Green Books Campaign: Trespassing: Dirt Stories and Field Notes

This review is part of the Green Books campaign.Today 200 bloggers take a stand to support books printed in an eco-friendly manner by simultaneously publishing reviews of 200 books printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper. By turning a spotlight on books printed using eco- friendly paper, we hope to raise the awareness of book buyers and encourage everyone to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books.

The campaign is organized for the second time by Eco-Libris, a green company working to make reading more sustainable. We invite you to join the discussion on "green" books and support books printed in an eco-friendly manner! A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.

Trespassing: Dirt Stories and Field Notes by Janet Kauffman
Wayne State University Press, 2008
Trage Paperback, 165 pages
Made in Michigan Writers Series
ISBN-13: 9780814333747
http://wsupress.wayne.edu/books/943/Trespassing

highly recommended

Description:

Trespassing is composed in equal amounts of short fiction and essays that illustrate the impact of modern factory farms—confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs)—on a rural Michigan community. Michigan author Janet Kauffman debunks the myth of the idyllic “clip art” farm of decades past by giving readers a close-up look at mega-meat and mega-milk, the extreme amounts of animal waste and barren countryside CAFOs produce, and the people who live in the midst of this new rural landscape threatened by agricultural sprawl. Trespassing considers the consequences of violating nature’s limits, giving readers a vivid impression of the irreversible damage that violation causes to our habitat.

My Thoughts:

Janet Kauffman's Trespassing: Dirt Stories and Field Notes combines short stories (Dirt Stories) and nonfiction essays (Field Notes) to illustrate the impact of confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, as well as other environmental issues, on rural Michigan communities. Janet Kauffman is a resident of rural Michigan, and in fact, has lived her whole life on farms. As a result of this, she approaches the environmental issues she writes about as an informed participant.

While the CAFOs produced great quantities of meat and diary products, they have some very real negative effects on the environment that are far reaching. While many people don't live in the country near a CAFO, you may very well live down stream from one. These issues actually should concern not just those living in Michigan, but everyone.

This fight concerns Kaufman personally. She lives daily with the effects of a CAFO. In the article "Farmer Turned Activist Fights Manure-Spreading Faults" we read that:
"The farms are home to 20,000 cows and produce as much waste as a city of 200,000 people. Waste from the barns where the animals live -- a stew that includes antibiotics, blood from births and cleaning solvents -- is washed into lagoons, where it sits until it can be pumped into trucks and spread on fields. When too much manure is applied to fields, it forms puddles that run off into streams."

If you've ever been in the area where a lagoon from a large farm operation is located, you know how awful the stench can be. Now imagine that in your water supply.

As part of the Eco-Libris campaign, allow me to point out that "this book is printed on 50% postconsumer recycled paper and 30% postconsumer recycled cover stock." "Recycled paper requires fewer trees to produce, is more energy efficient, results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions and hazardous air pollutants, and generates less solid waste and water pollution."

Janet Kauffman hit several hot buttons from some of my past personal crusades.
Those of you who know me in real life, know that before I started She Treads Softly, several moves and states ago, we lived on four acres outside a town in rural South Dakota. We liked living in the country and some of our fondest memories are of our huge garden, orchard, and watching the night sky for meteor showers or the Northern lights.

While living there, the community, still full of small family farms where cows did graze in fields, was fighting against a huge hog operation starting up in the area - and it was a fight. As Janet Kauffman would well know, the owners who wanted to start the hog operation weren't "farmers." They came from out of state. They didn't live on or even near their operations. They already had operations stinking up rural landscapes in nearby Nebraska and causing environmental problems. They also had some well paid lawyers on their side.

During that time we also were attending county commissioner meetings trying to keep a huge cell phone tower from being erected right by us. The representative from the company that wanted to erect the cell phone tower was from Boston. He had a condescending attitude toward those of us opposing the tower, not realizing that most of the neighbors were well educated. (It was a pity we never had a say about the new guy who moved out there the summer before we moved away and put in a high-watt night light, ruining the night sky.)

I've experienced a city (small town outside of the city) engineer (not trained) deciding a road needed to be straighten which resulted in the removal of two beautiful maple trees in our front yard. And, why, no, their actions did nothing noticeable that improved the road or the drainage; all it accomplished was the removal of several healthy trees and a whole bank of irises.

Finally, I have a real hang-up about watering grass. I have refused to water grass when I lived in places where water is generally plentiful and rains frequent. I especially refused to plant large areas of grass and water it when living in the high desert, where rain and water are not plentiful and people fight over water rights. I always found it absurd that many HOAs required a high percentage of grass in the landscaping. When we landscaped our front yard, our plans made it clear we were using xeroscaping.

Trespassing: Dirt Stories and Field Notes contents include:

Dirt Stories:
With My Hands, Swimming
Basking
Trespassing
Snail, Snail, Shoot Out Your Horns
Monitoring:10 Spot Samples
A Geography, A Library (Cecilia Says)
Carried Away
Downstream

Field Notes:
The Fantasy of the Clip Art Farm
Letting Go: The Virtue of Vacant Ground
Buried Water
malinger, meander, in perpetuity (A Creed)
This Stream, That Stream
Skinhead Agriculture

Highly Recommended

Quotes:

Hey, don't even picture cows in green pastures. No, they walk on concrete, and their knees bulge like your grandmother's, crawling on cobblestones for whatever crimes. pg. 3-4

She does not perk coffee for the EPA guys. But she assumes they'll show up, and when they do, she says, "Sit down. Here are the maps. Here's Child's Drain. This is what's happening." pg. 21

We've been sitting outside every day for a week, sort of guarding the maple tree, but mostly just watching everything else get ripped up, and trying to adjust our eyes to the new views. pg. 28

But the machinery's past Barry's house now. The trees are gone and so is what Eddie calls brush - all wild cranberry, bittersweet on the fenceline. pg. 32

Maggie told Arthur the red blinking light was as bad as his eye tick, he winking he did in meetings. It wrecked the scene. The lost dark was the worst, but daytime wasn't much better. In sunlight, the eye winked silver. pg. 43

Tatia would have said those words, too, tread lightly. She who treads lightly is kin to the sea. pg. 72

The livestock operations that surrounded my Midwest town, Hudson, Michigan, still call themselves farms. Most are dairies, and they're all huge, all built within the last few years. In the language of the law, they're CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) with more than one thousand "animal units" - that is, seven hundred or more confined cows - and open-air waste pits that hold millions of gallons of liquefied feces and urine. pg. 79

Despite the CAFO's wishful claim of "zero discharge" to surface water, we've had more than 140 discharge "events" and violations between 2000 and 2006 - animal waste over-applied, drained, dumped, or sprayed onto frozen ground, polluted liquid that flowed into drains and streams.
During one discharge, E. coli bacteria in a county drain reached 130,000/100 ml, a contamination level 130 times the acceptable level for partial body contact. pg. 95

...the idea that tillable ground should all be tilled - and idea that is clearing jungles and "bringing life" to some deserts today and causing desertification elsewhere. We have an arsenal of ideas about land use clearly as dangerous to human life on the planet as the use of nuclear arms. pg. 106

Odd Girl Out

Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls
by Rachel Simmons
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002
Hardcover, 296 pages
ISBN: 9780151006045
highly recommended

Synopsis from the publisher:

When boys act out, get into fights, or become physically aggressive, we can't avoid noticing their bad behavior. But it is easy to miss the subtle signs of aggression in girls--the dirty looks, the taunting notes, or the exclusion from the group-that send girls home crying.
In Odd Girl Out, Rachel Simmons focuses on these interactions and provides language for the indirect aggression that runs through the lives and friendships of girls. These exchanges take place within intimate circles--the importance of friends and the fear of losing them is key. Without the cultural consent to express their anger or to resolve their conflicts, girls express their aggression in covert but damaging ways. Every generation of women can tell stories of being bullied, but Odd Girl Out explores and explains these experiences for the first time.
Journalist Rachel Simmons sheds light on destructive patterns that need our attention. With advice for girls, parents, teachers, and even school administrators, Odd Girl Out is a groundbreaking work that every woman will agree is long overdue.

My Thoughts:

Rachel Simmons says that, "There is a hidden culture of girls' aggression in which bullying is epidemic, distinctive, and destructive." Adolescent female culture consists of manipulation, treachery, and strained niceties, which she calls “alternative aggressions.” To research and interview girls about bullying in Odd Girl Out, Simmons spent over three years in a total of 10 different schools. The schools were in two urban areas and a small town. She interviewed more than 300 girls and 50 women. Many of the interviews consisted of discussion groups with girls in schools.

Simmons offers a detailed portrait of how "alternative aggression" is used by girls as a weapon to control and bully other girls and the damage it inflicts on the victims self esteem. Simmons feels that societal restraints on girls expressing negative feelings or anger helps perpetuate the vicious cycle of bullying. Simmons writes, "it forces their aggression into nonphysical, indirect, and covert forms. Girls use backbiting, exclusion, rumors, name-calling, and manipulation to inflict psychological pain on target victims."

With many examples of the pain and isolation bullying causes, Simmons makes an impassioned plea that no form of bullying be permitted. She has one chapter discussing better ways to respond to a girl being bullied and open up communication between parent and child. Odd Girl Out includes chapter notes, an extensive bibliography, and an index.

While I found Odd Girl Out extremely interesting, I also noted several weaknesses. The most obvious weakness is in the lack of professional data. Simmons uses the stories/interviews of girls to support her conclusions, but these stories are merely narratives, not hard data. The other major weakness is the lack of any course of action and specific responses that need to be taken. Since it was originally published in 2002, I would hope that a more detailed course of action has been researched and is being implemented.

Although the many stories and interviews of victims and bullies might be helpful for those who need to feel they are not alone, I did become a bit weary of all the stories of victims. Just take note that all the interviews might not be for everyone. And if you are a teacher, you might feel Simmons is simplifying the dynamics of the school setting and unfairly targeting you as ineffective.

Additionally, Simmons herself noted another weakness. She "neglected to talk with more girls who do feel comfortable with anger and conflict." There are girls who will stick up for themselves and don't participate in the power play of these bullies. I was one of those girls. I would have also fit the description of one girl who said, "the quieter you are, the better off you are." I was quiet, but if someone tried to bully me I wouldn't tolerate it. (Perhaps it explains why my best friends were always boys.)

Finally, I think Simmons should have noted that many of the behaviors these girl bullies exhibit are carried into adulthood. There are plenty of women who still try to manipulate other woman. I'd call it passive/aggressive behavior rather than Simmon's "alternative aggression" but it's the same thing. Perhaps the only difference is that fewer adult woman tolerate that behavior in others.

Highly Recommended - those of you who feel the pain of being bullied or have a daughter being bullied might appreciate it the most

Quotes:

Now is the time to end another silence: There is a hidden culture of girls' aggression in which bullying is epidemic, distinctive, and destructive. It is no marked by the direct physical and verbal behavior that is primarily the province of boys. Our culture refuses girls access to open conflict, and it forces their aggression into nonphysical, indirect, and covert forms. Girls use backbiting, exclusion, rumors, name-calling, and manipulation to inflict psychological pain on target victims. pg. 3

Yet women of every age know about it. Nearly all of us have been bystanders, victims, or bullies. pg. 4

Overwhelmed by what I was discovering, I neglected to talk with more girls who do feel comfortable with anger and conflict. I regret that. pg. 8

When I began this journey three years ago, I wanted to write so that other bullied girls would know they were not alone. As I spent more and more time with the girls, I realized I was also writing to know that I was not alone. pg. 9

So, too, in classrooms of covertly aggressing girls, victims are desperately alone even though a teacher is just steps away. pg. 25

"Girls always look back at what you did the last time." pg,. 77

"It's just weird," she explained, squeezing a Beanie Baby, "because the quieter you are, the better off you are, because no one's going to find out or have rumors about you or anything....because your quiet and no one's going to find out anything about you. You don't tell. So no rumors about you and they only think of you as a quiet, nice person." pg. 171

We need to stop rewarding manipulation. We must encourage girls to embrace respectful acts of assertion and provide them with representations of female aggression that are neither sensationalized nor the stuff of fantasy. pg. 231

Mindscan

Mindscan by Robert J. Sawyer
Tom Doherty Associates, 2005
Hardcover , 304 pages
ISBN-13: 9780765311078
http://www.sfwriter.com/

highly recommended

Synopsis

Robert J. Sawyer's .... back with a pulse-pounding, mind-expanding standalone novel, rich with his signature philosophical and ethical speculations, all grounded in cutting-edge science.
Jake Sullivan has cheated death: he's discarded his doomed biological body and copied his consciousness into an android form. The new Jake soon finds love, something that eluded him when he was encased in flesh: he falls for the android version of Karen, a woman rediscovering all the joys of life now that she's no longer constrained by a worn-out body either.
But suddenly Karen's son sues her, claiming that by uploading into an immortal body, she has done him out of his inheritance. Even worse, the original version of Jake, consigned to die on the far side of the moon, has taken hostages there, demanding the return of his rights of personhood. In the courtroom and on the lunar surface, the future of uploaded humanity hangs in the balance.

My Thoughts:

In Mindscan by Robert J. Sawyer, Jake Sullivan lives with the knowledge that he has the same rare, hereditary disease that resulted in his father's long time vegetative state. He feels doomed until he discovers with his hereditary wealth he can be mindscanned, a process where his entire brain is scanned and downloaded into a technologically superior mechanical body that doesn't breathe, eat, or sleep and is theoretically immortal. The process, however, results in two Jake Sullivans.

While the flesh-and-blood Jake must renounce all ties to his earthly existence and live out the rest of his days in a deluxe retirement village on the dark side of the moon, the mindscanned Jake ends up starting a relationship with Karen Bessarian, a wealthy author who has also been mindscanned. When the original Karen dies, her son sues to inherit her estate. Meanwhile, the original Jake has cause to rethink his exiled status and the mindscanned Jake begins to hear voices in his head from other Jakes.

Mindscan speculates on the ethics of bio-technology, the nature of consciousness, and the meaning of life. In Sawyer's future socially liberal Canada contrasts sharply with the fundamental Christian-controlled USA. I felt Sawyer is, as usual, taking some swipes at the USA, which readers in the USA will have to overlook.

In general Mindscan is tightly plotted at the beginning and stays focused, until the trial begins and Jake starts hearing voices. The trial dragged out a little long, becoming mostly Sawyer having a philosophical discussion on the meaning of life, bringing in abortion and the question of when life starts. In reality, the question of the rights of the mindscanned "person" would have been addressed by teams of company legal experts ahead of time and a resolution would be in place. The voices sub-plot didn't work for me - it needed to be either better developed or left out.

But Sawyer also has some brilliant moments and funny passages that make you forgive him for some of his problems and excesses. Highly recommended - It would make a good movie with some editing

Quotes:

March 2018: There wasn't anything special about this fight. Honest to God, there wasn't. Dad and I had argued a million times before, but nothing awful had happened. Oh, he'd thrown me out of the house a couple of times, and when I was younger he used to send me to my room or cut off my allowance. But nothing like this had ever occurred. opening

I looked at my father, and I did something I hadn't done for five years. I started to cry. My vision began to blur, and so did my mind. As the doctor continued to talk to my mother, I heard the words "severe retardation," "total aphasia," and "institutionalize." pg. 15

She nodded. "You should have an MRI, too, Jake."
"What?" I said, my heart suddenly pounding. "Why?"
Dr. Thanh lifted her delicate eyebrows, and spoke very, very softly. "Katerinsky's is hereditary." pg. 15

(August 2045) Being old isn't what it used to be, I thought, shaking my head. Not that I was old myself: I was just forty-four. pg. 17

"Shall we?" said Karen. Something about her was charming — the Southern accent, maybe (Detroit certainly wasn't where she'd grown up) — and there were, of course, the connotations that went with being in a ballroom. I found myself offering my arm, and Karen took it. pg. 19

"Of course," he said, "we can't put the digital copy back into the original biological brain — but we can transfer it into an artificial brain, which is precisely what our process does. Our artificial brains congeal out of quantum fog, forming a nanogel that precisely duplicates the structure of the biological original. The new version is you — your mind instantiated in an artificial brain made out of durable synthetics. It won't wear out. It won't suffer strokes or aneurysms. It won't develop dementia or senility. And ..." He paused, making sure he had everyone's attention. "It won't die. The new you will live potentially forever." pg. 20

"And so," said Sugiyama, "we'll provide you with an artificial body — one that's infinitely maintainable, infinitely repairable, and infinitely upgradeable." He held up a long-fingered hand. "I won't lie to you, now or ever: as yet, these replacements aren't perfect. But they are awfully good." pg. 21

With our process, you'll have a virtually unlimited lifespan, with perfect eyesight and hearing, vitality and strength, self-sufficiency and dignity." He beamed out at his audience, and I could see people nodding to themselves, or talking in positive tones with their neighbors. It did sound good, even for someone like me, whose day-to-day troubles were nothing more irritating than acid-reflux disease and the odd migraine.

Sugiyama let the crowd chatter for a while before raising his hand again. "Of course," he said, as if it were a mere trifle, "there is one catch..." pg. 23

I knew what the one catch Sugiyama was referring to was. Despite all his salesperson's talk about transferring consciousness, Immortex couldn't really do that. At best, they were copying consciousness into a machine body. And that meant that the original still existed. pg. 24