Overground railroad: the green book and the roots of black travel in America.   by Candacy Taylor

The green book represents an ingenious solution to a horrific problem - optimism of a race of people facing tyranny and terrorism.

An opportunity to examine America's story of segregation,  black migration, and the rise of the black leisure class; and you go to these sites you remember that America is a messy collection of customs traditions and values and beliefs systems that have been shaped by capitalism patriarchy and white supremacy.

“Don’t buy where you can’t work” great theme for a protest I think

“Sundown town” is an all white enclave that bands black people from entering after dark.

Esso corporation headed by Rockefeller had a vision for treating black people with dignity and respect back in the 1930s. I never knew he had done such good things wayback when and had someone of color, even at the VP level. 

Some green book hotels are literally the first tourist homes - the first Airbnb’s

The new Jim Crowe mass incarceration in the age of color blindness found that more African-Americans are under correctional control today than were enslaved in 1850.

History does not repeat itself humans do!

Prison gerrymandering takes black people out of their communities and places them at least in the census in a nearly all black inmates are counted as resident in the prison instead of the towns where they are from .

Not a particularly well written or structured book. Fraught with redundancy  and cobbled together thoughts. It was extremely well researched and commented. Overwhelming in the totality of institutional racism that has and does continue to define America. Yet, another voice that aids in the awakening of the need for change  in the US of A.

Here in the Real World  by Sara PennyPacker

Under the guise of pre-screening a new book to share with Eden and or Dean, in the NYT Reviews,I found this from the author of Pax, - Here in the Real World - a middle grade novel that is “an ode to introverts, dreamers, and misfits everywhere”.  It had me second guessing at the beginning, in candor to the end, whether it was an evangelical, born-again novella. It was not, she simply uses that vocabulary and language in a comfortable, natural, non-forced manner. I should do more of that by embracing gospel terms in my everyday language. I think the kids will enjoy it. I did.” Don’t ask to be normal - you are so much more than that.” The main characters are different yet the same as they try to self identify and as they do , how to live in a world that does not always embrace who you want to be. Naturally, it is set in Florida.

Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell.

Gladwell proposes that we don’t know how to talk to strangers because of this we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding that have a profound effect on life in the world. He provides very solid examples. However I feel short-changed at the end in that he doesn’t provide sufficient solutions or workarounds. Still an interesting read.

• Assume the best of other people is an anchor point of modern society
• There are definitely limits to our ability to decipher a stranger . And statistically were easily mistaken
• we need to exercise restraint / caution and humility when evaluating a stranger
• Truth and transparency are needed recognize that we don’t understand the stranger 

We are the weather Jonathan Safran Foer

We are the weather - saving the planet begins at breakfastJonathan Safran Foer

We all have to choose to make a difference as little as I can be and as public as it can be

   Over the years my motivations changed because the available information changed because my life changed aging has proliferated  my identities ,  time softens ethical boundaries fosters a greater appreciation for what might be called the messiness of life 

      A pivotal moment in the Bible where God asks his people where they are he finds Adam hiding after eating the forbidden fruit and says where are you?and when he calls to Abraham before asking about sacrifice his only son clearly an omniscient God knows where his creations are his questions are not about the location of a body in space but the location of a self within a person

⁃ 59% crop growing land is growing crops  for livestock 

⁃ 1/3 of all freshwater that human use this for livestock 

⁃ 70% of the antibiotics produced globally are used for livestock 

⁃ 60% of all mammals on earth are raised for food 

⁃ There are 30 farm animals for every human on the planet

The four  highest impact things an individual can do to tackle climate change are :

1- eat a plant-based diet 

2- avoid air travel 

3- use the car less

4- have fewer children

I  could not see it because I was not looking for it

It’s a shame that instead of having a minority of climate atheists we have a majority of climate  agnostics

It is not enough to say that we want more life m, we must refuse to stop saying it! can you show me a home together which was arguing with ourselves and we shall make a home together

Kindness and Wonder Fred Rogers By: Edwards Gav

Kindness and Wonder

Fred Rogers

By: Edwards Gav

I just finished listening to this delightful book of an exemplar man; and I’m anxious to see the movie with Tom Hanks . Fred was incredibly consistent between his public and private self; in a good way. 

I enjoyed listening ! 

Phrases to go by

1-there’s just one person in the world just like you and I like you just the way you are

2- A gift of a grand piano from his grandma change the way Fred saw him self

3- there’s no contradiction in using a secular tool for religious purpose (his view was the TV the brothers today as the Internet)

4- pray more for other people in the morning before your day starts

5- that which is essential is invisible to the eye - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

6-You can talk to me about anything you want to and I will try to help you in anyway I can

7- Did I help someone in need today and I let them know I was their friend

Emulate Fred Rogers:

• Be deep and simple 
• Be kind to strangers
• Make a joyful noise
• Tell the truth
• Connect with other people in anyway you can
• Love your neighbor
• Find the light in the darkness
• Always see the very best in everyone
• Accept the changing seasons
• Share what you learn
• (Spontaneous acts of kindness)

The Convert A Novel. Stefan Hertmans. Translated by David McKay

 T

The Convert

A NOVEL.

by Stefan Hertmans 

Translated by David McKay

The story where worlds collide. What’s the blond-hair blue-eyed Viking descendant daughter of a Christian manor lord doing getting married with a Jewish son of a rabbi traversing old France to Egypt evading pogroms and the Crusuades kicking into gear in the 1090’s .

This historic novel is narrated by the author (within the book - not Stephan hertsman) writing the book about the woman convert . Retracing her steps of the 1100s as sleuths

the puzzle of documentation and place 1000 yrs after the fact , by retracing her steps today.

If you like the middle ages , like revisiting places in Egypt and France and Spain that you visited before; like a blend of good guys between Muslims and Christians and Jews - then this is a book for you. I enjoyed all those aspects what a fun read it was a quick read.

Lost and Found. Orson Scott Card

Lost and Found

Orson Scott Card 

Coming of age , growing up story - find your place in the world , no matter how odd - old you might be ; and grab on to your potential 

The boy who harnessed the wind

The boy who harnessed the wind. Film

The boy who harnessed the wind   

This film depicts in subtext, how climate change deeply affects people so dependent on farming for every bite of food they eat and what little cash they can earn. While this film is primarily about a very bright young man who helps his family and community, the underlying conditions affecting them are apparent. It brings home why people become so desperate to leave their homeland when even basic education is denied their children and famine is staring at them with ravenous eyes.
We have so much here and somehow think we are special, blessed. But we are just the beneficiaries of ancestors who were forced by circumstances out of their homelands to come here and steal the lands of the people who had been here for thousands of years. Instead of being grateful for what we have, we sit on our largesse of goods like misters and begrudge even our own poor enough to live. Look at the tents of the homeless lining our city streets.
Yes, this film raises all of these thoughts and questions and it is marvelous how this 13y boy succeeded to help this one community. But if the rest of us sitting on spaceship Earth don't recognize soon that we are all one family dependent on our One Strange Rock we too will find out what it means to be destitute and abandoned by our elected government. Wind power indeed, a real solution and we can help by supporting the development of it and solar energy, no polluting, clean and available everywhere.

A good film to learn from and spark conversation 

Insights Russell M Nelson

Insights from a prophets life.
Russell m Nelson
By Sheri Dew

Not to be read as a novel
Not to be read as a biography
Not to be read as a memoir tell-all

Sheri Dew presents the prophet as an ordinary man. Which is an impossibility . How do you put under a barrel and hide the light of someone who  can:
- speak Spanish and Chinese over the pulpit
- can still accompany a soloist on the piano
- can dissect a scripture
- invented heart transplant methodology
- is  a heart surgeon

For goodness sake’s there’s nothing normal about him

 And then with that in mind what looks like an interesting collection of stories and notes regarding his life his ministry his service his family. Because he plays such a significant  role in the church at some point trying to understand him.  I enjoyed the reading. Not a great book but what a great man in so many ways . 

No Great Mischief. Alistair MacLeod

No Great Mischief. Alistair MacLeod

To be honest the first baseline question I had in regard to this book  was - Are the Irish Celtic or Gaelic? 

Celtic is subgroup of the Indo-European language family. Gaelic is a language belonging to this group. To be more precise, Gaelic actually refers to a group of three close related Insular Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx.

And others would argue that the British ethnicities of English, Welsh and Scottish are therefore clearly distinct from Gaelic Irish, however they do all fall into a wider “Anglo-Celtic” ethnogenetic supergroup.

My favorite English -based  language experience occurred in London when I lived in Madrid and worked for John Ryan. I had been trying to land a London-based client and this looked like the opportunity. It was a multi-national bank located through-out Great Britain. The kick-off meeting was attended by a dozen regional bankers,  couple of guys from  corporate, and my two assistants;  one who was himself a brit and the other from MN.  We sat at a round conference table and the participants were energized and engaged and soon realized we had a very real linguistics issue.  With my Spanish clients they knew it was a second language and they were very patient with me and supported and enabled my getting eye contact to facilitate, my reading lips, them speaking distinctly and me carefully following the conversation. Not so easy this day in London.

"Dialects are linguistic varieties which may differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling and grammar. ... The major native dialects of English are often divided by linguists into three general categories: the British Isles dialects, those of North America, and those of Australasia.”

The combination of differences in pronunciation and use of local words may make some English dialects almost unintelligible to speakers from other regions. This WAS happening to me.  There is a discernible difference between an accent and a dialect. An accent is “a way of pronouncing a language.” This is interesting because it means that everyone in the world, no matter the language, has an accent. To not have an accent means to not pronounce anything at all. So BAH to those Utah California  Minnesotan who claim to have none . A dialect is “a particular form of language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group”. So between, dialect and accent, there are myriad variability. How many English dialects are there that are recognizable from one another?  Specifically, the language experts declare there are 160 distinct English dialects throughout the world; England has the most amount of distinct dialects with 29 different ones (not including dialects from Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Man, or the Channel Islands). My friends and I counted 15 present in our conference room; of which I could readily understand perhaps 9. The resulting cacophony lost me - I had been taking notes but begged off to my assistant and had him take charge of note taking because he could understand most everyone. It was a great lesson to me that day about listening, understanding differences, and how what seemed to be the same, could vastly differ.

Back to the book. I wasn’t enjoying it to begin with with as it was feeling too morose and burdened with painful family anxieties encumbered with trying to lift me by those same notions of family.  There’s probably more levity in the book than I could catch on to, but the story grew on me and as it did, ultimately became hard to putdown. Loyal dogs? Anti-Quebec characters? Perhaps not my favorite themes; nonetheless a great read of a hard scrabble life of a disrupted group from the Scottish Highlands who mix with other French and some English Canadians doing whatever work they can.

 The motif for the humans is that the past is always relevant to the present moment. And, as with all family history, the novel is laced with tragedy and death.