Events Books

When I started reading books on dying (Final Gifts by Maggie Callanan, Patricia Kelley; The Grace in Dying by Kathleen Singh), I read books that gave me hope and comfort in dealing with my own mortality. This book made the hair on my neck rise up.

It begins by shattering illusions (the ones I'd built up) about having a pain-free, easy death. There are insurance companies, personal opinions, differing agendas of a variety of institutions that come into play.

In short, some people have an easier death than others. Webb writes in an easy to read, article style. She begins with a chapter called "Dying Easy", about the nearly beautiful, fairly comfortable death of Judith Hardin, who at 36 dies at home with her husband and children.

"Dying Hard," is based on Webb's personal interviews and experiences with the death of Peter Cicione. Cicione died a death more painful than it needed to be, largely due to medical staff's fears that this dying man was misusing morphine, might overdose or use so much medication that the drugs would no longer be effective (not true).

In "The Sorcerer's Apprenctice" and "When Death Becomes a Blessing," Webb focuses on the history of medical control of pain, the prolonging of life with new medical techniques and modern pain control through the works of Dr. Kathleen Foley, director of neurology pain service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Foley estimated that 5% of the patients she was seeing were "in unassuageable pain." Webb's conservative estimate offers that "109,500 people a year die with unrelieved suffering." Much of this is due to outdated information, old rules, and misunderstandings about how much medication a dying person in severe pain can and should get. She offers the possibility that terminally ill patients who want to commit suicide or look for assistance in dying might not do this, if their pain could be properly handled.

She has chapters about the legal conflicts for families who want comatose relatives off of life-support systems, with detailed information about Karen Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan's cases and the affects on their families long after these women died.

"Bearing the Burden" focuses on what happens to the lives of families with a terminally ill member - "The sad secret that many don't want to admit is that care at home, wonderful as it can be in helping a patient to a good death, is hard on families. Home care may allow for those close, intimate, late-night times with the dying family member...but there are also the difficult times: changing diapers, losing sleep or feeling intense anxiety because the patient is in pain or can't breath..."

This first half of the book is tough reading, but necessary - for there is still a lot of work to be done to make dying easier. The second half of the book deals with hospice; assisted dying (suicides); spirituality in dying.

She closes with 10 common factors 'good deaths' have - 1) open, ongoing communication with doctors, patients, families 2) preservation of the patient's decision-making powers for as long as possible 3) sophisticated pain control 4) limits on excessive treatment (medical interventions, per the patient) 5) focus on preserving the patient's quality of life 6) emotional support 7) financial support 8) family support 9) spiritual support 10) patient isn't abandoned by the medical staff even when curative treatment is no longer required.

She also has 10 changes, which she believes need to be made to change the culture of dying from a cold, hospital-set detachment to a family affair. These encompass everything from expanding health insurance to cover needs currently not met, to legalization of assisted suicide.

If you have given little thought to some of the darker sides of dying, focusing as I have on the spiritual and more uplifting side, this book offers a lot of food for thought. Well-written, easy to read, disturbing.

Even if you have different opinions than Webb has (about assisted suicide, for example), this book is a good read to investigate the other side's information and arguments.

When Government By Deception was completed and offered to the public, I bought six copies for friends of mine. Two of them live in South Africa. The others are from the states. All have found the book to be an interesting and informative read. They are glad to see someone offering some real information on southern Africa. Mr. Lamprecht has good sources of information and some very interesting interviews are scattered throughout the book.

If you like history, you will find interesting historical facts on southern Africa. The book was carefully researched and has many quotes by well known political players in this bloody and tension filled arena. Due to this book and articles by Mr. Lamprecht, the American people will, if they choose, see the many similarities between our countries. They will learn how the communists have pitted the blacks and whites against each other in a war that neither will benefit from. The destruction and suffering going on in southern Africa at this time will serve only a few who seek power and wealth for themselves alone. There is a message here for American's. This book will help you understand more clearly the signifigance of how little truthful news we are exposed here in the states, regarding southern Africa. How much do we hear regarding the brutal murders of some 1400 white Afrikaner farmers in South Africa? More recently the farm murders and the takeover of white farms in Zimbabwe are at last getting some attention. You will read about the workings of socialism and the potent weapon of white guilt. The importance of detecting the mind games and psychological warfare being used on the American as well as the African people each and every day.

I believe you will be surprised and perhaps shocked at some of the information presented in this book. It is an excellent buy, and a great effort by someone who KNOWS first hand what it feels like to see your beloved homeland painted "RED" with the blood of her people.

My suggestion to fellow Americans is to buy the book, read it, learn from it, and act on what you have learned.

It is: http://WWW.AfricanCrisis.org

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tquinn@midsouth.rr.com

The book lays out a sensible approach to understanding the unique characteristics of each party, identifies the dynamics at work both between the parties and, more importantly, among the general electorate as they vote to either maintain the status quo, or to reject the party in power, in favor of a new political direction. There is a little something for every reader here-social psychology, US political history and systems theory.

Stoken's approach should hardly come as a surprise to those familiar with The University of Chicago, where he did his graduate work. The UOC is well known for its theoretical approach, and this book follows in this proud, if unconventional, tradition. Noteworthy also is Stoken's background as a financial historian and practitioner (he's a hedge fund manager, and former floor trader on Chicago's derivatives exchanges), which adds a practical dimension that traditional historians tend to overlook or (better yet) ignore-namely the market-like interplay between presidential politics and the ebb and flow between political cycles, which Stoken identifies and quantifies through an analysis of voting patterns, giving rise to "paradigm" setting presidential administrations.

Stoken sees this interplay (and, yes, clash) between two opposing political tenets as essential to the evolution of US politics, and something to be encouraged and appreciated. It is this 2 party dynamic that both helps define the distinctives of both parties, and allows for quick, decisive change and transition from one "paradigm" to the next.

Stoken's quantitative approach to understanding US elections and his belief that the voter is always right in the end (after all, voters ultimately determine outcomes) is a refreshing departure from doctrinaire, overly politicized methods of viewing party politics. In this vein, a warning: Stoken's perspective may not appeal to readers of all political persuasions. Diehard political ideologues may object to the (perceived) simplification of Stoken's quest for a unifying theme to tie together all the loose ends. Indeed, one comes away from the book much more inclined to view politics through the eyes of a dispassionate and objective observer, than as a passionate firebrand.

Stoken seems to be suggesting that it's only by distancing yourself from this passionate enterprise that you gain an appreciation for the role that both sides play in the evolution of our "great game of politics." In the end, it's not an "either or" game-that is, one party more "correct" than the other. Instead, Stoken suggests that it takes two healthy, opposing viewpoints to create a dynamic political system. You'll find this book a refreshing departure from traditional approaches to understanding US politics and American history.

This is one of those books that caught my eye in a casual browse through the bookstore, where I buy perhaps 10% of my books. It has a germ of a good idea and is worth the price of the book for that alone--the book can be absorbed in a day or rapidly scanned in an hour.

The core idea is that America swings from left to right and back again--from a pro-business risk-taking conservative right position to a pro-people risk-reducing social concern left position.

The author, who is evidently a very well-respected businessman and trader who is skilled at seeing business cycles, applies his skill to politics. Of the 43 presidents America has had to date, he identifies nine that were "paradigm movers": George Washington (Federalists), Jefferson (Jeffersonian Democracy), Madison (New Nationalism), Jackson (New Democrats) Lincoln-McKinley (Transition), Roosevelt (New Progressives), Harding (New Era) and Reagan (New Economy).

I view the book somewhat skeptically. It is certainly worthwhile, and I do not regret buying it nor absorbing the "nine political paradigms" that the author puts forward, but on balance I find it somewhat simplistic and out of touch with today's realities. Indeed, as an admirer of all that Dr. Paul Ray has written (he is co-author of The Cultural Creatives), I would sum up my modest criticism of this book by saying that America, if it is to survive, must be neither left nor right, but in front--as Dr. Ray labels them, "the new progressives." The two mainstream political parties have lost touch with reality and become much too subordinated to political campaign contributions and lobbyists, and hence, if there is a tenth paradigm that will emerge--and I credit this book with framing the question very well--then it will be one that emulates the Internet and creates a political system that restores ethics to both the left and the right, restores the individual to primacy in the democracy, and reintegrates government, business, and citizen associations including unions as equal respectful partners rather than constant antagonists.

Foner's book is an exciting history of these days. He quotes extensively from labor and capitalist press of the day, from speeches and declarations by workers' leaders, and from government reports and documents to give a real feel of the roots of the uprising and the conflicting interests that lay behind it. I particularly found useful the description of what different workers leaders did at the time-- from conservative trade union presidents to militant socialists. Also the challenge and experiences of native-born and immigrant workers fighting together against their common exploiters. There is a lot to learn from this book today!

While this book gives a rich detail of the day-to-day struggles in 1877, two others will help get a broader perspective on the key issues political posed: American Labor Struggles 1877-1934, by Samuel Yellen, and Revolutionary Continuity, Marxist Leadership in the U.S. 1948-1917, by Farrell Dobbs.

Yet because the government necessarily represents and supports the domination of capital over human beings - the ups and downs of its luck displace thousands and in its crises when it prefers to do nothing at all it condemns whole populations to hunger and war - every strike necessarily grows over into politics as an instinctive, just measure of self-defense. The larger the strike, the more acute the politics become.

At that time, a party existed that challenged the "justice" and logic of capital's rule. Its partisans learned that each of its two factions were correct in what they stood for. Both the trade union struggle and the ballot box contention are valid ways for working people to put forth their strength, and to learn first hand about the limitations of U.S. "freedom."

As we live in a period of falling profit rates, not unlike 1873-5, the lessons of previous struggles are of first importance.

Pathfinder Press is sometimes jestingly referred to as "the martyr's" publisher, because so many of its titles print verbatim the words of working class heroes. In the chapter on Chicago, we can witness the agitational power of Albert Parsons, who ten years later earned the title of Haymarket Martyr in the fight for the eight hour day.

This is a difficult book to evaluate. It basically gets the story of the North Korean famine right, but it is misleading or wrong in many of the specifics, starting with the first sentence of the book "In September 1995 the North Korean government, in a rare admission of vulnerability announced to the outside world that severe flooding had devastated its agricultural regions and that subsequent failure had caused widespread food shortages." Narrowly true, perhaps - the government of North Korea may well have made such a statement in September 1995 - but thoroughly misleading. The government of North Korea had publicly admitted it had food shortages and successfully reached agreements with Japan and South Korea to supply emergency food aid in May 1995 - before the floods hit in June. So unless time moves backwards on the Korean peninsula, floods in June could not be the cause of agreements reached in May. As evidenced by the September statement that Natsios uses to begin the book, the flooding proved politically useful to both the North Koreans (the famine was an act of God and not a combination of their own incompetence and malevolence) and to the donor community (easier to supply aid in response to victims of natural disasters than victims of a thoroughly odious regime).

Much of this book is built on such half-truths. In part, this is due to its author's intended or inadvertent tendency to place himself at the center of all events. This gives the book a certain strength: the first-hand accounts -- I visited this orphanage on this date and this is what I observed -- are compelling. But either Natsios is disturbingly self-promoting or simply doesn't know what he is talking about. Time and time again, he makes false claims that he was the first (or the only) participant to see or understand some aspect of the famine. For example, in chapter 4 he makes much of his June 1998 trip to the Chinese border region and interviews with North Koreans refugees there. Not for another 150 pages does he mention in passing that his own colleague at the US Institute for Peace, Scott Snyder, had done the same border trip, interviewed the same refugees, and published a report on this a year earlier. To cite another example, the following chapter argues that no one except Natsios and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen understood that famines are economic phenomenon, and as a consequence everyone misread what was occurring in North Korea. Problem is, two economists, Marcus Noland, a Korea specialist associated with the Institution for International Economics, and Sherman Robinson, an agricultural economist affiliated with the International Food Policy Research Institute, had read their Sen, understood the economic basis of famines, and had produced an economic analysis of the North Korean famine, similar to the one that Natsios lays out in this book, in 1998. Indeed, as in the case of Snyder, Noland and Robinson's work is listed in the reference list - so Natsios clearly new of its existence - though oddly it is never mentioned in the text. I could go on. Individuals are misidentified, private informal emails are quoted as "trip reports" etc.

It is unfortunate that this book is so error-filled, since it is unlikely that another comprehensive account of the North Korean famine will be produced in the near future. Moreover, Natsios has been appointed director of the US Agency for International Development, so his view on these issues counts. But while he got the broad outlines of the story right, he is wrong on many specifics, and one should not regard this book as the final authority on the North Korean famine.

According to the Nobel winning author/economist Amartya Sen (whose book on right-based development I have just read recently), no democratic government has ever let famine happen. Famine is preventable if the government cares about its people.

You should read this book if you are interested in North Korea or on the politics of famine.