This post doesn’t live here anymore. It migrated to my other blog:
The Big No-No: An Outsider on American Fascism, where it resides under the title:
“1984: Dutch Police Training Adjusts to Society’s Anti-Authoritarianism”
What Folks Have Been Reading
WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING
In the late 60s Richard Proenneke built his own cabin in the Alaskan wilderness with only a few simple tools. He spent most of the rest of his life there. Sam Keith fleshed out Proenneke's diary of his first 16 months, when he was making his home by a lake. I love these kinds of books!
An old Oji-Cree healer and her nephew canoe down a river in Canada, away from the world of white people. They both have to come to terms with their past. The woman has lost most of her tribe and the young man is traumatized from his recent experience in the Belgian trenches of World War One. My second book by Boyden. Can't say enough about him.
An incredibly comprehensive history of everything related to slavery in the Southern United States, from the beginning of the colonies to the end of the Civil War. Over 700 pages and I took over 30 pages of notes. I will be sharing over many posts to come!
Hamid's debut novel. I love this author. A young man in Lahore, Pakistan, is the victim of love, drugs, obsession, the class system and his complete lack of self-awareness.
A golem, created in Poland and brought to life on a ship to America, and a jinni who was trapped in a flask a thousand years ago and released in New York -- the most unusual immigrants you'll ever meet.
The only part of her life a Korean woman can control is her body, so she withdraws into it. Harrowing.
Autobiography lightly disguised as a novel about the son of Southern migrants growing up on the streets of Harlem, New York City, in the 1940s and 50s. Written like you're hearing the whole story in a bar. Quite a feat.
The story of a man struggling to make a living in Morocco. No plot, no clearly defined characters, but fascinating in its authenticity.
Pakistani man tells an American about his experience as a college student and employee of an assessment firm in America years ago. Smart, nuanced and pretty darn honest considering the unreliable narrator.
Wow! The answer to the inane platitudes about how all parents love their children and how children should always respect their parents. The protagonist must come to terms with his deeply flawed immigrant parents in order to change himself.
Seven short stories about life during the Kim Il-sung regime, by a writer who still lives and works in North Korea, were smuggled out of the country and translated. Mind-boggling stuff.
A 15-year-old autistic narrator wants to know who killed a neighbor's dog, and ends up much further out of his comfort zone than he planned. Wonderful read!
In politics, education, religion, agriculture, business--it turns out that dumbing down has been here from the start.
Fifty years of Istanbul seen through the eyes of a street vendor who migrates to the city as a young boy. It's also a window into the complicated dance between men and women in Turkey.
Hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying.
A Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with six other people on a tiny island off the coast of Maine all winter in 1873. A woman in the present researching the Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with three other people on a tiny sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?
A man stuck between two worlds in more ways than one. Fascinating!
Historical novel about early contacts between first nations and the French in Canada. Beautifully written story that doesn't pull any punches. I bought his other two novels right away.
Beautifully written. By my children's favorite English and Creative Writing teacher! It's got rave reviews and we're all very proud of her.
Suki Kim is a Korean-American journalist. She poses as an evangelical Christian posing as an English teacher at a school for the sons of North Korea's elite. Her experience and the information she manages to get via writing assignments are incredible. Definitely a lot more eye-opening that any CNN special.
This. Explains. Everything!!!
Why has Islam not undergone a reformation like Christianity? Why is it so easy for Islamic extremist groups like IS to recruit young muslims? What would it take for Islam in fundamentalist Islamic countries to enter modernity? Does the West have a role to play?
Amazing! A man wanders endlessly through a dreamscape, becoming other people, himself in the past, everything is fluid. Kafkaesque disconnect between people and their different needs.
A multi-layered novel about the history of Libya. A fast read, but one you can repeat and find something new each time.
Twelve Americans go missing in Burma/Myanmar during a tour. Touching and hilarious, but mostly hilarious.
The most unusual murder mystery I've ever read. Incredible writing. It haunted me for days.
The quote on the front mentions that these stories are exhilerating. I couldn't disagree more. They are almost unbearably painful to read, and yet I couldn't put them down. Very well done, apart from the third story, which is written in the second tense. Please let me know if you know of ONE story that works in second tense.
Resident Alien -- Being Dutch in America 
I think what is needed is a change in policy first, because as long as policy is followed, a misbehaving Cop can not be prosecuted. Some things can not be fixed by retraining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gZeMRsv0bg
another example is found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0ajHN4cXiA, and if you want to see what that may have looked like you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCnD5ipYt5w
I think that one of the fundamental issues is private prisons, I read somewhere that some states have contracts to keep occupancy at 90% or better, that would mean that law enforcement has to meet a contractual obligation, and will actively look for people to jail rather than conflict resolution. The Cop’s attitude is often “we’ll let the Judge sort it out” rather than analyze the facts, training could certainly make a difference there. I’m curious and looking forward to what you’ll disclose in your next post, MVG.
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Thanks for your comment, Onno. I looked a the first video. It was extremely hard to watch. I’ll look at the other two as soon as my stomach has settled. Yes, training is just one aspect of policing that needs to change. Absolutely. It’s just what I’m focusing on right now.
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Very interesting post you have written.
I place a link of the site of the Dutch police Academy (Dutch) because it gives good representation of the police training. The police training is vocational training and is constructed in the way other vocational training is implemented.
https://www.politieacademie.nl/onderwijs/studeren/Pages/Overhetpolitieonderwijs.aspx
https://www.kombijdepolitie.nl/lerenenwerkenalsagent/paginas/default.aspx
In the Netherlands vocational training is a respected form of study
I think you will find a lot of the same views as the one in the training of 1984.
There are reinstated practices that were disregarded. Police on bicycle; neighborhood police. Both police again more accessible for the citizen and they are a kind of liaison officer for other organizations.
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Hi Marie-Jacqueline, thanks for the info. It seems that all the different levels of police training and all the specialties are now organized under the umbrella name Politie Academie. The politie academie used to be where they got the highest level of training/education, to go straight into managerial positions.
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I love it. Of course it’s difficult to transfer things from one decade to another, one country to another, but looking at previous steps taken and what their effects were is something we need to do a lot more of.
(For one police department’s adjustments, check out Richmond, California: http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_26482775/use-deadly-force-by-police-disappears-richmond-streets)
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Well, by the looks of it, Richmond is proving that it’s possible! Thanks for the link.
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