I don't know how to start this. Is this about the death count of governments -- maybe not all, but all I know? Is this about the violence we instigateI don't know how to start this. Is this about the death count of governments -- maybe not all, but all I know? Is this about the violence we instigated, abetted, or at least countenanced in South and Central America? Is this about the people themselves, shot or bludgeoned or thrown from planes into the waters? Is this about the Skyvan PA-51 n For Lauderdale that once carried the disappeared into the air to die?
Dr. Alexa Hagerty is a forensic anthropologist who has gone to graves of those who died at the hands of state violence and tried to name the slain. Through DNA and forensics, she and those with her do the hard work of identifying those murdered by their own governments, sometimes by death squads who still do their work. She has cleaned the bones, done the science, and taken the stories of the survivors.
This book is harrowing and heartbreaking. Real people committed awful atrocities most with no consequences. They were doing what their governments, and often their churches, told them to do.
Only one person in this book has second thoughts. Retired Argentine Navy officer Adolfo Scilingo tracked down investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky to tell him about the death flights. Prisoners would be drugged and thrown alive from military planes into the ocean, the river, or the jungle. Every bone would shatter. Scilingo was part of that operation. He almost fell once and was saved by other soldiers. That memory so haunted him he confessed his sins to a journalist and testified as to the atrocity. There were people who were convicted for this. Argentina enacted a general amnesty soon after. Scilingo was convicted in Spain for crimes against humanity.
There's no real conclusion to the book. Dr. Hagerty has come home and says she is going to try to stop the next wave of mass murders by governments.
This book made me vividly remember being a teenager and realizing the violence we used around the world, that sense of horror and powerlessness. The vividness has faded. But the violence and horror remains. May we be forgiven and may we be better. ...more
Thirteen riveting essays by judges recounting tough cases they presided over. Each one was powerful and most were introspective.
I particular appreciaThirteen riveting essays by judges recounting tough cases they presided over. Each one was powerful and most were introspective.
I particular appreciated Judge Aldsorf's description of presiding over the Amalgamated Transit case, which considered the constitutionality of an initiative that would have reduced car tabs to $30 and required a referendum for future tax increases generally. The Washington State Constitution requires every bill, including initiatives, to have two subjects. Since this one had two, it was plainly unconstitutional. It was also wildly popular. Judge Alsdorf was elected by the people and had sworn an oath to the constitution. Tough place to be. He said he worked hard to write his opinion so the folks who lost the case would know why it came out that way. He may have taught me that 20+ years ago.
I think the two that are going to haunt me are Judge Davidson's essay about a civil case where a client accused her lawyer of rape. The attorney swore he never attempted to or had sexual relations with his clients. There was a lot of evidence he had. The judge excluded it as more prejudicial than probative. I probably would have gone a different way on that. Both speak to an abuse of power. At any rate, she lost and the case still haunts him. He shows great humility and strongly suggests he got that wrong.
In the other, Judge Canan talks about strongly encouraging a plea agreement to avoid a unjust conviction he had reason to believe was coming. The man plainly had not committed the charged crime. But the jury looked to convict. Turns out the jury would have acquitted. It worked out - the man was allowed to withdraw his plea -- but Judge Canan also acknowledges that he got that one wrong.
The other eleven essays were all good and bear witness to a hard job. But several were suffused with more self satisfaction than humility and insight and several others had a defensiveness that made me sad.
Chronicles the life and death of a man whose writing made me a better person and whose death still makes me cry. Every time I reread a Discworld book,Chronicles the life and death of a man whose writing made me a better person and whose death still makes me cry. Every time I reread a Discworld book, I see more in it. I bitterly regret all the ones we did not get. I am so grateful Diana Walker got me to give him another chance after the first, Sorcery, didn't do much for me.
Rob Wilkins was Terry Pratchett's personal assistant and did everything from dig the ditch that let them network Pratchett's writing studio to his home to take many of the books by dictation. Wilkins clearly loves Pratchett deeply, even though, I learn, up close and personal Pratchett could be a bit of a trial.
From this book, I learned that Tolkien wrote him back so Pratchett always tried to respond to his fan mail.
I learned that Pratchett so loathed the script of Wee Free Men that Sam Raimi's production company produced that he described it as shit and shut down the project. (Apparently, it turned Tiffany Aching into a traditional Disney Princess wishing on a star for her dream to come true. Huh. Tiffany used her little brother as bait to lure out a monster. She took on the Fairy Queen with a cast iron pan. She's not a "wish on a star" type of girl).
I learned in 2011 he went to the Occupy Wall Street protest at Zuccotti Park and got a tour from the librarian.
I learned the last time he saw Neil Gaiman, mere months before his death, Pratchett was nearly unresponsive until Gaiman started singing Shoehorn with Teeth, their favorite They Might Be Giants song. Soon, the were talking away like the old friends they were. That was the day Pratchett made Gaiman promise that he would helm the adaption of Good Omens.
I learned some of the books we didn't get. Raising Taxes, where Vetinari tasks Most von Lipwig with getting people to pay their taxes and liking it. Running Water, where Vetinari decides to build a water and sewage system for Ankh-Morpork and we learn more about what's down there. The Turtle Stops, a sequel to the Amazing Maurice. Up School! where Susan Sto Helit becomes the headmistress of Quirm College for Young Ladies. Clang! were revolution comes to the Discworld, communicated by bells. As well as What Dodger Did Next, Twilight Canyons (elderly patients at a care home thwart the rise of a Dark Lord despite not being able to tell Tuesday from a lemon); Cab's Well, The Feeney, The Dark Incontinent - I weep for what we did not read.
I also learned of that night when Pratchett left the world. I remember that night. I cried then. I cried reading about it now.
Neil Gaiman said it best:
Terry’s authorial voice is always Terry’s: genial, informed, sensible, drily amused. I suppose that, if you look quickly and are not paying attention, you might, perhaps, mistake it for jolly. But beneath any jollity there is a foundation of fury. Terry Pratchett is not one to go gentle into any night, good or otherwise.
He will rage, as he leaves, against so many things: stupidity, injustice, human foolishness and shortsightedness, not just the dying of the light. And, hand in hand with the anger, like an angel and a demon walking into the sunset, there is love: for human beings, in all our fallibility; for treasured objects; for stories; and ultimately and in all things, love for human dignity.
Or to put it another way, anger is the engine that drives him, but it is the greatness of spirit that deploys that anger on the side of the angels, or better yet for all of us, the orangutans.
Terry Pratchett is not a jolly old elf at all. Not even close. He’s so much more than that. As Terry walks into the darkness much too soon, I find myself raging too: at the injustice that deprives us of – what? Another 20 or 30 books? Another shelf-full of ideas and glorious phrases and old friends and new, of stories in which people do what they really do best, which is use their heads to get themselves out of the trouble they got into by not thinking? Another book or two of journalism and agitprop? But truly, the loss of these things does not anger me as it should. It saddens me, but I, who have seen some of them being built close-up, understand that any Terry Pratchett book is a small miracle, and we already have more than might be reasonable, and it does not behoove any of us to be greedy.
I rage at the imminent loss of my friend. And I think, “What would Terry do with this anger?” Then I pick up my pen, and I start to write.
A loving homage to someone who made the world better. ...more
Touching memoir from someone who survived abuse and loss through loving animals. Not what I was expecting from the title but I really liked reading itTouching memoir from someone who survived abuse and loss through loving animals. Not what I was expecting from the title but I really liked reading it. ...more
An easy entry into some of E.O. Wilson's thoughts about social evolution. Particularly focuses on the idea that within groups, selfish individuals winAn easy entry into some of E.O. Wilson's thoughts about social evolution. Particularly focuses on the idea that within groups, selfish individuals win against altruists, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals. Lots of stuff about ants. Enjoyed it, but The Social Conquest of Earth or The Meaning of Human Existence were better explorations of the idea....more
Sweet and optimistic future history. We destroyed the Earth-that-Was. We melted down our cities and built spaceships. We went into the void. We were rSweet and optimistic future history. We destroyed the Earth-that-Was. We melted down our cities and built spaceships. We went into the void. We were rescued. Generations later, humans have spread through the cosmos, helped by the Galactic Commons that saved us, gave us refugee status and, somewhat begrudgingly, accepted us as citizens.
This story is made up of loosely interwoven day-in-the-life stories of, mostly, those who stayed on the ships, orbiting a donated star. Some are born, some die, some change. It's what I'd like to believe came after The Parable of the Sower.
There's not much in the way of plot. But the prose is good, the characters lovingly drawn, and enough aliens to keep my attention.
A sweet and lovely tale about enslavement, prejudice and dystopia. Earth has grown up and joined galactic civilization. We aren't in charge and we areA sweet and lovely tale about enslavement, prejudice and dystopia. Earth has grown up and joined galactic civilization. We aren't in charge and we aren't so good. Pepper was born on a planet where some are born slaves and some are born to rule. She was raised a child slave, working hard sorting scrap. Almost by accident, at 10 years old she makes it out into the junkyard. She escapes the dogs and is saved by a ship that is moldering away.
Over the next decade, the ship raises Pepper and tells her how to repair it. Pepper escapes with one of the cast off children of the elites, born with an unforgiveable defect. She becomes a tinkerer and electrician. She burns to save the ship that saves her.
Meanwhile, she helps another AI, Sidra, who was created to run a ship. When that is no longer tenable, she takes human form and walks among them. Highly illegal.
Pepper and Sidra's story intertwines. They protect each other and help each other.
The book was delightful in many ways. The stories were gripping, the climax sweet. But it was also deeply frustrating. These people live in the shadow of a deeply unjust social order. It never seems to occur to them to try to change it. ...more
Powerful little book. Explores the consequences of the fact that racism arose to justify treating people as things. Elegant and disturbing. Well worthPowerful little book. Explores the consequences of the fact that racism arose to justify treating people as things. Elegant and disturbing. Well worth the time....more
Future world where nation-states have been replaced by free trade zones and intellectual property protection is done with assassins and overwhelming fFuture world where nation-states have been replaced by free trade zones and intellectual property protection is done with assassins and overwhelming force. Jack Chen is a pharma-pirate who steals from the mega corporations to provide life-saving drugs to the masses. She funds herself by making party drugs. One day, she copies a new drug that makes people like work. It's a killer. Causes people to work until they die, making progressively worse decisions that often bring others along. The Pharma-Masters sends a hunter/killer cyborg/messed-up guy after her. Hijinks ensue.
Plays with hard questions about the meaning of property and autonomy. In this brave new world, people are not automatically franchised; you have to buy in (or have a family buy in for you). One of the main human characters is slave. There are also several sentient machines, some of which have a path to autonomy, some of which don't. One, Paladin, the robot half of the hunter/killer team sent to kill Jack has a human brain as part of her tool set. It is mostly surplus to requirements but does let her process facial expressions. Paladin's partner decides she's the gender of the donor. She rolls with it because she's programed to make him happy. But she doesn't have a gender.
People and sentient robots are bought and sold and no one seems horrified by this, even the revolutionaries. Dangerously plausible future.
Reminded me a lot of Cory Doctorow, though more subtly didactic. ...more
Short stories aren't really my bag, but there's a surprisingly tender story about whaling and another about shoggoths that will haunt me. Short stories aren't really my bag, but there's a surprisingly tender story about whaling and another about shoggoths that will haunt me. ...more
A (semi?) fictionalized memoir of Spiner's time on TNG. Starts with a severed pig's penis and ends with a kidney stone. Some fine metatextualism in beA (semi?) fictionalized memoir of Spiner's time on TNG. Starts with a severed pig's penis and ends with a kidney stone. Some fine metatextualism in between. ...more
Suggests the conventional wisdom about how our modern global civilization came to be is merely a "just so" story to justify the status quo. Suggests aSuggests the conventional wisdom about how our modern global civilization came to be is merely a "just so" story to justify the status quo. Suggests a whole lot more than that. Going to have to sit with this one for a bit. Profoundly unsettling. Hopeful and heartbreaking. So mad we lost David Graeber so young. He might have changed the world. He might have. ...more
Great repurposing of Lovecraft. A Black detective in London (who is also a Lovecraftian time traveler bored with the life of the mind) is hired to kilGreat repurposing of Lovecraft. A Black detective in London (who is also a Lovecraftian time traveler bored with the life of the mind) is hired to kill an abusive step father. For a given value of hired and step father. He, of course, uncovers a creeping darkness spreading over his city. Turns out London is a nexus for Old Ones, Elder Gods, and what seems to be the most beneficent version of Shub-Niggurath I've ever contemplated. Lots of repurposing.
Great use of Lovecraftian characters to talk about abuse and injustice. Most I've ever liked a Yith. Which makes me uncomfortable. ...more
I so wanted to like this book. It starts with epigraphs from Emily Dickenson and David Graeber. I'm still angry at Graeber's untimely death. May his mI so wanted to like this book. It starts with epigraphs from Emily Dickenson and David Graeber. I'm still angry at Graeber's untimely death. May his memory be a blessing. Or a revolution.
This little book sets out to be an exploration of being a person of minor-ish privilege, both racially and economically, in our capitalist world. It turns into noodling on the themes, like jazz. I always vaguely disliked jazz. Fuckin' seventh chords. Drums are meant to be hit, not stirred.
The prose is good. The pages turned. But the wistful anomie made me stabby. There is no revolution here. Maybe there was a little deeper level but I just couldn't get to it.
Charming joint travel log of Ned and Peter Parker during Spider-Man: Far From Home. I enjoyed the mix of art, journal entry, texts, and self insert faCharming joint travel log of Ned and Peter Parker during Spider-Man: Far From Home. I enjoyed the mix of art, journal entry, texts, and self insert fan-fiction. The depictions of Ned and MJ surprised me - they looked like white kids, not the actors from the movie.
I suspect the authors made a deliberate choice not to give this a heroic story. There's no climax; no villains to overcome; no triumphant return quashed by J. Jonah Jamison. That left me a little cold.
Still, a good book to curl up with as I'm reeling from my COVID shot. ...more
Powerful attack on white male supremacy. Suggests that a lot of the recurring ways racial injustice keep happening is America working as designed -- aPowerful attack on white male supremacy. Suggests that a lot of the recurring ways racial injustice keep happening is America working as designed -- as consistently advantaging white males first, those that prop them up second, and disadvantaging everyone else in rough proportion to their access to whiteness. With examples and illustrations too depressing to list.
Couple of powerful passages:
I do not believe that these white men are born wanting to dominate. I do not believe they are born unable to feel empathy for people who are not them. I do not believe that they are born without any intrinsic sense of value. if i di, this would be a very different book. I believe that we are all perpetrators and victims of one of the most evil and insidious social constructs in Western history: white male supremacy.
The constraints of white male identity in America have locked white men into cycles of fear and violence -- where the only success they are allowed comes at the expense of others, and the only feelings they are allowed to express are triumph or rage. When white men try to break free from these cycles, they are ostracized by society at large or find themselves victims of other white men who are willing to fulfill their expected roles of dominance. When women and people of color try to free themselves from the oppression of white male supremacy, they are viewed as direct threats to the very identity of white men, and the power structure upholding that identity works swiftly to eliminate the threat.
White male supremacy protects itself not only through the expected violence of white men, but also through control of social norms that keep us invested in the perpetration of white male power.
274
Right now white manhood is on a suicide mission. It is standing at the edge of disaster with a gun in its hands, and it's willing to take us all down with it.
276
The only thing Seattleites love more than recycling is coming up with new ways to avoid talking about race and the city's issues with racism.
Heartbreaking book by a brilliant -- and brave -- woman. Prof. Eberhardt is a psychology professor with a MacArthur genius grant. On her way to her HaHeartbreaking book by a brilliant -- and brave -- woman. Prof. Eberhardt is a psychology professor with a MacArthur genius grant. On her way to her Harvard graduation -- where she was to carry the flag for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences -- she was stopped by the cops for having a car with Ohio plates and expired tabs. She was arrested when she protested she was bringing food (that she had stayed up all night cooking as part of the catering business that helped her pay for her Ph.D.) she was arrested. If she hadn’t had a Dean’s phone number in her pocket, she might have missed her own graduation.
She was released on her own recognizance. (107). When she returned for her arraignment, she found out she was charged with assault and battery of a police officer. (111). The officer said she put a finger on him. The judge dismissed the charges. That judge was the first person to call the author “Dr. Eberhardt.” (112). There is a whole lot of meaning there.
People of color are much more likely to be stopped by the police than white people. (101-02). In some jurisdictions, including Ferguson, officers had quotas to fill. (102). “of the thousand or so people who are shot to death by police officers in the United States each year, 11 percent of those fatal encounters begin with a traffic stop for something as innocuous as a loud muffler or a broken taillight.” (103).
Now, among many other things, she trains police on implicit bias. Some are receptive. This book catalogs a lot of the ways racism makes life harder for people of color. A lot of them I do not what to type. I’m horrified our society subjects people to this. And I’m horrified that I keep learning of new (to me) and awful things. The LAPD’s use of the abbreviation “NHI” is going to haunt me for a long time.
Her chapter on visiting Charlottesville the day after the “Unite the Right” rally is worth reading all on its own. Her Uber driver spoke lovingly about the Black woman who raised him and then confessed that “‘Bigotry is still in my veins.’” (230). He said he could feel it rising up whenever he was “outnumbered.”
The book doesn’t have an easy trick to stop perpetuating injustice based on race. It lists a lot of things that don’t -- colorblindness, equal opportunity employment policies, most anti-bias training, diversity itself just aren’t enough.
Some good and hopeful passages:
“Success requires us to be willing to tolerate that discomfort as we learn to communicate, get to know one another, and make deeper efforts to shift the underlying cultures that lead to bias and exclusion.
It doesn’t just come down to ‘Am I a bigot, or am I not? Can I or can I not get trained out of this?’ Bias is operating on a kind of cosmic level, connecting factors and conditions that we must individually make an effort to comprehend and control. And it deserves a cosmic response, with everyone on board.
When it comes to combatting bias, it’s not enough to be alarmed by white supremacists and Nazis, but ignore the ways we rely on stereotypes to marginalize the unfamiliar ‘others’ among us.
The battle against explicit bias is taking place on a very public stage, where icons are being brought down for what might have been indulged a generation ago.”
(292)
“[A]dressing bias is not just a personal choice; it is a social agenda, a moral stance. Every society has disadvantaged groups that are the target of bias. When that disadvantaged status is blamed on those groups’ imagined faults, our incipient biases can feel warranted. Those biases will continue to be reproduced until we understand and challenge the disparities that fuel them. And the first step toward ending those disparities is to discard the assumption that they are inevitable.”
A time capsule from the pre-Trump time. I read most of these essays in their native format, back in the day. Today, they feel weirdly cramped. Like thA time capsule from the pre-Trump time. I read most of these essays in their native format, back in the day. Today, they feel weirdly cramped. Like the author had needful things to say but pulled the punch to avoid alienating her readers. To avoid triggering the action that would lead to the last four years.
She didn't know about President Trump back in those (comparatively) halcyon times. She didn't know about COVID-19. Or even Cosby. But she knew about racism, anti-immigrant fever, sexual violence, the power of stories, the heartbreak of stories, our weird relationship with patriarchy-reifying cultural tropes, and white-supremacy reifying respectability politics. She knew "For ever step forward, there is some asshoel shoving progress back." (167) So maybe she did.
A great last line: "I am a bad feminist. I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all." (318). Me too. ...more
A feel good text for our time. Some of it felt really good to read. For example:
"So fine, if you insist. This is a witch hunt. We're witches, and we'rA feel good text for our time. Some of it felt really good to read. For example:
"So fine, if you insist. This is a witch hunt. We're witches, and we're hunting you." (20)
"Unseating a couple (or a score or even a generation) of powerful abusers is a start, but it's not an end, unless we also radically change the power structure that selects their replacements and the shared values that remain even when the movement wanes. "And here's how you do it you do it." (73)
"The thought of explaining Gamergate to you right now makes my brain want to leave my body and fly into the sun, but I think I can make it through the Cliff's Notes: in 2014, one man was mad at one woman, his ex, who happened to be an indie video game developer. He knew that lots of men and boys around the world were also mad at lots of other women and girls for reasons that maybe they couldn't fully articulate -- but which essentially boiled down to the very mild, hard-won shifts away from traditional gender rules that activists had fought for over the past fifty years (aka since America was Great--this comes back later, unfortunately). The angry man wrote a blog post telling the other men and boys that his ex was the worst kind of New Woman - that she had sex, but not with him anymore, and that she had the gall to make video games, a boy's dream! . . . Therefore, ruthlessly stalking and harassing women in video games was a truly noble crusade, the only way to save future editions of the Grand Theft Auto franchise from having slightly fewer sex workers you could beat to death. Plus, harassing women online was fun." (181-82). And that led to Trump.
Her description of going to a Goop Health expo made me laugh and laugh. Her take down of the Southpark show as the arrested moral development of people rewarded for never growing up was really good. And her description of what happened when some members of the Seattle Music Gear Swap and Sale decided that they would offer minor discounts to women and people of color was an absolute thing of beauty.
There were parts that didn't speak to me. Her announcement that she's a gender traitor because she didn't care about pockets made me roll my eyes. Her shock that cis het white guys aren't terrified of home invasion as if all women are afraid of this (I have never once worried about it). And she spent long periods of time talking about the failings of people I barely know exist.
But man, when she's great, she's great. And also her sister in law is Ijeoma Oluo and her step daughter was in the Art of Resistance and Resilience Club at Roosevelt High School and got her an introduction to Bobby Seale. I swoon. ...more
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