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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75936642014-11-27T07:55:21.634-05:00wmtcwe move to canadalaura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-37232672936748359162014-11-26T19:00:00.000-05:002014-11-26T19:11:32.848-05:00#walmartstrikers + international buy nothing day = don't shop at walmartI don't know when people starting calling the day after US Thanksgiving "Black Friday," but the expression has become synonymous with over-consumption, empty consumer culture, and the bizarre importance assigned to hunting for bargains.

And what a bargain it is: a multibillion-dollar corporation sells a piece of crappy future landfill at an artificially low price by manufacturing it halfway around the globe with child labour, dumping toxins into the environment, and paying its own customers sub-living wages. In return, consumers agree to see nothing and know nothing except the price sticker. It's a deal that is devouring our planet, and our souls.

Those low, low prices on Black Friday are partly subsidized by Walmart employees, who earn crap wages, can't get full-time work, and are harassed and intimidated when speak up about their working conditions. This year, as in 2013 and 2012, Walmart workers will go on strike to demand change. And you can help them. Here's how.

First: don't shop at Walmart this holiday season.

Second: let Walmart know that you are boycotting their stores because of their unfair labour policies.

And third, if you're in the US: drop by a Walmart on Friday, November 28, to cheer on the strikers.

Even if you don't see a protest at your local Walmart, you can still participate: bring a sign saying that you support the workers fighting for fair pay and respect. Snap a selfie, and tweet it with the #walmartstrikers hashtag.

Feeling camera-shy? Write a letter a store manager. Walmart tracks every one of these actions, and collectively, they have a huge impact.

Go here for tips, instructions, and legalities. (In some states, there are legal injunctions against protesting in front of stores.)

For more on International Buy Nothing Day, Amy Mendoza, on xojane, gives us five reasons to buy nothing on Friday, December 28.laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-64557104907480782892014-11-23T12:00:00.000-05:002014-11-23T18:13:28.576-05:00what i'm reading: swamplandia! by karen russell

Swamplandia! caught me by surprise. At first, Karen Russell's debut novel seemed like a quirky family story, a strange and somewhat sad tale told with great wit and humour.

Then it deepened, became (possibly) supernatural - or is that just the fantasy of a troubled girl? Then it quickened, and became suspenseful, and dangerous, and a bit heartbreaking. Step by strange step, I was hooked. Swamplandia! is not an easy book to describe, but more importantly, it's not an easy book to put down.

The Bigtree family lives in Swamplandia!, an old-fashioned roadside-attraction theme park deep in the Florida Everglades. In this case, the road is a swamp, tourists and any connection with the mainland world arrives by ferry.

Hilola Bigtree, matriarch of the strange brood, mother of the teenaged narrator, has died. (Not a spoiler.) Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree thought her mother's death was the bottom, the end. But the demise of famed alligator wrestler and main attraction of Swamplandia! was only the first link in a chain of events that would take Ava and each member of her family much farther down, into separate hells, and finally, to redemption.

If that sounds spooky or melodramatic, it is. But it's also very funny, and strange, and utterly credible, even when it's not remotely possible. The novel's quirkiness is reminiscent of John Irving at his best; the gallows humour not unlike Frank McCourt or Roddy Doyle. But the story and the language are deeply original.

Russell's language is as quirky as her story. "A brownish-orange algae that...could draw its pumpkin lace across the entire Pit overnight"; a tiny red alligator whose "skull was the exact shape and shining hue of a large halved strawberry". A poor boy's pennies are "a lintlike currency, value that collected in corners"; a chubby boy's jeans on her slim brother "fit him like a puddle"; the white jaw of an alligator "fell open like a suitcase". In Stiltsville, an abandoned swamp community, Ava awakens to "dawn light screaming through the doorways that hung on their hinges, the broken windows that birds could fly through, the plank lace, the cheesed metals".

The voice of Ava Bigtree, the narrator, is a stylistic triumph. Russell doesn't try to mimic the speech of a 13-year-old who has been raised in social isolation. Instead, she gives us a young girls' thoughts and mindset delivered in rich, adult language. It works.

The portion of the book that follows Kiwi Bigtree, Ava's brother - working in a Hell-themed tourist attraction, and his own private hell - is told in the third person. The switch is a bit jarring at first, but as Ava's story darkens, Kiwi's story becomes funnier and more hopeful. Alternating between the two threads builds suspense: the reader wonders how it will all come together, and how bad things will get before it does.

There are also stories within the story (John Irving-esque again). These are told with such precision of emotion and empathy, that, although impossible, they blur the distinction between reality and fantasy. The reader grapples with that issue along with Ava.

And throughout: the swamp. The untamed and untameable water-land, its wild beauty, its mysteries, its dangers, coexisting with the mundane world of bored mainland teenagers and tourists. The alligators, so vital to the Bigtree family's survival, are death machines lurking beneath every surface. But neither the Bigtrees nor the alligators are the most dangerous beasts on the swamp.

For more, I recommend this review of Swamplandia! in the New York Times Book Review from February, 2011. Better still, read the book.laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-40562110536498277182014-11-15T15:18:00.000-05:002014-11-18T08:06:29.867-05:00when sexual assault goes public: #beenrapedneverreported and the presumption of innocenceThe revelations about Jian Ghomeshi hit my Facebook feed in waves.

First many friends were shocked by CBC's announcement that they were "severing their relationship" with the longtime and very popular radio host. I don't listen to radio and I'm always surprised at how many people do.

Then came Ghomeshi's own statement, which one friend very perceptively recognized as likely Ghomeshi's attempt to get ahead of a story in which he would be accused of assault.

Then came his victims - now 14 people - who have courageously come forward to tell their stories.

Despite the corroboration of multiple victims, one Facebook contact of mine (a woman) continued to praise Ghomeshi for "pushing the boundaries of what the public finds acceptable sexually" - that is, a brave warrior for BDSM. I unfriended. BDSM has at least one thing in common with any other sexual activity: it's consensual. (See: poor persecuted pervert by Sex Geek.)

Whenever a famous and well-liked public figure is accused of sexual assault, the public's reaction serves as a microcosm - and a litmus test. First it's "He wouldn't do that!" - based on a public persona, as if rapists are somehow recognizable. They're certainly not good-looking, congenial, and hip! Then it's "If these women were assaulted, why didn't they report it?" and "They're only saying this to get attention!"

Statistics: YWCA Canada.

These ignorant reactions present an excellent opportunity for education. But for those of us who have been educating about rape half our lives, it can be so tiring. Do people still think these things? Do they still not understand? Is rape still shrouded in ignorance and myth? Yes. Yes. Yes. Sigh.

#BeenRapedNeverReported

But that's the great thing about solidarity. When one of us is too tired or too disgusted or feeling too raw and vulnerable to do the work, a sister or brother will step up and do it twice as well.

Antonia Zerbisias, who very recently retired from The Star, along with her friend Sue Montgomery, also a journalist, started a hashtag on Twitter - and it took off, big-time. #BeenRapedNeverReported gave survivors a place to share, and it gave the media a peg on which to hang many excellent stories about why victims of sexual assault usually do not report the crime to the police. Sadly, #BeenRapedNeverReported is also awash with stories from women who did report, and wish they had not.

If you are hearing about this for the first time, the Twitter phenomenon has gotten some excellent media attention:
- Women find power in #BeenRapedNeverReported hashtag (Toronto Star),
- #BeenRapedNeverReported hashtag trending, as women share stories of assault (CTV),
- Women who were raped take to Twitter to explain why they didn't report it (Montreal Gazette),
- #BeenRapedNeverReported: This was our way of silencing the silencers and denying those who would deny us our voices, our justice. (Al Jazeera English)
- Why women go online to report sexual assault but not to police (CBC, "The Current")...
and many others.

It would appear that most people actually don't know that the majority of rapes are not reported to the police. Why would that be? Here's an idea. (Please go and read the full story.)

So what kind of woman is reluctant to report sexual assault? Anyone who consumed drugs or alcohol before the incident, who was intoxicated; who flirted with, has a relationship with, knows, or has significantly lower status than the perpetrator.

Any woman who's had an abortion or messy divorce. Anyone who might be in a custody battle. Anyone with a sketchy social media history. Anyone who's sexted nude photos or has unorthodox sexual tastes.

Any sex worker. Anyone who initially consented to sex. Anyone with addiction issues. Anyone afraid of her assailant. Any First Nations woman. Anyone from a minority or immigrant community. Anyone who's been raped before and not been believed.

Anyone without a strong support network. Any woman who waits too long. Anyone who's seen a shrink, or been prescribed medication for mental or emotional conditions. Any woman who doesn't want her medical records or psychiatric history disclosed. Or who has family members and a community who could be hurt or shamed by disclosure or publicity. Anyone with a criminal record or who is on public assistance.

Any woman with a past. Any woman with a future she doesn't want derailed by the stress of reporting.

In short, the kind of woman who doesn't report a sexual attack is almost any normal rational woman.
The "presumption of innocence" and some other legal concepts

I once saw an online commenter claim that former district attorney Linda Fairstein said that 98% of rape accusations are false. (I think that was when I decided to stop reading comments on news stories.) What Fairstein really said: 98% of rapes don't generate enough legal evidence to be prosecuted as rape, so most are "bumped down" to another category, such as aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault with intent to harm, sodomy, sexual abuse, or other legal categories. These categories are legal distinctions, each carrying different implications for evidence and punishment. But they are all sexual assault.

Prosecutors routinely down-grade formal offenses to the highest level for which they feel they can get a conviction, a kind of legal gamble based on a whole raft of variables, from the likability of the accused to the perceived credibility of the victim, to what kind of defense the accused can afford. Prosecutors don't downgrade rape to other legal categories because they think the victim is lying, or because they're not sure if the accused actually did it. If they thought that, the case would never proceed to court in the first place!

Statistics: RAINN

The legal distinctions of rape, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, and so on, can denote all different things: whether or not a weapon was involved, whether the victim was tortured, what sexual acts were involved, whether the victim met the criteria for good victimhood (not a sex worker, not intoxicated or doing drugs), whether the victim and assailant knew each other, whether the victim and assailant had engaged in consensual sex in the past, and so on.

These are legal categories. And none of the categories have any bearing on whether or not a sexual assault occured. That definition is conveniently black-and-white. Was there consent? If no, it's sexual assault.

Think manslaughter versus murder: either way, someone has been killed.

If a friend of yours - or a student, your daughter, your niece, your colleague - discloses that she was raped, you would never ask, "Was that really rape, or was it aggravated sexual assault? Does that constitute sexual assault under the laws of Ontario? Is there enough evidence to prosecute?" You would never even think such a thing. You would know that the finer points of the law have nothing to do with your friend's pain.

Yet one legal concept is frequently invoked in just this inappropriate way: the presumption of innocence. As person after person came forward to say that Jian Ghomeshi had sexually assaulted them, people cried, "Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence? He is innocent until proven guilty!"

The presumption of innocence - or "innocent until proven guilty" - is an important tenet of the legal and judicial systems, and one that is constantly undermined by practices such as pre-trial confinements. (See this excellent column by Carol Goar.) It is not some sort of golden rule that we should invoke by closing our minds to logic and reason.

A blogger I know once posted photos of her daughter's battered face - purple and green with bruises, eyes swollen shut, lips split and bloody - at the hands of her ex-husband. A commenter-troll said, "Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence? Is this guy guilty before proven innocent?"

There was no question that the woman had been assaulted. And there was no question of who had assaulted her. Unless this assault was prosecuted and went to trial (two highly unlikely outcomes), no one had to think about any presumptions of innocence.

Legal guilt is not the only form of truth

Rape is rape whether it is reported, whether it is prosecuted, and whether a rapist is found guilty.

If a person is murdered, that person is dead, whether or not the murderer is ever tried or convicted. If you are mugged and someone runs off with your wallet, a crime has taken place, whether or not you report the crime to the police. Rape is the same way. If you are sexually assaulted or raped, that has taken place, regardless of what comes after. Most women do not report rape, and most reported rapes never go to trial. Does that mean those women were not raped?

Some people seem to think that a legal concept that allows an accused person certain rights in court is somehow applicable in a general sense. That somehow we must wait for a court to convict an offender before we admit what we have seen and heard with our own senses. As if the only kind of truth is the declaration of a court of law.

Or do they?

Have we really confused legal conviction with actual truth? I don't think so. In many cases, we will continue to believe an accused is innocent or guilty, despite what a jury declares. (O.J. Simpson, anyone?) But rape? Suddenly we need a conviction in court before we will believe a woman who says, "This man assaulted me".

I understand that there are false accusations of rape. They are rare, but they do occur. Sexual assault, however, is not rare. And we're not the legal system. We're not a jury. We're not bound by law to process information according to a certain formula. We're human beings, and we can operate from a place of both logic and compassion.

When someone takes a painful and courageous step forward to say, "I was raped": presume truth.laura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-75195913837523985542014-11-15T08:30:00.000-05:002014-11-15T10:23:35.401-05:00write a letter, save a life: sign up now for write for rights

For the past few years, I have participated in Write For Rights, Amnesty International's annual write-a-thon for human rights - actually the largest human rights event in the world (Canada; US; elsewhere: Google it.)

Every year, on December 10 - International Human Rights Day, which celebrates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - tens of thousands of people all over the world shine a light into darkness. By writing letters, we tell governments that someone is watching. We tell political prisoners - people in jail for opposing dictatorships, for fighting for clean water for their communities, for standing up for women and girls - that they have not been forgotten.

It's really simple to do. Amnesty gives you "case sheets" with background stories and instructions, plus tips on letter-writing. And you write a letter. Or maybe more than one letter.

To make it more fun, you can invite a few friends, print out some case sheets, open a bottle of wine, and write letters together. Or to make it easier, you can write letters on your own. Either way, it's easy and not very time-consuming. And it makes a tremendous difference to people who are enduring real suffering.

After participating in Write for Rights for a few years, I decided to take the next step and join Amnesty's Urgent Action Network. This, too, is not a huge time commitment and not difficult to do. There are no meetings to attend and no fundraising involved. Just you and your keyboard or pen.

The greatest thing about doing activism for Amnesty is knowing that their methods work. Amnesty campaigns have helped win release for political prisoners all over the world. Their observers have helped expose injustice and begun the process of change. And time and again, when activists are finally released from prison, they say, "Without your letters, I couldn't have made it through," or "Knowing I was not forgotten helped me survive". That's a big incentive right there.

If you've never participated before, how about it? This December 10: one letter. Take the pledge.laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-36730438656217176522014-11-12T06:30:00.000-05:002014-11-12T06:41:40.265-05:00e.u. advocate general ruling strongly supports claim of war resister andré shepherdThe fight for justice for US war resisters took a major step forward yesterday, with a ruling strongly in favour of war resister André Shepherd.

In the legal case of U.S. AWOL soldier André Shepherd (37) the European Court of Justice Advocate General, Eleanor Sharpton, today published her final opinion. This official statement contains guiding deliberations for the interpretation of the so-called Qualification Directive of the European Union. Amongst other considerations, these rules state that those endangered by prosecution or punishment for refusal to perform military service involving an illegal war or commital of war crimes, should be protected by the European Union.

André Shepherd, former U.S. Army helicopter mechanic in the Iraq War, during leave in Germany, left his unit and in 2008, requested asylum in that country. 2011, the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees refused Shepherd's application. Shepherd's resulting court action challenge resulted in the Munich Administrative Court's asking for the opinion of the European Court in Luxemburg on significant questions concerning the interpretation of the Qualification Directive. The Justice Advocate General came to the following conclusions:

- The protection guaranteed by the Qualification Directive is also applicable to soldiers not directly involved in combat, when their duties could support war crimes. The German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has as yet failed to respect this definition.

- Within the asylum application process, a deserter is not obliged to prove that he was or could be involved in war crimes, as the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees required. Necessary is only the evidence of war crime probability, based on past occurrences.

- Even a U.N. mandate for a war, in which the deserter was, or could have been involved, cannot serve as grounds for rejection of his rights as a refugee.

. . . .

Rudi Friedrich of Connection e.V. stated today, "Should the European Union Court of Justice respect the Advocate General's final opinion, the position in asylum cases of military service refusers and deserters will be significantly reinforced.

Bernd Mesovic of PRO ASYL declared, "Should the Court acknowledge the content of the advocate general's final opinion, their verdict would set basic precedence. I hope that deserters will soon have better protection in all of Europe."

André Shepherd, upon reading Sharpton's decision: The final opinion gives me new reason for optimism, both in my own case, and for the rights of other deserters.
Read more here.

This is a tremendous victory for Shepherd, for all his supporters, and for everyone who objects to wars for empire and profit. We can only hope that the European Court of Justice will listen.laura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-72051688125126818162014-11-11T08:00:00.000-05:002014-11-11T14:10:04.176-05:0011.11: honour the dead by committing to peaceRobert Fisk, in The Independent:

But as the years passed, old Bill Fisk became very ruminative about the Great War. He learned that Haig had lied, that he himself had fought for a world that betrayed him, that 20,000 British dead on the first day of the Somme – which he mercifully avoided because his first regiment, the Cheshires, sent him to Dublin and Cork to deal with another 1916 "problem" – was a trashing of human life. In hospital and recovering from cancer, I asked him once why the Great War was fought. "All I can tell you, fellah," he said, "was that it was a great waste." And he swept his hand from left to right. Then he stopped wearing his poppy. I asked him why, and he said that he didn't want to see "so many damn fools" wearing it – he was a provocative man and, sadly, I fell out with him in his old age. What he meant was that all kinds of people who had no idea of the suffering of the Great War – or the Second, for that matter – were now ostentatiously wearing a poppy for social or work-related reasons, to look patriotic and British when it suited them, to keep in with their friends and betters and employers. These people, he said to me once, had no idea what the trenches of France were like, what it felt like to have your friends die beside you and then to confront their brothers and wives and lovers and parents. At home, I still have a box of photographs of his mates, all of them killed in 1918.

So like my Dad, I stopped wearing the poppy on the week before Remembrance Day, 11 November, when on the 11th hour of the 11 month of 1918, the armistice ended the war called Great. I didn't feel I deserved to wear it and I didn't think it represented my thoughts. The original idea came, of course, from the Toronto military surgeon and poet John McCrae and was inspired by the death of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, killed on 3 May 1915. "In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row." But it's a propaganda poem, urging readers to "take up the quarrel with the foe". Bill Fisk eventually understood this and turned against it. He was right.
Read the whole piece: Do those who flaunt the poppy on their lapels know that they mock the war dead?

I'm the only person in my workplace not wearing a poppy. This is when I appreciate the Canadian quiet live-and-let-live attitude and aversion to potential conflict. I'm sure the absence has been noted, but no one says anything.

No white poppy for me, either. It has no meaning to me.

I just wear my peace button on my jacket as always, and wait for the collective brainwashing to blow over. When our masters give the signal, everyone can take off the fake poppy - made with prison labour - and create a bit more landfill. And another annual ritual of war glorification comes to a close.

Meanwhile, in my country of origin...

David Masciotra, in Salon:

Put a man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and Americans will worship him. It is a particularly childish trait, of a childlike culture, that insists on anointing all active military members and police officers as "heroes." The rhetorical sloppiness and intellectual shallowness of affixing such a reverent label to everyone in the military or law enforcement betrays a frightening cultural streak of nationalism, chauvinism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but it also makes honest and serious conversations necessary for the maintenance and enhancement of a fragile democracy nearly impossible.

It has become impossible to go a week without reading a story about police brutality, abuse of power and misuse of authority. Michael Brown's murder represents the tip of a body pile, and in just the past month, several videos have emerged of police assaulting people, including pregnant women, for reasons justifiable only to the insane.

It is equally challenging for anyone reasonable, and not drowning in the syrup of patriotic sentimentality, to stop saluting, and look at the servicemen of the American military with criticism and skepticism. There is a sexual assault epidemic in the military. In 2003, a Department of Defense study found that one-third of women seeking medical care in the VA system reported experiencing rape or sexual violence while in the military. Internal and external studies demonstrate that since the official study, numbers of sexual assaults within the military have only increased, especially with male victims. According to the Pentagon, 38 men are sexually assaulted every single day in the U.S. military. Given that rape and sexual assault are, traditionally, the most underreported crimes, the horrific statistics likely fail to capture the reality of the sexual dungeon that has become the United States military.

Chelsea Manning, now serving time in prison as a whistle-blower, uncovered multiple incidents of fellow soldiers laughing as they murdered civilians. Keith Gentry, a former Navy man, wrote that when he and his division were bored they preferred passing the time with the "entertainment" of YouTube videos capturing air raids of Iraq and Afghanistan, often making jokes and mocking the victims of American violence. If the murder of civilians, the rape of "brothers and sisters" on base, and the relegation of death and torture of strangers as fodder for amusement qualifies as heroism, the world needs better villains.
The essay: You don't protect my freedom: Our childish insistence on calling soldiers heroes deadens real democracy.laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-62486603083573067562014-11-10T10:00:00.000-05:002014-11-10T20:37:04.657-05:00dispatches from the community of readers' advisors: r.a. in a day 2014Last week I attended "R.A. in a Day," an annual one-day mini-conference on readers' advisory - that is, finding books for readers.

It happens that the manager of my own "Readers' Den" department is one of the principal hosts of the conference, and the Mississauga Library was well-represented in the audience. More than 100 people attended from libraries throughout southern Ontario.

It was a joy to spend the day focusing on the singular pleasures of reading and the experience of people who read. Part of what makes doing readers' advisory fun is that you're already talking to a reader. You're not trying to convince anyone to read; you're a bridge between a reader and books. There are more passive forms of RA, such as book displays. But the active, one-on-one RA that this conference focuses on is - as you know - a part of my job that I really enjoy.

I'll highlight three speakers from the event.

Catherine Sheldrick Ross, into the minds of readers

Making this day especially noteworthy to me, the keynote speaker was a library hero of mine: Catherine Sheldrick Ross, the name in research on reading.

Some years back, I blogged about a book she co-authored, Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals about Reading, Libraries and Community. A chapter had been assigned reading, and I enjoyed it so much that I hunted down the book and read the whole thing. Let me tell you, in library school, that was a rare experience for me! I was so pleased to meet Dr. Ross and tell her I had blogged about her book. I'm going to send her the post, and I'll also read her newest book, The Pleasures of Reading: a Booklover's Alphabet.

An excellent and engaging speaker, Ross highlighted some of the results of her thirty-year inquiry into the minds of avid readers. Ross' research - in-depth interviews about the reading experience - has formed the basis of RA practice. Indeed, understanding the reader's experience is the key to good RA.

And that understanding begins with reflecting on our own experience. As you read these questions, think of how you read.

Are you a selective reader, feeling your time is very limited and what you read must always be very good and worthwhile? Or are you an ominvorous reader, reading everything from quality literature to genre novels and books others dismiss as "trash"?

Do you read only fiction, only nonfiction, or both?

Do you re-read books, feeling that books are old friends who should be re-visited and re-understood? Or do you feel that there are so many books to read and so little time, that you never or rarely read a book more than once?

How do you find your books? Do you have an organized system that you employ, or do you find books more randomly and haphazardly from an eclectic group of sources?

Through questions like these, we in the audience began to reflect on our own reading practices. We then did an exercise, each table discussing a different dimension of reading, and then sharing with the group. I am pleased (and kind of amazed) to say it was one of the more useful library exercises I've done. We could have gone on for twice as much time.

Many insights into the reading experience are nearly universal. Our choice of reading varies not only at different times in our lives, but at different moments, depending on what's going on in our lives at any particular moment. And reading is an enduring paradox. It takes us away from our own lives, into another world - the infamous "escape" that is often denigrated. Yet at the same time, reading broadens our scope, enriches us, strengthens our connections with the world. (Did you know that people who read tend to have more empathy than non-readers?)

Ross has written about a phenonmenon that most readers will relate to: she calls it "finding without seeking". You are reading a book for pleasure. Perhaps you picked it up randomly or were drawn to its beautiful cover, or read a review. You're reading it for pleasure, not information. But as you read it, you recognize something of yourself in the book: a relationship, or a dilemma, a conflict. You reflect on your own experience, and you end up learning, and growing. Ross says:

Readers choose books for the pleasure anticipated in the reading itself but then, apparently serendipitously, they encounter material that helps them in the contex of their lives. (Ross, Finding Without Seeking, 1999)
Although learning about RA begins with reflecting on our own experience, the most important dictum of RA is four little words: It's Not About You. Keeping our own opinions and judgements out of the picture can be challenging! Dr. Ross says: "RA is a conversation, and the library is the place that fosters that conversation."

Claire Cameron, The Bear

Claire Cameron, a Canadian author, read from her current book The Bear, and talked about her sources and her writing process. She was a wonderful speaker and reader. I must confess that I began reading The Bear about a month ago, and put it down, feeling it wasn't for me. But after hearing Cameron read, I'm going to give the book a second chance.

The inspiration for The Bear was an actual bear attack that took place in Ontario's Algonquin Park in 1991. It was a very unusual attack that gave rise to a great deal of publicity: a healthy bear attacked and killed two people. The bear was not threatened, he was not starving - the couple was cooking dinner and the bear left the package of ground beef untouched. What's more, the couple were experienced campers who did everything right. It appears that the bear went out of its way to hunt and kill people.

Using this event as a jumping-off point, Cameron imagines the story from the point of view of a five-year-old girl, hiding with her younger brother - their father manages to hide them in a camping stove while trying to fend off the bear - then surviving in the woods, alone. (There were no children in the actual incident.) The story itself is gripping and suspenseful, and ultimately hopeful. Readers I speak to in the library are recommending it highly.

Cameron had a great deal of experience as a hiker, climber, canoer, and adventurer before becoming a writer. One of her best stories at RA in a Day was about her return to Algonquin Park, with her two sons, after the publication of The Bear. If you're intrigued, there's a good profile of her here.)

Peter Mendelsund, What We See When We Read and Cover

The final speaker of the day approaches the reading experience from an entirely different perspective. Peter Mendelsund is a book designer and art director for Alfred A. Knopf Publishers in New York. Check out the very impressive catalogue of book covers he has designed: Mendelsund.

Mendelsund has just published two books simultaneously: a coffee-table retrospective of his work, called Cover, and a meditation on what the experience of reading feels like, called What We See When We Read.

Mendelsund's talk was a departure and a great end to the day. A fast-talking, witty, literate New Yorker, he jolted us alert after a long, slow afternoon. Most of us love book covers, and Mendelsund's talk was a fascinating peek into the process of their creation.

In response to a question, Mendelsund mentioned that his least favourite projects are usually books expected to be very popular, where authors have earned huge advances. In those cases, there are a lot of stakeholders, high expectations, sales pressure, and many opinions to contend with... and thus much less creative control.

On the other hand, Mendelsund's favourite projects are usually classics that are being reprinted. The author is dead, the publishing house has little investment, and he gets to do pretty much whatever he wants. These books are often being published in a series, an authors' complete work, for which Mendelsund designs an overall concept, then variations for each book. With a slide show, he walked us through the process of designing this series of the work of Franz Kafka. Also, check out his designs for James Joyce, especially that most inspired Ulysses.

Mendelsund's references were more literary than those of most public library workers. He was name-dropping Melville, Joyce, Dostoyevsky, and Foucault, and I suspect that went over the heads of many people in the room. But his famous cover design of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo probably made up for it.

A final note about Peter Mendelsund. He mentioned that his first career was as a concert pianist. (His parents were survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto, and playing classical music increased one's chance of survival.) After decades as a musician, now with a family, he needed to change careers to have a more stable income and health insurance. That's not uncommon, especially in New York. But how many people buy a book on how to become a graphic designer, create a portfolio, and leap into a job as a book designer at a major publishing house? Those are some impressive talents at work, and not only the artistic kind.laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-49538078666567179082014-11-09T10:00:00.000-05:002014-11-09T10:01:00.329-05:00garth hudson returns to big pinkThis week, Columbia Records released The Basement Tapes Complete, six CDs of music made by Bob Dylan and The Band at the house they lived in - the legendary Big Pink - in West Saugerties, New York, during the summer of 1967.

Although The Band, and Bob Dylan, and Bob Dylan and The Band, are among my favourite musical artists in the world - and although I love The Basement Tapes (a double-album from 1975) - I greet this announcement with only mild interest. I'll be excited to hear any actual new material, but different versions of already-recorded songs are never that interesting to me.

My lack of interest baffles my bootleg-loving partner, who is over the moon about this release. For more information about The Basement Tapes Complete, you might see Allan's non-baseball blog, currently called Sharp Pencil.

I did, however, love this video from Rolling Stone, documenting Garth Hudson's return to Big Pink for the first time in almost 50 years.

Not only does that house represent some of my most favourite music in the world, it is situated in an area filled with so many important memories for me. This is the Catskills region of New York State - "upstate," in local parlance. We never had a cottage or even a summer rental, but we went upstate with our dogs every summer - first a long weekend in a motel, then a week in a cabin, and eventually a rented house. The whole area is flush with memories for me, including some that are poignant, such as scattering some of the ashes of our beloved dogs Gypsy and Clyde, before we left for Canada. Somehow seeing the video of the drive to that house brought back a flood of memories.

A long time ago, when this blog was just getting going - back when I used one-word titles for every post - I wrote about our experiences upstate, just to preserve it in writing somewhere.laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-13233445986275347102014-11-08T18:00:00.000-05:002014-11-08T22:29:29.404-05:00towards a cruelty-free face: switching to products not tested on animals

I've begun changing my personal care products to cruelty-free: natural products from companies that are better for the environment and don't test on animals. I'm not sure how far I'll be able to go, but I've begun the process.

After a lifetime of using conventional products, I was moved to think more about this by a few different sources.

When I worked in the children's library, I often saw a book about animal cruelty. It was not the one I wrote about here, about dogs, but a book in a series called "Tough Issues," similar to the kind of series I used to contribute to. This "tough issue" asked the question, "Why do people harm animals?" It's a good book, one that successfully treads that very careful line separating honesty from the overly graphic. Even so, there was one image that burned in my brain. (I know this image would have been highly disturbing to me as a child. Considering I saw the image in a children's book, this is very bad.) And now that image from that book joins the panolpy of disturbing images that I will never be able to un-see.

Another source: I belong to the Humane Society International (or HSI Canada), and their excellent advocacy against animal testing has influenced me.

The rational case for using animals in medical research has ended: as one prominent researcher says, "Whatever you discover, you will have to re-discover using people, so not only do the animals suffer using these experiments, the first few patients using these novel treatments will suffer, too." Using animals to test cosmetics and personal-care products shouldn't even be controversial. It is absolutely cruel and unnecessary.

Eliminating animal testing of cosmetics is entirely feasible. In the past three decades scientists have developed many advanced alternatives to animal testing—methods that use human blood, cell lines, artificial skin or computer models to test the safety of products. And many multinational companies have embraced these alternative test methods, reducing and in some cases eliminating their dependence on animal testing. As a result, they cut costs and save time; animal testing is expensive, slow and, because animals are not people, not always predictive.

The movement to eliminate animal testing extends beyond the cosmetics industry. In 2007 the National Academy of Sciences issued a report recommending that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fundamentally change the way chemicals are tested for human health risks. Through a greater reliance on in vitro testing, researchers could evaluate the effects of chemicals on biological processes while using very few animals. Scientists would generate better data and test a greater number of chemicals more quickly and cheaply.
And then there are microbeads. Perhaps I was the last person in North America to learn about microbeads, but the news finally reached me.

Tiny particles of plastic have been added to possibly thousands of personal care products sold around the world. These microbeads, hardly visible to the naked eye, flow straight from the bathroom drain into the sewer system. Wastewater treatment plants are not designed to filter out microbeads and that is the main reason why, ultimately, they contribute to the Plastic Soup swirling around the world's oceans. Sea creatures absorb or eat microbeads. These microbeads are passed along the marine food chain. Since humans are ultimately at the top of this food chain, it is likely that we are also absorbing microbeads from the food we eat. Microbeads are not biodegradable and once they enter the marine environment, they are impossible to remove.
Although I used products that contain microbeads, I never asked, "What are the scrubbing particles in this product made of?" Indeed, I never even thought of it. But now I have learned that a few products I buy regularly contain these tiny plastic particles that go straight to our water supply and into animals. And so, microbeads became the final kick in the pants I needed.

I looked into cruelty-free products on line, mostly at Leaping Bunny and GoCrueltyFree.org, but I was quickly overwhelmed. There are so many products... where to begin? Then I remembered my dictum from other changes I've made: away from all-or-nothing thinking. This cheered me up.

I decided to start with two products: face cleanser and scrub, since these are most likely to contain microbeads. This would also allow me to stop buying products made by Procter & Gamble, a name found on boycott lists for decades.

The next time I was in Whole Foods, I talked to the person in the "Whole Body" department. She showed me several alternatives. I decided on products by Green Beaver, a Canadian company with an interesting genesis.

As young scientists, Karen was a biochemist with experience in the pesticide industry and Alain was a microbiologist working for the pharmaceutical industry. We were both appalled by the amount of chemicals found in kid's shampoos, bubble baths and other products. Given our background, we decided to do something about it. We quit our jobs and left the chemical industry behind to create healthier, natural products for your family and ours. We wanted to make a difference, and this is our story.
The scrubbing particles in Green Beaver's grapefruit and aloe scrub are made from bits of bamboo.

Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, and others who have written about the horrors of the industrial food chain often note that the only way we can live with such a disgusting and inhumane system is by purposely not knowing about it - by willful collective ignorance. (This is the same ignorance collectively employed about capital punishment in the US, now unraveling thanks to activists forcing people to see.) We don't want to know where our cheeseburger comes from. We don't want to know about the feed lot, the gestation crate, the chicken prison, the killing floor. Or the lab prison.

Most people want to avoid thinking about cruelty to animals. We don't want to know about it. We especially don't want to know that we're complicit in it! And our closed eyes allow it to continue.laura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-42619223797523185672014-11-02T15:30:00.000-05:002014-11-02T15:36:25.730-05:00rtodRevolutionary thought of the day:

Hunger isn't about the amount of food around. It's about being able to afford and control that food. After all, the U.S. has more food than it knows what to do with, and still 50 million people are food insecure.

Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved and The Value of Nothing, quoted by Naomi Klein in This Changes Everything
laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-78242781500867128442014-11-02T12:00:00.000-05:002014-11-02T16:40:36.130-05:00negative reviews and threats of lawsuits: let's not give in to corporate bullyingThere's a new bully in town, and he's not going after fat kids in the school cafeteria. He's a corporate bully, and he's gunning for you, his dissatisfied customer.

An increasing number of companies are threatening lawsuits against customers who post negative online reviews about their products or services. At least one company has actually sued a former customer for defamation, based on negative reviews - and won.

This is a chilling development for anyone who cares about free speech, a free internet, and consumer advocacy. But it may not be as dire as it sounds.

A slightly more level playing field

We are bombarded with advertising at every turn. Everywhere we look, companies are claiming that their products will make us beautiful, cooler, more connected. That we'll look smarter, live longer, enjoy our lives more... if only we buy their products. Our world is filled with false advertising, if not by explicit claim, then certainly by implicit suggestion.

If these claims turn out to be untrue, there's little we can do about it.

In the past, when we complained about a company, our complaints reached very few ears. We could write a letter to their corporate headquarters, and we could tell our own contacts, but for an ordinary person with no media access, it ended there.

The internet has changed all that. Now consumers have the opportunity to create a slightly more level playing field. If we have a bad experience with a company, we can warn many more people away from their products and services.

Not only has the internet given us the means to spread the word, but internet culture encourages us to share information with others. When a product falls apart, when a contractor does shoddy work, when a restaurant offers consistently terrible service, we feel something bordering on a responsibility to warn others away from a similar experience.

(Is it a level playing field, even now? My post about bad customer service from Heys Luggage (here, plus two follow-ups) is Google-able if you're searching. But Heys' own advertising on billboards, in magazines, and online is visible by hundreds of thousands of people every day.)

The opportunity to share information online has been incredibly empowering for consumers. So perhaps it's not surprising that many companies are pushing back. Through letters threatening lawsuits, they are trying to frighten consumers away from the culture of information-sharing, and trying to create a culture of self-censorship. They are corporate bullies, and their ranks appear to be growing. I found numerous stories, most with sensational headlines designed to fuel the fear, warning people to watch what they say or they'll be sued.

A letter is not a lawsuit

Many of the news stories I've seen put the onus on the consumer to avoid potential threats. The Toronto Star's consumer reporter Ellen Roseman offers tips for consumers posting reviews, such as sticking to facts and avoiding inflammatory language. Good advice, for complaints and almost everything else. But stories like these don't address the basic inequity at play.

A consumer posts an online review that a company finds potentially damaging. The company refers the complaint to its attorney, who then writes a standard "cease and desist" letter. The letter demands the consumer remove the offending review from the internet and threatens a lawsuit. But - and this is the important bit for consumers to know - the letter doesn't mean there are solid grounds for a lawsuit. It doesn't mean that the company would necessarily win a lawsuit, or even that they would invest the resources in a legal proceeding in the first place. The letter is the equivalent of shaking your fist and saying, "Take that back, or else!" It looks official, what with the letterhead and legalese and all, but it has no teeth. They may use the word demand, but it's actually more like a request. (The cease and desist letter is also a necessary precursor to a potential future lawsuit.)

Sending a letter is low-impact for the company. It costs perhaps an hour of some lawyer's time. But for the person in receipt of the letter, it can be frightening. Even the possibility of a lawsuit is enough to get most people to retract their reviews. And so, even though the review was factual and there is little chance of being hurt by a lawsuit, the consumer deletes the review.

Now the company's bad behaviour is not exposed, and all it cost was a letter.

Nevertheless, even the threat of litigation is a powerful option for contractors. When a Toronto couple posted a 2,000-word negative review about their $400 home improvement project, their contractor threatened litigation unless the review was removed. Intimidated, the couple revised their review to a mere 30 mild words.
In this case, it sounds like the consumers might have been a little over the top. Was it really necessary to post 2,000 words? Would a factual and not-heated 50 words have avoided the threat of litigation? Perhaps. But the threat of litigation was effective. The consumers were bullied, and the review was diluted.

As a customer-service person, I find it a bit mind-boggling that a company would choose this route, rather than practice a bit of damage-control. A legal spokesperson for Yelp - which was involved in an actual lawsuit - said:

Litigation is not a good substitute for customer service. Businesses that try to sue their customers into silence rarely prevail, end up wasting their own time and money, and usually bring additional, unwanted attention to the original criticism.
In one case, a company threatened a lawsuit against a consumer who posted a negative review... then Amazon dropped the company from their website. Then there was the crazy restaurateur in Ottawa, whose online bullying made international news.* OK, it was only The Daily Mail. But still.

Dietz v. Perez

The one documented instance where a contractor followed through on the lawsuit threat - where a customer was actually sued - was far from typical. Following the reports as the story developed, I could tell that there was a lot of bad blood between the two parties. The contractor and the homeowner apparently knew each other before the work was done; the consumer claims her home was damaged and her jewelry was stolen; the contractor was claiming $750,000 in damages. The fact that the case even went to trial speaks of two parties that have dug in their heels. Most consumer lawsuits are settled out of court.

But to the dismay of free-speech and consumer advocates, the consumer was found guilty of defamation, although no damages were awarded. And the court ruled that the offending review would remain online, unaltered.

So, that happened. The threat of a lawsuit may actually turn into a lawsuit.

Does that mean if you write a factual negative review, you will be sued? No, it doesn't.

This is an important piece to remember. Follow good behaviour guidelines. Stick to the facts. Avoid sweeping generalizations. Don't get personal. (Ellen Roseman's guidelines are very good.) But if you do receive a letter from a company, take a deep breath. Read the letter carefully. Anyone can threaten anything. It doesn't mean they have grounds for an actual lawsuit, or that they'll choose to invest the resources in one, even if they do.

Let's not be bullied

To be sure, the consumer is not always right. There are people with an axe to grind, there are lies and exaggerations. There are trolls. So if you feel your business has been unfairly maligned, what recourse do you have? TripAdvisor offers restaurant and resort management the opportunity to respond to negative reviews. Smart management will apologize, thank the customer, and pledge better future service. Not-so-smart management gets into arguments on the TripAdvisor site.

Online reviews are potentially powerful tools. We have a responsibility to use them wisely. But let's not be afraid to use them at all.

* An Ottawa restaurant owner was so furious - and, it would seem, so unbalanced - that she sought to disparage the customer's reputation with the customer's employer. She sent "sexually suggestive e-mails" to the woman's workplace, and created an explicit dating profile in her name. In this case, the customer sued, and the restaurant owner was found guilty of libel. As far as I can tell, the customer posted one bad review, and the restaurant owner hounded her for two and a half years. In other words, a crackpot troll.laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-91080032060520880252014-10-31T06:30:00.000-04:002014-10-31T06:38:27.275-04:00wmtc movie and series season now open: your suggestions are welcomeBaseball season was painfully short for Red Sox fans this year. When your team wins a grand total of 71 games it's a chore to watch, and I gave up early. The postseason, on the other hand, was incredible, and I watched (at least until I fell asleep) every night.

I was mildly disappointed that the Royals didn't go all the way, but going to Game 7 of the World Series and losing that by only one run is awesome. And the Giants play in one of my favourite cities and ballparks, so it's not like I hate them, either. All in all, a great October.

Because the 2014 Red Sox sucked, I've watched more TV and movies than I normally would during the baseball season. But Movie Season started in earnest last night, with Season 3 of The Wire.

So what movies did you see and would recommend since this time last year? If you emailed or Facebooked me with titles, please still feel free to post them here.

Movies: always looking for well-made documentaries, quirky indies, suspenseful noir, crime thrillers or capers, mind-benders, smart teen movies, and smart comedies. Don't care about action, zombies, most sci-fi, or standard rom-coms.

Series: Sons of Anarchy and The Shield are on our list. We're watching one season of The Wire every winter. Breaking Bad, maybe one day. Game of Thrones, never. Mad Men, never. Got something not on this list?

Binge viewing update: finished Farscape, finished Longmire (need more!!), and am currently watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (I know, what took me so long. Didn't care about TV in those days!) Buffy is going quickly, so anything good with lots of episodes, I'm game.

TV Comedies: Loved Parks & Rec until we stopped loving it and gave up. Netflix ended Community in the middle of a season and I'm waiting for more. Finished (and would love more of) Bob's Burgers, BoJack Horseman, and Brooklyn 9-9. Currently watching and loving The Mindy Project.laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-5187377071110833652014-10-26T14:00:00.000-04:002014-10-26T14:52:20.840-04:00rotd: this changes everythingRevolutionary thought of the day:

...if there is a reason for social movements to exist, it is not to accept dominant values as fixed and unchangeable but to offer other ways to live - to wage, and win, a battle of cultural worldviews. That means laying out a vision of the world that competes directly with the one on harrowing display at the Heartland conference and in so many other parts of our culture, one that resonates with the majority of the people on the planet because it is true: That we are not apart from nature but of it. That acting collectively for a great good is not suspect, and that such common projects of mutual aid are responsible for our species' greatest accomplishments. That greed must be disciplined and tempered by both rule and example. That poverty amidst plenty is unconscionable.

It also means defending those parts of our societies that already express these values outside of capitalism, whether it's an embattled library, a public park, a student movement demanding free university tuition, or an immigrant rights movement fighting for dignity and more open borders. And most of all, it means continually drawing connections among these seemingly disparate struggles - asserting, more instance, that the logic that would cut pensions, food stamps, and health care before increasing taxes on the rich is the same logic and would blast the bedrock of the earth to get the last vapors of gas the last drops of oil before making the shift to renewable energy.

Naomi Klein, from This Changes Everything
laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-71325314518222230852014-10-26T08:00:00.000-04:002014-10-26T09:42:39.192-04:00kevin vickers, nathan cirillo, and canada's response to recent acts of violenceI've been thinking a lot about Kevin Vickers. By now the world knows Vickers' name: he is the sergeant-at-arms of the Parliament of Canada, and his quick thinking and courage undoubtedly saved lives. Vickers shot killed Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who had already killed one person and appeared intent on killing others.

Vickers is a hero. But my thoughts of him are filled not with adulation, but with sorrow. Imagine going to work one day, a day like any other, and by the time the day is done, you have taken a human life. You have killed a man at close range. What could that be like? It would not be surprising if Vickers will grapple with flashbacks, night terrors, or other forms of PTSD. Despite Vickers' courage and his new celebrity, I'd bet that few of us would want to stand in his shoes.

I've also been thinking of Nathan Cirillo, because it's impossible not to. Although I consume very little mainstream media, a short dip into my Facebook feed is enough: the dog Cirillo left behind, the outpouring of public grief, the obligatory "Highway of Heroes" photos.

Cirillo was a victim, and he did nothing to deserve such a fate. I feel for those who knew and loved him. But what makes Cirillo a hero? Guarding a war memorial surely is not an act of heroism. Is simply putting on a uniform a heroic act? Cirillo's death was senseless and tragic, but it was not heroic.

Of course, hero is a word that's lost all meaning, joining ironic, obviously, and traumatized on the ever-growing list of words that are used so carelessly and so often as to lose all meaning. Hero just might claim pride of place at the very top of that list. But the hero-worship of anyone in uniform is part of the creeping militarization of our society.

I've also been thinking about violence, and how we choose to respond to violence. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the US government constantly invoked fear in order to advance its agenda: war on people who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, repression of domestic dissent, spying on US citizens.

That response also included the widespread use of torture, and a concentration camp that, more than a decade later, still exists. Even if one believes, despite all facts and evidence, that the people of Iraq and Afghanistan were somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks, the US's response was something like killing a mosquito with a hand grenade. By now it should be clear that the US government had its own agenda, and 9/11 provided the excuse.

Norway, on the other hand, chose a different path: it answered hate with love. After 77 people were massacred on Utøya island, the Norwegian government affirmed the open nature of Norwegian society and pursued charges against the perpetrator within the boundaries of Norwegian law.

These are the originals for the memorials which, from the 22 July anniversary, will be sent out to more than 50 counties across Norway, to commemorate the 77 people massacred by Anders Breivik, the far-right extremist who goes on trial this week.

On each of them, words have been carved from a poem by the Norwegian writer Laes Saabye Christensen that was recited at the memorial concert for the victims. This poem, with its message of peace, followed the tone set by prime minister Jens Stoltenberg in his address at the memorial service in Oslo cathedral two days after the tragedy.

"We are still shocked by what has happened, but we will never give up our values," Stoltenberg said. "Our response is more democracy, more openness, and more humanity." Norway, he suggested, would not seek vengeance as America had done after the 9/11 attacks." We will answer hatred with love," he said.

"It's a clear case where a politician strikes a chord," said Frank Aarebrot, a professor of politics at the University of Bergen. "The prime minister struck almost a Churchillian note in that speech. People were jubilant."

Norway has granted every legal right to Breivik, despite hearing in gruesome detail of how he coldly executed 56 of his victims with shots to the head, after attacking a Labour party youth camp on the island of Utøya, near Oslo.
Canada has a choice.

On one side stands fear, suspicion, bigotry, and repression, a society where people are feared and attacked because of their appearance and surnames, where people are afraid to exercise their right to criticize the government. On that side, too, stands war: the death and destruction of innocent people, citizens turned into shells of themselves because of what they've witnessed and what they've been asked to do.

On the other side stands democracy, freedom of expression, pluralism, inclusion, human rights, and peace.

What kind of country do we want Canada to be?

Do we want the Harper Government to decide that for us?laura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-4757673894608342612014-10-23T12:00:00.000-04:002014-10-23T20:51:32.995-04:00"these acts were driven by hatred, but also designed to drive us to hate. they will not."
We woke up this morning in a country blessed by love, diversity and peace, and tomorrow we will do the same. These acts were driven by hatred, but also designed to drive us to hate. They will not.

Thomas Mulcair

I offer my sympathies and condolences to the family and friends of Nathan Cirillo, on the tragic and senseless loss of their loved one.

I offer condolences to the family and friends of Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. He, too, is gone, and leaves both sorrow and bewilderment behind.

I offer my sympathies and condolences to all the survivors in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and everywhere lives have been lost from terrorism perpetrated by the powerful armies of powerful states.

And I offer my energies and whatever abilities I have to help stop Western nations from making war and breeding terrorists.laura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-14426174119782661832014-10-20T10:00:00.000-04:002014-11-02T08:27:41.529-05:00coming full circle: my sixth-grade obsession meets my teen book clubContinuing on the young-adult fiction theme, it's been about six months since I blathered about my absolute favourite part of my job: teen book club. Our monthly gathering is still going strong, a small but dedicated group of young readers who love books, and love to talk about books. My posters for TBC invite teens to "hang out, eat snacks, talk about books, talk about life," and that pretty much sums up what we do.

Every few months, the group votes on the next four titles, chosen from a selection that I gather, as well as their own suggestions. Most young readers gravitate towards either realistic fiction or fantasy fiction, so I try to balance the two. I also include one or two classics on each list of choices, and they are surprisingly popular: this month we are reading S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders, Fahrenheit 451 is on the list for early 2015, and the group is clamouring for Catcher in the Rye.

Along with those classics, the next titles are: Dooley Takes the Fall by Norah McClintock, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, Loki's Wolves by Kelley Armstrong, Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

I'm especially happy to be doing The Outsiders, a book I was obsessed with in sixth grade (or "grade six," as we say here). S. E. Hinton's classic had a huge influence on my writing and thinking about young-adult fiction. When I learned that Hinton was a woman, and wrote the book when she herself was a teenager... my whole world changed. Apparently teens today find the book no less relevant. Although I don't expect any of my TBC members to become obsessed with The Outsiders, one young man did mention he's read it five times.

By happy coincidence, there's an interview with Hinton in the current New Yorker, asking her about - what else? - the so-called debate on youth fiction. When Hinton was a teen, there was no youth fiction: her books carved out a niche in the classroom, other writers followed in Hinton's footsteps, and YA was born.laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-26537592970191140462014-10-20T08:30:00.000-04:002014-10-20T09:16:28.609-04:00the so-called "y.a. debate" rages on, but doesn't a debate have two sides?In June of this year, Slate ran a now-infamous piece called "Against YA," in which Ruth Graham argued that adults shouldn't read young-adult fiction, and should be embarrassed if they do. A flood of posts and essays were written in response; my own response is here. In the short term, as far as I can tell, not a single writer agreed with Graham.

Despite this lopsided showing, some headline writer (possibly here) dubbed this "The Great Y.A. Debate," and the name stuck. There must be people out there who agree with Graham - surely hers was not an original idea - but one cranky article does not a debate make.

I did find a few interesting essays that used Graham's piece as a springboard to unpack some interesting ideas and cultural trends.

A. O. Scott, in The New York Times Magazine, is one reader who found himself agreeing with Graham, and asking himself why. Scott's The Death of Adulthood in American Culture joins the crowded field of "things ain't what they used to be" stories, gazing fondly back on a time when a cultural elite drew a very bright line between "high" and "low" culture, a line that, if it still exists, is too blurry to locate and carries little cultural currency. Scott, however, reflects on his nostalgia and acknowledges its curmudgeonly (and sexist, exclusionary) nature. It's a nicely ambivalent essay... and it has very little to do with youth fiction.

In Henry James and the Great Y.A. Debate, Christopher Beha, writing in The New Yorker, uses the same so-called debate to muse on the state of the novel, how literature from different eras reflect entirely different worldviews, and why the work of Henry James is still, in Beha's view, relevant to the contemporary reader. It's a good piece, worth reading, and again, none of its ideas are stated or implied in Graham's essay in Slate.

Beha offers this comments on A. O. Scott's piece.

...Scott's essay is an expression of great ambivalence. He isn't happy about this trend in movies, but he also isn't sure how justified his unhappiness is. He admits to "feeling a twinge of disapproval when I see one of my peers clutching a volume of 'Harry Potter' or 'The Hunger Games,' " but he quickly adds that he's "not necessarily proud of this reaction." He is scrupulously mindful of what it means for a self-described "middle-aged white man" to pine for an earlier era of cultural authority. Indeed, the real subject of Scott's essay turns out to be not the infantilization of culture but the decline of cultural—if not political or economic or social—patriarchy, and the ways in which this decline is reflected in the culture itself. He takes this change to be the underlying subject of several of the past decade's prestige TV dramas—particularly "The Sopranos," "Mad Men," and "Breaking Bad." In Scott's view, Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Walter White are "the last of the patriarchs."

This is where the essay becomes a little confused, in my opinion. If we really are living through the decline of the cultural authority of the straight white male, that seems like a rich and appropriate subject for a sophisticated work of narrative art. The fact that we find this decline represented on television seems in this sense a sign of cultural maturity, one that cuts against the idea that our culture reflects an "essentially juvenile vision of the world." Many shows now grapple more honestly with the world as it actually exists than did the sitcoms that I grew up watching, in which mom and dad had all the answers and were waiting in the wings to save us from our mistakes.

The strong ambivalence running throughout Scott's piece emerges from the fact that he sees an intimate, even necessary connection between the decline of the straight white male's stranglehold on the culture as a whole (which he views as all to the good) and the rise to dominance of a juvenile strain within popular culture in particular (which he likes a lot less). But even assuming that both of these things are going on, it's not at all clear how much they have to do with one another. There is a difference between art that merely enacts a culture's refusal to grow up—say, a Y.A. fantasy turned summer blockbuster marketed at adults—and art that engages thoughtfully with that refusal.
The New Yorker also pointed to a 2008 article by Jill Lepore (one of my favourite writers in that magazine's circle), illustrating the long history of self-appointed reading gatekeepers. This one was a librarian who was horrified by E. B. White's Stuart Little. And not just any librarian: it was Anne Carroll Moore, who invented the idea of the children's library. Great reading: The Lion and the Mouse.

Throughout, I am left wondering if anyone on the "against" side of "Against Y.A." has read any youth fiction other than The Fault in Our Stars or The Hunger Games and has read any children's fiction other than Harry Potter. Often I'm left wondering if they've read even those, or merely read about them.

These essays are all worth reading... as are many youth novels.

laura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-71639460314144716092014-10-17T06:30:00.000-04:002014-10-17T06:33:53.432-04:00a war resister connects the dots: canada, is this the war you want to fight?A U.S. war resister in Canada writes in this NOW Magazine.

Very soon you will begin to hear about Canadian planes sending "humanitarian aid" of food and medical supplies to those affected by the fighting. . . .

And now ISIL is touted as the new enemy from the darkness as if their emergence was not foreseeable. In reality, ISIL is just the latest incarnation of a very old xenophobic sect of Islam, the Wahhabi movement, finding new breath in the aftermath of yet another war. Our bombs have only made them stronger, just as they always have.

The Harper Conservatives are hoping you are not engaged enough to notice its hopes of attaining a new casus belli for Canada. But if Harper gets his way, you'll soon be spending money you don't have on a war that's making you less safe, not more.

And what about the long-term costs for the soldiers who do come home? How will Canada be able to take care of them? Large numbers of Canadian veterans from the war in Afghanistan have already become homeless, jobless or committed suicide. They have yet to receive care from a resource-strapped Veterans Affairs Canada. How will VAC be able to meet the needs of even more veterans?

Please understand that I don't mean to forgive the barbarity that ISIL has clearly committed. As an American soldier, I witnessed first-hand how war makes monsters of us all. Everyone with a gun in a war zone thinks themselves "one of the good guys," but the idea that anyone in a war acts in accordance with international law is a myth.

Once I realized this, I decided I could not participate in a war of aggression (the Iraq war of 2003) launched against people who had not committed any crime. I found taking part in this war a violation of both international law and basic moral behaviour, to such a degree that I could not have any further part in it.

Many others made the same choice I did, and a good number of us came to Canada seeking refuge. We have experienced first-hand the lasting effects of a war in Iraq started under false pretenses. We would implore you to be thoroughly informed, Canada. If you decide to go forward into this war, you should at least do so with all the facts.

Almost all who desert the U.S. military are simply administratively discharged without jail time. But without exception, every American war resister in Canada deported into U.S. military custody has faced significant jail time when evidence was presented of how we spoke out to people like you. The American government wants to jail me not just for leaving the military, but for having the audacity to shed light on war crimes we were asked to commit.

Is this the kind of war you truly want for Canadians? If you do, I will leave quietly.
A number of resisters living in Canada have seen recent movement in their cases after years of silence from the government. The immigration minister's personal attention to our cases is made clear by Operational Bulletin 202, directing all our files to his desk for review instead of using normal procedures.

I will go to the cell that awaits me in the U.S. for having spoken loudly about the injustices I was asked to abide. I do not believe I deserve to be punished for speaking out, but perhaps I do for not having spoken out loudly enough.
Read the essay here. Then sign a letter to help stop the deportations.laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-34655253637461814152014-10-14T11:00:00.000-04:002014-10-14T11:52:42.121-04:00u.s. war resisters in canada are at serious risk. here's how you can help.The War Resisters Support Campaign is facing an unprecedented crisis. Since war resister Kimberly Rivera was forced out of the country in September 2012, there had been no movement on any war resister's case.

Then, within one month, five war resisters received notices that decisions have been made in their cases. Two of these have been given removal dates (i.e. they have been told to leave the country by a certain date). We expect similar negative outcomes in the other cases – and we don't know who else will receive a notice tomorrow or next week.

The Campaign has shifted into high gear, challenging the decisions in court while we help families prepare for worst-case scenarios. There are two ways you can help.

You can send a letter to Minister of Citizenship & Immigration Chris Alexander, Minister of Public Safety Stephen Blaney, and your MP in support of U.S. Iraq War Resisters. Click here to send a letter.

You can donate to the Campaign. You can donate online through the GoFundMe.com/LetThemStay or by cheque or money order (details here).

Please read and share these recent statements by Iraq War resisters: Dean Walcott, Joshua Key, and a joint statement by all U.S. war resisters in Canada. If you share these with your own networks, please include the GoFundMe link.

laura khttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-9039500674669807642014-10-13T09:00:00.000-04:002014-10-13T09:17:21.578-04:00more art and culture in the suburbs: indian art activism and the baps mandirIn September my mother was here for her annual visit. I always plan some art or cultural attraction for us to take in. This time she was recovering from some knee surgery, so major walking in Toronto was out. On a previous visit, we had already done most of the cultural attractions in Mississauga - or so we thought. I'm pleased to say that the west-end suburbs was up to the challenge.

At the Art Gallery of Mississauga, we saw a fascinating exhibit on the Sahmat Collective, a group of artists in India who use street art to challenge religious and sectarian intolerance. The AGM itself is a small but lovely space housed in City Hall.

A colleague suggested a fibre-art show at the Art Gallery of Burlington. My mom loves any kind of craft or handwork, so this was a great fit. The Burlington space has an excellent street presence near the waterfront, something the poor AGM can only dream of.

The highlight of our cultural tour was a visit to the enormous mandir, or Hindu temple, that sits on the border of Toronto and Mississauga, full name BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Toronto. Like everyone else, we've seen the giant white wedding-cake of a building from the highway, but had never thought of visiting before.

The building is extraordinary. It was built from 24,000 pieces of sandstone, carved in India, then assembled in Canada like a giant jigsaw puzzle, without a single screw, bolt, or nail. The temple portion is elaborately carved sandstone, and the adjacent community centre is equally elaborately carved wood. It is the largest temple of its kind, by far, in North America.

The mandir's unfortunate location near several major highways and the airport must ensure that the gleaming white stone is usually blackened, and in constant need of cleaning. It was being cleaned while we were there.

No photography is allowed inside, but there is an interesting video describing how the building was designed and constructed, and documenting its celebrated opening in 2007. Unfortunately, that last part includes Stephen Harper.

The unexpected Indian theme - both the AGM exhibit and the mandir - seemed fortuitous. The following week, one of our nieces was visiting, and she has lived and traveled extensively in India. With her, though, we went for dim sum, took the dogs to the beach, and wandered around the University of Toronto (St. George) campus.

With much of my family now living on the west coast, we're no longer having the big family gatherings for US Thanksgiving, and I rarely see my nieces and nephews. This would be the case even if we still lived in New York City. I don't miss the 11-hour drive, but I do miss seeing everyone.

laura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-42894782647172750422014-10-13T07:00:00.000-04:002014-10-13T07:54:09.916-04:00rest in peace, canine with a brave rebel heart

When I blogged about him a few years back, he was called Kanellos, the Greek rebel dog. Somewhere along the way, English-language media dubbed him Riot Dog. He was also called Louk, short for Loukanikos. Louk, Kanellos, and also Thodoris may or may not have been the same dog.

Whatever his name, he was brave, loyal, and handsome, and he stood on the side of the People. His health was diminished by tear gas, but he soldiered on. He died recently at the home of a person who cared for him. He was thought to be about ten years old.

laura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-87281006491998359612014-10-07T12:30:00.000-04:002014-10-07T12:33:13.535-04:00thank you, thomas mulcair and the new democrats: thank you for saying no to warToday I feel so much better about living in Canada. Once again, we have a political party that says no to war. A political party that says no to letting the US dictate Canadian foreign policy. I now feel much better about voting NDP in the next federal election... which can't come soon enough!

It's a shrewd political move on the part of Thomas Mulcair, polarizing the field with the Liberals and Conservatives on one side and the New Democrats on the other. I have no doubt it's politically motivated, but why should I care about motives, when the end result would be diplomacy, humanitarian aid, and no war?

Listen to his speech. Thank you, Tom Mulcair!

laura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-15155817372491824602014-10-06T20:00:00.000-04:002014-10-06T20:37:38.625-04:00what i'm reading: how i live now, excellent (youth) novel by meg rosoff

Last year, I wrote about an excellent, unusual youth novel called There Is No Dog, by Meg Rosoff. I recently read the author's 2004 debut novel, How I Live Now, and I'm here to lay down a flat-out rave review.

Most of How I Live Now is told from the point of view of a teenaged narrator, in a present-tense first-person stream of thought, with long, rambling sentences and minimal punctuation. I often have problems with quirky or immature narrators as the voice feels forced and inauthentic to me. I found some famous and popular novels unreadable because of this. In this book, however, I found the voice completely authentic and utterly compelling.

In the first part of the book, a group of teenagers and children have been left on their own, without adults. They create an idyllic, natural, peaceful world, a kind of anti-Lord of the Flies - cooperating, caring for each other, communing with nature.

Then everything changes. The children are split up, the world becomes dangerous and unpredictable. Of course, the world was always dangerous and unpredictable, but the children had been sheltered from it, as most of us reading the book are, in the course of our daily lives. Now the reality of the very scary, dangerous world is hard upon them. The teenaged narrator and a younger girl are plunged into a world of survival and loss.

There is a war. To the children, it's a war without a name, without a known enemy, and without a battlefield. Rather, without a far-off, designated battlefield - a war where every place is a battlefield, where there is nothing but battlefields: a terrorist war. Rosoff imagines what this is like, through the eyes of someone trying to survive and to protect those she loves. That is, through any of our eyes.

As I read, as the girls' journey progressed, the descriptions of war and ruin began to feel very familiar to me, from blogs like Baghdad Burning by Riverbend and books like The Deserter's Tale. An invasion, then an occupation. No electricity, no running water. (What would the implications of that be? Not a temporary power outage, but no electricity, at all. The narrator fills in those harrowing details.) Food shortages. Checkpoints. Tensions between occupier and occupied, leading to random violence and retaliation. It dawned on me that the war Rosoff describes was actually happening while she was writing it. The story takes place in the UK, but this war did happen, in Iraq: it's "us" and "them" with the roles reversed. As the familiar landscape is transformed into a nightmare, Rosoff asks us to imagine what a modern-day war looks and feels like to the people who are forced to live it.

There are many other themes folded into this slim novel. Eating disorders is a subtext, as are potential psychic abilities. As in There Is No Dog (as in the real world!) teenagers have sex, but the sex is implied with a light touch, while the intense descriptions are saved for love and other confounding emotions.

This book fits easily into the "teenage survival" subgenre of youth fiction - a crowded field - but does so without creating a futuristic fantasy world. The fantasy here is a reality that exists, somewhere, right now. That's part of what makes the book so unforgettable. And although I'm describing the war theme because I was so impressed with it, the book's ultimate triumph is the way the narrator changes and grows from her experiences, from a troubled but self-centered girl into a compassionate, resilient, resourceful young woman.

How I Live Now is a fast-paced, compelling read. Although it's technically a youth novel, if you're old enough to think about love, war, death, and the aftermath of all three, I recommend you read this book.laura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-53269008030118123072014-10-05T10:00:00.000-04:002014-10-05T11:15:01.673-04:00steve mahoney for mayor of mississauga

We're having a historic election here in Mississauga: it will be the first time in the city's existence that Hazel McCallion is not running, the first mayor other than McCallion that Mississauga has ever had. Twelve candidates are on the ballot, but the race comes down to two people: Steve Mahoney and Bonnie Crombie.

Crombie tries to project an image as a business person who "gets things done," but running a city like a business is a failing proposition. Businesses are designed for profit. Transit, education, libraries, sanitation, daycare, parks, recreation centres, and other public services don't generate profit. Of course, many services are not controlled at the municipal level, but the mayor has a strong voice in shaping the direction of a city, and a mayor who emphasizes "efficiency" and business experience is dreaming the wrong dreams.

Mahoney clearly supports public services. Much of his career has been focused on city planning, workplace safety, and affordable housing. As chair of the Workplace Safety Insurance Board, he was praised by both unions and businesses as fair and compassionate. Mahoney`s father was an activist with the United Steelworkers, and that, I hope, should give him a perspective on the importance of labour unions to the community.

At a recent debate between Mahoney and Crombie, it was clear that Mahoney is more experienced and more skilled, and that he has a vision for the future of Mississauga that can be put into practice. Crombie has a lot of slogans and tends to speak in vague generalities.

Mahoney, a former Liberal MP, ran against Carolyn Parrish in the 2004 federal election. Parrish made a splash in the Canadian media by strongly opposing the US invasion of Iraq, and Mahoney apparently joined the scrum against her. I'm pleased to be voting for Parrish for councillor in my ward. If Mahoney is an apologist for the US, well, nobody's perfect. I trust that will have little impact on his ability to lead Mississauga.

Mississauga residents, please vote! And please choose experience, compassion, and a healthy public sector: vote for Steve Mahoney.

laura khttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-66259775828131915132014-10-04T13:00:00.000-04:002014-10-26T07:42:51.381-04:00what i'm reading: the juggler's children by carolyn abraham

Unlike most people I know, I have little or no interest in my family's genealogy. I know the general outlines of my family background - where some of my forebears hailed from, and where they settled and what work they did when they emigrated to North America - and that's enough for me. Despite this, I very much enjoyed The Juggler's Children: A Journey into Family, Legend and the Genes that Bind Us by Carolyn Abraham. If you have a keen interest in family-history searches, you are sure to enjoy this book.

The Juggler's Children is part travelogue, part quest, and part science lesson, and Abraham is masterful at all three. The travel descriptions - to both India and Jamaica - sparkle, and the search is laced with suspense. But Abraham is a Canadian science writer, and that's the area where she most flourishes. Abraham explains complex concepts of genetics with clear images and metaphors that render them understandable to the non-scientist.

Abraham's search for her family's past coincides with the emerging science of using DNA samples in service of genealogy. Through cells gathered from a person's inner cheek, DNA tests are able to determine, within a degree of a certainty, that that person's ancestry is (for example) 25% Western European, 35% sub-Saharan African, 30% South Asian, and 10% Aboriginal North American. Each of those percentages can be further broken down, and the accuracy and certainty of these categories further enhanced, as more DNA samples are entered into more databases. The Juggler's Children unpacks the many implications of this testing - ethical, social, familial, questions of both personal and group identity.

Abraham's personal quest hinges on two men: her great-grandfathers, who she dubs The Juggler and The Captain, names as evocative and enigmatic as the scraps of information her family possess about them. The Juggler, the paternal great-grandfather, was a circus performer from China, who traveled - or perhaps fled - to India, converted to Christianity, and took an Old Testament last name. Then he vanished. Was his disappearance an altruistic act, as a recently widowed man could not care for his own children, and they were best raised by relatives? Or was there a darker, less charitable interpretation of his sudden absence from the record?

The Captain, a maternal great-grandfather, was a storied seafarer from Jamaica, who died in India. That makes at least two points where the family history intersects with India, although Abraham's relatives insist that there are no Indians in her family. Was The Captain a runaway slave... or was he a slaveowner?

As Abraham's search continues, it becomes increasingly clear that no matter how we identify ourselves - no matter what cultural and ethnic groups we belong to - we are more diverse - more mixed - than we think. And if you go back far enough, we humans are all related.

Long ago on this blog, I wrote about the book Origins Reconsidered by Richard Leakey, the son of the world's most famous paleontologists, Mary and Louis Leakey. I found reading about the first humans surprisingly moving, as I contemplated the fact that they are the ancestors of every human. In other words, all humans share common ancestry. I found The Juggler's Children fascinating in the same way. For readers with an interest in genealogy - especially with roots in India, China, or Jamaica - this is a must-read.

laura khttp://email@example.com


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