2012-40 - The Meaning of Freedom, by Angela Y. Davis

40 - The Meaning of Freedom, by Angela Y. Davis, 199 pages, City Lights Books, 2012
WHY I PICKED IT: Stumbled onto it in a book store in Seattle
ELAPSED TIME: 3 weeks
RATING: Very Good

This book of essays by Activist (with a capital A) Angela Davis is very very good.  Angela has been an advocate for civil rights in the United States for much of her life.  There is so much here that is gripping and thought provoking:

a) King was the spokesperson for the Montgomery Bus Boycott when he was 26 years old.  Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela were in their 20s when they started to drive change.  Where are this generation's leaders and activists?

b) What is the purpose of prison - To rehabilitate or a punitive response to a crime?  Which goal supports society's interests?  The latter is more expensive and results in significantly higher recidivism rates.  Not to mention expose our racism and make us forget our humanity.

c) She would "gladly relinquish the celebration of the first black woman National Security Adviser, now the first black woman Secretary of State (Condoleeza Rice), in exchange for a white male Secretary of State who might provide guidance on how to halt the U.S. global drive for empire, the racist war on terror, and the military aggression against the Iraqi people."  I would have as well.

d) As of 2007, there were approximately 2,200,000 people incarcerated in the USA.  Over the course of that year that number was over 13,000,000.

e) In the State of Florida, 950,000 ex- and current- felons do not have the right to vote.  In the 2002 election, George W. Bush won Florida (and thus the US election) by 537 votes.  Since most of those 950,000 are people of colour, and given that most people of colour vote Democrat, the election would have had a very different outcome if those disenfranchised voters would have a right to vote.

f) A socialist matched white and black applicants for a job.  Some candidates had a felony conviction, others did not.  White candidates with a felony conviction were called for interviews at the same rate as black candidates without one.  In essence, black men are essentially born with the social stigma equivalent to a felony conviction.

g) When we hold Martin Luther King up on a pedestal, we trivialize the work of the thousands and thousands of people who imagined and worked towards a changed world...  Including people like Bayard Rustin (who was black, openly gay and introduced MLK to the Ghandian concept of non-violent resistance).

h) Pat Parker's poem "Where do you go to become a non-citizen?"

i) As of 2008, 1% of all adult Americans are imprisoned on any given day.

j) A portion of Bishop Gene Robinson's prayer for US President Barack Obama:

• Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
• Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
• Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
• Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
• Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
• Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

2012-39 - The Best Laid Plans, by Terry Fallis

39 - The Best Laid Plans, by Terry Fallis, 312 pages, McClelland and Stewart, 2007
WHY I PICKED IT: Saw it at the airport
ELAPSED TIME: 2 days
RATING: Very Good

I bought this book because of the back-story: Fallis couldn't get a publisher for his novel, so he read it and released each chapter as a podcast.  So many people listened, that he self-published... and won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour... must be worth a read, right?

The book can be broken down into three sections:
a) The Prologue - Where you meet Daniel Addison - ex-speechwriter for the Leader of the Official Opposition, recently single, and freshman professor at the University of Ottawa.
b) The First Half - Where he convinces his landlord (a crusty old engineering professor from Scotland) to run for the Liberal Seat in a historically strong Tory stronghold.
c) The Second Half - Where he struggles to balance the power of the CPOs (Cynical Political Operatives) with his own preferred path as a IPW (Idealist Policy Wonk).

(a) is funny.  (b) is really good and really funny.  (c) is just good.  The book could actually end quite well at the end of the First Half.  If you haven't read it, but are thinking of doing so, consider quitting at this point.

2012-38 - Enders Game, by Orson Scottcard

38 - Enders Game, by Orson Scottcard, 324 pages, Tom Doherty Associates, 1977
WHY I PICKED IT: Recommended by my colleague Samantha
ELAPSED TIME: 5 days
RATING: Very Good

Written for a teen audience, this book is the original Hunger Games - except Ender Wiggin isn't fighting other humans for food, he's being trained to command the human army against the bugs who have twice attacked earth.

A compelling story makes for quick reading.

2012-37 - Medical Innovations in Humanitarian Situations, by Jean-Herve Bradol and Claudine Vidal

37 - Medical Innovations in Humanitarian Situations, by Jean-Herve Bradol and Claudine Vidal 224 pages, Medecins Sans Frontieres, 2011
WHY I PICKED IT: Another MSF Book
ELAPSED TIME: 3 Weeks
RATING: Good

This  book is not an easy read.  A series of essays outlining innovation within MSF and the drivers for it.
- Innovating culture, to speak out within the humanitarian space.
- The development of somewhat flexible medical kits for rapid deployment into different contexts.
- The gathering of epidemiological data in the humanitarian space, with which to make informed decisions and advocate for neglected populations.
- New testing protocols for known diseases, to expand the use of drugs into different contexts.
- Challenging and changing the rules of international drug production  and distribution, to make drugs available for patients who may otherwise be unable to afford or access modern medication.

A tough read, and I'd only recommend if you're really interested.

2012-36 - Wizzywig, Portrait of a Serial Hacker, by Ed Piskor

36 - Wizzywig, Portrait of a Serial Hacker, by Ed Piskor, 286 pages, Top Twelve Productions, 2012
WHY I PICKED IT: Stumbled onto it in a book store
ELAPSED TIME: 3 days
RATING: Good

The story of how this kid became a hacker, how obsessed he became, the unintended consequences of seemingly inconsequential decisions, the fear of the establishment, the violations of the criminal justice system, and the struggle that any ex-con must have to find work.  I think this story demonstrates the extent to which the establishment will go to protect itself from those looking at open source as the mechanism for societal change.

I don't often read graphic novels, but this was quite enjoyable

2012-35 - The Borrower, by Rebcca Makkai

35 - The Borrower, by Rebcca Makkai, 324 pages, Penguin Books, 2011
WHY I PICKED IT: Stumbled onto it in a book store
ELAPSED TIME: 1 week
RATING: Meh

This is an interesting story.... Lucy Hull is a young librarian and has been kidnapped and is the kidnapper of her favourite patron: 10-year-old Ian Drake.  The story is fairly engaging - why Ian ran away from home (he is unhappy with his parents), why Lucy is okay with it (they're religious zealots who are trying to reprogram what everybody in town is assuming is his future sexual choices), Lucy's Dad's life (he's a Russian mobster who's experiences in communist Russia come out of the story slowly, but quite interestingly).

Makkai is a good writer, who writes some great sentences... Ultimately though, the book is about 75 pages too long...

2012-34 - Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed, by Claire Magone, Michael Neuman, and Fabrice Weissman

34 - Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed, by Claire Magone, Michael Neuman, and Fabrice Weissman, 258 pages, Columbia University Press, 2011
WHY I PICKED IT: It's an MSF book
ELAPSED TIME: 3 weeks
RATING: Very Good!

Gaining access to distressed populations to provide Medical Relief requires ongoing negotiations and tradeoffs with conflicting parties and interests.  Each of the first 12 chapters addresses the tradeoffs required in different contexts.  From Myanmar (who didn't want anybody to talk about what was going on), to India (where the political impact of bringing in "western food" when they have their own plan to feed their population was considered neo-colonialist, despite chronic malnourishment in some children).  From Afghanistan (where you have to negotiate access with individual warlords), to Somalia (where you have to negotiate the same type of access AND have armed guards from those warlords protect you in their areas).

The authors address the militarization of humanitarian aid, and the impact on relief efforts, and the challenge of témoignage (to bear witness):
a) If you say something that a local warlord doesn't like, your words can be used to exclude you from access to the people who need your help (or worse, put people who helped you in harms way).
b) If you raise awareness of "crimes against humanity," your words can be used to rationalize a "just war."
c) If you say nothing, you risk being in a position of complicity... perhaps ensuring that people have a full belly when their government exterminates them, or more likely enabling a government's lack of care for its own people with no international political pressure to change.

This book is required reading for anybody wanting to do international relief work... and a very good read for everybody else.