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Free Agent Nation: How America's New Independent Workers are Transforming the Way We Live, by Daniel H. Pink
Pink's prose style comes across as abrasively optimistic, not to say arrogant. That said, he wasn't nearly as evil as I expected him to be. He does not claim that everyone who has a microbusiness, or is otherwise self-employed, likes it that way. He further recognizes that political action needs to be taken by and for free agents to improve their lot in life, particularly in regards to health insurance.
His description of the replacements and supplements to the home office (Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, Mail Boxes Etc., Kinko's) is enlightening. I know people who use all of the above, but I hadn't put that together with what I saw in those places when I was there enough to realize how much, as he puts it, Starbucks is in the commercial space business. That said, some of his analysis struck me as painfully short-sighted. For example, he attacks zoning codes that prevent meetings in homes with clients, customers, etc., but he never even mentions the possibility that these could be attacked on freedom-of-assembly grounds.
Pink isn't ignorant of those who despise the temp revolution and everything that looks even vaguely like it. He cites Purdy's For Common Things and Frank's One Market Under God, both of which I read, and notes that their critique of free agency ignores the large segment of the self-employed who prefer it that way. To give Pink credit, I think he's onto something when he talks about how many people do this so they can be with their kids (and save money on day care).
Unlike many who favor this trend in business, Pink doesn't seem to be opposed to government per se. In his discussion of changes that could or should be made to education, to return us to a more vocational standard, and to reintroduce doing into learning, he advocates national service for teenagers. And he suggests we deal with the health insurance for those outside the corporate world by letting them all sign up for FEHB, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, a nice big pool that insurance companies compete to get access to. I haven't heard that idea floated, but I like the sound of it.
Much, much less bad than expected -- the second half in many ways was good. I got it at the library.
One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism, by Rodney Stark
This is the third book by Stark that I've read, and his most recent. I understand he's after witchcraft in the next one, which I look forward to.
Stark has discovered Adam Smith's remarks on religion, which match nicely what he came up with more or less on his own, and enabled him to extend his argument to understand under what circumstances civility on religious topics will arise. He specifically notes that tolerance does not arise by being persecuted. That teaches people that they need more power themselves. A big chunk of the middle of the book describes how Jews tend to get killed en masse when Islam and Christendom clash (hmmmm).
I'm feeling a bit irritable about Elliott J. Gorn's Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America. The flap calls this the first comprehensive biography. He mentions towards the end Dale Fetherling's work in the 70s, calling it the first and only book-length biography. One wonders what he considered Linda Atkinson's 1978 work, which has the exact same title as his own.
While I realize it's not his fault, I was put off from the trade paperback, with its conspicuous dearth of favorable quotes from women (this in spite of waxing on a bit about writing the lives of women). The cloth edition does have a recommendation from Alice Kessler-Harris. It also seems to be something of a hatchet job, dissing her for wanting to take most of the credit in her (Mother Jones') autobiography, for identifying as a woman and a mother. He feels that mothers of the time were dismissed by men. I remain unconvinced, but I may yet give this a try.
In the Atlantic article that got me started on the Rodney Stark binge, Stark talks about The Vineyard, their growth, and how good they are at giving people things to do. When Rich Nathan's Who Is Our Enemy crossed my path (new shelf at the temporary downtown central library in Seattle), I felt compelled to read it. Nathan, raised an orthodox Jew, converted to Christianity and now a pastor at one of The Vineyard's church, has a very specific strategy. He aims to create a ministry of welcome, focusing Christian love on those rejected by the church to draw them into the fold, where the harshest criticism is reserved for core members. The book details how to connect (be all things to all people, altho I'm not sure he ever uses that particular citation) with homosexuals, feminists, postmodernists (has this category supplanted secular humanist in the fundie vocabulary?) and New Agers. The quality of the book is highly variable. He demonstrates how to drop "Foucault" and "hermeneutic" into conversations. He's big on assaulting other people verbally for their own inconsistency, but on one page (page 74) he says: "Our God is not...male. His name is Jesus." Okay. His must not mean male to him?
As with many evangelicals, he likes feminists from a few generations back, but hates those of the last thirty or so years. Unlike most evangelicals, he acknowledges that it was that last round of feminists, and in particular the lesbians, who successfully raised and addressed issues of domestic violence. He makes no effort to absorb that into his ideology, but he does acknowledge it. His example of how badly women of the past were treated is an account of footbinding in China involves a woman talking a woman being bound by her mother, who says she must because a future mother-in-law will be checking. While Nathan is adamant about supporting the right of women to stay at home with the kids and the house, he is not similarly adamant about supporting the right of men to do the same. No, he believes that men and women are biologically distinct and that justifies different gender roles. And who does he cite to support this? Not scripture. Nope. Deborah Tannen and a bunch of foolishness about color discrimination (how does that make women more nurturing?) and pain tolerance (which he claims men have better, but everything I've seen says otherwise).
He covers several, but by no means all of the possible interpretations of 1 Tim 2:9-15, that bit where Paul says he wants women silent, not teaching men. Given his creed, he can't accept (and so doesn't mention) the possibility of a mistranslation (my current fave is the marginal note theory), but manages to dodge all the obvious literatal understandings, favoring one in which it only applied to one congregation at one point in time.
When he is saying that God loves diversity, he engages in casual racism (the Puli description on page 82, described first as a mop, then as a dog with dreads and a black nose, apologizing to Puli owners, but not to people with brown noses and dreads). Even more offensively, in a later chapter when he's going on about morality, he makes the claim that church going two parent black families in the south in desperate economic straits "never experienced anything like the gang violence and homicide rates that plague inner-city neighborhoods today". Conveniently forgetting the activities of souther "law" enforcement, not to mention the KKK.
He does a nice job of demonstrating how to apologize to those treated badly by Christians currently and in the past, focussing especially on Jews.
Most disturbing is the section on homosexuality. He is rude (he doesn't capitalize Gay Pride, when referring to parades). He believes in reparative therapy. He has a horribly confused theory about how bad or no connection to the same sex parent, plus some amount of sexual abuse causes people to become homosexual. Except when he's busy blaming RC seminaries. Ew. On the plus side, he opposes ranking sins, and so suggests that pastors and so forth focus on stuff happening in the congregation (adultery), rather than outside.
He has accepted some insane number of Wiccans and neopagans in the US (200000!). His support for opposition to witchcraft is that verse in the OT. One wonders how he feels about keeping kosher. He acknowledges that these organizations offer stuff that you can't find a Christian substitute for (alternative medicine, more meditation/spiritual practice -- I don't know why he doesn't think the RC counts).
Nathan constitutes a very minimal lightening of fundamentalism, when he advocates that churches stay out of politics, while continuing to encourage members to be Christians at the voting booth. Nothing here has really changed. They are just as atavistic and evil as ever. I'll believe they've improved, when they start saying things like, well, rules against abortion and infanticide in the early church were widely accepted and popular with women because they were good for women -- improved mortality rates, etc. Rules against abortion now are bad for women, because they actually put at greater risk their future reproductive capacity and sometimes even their lives. Maybe we should back off a bit, because after all, Jesus was always considerate of women and their needs, treating them as full human beings. That's when I'll start believing these people are actually, meaningfully followers of Christ.
Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society, by James Boyle
I had a tough time with this one. The first time I picked it up, I loved it. The next time, I hated it. Then I slogged through it. Then I got it and it was good, start to finish. Short form: we figure out who owns what (not just with intellectual or informational property) by applying a variety of rules: public/private divisions and the romantic ideal of the author are the two that Boyle zooms in on. He isn't arguing that we have too many or too few IP rights -- he's arguing that our cultural blinders have encouraged us to develop the wrong ones without realizing it. His test cases include blackmail, insider trading, intellectual property derived from biological sources (indigenous or otherwise). Best of all, he notes the absurdity of using rational choice economic theories (which, in general, assume perfect information) to make sense of situations that involve incomplete information.
You should read it to get the full argument. His program is not set in stone, but could include the following:
Great stuff. I got it from the library but plan on picking up my own copy.
Raw Deal, by Ken Smith
By the man who brought us Ken's Guide to the Bible, Raw Deal succinctly tells a bunch of horrifying stories of people who got the business. Native American leaders who advocated peace and tried to do what whitey told them to. Labor activists and whistle blowers. Inventors done wrong. Unlike some people (like those twits who write about stupid criminals), Ken Smith isn't going for the cheap shot or the schadenfreude. Nope, he's got two axes to grind. First, to redress a wrong, however slightly. Just because they got screwed in life doesn't mean they deserve to be forgotten in life, particularly when they were clearly the good guys by any reasonable metric. Second, to make sure that the reader knows this can happen, and plans appropriately. It's a fast read, and because each story stands almost entirely alone, excellent bathroom reading.
Scarlet Woman, by Gwynne Forster
I had never heard of Ellicott City or Benjamin Banneker before reading this romance novel. I probably could have made it through the rest of my life without knowing about the former, but my life is somewhat richer for knowing about the latter.
Other than that, I can't say that this was a particularly enlightening novel, and it was only slightly entertaining. The premise is bizarre and not particularly believable. A shy (but drop-dead gorgeous) schoolteacher agrees to marry a wealthy (she doesn't realize how wealthy) inventory considerably older than she is, a marriage of convenience, to be his companion. He dies, and leaves a will with two provisions. She has to set up a foundation, and be married within a year in order to inherit. The executor, a lawyer friend of her dead husband, has always wanted her, but just doesn't trust her (figures she's a gold digger). The cast of characters is rounded out with the immediate family of both characters, a woman friend of the title character, some hoodlums that the lawyer dude is trying to help go straight and assorted, extremely nasty, gossipping, status seeking folk about town.
There are humorous moments. And there is sex. But several things got on my nerves. First, we've got more than a hint of serious child abuse. The solution presented in the novel is forgiveness and forebearance on the part of the victim. It may be the case, given the nature of the abuse, and the situations, that that is the right solution. But it gave me the heebies. Second, our hero is completely ripped and gorgeous, but we don't ever see him work out (unless I missed that page). Furthermore, even though the author repeatedly says he doesn't eat this way often, every single time he eats, he eats crap. Finally, I just didn't get it. I mean, everyone in this tonwwn seems to hate the title character, thinks the worst of her character, etc., etc. And I never understood why. Now, it's possible that groups do just pick one person to pick on. It's also possible that people just really hate gorgeous, rich people. And it's even possible that she went seemlessly from being in category 1 (PK and awkward as a child, say, would justify that torment) to category 2 (by marrying and burying the rich guy). But something about it just didn't work for me, I think in part because while the cruelty is abundantly portrayed, the kindnesses tend to occur exclusively offstage, which makes me suspicious of both the author and the character.
It's not a waste of time, and YMMV. I got it at the library.
This Loving Torment, by Valerie Sherwood
A friend loaned this to me (she picked it up used). She had first read it in junior high, if I recall correctly. It's thick and it's stunningly bad. I read the last hundred or so pages, and sampled the earlier part of the book. Chickie comes to the New World to claim an inheritance. Her relatives do her dirt and accuse her of witchcraft. She is rescued by criminals (?) and hangs out with them for a while. I think she might get traded among them. She lands with some Dutch patroons for a bit, is seduced by the heir and the old guy tries to make her his mistress. She ultimately escapes and gets a job in Charles Town for a while. When she tries to make her way back to England, she is captured by pirates, sold to other pirates, including one who met her earlier in her adventures. It turns out he's sleeping with her mistress from Charles Town (why go into it here?). Lot of foolishness with the pirate. An escape back ot Charles Town. Further foolishness, return to pirate, they marry, The End.
I don't know if it's possible to supply a review that is more than a bald summary of the bits I read. The writing style is a bit over the top, but not nearly as bad as the plot summary (I was surprised, too). The characters aren't particularly lovable, and I just never can bring myself to approve of having a relationship with your rapist, even if it was date rape and you thought it was hot at the time. Call me judgmental. You'd be right. I haven't seen a book of this type around for a while, and I have to say I'm glad. It means I'm filtering well.
I know the answer to this one. When I needed these books, I wasn't reading much of anything. However, I still wish I had read these, way back when I first decided exercise was just something I was going to have to do.
Smart Exercise and The Ultimate Fit or Fat, by Covert Bailey
I got the first from the library, and the second I bought. I'm reviewing them together because in many respects, they're the same book.
Bailey has a straightforward plan for people who want to be healthy, live longer and look better: do two different kinds of aerobic exercise a few times a week, and a little bit of weightlifting. Once you've been doing it for a bit, add some wind sprints (think: after warming up, push past the top end of aerobic briefly, then drop back to aerobic even though it's hard). There are some caveats. Swimming and walking (as opposed to power or race or whatever walking) won't make you lose weight fast. Quantity makes up for quality, so sports or subaerobic exercise will help also. Try to avoid overeating, eating a lot of fat, or eating excessive protein. Pay attention to your body -- notice when it's sore, or when doing the same thing you could do before easily becomes hard -- and respect what it is telling you. Make sure you rest appropriately. Very simple. Very sensible. He has even incorporated a non-caliper, do-it-yourself way to evaluate your body fat, with a batch of explanations about when it will be inaccurate and in which directions.
When I reinitiated a serious reading program, I (predictably) put on weight. It's quite aggravating to realize that a brown belt working out three hours a week with an instructor, swimming one or two hours a week, and walking several hours a week, can still gain weight just by sitting around a bit more. Okay, possibly it's the two-cook (two really, really good cook) household. Such a bummer.
Since the books are so similar, and I think the later book is slightly more useful, I don't plan on buying Smart Exercise. I may or may not pick up his target diet book, or his book for women. I suspect not.
Reunion, by Alan Dean Foster
The first Flinx novel since Mid-Flinx, I've been reading these things for a while now. They aren't improving. They are the only Foster novels I will read any more. Nevertheless, they don't come out often, and I occasionally wonder what's happening to Flinx, so I pick them up when they cross my path.
The passive protagonist continues to narrowly miss all kinds of different trouble, in many different environments. The recipient of unexpected largesse (as always), he continues to pursue his identity, inextricably mixed up with the Edicted Meliorare society. Mahnahmi reappears (that might be a spoiler), as do Tar-Aiym artifacts. Kind of a rehash, and a lot of a tease. I did finish it. I will read the next one, whenever it appears. I will continue to not read other Foster novels.
Digital Copyright, by Jessica Litman
Litman is a law professor who does a nice job tracing the outline of copyright law, in history and practice. She does so from a political, historical, social and economic perspective, more than a legal perspective per se. In particular, her analysis revolves around the negotiated compromise strategy that got us into our current mess. Good stuff. I'm not sure if everyone should read it, or if we should just muddle along pretending no one would really write a law that ridiculous until it gets rewritten. Probably the former.
Got Your Numberby Stephanie Bond
Romantic comedy fiction by an ex-computer programmer. Not bad, really, but very little sex and what there is is poorly written. That said, it's an engaging story, if somewhat convoluted. The relationship between the woman protagonist and her spacey cousin is entertaining. The exposure of the professor they both lusted after is worthy.
Cold Fire by Tamora Pierce
The Daja book in the Circle Opens series has Daja and Frostpine visiting his old friends in a northern city during the winter. In this round, I particularly enjoyed the depiction of Daja learning to skate, in part because it was good clean fun, but also because Pierce is doing an exceptional job here of depicting a person with a lot of physical interests, some of which are quite sedentary (the art and jewelry making in particular), and how she adapts to that by mixing it with other activities (like skating) that are also practical in nature.
Food Politics by Marion Nestle
Nestle, veteran of government nutrition wars of the last decade or so, provides an intensely detailed overview of the interaction between nutrition science, the USDA, the FDA and agricultural producers. Unfortunately, Nestle has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to entrenched medical interests (the AMA and pharmaceutical producers in particular), which makes it hard for her to understand where CSPI is coming from when they defend consumer interests in having a wide array of supplements available to them. Because the money for nutrition research comes mostly from industry sources, she is a huge fan of government regulation to counteract the bias. However, her stories of corruption and influence don't support the thesis that additional regulation will necessarily help. I have no good suggestion for alternatives, other than to note that presumably successful producers will have an interest in self-policing to ensure their continued good reputation. It's a crappy, creepy field.
I should note that I picked this up at Bloomsbury's in Ashland while on vacation. Prior to that vacation I had started a non-diet (I don't think most users of the term diet will recognize calorie-restricting down to 2400 calories a day as a diet) and exercise program that I refined and developed during the course of the vacation. I have more or less quit eating pig and cow products, starting consuming a lot more non-milk product (Odwalla's new beverage is phenomenal, and the first dense form of calcium that doesn't mess with my digestion), and an appalling amount of fruit and veg (10+ a day). I had a lot of fish and sushi, and a very small amount of poultry. So I'm in the mood to be a bit psycho right now when it comes to dietary recommendations.
I've thought a lot about the pyramid lately, and in addition to the usual confusion (no one knows what a serving size is of anything, also things like potatoes are considered vegetables, which most people I talk to find incredibly non-intuitive) I have discovered that the high-protein diets so popular again recently have really eroded respect for the bottom layer. Dissing of carbs in sources like pasta and bagels have contributed to the problem. I think it's actually very, very hard to make any kind of progress in terms of convincing people what a good daily or even weekly consumption pattern is.
Because I am inherently optimistic and persistent, I continue to maintain that there's no point in trying to convince people what the end goal is. The best thing to do is to encourage people to exercise more, drink more water, and eat more fruits and vegetables and let the rest of everything else shake itself out. The fiber, phytos and other nutrients will help, the additional calories will be less dense than whatever is replaced. Unfortunately, the programs working to accomplish what I like, the 5-a-day program for food and the Walking for Wellness program for exercise, are dramatically underfunded and underpublicized. I'm currently looking for ways to raise awareness of these two programs (and to get Walking for Wellness expanded to women in general from its current limited -- albeit admirable -- audience).
Gig edited by
Fabulous book. Lovely organization of profession/job/career. Beautiful opener (Wal-Mart Greeter) and closer (mortuary worker). Great stories. Huge diversity. Read it. I got it from the library but will eventually own a copy. Because of the organization (few pages per person) and the content (personal narratives about job/oral history), this can be read over an extended period of time (bathroom reading, to put it crudely). I read it on a week long trip down the Oregon coast by myself. I rarely felt lonely, with this kind of company. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The editors and authors may worship Terkel. They've outdone him.
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Copyright Rebecca Allen, 2002.
Created April 3, 2002 Updated December 9, 2002