A Pound of Flesh, Alexes Harris

A Pound of Flesh:  Monetary sanctions as punishment for the poor by Alexes Harris.  I saw an advertisement for this book in one of the magazines I read.  I cannot remember which.  At the time, however, I was talking with my youngest about the poverty problem in Baltimore and how it might be addressed.  This book seemed relevant.  The Russel Sage Foundation published this book and sponsored the research.  The Foundation has an interesting history and looks like a reliable place to look for information on poverty and solutions on societal ills that involved the poor and disenfranchised.

Started: 4/12/2019

Completed: 4/21/2019

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

liminal -- relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process

Review:

"The linkage between criminal justice and social control institutions that overselect for the poor for people of color remains embedded in US criminal justice practices." This book is really well researched.  It is shocking the degree to which monetary payments, identified as a minimum in sentencing guidelines, cripple swathes of the population.  It just takes me aback and reminds me of both the company store and debtor's prison.  How is it that our society finds these things acceptable?

This book is remarkably hard to read as an American.  When did "restitution" become an important part of the judicial system and how did "restitution" come to mean paying for the legal process?  Really, what is wrong with our society?

Requiem for the American Dream, Noam Chomsky

Requiem for the American Dream:  The 10 principles of concentration of wealth and power by Noam Chomsky.  I cannot remember why I picked this book to read.

Started: 4/12/2019

Completed: 4/12/2019

Recommendation: Recommended for people who do not know the reasons why wealth discrepancy is important

Recommended By:  Nobody

Review:

I like that Chomsky is able to put together a concise set of opinions.  I like that he takes the time to back up those opinions with references to source material.  This book is a very clear statement of how I feel about the economy.  It is written better than I could write it.  It is a quick and easy read.

Devil's Bargain, Joshua Green

Devil's Bargain:  Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising by Joshua Green.  Yeah, I'm still trying to get my arms around how Trump became president.

Started:  3/30/2019

Completed: 4/11/2019

Recommendation: Slightly Recommended

Recommended By:  Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

argot--the jargon or slang of a particular group or class.

Review:

"Like Trump, Bannon had cycled through multiple marriages and was rich, brash, charismatic, volcanic, opinionated, and never ruffled by doubt."  Interesting correlations between the two men.  To have such a long list of unflattering adjectives (and I particularly enjoyed, "never ruffled by doubt") applicable to both men as good ways to describe each draws interesting parallels that one would normally expect to cause clashes between them.

Bannon comes off as one would expect.  Hyper-partisan and remarkably cruel.  If that is your expectation walking in, then this book simply validates that.  If you expected the book to humanize Bannon, it does.  It is just that the humanization is pastel and the ugly is neon.

The Wizard and the Prophet, Charles Mann

The Wizard and the Prophet:  Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World by Charles C. Mann is a book that I read about in one of several liberal magazines I read (maybe, Mother Jones?).

Started: 3/6/2019

Completed: 4/8/2019

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By:  A book Review

Review:

A scientific look at how to handle finite resources of the Earth.  One (the wizard) argues that technology can lead to more efficient use, the other (the prophet) argues that what we have must be conserved and the Earth must be protected.  Both came to these conclusions at the same place looking at the same data.  Amazing.  Both have become prominent in environmentalism (from high technology approaches to organizations that strive to conserve resources).  Both are viewed as fundamental to the different approaches they envisioned.

It was fascinating to get the stories of these men's lives and the work that they did.  How they both effectively destroyed their personal lives trying to make the world a better place.  How each thought the other a fool.  Yet, there is so much to learn from both of them and while there are true believers on both sides, there is a space where both ideas overlap and it feels like both will be needed.  What a great book.