Posted in A&I

Book Review:  Three Hundred Cups of Tea and The Toughest Job

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by Asifa Kanji and David Drury, D. Drury and Sons Publishers, 2015
Reviewed by Joni Johnson:

It’s rare for me to love a book.  I loved this one.  It wasn’t because they are friends of mine and live here at the Manor.  It wasn’t because I too was in the Peace Corps. It’s because some of it took my breath away.  The book is divided into two sections.  Both of them refer to the Peace Corps experience that Asifa and David had as mature adults in Mali in West Africa at the edge of the Sahara Desert.  When they talk about living with the debilitating heat of 120 degrees Fahrenheit on and off for four months of the year, we can finally appreciate what that really means.  I think one day of 115 degrees was quite enough and that was with air conditioning.  They had none.

 

Asifa and David and their head of training at                                        their swearing in in Mali

Asifa writes the first book, Three Hundred Cups of Tea. The second half, The Toughest Job, by David, is about the same subject sort of but describes his job and his experiences from a male point of view. Asifa, as you may know from her writings here in The Complement, is both beautifully descriptive and very honest emotionally. I felt as if I were there in Mali with her.  I felt her moments of exultation, her moments of despair, her feelings of frustration viscerally and how important her relationships with the people of Mali were to her.  In addition, with her great sense of humor, there were many times she made me laugh. David not only shared many of his experiences both in terms of training and his job, but he also gave us the more scientific approach to life in Mali.  He spent time discussing the language they spoke, Bambara, that is in no way connected to any Indo-European language we know.  And he included a great explanation of the shaming game between joking cousins, which, as he explained, was a wonderful way to keep peace and harmony between groups.  So while both books explored the same period of time in Mali, they were very different in scope and style and subject matter.  Asifa’s job became an effort to train the Malians to grow Moringa, a miracle tree whose leaves cure whatever it is that ails you including malnutrition and arthritis. This was to be done, as Asifa says, all in a simplified Bambara. And David’s task was to help promote and improve a radio station 20 minutes away by bicycle, speaking French (which David had learned long ago but hardly remembered).

 

So through their two books, we really got the feel of what it was like to live as mature Peace Corps volunteers in Mali.  The secondary phrase on their cover says it all – Riding the Peace Corps Rollercoaster in Mali, West Africa.  And a rollercoaster it was. Somewhere in their second year, a new political group took over the Malian government by force.  With gunfire and a coup d’état, the Peace Corps evacuated their volunteers almost immediately and suddenly.  There was hardly a chance or no chance to say goodbye.  As Asifa wrote in her postscript, “Sixteen months later, I live to tell you that those were some of the most fulfilling and exciting months of our lives.  We jumped off the cliff and we did learn to fly.”  And if you read this book, you too will jump off the cliff and fly with them.

 

Their book is available in paperback and kindle at Amazon and directly from Asifa and David as well. All royalties go directly to Jackson County’s United Way for the fire victims still struggling with survival.  There is also a copy in the library.

Book Review: The Wisdom of Psychopaths

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Book Review: The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers can Teach us about Success.  Kevin Dutton (Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012)

Reviewed by Bob Buddemeier

Dr. Kevin Dutton is a research fellow at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. He is an affiliated member of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy, and a best-selling author.

A word about a word — “wisdom” in the title is a bit misleading, implying as it does some integration of knowledge and understanding, whereas psychopaths are defined largely in terms of hard-wired negatives (lack of empathy, remorse, responsibility).  The thesis of the book, however, is that under some circumstances aspects of the hard-wired system can produce outcomes superior to those resulting from the actions — and especially the mental decision-making — of “normal” people.

This is hard to discuss with available terminology.  “Psychopath” has become generally identified with the more explicit “criminal psychopath” to the point where it is difficult to communicate about benefits or good qualities associated with psychopathy.  Fallon (The Psychopath Inside) uses the term “pro-social psychopath,” but that still leaves much to be desired.

In addition – another word about another word – “psychopathy” is not recognized as an accepted diagnostic term in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  The DSM includes psychopathy within its definition of Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), which Dutton alludes to as one of “the empirical and diagnostic combat zones of clinical definition.”

It’s both a strength and a weakness of Dutton’s book that he comes close to bridging the terminology gap — but doesn’t quite make it.  He introduces us to the basic models and conclusions in the first few chapters, with the following sections presenting examples, details, alternatives or explanations.  He makes the point that there are a number of characteristics that go into the making of a total psychopath, and that any or even all of these may be present to some degree in non-psychopaths.  It’s just when all of the switches are “on,” all of the knobs are full clockwise, and all of the sliders are fully to the right that the dashboard is set for Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy.  Ultimately, however, he never gets us to the Rosetta Stone that somehow couples the four psychopathic “factors” (his fig. 2.6) with the four Myers-Briggs personality types.  It’s probably just as well.

                    Probability of Success

A moderate mixture, with only a few strong characteristics, can be very advantageous.  Figure 1 is a conceptualized plot of probability of career success — whether as a criminal or a law-abiding citizen — as a function of relative psychopathy.  Psychopaths are unusually sensitive to the vulnerability of potential victims; in law enforcement, an intuition for guilty behavior is a parallel.  Con men and violent criminals are bad; if they are on our side, the rather similar spies and Special Forces Commandos are good.  The cold-blooded decisiveness of a deadly knife-fighter finds a parallel in the skills of an expert surgeon.

Starting from these rather undeniable parallels, Dutton moves on to a more detailed examination of psychopathy, which does not exactly flow to an integrated conclusion, but which I nonetheless found interesting, informative, and even entertaining.  The author writes informally in the first person, with an evident sense of humor and a “just one of the boys” style.  A lot of his professional interviews seem to take place in bars, with the occasional crude expression reminding us that this is not an academic treatise.

We learn about the PPI (Psychopathic Personality Inventory) for assessing trends in the general public, the PCL-R (Psychopathy Checklist — Revised) for forensic application in prisons and hospitals, and the B-scan (for assessing psychopathy in a business context).  Even more interesting are the tests, games and experiments designed to develop and apply these various measurement tools — and some of the results.  In a situation where there is a choice between sacrificing a few people and allowing a large number to die, the desirable utilitarian result is much more likely to be achieved by a psychopath than by a normal person — who is too reluctant to kill at all.

In addition to meeting some chilling (or merely disgusting) psychopaths, we get some feeling for both the “good psychopaths” and for the researchers on psychopathy, who try to use an arguably somewhat normal mind/brain to describe and understand one that is nearly outside the bounds of human recognition.  All are fascinating, and the combinations especially so.

Toward the end of the book Dutton comes up, in a very understated way, with the explanation for the title:  “I label the skill set the Seven Deadly Wins — seven core principles of psychopathy that, apportioned judiciously and applied with due care and attention, can help us get exactly what we want; can help us respond, rather than react, to the challenges of modern-day living; can transform our outlook from victim to victor, but without turning us into a villain:

  • Ruthlessness
  • Charm
  • Focus
  • Mental Toughness
  • Fearlessness
  • Mindfulness
  • Action”

The key — criminal, or “bad” psychopaths may possess all of the principles, but usually cannot avoid villainhood because they lack the willingness, or perhaps the ability, to apportion judiciously and appl[y] with due care and attention.

The Seven Deadly Wins can enhance most capabilities, but the outcome depends on the accompaniments – add compassion, humility, and faithfulness, and you get a saint.  Add narcissism, manipulativeness, and cold-heartedness, and you get Elmer Gantry – or Jim Jones.

…..

Post-script:  In “The Wisdom of Psychopaths” we meet Andy McNab, who scores very high on the psychopathy rating scale, and whose social roles have included those of highly decorated hero of the SAS (British Special Forces) and successful author – a “good psychopath” if there ever was one.
After writing the review, I came across the following:  “The Good Psychopath’s Guide To Success:” How to use your inner psychopath to get the most out of life, by Dr. Kevin Dutton and Andy McNab, MCM, MM.  Apostrophe Books, 2014.
I haven’t read it, but the opportunity is clear – put away your chainsaw and open your brokerage account, and the sky is the limit.

Book Review: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

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Last May, resident Sally Densmore also submitted a review about “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” which she encouraged others to read.  We feel that the following review neither negates nor duplicates Sally’s, which was written on a more personal basis.  Taken together, they supplement — or we should probably say, complement — each other in focusing attention on a critically important topic.  Indeed, others have been appreciating the book as well as the other books referenced at the end of this article, and we hope that multiple reviews in the Complement will inspire yet more people to engage with the issues.

Leslie      Schettler

Reviewed by Leslie Schettler and Anne Newins.  

Anne Newins

Legendary Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill was famous for saying “all politics is local.”  Bill Gates, one of the world’s wealthiest men and mega-philanthropist, understands that in the case of addressing climate change, all politics must necessarily be global, along with corporate innovation and investment, research and development.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates (Alfred Knopf 1921) is an optimistic book, but Gates acknowledges that the necessary steps will be complicated, hard and expensive.  This short volume is intended for the readers who may not have a strong science background.

Gates says there are two numbers one needs to know about climate change.  One is 51 billion and the other is zero.  51 billion is the number of tons of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere every year.  Zero is what we need to aim for, in order to stop the warming and avoid the worst effects of climate change.

There are five “takeaways”:

  1. We have five sources of carbon emissions, all of which need to drop to zero:
    making things; growing things; getting places; plugging in; keeping warm and cool.
  2. Progress is a good thing, but it means increasing greenhouse gases. Many developing countries are just now experiencing the industrial growth that is already a part of the rich world.  Gates wants to find ways to continue to improve their prosperity, while still addressing carbon emissions.
  3. We need to drive down the “green premiums” in every sector, i.e., the difference in cost between choosing the existing option and upgrading to an emissions free (or emissions-reduced) option, such as an electric car. Gates provides a number green premium estimates, such as switching to biofuels for aircraft.  In some cases, the premiums are high, in other cases less so.  He is optimistic that some premiums may reduce over time as innovations are improved and more widely incorporated.
  4. The technology we need has yet to be invented; in this area Gates argues for nuclear power as the most efficient energy source because it supplies clean, reliable energy 24/7. He also discusses wind and solar energy, direct air capture and point capture (trapping pollution where it starts).
  5. We need to adapt to and prepare for existing warming while planning for zero.

Gates follows these discussions with a chapter on the importance of government policies, a plan for getting to zero, and a summary of what each of us can do.

At the end he shares a quote from Hans Rosling, author of Factfulness (also available in the RVM library), “When we have a fact-based worldview, we can see that the world is not as bad as it seems—and we can see what we have to do to keep making it better.”

Reviews of the book have been generally positive.  In a New York Times review, Bill McKibben, author of the highly regarded Falter, credits Gates with addressing the issue and his numerous philanthropic investments. At other times, McKibben is more critical.

Gordon Brown, in a review in The Guardian says that “Gates’s most important proposals involve new technologies,” and that he “is right about the scale and urgency of the problem.”

Besides Gates’ and McKibben’s books, several other related books might interest residents and also are available in the Manor library. The Gates book is also available in large print. Other books include Drawdown by Paul Hawken, and Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Beloved naturalist David Attenborough has recently published A Life on Our Planet, and a copy will be made available in the library by late July.

Aging and Dying Your Way

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Submitted by Anne Newins

Volunteers set up a display table every month in the RVM library. We select topics that we think will appeal to our residents’ wide range of interests. Lately, there have been activities in the Manor that have spurred a strong response to issues about aging and long-term planning. These have included the popular presentation by Beth Knorr, a Foundation Board member and well-regarded estate planner.

In turn, a follow up class is being facilitated by Linda Bellinson, LCSW, and Debi Watts, to help residents address topics in a handout created by a Manor resident committee and provided in connection with Beth Knorr’s presentation. The class has filled up quickly, but additional ones will be offered if there is a demand. (Note: Linda Bellinson is available to meet individually with people who may be struggling with end-of-life issues. Her extension is 7157.)

Library volunteers have received several requests to provide a related display. So, the September display will include many books that may intrigue readers. All will be non-fiction.

The books cover a wide number of subjects. Below is a list of some of them, a few with brief reviews.

Practical information:

The Best Way to Say Goodbye, by Stanley Terman

Final Journeys, by Maggie Callahan

Death with Dignity:

A large binder of information compiled by Jan Rowe and Daphne Fautin that includes many resources related to the subject will be on display but may not be checked out.

Final Exit, by Derek Humphrey

Memoirs and Reflections:

Gratitude, by Oliver Sacks

I would like to put in a special plug for this short volume, which was completed weeks before Sacks’ death. Sacks aptly has been described as the “poet laureate” of medical writing, and this uplifting book contains page after page of lyrical writing. Below are a few paragraphs from “In my Life,” one of the essays included in Gratitude.

“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world….

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

Diseases:

Mayo Clinic Guide to Preventing and Treating Osteoporosis

Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker

Parkinson’s Guide for Dummies

Mayo Clinic Guide to Arthritis

Personal Revlections:
How Gray is my Valley, by Sharon Johnson
Everything in its Place, by Oliver Sacks
Knocking on Heaven’s Door, by Katy Butler

We hope that residents will find this display of value. 

For a list of DVDs in the RVM collection on the subject, click here.

July Library Book Display

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July Library Display

Library Volunteer Judy Simpson looks over this month’s display.

Visit the Library’s July book display which focuses on the Founding of the Country and its founding fathers, founding mothers, and founding brothers with books by Pulitizer Prize winning authors and New York Times best selling authors.  Here are some examples.

“Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates” (an audio book), tells of pirates boarding the new country’s ships and kidnapping American sailors for slaves and ransom.  Jefferson sent the U.S. Navy’s new warships and the Marines to Tripoli, beginning America’s journey toward super power status.

“Founding Mothers” by New York Times bestseller Cokie Roberts provides an intimate look at women behind the scenes such as Abigail Adams, Deborah Read Franklin, and Martha Washington.  Social history at its best, proving that without our exemplary women, the new country might never have survived.

“Benjamin Rush” by New York Times bestseller Stephen Fried, describes one of the youngest signatories, an M.D. called the Father of American Psychiatry, who revolutionized treatment of mental illness and addiction,

There are fiction, non-fiction, large print, and audio books.  Come and enjoy some of our nation’s early history.

Pidgin Then And Now

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A cultural commentary to accompany A Special Book

by Tom Conger, kamaaina (Hawai’i-born) RVM resident 

As the percentage of residents with Hawaii roots at RVM maintains well into double digits, it seems right to borrow the recent newsletter article (A Special Book, by Sally Hayman) dealing with pidgin, or Hawaiian Creole English, from our sister Mirabella Seattle. As many of our RVM kamaaina were also born & raised in the islands before Pearl Harbor—or at least pre-statehood — speaking pidgin was a given. We not only communicated among ourselves, and the populace in general, in the dialect of our specific island, or neighborhood (or plantation camp), but likewise lived within the overarching polyglot culture of the Territory. To now learn that a devoted cadre of local translators have produced a Pidgin Bible is not surprising. Sure, “da missionaries” made a Bible in Hawaiian in their early efforts to convert the heathen, but not many of us in those idyllic days before the War were fluent in pure Hawaiian; we used Hawaiian words in our pidgin, and conformed to planty old Hawaiian customs (and superstitions), but our everyday idiom was multicultural pidgin. Some of us were lucky enough to be sent to English Standard [or even private] schools, where we were exposed to/taught proper English, but old habits die hard.

For those of us who grew up (in, like, the early 1940s) talking pidgin as a matter of course, the patois held no novelty – it was just how life was back then.

Further, in those days – and shortly thereafter – there weren’t a lot of tourists arriving at Hawaii docks and/or crowding the few hotels which existed at the time. The way we talked, and got along, was simply the way we lived in our remote culture. Our pidgin was, and can be, surprisingly expressive, concise, and even unique; inflection was often key to the true intent of the terminology – it was not a written language. 

In ensuing decades, however, especially as Hawaii became more & more a tourist destination, the spoken jargon seems to have overpowered cultural aspects of the interface, and many attempts have been made to capture pidgin in print – some fairly successful, others missing the target by a wide margin.

Thus we examine Da Good an Spesho Book from a cautious perspective. A labor of love, requiring twenty-nine individuals working for 33 years from the original Greek, the eventual opus cannot be considered casually slapped together; they did elect, from any number of various island/ethnic dialects, a heavier rural pidgin than is heard in more urban environs. Please bear in mind that the Bible is a perpetual best-seller, printed in a myriad of languages ‘round the girdled earth; thus passages translated into the pidgin as presented are familiar to readers who’ve already seen that text [more than once…] in their native tongue.  A cursory review of Genesis reads as a plain and literal restatement of the original Greek/Aramaic with some pidgin terms substituting for the archaic structure. Some of the phonetics conventions the translators adopted may appear a little awkward for contemporary readers: by now, many of us have grown accustomed to pidgin phonetics which may look funny written but sound exact in our head. Since Pidgin varies over time and from place to place, the size and duration of the project makes it inevitable that some inconsistencies arise.  Local terms that have become commonplace are not used – for example, the Standard English “inside” is used instead of “eensai,” and “like that” is rendered as “li’dat” rather than “lahdat.”  “Peopo” kept stopping my eye as I scanned the content; most contemporary transcribers would render the phonetics as “peepo.”  However, these minor criticisms pale into insignificance when compared to the magnitude of the accomplishment.  As an endorsement on the back cover shouts, “We need a Pidgin Bible!”

Rachel’s Curios

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Read more

Move to End Manor Segregation

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NIT WIT NEWZ

 

(Nit Wit Newz is an unauthorized, often unreliable, on-line news service designed to keep Manor residents abreast of the inconsequential, sometime fanciful, and most always superficial events that dramatically shape and inform our everyday lives here at Rogue Valley Manor.)

 

Long simmering resentment erupts.  RVM cat owners—miffed for years at not having a dedicated area of play for their pets— demand equal access to Manor Dog Park. Insist area embrace diversity—become equal-opportunity animal recreational area.

Committee, Fairness For Felines (FFF), formed to advance cat owners’ cause.

               The XXXXXX Park

First step of FFF proposal:  Name change to “All Pets Park” followed by necessary infrastructure alterations including lining of dog park area with raised cubby holes to provide for cat comfort and safety, as well as enable easy viewing of dogs’ endless (cats would say, “senseless”) joy in chasing balls thrown by owners.

Upon completion of structural improvements, FFF plans call for three-week period of cautious transition by bussing (via Manor Express) a few campus cats into park each day for brief “meet and greet” intervals. Committee confident precautions will foster a rapid détente between the two historically contentious animal species.

When dog-cat rapport is achieved, FFF plans call for park to be opened to all RVM pets.

Anxiously awaiting that eventuality, new RVM resident, B. Wildered, living in one-room Manor apartment, has been seeking campus recreational area for his penguin.

Strong push-back mounted by Manor dog owners. Seek to defuse FFF

    Park Guardian- Beware

demands. Propose alternative cat-only, “Catatorium” structure to be erected on existing ninth hole of Quail Point Golf Course adjacent to planned construction of new RVM residential units. RVM management nonplussed— wary of entanglement in explosive dog/cat owners imbroglio, yet hesitant to commit to a structure that may  dampen  prospective residents’ interest in planned new units.

FFF spurns “Catatorium” alternative.  Claim “separate but equal” solutions to societal problems have proven unsuccessful. Insist that ancient canine-feline disputation can be overcome by enlightened affirmative action.

Although campus dog owners continue to resist sharing of recreational space, impasse softens—both parties relent to binding arbitration settlement.   Hearing to be held at next month’s RVM Resident’s Council Meeting.

While aggrieved parties await decision, the question our story asks remains: Can the lion and the lamb lie down together in peace and harmony? And alongside a penguin, too?

The answer awaits us.

Video:  Stray Cat Crashes Dog Park and Feels Right at Home (if an ad appears hit “skip ad”)

  https://youtu.be/45CjOckljyY

—A. Looney

Digital Currency Firm Eyes Manor Retail Location

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NIT WIT NEWZ

(Nit Wit Newz is an unauthorized, often unreliable, on-line news service designed to keep Manor residents abreast of the inconsequential, trifling and superficial event that dramatically shape and inform our everyday lives here at Rogue Valley Manor.)

DIGITAL CURRENCY FIRM EYES MANOR RETAIL LOCATION

Volatile cryptocurrency firm, Bitcoin, rumored to be negotiating with RVM officials for vacated U.S. Bank space in Manor.  Reportedly seeking site close to a large senior community.

Company officials suggest digital-currency provides needed balance to resident portfolios that are likely over- weighted with safe, dependable, well performing investments while ignoring risky, adventurous financial vehicles such as Bitcoin.

Bitcoin management further claims that their presence at Manor would attract other exciting, high-flying firms (e.g., GameStop, Robinhood) to ground-floor Manor location creating—along with existing offices of  CPA and Financial Planning firms—a convenient, full-service, financial services center for residents (absent only —a bank).

Financial center “master plan”, according to Bitcoin executives, would necessitate reconfiguration of existing Manor office space. Propose combining men’s Haberdashery shop and women’s Boutique into one, gender-neutral, unisex clothing store.

Negotiations, however, have turned negative.  RVM management skeptical.  Fear presence of Bitcoin office on campus could well jeopardize financial security of residents.   Moreover, Manor operatives uncover a heretofore undisclosed agenda for cryptocurrency firm’s acute interest in U.S. Bank’s former retail space—In the event of sudden, severe financial market reversals, no hasty, untoward incidents could occur from first floor, windowless location.

Bitcoin’s last ditch effort to sway Manor officials—for each Bitcoin purchase, Manor residents would receive the widely coveted gift of a My Pillow—fails to win over RVM management.

Breaking news:  Negotiations have collapsed.

 

—A. Looney

 

 

 

Book Review: Power Couple

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Book Review: Power Couple by Alex Berenson
(Simon & Schuster) Feb 2021

Reviewed by Bonnie Tollefson

Bonnie Tollefson

Alex Berenson is the author of 12 fast paced books in the John Wells series but Power Couple is one of his stand-alones. Brian and Rebecca Unsworth are in Europe on a trip to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. Rebecca is a lawyer turned FBI agent working the Russian counterintelligence desk. While her career has stationed her in Alabama and Texas, she now works in Washington DC. Brian in the meantime was at first a stay at home dad then had various computer related jobs before he ends up in DC on a crack team for the National Security Agency. Traveling with them in Europe are Kira, their 19 year old first born, and her younger brother, Tony. One evening in Paris, Kira and Tony meet a good looking French graduate student named Jacques. Kira is attracted but unfortunately, the family is leaving for Spain the next day. Jacques offers to follow them to Spain and meet Kira in a famous bar he knows of. Jacques is not what he seems and things go downhill for Kira. No spoilers here, but this story has more twists and turns than a curvy mountain road and somebody ends up dead. It is available in large print at the RVM Library as are two of the John Wells series.