One of life’s most accessible pleasures remains reading a big, epic novel, featuring an engaging story that takes you to a different time or place, and introduces you to new, interesting people. I read three such books last year, and I enjoyed each very much.
Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War and War and Remembrance
It took me the better part of last summer and early fall, but I reread Herman Wouk’s monumental WWII novels, The Winds of War (1971) (set during the prelude to and early years of the Second World War) and War and Remembrance (1978) (from the aftermath of Pearl Harbor through to the end of the war in 1945). Although my introduction to Wouk’s work had come through repeat viewings of the mini-series adaptations of the books, this rereading reminded me how superior the books are to their televised twins.
Both novels center on the lives of the Henry family (whose patriarch, Victor Henry, is a career Navy officer) and the Jastrow family (Jewish author Aaron and his niece Natalie). Together they span much of the globe, with major story lines devoted to the early European theatre, the Holocaust, and the naval war in the Pacific. While the fictional characters drive the narratives, historical figures such as Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin make substantial appearances.
Wouk, a former WWII naval officer himself, stuffs into these novels a megaton of historical background. He even uses the device of lengthy “excerpts” from a fictitious treatise about the war by an equally fictitious German general to provide — as something of a foil — Germany’s perspective on the war.
The WWII era has long been an interest of mine, and I have read plenty of non-fiction books about the war. Nonetheless, Wouk’s two novels and the mini-series adaptations have combined to make the biggest imprint of my impressions and understanding of the sweep of the war. That’s a real credit to his storytelling ability and attention to historical detail.
Stephen King’s 11/22/63
In November I read Stephen King’s new bestseller, 11/22/63 (2011), which centers on a modern day schoolteacher, Jake Epping, going back in time in an attempt to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy. Even though it weighs in at nearly 850 pages, it’s an absorbing tale. Although the challenge of saving the President is the main plot driver, the novel also offers a terrific backstory about Jake’s work as a teacher, and naturally I found myself dwelling upon it.
The first Stephen King novel I ever read was Salem’s Lot (1975), many years ago. I raced through it, and at times the story was so scary I was afraid to leave my bedroom at night to use the bathroom! It remains one of the best scary book experiences I’ve ever had.
King’s latest is not a horror story. And even the time travel plot falls short of being genuine sci-fi. Although some online reviewers wrote of reading the book in a handful of sittings, for me the pleasure of the book was in taking it slow, drinking in the world of the late 60s and early 60s that King so beautifully sets out for us. Yup, it was about losing myself in a big book.
The pleasures of reading a big book
What makes a big novel worth our investment of time and attention? Here are a few of my responses.
First, it wraps itself around a good story. You care about the characters and what they’re going through, you can lose yourself in their world, and you greet the end with a bit of sadness.
Second, it’s not a chore. With apologies to my more literary friends, novels such as Moby Dick and Bleak House — classics they may be — require too much work of me.
Third, the book teaches you something about life without being preachy. You walk away from it a little wiser.
Fourth, it’s comfortably middlebrow. Only a snob would think less of you for reading it, but it aspires to be something more than hastily churned out, formulaic junk. (Sorry, James Patterson fans…)
The benefits of reading a big book
Reading a good novel is more than a guilty pleasure or a complete escape from reality. Emeritus professor Keith Oatley (University of Toronto) is among those studying the effects of novel reading on the emotional development of readers. He and others are finding that, contrary to popular belief, those who immerse themselves in fictional worlds and characters may be more empathetic, open minded, and socially aware than those who do not.
Oatley gathered these emerging insights in an article appearing in the Nov.-Dec. 2011 issue of Scientific American Mind, “In the Minds of Others.” Here’s a snippet:
Recent research shows that far from being a means to escape the social world, reading stories can actually improve your social skills by helping you better understand other human beings. The process of entering imagined worlds of fiction builds empathy and improves your ability to take another person’s point of view. It can even change your personality. The seemingly solitary act of holing up with a book, then, is actually an exercise in human interaction. It can hone your social brain, so that when you put your book down you may be better prepared for camaraderie, collaboration, even love.
(Although the full article is not freely available from the magazine’s website, a brief summary and ordering information may be accessed here.)
-David Yamada
***
(Book images courtesy of Wikipedia.)
I’ve been a political junkie since I was a teenager. I’ve especially enjoyed the theatre of America’s quadrennial Presidential campaign, starting with the stirrings of various candidacies, and then moving into the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
It’s no wonder that I’ve watched the last two seasons of The West Wing on multiple occasions!
Looking ahead to 2012
But now I find myself unable to generate any enthusiasm for the 2012 game to come.
Of course, part of it relates to my ongoing disappointment with President Obama, who very likely will get my vote for lack of better choices. The 2008 election, and the remarkable enthusiasm and hope it generated, seem like another epoch ago.
Of the Republican candidates for the nomination, all I can say is that this party has done much, much better in election years past. I imagine that a good number of GOP voters feel the same way.
The candidates are sparring against the backdrop of a national and global economic situation on the brink of full-blown disaster, and no one on either side of the aisle strikes me as being capable of leading us out of it. Add to that the poisonous tone of public dialogue in Washington D.C., on the airwaves, and online, and you’ve got a recipe for continued muddling along…at best.
Solutions? Answers?
Please don’t offer any sympathy for my inability to delude myself further that the drama of the coming campaign actually will result in any positive change!
Instead, we all should be worried about the choices before us. And even more importantly, we need to be asking how we recover from a situation that Washington D.C. — and Wall Street, for that matter — are ill-equipped to fix.
Personally, I think we still need to come to grips with whether our holy commitment to “economic growth” as measured by more, more, and more is even part of the answer in view of the financial and environmental challenges we face.
Sure, there’s room for entrepreneurship, innovation, and especially job creation — but only if we we avoiding building them on piles of debt, worker exploitation, and ozone emissions. Otherwise, it’s time we had more important discussions about quality of life, community, and lives infused with meaning. That conversation probably won’t occur much, if at all, on the Presidential campaign trail, so I won’t be spending a lot of time watching C-SPAN.
See you at the polls, in any event.
-David Yamada
[SPOILER ALERT: This blog post contains plot references to the movie "Contagion." If you plan on seeing the movie, you might want to skip this post until after you do.]
The star-studded movie “Contagion” is very Hollywood, but it’s also a powerful statement about our times…or at least the times we plausibly could face. In addition, it attests to the ability of mainstream entertainment media to shape our perceptions of what counts as legitimate science and medical care.
Plot (briefly)
The title is a giveaway, and you may have seen the trailers, so I needn’t go into detail. “Contagion” is a Bad Bug (as in disease) movie, with a deadly, fast-acting, flu-like virus quickly spreading around the world. As panic ensues and civil society disintegrates, heroic scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) race to develop a vaccine.
It’s a well-acted, suspenseful movie with A-list performers. Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishbourne, Elliot Gould, and Jude Law are among the cast.
Traditional vs. alternative
A major subplot involves the affirmation of traditional medicine and vaccines and the not-so-subtle smackdown of alternative & complementary medicine.
The researchers and physicians associated with the CDC are portrayed as earnest, masterful, and self-sacrificing in a never-ending war against mutating microbes.
The pesky, lone science blogger who favors a homeopathic remedy (a derivation of the forsythia plant) and criticizes Big Pharma to millions of readers is portrayed variously as a crusading gadfly, flake, or possible fraud.
I hold no strong brief in the traditional vs. alternative & complementary medicine debate. My own belief, admittedly that of a layperson, is that the future of effective health care will involve elements of both. In any event, in director Steven Soderbergh’s apocalyptic world, there’s no room for kooky non-traditional stuff when a deadly virus is at hand. He even takes a gratuitous swipe at blogging, with one of his heroic Establishment characters calling it “graffiti with punctuation marks.”
A most plausible scenario?
In “Contagion,” the breakdown of civil society is swift and hard. People fight over food. They loot drug stores to obtain forsythia. In the U.S., a police state emerges. Access to a new vaccine is done by lottery.
Alas, this struck me as being one of the most realistic story lines in the entire movie.
We have forged an I’ve-got-mine, individualistic culture in contemporary America, and we are witnessing a frightening strain of meanness and selfishness in our politics and civic culture today. All the pieces are in place for a struggle of Darwinesque, survival-of-the-fittest proportions when times get especially rough.
That’s the other contagion in “Contagion,” and it’s already here, in real life.
-David Yamada
Many are drawn to colleges and universities as students and faculty out of devotion to educational and research opportunities that are unique to higher learning. But beyond our given reasons for pursuing the work itself, many of us simply enjoy being in academic settings.
These sentiments are easily betrayed when academicians write about universities and place. For example:
Importance of place
In a 1997 essay, University of Virginia sociologist Krishan Kumar reflected on the “importance of place” in higher learning:
Universities are breathing spaces in life’s course. They enable their members, young and old, to do things and to reflect on things for which the rest of their lives they will have neither the time nor the opportunity. This is best done communally, residentially, rather than in the isolation of privatized households.
Sacred spaces
New York University president John Sexton has spoken often of universities in a spiritual sense, describing them as “modern sanctuaries, the sacred spaces sustaining and enhancing scholarship, creativity and learning” (link here):
I use the word sanctuary here not to signal detachment from the world, for our universities increasingly are in and of their surroundings; rather I use the term to signal both the specialness of what our great universities do, and the fragility of the environment in which it is done.
Schools as places
Valparaiso University art history and humanities professor Gretchen Buggeln starts her essay on campus architecture (link here) by confessing: “One reason that I am a professor is that I love schools as places, places filled with history and tradition, but also with constant newness and energy.” She ultimately concludes:
The spaces on our campuses, when working as they should, provide places to dwell in community. But for most of the people who share these spaces with us, their stay is temporary. Our mission is not to turn inward. We are called to look outward, to lead and serve, and to prepare our students to do the same.
Enamored of a university place
Many years ago, famed economist and author John Kenneth Galbraith wrote about the day he received notification of his acceptance to a doctoral program at UC-Berkeley and the years that followed:
From that day on the University of California has engaged my affection as no other institution – educational, public or pecuniary – with which I have ever been associated.
One Sunday afternoon in the summer of 1968, with my wife and oldest son . . . I strolled across the California campus – over Strawberry Creek, by the Campanile, down by the Library, out Sather Gate. . . . I was suddenly overwhelmed by the thought that I loved this place – the paths, trees, flowers, buildings, even the new ones. I was deeply embarrassed.
Is this sense of place a luxury for the privileged?
These soggy references are very much a part of the “going off to college” narrative that has been an essential piece of the post-World War Two, middle-class American dream. As a tail-end Baby Boomer and educator, it resonates very strongly with me.
But especially with the skyrocketing cost of higher education and the struggling economy, such aspirations have become increasingly unrealistic for many. Earning a degree in the current economic climate may involve a combination of community college courses, night classes, and online instruction. Sandwiched between jobs and other obligations, there’s not much opportunity to think big thoughts or experience campus life at Dear Old U.
I’ve experienced many facets of the higher education world. I’m a law professor at Suffolk University, a conventional commuter school in downtown Boston. I have degrees from traditional, brick-and-mortar universities (Valparaiso U and NYU Law), and I’ve done graduate work at two non-traditional schools that offer distance learning programs (SUNY/Empire State College and the Western Institute for Social Research).
So yes, based on that experience, I definitely can say that the full-time, immersive model of higher education makes it easier to define that sense of place.
Carving out space
But it shouldn’t be impossible in other learning environments. For those of us who work in or attend universities that are not built around that more cloistered, full-time model of higher education, the challenge must be to create a sense of place on a short-term basis and to make those experiences meaningful ones.
For example, at SUNY’s Empire State College, where I studied labor and public policy in a distance learning program, three-day graduate residencies book-ended the beginning and end of each semester. Several times a year, faculty and students gathered at these residencies, held in different parts of New York State, to learn collaboratively before we dispersed to complete our assignments and projects.
Very soon I’ll be spending an extended weekend at the Western Institute for Social Research, participating in an annual all-school academic conference that will include learners from around the world. These gatherings are distinctive, bringing together stories and insights from people drawn from many different walks of life who are devoted to the study and practice of social change.
I agree with Krishan Kumar: Universities are, or at least should be, “breathing spaces in life’s course.” We must strive to provide such experiences to all students, not just those fortunate to immerse themselves in full-time, residential programs.
-David Yamada
As our economy teeters on the brink of another recession (even as the “old” one never seems to have disappeared), here are three indicators that the wealthiest among us have been the primary beneficiaries of any recovery from the big meltdown:
1. Executive raises make a comeback
Matt Krantz and Barbara Hansen of USA Today report that executive raises in 2010 made a comeback after a leaner 2009 (link here):
The heads of the nation’s top companies got the biggest raises in recent memory last year after taking a hiatus during the recession.
At a time most employees can barely remember their last substantial raise, median CEO pay jumped 27% in 2010 as the executives’ compensation started working its way back to prerecession levels, a USA TODAY analysis of data from GovernanceMetrics International found. Workers in private industry, meanwhile, saw their compensation grow just 2.1% in the 12 months ended December 2010, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
2. Many of the new jobs aren’t good jobs
We know that the unemployment rate remains at a high level. Unfortunately, it gets worse: A National Employment Law Project report, The Good Jobs Deficit (pdf here), informs us that jobs created since the meltdown have been concentrated in lower wage tiers:
In the weak recovery to date, employment growth has been concentrated in lower-wage occupations, with minimal growth in mid-wage occupations and net losses in higher-wage occupations. From the first quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011, lower-wage occupations grew by 3.2 percent, with retail salespersons, office clerks, cashiers, food preparation workers and stock clerks topping the list. Mid-wage occupations grew by only 1.2 percent and higher-wage occupations declined by 1.2 percent.
3. I shop, therefore I am
Stephanie Clifford reports for the New York Times that the rich are once again whipping out their platinum cards (link here):
Even with the economy in a funk and many Americans pulling back on spending, the rich are again buying designer clothing, luxury cars and about anything that catches their fancy. Luxury goods stores, which fared much worse than other retailers in the recession, are more than recovering — they are zooming.
And everyone else?
Just about everyone else in America (not to mention around the world) is in a state of economic anxiety, if not downright struggle. And until we understand that a small number of people are benefiting from this insecurity and want, backed by complicit public policy makers who gratefully accept their campaign contributions, we will not be able to forge a national and global consensus for humane change.
-David Yamada
***
Cross-posted with Minding the Workplace
Cambridge reunion, 2011 (photo courtesy of Anne Gorski)
Thirty years ago, I had the blessed opportunity to spend my final undergraduate semester at Valparaiso University’s study center in Cambridge, England. Our group of 20 VU students interspersed a fixed menu of courses in British history, European geography, drama, and art appreciation with plenty of time to explore the British Isles and the European continent.
Since 1991, our group has reconvened in Valparaiso, Indiana every five years for a reunion, and this year’s gathering took place over the past weekend. Eleven of our group made it, along with several spouses and friends — and we were joined by one of our British chums from 1981!
The benefits of purposeful slackerdom
Today study abroad often is touted as a chance to learn about globalization & the international economy and to build one’s resume & credentials. These claims are true, but the most enduring value of foreign study remains the enhancement of one’s personal culture and growth.
I have long regarded that semester as my most formative educational experience, even though what I saw and studied had very little to do with any of my career goals at the time. So many aspects of my life today have their roots in those five months.
Among our group, I’m not alone in holding such sentiments. At our reunion, one classmate told me that nearly every day some memory of that semester comes to mind, and another remarked that our semester overseas was one of her most significant personal experiences. Indeed, the fact that our reunions typically attract over half of our group attests not only to the personal bonds that we made, but also to the special quality of the experiences we shared.
Our semester abroad was not the most career-centered or academically rigorous course of study. However, living in another country, learning about other cultures, and making our way around parts of Europe were remarkably educational and maturing experiences. Sometimes we forget there are benefits to such purposeful slackerdom.
Taking stock
Every five years, we tell the same stories, poke gentle fun at one another in the same ways, and page through scrapbooks that revive memories leading to more stories.
But this gathering felt a little different to me. As I looked at fellow sojourners attending this 30th year reunion and thought about those who weren’t able to join us, I realized that we had come far enough in life to do some stock taking.
What I saw made me happy. You’ll have to take my word for it: These are good folks. All have made their positive mark on this world. Several have confronted serious adversity with courage and resilience.
In other words, I believe we’ve turned out pretty well — in a diverse assortment of ways to boot. And although I don’t want to exaggerate the benefits of one semester abroad, I have to think that time together in 1981 played at least a modest role in nurturing the good qualities we bring to our lives today.
-David Yamada
For most of my 17 years in Boston, one of my favorite retail destinations has been the huge Borders bookstore in Downtown Crossing. Well-stocked and eminently browsable, I have spent a lot of time and money there. A ton of books and DVDs in my home library came from Borders.
Even as my credit card bill started to show more and more Amazon purchases, I kept shopping and buying at Borders. I did so not out of charity, but rather because it continued to offer good books at good prices, and I frequently discovered new titles and authors there. In addition, its cafe served good coffee and morsels, its magazine selection was second to none, and you could spend a lot of time browsing and no one would dream of hassling you.
Very soon, however, the store I have visited once a week or more will be gone, along with hundreds of other Borders locations. At the Downtown Crossing store, tacky going-out-of-business signs drape the exterior. Inside, the lights are dim and the AC is on low — presumably to save on energy costs — and there’s a palpable sadness in the building.
Lurking around the web, I read similar expressions of regret and even mourning. Borders may be a big chain, but its stores have served as community gathering spots, as well as a place to buy books and DVDs. Borders managed to make a personal connection with its customers in ways that Barnes & Noble has never achieved.
I think that’s why Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory, in lamenting the closing of the Downtown Crossing location (link here), called it the “living room” of that part of the city. It was a busy and reportedly profitable store, an anchor retailer in a section of the city that has been struggling with business closures and empty storefronts.
Bookselling wars I
Who would’ve thought that Borders customers would be so captured by sentiment? After all, the bookstore wars of the 1990s pitted the superstores against the small indies. (Think “You’ve Got Mail” — the romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan — and you get the idea.) Among some, it became an expression of political correctness to support the struggling indies against the Goliath superstores.
Beyond the big cities, Borders opened stores in locations that had not been served by a decent bookstore, or maybe any bookstore. (The same could be said for Barnes & Noble.) These retailers brought books — lots of ‘em — to smaller cities and suburbs across the country. Borders also caught the DVD wave and soon began devoting considerable floor space to satisfy growing customer demand.
Bookselling wars II
But as the superstores cuffed around the indies, another giant was emerging online. Launched in the mid-90s, Amazon would take a while to catch on, but the bookstore wars of the 2000s became that of brick-and-mortar stores vs. an online bookseller offering big discounts and a vast website. Amazon then launched the era of e-readers in the form of the Kindle, managing to define and then largely capture that growing market.
Well, we know the ending of this chapter. Borders is soon to be done, Barnes & Noble and various independent booksellers will try to hang in there, and Amazon is riding at the top of the heap.
Writing books
In a Boston Globe op-ed piece (link here), author James Carroll shared the lament over Borders’s demise, while noting that the market-defining business practices of the superstores changed the publishing industry, and not for the better:
Profits once came, say, from 50,000 copies of Stephen King and 50,000 total copies of 10 other authors – authors like me, I should add. Now the money comes from 90,000 of King and 10,000 total of two others – with the other eight writers no longer able to get published.
Ironically, electronic and self-publishing options stoked by Amazon and other e-retailers are creating more venues for budding authors. As I wrote last year in a piece titled “So you want to be a writer?” for my blog Minding the Workplace:
…(W)e may be at the beginning of a huge transformation, one in which the negative attitudes toward self-publishing and other alternative routes to publication are dissolving, perhaps rapidly — even if the traditional book deal remains a sought-after prize.
Reading books
The demise of several hundred bookstores in one fell swoop is sad and troubling from the standpoint of cultural health. Carroll calls the disappearance of the brick-and-mortar bookstore “a massive cultural impoverishment.”
Still, what counts most is the reading, yes? On that point, those who love to read books will not run out of choices. Between online and brick-and-mortar booksellers (for new and used titles alike), e-readers, online sources, and public libraries (at least until state and local budgets disintegrate entirely), books are not going away anytime soon.
And yet, I will remember that every time I walked into a Borders, I experienced a book lover’s delight over what discoveries might await. I will miss that a lot.
-David Yamada
***
This is the latest in an ongoing series of posts on reading and books.
Brandenburg Gate, Berlin (photos here courtesy of Wikipedia)
I’ve been attending a law and mental health conference in Berlin. It’s the first time I’ve been in the city since 1981, and I thought I’d share my sense of this fascinating place.
Berlin 1981
After a semester at Valparaiso University’s study center in Cambridge, England, I spent several weeks traipsing through parts of the European continent. I recall that with only a few days left to travel, I decided to break off from my travel companions and make a visit to Berlin.
My main impressions of Berlin in 1981, concededly those of a callow college senior, were of contrasts.
This was the last decade of the Cold War. Eight years later the Berlin Wall would fall, but at the time of my brief visit, it was a defining physical, political, and psychological presence.
West Berlin struck me as being self-consciously glitzy, garish and colorful. (Okay, the term “self-conscious” was not in my vocabulary yet, but you get the picture.)
However, when I crossed over to East Berlin via Checkpoint Charlie, it seemed like the city faded to gray. Upon going through security, I quickly found my way to Unter den Linden, once one of Europe’s grandest boulevards, only to find what looked like a dull, lifeless ghost city, devoid of energy, commerce, or pedestrian traffic. My walk concluded at the Brandenburg Gate (pictured above), which separated east from west.
Berlin 2011
Humboldt University, the host of this conference, is one of Germany’s most prominent universities. It is located on the city’s east side along the same Unter den Linden that I found so drab and depressing in 1981.
But how things have changed. The boulevard is once again full of life, with visitors, students, and office workers spilling onto the sidewalks. The Brandenburg Gate is a tourist draw, replete with young men dressed in faux military uniforms for photo ops. And if kitschy tourist traps are a sign of the arrival of a market economy, then some of the shops along Unter den Linden fit the bill.
Remembrance and responsibility
Some claim that Germany’s willingness to acknowledge the horrible sins of the Second World War can cross into self-flagellation. However, I find it an admirable trait, especially when compared to, say, Japan and the Rape of Nanking and Turkey and the Armenian Massacre.
For example, in a short pamphlet describing its history and academic programs, Humboldt University acknowledges the unsavory eras of its history, including the Nazi era:
…(T)he university experienced the most reprehensible period in its history: Among its staff and students were many enthusiastic supporters of the National Socialist regime. There are few examples of resistance to the regime or the countless crimes that were committed against humanity.
At Bebelplatz (pictured above), which now serves as the university plaza, there is a tiny, unmarked square of ground with a translucent underground display of empty bookshelves, marking the location of an infamous Nazi book burning in 1933.
A short walk from the Checkpoint Charlie tourist bazaar is the moving Topography of Terror exhibition, which helps to preserve the painful history of the Nazi era. It is located on the grounds of the “central institutions of Nazi persecution and terror,” and is abutted by remaining portions of the Berlin Wall.
Architecture
Berlin’s most apparent physical reminder of WWII is its architecture. Much of this old world city was leveled by Allied bombs during the war, and it rebuilt itself during the 1950s and 1960s, an era dominated by sterile, alienating building designs. (As fellow residents of Boston can attest, such ugly architecture is hardly limited to Berlin!)
Thus, most of the city’s post-war buildings range from unremarkable to downright ugly. And yet, the street life of Berlin transcends some of the less-than-wonderful architecture. Modern Berlin has the feel of a busy, lively, edgy metropolis.
Unease
In one of those impromptu chats that evolves into a deep conversation, a European colleague and I shared our impressions of spending a week in a city that carries such a difficult and painful history. I confessed that I felt uneasy in Berlin even as I found the city fascinating, and he agreed.
We further concurred that, given this history, Berlin is a psychologically complex place, with historical events — and the discomfort they carry — likely leaving their imprint on the populace. In the 20th century alone, the Weimer, Nazi, Cold War, and post-Cold War eras marked brutal, jarring social and economic transitions. This city was a crossroads for all of them.
Trite but true
Perhaps that very history conveys a special meaning upon a global conference on law and mental health, held at this university and in this city.
After all, ranging from panels on more conventional aspects of civil and criminal legal systems, to a gripping program on health care, medical ethics, and public health in a WWII Jewish ghetto (go here for blog post), the conference stood for applying intellect, research, and understanding to the cause of human dignity. Humboldt University of 1941 or 1981 would not have hosted such a conference.
Thanks for reading these impressions of a city revisited.
-David Yamada
Although I subscribe to a lot of periodicals, I get a lot of my news from online sources. Like many others, I sometimes look at the comments to see what people are saying in response to a particularly interesting news article or opinion piece.
And that’s when I start despairing about the state of public discourse and civility in the United States.
Who are these spiteful, resentful people? Is there one, small, secret club of them, made up of members who go around to various websites for the purpose of spreading their vitriol? Or do we really have this humongous population of haters who seem to live for the opportunity to post snide and angry comments whenever anyone says something that doesn’t strike their fancy?
Names, please
I agree with those who say that Facebook has it right: Requiring people to use their real names is one of the best ways to ensure a more civil dialogue.
I avoided Facebook for years in large part because I assumed it was full of the kind of snarky “dialogue” that has infected other huge chunks of the Internet. To my pleasant surprise, that has not been the case. I’ve found that most discussions are quite civil, even when people strongly disagree on hot button issues of the day.
Of course, I realize that the ability to remain anonymous online has contributed to positive social change. I wouldn’t want to eliminate the ability of oppressed people to use the Internet as an organizing tool, and sometimes that requires the ability to cloak one’s identify.
And I know from my work around workplace bullying and workers’ rights that posting comments anonymously can be a way to share important information or make a point worth making, without fear of losing one’s job.
But for the most part, posting a comment to a news article or op-ed piece is a very different thing. For ordinary exchanges on the Internet, we should encourage policies that require personal accountability. If someone wants to be a four-star jerk, he should do so under his own name.
***
For those interested in promoting online civility, the interest group CiviliNation, started by my friend Andrea Weckerle, may be worth a good look. Go here to visit their website.
-David Yamada
Rummaging through stacks of books at used book sales and used book stores is one of my favorite pastimes, and I can trace the origins of those pleasures to the summer after my first year of college, now over 30 years ago.
Upon finishing my freshman year at Valparaiso University, I returned home to nearby Hammond, Indiana, to spend the summer working for a local drug store chain as a stock clerk. Knowing how much I loved to read books, my mom had clipped from the Chicago Tribune a small notice about a big used book sale in Wilmette, Illinois.
I would learn that the book sale was an annual, week-long fundraising event hosted and organized by the Chicagoland chapter of the Brandeis University women’s committee. It was legendary among many bibliophiles across the country, some of whom would rent campers to drive there and load up on good books for the year.
Bags (and bags) of books
I decided it would be worth the 90-minute drive to check it out. When I arrived at the shopping mall listed as the location of the book sale, I could scarcely believe my eyes. The sale — offering some 250,000 used books(!) — was held in a huge tent that covered a big stretch of the parking lot. During the first five days, the books were priced individually, but during the final two days virtually everything that remained was cut to 25 cents or less.
I spent just about every bit of spare change I had to my name. I filled several bags of books at the regular prices, and during one of the close-out days I went back and bought even more.
On the modest bookshelves of my boyhood bedroom, I took great pride in arranging and displaying my new treasures. Though I felt too silly to call it as such, this marked for me the beginning of a personal library.
Bloody politics
At the time, pursuing an academic career was the farthest thing from my mind. Rather, my full intention was to major in political science in college and then go on to law school as a prelude to launching a career in politics. The books I bought at the Brandeis used book sale reflected my intense interest.
Like many a one-time high school student council president, I fancied myself an eventual contender for the real Presidency, and so I loaded up on histories of American presidential campaigns. Chief among these selections was Theodore White’s classic The Making of the President series, leading off with his groundbreaking account of the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign. I remember how delighted I was to assemble the complete series in hard cover for about five bucks. That summer I would devour the books while daydreaming of someday running for office.
Return visits
During college, the book sale became an annual pilgrimage. In fact, until I moved to New York to attend law school, I made return visits every summer.
I recall a trip to the book sale with one of my college buddies. We drove there in his tiny Volkswagen Beetle, and we bought so many books that we had to open the hood and cover the top of the engine with our finds. I have no idea if we risked an engine fire in doing so, but the books made it back to campus safely!
Fast forward
When I was in the market for a condo some eight years ago, the broker I worked with remarked that I was her first client ever to ask about how a given unit would accommodate rows of bookshelves! I can blame the Brandeis used book sale for sending me down that path toward geekdom.
The library I have today is markedly different than the one I started during college. But one bookshelf in my condo contains a row of books about presidential campaigns, including The Making of the President series. My ambitions to run for office faded many years ago, but I’m still something of a political junkie. And while I have no idea whether I will read those books again, they stand as a wonderful reminder of the joys of discovering that huge tent full of used books, waiting to be explored.
-David Yamada
***
This is the second of an ongoing series of posts on reading and books.
David Yamada
cwagnerz