1859. Fresh from a raid in Missouri where he had killed a slave owner while liberating his slaves, Brown was warmly welcomed by J.B. Grinnell and allowed to use his large wool-storage barn to house his company of followers. The people of the town were both eager and enthusiastic in their welcoming of Brown who spoke at the Congregationalist church on Sunday and visited the local primary school on Monday before leaving town. This was to earn both the town and its eponymous founder a reputation for radicalism around the state. Legend has it that before he was executed, John Brown requested that one of the pikes used in the Raid on Harper's Ferry be sent to J.B. Grinnell who, as long as he lived, used it at the head of the academic Commencement procession.
Professor Leonard Parker was to Grinnell College in the nineteenth century what Paul was to the New Testament. In his dual role of the superintendent of Poweshiek County Schools and later as a professor at Iowa College (it did not become Grinnell College until early in the twentieth century) Parker was in many respects the soul of the institution. He and one of the town's founders Amos Bixby resisted a mob in 1860 that sought to prevent the enrollment of four male fugitive slaves in the town school. After first being denied a leave of absence from his teaching duties he was finally allowed to lead a company of Grinnell volunteers in 1864 for a one hundred day tour of duty. And, what goes down as one of the finest moments in Grinnell history, he published an extensive article in The Grinnell Herald arguing against the imperialistic annexation of the Philippine Islands.
One tradition that did not persist (thankfully for anyone holding a Jello-shot party insulting faculty members) was President Magoun's “Come Forward” program. Any student guilty of an infraction against the code of conduct was required to make a public confession of it during chapel. Maoist self-criticism was based on the same principle and understandably the student body was not sorry to see the practice discontinued.
Perhaps the incident covered in the book that is my personal favorite had to do with finding a replacement for the outgoing President George Magoun. A leading candidate for the position was J.B. Grinnell's son-in-law David Mears. Mears also had the financial backing of Massachusetts shoe merchant Edward Goodnow. The contour of the deal was that if Mears was to become the President of the college then Goodnow would donate $50,000 (about $1.2 million in 2010 dollars). The proposal was further contingent upon the renaming of the college after Goodnow. In a classic response, the trustees declined the offer because “the sum named does not in our view by any means warrant it” and because such an action would potentially make the college the source of ridicule. The trustees, pragmatic to the end, stated: “that should the circumstances ever occur in which some larger gift, say from $150,000 to $250,000 be conditioned on a change of name, that question would be favorably considered” (p.221). Mears, who was angry at the rejection, withdrew his name from consideration and George Gates became the second president serving from 1887 until 1900.
In speaking to a retired Dean of Students who attended Grinnell College in the 1950s I learned that Professor Wall taught a course attended by all freshmen on the history of the school. Is this feasible today? It is undoubtedly more complicated than merely finding someone to write the syllabus with many more matriculates now in attendance than in the middle of last century. However, one seemingly logical addendum to Professor Wall's work would be a work entitle something like The History of Grinnell College in the Twentieth Century: From the Brink of Insolvency to Incredibly Well Endowed.
Burling Library 2nd floor LD2055.G52 W35 1997
Reviewed by T. Hatch
Manifest Destiny required a group of eleven easy going Calvinists to set out for the frontier of the Iowa Territory to spread a Congregationalist form of Christianity and New England culture. The result of their effort was the opening of Iowa College in 1850. But their openly abolitionist and temperance positions were decidedly unpopular with many in their new home of Davenport; the trustees of Iowa College were soon looking for a new location.
In a parallel development Josiah Bushnell Grinnell, whose goal was to found a Congregationalist community in Iowa, had acted on advance inside information as to where future rail lines were to be constructed. As one of five founders of the town he imagined founding both a religious and an educational community. Starting in 1855 when purchasing land in Grinnell twenty dollars over the asking price went directly to a fund for the founding of a college. J.B. Grinnell “[who] had always evinced ...an interest in both pietism and profits” (p.92) envisioned a full-blown university. Competing with seven other towns the trustees of Iowa College chose Grinnell in 1858. J.B. Grinnell, who designated himself President of the “University” as well as Professor of History, Rhetoric, and Elocution (without the benefit of any students, faculty, or campus buildings) had persuaded a group of authentic scholars to join him in efforts at institution building. In September 1858 the merger between Iowa College and Grinnell University was official. Classes began when Iowa College opened in Grinnell in October of 1861.
While this magisterial book delineates the development of Grinnell College from its founding until the end of the nineteenth century it really does much more. It is possible over a century later to trace backward in time, from the normative ideal of “truth, understanding, and shared endeavor,” to those anti-slavery, pro-temperance, pro-suffrage forbearers who set the trajectory on which Grinnell College now finds itself. Additionally, there are a number of narratives that are both compelling and stand on their own.
John Brown, whom Abraham Lincoln in an Obamaesque moment referred to as a “misguided fanatic,” visited Grinnell in February of 1859. Fresh from a raid in Missouri where he had killed a slave owner while liberating his slaves, Brown was warmly welcomed by J.B. Grinnell and allowed to use his large wool-storage barn to house his company of followers. The people of the town were both eager and enthusiastic in their welcoming of Brown who spoke at the Congregationalist church on Sunday and visited the local primary school on Monday before leaving town. This was to earn both the town and its eponymous founder a reputation for radicalism around the state. Legend has it that before he was executed, John Brown requested that one of the pikes used in the Raid on Harper's Ferry be sent to J.B. Grinnell who, as long as he lived, used it at the head of the academic Commencement procession.
Professor Leonard Parker was to Grinnell College in the nineteenth century what Paul was to the New Testament. In his dual role of the superintendent of Poweshiek County Schools and later as a professor at Iowa College (it did not become Grinnell College until early in the twentieth century) Parker was in many respects the soul of the institution. He and one of the town's founders Amos Bixby resisted a mob in 1860 that sought to prevent the enrollment of four male fugitive slaves in the town school. After first being denied a leave of absence from his teaching duties he was finally allowed to lead a company of Grinnell volunteers in 1864 for a one hundred day tour of duty. And, what goes down as one of the finest moments in Grinnell history, he published an extensive article in The Grinnell Herald arguing against the imperialistic annexation of the Philippine Islands.
One tradition that did not persist (thankfully for anyone holding a Jello-shot party insulting faculty members) was President Magoun's “Come Forward” program. Any student guilty of an infraction against the code of conduct was required to make a public confession of it during chapel. Maoist self-criticism was based on the same principle and understandably the student body was not sorry to see the practice discontinued.
Perhaps the incident covered in the book that is my personal favorite had to do with finding a replacement for the outgoing President George Magoun. A leading candidate for the position was J.B. Grinnell's son-in-law David Mears. Mears also had the financial backing of Massachusetts shoe merchant Edward Goodnow. The contour of the deal was that if Mears was to become the President of the college then Goodnow would donate $50,000 (about $1.2 million in 2010 dollars). The proposal was further contingent upon the renaming of the college after Goodnow. In a classic response, the trustees declined the offer because “the sum named does not in our view by any means warrant it” and because such an action would potentially make the college the source of ridicule. The trustees, pragmatic to the end, stated: “that should the circumstances ever occur in which some larger gift, say from $150,000 to $250,000 be conditioned on a change of name, that question would be favorably considered” (p.221). Mears, who was angry at the rejection, withdrew his name from consideration and George Gates became the second president serving from 1887 until 1900.
In speaking to a retired Dean of Students who attended Grinnell College in the 1950s I learned that Professor Wall taught a course attended by all freshmen on the history of the school. Is this feasible today? It is undoubtedly more complicated than merely finding someone to write the syllabus with many more matriculates now in attendance than in the middle of last century. However, one seemingly logical addendum to Professor Wall's work would be a work entitle something like The History of Grinnell College in the Twentieth Century: From the Brink of Insolvency to Incredibly Well Endowed.
Burling Library 2nd floor LD2055.G52 W35 1997
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Bomb Power
Garry Wills. Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State. New York: Penguin Press, 2010.
Reviewed by T. Hatch
President Harry Truman referred to the nuclear bomb(s) that the United States dropped on Japanese cities as “the greatest thing in history.” Informing the American public that the Bomb had been used against the Japanese was “the happiest announcement I ever made,” Truman boasted. While Truman naively thought that the U.S. nuclear monopoly was eternal, what was seemingly forever was the way the Bomb redefined the Presidency. Garry Wills argues that it was the Bomb that allowed for a permanent militarization of U.S. society; the government was fundamentally changed to a National Security State; the apparatus of secrecy and control were elevated; the Congress and Supreme Court became constitutionally junior partners.
Any book about the Cold War, or as I like to refer to it “the gift that keeps on giving,” always raises two questions in my mind: Would there have been a Cold War without Harry Truman? And, was the deployment of the Bomb the sine qua non of the Cold War? Clearly these are two hypotheticals we can never know the answer to, but what if Henry Wallace was correct in his assertion that the Soviets were weak at the end of World War II and could best be dealt with diplomatically?
Wills maintains that what made the use of the Bomb inevitable was Truman's fear that if it was not used, the American public would find out about its existence and the great cost ($2 billion 1940s type dollars) to construct it and would demand his impeachment. The National Security State in retrospect seems like a natural outgrowth of Truman's bellicose paranoia. In order to maintain a large military during peacetime and for the executive branch to exercise power in a secretive fashion, the National Security State was essential. Its existence was buttressed by the belief that any gain by the Communists anywhere was a threat to U.S. security. The National Security State was unaccountable to the Congress and the people, was secret and secretly funded, and resorted to subversion, sabotage, and assassination.
If it was not bad enough that the National Security State assumes that the government's secrets are too important to be shared with the public, and that we should simply trust our political leaders to do the right thing issuing them an exemption to democracy, the consolidation of executive power continues unabated. The Congress has made efforts to halt the concentration of power in the Executive Branch, e.g. the War Powers Resolution (1973), the Ethics in Government Act (1978), the Independent Council Act (1978), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978), and the Presidential Records Act (1978), all of which have had little effect in halting the march of the concentration of power in the Executive Branch. The reason that Congress and the courts are reticent to challenge executive power and its propensity to make so many unilateral decisions is the president's power over the bomb. Wills holds that the Commander-in-Chief role has been unconstitutionally elevated, giving the president illegitimate power over civilians.
It is Wills' contention that this concentration of power in the Executive Branch has led to much mischief. He devotes a full chapter to the events that culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Unlike the usual hagiography of the History Channel, Wills places the blame for the near nuclear catastrophe on the Kennedy brothers. Robert Kennedy, then Attorney General of the United States, managed Operation Mongoose. The goal of this operation was to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. RFK stated that, “My idea is to stir things up on [the] island with espionage, sabotage, general disorder." Neither Congress nor Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, were informed about any of RFK's activities with Operation Mongoose. In addition, RFK placed the now historically notorious Colonel Edward Lansdale in charge of directing attacks on Cuba. Wills argues “The direct consequence of Mongoose was Castro's acceptance of the Russian offer of nuclear missiles on his island.” The missiles were intended as a deterrent against a U.S. invasion of Cuba. The U.S., in the wake of the Bay of Pigs incident, was clearly the aggressor. Krushchev, for his part, reasoned that the missiles in Cuba were no more of a provocation than the U.S. missiles in Turkey. Similar to Noam Chomsky's argument the the U.S. is a “rogue state,” Wills avers, “We toppled regimes in a high-handed way, which gave us license to kill those who might uphold dangerous regimes, even democratically elected ones.”
It is no surprise that Wills segues to the war on terror and to the implications that this consolidation of power signifies. In this narrative, Messrs. Cheney and Rumsfeld are seen as leading the counter-revolution through their actions. The Unitary Executive theory was perfectly suited to their purposes insofar as it allows the president to get rid of troublesome regulations and allowed Bush and Cheney to use it as an authorization to set-up military tribunals, wage undeclared wars, deny habeas corpus, order extraordinary renditions (kidnap and torture), abrogate the Geneva Conventions etc. Cheney in particular is on the record saying, “I believe in a strong robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it.” Cheney's argument is very much like the one that Julius and Augustus Caesar employed two thousand years ago, i.e., you can hardly run an empire when burdened by the unruliness of amateurish and inefficient mechanisms of the Republic.
Wills opines that the legacy of the Bomb makes the president “a self-entangling giant.” This was demonstrated brilliantly by G.W. Bush. The troubling part of all of this is the continuity between various administrations regardless of the party affiliation. In this regard, Barack Obama has displayed a remarkable respect for tradition and an absolute contempt for “change.” CIA chief Leon Panetta has defended “extraordinary rendition,” (a practice invented during the Clinton administration), Solicitor General Elena Kagan (also a potential candidate for the Supreme Court) stated that captured terrorists should be subjected to “battlefield law,” “state secrets” are defended by the Obama Justice Department, and Obama has consistently refused to release torture photos or investigate the criminality of the Bush administration.
Perhaps the tired bromide that “politics end at the waters' edge” is true.
Burling 3rd Floor UA 23 W4596 2010
Reviewed by T. Hatch
President Harry Truman referred to the nuclear bomb(s) that the United States dropped on Japanese cities as “the greatest thing in history.” Informing the American public that the Bomb had been used against the Japanese was “the happiest announcement I ever made,” Truman boasted. While Truman naively thought that the U.S. nuclear monopoly was eternal, what was seemingly forever was the way the Bomb redefined the Presidency. Garry Wills argues that it was the Bomb that allowed for a permanent militarization of U.S. society; the government was fundamentally changed to a National Security State; the apparatus of secrecy and control were elevated; the Congress and Supreme Court became constitutionally junior partners.
Any book about the Cold War, or as I like to refer to it “the gift that keeps on giving,” always raises two questions in my mind: Would there have been a Cold War without Harry Truman? And, was the deployment of the Bomb the sine qua non of the Cold War? Clearly these are two hypotheticals we can never know the answer to, but what if Henry Wallace was correct in his assertion that the Soviets were weak at the end of World War II and could best be dealt with diplomatically?
Wills maintains that what made the use of the Bomb inevitable was Truman's fear that if it was not used, the American public would find out about its existence and the great cost ($2 billion 1940s type dollars) to construct it and would demand his impeachment. The National Security State in retrospect seems like a natural outgrowth of Truman's bellicose paranoia. In order to maintain a large military during peacetime and for the executive branch to exercise power in a secretive fashion, the National Security State was essential. Its existence was buttressed by the belief that any gain by the Communists anywhere was a threat to U.S. security. The National Security State was unaccountable to the Congress and the people, was secret and secretly funded, and resorted to subversion, sabotage, and assassination.
If it was not bad enough that the National Security State assumes that the government's secrets are too important to be shared with the public, and that we should simply trust our political leaders to do the right thing issuing them an exemption to democracy, the consolidation of executive power continues unabated. The Congress has made efforts to halt the concentration of power in the Executive Branch, e.g. the War Powers Resolution (1973), the Ethics in Government Act (1978), the Independent Council Act (1978), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978), and the Presidential Records Act (1978), all of which have had little effect in halting the march of the concentration of power in the Executive Branch. The reason that Congress and the courts are reticent to challenge executive power and its propensity to make so many unilateral decisions is the president's power over the bomb. Wills holds that the Commander-in-Chief role has been unconstitutionally elevated, giving the president illegitimate power over civilians.
It is Wills' contention that this concentration of power in the Executive Branch has led to much mischief. He devotes a full chapter to the events that culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Unlike the usual hagiography of the History Channel, Wills places the blame for the near nuclear catastrophe on the Kennedy brothers. Robert Kennedy, then Attorney General of the United States, managed Operation Mongoose. The goal of this operation was to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. RFK stated that, “My idea is to stir things up on [the] island with espionage, sabotage, general disorder." Neither Congress nor Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, were informed about any of RFK's activities with Operation Mongoose. In addition, RFK placed the now historically notorious Colonel Edward Lansdale in charge of directing attacks on Cuba. Wills argues “The direct consequence of Mongoose was Castro's acceptance of the Russian offer of nuclear missiles on his island.” The missiles were intended as a deterrent against a U.S. invasion of Cuba. The U.S., in the wake of the Bay of Pigs incident, was clearly the aggressor. Krushchev, for his part, reasoned that the missiles in Cuba were no more of a provocation than the U.S. missiles in Turkey. Similar to Noam Chomsky's argument the the U.S. is a “rogue state,” Wills avers, “We toppled regimes in a high-handed way, which gave us license to kill those who might uphold dangerous regimes, even democratically elected ones.”
It is no surprise that Wills segues to the war on terror and to the implications that this consolidation of power signifies. In this narrative, Messrs. Cheney and Rumsfeld are seen as leading the counter-revolution through their actions. The Unitary Executive theory was perfectly suited to their purposes insofar as it allows the president to get rid of troublesome regulations and allowed Bush and Cheney to use it as an authorization to set-up military tribunals, wage undeclared wars, deny habeas corpus, order extraordinary renditions (kidnap and torture), abrogate the Geneva Conventions etc. Cheney in particular is on the record saying, “I believe in a strong robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it.” Cheney's argument is very much like the one that Julius and Augustus Caesar employed two thousand years ago, i.e., you can hardly run an empire when burdened by the unruliness of amateurish and inefficient mechanisms of the Republic.
Wills opines that the legacy of the Bomb makes the president “a self-entangling giant.” This was demonstrated brilliantly by G.W. Bush. The troubling part of all of this is the continuity between various administrations regardless of the party affiliation. In this regard, Barack Obama has displayed a remarkable respect for tradition and an absolute contempt for “change.” CIA chief Leon Panetta has defended “extraordinary rendition,” (a practice invented during the Clinton administration), Solicitor General Elena Kagan (also a potential candidate for the Supreme Court) stated that captured terrorists should be subjected to “battlefield law,” “state secrets” are defended by the Obama Justice Department, and Obama has consistently refused to release torture photos or investigate the criminality of the Bush administration.
Perhaps the tired bromide that “politics end at the waters' edge” is true.
Burling 3rd Floor UA 23 W4596 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Will the Real Postville Please Stand Up?
Stephen G. Bloom. Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 2000.
Burling 2nd Floor: F630.J5 B56 2000
Mark Grey, Michele Devlin, Aaron Goldsmith. Postville U.S.A.: Surviving Diversity in Small-Town America. Boston: Gemma, 2009
Burling 2nd Floor: F629.P73x G74 2009
Reviewed by T. Hatch
The small northeastern Iowa town of Postville has a knack for drawing attention to itself. The kosher slaughterhouse operation that was raided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in May of 2008 is now reopening under new ownership while the former CEO of Agriprocessors, Sholom Rubashkin, awaits sentencing on eighty-six counts of fraud, mail and wire fraud, and money laundering. Issues of racism, religion, and rural reactionaries aside, Postville is yet one more example of how there are no “and they lived happily ever after” stories involving the meatpacking industry in Iowa towns and cities. Unfortunately, this point largely eluded the authors of both of these deeply flawed and disappointing books.
Stephen Bloom's book was chronologically first, widely read, and marketed by a well known publisher. Bloom was a recent arrival at the University of Iowa in the Journalism Department in the mid-1990s when he set out upon a journey of discovery. A secular liberal Jew he was intrigued by the tales of the community of a couple of hundred Lubavitcher Hasidim who had moved to Postville starting in 1987 when the closed former animal rendering plant was purchased by Aaron Rubashkin of Crown Heights, Brooklyn and reopened as a glatt kosher processing plant.
Bloom traveled repeatedly to Postville from his home in Iowa City and interviewed both Postville locals and members of the Orthodox Jewish community there. One of the charges of Bloom's critics is that he litters the countryside with ridiculous stereotypes. There is some validity to this accusation. In the first chapter of the book, Bloom provides the reader with some local color of how life is in Iowa. He avers that in Iowa “the concept of road rage didn't exist.” People “drove ...ever-so-slowly, almost never over the speed limit” (p.7). Further, I learned something about Iowa grocery stores from Bloom. “Here the local grocery store stocked pigs' ears that customers picked out of a big wooden crate”(p.15). I lived in Iowa City for almost thirty years and have absolutely no idea of where this grocery store with the pigs' ears might be. But, I heartily approve of perpetuating stereotypes of this nature. In fact whenever I travel out of state, and because I see the ideal population of Iowa as being no more than three million people, I regale all listeners with tales of livestock running wild in the streets.
While I lack standing and expertise in matters relative to Orthodox Judaism, Bloom serves up a number of stereotypes relating to the Hasidim of Postville that strain credulity. Are all Jews in Postville really lousy drivers? (p.47) Do the Lubavitchers all fail to mow their lawns and shovel the snow from their sidewalks? (p.48) Viewing an on line picture of Sholom Rubashkin's house it appears that the yard is up to acceptable standards of suburban lawn care.
The focus of Bloom's book is the political fight that the city council of Postville had with Agriprocessors over the issue of annexation. The proposed annexation would include the slaughter facility which had been outside city limits and therefore beyond the reach of local taxation. The annexation issue came to be viewed as a referendum of the presence of the Hasidim in Postville. Sholom Rubashkin had threatened that if the town's people were to vote in favor of annexation then Agriprocessors would pack up and leave. This turned out to be a bluff as annexation passed by a ten percent margin with only fifty-seven percent of all eligible voters taking part in the vote.
Bloom is up front in telling the reader that he sided with the Postville locals and hoped that annexation would pass. This brings us to the not so sub textual crux of the issue. The real clash of the cultures here was between a secular Jew and his Orthodox counterparts. While Bloom's book is entertainingly colorful in its descriptive splendor it is not a work of analysis and explains almost nothing. Yet it is the better of the two Postville books.
Postville U.S.A. By Mark Grey, Michele Devlin, and Aaron Goldsmith is a self-conscious and tendentious effort to stake a claim to “authenticity.” Two things immediately come to mind in reading this book. In the first instance “to err is human but to really f@#k up requires a committee.” And in the second instance, since it is unclear which author has written what, it is possible to establish a literary form of plausible deniability.
The second Postville book was written in the wake of the Immigration and Customs enforcement raid. As such, it left the reader flat. The authors contend that “In many respects, Agriprocessors revitalized Postville, bringing hundreds of new jobs and a sizeable payroll”(p.6). While this is one description of events, it is at least as accurate to say that Agriprocessors concentrated, and exploited, undocumented immigrant labor flouting a variety of labor laws daily. This environment of exploitation occurred in part because Agriprocessors made sure no union got near the place. The low wages paid the immigrants made those jobs less attractive than jobs at the local Walmart. While the authors recognized that Postville was emblematic of issues swirling around immigration, globalization, and migrant workers' rights, and they correctly placed the community with the rest of rural America riding the wave of demographic change, they spent little time explaining how this came to pass. It is almost as if the immigrant laborers were anonymous.
Not that I expected the authors to become Philip Foner, but their two page abstract description of the beatdown of labor in the 1980s during the Reagan counterrevolution was totally inadequate. How was it that hundreds (and, with turnover, thousands) of immigrant workers just happened to find their way to Postville? What a stroke of good luck for an employer paying minimum wage to workers to debone cows.
By far the most tiresome part of Postville U.S.A. was the endless prattle about the diversity industry. Lacking the sophistication to realize there was such a thing (at first glance I thought it might be what the guys in Human Resources of some corporation call themselves to sound cool) after reading the book I was totally indifferent to the hustle of the diversity specialists. The authors positioned themselves as running the gauntlet between the politically correct progressivism of the diversity industry on one side and ahistorical, ethnocentric conservatism of the racists and xenophobes on the other. They are the selfless ones who spoke for the gemeinschaft that is Postville; geist that can only be judged by itself and not by any “outsiders.”
I frankly expected that there would have been more space devoted to the day-to-day struggles of the townspeople after the government raid on Agriprocessors. Not only was the reader disappointed in this, the authors several times complained about members of immigrant families that were left behind and thus adding to the economic strain that the community already felt. Frankly another lesson that might have been derived is that a smaller community with a single dominant employer is at the mercy of the vagaries of a vicious postmodern capitalism.
Burling 2nd Floor: F630.J5 B56 2000
Mark Grey, Michele Devlin, Aaron Goldsmith. Postville U.S.A.: Surviving Diversity in Small-Town America. Boston: Gemma, 2009
Burling 2nd Floor: F629.P73x G74 2009
Reviewed by T. Hatch
The small northeastern Iowa town of Postville has a knack for drawing attention to itself. The kosher slaughterhouse operation that was raided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in May of 2008 is now reopening under new ownership while the former CEO of Agriprocessors, Sholom Rubashkin, awaits sentencing on eighty-six counts of fraud, mail and wire fraud, and money laundering. Issues of racism, religion, and rural reactionaries aside, Postville is yet one more example of how there are no “and they lived happily ever after” stories involving the meatpacking industry in Iowa towns and cities. Unfortunately, this point largely eluded the authors of both of these deeply flawed and disappointing books.
Stephen Bloom's book was chronologically first, widely read, and marketed by a well known publisher. Bloom was a recent arrival at the University of Iowa in the Journalism Department in the mid-1990s when he set out upon a journey of discovery. A secular liberal Jew he was intrigued by the tales of the community of a couple of hundred Lubavitcher Hasidim who had moved to Postville starting in 1987 when the closed former animal rendering plant was purchased by Aaron Rubashkin of Crown Heights, Brooklyn and reopened as a glatt kosher processing plant.
Bloom traveled repeatedly to Postville from his home in Iowa City and interviewed both Postville locals and members of the Orthodox Jewish community there. One of the charges of Bloom's critics is that he litters the countryside with ridiculous stereotypes. There is some validity to this accusation. In the first chapter of the book, Bloom provides the reader with some local color of how life is in Iowa. He avers that in Iowa “the concept of road rage didn't exist.” People “drove ...ever-so-slowly, almost never over the speed limit” (p.7). Further, I learned something about Iowa grocery stores from Bloom. “Here the local grocery store stocked pigs' ears that customers picked out of a big wooden crate”(p.15). I lived in Iowa City for almost thirty years and have absolutely no idea of where this grocery store with the pigs' ears might be. But, I heartily approve of perpetuating stereotypes of this nature. In fact whenever I travel out of state, and because I see the ideal population of Iowa as being no more than three million people, I regale all listeners with tales of livestock running wild in the streets.
While I lack standing and expertise in matters relative to Orthodox Judaism, Bloom serves up a number of stereotypes relating to the Hasidim of Postville that strain credulity. Are all Jews in Postville really lousy drivers? (p.47) Do the Lubavitchers all fail to mow their lawns and shovel the snow from their sidewalks? (p.48) Viewing an on line picture of Sholom Rubashkin's house it appears that the yard is up to acceptable standards of suburban lawn care.
The focus of Bloom's book is the political fight that the city council of Postville had with Agriprocessors over the issue of annexation. The proposed annexation would include the slaughter facility which had been outside city limits and therefore beyond the reach of local taxation. The annexation issue came to be viewed as a referendum of the presence of the Hasidim in Postville. Sholom Rubashkin had threatened that if the town's people were to vote in favor of annexation then Agriprocessors would pack up and leave. This turned out to be a bluff as annexation passed by a ten percent margin with only fifty-seven percent of all eligible voters taking part in the vote.
Bloom is up front in telling the reader that he sided with the Postville locals and hoped that annexation would pass. This brings us to the not so sub textual crux of the issue. The real clash of the cultures here was between a secular Jew and his Orthodox counterparts. While Bloom's book is entertainingly colorful in its descriptive splendor it is not a work of analysis and explains almost nothing. Yet it is the better of the two Postville books.
Postville U.S.A. By Mark Grey, Michele Devlin, and Aaron Goldsmith is a self-conscious and tendentious effort to stake a claim to “authenticity.” Two things immediately come to mind in reading this book. In the first instance “to err is human but to really f@#k up requires a committee.” And in the second instance, since it is unclear which author has written what, it is possible to establish a literary form of plausible deniability.
The second Postville book was written in the wake of the Immigration and Customs enforcement raid. As such, it left the reader flat. The authors contend that “In many respects, Agriprocessors revitalized Postville, bringing hundreds of new jobs and a sizeable payroll”(p.6). While this is one description of events, it is at least as accurate to say that Agriprocessors concentrated, and exploited, undocumented immigrant labor flouting a variety of labor laws daily. This environment of exploitation occurred in part because Agriprocessors made sure no union got near the place. The low wages paid the immigrants made those jobs less attractive than jobs at the local Walmart. While the authors recognized that Postville was emblematic of issues swirling around immigration, globalization, and migrant workers' rights, and they correctly placed the community with the rest of rural America riding the wave of demographic change, they spent little time explaining how this came to pass. It is almost as if the immigrant laborers were anonymous.
Not that I expected the authors to become Philip Foner, but their two page abstract description of the beatdown of labor in the 1980s during the Reagan counterrevolution was totally inadequate. How was it that hundreds (and, with turnover, thousands) of immigrant workers just happened to find their way to Postville? What a stroke of good luck for an employer paying minimum wage to workers to debone cows.
By far the most tiresome part of Postville U.S.A. was the endless prattle about the diversity industry. Lacking the sophistication to realize there was such a thing (at first glance I thought it might be what the guys in Human Resources of some corporation call themselves to sound cool) after reading the book I was totally indifferent to the hustle of the diversity specialists. The authors positioned themselves as running the gauntlet between the politically correct progressivism of the diversity industry on one side and ahistorical, ethnocentric conservatism of the racists and xenophobes on the other. They are the selfless ones who spoke for the gemeinschaft that is Postville; geist that can only be judged by itself and not by any “outsiders.”
I frankly expected that there would have been more space devoted to the day-to-day struggles of the townspeople after the government raid on Agriprocessors. Not only was the reader disappointed in this, the authors several times complained about members of immigrant families that were left behind and thus adding to the economic strain that the community already felt. Frankly another lesson that might have been derived is that a smaller community with a single dominant employer is at the mercy of the vagaries of a vicious postmodern capitalism.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War
Laskin, David. The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War. New York: Harper Collins, 2010.
R. Stuhr
It is interesting to read this book about 12 men who immigrated during the great 19th century wave of immigration in light of current debates on immigration and especially recent legislation in Arizona. Laskin's book is about the interesting path these men took to the United States, looking for opportunity, perhaps even seeking to avoid mandatory service in their native countries' armed forces, only to be drafted into the U.S. forces. We know this, we should know this about the ourselves and the population of our country, but this book serves as a reminder that the United States is made up of immigrants, that, in fact, this is what is special about our country--there is no specific ethnicity associated with being an American. The same people passing anti-immigrant legislation law in Arizona or passing English only laws have, somewhere in their not too distant ancestry a relative who came to this country speaking a language other than English (and English is such a rich expressive language because of its incorporation of words from all over the world).
Laskin's history looks back to the early lives of each of his subjects in their homeland and the reasons for their immigration. Most had a father or other relative living in the United States, some witnessed their villages or towns emptying out as the inhabitants left for America, all left expecting to find great opportunity--streets paved in gold. Most arrived in the United States to find opportunity but on a meager scale. They experienced discrimination, crowded and decrepit accommodations, minimal opportunities for work--often heavy and dangerous labor, and, for comfort, they gravitated toward small communities of those whose origin and language they shared.
A few of Laskin's subjects joined the army voluntarily as a viable employment option, others were drafted as the United States entered World War I. Laskin reports that the army was an army of recent immigrants, filled with soldiers who did not speak English and many were setting out to fight their own countrymen.
Although some of the immigrants whose stories are represented in this book went on to be decorated soldiers who established themselves with thriving families and successful careers others, Laskin writes, were killed in action, "[s]ome drifted. Some lived on the margins. Some never recovered from war wounds, whether physical or psychic" (327) in no small part from the trauma of war and the effects of poison gas. Not withstanding the contributions of immigrants in the war, as the war ended the Ku Klux Klan was having a resurgence and a building national fear of Communism led to the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924 which restricted most immigration and banned Asian immigration altogether.
This book serves as a social history of the First World War, as a tribute to the immigrant generation who served in the armed forces, and, sadly, as an always necessary reminder that we are a nation of immigrants. As I write this review, according to surveys, 51% of the U.S. population believe Arizona's legalized racial profiling as a means of identifying illegal aliens is "about right" (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004030-503544.html). A Long Way Home is a thoughtful, somewhat sentimental history. Laskin's attachment to his subject allows him to provide an intimate perspective on an aspect of American history that provides context and illumination in our own dark times.
On order for the Grinnell College Libraries
Other books by David Laskin in the Grinnell College Libraries:
The Children's Blizzard. New York: HarperPerennial, 2005
Burling 2nd Floor F595 .L37 2004
Partisans: Marriage, Politics, and Betrayal among the New York Intellectuals. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.
Burling 2nd Floor PS255.N5 L37 2000
R. Stuhr
It is interesting to read this book about 12 men who immigrated during the great 19th century wave of immigration in light of current debates on immigration and especially recent legislation in Arizona. Laskin's book is about the interesting path these men took to the United States, looking for opportunity, perhaps even seeking to avoid mandatory service in their native countries' armed forces, only to be drafted into the U.S. forces. We know this, we should know this about the ourselves and the population of our country, but this book serves as a reminder that the United States is made up of immigrants, that, in fact, this is what is special about our country--there is no specific ethnicity associated with being an American. The same people passing anti-immigrant legislation law in Arizona or passing English only laws have, somewhere in their not too distant ancestry a relative who came to this country speaking a language other than English (and English is such a rich expressive language because of its incorporation of words from all over the world).
Laskin's history looks back to the early lives of each of his subjects in their homeland and the reasons for their immigration. Most had a father or other relative living in the United States, some witnessed their villages or towns emptying out as the inhabitants left for America, all left expecting to find great opportunity--streets paved in gold. Most arrived in the United States to find opportunity but on a meager scale. They experienced discrimination, crowded and decrepit accommodations, minimal opportunities for work--often heavy and dangerous labor, and, for comfort, they gravitated toward small communities of those whose origin and language they shared.
A few of Laskin's subjects joined the army voluntarily as a viable employment option, others were drafted as the United States entered World War I. Laskin reports that the army was an army of recent immigrants, filled with soldiers who did not speak English and many were setting out to fight their own countrymen.
Although some of the immigrants whose stories are represented in this book went on to be decorated soldiers who established themselves with thriving families and successful careers others, Laskin writes, were killed in action, "[s]ome drifted. Some lived on the margins. Some never recovered from war wounds, whether physical or psychic" (327) in no small part from the trauma of war and the effects of poison gas. Not withstanding the contributions of immigrants in the war, as the war ended the Ku Klux Klan was having a resurgence and a building national fear of Communism led to the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924 which restricted most immigration and banned Asian immigration altogether.
This book serves as a social history of the First World War, as a tribute to the immigrant generation who served in the armed forces, and, sadly, as an always necessary reminder that we are a nation of immigrants. As I write this review, according to surveys, 51% of the U.S. population believe Arizona's legalized racial profiling as a means of identifying illegal aliens is "about right" (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004030-503544.html). A Long Way Home is a thoughtful, somewhat sentimental history. Laskin's attachment to his subject allows him to provide an intimate perspective on an aspect of American history that provides context and illumination in our own dark times.
On order for the Grinnell College Libraries
Other books by David Laskin in the Grinnell College Libraries:
The Children's Blizzard. New York: HarperPerennial, 2005
Burling 2nd Floor F595 .L37 2004
Partisans: Marriage, Politics, and Betrayal among the New York Intellectuals. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.
Burling 2nd Floor PS255.N5 L37 2000
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Japanese Crime Novelist, Miyuki Miyabe
Japanese books! Novels by Miyuki Miyabe
Submitted by Deborah Iwabuchi
Burling Library is home to a complete set of the mystery novels of Miyuki Miyabe currently translated into English. Miyabe is a prolific Japanese writer who has sold millions of books in Japan, but is not quite as well known in the US. Mixing mystery, history, youth and some paranormal activity, as well as her own commentary on modern society, almost everyone in Japan has read a Miyabe novel at some time or another.
The titles available to you at Grinnell College are (in order of publishing date):
The Devil’s Whisper A young man loses his parents and ends up living with his aunt and her family. He finds himself involved in the investigation of the deaths of four young women that ultimately leads him to the story behind the unraveling of his own family.Burling, Smith Memorial PL856.I856 M3513 2007
For a fuller review of this novel, see the blog entry in the Grinnell Book Review
The Sleeping Dragon A teenager on a bicycle and the death of a young boy in the middle of a storm rope in an unwilling magazine reporter with a past of his own. The solution to all of the mysteries are in the hands of two young men: one who claims to be a psychic and the other who insists he is not.
Burling 3rd PL856.I856 R9813 2010
Submitted by Deborah Iwabuchi
Burling Library is home to a complete set of the mystery novels of Miyuki Miyabe currently translated into English. Miyabe is a prolific Japanese writer who has sold millions of books in Japan, but is not quite as well known in the US. Mixing mystery, history, youth and some paranormal activity, as well as her own commentary on modern society, almost everyone in Japan has read a Miyabe novel at some time or another.
The titles available to you at Grinnell College are (in order of publishing date):
All She was Worth A straight mystery and the best known Miyabe novel in the English-speaking world; the search for a woman who has disappeared in an attempt to hide from the mess consumer financing has made of her life.
Burling 3rd PL856.E856 K3713 1999
Shadow Family This is also a “strictly in this world” tale that takes place in a single day at a Tokyo police station. In an effort to find a murderer, in the presence of the real family of the victim, police question his “shadow family”, a group of people the murdered man met online as part of a role-playing game.
Burling 3rd PL856.I856 R213 2004
Crossfire A series of murders take place in Tokyo, and all of the victims have been burned to a crisp. In this fantasy-plus-police procedural, Miyabe unfolds a tale that looks at victims of injustice in modern society, and examines the question of whether or not passing judgment on criminals should be left to the police.
The Devil’s Whisper A young man loses his parents and ends up living with his aunt and her family. He finds himself involved in the investigation of the deaths of four young women that ultimately leads him to the story behind the unraveling of his own family.Burling, Smith Memorial PL856.I856 M3513 2007
For a fuller review of this novel, see the blog entry in the Grinnell Book Review
The Sleeping Dragon A teenager on a bicycle and the death of a young boy in the middle of a storm rope in an unwilling magazine reporter with a past of his own. The solution to all of the mysteries are in the hands of two young men: one who claims to be a psychic and the other who insists he is not.
Burling 3rd PL856.I856 R9813 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
National Library Week April 11-17
April is many wonderful things, including National Poetry Month (more about that later), but also National Library Week. Our Governor Culver has seen fit to recognize the week ahead through a formal proclamation. You can view it at:
http://www.statelibraryofiowa.org/ld/tell-library-story/Props/10nlwproc
But, for you who prefer not to follow links, here are a couple of interesting details noted in the proclamation:
Iowa has 543 public libraries, 79 academic libraries, "more than'" 1,400 school libraries, and 63 special libraries. Iowans made 18,744,559 up 41% from 1999 and 2/3rds of Iowa's citizens have an active library card.
Celebrate next week by making a visit to your local public or academic (or school or special) library, and enjoy the helpful library professionals and services you will find there.
http://www.statelibraryofiowa.org/ld/tell-library-story/Props/10nlwproc
But, for you who prefer not to follow links, here are a couple of interesting details noted in the proclamation:
Iowa has 543 public libraries, 79 academic libraries, "more than'" 1,400 school libraries, and 63 special libraries. Iowans made 18,744,559 up 41% from 1999 and 2/3rds of Iowa's citizens have an active library card.
Celebrate next week by making a visit to your local public or academic (or school or special) library, and enjoy the helpful library professionals and services you will find there.
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Rooster goes to Wolf Hall
And the voting is in--really! The judging is a fun (and thoughtful!) read and a nail biter to boot--check out the championship round at the Morning News Tournament of Books. And that is all until next year.
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