Reader: Steve Garvan
Occupation: Expediter, Garvan Media, Management & Marketing, Sandpoint
Book: The Seventeen Traditions by Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader shows how the enduring virtues of family, community, small town life (Winstead, Connecticut) with a healthy mix of citizens from many areas of the world lived, worked and grew together. It offers a kind of modern-day parable of how we grow from children into responsible adults--a reminder of a time when nature and community were central to the way we all learned and lived.
Nader puts forth seventeen traditions that were interwoven in his formative years--from listening to family table discussions about history and scarcity, discipline to landscape, independent thinking, civics and charity, among others. These are not partisan, “political” topics but the encounters, life lessons, and layers of life that we often put away somewhere in our current bows to the twin gods of speed and homogeneity. I was reminded of the grace of Wendell Berry, minus the poetic soul. Nader manages to evoke a “sense of place” wherever we may be.
Reader: Dr. Carole McWilliam
Occupation: Public Education Consultant, Pocatello
Book: State of Fear by Michael Crichton
State of Fear was selected last month by my book group and that is the only reason I managed to finish it. For three quarters of the book, many of the views expressed through the characters really annoyed me. However, the last chapter and the "author's message" at the end made reading this book worthwhile.
The bizarre situations in which the main characters endure adversity will certainly make the book a prime candidate for a thriller movie. To uncover potential terrorists, the author takes you on a world tour of settings for unique man-made disasters.
The author, as usual, has a wild imagination and makes statements using selected data to set the stage, draw conclusions and rescue the heroes. However, it does make you think and wonder about the selection of data used to support generally accepted views. The author did remind me again of how important a solid education in science is for all citizens to be able to make intelligent decisions in today's world.
Reader: Dale T. Graden
Occupation: Professor of History, University of Idaho, Moscow
Book: Cowboy in Caracas: A North American’s Memoir of Venezuela’s Democratic Revolution by Charles Hardy
After serving for 19 years as a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming, Charles Hardy traveled to Caracas in 1985 to begin work as a Maryknoll missionary. For the next eight years, Hardy resided in a “pressed-cardboard-and-tin shack” in a low-income barrio. Inspired by the theology of liberation, Hardy devoted himself to causes of social justice and the alleviation of poverty. In 1994, Hardy ended his commitment to the Catholic Church and married a Venezuelan woman. Cowboy in Caracas offers vivid depictions of Venezuelan culture and society. Hardy analyzes the rise of Hugo Chávez Frías from lieutenant colonel to President of the Republic.
In the words of Raúl Isaías Baduel, retired Commander-in-Chief of the Venezuelan army, Venezuela reached a “bizarre crossroads” in late 2007. Venezuelans were asked to vote on a package of constitutional reforms that would limit the working day to six hours, enhance communal councils, and provide pensions to housewives and street vendors. If passed, it also would allow for the president to succeed himself indefinitely. In the days leading up to the vote, tens of thousands of people poured into the streets of Caracas to express their support of and opposition to the government. Hardy’s memoir provides helpful insights into the political polarization that prevails in Venezuela from someone sympathetic to Mr. Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution.
