guns

Book Two for 2026: “The Hounding”, Xenobe Purvis

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This recently published book is one of the latest in a bookclub to which my grandson belongs. Although an historical novel based on the reporting of an actual event in 1701, much of it applies to today’s world. In 1701, Dr. John Friend reported to the the Royal Society of England about a “rumuor spread” which discussed a report that young girls in the Oxfordshire country side had “been seized with frequent barking in the manner of dogs.”

Five sisters live with their grandfather on an affluent farm in the country. Due to the recent death of their grandmother, they go around dressed in black as was the custom. Because they stay to themselves a lot, roam freer than most girls, they are often looked upon with suspicion by the villagers. One man, who ferries everyone to and fro over the nearby river, has issues with women and loathes these girls because he thinks they are too independent and views them as defiant and thinks they ridicule him because they do not chat with him when they use the ferry. He also has a severe drinking problem and spends all of his free time in the village pub. He is about to be married to a local woman but has severe anxiety over this because he thinks his new wife might try to boss him around.

Most of the men in the village spend their evenings drinking in the pub and often resort of fights and various forms of violence when issues arise. They see this as manly behavior. They view with suspicion any man who does not behave as they do. The woman, Temperance, who serves them hates alcohol and goes so far as to wear leather gloves so the alcohol will not touch her hands. She is one of few in the village who does not believe in rumors and supports rational behavior.

Everything goes awry when during a severe drought, the river dries up, the heat overcomes everyone, and Pete, the ferryman, insists he has seen the five sisters bark and turn into dogs and incites fear in many in the village. It seems to matter little that the two young men who work for the girls’ grandfather, proclaim that the girls are perfectly normal and none of this is true.

This novel raises various issues that continue as issues hundreds of years after the above incident:

-What does it take to make a man? What characteristics define real manhood? Is manhood defined by violence or kindness and compassion?

-How much freedom is okay for women? How much independence and who determines this?

-When is drinking ok and how much? Should people stop people who become violent when drunk?

-What happens to a neighborhood, a society, when people start to believe all sorts of stuff that is not true? Can it be stopped and how?

An Abecedarian Poem for Sudan

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While a lot of the world is focused on Ukraine and Israel/Gaza, since April 2023, two groups, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, have been fighting for control of Sudan. 11.1 million people are displaced and more than 17,000 killed, mostly civilians including children. Currently, for the second time since 2003, famine lurks at the door of Darfur state. Although I wrote the poem thinking about Sudan, a lot of the same conditions apply to Congo.

Amidst the denuded trees along a wide

boulevard walked a tall, dark-haired girl

carrying a large basket filled with a few

deep red pomegranates, two brown

eggs and three delicate pastries

filled with pineapple, cinnamon, and

guava, her favorite. She felt lucky.

Her mother sent her to the market, her mother

ill with ague, shivering, fevered,

jaundiced, too young to be dying, her father

killed in the endless wars which had

leveled so many cities and villages.

Men filled with the desire for revenge, for power,

never thinking how forgiveness and love could

overcome the endless devastation.

People plagued by angry men, men so

quick to condemn all not their tribe, their own,

retribution driving them week after week.

Some lay dying on the streets or dead as

the girl walked around their bodies

under the relentless, tropical sun.

Void of relief, fearful but determined, she

walked on toward the remains of her home.

Xenophobia once again stalked the streets,

young men brandishing assault rifles. Animals in the

zoo seem kinder, more caring.

Book 21 for 2024: “The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu”, Tom Lin

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If you like the unusual, violence, magic, revenge, stories of racism, classism, and Westerns, this is the book for you. Ming Tsu, a Chinese orphan at the time when the Chinese were building the railroad, is taken in by the head of a crime organization and taught to be an assassin. He falls in love with Ada, the daughter of a wealthy railroad magnate, elopes with her only to have her father (who has hired the crime organization to further his goals) kidnap her and force Ming Tsu into labor for the railroad. He eventually escapes, joins with a Chinese clairvoyant whom he calls the Prophet and a group of touring magic show performers, many of whom have supernatural abilities. He sets out to gain revenge, hunting down and killing all who helped his father-in-law kidnap Ada and put him in bondage. This is the classic Western romance, revenge story with a totally different twist and an unexpected ending.

Book 10 for 2024: “The Furies: Women, Vengeance, and Justice”, Elizabeth Flock

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This book raises these questions: Can women gain true safety and equality without violence? Can we end misogyny without fighting back?

The book details the stories of three women, one from Alabama, a woman from northern India, and a Kurdish fighter in northern Syria. All use a form of violence to overcome abuse and mistreatment they have experienced and see other women experiencing. The author personally interviewed all of these women and others close to them and visited them repeatedly.

The first is Brittany Smith, who shot the man who had raped her and was trying to kill her brother. Her story details how Stand Your Ground laws work for men, but often fail for women, especially in areas of the US South where men are protected by their beliefs in a male Code of Honor.

The second is the story of Angoori Dahariya, a Dalit woman, from Uttar Pradesh, India. Fed up, she creates a group called the Green Gang (they wear green saris) dedicated to defending poor, under caste, female victims of abuse. Note: Dalit refers to the lowest caste.

The third is the story of Cicek Mustafa Zibo, a Kurdish fighter in the female militia that fought ISIS in northern Syria. She and many others follow the teachings of Ocalan, a Kurdish leader imprisoned by the Turks for leading the Kurdish militia who for years have fought the Turks for independence. He teaches equality between men and women and women’s rights, which is anti the general cultural beliefs in this area of the world. Note: Ocalan is labeled a terrorist by many.

Book Seven for 2024: “After Eden, A Short History of the World”, John Charles Chasteen

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Want to learn a lot in less than 400 pages? Read this book. Published this year, it is the most recent book by a prominent Latin American scholar and historian. After humans learned agriculture and built cities, most of the population of the world became increasingly patriarchal and warlike. The divide between rich and poor increased. Egalitarian foragers and wandering hunters existed only in more remote areas. A few still exist in those remote and less modern corners of the world, often places where few others want to even go. This quote says a lot about the current state of affairs:

“Our civilization has thousands of years practice making war. We have almost NO practice making global peace, but without it we are doomed. Today’s pervasive nationalism and rearmament is unlikely to help us make global peace.”

And a page later:

“Only a true unanimous global effort has any chance to preserve our common home.”

He notes that saving Earth will take huge social transformations, including curbing the excessive consumer capitalism that currently pervades plus overcoming a world wide history where half of humanity mistreated the other half, a practice that still continues.

Shootings

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In Iowa

the governor says she’s praying

the senator says he’s praying

presidential candidates tell us to pray.

What?!

Oh, yes, I observe how well

that’s working.

82 school shootings last year,

39 dead, 89 wounded.

In US, death by gun is now primary

cause of demise for children and teens.

It’s not much better for the rest of us.

18,762 shot dead.

36,167 injured.

If you’re male, depressed, have a gun,

just shoot yourself.

Bang!

Thousands shot themselves.

I know some keep saying,

“People kill people, not guns.”

If you don’t have a gun,

you can’t shoot someone else

or yourself with one.

The most popular gun in the US?

An AR-15.

Think about that!

What does it tell

you about this country.

One Book a Week-51: “The Watch”, Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

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I could not stop reading this book. The setting is a US military outpost during the Afghan war in the middle of nowhere in the mountains of Kandahar. The weather is brutal–extremes of cold and heat, sand storms, heavy fog early in the mornings. Suddenly, after a brutal battle where they lose some soldiers, a young Afghan woman, Antigone, with stumps for legs shows up pulling a cart. Her brother, who the soldiers think was part of the Taliban, was killed in the battle; she wants her brother’s body for a proper Muslim burial. The soldiers do not know whether she is who she says she is or a suicide bomber. It confuses them even more when she plays hauntingly beautiful music on her rubab every night. All this leads to a lot of confusion over and raises many questions about morality and duty. Each chapter is from a different viewpoint, the young woman and various soldiers in the outpost.

Note: The rubab is a traditional Pashtun 12 string guitar-like instrument. You can find recordings on YouTube.

One Book a Week-46: “Road Fever”, Tim Cahill

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After reading two intense, somewhat depressing novels, I decided to read a lighter non-fiction work. An article I read mentioned a tale of two guys, Tim Cahill and Garry Sowerby, who drove a GMC Sierra pickup truck from Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska in less than 25 days. I like adventures and the best vehicle I ever owned was a Sierra 4 by 4 Off Road. I sold it to a former student when I moved. It was still going strong at over 300,000 miles.

In order to follow along on their adventure, I dug out my atlas and followed their trip through 13 countries, finding cities, little towns, rivers, mountains. When they traveled in 1987, the only place with no road was the Darien Gap on the border between Colombia and Panama–today still no road and now famous for all the migrants who labor through this dangerous, swampy, jungle area on foot on their way north. Since no road there, Tim and Garry had to load the truck onto a container ship in Cartagena and unload it in Panama. They also rode on the ship as passengers. This lead to their meeting some of the most colorful characters on their trip.

Along the way, they meet all sorts of people, e.g. sadistic police, kind employees of international GMC, a weird consulate employee, and helpful women, describe them and the landscape in detail. Procuring the right documents and proceeding across borders is sometimes easy and sometimes grueling, again described in detail. Of course, political leaders, ease of travel, etc. have changed in many places–I’ve been to or lived in five of the countries they traverse.

Want to explore new places, meet all sorts of folks?? Then this is the book for you and a fun read.

One Book a Week-29: “We Are Not Like Them”, Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

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A heart wrenching Prologue begins this contemporary novel about race, family, and friendship. Two children, one white (Jen) and one black (Riley), became best friends in kindergarten. Their close friendship endures to adulthood and through distance. Finally, once again in the same city, their bond is tested when Jen’s husband, a police officer, shoots an unarmed 14 year old black boy. Riley, a TV reporter, is assigned to interview the boy’s mother.

Their story, told from the viewpoints of both women, covers the effects of such a tragedy on family and fellow police officers and the community, illustrates the trauma of current events, and demonstrates how such a disaster tests all involved.

One Book a Week-26: “Holding Fire: A Reckoning With The American West”, Bryce Andrews

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If you LOVE the West, but sometimes struggle with its violent history, this is the memoir for you. Here is a quote from page 178: “I’m embarrassed at how long it has taken me to notice that a rancher’s view of the natural world is blindered in comparison to the hunter’s perspective; that driving livestock from one field to another is nothing like stalking free-ranging herds; that finding, gathering, and preparing a hundred different wild plants bears no resemblance to growing alfalfa or oats…”

Andrews also discusses the difference between sustainability and reciprocity. Before reading the book, I had never thought about this. He notes that sustainability is taking without damaging. Reciprocity entails giving back, e.g. nature, asking, “What can I give back? What can I do to take care of this place that feeds and shelters me?” This is quite different from “How much can I sustainably take?”

Andrews grew up in the West. However, after cowboying on several ranches in Montana, hunting annually, and later inheriting his grandfather’s Smith and Wesson revolver, he begins to question the gun violence and destructiveness of Western culture. This book details his journey. He continues to live on a farm in the Montana mountains, slowly transforming the land to make it profitable but also a place for nature, for wildlife to prosper.