A Fair Trade Book (lol)
Title: The Right Words at the Right Time Volume 2 Your
Turn
Editor: Marlo Thomas
Date: 2006
Publisher: Atria
ISBN: 978-0-7434-9743-5
Length: 401 pages (but the type is large)
Illustrations: black & white photo at back of book
Quote: “The right words can be funny words, thought-provoking
words, words that prop us up.”
Marlo “That Girl” Thomas put together a collection of her
celebrity friends' memories of what had been “the right words at the right
time” for them. Readers responded with similar stories of their own. What was
an actress with a charity to raise money for supposed to do? This was the
second fundraiser, dedicated to the child patients at St. Jude's Hospital.
It's a nice, cheerful bedside or coffee-table book, suitable
for dipping into whenever you have time for just a short cheerful read. The
people in these stories are not famous and many of them are no better writers
than the famous, but all stories are readable and easy to relate to.
In other years I wouldn't have made this comment, but in view
of recent cyberchatter I have to mention this: this book is political.
It runs over with the kind of moderate-left trendiness that used to be
obligatory at the Big Three TV networks. Because Thomas undoubtedly thought, as
many Washington Post writers would undoubtedly agree, that this is a
nice neutral sampling of nice feel-good stories for just about anybody—and it
is, for anybody who's not been sensitized to the presence of political
rhetoric—let me call attention to:
* Several stories from survivors of the 2001 suicide plane
attacks. A media blitz of “9/11 stories” was demonstrably successful in
boosting support for the resulting war.
* There's a story about an American finding enlightenment in
a Japanese Buddhist monastery. There's no story about a Japanese Buddhist
finding enlightenment in an American Christian monastery.
* There are stories about women embracing mediocrity. There
are stories about men pushing themselves to succeed even in the absence of
talent.
* There are stories about abusive or inadequate parents.
There aren't stories about abusive day-care centers or inadequate public
schools. There's a story about incest; there's no story about a child being
sexually abused at school. There's a story about a child who's beaten up by her
mother; there's no story about a child who's beaten up by schoolmates.
* If it's not been made an issue of identity politics yet, it
should be: There's a story about a child “being brave enough to overcome
shyness” and talk to strangers. There's no story about a child “being brave
enough to overcome fear of being alone with his/her own damaged brain” and not
chatter.
* There's a story about a guy who “stopped being born again”
and “became a devout homosexual instead.” There's no story about any man or
woman who stopped living for sexual pleasure and became a devout celibate
instead.
* There's a story about wounded soldiers being cheered up by
Christmas carols. This never used to be a political issue, but it's become one.
Limousine Lefties no longer want to admit that religious holiday
traditions could have enough meaning for any number of people to be worth
exposing any possible follower of a different religion to the horror and trauma
of having to watch anyone celebrate his or her religious tradition.
* There are stories about immigration to the United States.
Granted, these stories come from the past, many from the 1940s. Still, there
aren't stories about the observed fact that the United States is now
sufficiently overpopulated that people are beginning to scream about sealing
the borders.
* There's a story about an older man learning to use a
computer. There's no story about a younger person learning to do something without
electronic gadgets.
* There are stories about people whose religion is vaguely,
liberally Jewish and stories about people whose religion is vaguely, liberally
Christian. There are no stories about orthodox followers of either religion,
and the proportion of Jewish to Christian respondents in this book is vastly
higher than the proportion of Jewish to Christian people in the United States.
* There's a story about a teacher who was less concerned with
teaching the subject he was paid to teach than with teaching “social skills” or
social attitudes or some such twaddle. (That was considered cool, in some
circles, around 1970.) This math teacher has an odd-numbered group of students
pair off by calling out code words while the one student left out is told to
“keep yelling the word ['Help'] at the top of your lungs, no matter what
happens,” as an object lesson that “when people form their own little cliques,
someone is always left out...silently calling for help.” It's easy to think
that the teacher was just encouraging the students to be kind to people who'd
like to join the cliques but have somehow been overlooked. That way of
thinking, however, denies the existence of students who don't want to
join the cliques of same-physical-age classmates, who are much more attuned to
the things they're able to do with their own same-mental-age friends outside of
school. It teaches young people to flatter themselves to assume that any
invitation they make is an act of charity for which the person invited should
be grateful, rather than recognizing that any invitation they make is likely to
be a bid for charity and, if the invitation is accepted, they need
to be grateful.
* Oh, by the way, did I mention soldiers? (Yes.) There's no
story about radical pacifists.
I could go on. There are several stories about people who
were on, or who got onto, the U.S. side of the Second World War. Arguably no
American reader should miss the stories from the German, Russian, Japanese,
French, Italian, Ethiopian, or Swiss sides; many people in the U.S. would agree
with the claim that the only other side of the World War that deserves hearing
is the U.K. side, that the British were the only real, solid ally we had even
among “The Allies.” I don't want to read the war stories of Nazis either, so I
probably have no right to point this out, but...the stories from the 1940s are totally
politically biased. There's not even a British story in the lot.
Regular readers know why I felt a need to review this
feel-good book in this way. I set up this web site to broadcast my views on
writing, censorship, and compensation. Those have not been the divisive issues
in any U.S. election, but they certainly are political issues. They are also
moral, hence even religious, issues. There is no way on earth this web site
could pretend not to be “political”--although from time to time I do like to
remind everybody that this web site markets books that express political,
religious, and other philosophical ideas that aren't mine. But when people
start yammering on about wanting web sites not to be “political”...duh.
You cannot not communicate.
Web sites that are not about writing, books, publishing, can
of course get away with limiting the scope of their content. If your
business is repairing washing machines, you can have a “blog” that endlessly
recycles a half-dozen “posts” like “Things People Do That Damage Their Washing
Machines” and “The Right Place to Put Your Washing Machine” and “Quick Fixes
for Washing Machine Problems.” Since you can spend your days either repairing
washing machines or writing, and you presumably prefer to spend them repairing
washing machines, you don't have to write anything about yourself at all; your
web site doesn't have to show your age, gender, or color, much less your
political views. Your “blog” can be ghostwritten by a professional hack
writer—I've done that. Your customers are there to learn about washing
machines; they're not interested in you.
My business, web site, and customers, are a different kind.
I'm not here to “polarize” people. I don't think people need
to be “polarized.” I think truth often emerges from the conflict between the
errors on either side of a dichotomy.
Nevertheless, I'm picking up a lot of angst in cyberspace
about the fact that socialism has not turned out to be the direction of
the future, that people around the world are not turning to global
totalitarian government as a savior. Ooohhh, please, don't mention nasty old
politics to them! That would be as mean, as cruel, as mentioning football to them
the day after their school was eliminated from the championship round!
And seriously, I have to say: most of the time my political
issues aren't yours, and some of the time I may even be on your side, but if
you want me to stay away from political topics, then so should you. For
example, The Right Words at the Right Time, Volume 2, Your Turn, may be
a feel-good read but it's also a political...screed! If political topics
are too “polarizing” or “hurtful” for you, don't read it!
If you have a hardier sort of mind, of course, this book is a
feel-good read, and despite its being written by non-celebrities and containing
very little celebrity gossip, you'll probably enjoy it.
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