Book Review: The Untouched Key

Title: The Untouched Key (Der Gemiedene Schlüssel)

        
Author: Alice Miller

Memorial web site: http://www.alice-miller.com

        
Translators: Hildegarde and Hunter Hannum

        
Date: 1988 (German), 1991 (English)

        
Publisher: Suhrkamp Verlag am Main (German), Doubleday Anchor (English)

        
ISBN: 0-385-26764-9 (English paperback)

        
Length: 170 pages

        
Quote: “Whenever I leaf through a biography of a creative person, I find information on the first pages of the book that is especially helpful in my work.”

        
Alice Miller’s work had, at this stage, grown into a career of tracing possible subconscious links between the hard times in a famous person’s childhood and the painful images in the person’s mature work. In this volume, she looks for emotional “keys” in the work of Picasso, Kollwitz, Buster Keaton, Hitler (briefly), and Nietzsche (at length).

        
In The Untouched Key Miller is continuing the argument she began to present in The Drama of the Gifted Child, in which she seemed, incorrectly I think, to equate talent with trauma. That talented people had some sort of trauma, drama, or hard times in their childhood would be hard to disprove. That any person had some sort of trauma, drama, or hard times in childhood would be hard to dispute. What is hard to prove is any causal relationship between any particular kind of suffering and any particular talent. Miller apparently thought a belief that such a link exists would be comforting to psychiatric patients, and has worked hard to find points of emotional resonance between childhood traumas and adult work—but finding the emotional resonance does not prove a causal relationship. People who consciously create art often draw on their memories for inspiration, and people who use their talents, such as they are, for destructive purposes are often driven by their unhappiness...but not always. Nor can we find any consistent ratio between the enormity of the child’s sufferings and the success of the adult’s talents: people who spent time in prison camps, as children, are not consistently either more unhappy or more talented than people whose worst childhood memories involve teasing and tummy-aches.

        
What Miller actually shows, in these five mini-biographies, is that talented children whose loving parents aren’t able to protect them from disasters suffer about as much as talented children whose parents are abusive or neglectful. Nevertheless, she ends the book with another denunciation of child abuse. Since it’s unlikely that readers needed to be convinced that child abuse is a bad thing, the value of The Untouched Key will probably consist of its fun facts about this odd assortment of famous people.

        
It’s always interesting to learn that Picasso’s fractured images might have been inspired by his having seen streets and buildings fractured by an earthquake, that the years that were “always winter and never Christmas” in Narnia might have emotional roots in the adolescent years when C.S. Lewis was fascinated by winter landscapes, or that the poem “Ariel” probably reflects Sylvia Plath’s adult experience with cocaine (as prescribed by a doctor) more closely than her adolescent experience with horses. It is, however, difficult to compare the emotional qualities of different people’s experiences.

        
It’s especially difficult to guess the emotional weight of childhood experiences, because children view the world from a different angle than adults. Things that sound horrifying to an adult may be unnoticed by a child,  or seem funny to a child; things that seem trivial to an adult may seem very painful or frightening to a child. A young child is likely to perceive the destruction of the school building as an occasion for jolly holidays, and have screaming nightmares about an amusingly ugly toy.

        
In view of what we can learn by considering our own and our friends’ childhood memories, it seems particularly difficult to argue, as Miller seems to attempt, that Nietzsche’s relationship with his mother damaged his thinking more severely than the infection that destroyed his brain.  While Miller’s brief consideration of Hitler’s childhood has been accepted by thinkers and scholars, her study of Nietzsche is a weak point in The Untouched Key.

        
Then there’s a wildly speculative chapter about the biblical character Isaac, which diverges from the biblical narrative almost as far as the Islamic tradition does. (Muslims think the big adventure of Isaac’s childhood really happened to Ishmael...and if the point of the story is that Abraham opposed the custom of sacrificing firstborn sons, it’s not impossible that similar events were staged with the firstborn son of each of Abraham's three marriages.) The Bible story is not about an abusive father. It’s about a man who didn’t become a father until he’d reached the age at which men normally retired and depended on their sons for support, so was particularly reluctant to participate in the tribal custom of sacrificing his firstborn son to ensure the favor of the gods for subsequent sons. Abraham reported that God had called him to take his son out to the place of sacrifice, but when they got there God showed them an animal and directed the father and son to sacrifice the animal in the boy’s place. According to the version of the story Jews and Christians accept, Ishmael, the firstborn son of Abraham and Hagar, was banished from the family just for teasing Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah; if we accept this detail, the implication would be that Ishmael had had a comfortable childhood and Isaac had been positively pampered.

        
Why did Isaac not resist, when his father built a stone altar and solemnly laid him out on top of it? How many thirteen-year-old boys will allow themselves to be killed by hundred-year-old men? Isaac, why didn’t you run? An interpretation sometimes offered, in view of the stories about Isaac as an adult, is that Isaac just wasn’t very bright and didn’t understand what was going on. An interpretation that makes some sense, in view of the ages recorded in connection with each of the family’s adventures, is that the measurement of age was not actually years, but “seasons,” and Isaac was only six or seven years old. An interpretation that makes better sense, in view of both Abraham’s and Isaac’s reputations as religious leaders, is that Isaac knew his lying on the altar was mere melodrama; the Bible does mention that he had asked about the sacrificial animal, and Abraham had assured him that God would provide one. Isaac may have been a slow deep thinker and a pacifist, but he wouldn’t have been remembered as a Hebrew prophet if he’d been a fool. He had learned to trust his father.

        
Whether Isaac is better understood as a hapless little child or as a teenaged initiate into a more enlightened religion than the one his other relatives practiced, Miller’s long chapter, “When Isaac Arises from the Sacrificial Altar,” betrays a very eisegetic, idiosyncratic, one might even say careless reading of the story, and The Untouched Key would have been a better book without it. There is a detailed study of a dysfunctional, abusive, finally violently insane father in the Bible. Why Miller not only misread the story of Abraham and Isaac, but also ignored the story of Saul and Jonathan, is a question the editors of The Untouched Key really ought to have asked. People who feel that their parents were inadequate, perhaps due to mental or emotional problems of their own, can learn a great deal from the way Jonathan, and also David, Merab, and Michal, showed honor to the mad king Saul. 

        
Nevertheless, Miller has studied the primary historical documents about four well-known, recent European celebrities, several of which were not available in English, so The Untouched Key is a valuable source of biographical material so far as Picasso, Kollwitz, and Hitler are concerned...does this review need to include samples of information about them, or have my objections to Miller's views of Nietzsche and Isaac made this review long enough?

At the time when this review was written, The Untouched Key would have been a Fair Trade Book, but now that it's being uploaded I see that Miller no longer has any use for a dollar. To buy a copy here, send salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com $5 for the book + $5 per package for shipping. Actually, if you're not buying a Fair Trade Book and tucking this one into the package, feel free to buy a copy of The Untouched Key cheaper from some other web site.  

The Shortest Real Story

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where it appeared on July 22, 2014. Image credit: Clarita at Morguefile.com.)

A certain new Bubbler whom I will not name just posted something s/he claims is the shortest story in the world. It's not a real story; it's a joke about how easy it is to beat the minimum length requirement by just dumping in a load of tags that don't relate to the content of a Bubble.

Well, I can relate. Bubblews now demands that every post feature a graphic, and then the new software ruins any photos we've taken the trouble to write stories around. (The Bubblews graphic I was using, as a protest, was an unrecognizable grayed-out blur.)

Er-hem...fellow Bubblers...you know who your readers are. Don't they deserve better than this? BubbleWS is a site for frivolous froth and feel-good blog posts, but can't you at least write about flowers, or cute things children and pets do, or what the weather's like in your part of the world?

Anyway, here, in its entirety, is the shortest real-life story I've read so far:

"For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn."

Book Review: Fish Do the Strangest Things

Title: Fish Do the Strangest Things

        
Author: Leonora and Arthur Hornblow

        
Date: 1966

        
Publisher: Random House

        
ISBN: none; click here to see it on Amazon

        
Length: 60 pages

        
Illustrations: color drawings by Michael K. Frith

        
Quote: “Fishermen catch many strange fish. but one of the strangest fish of all does her own fishing.”

        
In addition to the Deep Sea Angler fish, the Hornblows also briefly discuss the quirks of the archerfish, shark, remora, lungfish, gar, catfish, salmon, grunion, eel, puffer, swordfish, flying fish, rays, sea horse, mudskipper, and wrasse. Primary school readers get just enough tasteful fun facts about each species to keep them coming back for another chapter.

        
Along with its companion volumes, Animals, Birds, and Insects Do the Strangest Things, this book was a huge success with kids who enjoy fun facts. The set would still make a great gift for any child lucky enough to be related to a book collector who can find a complete set. The drawings aren’t quite field-guide-quality, but are meant to help children recognize these creatures in real life.

        
The last page of Fish Do the Strangest Things contains the statement, “Men now think we, too, will be able to live under water some day.” We’ve not heard much about this theory in recent years, but kids who’ve enjoyed Fish Do the Strangest Things might enjoy the vintage videos of Jacques Cousteau.

The Hornblows no longer need a dollar, but if you send salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com $5 for this slim little book, $5 per package for shipping, and the price for one or more Fair Trade Books, you may consider the shipping for Fish Do the Strangest Things "free."

Morgan Griffith on Energy Issues in Congress

Congressman Griffith's E-Newsletter discusses three energy issues currently in Congress:

"Protecting Coal Miners
The Labor Department’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) has published a proposed Black Lung Benefits Act rule which, according to a press release, would give “…coal miners greater access to their health records and [require] coal miner owners to pay all benefits due in a claim before the award can be challenged through modification.”  This proposed rule has been noted in various press reports, and has also been brought to my attention by a Ninth District resident.

I believe it is necessary for miners and the coal companies to each have full access to all of the medical evaluations in a given case, and commend the Department of Labor for this proposed rule.  I expressed my support in a May 1 letter I sent to Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez.

This proposed rule is especially important for miners without proper legal representation who would have a difficult time navigating the discovery process and who, accordingly, may have incomplete information when making their case.

Additionally, it would allow both sides in a claims case to utilize each other’s medical experts and evaluations as one of the pieces of evidence they can submit in the case.  By allowing all parties access to and the right to use the best evidence, we will ensure that cases are decided with the fullness of evidence.

It goes without saying that coal miners perform a difficult, thankless job to provide the energy that keeps our lights on.  As they are exposed to coal and other dust in the line of duty, we have an obligation to ensure that they are taken care of and can successfully obtain the benefits they have earned under the Black Lung Benefits Act.  If you would like to submit to OWCP your thoughts on this proposed rule, you may do so on the Federal Register website, https://www.federalregister.gov, under document number 2015-09573.

Protecting Ratepayers and States

On April 29, my colleagues and I on the Energy and Commerce Committee approved the Ratepayer Protection Act (H.R. 2042), legislation I introduced along with Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY), Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA), and Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN).  Notably, this bipartisan bill has earned the support of the United Mine Workers of America.

Among other things, the common-sense Ratepayer Protection Act would allow for completion of judicial review of any final rule in the Environmental Protection Agency’s expensive, burdensome, and unreasonable ‘Clean Power Plan’ before states are required to comply with its implementation if the state’s governor has determined it would significantly harm energy reliability or affordability.

I commend those such as my friend Patrick Morrissey, the Attorney General of West Virginia, who are working to see that our court system has its say on the crucial question of the legality of the ‘Clean Power Plan.’  I am convinced, based on the law and prior court opinions, that EPA does not have authority to enact its ‘Clean Power Plan’ under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act.  Regardless, the courts ought to weigh in before states implement and those who pay an electric bill are required to spend a significant amount of money as a result of this proposed plan.  Committee passage of the Ratepayer Protection Act is an important step toward safeguarding ratepayers from increased rates as the court cases proceed.

Protecting Coalfield Jobs

I am disappointed with the Governor’s veto of Senate bill 1161 and House bill 1879, matching bills which would extend the sunset on the coalfield employment tax credit.  I agree with Delegate Terry Kilgore (R-Gate City), who was quoted in the Bristol Herald Courier as saying, “I think it’s unfortunate in these tough times the governor would veto such an important bill.”  He continued, “We have another year of the tax credit left so we’ll have to fight for it again next year.”

Between the President’s war on coal, the EPA’s regulations, and now the Governor of Virginia, no wonder the coal industry is suffering so.

If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office.  You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671.  To reach my office via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov.  Also on my website is the latest material from my office, including information on votes recently taken on the floor of the House of Representatives. "

Mark Warner on Free Trade Agreements

From U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA):

"Thank you for contacting me about free trade and free trade agreements. I appreciate hearing from you on these important matters. 

              In general, I have been supportive of free trade agreements, which have helped Virginia's economy grow over the last decade. According to the Business Roundtable, from 2002-2012 Virginia's goods exports to free trade agreement (FTA) partners increased by 101%, compared to a 54% growth in exports to the rest of the world. The 2004 U.S.-Singapore free trade agreement enabled Singapore to become the fastest-growing market among the major buyers of Virginia's goods, with Virginia's exports to the country growing 783% between 2004 and 2011. 

              The 114th Congress will have many legislative focuses within the realm of international trade. Two major considerations include the implementation of a possible Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and discussions around trade negotiations for a U.S.-European Union free trade agreement, also known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Increased exports may represent the single biggest economic opportunity that we have in America, and these agreements have the potential to boost the Virginia economy and support jobs in the Commonwealth. Additionally, these agreements provide an opportunity to expand protections for labor and the environment. The Administration has indicated that TPP and TTIP will raise labor and environmental standards to higher levels than previous agreements, and I have encouraged the Administration to provide evidence of these improved standards. Congress will also consider the reauthorization of the Trade Promotion Authority, which, if passed, will enable more expeditious consideration of beneficial trade agreements. 

              On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee voted on a series of four trade-related packages: Trade Adjustment Assistance, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)-Generalized System of Preference (GSP), Customs Enforcement, and Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). The Trade Adjustment Assistance Package will help American workers who have lost their jobs due to trade get training and education for today's globalized economy. The AGOA-GSP bill is way for the U.S. to spur economic growth in developing economies and these programs have been proven to boost economies around the world. The Customs Enforcement bill ensures that the U.S. can take strong action against countries and companies who seek an unfair advantage against American manufacturers and competitors, Finally, TPA allows a trade agreement that meets explicit negotiating objectives ranging from human rights to environmental standards to benefit from an expedited process in Congress. I voted for all four of these measures, which taken together will protect American workers and allow the U.S. to set the rules of the road in global trade.

              While trade agreements have the ability to break down barriers and open up huge opportunities for America, it is very important to me that we do more as a country to make sure the benefits of trade agreements and international commerce are more evenly distributed. I understand why some people have expressed concerns about trade agreements. In the past, some states have done very well under trade deals, while others have not. Most of Virginia has been lucky to be on the winning end of trade, but in the past some areas, like Southside Virginia, have not seen the same benefits. That is why I am a strong advocate for onshoring initiatives that bring jobs to the United States and greater economic engagement between foreign-owned companies and rural America. In the 112th Congress, I joined my Virginia colleague, Representative Frank Wolf, in sponsoring bipartisan legislation called America Recruits, which would support new inbound investment into the United States. I reintroduced this legislation in October 2013. 

              It is critical that we not lose sight of the fact that many of our competitors, ranging from Canada and the European Union to China, India, and Brazil are signing market access agreements and trade deals as quickly as possible. They understand the value of securing favorable terms for their goods and services in an increasingly globalized world. With 95% of the world's consumers living outside the United States, gaining access to international markets is vital for future economic growth, which is why I support reasonable trade deals that open markets for businesses and create opportunities for American employees.

              Again, thank you for contacting me. For further information or to sign up for my newsletter, please visit my website at  http://www.warner.senate.gov .

Sincerely,
MARK R. WARNER
United States Senator "

Book Review: The Diet for Teenagers Only

A Fair Trade Book

Title: The Diet for Teenagers Only

        
Author: Carrie Wiatt and Barbara Schroeder

Author's web page: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/carrie-wiatt/23/987/422 (she also has a Facebook page)

Date: 2005

        
Publisher: Harper Collins

        
ISBN: 0-06-079361-9

        
Length: 244 pages

        
Illustrations: lots of line drawings, plus cut-out photos illustrating diet-sized portions of food

        
Quote: “If healthy dieting is your goal, follow The Diet for Teenagers Only for 7 days, and you’ll lose some weight. Then, if you need to lose more, you’ll know how to do it safely.”

        
The Diet for Teenagers Only is a book written with good intentions. It tries hard to reach out to teenagers, with lots of colloquialisms and references to web sites. It tries to offer good general advice for teenagers (female only) in view of the fact that, although it’s certainly possible for teenagers (male or female) to need to lose ugly flab, the years between ages 10 and 25 are a time when healthy human bodies are meant to gain bone, muscle, and internal organ mass. (Between ages 20 and 25, people aren't "teenagers," but they are still growing.)

        
The only problem I see with Wiatt's advice is that, although it’s nice, levelheaded advice that won’t kill readers, it’s too general to offer much help to some readers. As many as half of all teenagers who are concerned about their body shapes probably have some food tolerance issues. The Diet for Teenagers Only doesn’t offer much guidance to them—just a vague hint that soy milk and soy cheese are precise analogues to cow’s milk and cheese (they’re not) for the lactose-intolerant, and nothing at all for the gluten-intolerant, sugar-sensitive, or yeast-imbalanced reader.

        
People with unsuspected gluten intolerance can have two different looks. If we’re lucky, our bodies simply fail to absorb other nutrients while they’re reacting to wheat, so we look like famine victims—skinny, flabby, bloated. If our problems are even more serious, our thyroid glands malfunction, and we become obese and may gain weight while fasting. Teenagers usually haven’t had time to develop either look to a really conspicuous degree, but if they’re growing in either of these ugly directions they will be aware that they don’t look as good in bikinis as they want to look. The Diet for Teenagers Only won’t help them.

        
But if you are, or your teenaged relatives or students are, among the lucky people who can digest everything—wheat, meat, fish, cheese, nuts, soy sauce, yeast, eggs, fruits, spices and all—then The Diet for Teenagers Only offers a nice sensible alternative to the unbalanced fad diets out there. There are some simple recipes for high-nutrient, low-fat snacks teenagers will probably enjoy cooking and eating. There’s also some good information about exercise and eating disorders. For you lucky people, this weight control plan may even work. It wouldn’t have worked for me and I would not now recommend this book to my niece...but I’ll try to contain my envy in the event that this book works for you.

The Diet for Teenagers Only is a Fair Trade Book. Wiatt is actively publicizing other books as well as this one. You may find lower prices online or in the real world, but if you send salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com $5 for the book + $5 (per package, not per book) for shipping, we'll send Wiatt or a charity of her choice $1. 

Book Review: When We Were Very Young

Title: When We Were Very Young

        
Author: A.A. Milne

        
Date: 1924, 1970

        
Publisher: E.P. Dutton (1924), Dell (1970)

        
ISBN: 0-440-49485-0

        
Length: 102 pages

        
Illustrations: drawings by Ernest Shepard

        
Quote: “I never did, I never did, I never did like ‘Now take care, dear!’...It’s no good saying it. They don’t understand.”

        
Winnie-the-Pooh was fiction. Christopher Robin Milne, his human, was real, and before making up the stories about the stuffed animals A.A. Milne, the father of Christopher Robin, made up these mostly short poems about a toddler. When We Were Very Young became a bestseller about the time Christopher Robin was old enough to be embarrassed by the idea that he’d once been a toddler. Christopher Robin grew up and wrote snarky things about his father’s presumption in writing about his infancy...but he also noticed that Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner, When We Were Very Young, and Now We Are Six outsold all the books for and about adults A.A. Milne had written, so he kept those mortifying reminders in print, anyway, and eventually they were made into Disney cartoons.

        
So what can a reviewer say about any of these books? They’re classics, I have one, come and get it! When We Were Very Young is all verse, no stories, and the stuffed animals haven’t been named yet. The teddy bear, easy to recognize in the drawings, makes an appearance in one poem as “Mr. Edward Bear.” The subjects and scenery are vintage; nursemaids, horses going down to the village to get some hay, “coconut shieses” as games at the fair, dormice, knickers and braces abound. This is not even the world in which most of the grandparents of people reading to preschoolers today ever lived, but it’s a pleasant world to imagine, a world where the frustrations of being a toddler shrink down to just the right size to help grown-ups understand and children get over their tantrums, a world where perhaps one might “see suddenly a shining knight...as it would have been / Those many, many years ago.... / Perhaps I might. You never know.” There was more imagination and less commercial entertainment in Christopher Robin’s world, which is probably why today’s readers still enjoy reading about it. There might even be elves or brownies.

        
There’s rhyme and rhythm and repetition, all of which tend to appeal to young children. Mostly Milne remembers to put in some sort of plot line or at least a vivid mental image for the adults, too, although “James James / Morrison Morrison” sounds to me like a poet yielding to a temptation.

        
And there are the drawings...much more rewarding to the adult eye than Disney cartoons. Not, of course, in color. Your preschooler may decide to add some color.

        
Overall this is a delightful little precursor to Winnie-the-Pooh. Children seem to like the Pooh stories better but they like these poems. Adults do, too, the first half-dozen times, so perhaps it’s a plus point for When We Were Very Young that Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner are the volumes you’ll be asked to read hundreds of times.

There are lots of different editions of this classic. The Amazon link above shows the edition I physically had, and sold, in real life. To order it here, send salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com $5 for the book + $5 (per package) for shipping. It's a small book and would probably feel downright lonely rattling around in a package all by itself, so feel free to throw one or more Fair Trade Books, whose authors receive a percentage of the price, in with When We Were Very Young. 

What's Good About Hunting?

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where it appeared on January 13, 2014. Image credit: SandJLikins at Morguefile.com.)

I've never had to hunt animals for food, and I'm grateful. My part of the world is rich in plant food, including protein-rich nuts and edible mushrooms; it's possible to survive in the woods for months without killing a fellow mammal. (Unfortunately it would probably be necessary to survive without killing a fish, since there aren't many fish worth pulling in left in local streams except where people have stocked the streams with trout.)

When I was growing up, many animal and bird species were threatened. For years my parents banned hunting at the farm now known as the Cat Sanctuary. They wouldn't keep a dog or cat, because those animals hunt and kill endangered creatures. (They tried to use poison to control mice...that didn't work too well.) If they knew someone liked to hunt, they would lecture at the person about how many valuable animals were facing extinction. One year someone brought us a deer quarter. Mother fried part of it since the deer had been "murdered" anyway, and my brother ate his share, but Dad and I refused to eat fresh venison on principle.

That was forty years ago. If deer, bear, raccoons, groundhogs, etc., were still endangered species I'd still feel the same way about them that I did then; I don't feel less sympathy for the animals. However, in my part of the world these species are becoming overpopulated again. While some "lower" animals have a healthy internal mechanism that inhibits reproduction when populations reach optimal density, most of the lovable mammal species are more like humans, with a long life cycle and a majority of individuals continuing to produce more than one or two offspring until famines and plagues set in. 

Even as a child I'd been warned about this. My parents travelled a lot during the first ten years of my life, and in some places deer populations were already increasing above optimum. I attended one school where a teacher read to us about the need to re-legalize hunting, because humans didn't want to live with large populations of predators big and fierce enough to kill deer, and the deer were starting to destroy their habitat and become sickly, hungry animals. Deer do not live in monogamous family groups; males bully each other and dominant males mate with several females in any case, so there's no biological reason for humans not to hunt male deer. Older males with impressive antlers are the ones the species can do without, the ones likely to be killed anyway.

I still don't like watching a deer die...but I expect I'd start to feel different about that, too, if chicken and turkey meat weren't so cheap. I do live with cats, who must eat some meat every day. At one time the Friends of the Cat Sanctuary supplied the cats with canned meat for dinner and dry kibble for breakfast, so I could afford to be a vegan at home. Now that canned cat food (which is manufactured further away) costs more per pound than cheap cuts or processed chicken and turkey, I try to cook some human-quality meat with my rice and veg every day and share with the cats. The day may come when I have to cook deer instead of chicken. Or rabbit. Or bear. I would rather eat a bear than live with the fear of the bear eating me.

My opinion about the ethics of hunting definitely varies from place to place. In the U.S. game wardens are authorized to issue licenses to kill as many of any given game species as the local ecology can definitely share, and they're trained to err in favor of wildlife. If you can get a license to kill an animal legally, your neighbors are probably hoping you'll do it, and any objection to hunting on their property will be because they're concerned about accidental damage. If you can't get the license, or can get a license only for "the season" which may last only a week or two each year, there's probably a valid reason for that. 

I still hate poaching, though, as much as my father used to hate hunting. Poachers may not think I'm likely to do what they used to imagine he was likely to do, about poaching, but in fact I have done and will continue to do what he actually did.

Book Review: Incompatibility Grounds for a Great Marriage

A Fair Trade Book

Title: Incompatibility Grounds for a Great Marriage

        
Author: Chuck and Barb Snyder

Author's web site: http://www.chucksnyder.org/

        
Date: 1988

        
Publisher: Questar

        
ISBN: 0-945564-02-3

Updated edition: 1590528166

        
Length: 255 pages including a long bibliography

        
Quote: “Marriage is beautiful, and we recommend it highly, even though about the only thing Barb and I have in common is that we were married on the same day.”

        
Known for “team teaching” in the 1980s, the Snyders presented themselves as an example of a couple who used good communication skills to surmount their differences and preserve their marriage. In this book they discuss personality differences that were and were not seen as gender-linked. In 1988 less information was available about the physical traits that shape some personality differences. This may be considered an asset; it allowed the Snyders to discuss personality differences that are probably learned, along with differences that are inborn, as something to respect and enjoy.

        
Chuck Snyder claims that he and his wife are the world’s most opposite couple...well, he uses a lot of jokes. He doesn’t even mention international, interracial, intergenerational, or interdenominational marriages. As photographed on the back jacket, the Snyders look well matched.

        
However, even when people marry perfect demographic matches...one thinks it’s important to be on time, and one thinks it’s polite to be a few minutes late. One makes sure lids are screwed on tight; one leaves lids off. One lists shopping as a favorite hobby; one shops mostly by comparing prices at home and likes to time just how fast s/he can get in and out of a store. And so on.

        
At this historical period Beverly and Tim LaHaye were specializing in teaching American Protestants to identify their temperament patterns in terms of the four classical elements. The Snyders don’t infringe on the LaHayes’ turf. In books like Transformed Temperaments, the LaHayes used the classical terms: melancholy, phlegmatic, choleric, and sanguine. These terms have acquired baggage of their own, these days, so on page 36 of Incompatibility the Snyders give the four patterns more contemporary names: idea person, analytical person, driver, and people person. In the twenty-first century, the temperament categories may be easier to recognize in terms of the physical traits that shape them: High Sensory Perceptivity (HSP), Long Brain Stem (LBS), Type A, and Attention Deficiency Disorder. Most, although not all, people have at least one of these four traits. It’s possible to test positive for three or even all four, although if more than one is present some tend to dominate others.

        
The Snyders do, however, mention the anomalies that crop up in every study of human personality. Chuck Snyder makes a solid case for classifying him as a Choleric, Driver, or Type A. This strong-willed, mildly extroverted but self-directed personality type is usually found in people who thrive in dominant positions. On page 23, however, Snyder reports that a personality test classified him as “submissive.” This is an odd combination, though not impossible. Many Type A’s have “submissive” or at least “passive” sexual preferences, but few are perceived as “submissive” in public. What’s going on when a Type A develops a “submissive” social personality? Sometimes this individual is depressed; sometimes s/he is a very intelligent person who’s learned not to sweat the small stuff, who strategically makes minor concessions in order to help win others to his/her way of thinking.

        
The main theme of Incompatibility is that people can make their incompatibilities work for them if they accept their complementarity rather than trying to make each other over. Heterosexual couples get an automatic head start toward learning this life skill, since their most obvious differences are what attracted them to each other in the first place. The general idea works for other family members, and for neighbors and co-workers, as well as for couples.

        
If I had to pick something about Incompatibility that's not to love, its susceptibility to gender stereotypes would be my choice. Gender stereotypes tend to be formed by our perceptions of our own individual parents. When a college athlete with a two-year degree in heating and air conditioning technology marries someone with a four-year degre in teaching, that couple’s children are likely to accept the stereotype “Women have more verbal intelligence than men.” When a gifted preacher marries a quiet, empathetic nurse, that couple’s children are likely to accept the stereotype “Men have more verbal intelligence than women.” Although recent S.A.T. statistics seem to support one of these claims, historical reality is that the English-speaking world generally accepted and reinforced the opposite claim for many years. Obviously both stereotypes have some basis in reality, and neither is completely true for all men and all women.

        
It can be helpful to challenge even stereotypes that are clearly supported by facts. The average man is taller than the average woman; Janet Reno is taller than Robert Reich. And rather than generalizing, “Men are more goal-oriented and women are more detail-oriented,” the Snyders might have come closer to Ultimate Truth by observing more specifically, “Chuck Snyder, a man who has a goal-oriented Type A personality, is more goal-oriented than Barb Snyder, a woman who presents herself as possibly even having an LBS introvert personality.”

        
Other readers might object to the Snyders’ evangelical Protestant viewpoint. Incompatibility is not an evangelical book; it contains lots of jokes and no real sermons, but the Snyders do expect their audience to be more familiar with the Bible than with other possible sources of illustrations for the points the Snyders make. (If anyone wants to make similar points using secular references, that would be an interesting exercise and might produce a valuable book.)

        
The Snyders discuss an interpretation of the biblical concept of wives “submitting themselves to their own husbands, as unto the Lord” that works for them. While everyone knows that this idea reflects the ugly historical reality that women had no civil rights in Greco-Roman society, a surprising number of women still argue that it has some special relevance for them today. The Snyders emphasize that this text indirectly states that Christian women should not “submit” in any way to men who are not their own husbands, and that the Christian husband is further told to be a servant leader whose authority comes from self-sacrifice. Still, for every extreme feminist out there who agonizes over her felt need to work out an elaborate system of keeping all decisions and responsibilities “equal,” there seems to be a moderate feminist who’s glad to be able to save herself time and stress by entrusting some decisions to her husband. Not because “men” are “supposed to” know more about things in general than she does, but because she’s found that her husband knows more about some things than she does. If she didn’t rate him well above average, why would she have married him? The Snyders don’t burden us with much detail, but they write like one of these fortunate couples. This feminist reviewer is glad for them. At least, I would have hated to have lost the benefit of my husband’s special talents and experience to a futile obsession with trying to be his “equal”...then again, I probably wouldn’t have been attracted to him if he hadn’t appreciated my talents and experience too.

        
Both of these criticisms are, however, trivial compared to the real problem with books like Incompatibility: Reading a book is no substitute for practicing what the book has to teach. Incompatibility is full of sound advice, made easier to take by the authors’ frank discussion of how hard it can be even for them to apply their own wisdom to their own everyday life. The book is worth keeping around for reference...but practicing the kind of wisdom it contains will always be one of those ongoing challenges that keep our minds active as we age.

Chuck Snyder no longer has any use for a dollar. Barb Snyder, or her favorite charity, might find a use for one, so I'm glad still to be able to offer Incompatibility as a Fair Trade Book. To purchase it online, send salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com $5 for the book + $5 for shipping. As always, shipping charges are for a package, not a book; if you order additional books (like that updated edition for comparison purposes) you pay only one shipping charge, and if the additional books were written by the Snyders, Mrs. Snyder or her charity will get a dollar for each one.

Adult-Onset Acne

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where it appeared on August 1, 2014, this one is a bit below this web site's usual standards of taste. However, I see no harm in letting The Nephews, some of whom are now teenagers, know what runs in our family...on both sides of mine! Topic credit: &irishraizel posted www.bubblews.com/news/5136551-skin-problems . No image really goes with this post, either.)

Adult-onset acne is the kind that starts after a person's school friends have had and outgrown really ugly adolescent-type acne. Adult-onset acne almost never looks as bad as adolescent-type acne does. On the other hand it never really goes away...it slows down a bit after age 70, but it doesn't go away.

I have this condition. I don't usually think about it. Usually the pores that get clogged and enlarged are on my back and shoulders where nobody has to look at them. People who felt disfigured by adolescent-type acne will never know how many of their smooth-faced school friends now have skin blemishes that don't show, at predictable intervals, and will probably have at least one every month when they're 95 years old.

Sex hormones are usually blamed for the overactivity of our sebaceous glands, and it's true that senior citizens who still get Horrid Youth Spots (blackheads) tend to be active, perky, well-preserved...yes, sexy senior citizens. A.k.a. terrible, disgraceful older people who embarrass their young relatives.

They flirt. Sometimes they flirt with people younger than their children. Sometimes these relationships get serious. Sometimes the older person even tells the younger person, "You shouldn't be interested in me; you should be interested in my son/daughter." Aaack. About the worst recommendation I've ever heard for a potential blind date is that the guy is embarrassing people by having a crush on my mother. Yes, it's happened.

They dress "younger" than seems appropriate. They look better in the styles young people wear than seems appropriate. Imagine being a 25-year-old man, following a sleek body with long pale blonde hair down the street, then seeing the woman turn around and reveal a nice healthy well-preserved 75-year-old face. She is not a natural blonde. She is not a bleached blonde. She used to have dark auburn hair, and now it's a yellowish shade of white.

They have more energy than seems appropriate. They make people their own age feel inadequate. Sometimes they make younger people feel tired. Sometimes after age 60 or 70 they manage to slow down enough to be good home nurses for geriatric patients...who may be a few years younger than they are.

Sometimes these terrible old people still feel sexy. Worse, sometimes they mention the fact to their children. How nice that an 80-year-old still keeps those personal supplies in the medicine cabinet in case a visiting relative needs them. "Hands off, son/daughter! That's my stash." "But you don't still use them...do you?" "I did last year, and I might this year! You never know!"

This is the terrible, embarrassing fate that lies ahead of many young people with adult-onset acne. Unless we work hard at abusing and neglecting our bodies and developing preventable disabilities, we could grow up to be just like those shocking old relatives of ours!

Actually, I'm looking forward to it.

Book Review: Winona on Her Own

Title: Winona on Her Own

        
Author: Margaret Widdemer

        
Date: 1922

        
Publisher: A.L. Burt

        
ISBN: none (click here to see it on Amazon)

        
Length: 307 pages

        
Quote: “Tom’s giving up the idea of going to college. I think he’s going to work instead.”

        
And unselfish Winona decides to go to work, too, instead of finishing grade twelve. Some of the details of this period piece are hard to accept as true reflections of the real world even in 1922, but this one I can believe. There was a time when nice, well-brought-up children generously gave up their educations to help their families.

        
Their problem was that, like Winona, they had no particular qualifications for jobs. As a Camp Fire Girl, Winona has enough experience with summer camp to be offered a temporary job as a camp counsellor. This job becomes her sole qualification for a job in social work that pays enough that, by sharing a fixer-upper house with five hardworking friends, she can at least afford to live in the city without taking money from her parents...some things haven’t changed since 1922.

        
One of Winona’s friends worries about Winona’s health when she’s constantly exposed to, oh dear, the working class. This is another period detail I believe. Such snobbery wasn’t socially unacceptable in 1922, because it had reasons. Mentioning what those reasons were was taboo. Etiquette allowed only vague references to “illness,” making tuberculosis, cholera, and typhoid fever almost as unmentionable in polite company as syphilis—and all of those could be found in American slums in 1922. All that was known about preventing or curing bacterial infections was that contact with infected people increased the risk.

        
So Winona’s friend’s mother is concerned enough to offer Winona a temporary job at her English manor. Whether Winona will take this (still low-paid, but probably safer) dream job, or stay in social work, is the main source of suspense in the book.

        
The book opened with the teenagers discussing the evidence that at least two of the boys in their crowd, Roger and Billy, may be “in love” with Winona. Throughout the story, Roger and Billy say things that support this theory, but Winona dutifully ignores them. She’s “tired of being grown up” while only “on the brink of eighteen,” “and having to remember that boys may think you’re flirting with them when you’d forgotten all about their being boys.” Readers who want every story to turn into a romance will be disappointed. Those who find it refreshing to read a story about a teenaged girl that’s not a romance, just for a change, will be delighted. Winona means what she says—an excellent, and rare, quality in fictional heroines.

        
What may surprise readers as they discover the children’s fiction of the 1920s is how much political propaganda, of all kinds, publishers allowed writers to work into a novel. Winona on Her Own is by no means that most overtly political children’s story of its vintage that I’ve read. I remember  one boys’ story that carried its hero forward into the exciting life of a grown-up Communist Party agitator. Winona doesn’t agitate. Her having her hair bobbed is presented as an accident, unrelated to her needing a job, and completely unconnected to one of her dear old friends being a Socialist...from Russia, yet. Many U.S. readers are surprised by the amount of sympathy for the U.S.S.R. that existed here in the 1920s, and the indirect censorship that was involved in making even moderately Soviet-friendly children’s stories, like Winona on Her Own, disappear from library collections.

        
How much pleasure can one hope to get from reading a book that was written for children...and those “children” may have been the grandparents or great-grandparents of most people now in cyberspace. Books from 1922 were still easy to find when I was in elementary school, if they weren’t about politics, so I formed a taste for stories that are not recent historical fiction, but actual pieces of history, complete with the details contemporary writers might prefer to airbrush away. On the other hand, when I was the right age to appreciate Winona’s and her friends’ sense of humor (grades two to six), it was always easy to find people who could tell me which aspects of the stories had been true to life. Standards of realism were not high at this period. Winona seems more like a real teenager than another A.L. Burt series heroine, Shirley Willing, but I have a few reservations...and real people of that generation aren’t here to share their memories any more.

        
And, because Winona’s adventures are relatively plausible, Winona on Her Own can’t be considered a real classic of kitsch, either. It has its moments, but it’s not as rich in kitsch as Captain Blood or Pollyanna. Winona rows around in a boat, admiring views and chatting with friends, like a normal camper, rather than hijacking a boat at gunpoint and then fainting just to prove she’s still a girl.

        
So, maybe it takes quirky taste in light reading to enjoy Winona on Her Own, but I have quirky taste and I enjoyed it. Perhaps you will, too.

Obviously the author(s) of a book published in 1922 no longer need ten percent of the full price of a Fair Trade Book. Since these book reviews have functioned and are functioning mainly to help me sell books in the real world, I'd like to clarify a point here for local lurkers' benefit. I live in Scott County, Virginia; therefore my books have been exposed to Stachybotrys atra and may have developed that old familiar smell of all the basements and some of the buildings in Scott County. So have all the other secondhand books on sale in Scott County. Local shoppers have already worked out their strategies for dealing with this stuff, and can see that the books I physically own have been disinfected. Books that have been disinfected still don't look as good as "new" books that haven't been infected. The fair market value of some, not all, books I sell in real life is therefore lower than the fair market value of a certified mold-free copy I'd order or sell online. That's why, although I knew at the time that the copy of Winona on Her Own that I bought in the Friday Market and sold for fifty cents was a collector's item, I don't feel terribly cheated upon learning that the going rate for this book on Amazon is over twenty dollars...even the reprint edition, and mine was the 1922 hardcover. 

If you want it (the Amazon reviewer called it "culturally important" as a bit of U.S. history), a clean copy of Winona on Her Own will cost $25, here, for the paperback reprint--unless you specify the original hardcover edition. It's fat for a children's book, but would fit into the same package with one or two other books, so if one of them is a Fair Trade Book whose author will receive ten percent of the price plus the $5-per-package shipping fee, you could say the shipping on Winona on Her Own is free. And, yes, you can order the other volumes in the series here--although some of them will cost even more than this one.

For those who don't know...these days, instead of trying to get publishers to take a flyer on reprinting an old, obscure novel whose author won't even benefit from its resale, many book lovers are making old, obscure books that don't quite qualify as "classics" available at the Gutenberg Project web site. Anyone can download them free of charge and print'em out in whatever format the reader likes...in theory, anyway. Only one volume in the Winona series is available at the Gutenberg Project site (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37207/37207-0.txt), and Winona on Her Own isn't it, but the site encourages anyone who has another volume to join the project and make that volume available too.

I Like Bugs, but This One...

(This post was reclaimed from Bubblews, where it appeared on June 5, 2014. Bubblews destroyed the cell-phone picture I snapped. Maybe that was just as well; a squeamish reader commented that "it looks like a ROACH!", although to me it was obvious from the photo that the creature was not in the roach family. I now think it may have been a stonefly, possibly Pteronarcys dorsata, as shown here, although the antennae on the specimen they show aren't "feathery":

http://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=American-Salmonfly

Since both image and insect are long gone, I'll never know for sure what it was, but stoneflies are big enough and are found in the time and place where I found the insect that inspired this post. Topic credit: SamElder for asking: www.bubblews.com/news/3669386-do-you-like-bugs ?)

Last night, on the way back from the computer center, I saw this insect outside a convenience store and thought, "What is it, exactly?" It's the size of a good-sized moth, about two and a half inches from head to wing tips as posed here, and has feathery antennae like a moth, and is obviously attracted to the light from the window like a moth. The body looks more like a stag beetle's, but it's not a stag beetle. What is this thing?
I have mixed feelings about insects in general. I think most of them look interesting, and are scientifically interesting...yet I hate to touch one, or worse yet be touched by one. Even if it's a beautiful butterfly. (Some of the most beautiful butterflies in my part of the world feast on dung and carrion.) So does that count as liking insects, or disliking them? Can we just say I think it's interesting, and even profitable, to learn about them and find out which ones are and which ones are not a problem?

Book Review: Succulent Wild Woman

A Fair Trade Book

Title: Succulent Wild Woman

        
Author: Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (Sark)

Author's blog: http://planetsark.com/sarks-adventures/

        
Date: 1997

        
Publisher: Fireside / Simon &a Schuster

        
ISBN: 0-684-83376-X

        
Length: 184 pages of graphics and calligraphy, many in color

        
Quote: “Succulent: ripe, juicy, whole, round, exuberant, wild, rich, wide, deep, firm, rare, female.”

        
This is Sark’s take on feminism: “Live a wild, vulnerable life. Let us see you,. laughing loudly, walking flamboyantly, and wearing colors that don’t match... Sometimes I see women who look like captives. Dry and hunted,  they scurry from curb to car. They look too thin and not joy-full. They don’t go out unless it’s with a man, or to the ‘right event.’ Like blades, they are sharp and can be dangerous. Go out wildly and alone or with a selection of outrageous women friends. Go out in all your wild glory.”

        
Once in a while an extrovert reads a book, so let's direct that reader to page 44: “We can develop self-entertaining skills...There is bravery and confidence involved in being self-entertaining, yet the more you develop these skills, the more others will want to be with you!”

        
This book also contains more about sex than Grandma would have thought was really necessary. The sexuality section isn’t grossly detailed, but it is written from the point of view of a survivor of sexual abuse helping other survivors to enjoy sex. Young women whose sexual experience has not been abusive, who are trying to resist temptation, may want to choose a different one of Sark's books.

        
Succulent Wild Woman does also offer more nice Sark-type reflections on creative work and family love. And money, friendship, and support groups. It also contains very succulent bibliographies. It’s recommended to women who are (or are soon to be) married, and their husbands.

Although Sark seems to be the one marketing her books on Amazon, you can buy them as Fair Trade Books here as well. Send salolianigodagewi @ yahoo $5 per book + $5 per package shipped, and we'll count that as a total of $10 for each of Sark's books we sell and send Sark or a charity of her choice $1.  

The Amazon Wish List? Seriously.

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where it appeared on February 25, 2014. Image credit: 5demayo at Morguefile.com.)

Seriously...how serious was last night's post meant to be? I like Margaret Atwood's writing style; some novels better than others. Oryx and Crake was written as a serious consideration of where bioengineering might lead. Atwood has consistently tried to have enough sex-and-violence offstage to prove that her novels are for adults, but not enough onstage to embarrass adults in front of their children. So the plot of Oryx and Crake is about scientists who've unleashed all sorts of bioengineered freaks upon a hypothetical future world, but a detail from their past is that the woman nicknamed Oryx started out as a porn actress. My husband and I once discussed how to interest students in a serious cautionary novel, and agreed that, in the spirit of "don't tell them it's good for them," the first thing to mention about Oryx and Crake is that it has porn stars in it. 

And I would be interested in reading the sequels...but nobody needs to rush out and buy these guaranteed bestsellers for me; Atwood's a superstar writer who doesn't need the money, and whose books are sure to turn up in a library sooner or later. In fact I thought of them because I saw Maddaddam in a library last week. 

What's really on my Wish List are a mix of knitting pattern books (I'm a total pattern hoarder who believes there's no such thing as too many knitting patterns) and odd, obscure books by friends and e-friends. First novels, political rants, quirky essay collections...

One that local lurkers are unlikely to buy for me, because they're frugal folks who always pick things like Rand Paul's Government Bullies or Anne Lamott's Some Assembly Required that they want to read first and then give to me, is M.C.A. Hogarth's Spots the Space Marine. Graphic science fiction is not really any of our "thing," as a rule...but I like what I've seen of Hogarth's Haikujaguar blog and Three Jaguars cartoons, so I'd like to buy her book, preferably as a new book. 

I'd also like to buy, preferably as a new book, a copy of Carolroach 's Angels Watching Over Me. 

And most especially, for Grandma Bonnie Peters' sake, because (in the belief that she had another copy at home) I copied some recipes out of the copy she'd shared with me and then sold it, I want a copy of the original edition of Vicki Griffin's Guilt-Free Gourmet.

Book Review: Better Homes & Gardens Make-Ahead Cookbook

Happy May Day, Gentle Readers...

Book Review: Better Homes and Gardens Make-Ahead Cookbook

        
Author: staff of Better Homes and Gardens

Date: 1971

        
Publisher: Meredith Corporation

        
ISBN: none, but click here to see it on Amazon

        
Length: 96 pages with many full-color full-page photos

        
Quote: “By...doing most of the cooking ahead during less rushed hours, you can have more time for other activities.”

        
Not a reprint or a rehash of the After Work Cookbook, this book features complete recipes using make-ahead meals. This provides some respite from the Better Homes and Gardens staff’s compulsion, during the 1970s, to shovel dairy products into every dish; allowing that obsessive-compulsive nutritionist to put glasses of milk on the menu didn’t liberate the poor soul from printing recipes that specified mixing the waffles with milk, but you can always use water.

        
Some egg-and-cheese main dishes appear in this book, but “main dish” is still defined in terms of meat. Things this book calls “salad,” too, often contain more than enough protein to be served as main dishes. Vegetable dishes, too, contain enough grain, milk, and cheese protein to be served as main dishes.

        
Otherwise, this book probably succeeds in offering something everyone can eat, although not necessarily as part of the same menu. 

To buy the Make-Ahead Cookbook by itself, send salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com $5 for the book + $5 for shipping. You can probably find a better price elsewhere. If, however, you would like to encourage living (individual) writers, you may add this one to a package with one or more Fair Trade Books; since the shipping charge is per package, this brings the price of the Make-Ahead Cookbook down to a competitive $5.