Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction, page 5

A long-Overdue Review of an excellent book - The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

New York, Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Several chapters of this readable memoir/octopus biology review are named for individuals, whose unique personalities are made vividly clear. Historical anecdotes add to this engaging read, as the author reviews our problem with allowing the "dignity of mind" to be applied to "octopuses." (The plural is not octopi, since the word comes from the Greek, not Latin, according to the author.)

Her interactions with the different octopusial personalities are fascinating. Those raised by humans look to them for attention, while those taken from the wild require a place to hide until they are convinced that interaction with humans is more interesting. That interaction involves several arms acing independently, embracing human arms thrust into their water, while exploring new objects, or enjoying TV sports and cartoons when made available.

At the Boston Aquarium, direct contact with octopuses had not been tried before the year 2000, but their intelligence is now quite clear. It probably evolved millions of years ago when they lost their shells. (In the ocean techniques for defense and for hunting prey require some smarts if you run around without armor.) Tool use by octopuses has been noted by patient divers, as has home building and defense against urchin spines. They understand what a human pointing a finger means, as do dogs and human children at age 3 to 4. This is called Theory of Mind—i.e. they realize that other life forms have one.

The author conquers her early problems learning to scuba dive and treats us to undersea visits with wild octopuses, who study their human visitors after taking them on tours of their neighborhood. The book gives us technical information along with the author's intimate view of emotional lives shared between humans and creatures biologically very alien from us in some ways (with their many arms housing scattered brain matter) but very much like us in the essentials of life—its experience and its caring.

Reviewing Billionaires’ Ball by McQuaig and Brooks

Billionaires’ Ball: Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality by Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks, Boston, Beacon Press, 2012.

In reviewing Billionaires' Ball I'm tempted to quote from the book Zoobiquity: by Barbara Matterson-Horowitz, MD and Kathryn Bowers. Chapter 5 is a fascinating tale of why we all--humans and animals alike--are subject to addiction. Evolution has provided us with nerves and brain chemicals that interplay to create emotions. Survival tactics are rewarded with hits of natural feel-good narcotics like dopamine. Accumulating wealth is a survival tactic, hence it can be addictive--a scary observation for these times.

The authors of Billionaires Ball remind us of the Crash of 2008 and provide a detailed history of “Chapter 5. Why Bill Gates Doesn't Deserve His Fortune, Chapter 6. Why Other Billionaries Are Even Less Deserving...and Chapter 10. Why Billionaires Are Bad for Democracy."

The authors compare the U.S. and Sweden. They observe that most Americans think that we are similar in the distributions of wealth. We are not. Our differences in wealth are currently much higher than the Swedes. In America the average wage has slid downward since the 1970’s, while exorbitant wealth has accumulated to a very low percentage of Americans.

The answers are simple. It is up to Congress to reinstate reasonable leveling measures. Trickle-down economics has been debunked as a myth. I come back again and again to the Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant: Rome, faced with hungry people and unequal wealth, chose a ”hundred years of class and civil war," while in the Athens of 594 B.C. Solon, an aristocratic businessman, “…eased the burden of all debtors…established a graduated income tax...reorganized the courts on a more popular basis, and...educated at the government’s expense..." sons of the military. “The government of the United State, in 1933-52 and 1960-65, followed Solon's peaceful methods and accomplished a moderate and pacifying redistribution…"

Why is this so hard to understand? People need to feel some basic respect as part of society, not as lackeys.

Reviewing Another Must-Read--Maude Barlow's "Blue Future"

Blue Future: Protecting Water For People and the Planet Forever by Maude Barlow, New York , The New Press, 2013.
Of all the issues that drive us and disturb us, this one strikes the closest to home. Without water, we simply cannot live, hence access to water is a right that must be protected.

Rivers and lakes ignore political boundaries and, so far, "...international water disputes--even among fierce enemies--have generally been resolved peacefully..." In these times of threatening overpopulation and its stresses, we must guard the "300 arguments between states around shared rivers.”

Tap water problems have led to overuse of bottled water with its plastic clogging the seas, while big money profiteers from its sale, which undermines its availability as a right. “It is crucial [the author says] that nations ratify the [1997] UN Convention on The Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses to secure the future and resolve conflicts. In 2006 The World Wildlife Fund campaigned for this Law’s ratification. It is now signed by 36 countries and was “…brought into force” On August 17, 2014.

No issue seems more important than this. It’s never too late to encourage others to respect this urgent right to life’s basic need. This readable book should be required reading for all politicians and businesses.

Review: The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando DeSoto, New York, Basic Books, 2000.

A must-read! This book cites rave reviews by thirty-one significant people in government and the press, and its simple message has been taken seriously by some countries determined to help the 80% who fail to rise above poverty levels—most because they stay trapped in extralegal ways of obtaining a place to live and a barely adequate living.

The formula for lifting the 80% out of poverty is simple to understand but difficult to enact —governments must legalize and enable (through low enough prices and short time requirements) the assumptions and dealing practiced extra-legally by the poor. Only when property ownership is guaranteed—its value secured by legal government procedures and filed papers—can it be used to better ones position and grow the economy for all.

Reviewing Utopia For Realists by Rutgar Bergman,

Utopia For Realists by Rutgar Bergman, New York, London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
Utopia For Realists by Rutgar Bergman makes “a compelling case for Universal Basic Income,” which has been a long-running debate in the Netherlands (tried in 20 cities), and has been tried in Finland and Canada.

Bergman lists a few statistics that indicate progress: Many were in extreme poverty in 1820. Now less than 10% of Americans are in that category. Between 1974 and 2014, internet usage rose from 0.4% to 40.4%.
People who had less than 2000 calories/day fropped from 51% in 1965 to 3% in 2005. IQ has increased 3 to 5 point every 10 years. War casualties have gone down 90% since 1946.

However, millions still live in poverty, while “we are rich enough to put an end to it.” Health care in the U.S. costs more than anywhere else, but our life expectancy is going down.

Bergman then reports on various experiments to study the economic impact of providing a basic income to various limited populations:
1) Liberia gave alcoholics, addicts and petty criminals the equivalent of $200 per time period. Three years later, those people had spent it on food, clothes, meds and small business.

2) War on Poverty 1964—President Nixon saw his basic income bill as a “marriage of conservative and progressive policies.” 8500 people in 7 states were given a basic income. None worked less. More stayed in high school. The program was not too expensive, and the jobless were required to register. It failed in part because of “His (Nixon’s) rhetoric, saying that fighting laziness among the poor and unemployed would turn the country against basic income…[calling it a] welfare state.” The “myth of the lazy poor” held strong, in spite of studies to the contrary.

In 1968, five economists (Galbraith) wrote to Congress, stating that the country’s responsibility is to assure that everyone in the nation has an income no less than the definition of poverty. 1200 other economists signed it and Congress nearly passed a basic income, arguing how much it should be. However, it was defeated in 1978 when a study in Seattle providing basic income to more than a 1000 peopled indicated that their divorce rate had gone up 50%.

With basic income support, bureaucratic help becomes unnecessary--security and a sense of belonging means people feel empowered to find work, start businesses and stay off alcohol and drugs. Red tape only produces more dependence. Social workers, police and courts cost $16,670 per year for each street drifter. The Netherlands had similar results.

Utah in 2005 provided free apartments to the homeless for $11,000 per year each, and saw homelessness decline 74%. At the same time, without aid to the homeless, Wyoming’s homeless numbers increased 213 %.

Once again, the security provided by enough money to feed and house one’s family gave people the drive to enhance their lives. Financial stress is known to increase cognitive impairment, so that people in despair take to drugs and alcohol, and they lose jobs.

If basic income is distributed as a universal “right” to all, so it is provided equally to everyone, it does not drive a wedge between the poor and the rest of society. It is now recognized (Bergman says in 2014) that eradicating poverty would cost 175 billion/year, equal to ¼ of military expenditures. Afghanistan and Iraq have cost us 4-6 trillion! We need to challenge our priorities.

Other Nonfiction Books about inequality in U.S.:
Hillbilly Elegy
Strangers In Their Own Land by Arlie R. Hochschild
The Coal Wars by Richard Martin
This Fight Is Our Fight: the Battle to Save America’s Middle Class by Elizabeth Warren.

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Several chapters of this readable memoir/octopus biology review are named for individuals, whose unique personalities are made vividly clear. Historical anecdotes add to this engaging read, as the author reviews our problem with allowing the "dignity of mind" to be applied to "octopuses." (The plural is not octopi, since the word comes from the Greek, not Latin, according to the author.)

Her interactions with the different octopusial personalities are fascinating. Those raised by humans look to them for attention, while those taken from the wild require a place to hide until they are convinced that interaction with humans is more interesting. That interaction involves several arms acing independently, embracing human arms thrust into their water, while exploring new objects, or enjoying TV sports and cartoons when made available.

At the Boston Aquarium, direct contact with octopuses had not been tried before the year 2000, but their intelligence is now quite clear. It probably evolved millions of years ago when they lost their shells. (In the ocean techniques for defense and for hunting prey require some smarts if you run around without armor.) Tool use by octopuses has been noted by patient divers, as has home building and defense against urchin spines. They understand what a human pointing a finger means, as do dogs and human children at age 3 to 4. This is called Theory of Mind—i.e. they realize that other life forms have one.

The author conquers her early problems learning to scuba dive and treats us to undersea visits with wild octopuses, who study their human visitors after taking them on tours of their neighborhood. The book gives us technical information along with the author's intimate view of emotional lives shared between humans and creatures biologically very alien from us in some ways (with their many arms housing scattered brain matter) but very much like us in the essentials of life—its experience and its caring..

Letter to My Daughterby Maya Angelou

Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou, New York, Random House, 2008.
In giving this book to my granddaughter to read, I felt, like author Maya Angelou, that I am "...giving to a person who is naturally generous...[reminding] me of a preacher passionately preaching to the already committed choir."

Nevertheless, I want to share this book. It's written in short chapters that resonate with deep tones. It's sentences are also short, and they are direct. Unmistakable in both fact and meaning. No guessing is needed to relate to her experience. Perhaps some will trigger a memory or inspire a thought.

Angelou speaks of truth, and she means it. She talks about people who "...allow their tongues to wag with vulgarity..", which really expresses their self-humiliation, "...but we are brought low by sharing in the obscenity."

In sharing her life experience so profoundly and so honestly, she provides an example for all of us to follow, especially in these times when our public figures ignore the values that made this country great

TIPPING POINT FOR PLANET EARTH

TIPPING POINT FOR PLANET EARTH: How close are we to the edge? By Anthony D. Barnosky and Elizabeth A. Hadly, New York, St.Martins Press, 2015.

This is a reminder, not a review of a book that has already had a significant impact. Given recent political distractions, I’m afraid the urgency of this book’s message is getting lost. Time is running out. We need to get busy doing the most difficult work we have ever understood to be essential. Simply put: we need to act now in every way we can imagine to reduce our overuse of resources and the impact of our wastes on planet Earth.

The way forward has been described and developed over the last 50 years by many experts who assure us we can achieve an equitable steadystate. Technology can help, as can the billions its inventors have raked in. Leveling the playing field will help, but we all need to pitch in. Check out the authors’ #We Know Enough To Act.

The proof of the threatened TIPPING POINT for Earth is clearly stated in this book—the personal experience, the statistics, the current news, observations and general interactions and their complex nature seen already in “resource wars for remaining space, food, oil and water.”. We have another decade or two to get busy—all of us.

Reviewing "Zoobiquity" Noting wealth can be naturally addictive!

Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing by Barbara Matterson-Horowitz, MD and Kathryn Bowers, New York,
Alfred A. Knopf, 2012
The conclusion of the authors (and their contributing partners from both the veterinarian and medical professions) is that we are not alone, we humans, in how we suffer and how we should be treated. Each chapter provides many stories of the way different health problems are shared between humans and different animals.

Chapter 1: Yes, “Jaguars get breast cancer…rhinos in zoos get leukemia.” Dinosaur bones show signs of brain tumors, “…gout, arthritis, stress fractures…even cancer.”
Chapter 2: We all can faint or go vagal under “…extreme emotion or fear.”
Chapter 3: We share various cancers with all kinds of animals and birds.
Chapter 4: The authors suggest that the many varieties of animal sexuality can teach us quite a bit about ourselves--like how females could “…audition males before allowing them to mate.”

Chapter 5 is a fascinating tale of why we all--humans and animals alike--are subject to addiction. Our bodies and brains “…have evolved doorways for…potent drugs.” Why?
Because evolution has provided all of us with nerves and brain chemicals that interplay to create emotions. In short, survival tactics are rewarded with hits of natural feel-good narcotics.

However, on the negative side, “…life sustaining activities, like “finding safety…happiness, foraging, eating and socializing, causes…release of…mostly dopamine…” that can be addictive. Note that “accumulating wealth” is also on that list!

We also share happiness, fear, anger, and pain--though our “…self-protective strategy may differ… Most animals don’t vocalize when they’re hurt… It’s dangerous and could attract predators…Pain management is now a priority in both human and veterinarian medicine.”

Chapter 6: We larger animals all share heart attacks, including those caused by dread and sudden panic.
Chapter 7: We all--even fish--can get too fat to be healthy.
Chapter 8: Self-injury can give us relief from stress. Even fish enjoy grooming.

The ninth chapter is entitled Fear of Feeding. Eating Disorder in the Animal Kingdon. Birds, mammals and spiders indulge in food caching, as do we.
Chapter 10 is all about our common problem with STDs. Some are shared between species via circuitous routes. The extinction of wild koalas in Australia has been threatened by an epidemic of chlamydia.

Chapter 11: Adolescence is defined in species from “…condors to Capuchin monkeys to college freshmen [as] taking risks and sometimes making mistakes.”

The authors conclude by reviewing how we share infectious agents with various animals.
This book of engaging stories includes many pointed suggestions that define how and why human physicians and veterinarians must work together to enhance patient care and solve our common medical puzzles.

Reviewing THE COAL WARS by Richard Martin

The Coal Wars: The Failure of Energy and the Fate of the Planet, by Richard M artin, New York, Palgrave Mackillan, 2015.
This is the story of the demise of the coal industry, the history of coal and its use, and its effects on three or more generations in the U.S. south, Kentucky, West Virginia, Wyoming, Ohio and Colorado, some zones in China and in The Ruhr, Germany.

The author notes that “…nostalgia for a vanishing way of life is leading to a form of cannibalism…kids can’t be fed and educated on rage…not all chance entails betrayal…natural gas has become cheaper and easier to use, as has robotics, so jobs are lost in coal country. Economics is changing”

Coal has been used in China since the “Fourth Millennium B.C.” Now its industry is outdated and “inching toward absolute caps on both coal consumption and carbon emissions.” Taoism and Confusion values are both focused on protection of the natural world, so there is hope that China’s dependence on coal and the damage done to these values may end some day.

In the U. S., the battle may center in Ohio, and in Europe on the Ruhr. In any case, the author argues that coal may be shut down in the end, but we must not “abandon the workers. Any solution must be global.” The final solution: “…a price on carbon.”