Jennifer Egan: A Visit From the Goon Squad
Amazon.com kept telling me I needed to read this book, so finally, I ordered it and waited a couple months before I was ready. I just finished a major project AND I caught a miserable cold, so what better time?
I loved this book. It had a lot going against it; you know irrational factors like how you feel when you have a cold and your sinuses are all stuffed up and your chest is tight? A Visit From the Goon Squad took me out of my misery. While it appears random, it is tightly plotted, and I loved seeing how different strands intertwined. I also loved the effects of the goon squad (no, I am not going to tell you anything specific) and I loved how technology drove differences in how different generations thought and acted.
The last act takes place in a future where (this makes total sense) there is a high value placed on “pure”, no tattoos, no swearing – it is truly hilarious, the lengths to which we will go to NOT be our parents. Babies have their own hand-helds, which is already happening. My eyes have been opened, watching our own 18 month old grandson working an iPad and iPhone. It’s amazing to me the aps that are created to entertain, divert and teach our little ones.
This is not a straight line book, so there are times I had to go back and read a section again to remind myself where I met this character before, and how he tied into the plot earlier. It is a fascinating creation, this book, and I would love to sit down for coffee with this author, and her outside-the-box kind of thinking.
In The Middle of the Storm
When you’re in the middle of the storm, it is hard to imagine just how BIG it is. It isn’t a hurricane, because the winds are not high enough, but oh man, the rain. Poor Pensacola has been about 10 – 15 inches short of its annual average, and I think we are getting all caught up this weekend.
AdventureMan is outside, picking up dead tree branches that came down last night. On our way to church, early this morning, we saw the electrical crews out trying to fix a line that went down. God bless these heroes who get out of bed on a national long weekend, early in the morning, so that people might have lights, and power, and air conditioning. We take them for granted, and yet they are everyday heroes.
Sobering Reading on Wealth
It’s a long weekend, Labor Day weekend, and Pensacola awakes to rain-sodden streets and forecasts of a rain soggy three day weekend (bad for hotels and restaurants at the beach who hope for a sell-out Labor Day) and high surf from off-shore storms.
The reading for today from James is equally gloomy. I always think of “Insh’allah” when I read it, because it probably has an equivalent somewhere in the Quran, and my Muslim friends say “Insh’allah” (As God wills, or If God wills it) when they state a planned event.
While we are not rich, we have a large homeless population in Pensacola, sleeping out under the skies in hidden camps, scrounging for food, often with a dog, seeking handouts, seeking scraps. They are a constant reminder, to me, of how comfortable we are, and how comfort wars with the religious spirit. When we are too comfortable, we often fail to keep our focus on God, and are distracted by our toys and interests.
(I told you this would be gloomy.)
On the other hand, I wonder how spiritual I would be if I were hungry, worried about getting enough to eat, worried about my safety sleeping out in one of the camps. I wonder if their community looks after one another, or if it is a brutal and chaotic life. I wonder how you can keep your mind on things of the spirit when the search for basic necessities takes up a large part of your life.
James 4:13-5:6
13 Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ 14Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’ 16As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.
5Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. 2Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. 3Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure* for the last days. 4Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
5You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter. 6You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.
Neighbors Key to Survival
“Americans don’t know their neighbors” my dinner guest said, in response to my asking him what surprises him most in his visit to this country. “In my country, we all know our neighbors. It’s important to know your neighbors.”
I agreed, and quoted him this article supporting his view that I heard on National Public Radio, one of those ideas I hear so often on NPR because they cover news other news sources ignore.
Below is just a portion of the story, which you can read in whole by clicking on this blue type. Even better, if you want, you can listed to the story yourself by clicking on the “Listen to the Story: All things Considered” button on this same page.
When Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, one victim was political scientist Daniel Aldrich. He had just moved to New Orleans. Late one August night, there was a knock on the door.
“It was a neighbor who knew that we had no idea of the realities of the Gulf Coast life,” said Aldrich, who is now a political scientist at Purdue University in Indiana. He “knocked on our door very late at night, around midnight on Saturday night, and said, ‘Look, you’ve got small kids — you should really leave.’ ”
The knock on the door was to prove prophetic. It changed the course of Aldrich’s research and, in turn, is changing the way many experts now think about disaster preparedness.
Officials in New Orleans that Saturday night had not yet ordered an evacuation, but Aldrich trusted the neighbor who knocked on his door. He bundled his family into a car and drove to Houston.
“Without that information we never would’ve left,” Aldrich said. I think we would’ve been trapped.”
In fact, by the time people were told to leave, it was too late and thousands of people got stuck.
Because of his own experience in Katrina, Aldrich started thinking about how neighbors help one another during disasters. He decided to visit disaster sites around the world, looking for data.
Aldrich’s findings show that ambulances and firetrucks and government aid are not the principal ways most people survive during — and recover after — a disaster. His data suggest that while official help is useful — in clearing the water and getting the power back on in a place such as New Orleans after Katrina, for example — government interventions cannot bring neighborhoods back, and most emergency responders take far too long to get to the scene of a disaster to save many lives. Rather, it is the personal ties among members of a community that determine survival during a disaster, and recovery in its aftermath.
When Aldrich visited villages in India hit by the giant 2004 tsunami, he found that villagers who fared best after the disaster weren’t those with the most money, or the most power. They were people who knew lots of other people — the most socially connected individuals. In other words, if you want to predict who will do well after a disaster, you look for faces that keep showing up at all the weddings and funerals.
“Those individuals who had been more involved in local festivals, funerals and weddings, those were individuals who were tied into the community, they knew who to go to, they knew how to find someone who could help them get aid,” Aldrich says.
My visiting guest was from Lebanon, where neighbors have relied on one another for years as civil unrest rocks the country.
“I am guessing we move more often than your family and friends,” I ventured. “You are right, it is harder to establish long-lasting neighborly relations here where people come and go more often.”
Actually, we have settled in a fairly established neighborhood, where many people around us have lived for years and years, some all their lives. But we have only been here a year, and it takes time to build strong neighborly relations. But we are aware that connecting with our neighbors and staying connected is important in a part of the country vulnerable to life-threatening hurricanes and other natural emergencies.
You can listen to the entire report in 6 minutes and 3 seconds here.
“Is Your House Always This Clean?”
We had guests this week, visitors from overseas, and it was so much fun. One woman was full of questions. This was her first time out of her own country, and you know how it is when you are in a foreign culture, people think differently. Some of her questions bordered on impolite, according to our culture, but we could tell she was asking because she really was interested, and we didn’t let her questions bother us.
“No!” I laughed, “We cleaned because we had guests coming! My husband vacuumed and I washed all the floors!”
My daughter-in-law jumped in.
“Yes!” she laughed. “Yes, their house is always this clean!”
We all laughed.
“It’s just my husband and me,” I added, “it’s not that hard to keep it picked up and neat. We make extra effort when guests are coming.”
“Why do you do this?” she asked. “Why do you invite strangers into your home and give us dinner?”
“People have been so kind to us, in so many countries, in so many ways,” I began, “No matter how hard we try, we will never be able to repay all the kindness we have received. But we do our best.”
We were in my kitchen, which is not large, and I am trying to get dinner on the table. It is a simple, family dinner, a little chaotic, but with lots of dishes so the guests can find something they might like to eat.
“Do you clean yourself? You have no cook?” she asked.
“We clean. Both of us. We could hire help, but it is very expensive here,” I said, pulling the chicken out of the oven. “And we do our own cooking. My husband makes bread! He is very good at it.”
During the evening she continued asking questions, and now, several days later, we find ourselves thinking about the questions, and thinking . . . THIS is why we do it! We love these guests who come in with a different way of looking at things and their questions, which stimulate us to think in new ways, too, as we try to explain why we do things the way we do them.
I remember in Doha, the Philipina maids would ask me “how old are you?” because they couldn’t guess by looking at me. We never ask a woman how old they are once they are past maybe eighteen or twenty years old. We never ask how much money a husband – or wife – makes. It is culturally taboo, it just isn’t done. We never ask what kind of birth control someone is using. I am aware of these things because I have been asked, and it made me think about it.
But now I wonder what questions I have asked in foreign lands which shocked people, or made them uncomfortable?
HIV Epidemic Emerging in Middle East and North Africa
Recently published on National Public Radio is a study showing that governments are quietly gathering statistics on the rising tide of HIV infections in the Middle East and North Africa, but they don’t want those statistics published:
HIV epidemics are emerging among men who have sex with men in the Middle East and North Africa, researchers say. It’s a region where HIV/AIDS isn’t well understood, or studied.
More than 5 percent of men who have sex with men are infected by HIV in countries including Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia, according to a recent study in PLoS Medicine. In one group of men in Pakistan, the rate of infection was about 28 percent. (For reference, in 2008, rates of HIV infection among men who have sex with men in the U.S. ranged from 16 percent among white men up to 28 percent of black men, according to the CDC.)
Risky behavior, low condom use, injectable drug use and male sex workers are some of the factors that could cause HIV rates to rise in the region, the researchers say. On average, the men who have sex with men group had between four and 14 sexual partners within the past six months, with consistent condom use falling below 25 percent.
Lack of HIV surveillance and low access to treatment and prevention are a concern for researchers, who believe the window of opportunity to prevent the epidemic from spreading across the region is growing smaller.
Shots had a chance to speak with one of the study’s authors, Dr. Laith Abu-Raddad, assistant professor of public health at the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, to discuss the challenges of researching such a taboo topic.
What made you decide to pursue this study?
There are some political and community leaders who believe that our region is not affected by the epidemic. While others, such as HIV activists, believe that men having sex with men behavior is hidden, so HIV data must be hidden. They have called it the “HIV epidemic behind the veil.” It occurred to me that these are very contrasting views, and the truth must be out there somewhere.
I started this work eight years ago, to get every piece of evidence that we have on HIV. Turns out that there are more data than we think. The regions are not hiding the data, it’s just a sensitive issue. These issues aren’t discussed like in the western media. But it doesn’t mean that the government isn’t dealing with it. Governments do have programs such as active non-government organizations, NGOs, working with groups that are infected.
What surprised you about the findings?
Certain countries did surprise us with the work they’ve done. In Iran, they target the population of drug users. When Iran discovered HIV among drug users, they created programs that offered drug users access to treatment, and gave them free clean needles and syringes.
Many governments don’t want to provide HIV treatment or counseling directly. They support NGOs financially and logistically to help treat communities affected. It’s a way for them to protect people without raising sensitive issues of sexual and drug use behaviors that are often controversial.
What challenges did you face while gathering evidence?
There were some governments that gave us their data on the condition that we didn’t publish it. They want to deal with this issue, but they see no reason to raise it to the public. There were governments who did not want to release data. I can’t tell you which countries, since we have long-standing relationships with them. But we managed to convince some of them that the data would be used purely for scientific research and not used against them by the media.
What do you hope to accomplish from this study?
To raise awareness among policy makers. Hopefully, governments will make changes to policy. Surprisingly, the No. 1 barrier is poor research capacity in this region. If we don’t have the scientific data, we can’t have effective policy. We need to have an effective surveillance program, so we can help prevent further HIV transmission.
This part of the world is seen as not addressing the epidemic. Countries like Iran, Morocco and Egypt are developing programs and working with NGOs. But other countries haven’t yet improved their services to the public. But we hope they will.
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved this book. It follows all the themes I love – how convention blinds us, how our cultural assumptions make us unconsciously snobbish and leads us to hideous behavior, it is very cultural and also very cross-cultural. Major Pettrigrew is widowed, and his grief has made him old. At the beginning of the book, his life seems very dull and grey. It lightens as his friendship sparks with Mrs. Ali, a widow who runs a small convenience market in his small English village. They both love reading (of course I love that part!) and they talk books, and sparks of warmth kindle.
This book is also very uncomfortable for me, as Roger has a grown son who bullies his father. The book isn’t just cross-cultural, it’s cross-generational, and I see glimpses of myself in the boorish behavior of his son toward his father.
There are some amusing scenes, some wickedly insightful village-interaction scenes, some painfully introspective moments, and some truly grand moments when everything becomes clear and a person acts. For me, there was an added bonus in that as I read Mrs. Ali’s words, I could hear them so clearly, and she spoke in the voice of a dear friend. I could picture her, because I could see the sweet smiling face of a dear friend. It was like having a great visit.
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“We Have Lost Our Moral Compass”
There is something I need to confess, as I print my friend Amer’s most recent editorial from the Arab Times in Kuwait.
Amer is writing about the great loss of civility in Kuwait, a country where trade routes crossed, merchants ruled and differences were tolerated. While I lived in Kuwait, I was horrified at the flaunting of traffic rules and the reckless endangerment of the population because some people believed the laws did not apply to them.
Amer, with a few differences specific to Islam, your editorial, sadly, could be equally well applied many places in the United States today, where some people believe they should not have to patiently stand in line, or obey the traffic rules, or protect the quality of the food supplies or water sources that provide for the communities.
When we fail to restrain ourselves and our selfish greediness, we harm others – but we also harm ourselves. We damage the fabric of society that protects us from the chaos of anarchy. Well said, Amer.
We Have Lost Our Moral Compass
EVERY Ramadan we are inundated by articles and features highlighting the proper means of fasting, alms-giving, praying and other essential pillars of Islam. I am not going to do that.
Most citizens are decent, God-fearing individuals trying to improve their lot and the lives of their loved ones. I believe the Kuwaiti character in essence is one of integrity and generosity — we are a charitable people, evident by the Ramadan dinners we sponsor and the alms we pay (Zakat) — indeed we are almost always the first to rush in aid of others, local or internationally. We should be proud of this trait.
We are, however, far from perfect. Praying, fasting and spending alms on the needful are not enough to qualify us or other societies as superior Muslims.
Our Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) stated, ‘The best amongst you are those who have the best manners and character.’
Recently, we have all been witness to a drastic deterioration in the way people treat one another and conduct their lives — a certain segment lack the proper traits, either due to absence of decent rearing, non-implementation of laws (which they view as ‘toothless’) or the gradual radicalism in society which encourages gender segregation, intolerance of foreigners and non-Islamic ideals and views.
Our society seems to have lost its moral compass; gaze around you, materialism and power is valued over integrity and honesty; harshness in tone is embraced, over humility and etiquette. An individual’s caliber is immaterial; what matters is how one can ‘benefit’ another, the extent of personal influence and how many laws one can break with impunity.
On the behavioral level, this is evident all around us, nothing is respected; people don’t wait their turn, they drive erratically, they walk into elevators without waiting for others to exit, they are rude to foreign workers, they disturb women in malls and public places, they cause a ruckus in movie theatres, road and traffic signs are ignored, municipality laws are ignored, smoking signs are ignored. The list goes on…
This personal methodology is poisoning society — we are all victims of and responsible for this collective, ethical Achilles’ heel.
Follow the law, pay your bills on time, stand in a queue, follow road signs and you’re regarded as a dimwit.
These days you get a taste of good manners when you travel to countries like the United States and the European Union where parents educate their children ‘not to point at others’, ‘scream’ and wait patiently for their turn in a queue, saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’
Even progressive GCC states such as the UAE — eager to attract foreigners and investment — do not tolerate any law breaking: speeding tickets affect the validity of your car license and insurance premiums; if unruly youths disturb or sexually harass women in public, security arrests them, shaves their heads, splashes their mugs in the papers, for example. People think twice before embarking on any moves which might offend the personal space or respect of others.
It’s the atmosphere of tolerance, openness and the implementation of laws that truly make an Islamic society, not the number of mosques built or how many foreigners converted to Islam. Where is Islam if society deems Expired Food Merchants and MPs and their ‘state benefactors’ — who dabble in tens of millions of corrupt money — for example, as ‘untouchables’?
People’s behavior forces one to ditch the law because the law is not really on one’s side, it’s not really being enforced — it’s an illusion. Additionally, we need to start embarking on ‘naming and shaming’ lawbreakers and criminals instead of shielding their identities from the public, who have a right to know.
The state apparatus — traditionally infatuated with forming committees, hosting seminars and running bloated campaigns — needs to execute them properly, namely by implementing a two-track initiative: On the one hand formulating an awareness campaign on ‘Islamic Moderation And Tolerance’ by highlighting the work of groundbreaking pioneers and world-renowned Moderate Islamic voices such as our very own Dr Naif Al-Mutawa (creator of the comic book series ‘The 99’) and Dr Reza Aslan, author of ‘No God But God,’ among other accomplished intellectual luminaries — so that younger generations may be able to benefit from their stimulating, refreshing views. Simultaneously, on the other track enforcing Civic and Constitutional Laws preaching freedom of speech, equality and appropriate justice — so individuals may learn to respect state laws and tolerate differing views – they need to realize grave repercussions are incoming, leading to imprisonment or worse, if they indulge in any lawbreaking or negative antisocial behavior. Ultimately, the State needs to step up to the plate and protect society, lest individuals take the law into their own hands and mob rule surfaces.
Islam without proper laws, justice for all and proper education is abridged, toothless — as a society we need to instill the values amongst ourselves and future generations, not just censure ‘external influences,’ the media or the West for our ills (many which are self created). Moreover, we need as a community to re-examine the way we conduct ourselves and treat others — to realize that no good can come from a society that obliquely persuades fraud, dishonesty and ill-treatment of others.
By: Amer Al-Hilal
The Value of the Trivial
“Be sure to use your full name, First, maiden and married, on your quilt labels,” our presenter instructed us.
Oh-oh. I’ve been lucky just to get labels on my quilts, and I haven’t used my maiden name at all.
“Years from now, if someone is trying to track you as a quilter, it will help to have your maiden name to distinguish you from other quilters who may have similar names,” she continued.
OK. So now I will include my maiden name. (For my Moslem friends, it is our custom to take our husband’s names when we marry. Some women don’t, but even now, the majority do. I know, I know, it seems backward to you, it is irrational, it is just the way it is. We also don’t have marriage contracts.)
At lunch with a long-time friend this week, she mentioned she still has her mother’s diaries. I suggested she offer them to a major university near where my friend grew up, to their historical collection, and my friend said “oh, it’s just daily weather, who’s sick, stuff like that.”
Stuff like that is just exactly what historians treasure. When I was at university, I worked for a time in the copying department of the library, and I specialized in the historical collections, many of which were from people who came west. The papers were fascinating – letters home, lists of supplies they asked to have sent West, to-do lists, old photos. The scraps of paper you and I throw away – there in the Northwest collection.
They become valuable, at least for historical research, for writing period fiction, for medical research – because we do throw them away, and so few survive.
Keeping up with this blog has become more problematic. I just don’t have the time in my life I used to have. My life is interesting to me, but now that I am no longer living in exotic locations, I don’t believe I am so interesting to others. My internal debate is whether or not to continue. I would let it go in a heartbeat and not miss the time, but . . . I think I would miss your feedback.
I’m not writing this for you. I’m sort of writing more for my own record-keeping, it’s why I include news articles and scraps of daily life (not my own) and all the oddities and irrationalities that catch my eye. I love having a place to store it all (this blog) and I love your comments, which can sometimes completely turn me around in point of view; you give me perspectives I hadn’t considered.
The point of all this is the ephemeral nature of our daily lives, and the records of our lives. There are things worth keeping.
I wish someone in Kuwait were doing oral histories on the older people who were living there ‘before oil’.
Changes in the Air
“It’s still hot,” I said as we were coming out of the movie, “but can you feel a change in the air? Even though it’s hot, the air is changing, the light is changing – you can feel hints that Fall is coming . . . ”
We had just been to see “The Help,” and if you haven’t seen it yet, you need to make plans to see it soon. It is a really good movie, which will make you laugh, and cry, and remember that it wasn’t so long ago in our country when it took place. (You can read my review of the unforgettable book here.)
The movie is a serious movie, and at the same time, I loved the attention to detail – the hair, the fashions, the manners – all very 50’s, even though it is the 1960’s in Jackson, Mississippi.
I remember reading this book in Qatar, just after I had moved back there from Kuwait. The Kuwait book club also read White Tiger and Half of a Yellow Sun, all of which had domestic service as at least part of the theme. It’s another one of those cultural things we all have in common – how do we treat the people who work for us? How do they see us? Who is raising our children and teaching them values?
In the Gulf, there are horror stories in the papers of servants who never receive their wages, or who work 16 hours a day, sun-up to sun-down, with never a day off. The families who take good care of their servants never make the papers, but I have seen good and caring relationships, lasting many years, between employers and employees. We’re glad we saw this movie, which sticks closely to the book. For a fuller experience – read the book.
Meanwhile, the temperature early this morning was below 69° F, which means that my tomatoes will begin setting once again and we may have a good crop coming before the cold sets in. I noticed, to my horror, I have a decent crop of weeds trying to establish themselves while it is too hot for me to go out and do battle with them. Some of my tomatoes actually continued producing even during the hottest days of the summer; I’m going to have to plant more of those next year. The golden pear and the red pear tomatoes are producing merrily; the bigger tomatoes have stopped – I hope temporarily.
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Early Voting in Florida
