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:
“Fans of SRO Ben Fields and Lawsuits for Excessive Force and Racial Profiling”
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 
One of my first thoughts was that the officer was given the job of physically removing the student from the class room, and was officially fired for using an unapproved and unecessarily rough technique to remove her. How did the other adults involved let it get to that situation? Was it appropriate to call a police officer to physically remove a student for a cell phone violation? I wasn’t there and don’t know the entire situation, but it doesn’t seem quite right base on what little I do know. There was also an implication that if he used approved techniques to physically force her out of the classroom, the situation would have been acceptable? Hmmm….
By the way, there has been a big change in society in the last 10 years in that roughly 100% of the population carries phones at all times. Many police officers and politicians have not quite realized the implications of this.
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This situation got out of Controle the moment the teacher did not for instance let the situation be and tell the girl to stay after class, and go on with teaching. That the principal did not calm the situation but his actions even escalated more by calling the officer, who had no reason to act in the way he did.
I have read a lot of comments who blame the girl, she called this upon herself. Which ofcourse is plain nonsense. Others blame the officer acting aggressively as he did, seemingly not having defusing a situation qualities.
Who has to take responsibility here. Not the girl, she didn’t let the situation escalate. What action will be taken what the teacher, the principal is concerned.
And what has a police officer being called for such a trivial situation? Teacher with even a minimal
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Sorry, answering with smartphone, something did go wrong.
A teacher with even a little minimum of pedagogical skills could/should have been able to deal with the girl.
Sometimes I get the impression that many Americans seem to fear teenager in some shape or form. Treating the a some sort of not be trusted, not be respected kind of humans who let their emotions go wild, not having common sense. How can adults expect respect if they do not respect their teens, as the young adults they are. Respect is a two-way street.
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Exactly. The emphasis on total obedience just gives away teachers’ fear and inabilities. Teenagers per definition question authority, as well they should. It’s part of the process of becoming an individual. Black teenagers are considered as an extra problem as the numbers show.
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