1. Tough topic: "How bad was COVID? How bad were the vaccines? What kind of evil conspiracy would be necessary to develop vaccines that were worse than the disease?"
Book: Lies My Govt Told Me by Robert Malone
From a scientist who worked on mRNA "therapies" and then warned that they weren't (yet) a good idea, I'd expect an un-phobic yet unflinching answer to these questions. No "conspiracy" was necessary. People just wanted a vaccine. New technology seemed interesting. No vaccine is totally contamination-proof or safe for everyone. New vaccines that are released as experiments carry high risks. So why did government officials push the experimental COVID vaccine as if it were a tested, reliable vaccine against a disease that was likely to kill a healthy person--which COVID was not? Malone's in a position to offer reasonable answers, and does.
2. Tough topic: "Is 'depression' a really dangerous disease? I've felt 'depressed' myself. Does that mean I'm going to end up feeling a need to commit homicide-suicide?"
Book: Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
Babies react to everything with their emotions. That's not all bad; their howling and kicking gives them needed exercise and may summon help when it's needed. As we grow up, however, we increasingly process unpleasant input through brain circuits involved in logical thinking rather than emotion. The gender split demonstrates that this is something we learn from the bigger, older people who help or scold children crying about different things. Males are at least subtly punished for expressing emotions associated with feeling weak and helpless, like grief, fear, and pain, so as boys grow up they learn to detach emotion and think logically about things that provoke those feelings, yet most men are still anger-prone. Females are at least subtly punished for expressing emotions associated with feeling strong and tough, like anger and competitiveness, so as girls grow up they learn to detach emotion and think logically about things that provoke those feelings, yet many women are still prone to sentimentality. Almost all people, of almost any age, can learn to think logically about things that still provoke overwhelming emotions that don't serve them well; that's a primary function of psychotherapy--talking logically about the emotions until they wear out and go away.
We can choose to "stay in touch with our feelings" enough to communicate with babies and animals. However, crying about being locked out is generally less useful once we've developed the ability to use keys and unlock doors. The specific set of emotions we call "depression" has a survival function--it's a symptom of ill health that can help us find and treat its cause.
3. Tough topic: "If people can learn to think logically about their 'depression' as a symptom of a disease that can be diagnosed and treated, why do so many people think they need antidepressant drugs? How dangerous are these drugs, exactly?"
Book: Prozac Backlash by Joseph Glenmullen
Many people don't want to explore the subtle causes of their "depression" (food intolerance, chemical sensitivity, lack of exercise, a very early stage of treatable cardiovascular disease). Many already have a diagnosis of an incurable condition with symptoms that include "depression" (rheumatoid arthritis, AIDS, inoperable cancer, various rare fatal diseases). Personally, I think antidepressants should be withheld from the former group, but they were made for the latter group. For some patients who aren't going to recover real wellness--and doctors are now beginning to be able to identify which ones--antidepressants extend life expectancy and improve the quality of life. For the majority of people who think they want antidepressants, antidepressants complicate treatment and allow physical diseases to become more serious, while making pharmaceutical companies profitable. For about one in twenty patients, antidepressants produce a very specific physical syndrome of intense pain, pseudo-memories that seem to account for the pain, and eventually a plan to commit homicide-suicide as a final remedy for the pain. If you choose to use an antidepressant or live or work with someone who does, you should at least know what to report immediately to your doctor.
4. Tough topic: "Isn't withholding antidepressants from people who feel depressed cruel? What are they supposed to do--just go on feeling bad while they pay for hundreds of expensive tests for rare diseases?"
Book: Potatoes Not Prozac by Kathleen Desmaisons
Most things that go wrong with our bodies have a depressing effect on our moods. Most people can, however, feel better faster, and cheaper, by treating their "depression" with diet and exercise. This book explains how to deploy potatoes, and other foods most people naturally like, along with exercise to reduce depression even in some patients with incurable diseases. In fact some "depression" is a symptom of conditions as curable as nutrient imbalances and lack of exercise; when that's the case this book will tell you how to cure the whole thing at one delightful swoop.
I've been heard to say that I switched to a psychology major in order to write this book and, after it was written, I didn't need to finish my degree because my mission had been accomplished. That's a hindsight perspective if ever one was, but it's close enough to being true. I switched to a psych major, not "to deal with my own problems" (although I was nineteen, so I had problems) so much as because I'd had outstanding success peer-counselling other undergraduates dealing with anxiety and depression. I was having the insights that led Dr. Desmaisons to do the research and write the book.
5. Tough topic: "Most novels for and about teenaged girls are romances! Are there any stories about teenaged girls who are already having sex, and if they're consenting to it that's in order to protect their even younger siblings, and it's a family member--often a 'step' relative in a 'blended' family--or teacher who's doing it, and the last thing they want is to add a 'boyfriend' to the existing mess even if they have a brother or male friend whom they like? If such a girl does want to explain the situation to a male friend, or even just vent to her brother or cousin, how would she ever start?"
Book: Chinese Handcuffs by Chris Crutcher
I've not been in this situation. My adoptive sister, who has, started recommending this book as soon as it reached local libraries.
6. Tough topic: "What about teenaged girls who just have lives, and don't feel a need to mess up their lives by being silly about 'boyfriends'?"
Book: The Harper Hall of Pern (Dragon Song, Dragon Singer, Dragon Drums) by Anne McCaffrey
In volume one, Menolly's life is greatly improved by not having to deal with any men any more, at least during her summer in the cave on the beach. In volume two, while her focus is on which of the men at the Hall are most prejudiced and what to do about it, three of them clearly feel more than just unprejudiced about her, but she accepts their good will as a normal part of life and does not think foolish thoughts about possible future "romance." In volume three, when she's all grown up and established in her career, we find out which one will be her Partner for Life.
7. Tough topic: "What about teenaged girls who have difficult, complicated lives, far beyond just being 'gifted' students like Menolly with her perfect pitch and lovely voice, and really don't need to mess up their lives by being silly about 'boyfriends'?"
Book: Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt was the first and best book in this category, after years when publishers just didn't want to publish anything about characters who wanted to remain uncoupled. There have been more novels about girls and women who solve their problems while single, since. (This web site had the privilege of reviewing some new ones. Check out Needy Little Things by Channelle Desamours. When I classified Upon Destiny's Song by Michael B. Ericksen as this kind of story, I was thinking of Ane's completing the trek as a young single girl; however, Mike Ericksen e-mailed, after reading my review, that the real Ane later agreed to marry a man to pay off a debt...so, does she count? I still say she does.)
8. Tough topic: "Are there good literary novels by White male authors any more?"
Interestingly, even in the 1950s publishers were willing to print lots of stories about boys whose sports and adventure stories seemed to be complete without dragging in a romance. Teenaged boys, however, mostly seemed to leave those stories to the better readers in primary school, because most of them were so bad. (Lots of shameless exploitation of their fantasies--"Even though he still needs an adult to reach the controls of his craft, little Billy is a much better astronaut than any of the full-grown men in the Space Force!") Apart from the current fad for discrimination, the other reason why there aren't more good male novelists is that so many men feel that they've outgrown reading or writing fiction. Often the reason for that is that their standards for fiction are high--they like only very good novels. So they don't want to count men who do genre fiction well, even Douglas Adams, Tony Hillerman, Stephen King, or James Patterson. By "good literary novels" they mean "as good as Mark Twain's or Herman Melville's or John Steinbeck's." This does leave a...lot of room for improvement in today's literary scene. John Kennedy Toole died too young. I doubt that Tom Cox is up to these men's standard, either, but they should at least try his books. If not quite on the same level with Milton and Shakespeare, he is at least consistently funny.
9. Tough topic: "Are there good books, fiction or nonfiction, about being a Christian in high school today?"
Book: The Road to Home by R.A. Douthitt
It's new, still obscure, and unpolished, but it's good...There aren't a lot of well known ones. Denominationalism has allowed Christian writers and publishers to form denominational ghettos. Within denominational ghettos, what's published may be what's doctrinally correct, and/or what's written by influential members of the denomination, more than what's good. And good true stories about Christian teenagers may not be available: I'm currently sitting on the true story of a Christian teenager whose parents didn't want publicity while they were alive, and whose sisters have yet to release the story. But there are good, true stories about young people practicing Christianity. Sometimes it's hard to spot because the writer or publisher doesn't want to make anyone feel left out by specifying whether the character is Christian or Jewish. The Road to Home is explicitly about a Christian.
10. Tough topic: "What about going back to the land, getting off the grid, investing in real property and always paying cash?"
Book: The Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyszyn
One of many. Lots of different people want to do these things, in lots of different ways, lots of different places and stages of life. What serves A well may be useless to B, and so on. Generally anything from the Rodale Press (Prevention, Organic Gardening & Farming) or Mother Earth News has been useful to somebody, but may or may not be relevant to you. The Tightwad Gazette is more frugal than Green but, for a book, I think it may have the highest number of tips that have worked for people I know.
Bonus tough topic: "I thought biodegradable plastic was a good thing. How bad is it? Of the increase in chronic disease since the 1980s, especially in pseudo-celiac conditions, and the increase in deaths from diseases (like celiac disease) that used to be considered non-fatal and not even disabling, how much is due to biodegradable plastic and how much to glyphosate?"
Book: Tragically, there isn't one. These questions badly need to be answered. The simplest way to answer them would be a total ban on all use or production of glyphosate, since no "herbicide" accomplishes anything steam can't do better. Meanwhile, anecdotal information from people in places where glyphosate has been banned and biodegradable plastic has been used indicates that the focus of the Glyphosate Awareness movement does not need to shift to plastic...though reducing plastic waste would also be a good thing.
Bonus tough topic:"What about glyphosate itself? Aren't there books on that by now?"
Book: Merchants of Poison by Stacy Malkan
There are several. If they're not at your bookstore or library, that may be due to censorship. We should demand that all public libraries stock at least Merchants of Poison.
Bonus tough topic: "Is growing my own food a complete solution to glyphosate, glufosinate, and other "pesticide" problems? Are there books about raising my own food"
Book: There are actually hundreds. Some of them may be helpful for you, even though gardening is a matter of how individual plants do in specific conditions, so the best tips for you will probably come from any old Green gardeners and farmers who live near you. (The "garden" suburbs of Washington, in Maryland and Virginia, illustrate this nicely. Some of the flowers tourists cruise through these residential neighborhoods to see are hard to kill in one neighborhood and hard to keep alive in a contiguous neighborhood; everyone in Takoma Park has azaleas, great solid masses of every color, while in Hyattsville only a few varieties of azalea can be kept alive, and even they don't bloom the way azaleas do in Takoma Park.)
Bonus tough topic: "Concerned about the effects having dozens of vaccines at once can have on babies, we've kept ours out of "day care" and "play groups" and "preschools" and even primary schools. They've had only essential vaccines, and only one each year. Now our thirteen-year-old wants to go to a public school that insists she have the measles vaccine, though measles is one of the non-fatal diseases for which we think it's safer to acquire natural immunity. Are there books about how to change this kind of rule, or work around them?"
Book: People in the Children's Health Defense network have written some. They tend to be self-published, removed from stores or libraries if ever displayed there, and the ones that contain true, recent success stories tend to involve living in a place with liberal "religious exemptions" to vaccine policies. A really satisfactory book on this topic has yet to be written. Suffice it to say that, if your unvaccinated teenager gets into school and is then exposed to measles, she'll probably want to move to a different State. And change her name. And, considering that the strain of virus most often called measles these days can keep healthy people in bed with "cold-or-flu-type symptoms" for six weeks...I gave in and had the jab for the sake of peace, and then spent two years doing very little but regretting that decision. There is no really good solution.
Bonus tough topic: "It still isn't easy being Green--and a Christian--and 'gay.' I'm not talking about wanting to sleep with lots of other people's husbands, or sons; I'm looking for a Partner For Life. I'm not talking about evangelizing. I'm not rich myself, so the last thing I want to do is inflate property values and taxes. I only want to know whether there are any other people out there anywhere who are like me. Are there books about such people?"
Book: I've not seen one, but the Internet is there to help it get published so that people can find it.
I was surprised--but pleased!--that Tara Choate added "the food industry" to the list of tough topics, and recommended Barbara Kingsolver's delightful "Animal Vegetable Miracle" as a book that deals well with it. It certainly does deal well with the topic!
ReplyDeletePK
Wow, Priscilla, this was certainly an interesting read! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts! 😊😊
ReplyDeleteNice list. Thanks
ReplyDelete