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Mar. 22nd, 2008 08:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionPlease Do Feed the Cat - Marian Babson. Bah. This overly-cutesy mystery was annoying as hell. First of all, the premise of the series (of which this book is number who-knows-what) was just too precious for me: a whole bunch of mystery writers decide to move to the bucolic English village of Brimful Coffers. And the protagonist has two cats, named Had-I and But-Known. AUGH.
Second, there's an American professor there who complains that he doesn't know what brussels sprouts & Jerusalem artichokes are, b/c they don't have them in his country. What? I could maybe see the latter, b/c lots of folks don't know what they are (are they that well-known in the UK?). But brussels sprouts? The quintessential vegetable that American kids hate? I understand that maybe Babson wanted to make the professor look like an American buffoon; fair enough. But could you at least make it accurate? It would've taken a Google search of maybe one minute to realize that yes, brussels sprouts are really common here!
My other big gripe was w/the plot of this book: a writer, who's taken the name of one of his characters (Macho Magee) as a pen name (his real name is Lancelot Dalrymple!), suddenly acquires a girlfriend, described as a "harridan" on the back cover & a "shrew" in the text, who puts both Macho & his cat Roscoe on a diet... one that doesn't include meat. There's no explanation for why--Cressie (the girlfriend) keeps yelling about how they need to lose weight, blah blah, but it's not persuasive at all. I mean, could we get any more stereotyped? Oh no, horrible shrew woman! And she's trying to emasculate MACHO by making him eat vegetarian! There's one scene w/a refrain of "Anything is better than couscous!" So, yeah, the stereotype of vegetarian food being crappy, too. And everyone is worried about Roscoe the cat, saying he's wasting away. But he's an outdoor cat, & mention is made of him tearing open garbage bags for scraps. Is there some reason he would be unwilling or unable to hunt while outside, & thus feed himself? Eventually it is revealed that Macho & Cressie have secretly been writing a book together. It still doesn't seem a v. believable explanation for why Cressie is all-around a horrible person, though.
The Little Guide to Beating Procrastination, Perfectionism, and Blocks: A Manual for Artists, Activists, Entrepreneurs, Academics and Other Ambitious Dreamers - Hillary Rettig. This brief e-book is available free on Rettig's website, & contains an expansion of her ideas on the subject from The Lifelong Activist. As with that book, I feel like this one has a lot of useful advice--it's sort of cognitive-behavioral, with stuff similar to things like SARK's micromovements--if you're willing to take the time to sit down & practice it all. I do think that the attitude about money & financial strain is a bit blithe & perhaps impractical for some folks.
Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals - Edited by Steven Best, Ph.D and Anthony J. Nocella II. This anthology takes a look at the ALF, the Animal Liberation Front, a group of animal rights activists who have used arson, property damage, & other controversial tactics. I thought going in that this was going to be a more balanced examination, but the essays are overwhelmingly in favor of the ALF & mostly snide about anyone who hasn't drunk the Kool-Aid. I folded down a ton of corners to mark points I wanted to dispute or otherwise comment on, but I don't have the energy now.
I will say that the book is good for making the reader think closely about zir own views on violence (including what constitutes violence) & tactics. I think that some of the essays are more ranty than persuasive, though, & for every pro-ALF essay that chastised other AR activists for criticizing the ALF, & said that we all have to support each other & not criticize folks using other tactics, there was one that referred to ALF skeptics as "whiners" or something like that. Plus, I think marching in lockstep is a bad idea for any movement: shutting down critique is not only creepy but stupid.
For myself, I support open rescues as one useful tactic that take animals out of harm's way but also generally get really good, positive publicity. The jury's still out for me on whether property damage counts as violence, & if that matters, but regardless I think arson is a tactic more dangerous than useful (for one thing, it's likely that small animals will be injured, & for another, the ALF says that it works v. hard to never hurt humans--arson is pretty risky...).
One essay in the book says that anti-choicers have been remarkably successful w/intimidation campaigns, & that we shouldn't discount the usefulness of the tactic b/c of the source. Ugh, I still don't think intimidation campaigns are good tactics, or likely to prove useful in the end. Here's one quote from Freeman Wicklund's article that I liked a lot:
Kitty and the Silver Bullet - Carrie Vaughn. In the fourth Kitty book, the titular werewolf radio host returns to Denver, breaking her exile from her former pack, b/c her mother is ill. She & packmate/lover Ben also get drawn into a local power battle between various vampire & werewolf factions. There is a lot of squee & a lot of awesomeness in this one, but the final chapter left me wanting to roll my eyes a little bit. Why does it always have to come down to a wedding? Augh.
GenXpat: The Young Professional's Guide to Making a Successful Life Abroad - Margaret Malewski. Yet another expat book that doesn't seem to address my situation. This one talks about entrepreneurs, businesspeople. It didn't offer any information that was either relevant to me or that I didn't know before. Also, in her section analyzing different cultural characteristics, she talks about the scale of power differential (PD): in low PD societies, it's a meritocracy & everyone gets ahead purely on that. In high PD societies, "only people with a certain family background, education, gender, or level of seniority can attain positions of power." She lists the US as a low PD society. Ha. Would it have killed her to mention that, actually, there are biases that affect your ability to succeed even in "low PD" countries? Gross. Later on she also says that marriage, versus just living together, generally shows a greater commitment to the relationship. Wow. I guess, you know, all my friends in relationships who can't even legally get married, not to mention folks who choose not to for various other reasons, are just flakey commitmentphobes. Ugh.
Smoky Mountain Tracks - Donna Ball. This is a mystery about a missing child in a rural mountain community in North Carolina. I can't really enthuse or rant about it. I guess that says a lot. I enjoyed reading a mystery w/dogs in it, but all the cooing about breeding & champions & stuff was really tiresome & stupid. I was amused to find that an animal communicator figures in the story, & her insights are actually crucial to wrapping up the mystery.
Second, there's an American professor there who complains that he doesn't know what brussels sprouts & Jerusalem artichokes are, b/c they don't have them in his country. What? I could maybe see the latter, b/c lots of folks don't know what they are (are they that well-known in the UK?). But brussels sprouts? The quintessential vegetable that American kids hate? I understand that maybe Babson wanted to make the professor look like an American buffoon; fair enough. But could you at least make it accurate? It would've taken a Google search of maybe one minute to realize that yes, brussels sprouts are really common here!
My other big gripe was w/the plot of this book: a writer, who's taken the name of one of his characters (Macho Magee) as a pen name (his real name is Lancelot Dalrymple!), suddenly acquires a girlfriend, described as a "harridan" on the back cover & a "shrew" in the text, who puts both Macho & his cat Roscoe on a diet... one that doesn't include meat. There's no explanation for why--Cressie (the girlfriend) keeps yelling about how they need to lose weight, blah blah, but it's not persuasive at all. I mean, could we get any more stereotyped? Oh no, horrible shrew woman! And she's trying to emasculate MACHO by making him eat vegetarian! There's one scene w/a refrain of "Anything is better than couscous!" So, yeah, the stereotype of vegetarian food being crappy, too. And everyone is worried about Roscoe the cat, saying he's wasting away. But he's an outdoor cat, & mention is made of him tearing open garbage bags for scraps. Is there some reason he would be unwilling or unable to hunt while outside, & thus feed himself? Eventually it is revealed that Macho & Cressie have secretly been writing a book together. It still doesn't seem a v. believable explanation for why Cressie is all-around a horrible person, though.
The Little Guide to Beating Procrastination, Perfectionism, and Blocks: A Manual for Artists, Activists, Entrepreneurs, Academics and Other Ambitious Dreamers - Hillary Rettig. This brief e-book is available free on Rettig's website, & contains an expansion of her ideas on the subject from The Lifelong Activist. As with that book, I feel like this one has a lot of useful advice--it's sort of cognitive-behavioral, with stuff similar to things like SARK's micromovements--if you're willing to take the time to sit down & practice it all. I do think that the attitude about money & financial strain is a bit blithe & perhaps impractical for some folks.
Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals - Edited by Steven Best, Ph.D and Anthony J. Nocella II. This anthology takes a look at the ALF, the Animal Liberation Front, a group of animal rights activists who have used arson, property damage, & other controversial tactics. I thought going in that this was going to be a more balanced examination, but the essays are overwhelmingly in favor of the ALF & mostly snide about anyone who hasn't drunk the Kool-Aid. I folded down a ton of corners to mark points I wanted to dispute or otherwise comment on, but I don't have the energy now.
I will say that the book is good for making the reader think closely about zir own views on violence (including what constitutes violence) & tactics. I think that some of the essays are more ranty than persuasive, though, & for every pro-ALF essay that chastised other AR activists for criticizing the ALF, & said that we all have to support each other & not criticize folks using other tactics, there was one that referred to ALF skeptics as "whiners" or something like that. Plus, I think marching in lockstep is a bad idea for any movement: shutting down critique is not only creepy but stupid.
For myself, I support open rescues as one useful tactic that take animals out of harm's way but also generally get really good, positive publicity. The jury's still out for me on whether property damage counts as violence, & if that matters, but regardless I think arson is a tactic more dangerous than useful (for one thing, it's likely that small animals will be injured, & for another, the ALF says that it works v. hard to never hurt humans--arson is pretty risky...).
One essay in the book says that anti-choicers have been remarkably successful w/intimidation campaigns, & that we shouldn't discount the usefulness of the tactic b/c of the source. Ugh, I still don't think intimidation campaigns are good tactics, or likely to prove useful in the end. Here's one quote from Freeman Wicklund's article that I liked a lot:
...try visualizing an ideal society where animal liberation has already been achieved. What would the people be wearing and eating in this society? How would they treat the animals in their lives? And what is their motivation for behaving this way?
In your visualization, do you see a society where an unwilling majority is forced by a tiny minority to adhere to a vegan lifestyle? Such a society would require a loyal force of animal rights troops and probably martial law. The troops would be needed to accompany campers and hikers into the woods to ensure that they are not hunting, trapping, or fishing. They would alos be responsible for finding and eliminating the inevitable black market trade in illegal animal products; raiding the homes of non-believers in search of contraband animal flesh, milk, eggs, and skins; and busting the illegal speakeasy-style burger bars. The troops would basically do all they could try to force an unwilling public to lead vegan lives....
If you are like most animal advocates, the society you envisioned did not have martial law, but was rather a respectful society where people did not eat, wear, vivisect, or otherwise use animals or animal products because to do so would be morally repugnant, unconscionable, and wrong. In other words, the majority of people in an animal rights society have voluntarily adopted an animal rights philosophy.
Kitty and the Silver Bullet - Carrie Vaughn. In the fourth Kitty book, the titular werewolf radio host returns to Denver, breaking her exile from her former pack, b/c her mother is ill. She & packmate/lover Ben also get drawn into a local power battle between various vampire & werewolf factions. There is a lot of squee & a lot of awesomeness in this one, but the final chapter left me wanting to roll my eyes a little bit. Why does it always have to come down to a wedding? Augh.
GenXpat: The Young Professional's Guide to Making a Successful Life Abroad - Margaret Malewski. Yet another expat book that doesn't seem to address my situation. This one talks about entrepreneurs, businesspeople. It didn't offer any information that was either relevant to me or that I didn't know before. Also, in her section analyzing different cultural characteristics, she talks about the scale of power differential (PD): in low PD societies, it's a meritocracy & everyone gets ahead purely on that. In high PD societies, "only people with a certain family background, education, gender, or level of seniority can attain positions of power." She lists the US as a low PD society. Ha. Would it have killed her to mention that, actually, there are biases that affect your ability to succeed even in "low PD" countries? Gross. Later on she also says that marriage, versus just living together, generally shows a greater commitment to the relationship. Wow. I guess, you know, all my friends in relationships who can't even legally get married, not to mention folks who choose not to for various other reasons, are just flakey commitmentphobes. Ugh.
Smoky Mountain Tracks - Donna Ball. This is a mystery about a missing child in a rural mountain community in North Carolina. I can't really enthuse or rant about it. I guess that says a lot. I enjoyed reading a mystery w/dogs in it, but all the cooing about breeding & champions & stuff was really tiresome & stupid. I was amused to find that an animal communicator figures in the story, & her insights are actually crucial to wrapping up the mystery.