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I read a really interesting special report* in The Economist last month about the problem of youth (defined as 15-30 yeqr olds) unemployment in Europe. One section beings with the statistic that 25% of youth are unemployed in France (in that country alone the stat is 15-24 year olds) and then continues with this:

Rigid labor rules are tougher on young workers than older ones. People without much experience find it harder to demonstrate that they are worth employing. And when companies know they can easily get rid of duds, they become reluctant to hire anyone at all. This is especially true when the economy is not growing fast and they have to bear the huge fixed cost of all the older permanent employees they took on in easier times.

France is not alone in having such problems. In the euro area, Greece, Spain and Italy all have rules that coddle insiders and discourage outsiders. Their youth unemployment rates are, respectively, 48%, 48% and 40%.

It then continues with some other stats from around the world, such “16% of young Brazilians and a stunning 63% of South Africans are unemployed.”

The point of the article is that these young people, no matter what their education, are finding themselves unable to get jobs which leaves them unable to move out, marry, and get on with their lives. Ironically, when the older generation does leave their jobs there won’t be young people to replace them because they haven’t been trained since they couldn’t get jobs and gave up or left for another country or worse……

(The really horrifying part of the article was about India where public school is available but little education is taking place because the teachers are never held accountable. In one study, after 8 years of school, Indian students could not measure a pencil with ruler.)

There are a lot of positive things in the article as well, but overall it paints a graphic picture of why education is only part of what people need; professional opportunity is critical as well.

Finally, consider this:

All countries need to work harder to give the young a fair shot. If they do not, a whole generation’s talents could be wasted. That would not only be immoral; it would also be dangerous. Angry young people sometimes start revolutions, as the despots overthrown in the Arab Spring can attest.

*this link is for the first part of the series – there are other links from there to the rest. [Post pic Getty images]

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A pretty amazing ruling from the Canadian Supreme Court yesterday concerning Aboriginal territory in British Columbia that you might have missed. I found this whole article explaining it to be fascinating but in particular it was the history (150 years worth) that really caught my attention.

In 1864 a toll road for wagons was planned through Tsilhqot'in territory in BC to better facilitate the movement of goods to the gold fields. Many of the Tsilhqot'in protested the roadway, especially as they had an uneasy relationship with the Europeans due to the spread of smallpox from blankets. (Really.) Here's a bit on it from the article I read at Aboriginal People's Television Network:

Then, in the spring of 1864, four bags of flour were stolen from a road crew's base camp. The crew's foreman threatened the Tsilhqot'in with smallpox for stealing.

Journalist Melvin Rothenburger, who wrote a book called the The Chilcotin War, believes this threat may have helped spark the war.

"That could have been an important factor because of the fear of smallpox and it had been rampant," said Rothenburger, whose great-great grandfather Donald McLean was killed in the ensuing battles with the Tsilhqot'in.

News of the smallpox threat and rapes stirred a group of Tsilhqot'in to launch what turned into a guerilla war against the settlers. Of this group, a war chief known as Klatsassin or Lhatasassine, meaning "We do not know his name," came to embody the Chilcotin War.

They fired their first shot on the morning of April 28, 1864. It killed a ferryman who refused Klatsassin and his party passage.

After several deaths and fighting on both sides, Katassin and three other chiefs went to a proposed meeting with the BC governor. While asleep they were shackled, then summarily tried and hung on Oct. 26, 1864.

Before he died Klatsassin famously said, "We meant war, not murder."

There is much talk in Canadian media about the long fight for Aboriginal rights in BC (this latest court battle started in the early 1980s concerning timber sales on Aboriginal land). I am struck though by how the fight simmered in so many different ways and the powerful reach of history. It never fades away, no matter how long you ignore it.

History always insists on being heard.

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One of my favorite lines:

"Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote."

Hell yeah, Mr. President. Hell yeah.

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I rarely get political over here because politics online is so counter productive it's not even funny, but the recent House vote to defund Planned Parenthood over abortion has infuriated me to such an extent that I have to say something and honestly, I can't help but think there is a literary/pop culture angle to this whole ongoing social argument that we might be missing.

On the surface, the Congressmen and women involved are saying that while there is no suggestion (on either side) that federal funds have been used by Planned Parenthood for abortion, everyone knows that Planned Parenthood does provide that service to its customers (largely poor women). So, if they defund Planned Parenthood then they will have to close their clinic doors across the country or give up the abortions (on the hope that this will get their funding back). It's a big game of chicken and in the middle are a ton of people who can not find affordable family planning anywhere else. They can't get annual exams without spending a couple hundred dollars (minimum) elsewhere (and you need the annual exam in order to get birth control pills) and they can't get the birth control without laying out the cash elsewhere (even if they have insurance coverage - the exam will likely not be covered as it is preventative and the birth control is pretty much never covered). (Don't get me started on on how insane it is that birth control pills are not covered by insurance.)

So. You go to Planned Parenthood because it is cheap and professional and safe and they help you not get pregnant. That's why the clinics exist. And if you do get pregnant and can not, for any number of reasons, complete the pregnancy then they will help you with an abortion. In a perfect world would there be no abortions? Sure. But in the middle of all the flinging assertions that people are just getting abortions for fun, our elected officials seem to forget the vast number of them that happen because something has gone wrong with the pregnancy. Lots of things go wrong and it's not like those abortions have little asterisks next to them to denote that.

We all know someone who cried their way through the procedure that ended their pregnancy because they desperately wanted that baby but it was not meant to be. We all know these women and their abortions should not be ignored.

But really, what I've been thinking about is how removed our pop & literary culture has come from the time when women had no choice or control over contraception. Remember what happened to Penny in DIRTY DANCING? The whole premise of the movie was built around her falling in love with a rich guy and getting pregnant only to be abandoned by him. Jennifer Grey has to step in and dance because Penny needs an abortion, which is illegal at the time. When Grey's character asks why she doesn't just leave (go home and have the baby, basically) she is reminded by Johnny that Penny needs this job - she has to stay through the summer if she has any chance at working the next year and she has to work the next year.

Meanwhile the ex-boyfriend just glides along to the next girl without even blinking his eyes.

Maybe it's because I'm reading about Charlotte Perkins Gilman, but I can't help but think that most young women in the country have no clue how controlled previous generations of women were by childbirth. You had babies. Lots and lots of babies. Or you got pregnant and were sent away, as the most shamed member of the family. In both my mother and father's families there are stories of girls wh

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What television was made for; it is staggering.

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My column this month is about truth and includes several nonfiction titles that I think all tell stories worth knowing. One in particular though, People Like Us by Joris Luyendijk, really impressed the hell out of me. Here's a bit of my review:

As he [Luyendijk] riffs on one level of insanity after another (“Egypt’s dictator is called ‘President’ even though he inherited his job from his predecessor who, in turn, used force to gain power. This particular dictator leads the ‘National Democratic Party’ which is neither democratic nor a party.”), Luyendijk maintains an attitude of wit and bemused sarcasm that will be particularly appealing to older teens. He isn’t talking down to his readers at all, but in fact is actually trusting them to be smart enough to be talked up to. This is a journalist who says: Let me tell you how it really is, even though it isn’t easy to hear. The mind reels with one revelation after another. Those all too commonly displayed images of protestors damning America, and burning its flag in spontaneous riots, that instill the conviction of “them vs. us” into our national conversation? “Guys,” he writes, “you probably think that a demonstration is something citizens use freely to express whatever they are for or against, but in a dictatorship such ‘outbursts of anger’ are often staged or are at least heavily managed by the regime.”

...With every word, Luyendijk provides a different perspective on what we think we know, and challenges head on what we are accustomed to believing. Killer smart and devastatingly direct, this is journalism at its best. A book for back pockets and backpacks, for classroom discussion and those determined to take on the world, People Like Us is not to be missed.

I know a lot of people are intimidated by books on current events - especially in the Middle East - but this is a very easy book to read. Luyendijk knows his audience and he speaks to them in a hip, casual tone - as someone who wants to hang out and talk international politics like it's football or the latest American Idol results. In other words, he's not pontificating, he's not some politician or partisan talking head demanding that you see things only his way. He's simply a guy whose been there and seen it and is smart enough to write about it all in a very appealing manner. And you want to hang out with him, because he really has some very interesting things to say. Consider this from an interview he gave last fall with ABC Australia:

ELEANOR HALL: And Joris Luyendijk, how have your journalistic colleagues responded to your book?

JORIS LUYENDIJK: They have tried to drive me out. They have been really angry and I think it had to do a little bit with that many journalists these days feel very much under siege you know with the economic crisis and the internet and all these things.

And I think it is also because it is male dominated and the journalists are very often machos and they like to stand there and pretend that it was wildly heroic to make it to Baghdad even though they just hopped on the GMC vehicle with five other journalists and all they had to do was sit, get out at the studio and climb the roof.

They'd like to pretend that it is all very heroic and then someone comes up and just says well actually, um, it wasn't heroic at all. You just exposed a politician for what he really does. He won't be grateful either.

I really meant what I said in

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...Iran was on fire today as the freedom fight continues.

Good round-up here.

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After President Obama's speech on Afghanistan last night it seemed pretty timely to point everyone in the direction of a recent book on the country I read that blew my socks off. I hardly ever say this here, but really - you need to buy this book. Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson is exceedingly well written, easy to follow and does an excellent job of showing what life is like for the Afghani people living in the rural areas. I reviewed it for the new issue of Booklist (the Upfront Section, starred review). Here it is:

Mortenson’s best-seller, Three Cups of Tea (2009), introduced his commitment to peace through education and became a book-club phenomenon. He now continues the story of how the Central Asia Institute (CAI) built schools in northern Afghanistan. Descriptions of the harsh geography and more than one near-death experience impress readers as new faces join Mortenson’s loyal “Dirty Dozen” as they carefully plot a course of school-building through the Badakshan province and Wakhan corridor. Mortenson also shares his friendships with U.S. military personnel, including Admiral Mike Mullen, and the warm reception his work has found among the officer corps. The careful line CAI threads between former mujahideen commanders, ex-Taliban and village elders, and the American soldiers stationed in their midst is poetic in its political complexity and compassionate consideration. Using schools not bombs to promote peace is a goal that even the most hard-hearted can admire, but to blandly call this book inspiring would be dismissive of all the hard work that has gone into the mission in Afghanistan as well as the efforts to fund it. Mortenson writes of nothing less than saving the future, and his adventure is light years beyond most attempts. Mortenson did not reach the summit of K2, but oh, the heights he has achieved.

Stones is not a very political book - Mortenson does not dwell on the US invasion or the Soviet invasion or the recent civil war. He does talk about the history of specific villages and provinces to explain CAI's school building strategies there and discusses working with the US military on projects and the insanity of dealing with Afghanistan's bureaucracy. His goal is not to come down on one side or the other however, or to preach who is right or wrong. Rather he is focused on making positive change in the region, just as he has been focused on the same goal in Pakistan. And he's doing it - CAI is really doing it. Over 130 schools have been built in rural areas in the two countries and these are schools for girls and boys and the villages where they were built want the schools and support them and love them.

It is an experiment that has proven itself over and over again. It is working and not just because an American has come in and thrown money at the problem. It is working because the people want it to work and Mortenson knows this and so do the people who work with him. And if you ever wondered just who "those" people are in Afghanistan, or if "they" want us there or if it matters that we are there then you need to read about this project and its enormous success. You need to learn that yes, they are just like us.

Am I the only one who hears Sting singing "Russians" in the background right now?

I asked my grandmother once about the Japanese internment camps during WWII and she

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I'm down for the count for a day or so (literally with a hole in my head - skin cancer is such not fun) but Ed has started posting the roundtable for Cheap and I highly - highly - recommend going over there to read it. The first post went up yesterday and will continue forward from there fhrough the end of the week. We haven't gotten to the part yet where I tell the group they are sucking the life out of me, but it's coming. (I just refuse to be so pessimistic - I mean if you think we are all doomed then what is the point of anything??)

More tomorrow - just finished several books and all were lovely.....

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This picture (a screenshot from a video) is everywhere online today - if it is indeed true (and certainly seems to be) then it has given a face to the Iranian Revolution that I doubt will ever be forgotten.

She didn't make it.

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4:16 PM ET -- "Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed." A blog post in Persian, translated by the NIAC.

"I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I'm listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It's worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I'm two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow's children..."

[via Nico Pitney]

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Please vote for google to change its logo for one day

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In March I had a column entitled "Outside Our Borders" which included two books by Phyllis Bennis that were published for adults but I thought worked also for older teens. Here is part of my review of her titles:

Olive Press has just released two excellent titles from author Phyllis Bennis, a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. Both Understanding the US-Iran Crisis and Ending the Iraq War are perfect choices for teens researching US history and policy as it applies to Iran and Iraq. The books are designed around clearly set question and answer sections and chapters that parcel history from modern events but build successively on previous sections. This translates into a lot of easy to digest information such as the bit from Understanding the US-Iran Crisis about how the company British Petroleum was initially named the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and developed so that the British government could exploit what later became the Iranian oil fields. (The company dates to 1908 and is still majority-owned by the government.) Bennis excels at this kind of information, not just thrown out for trivial shock, but to show how in the case of Iran, oil was key to western involvement in that country from the beginning of the 20th century and played a huge part in the removal of its democratically elected leader in 1953 and installation of the Shah of Iran… by the United States.

The point Bennis strives to make about Iran and the U.S. is that their relationship is both rather old and exceedingly complicated. You can’t casually describe it with words like “oil,” “Shah,” “embassy hostages” or “axis of evil.” She chips away at the preconceptions Americans have of Iran and while most certainly not dismissing any of Iranian faults (recent comments about destroying Israel are discussed), she is clear about how one country has played for and against the other repeatedly in the past, from working hand in hand through the '70s under the Shah to America’s funding of the Iraqi side of the Iran-Iraq War. (Funding which Bennis asserts was primarily done to prolong the war and weaken both countries.) She points out the positive diplomatic exchanges between the U.S. and Iran post 9/11 and potential for future exchanges. By the book’s end Bennis proves that casting aside or even worse bombing Iran is not a logical choice given the long relationship between the two countries. She accomplishes this in just over 100 pages and provides ample resources for those looking to learn more.

There has been an enormous amount of rhetoric in the past few days about how the US should respond to the uprising in Iran. I think President Obama has done an outstanding job of making it clear that this is Iran's conflict and must remain so without any interference or suggestion of interference from the US. Just because we do not learn US/Iranian history in school does not mean that they do not. Consider this from Nicolas Kristoff today:

The Iranian people have been seething for more than half a century at the way the United States organized a coup in 1953 to block the democratic will of the people. It’ll be interesting to see if anger at the regime for — apparently — blocking the democratic will of the people has as big a legacy.

In my experience, when regimes have to go after citizens with truncheons and belt buckles, it’s usually a pretty good sign that they do so because they can’t succeed any other way; it’s a reflection that they have no legitimacy left.

This government is in trouble for many many reasons far beyond the election results - they are simply the final straw. But after reading Bennis' fine and concise scholarship and truly getting a grasp on how involved the US and Britain were in Iranian politics and policies prior to the 1979 revolution, I am so thankful that thus far our government has responded with very short, cautious comments. It is not a case of "they do not like us over there" it is very much a matter of "they know better than to trust us over there". It is a mystery to me why we spend so much time in school learning about the same wars over and over again and not devoting all of high school to the interventions that still affect us today. We should all know about the 1953 coup and the oil leases that prompted US involvement. We should know what our country did to theirs and how they remember it still - how they are taught about it still. This knowledge (which apparently eludes some members of Congress) is what is prompting President Obama to be so cautious and allowing the uprising to unfold as it should - among the Iranian people.

All we can do is watch and listen and make sure they know that this time what happens in Iran is something the whole world will remember.

[Post title from Pres. Obama's comments 6/15/09]

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First, they steal away your access to the world.

"An image of Mir Hossein Mousavi is seen (lower left), fixed to a desk with a smashed computer monitor in a room in a Tehran University dormitory after it was attacked by militia forces during riots in Tehran, Iran in the early hours of Monday, June 15, 2009. (AP photo)"

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Freedom fighters.

[Mr. Moussavi's supporters rally in the capital, June 15, 2009.]

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[Mousavi supporters attend an election rally in Tehran. MOHAMMAD KHEIRKHAH / UPI / Landov]

For those interested in a great and very readable book on contemporary Iran I highly recommend Honeymoon in Tehran by Azadeh Moaveni. Here's my Booklist review:

In this intimate look at the modern Iranian middle class, Moaveni, a journalist and the author of Lipstick Jihad (2005), blends her own experiences in Iran with her primary reporting subject: the dubious Tehran reaction to the ascendance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. An Iranian American living in Lebanon, Moaveni unexpectedly fell in love when she returned to her homeland on assignment. This opened her eyes to a whole new aspect of Iranian life, that of young couples. She writes extensively about how the country’s troubled economic situation forces twenty-somethings to postpone marriage and independence from their families. Iran’s “brain drain” is well documented, but the reasons professionals grudgingly leave Iran have rarely been discussed by Western media, which instead focuses on Ahmadinejad’s rantings. Moaveni tracks the country’s increased social conservatism, and reveals both expensive marriage traditions and governmental manipulation. This perfect blend of political commentary and social observation is an excellent choice for readers interested in going beyond the headlines to gain an in-depth understanding of twenty-first-century Iran..

It's on sale at Powells right now.

If you have been trying to follow the events in Iran I strongly recommend you read Andrew Sullivan's blog at The Atlantic. Sullivan has been collecting links since the election, running twitter posts and has translators helping him get first person accounts from the ground. When something is rumor he labels it as such but he also follows up on stories. Here is a list of a sample of recent twitters from Iran:

My Father has a truck load of ballot boxes that were to be burned in the back of his truck.

i eats some pills and wanna sleep and i scared that if they can find me ...i going...thx for your supports....

typing as fastest as I can in bth English&Farsi,Still we need outside help,I really don't want to be captured by Ansar

Once again I thank everyone in the world. No matter if Ahmadi stays or not, I'm proud to have clasped such supportive hands.

URGENT JUST IN, there r TANKS in front of the interior ministry of tehran in valiasr st. & fatemi CAREFUL

I can't find my friends on streets.

Rasht, glass splinters on the streets, riot police not hesitating to beat men, women and even kids

From Enghelab Sq friend just call me, Police & unknown forces beating everybody for no apparent reason!

Correction, no bus burned, but three cars.

dawn is breaking. can hear prayers from mosques.

cousin in tehran is traumatized by the club and baton beatings on tehran streets. eyewitness report of a girl beaten to death.

IRG's helicopter flying low on yousefabadad Amirabad Gisha right now creating a devastating sound and making windows shake

sources from Tehran: ppl are killed, ppl are in blood, tehran is hell.

[More standard bookish news to follow.]

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More reasons to vote from Good magazine:

188. ???The ballot is stronger than the bullet.??????Abraham Lincoln

784. You voted for prom queen at your school. Ditto season two of American Idol.

789. Your vote is just as important as that of a self-righteous Hollywood A-lister or an impassioned AM radio blowhard.

927. A new law prohibits reporters from reporting on soldiers??? injuries unless they have their signed written permission in advance. (edited to add - WTF?)

1131. Despite what cable news networks love to tell us, there???s no such thing as one Mark Penn-anointed, microsliced-and-diced demographic segment that decides who becomes president. There???s just you.

1132. More Americans have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than did in the Revolutionary War.

For those of you looking for a break from politics, I'm afraid this won't be a good place for you to visit for the next few days. Tomorrow my personal Blog the Vote post will go up and Saturday morning the master list of Blog the Vote links (with representative quotes) from all participating bloggers will go live. That list will be updated through election day and I imagine on the 5th we will all be too tired to do much more than watch mindless tv and marvel at the fact that finally - FINALLY - election season is over.

Expect literary posts to return on late Wednesday with reviews of more short stories from The Del Rey Book of Fantasy and Science Fiction and a look at a lot of interesting sounding upcoming titles. Not to mention a ton of commentary on several books I'm reading right now. All books all the time (okay, most of the time) returns next week.

Read about Blog the Vote here and if you have any questions, let me know (colleenatchasingraydotcom).

And finally - I'd love to know what this little boy was thinking at this moment. His life was changed, you can tell. It's just so cool to see a face like that; it's the best part of democracy; a child who realizes right then at that moment that yes - he can be whoever and whatever he chooses to be.

That's America in October 2008.

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Sarah Vowell in Newsweek:

Why should we read a book about Puritans now?
Revisiting the roots of American exceptionalism is always a good idea. And in terms of choosing one's leaders, which we're about to do, the thing I love about the Puritans is the people they put on a pedestal were the best educated, the smartest, the ones they saw as the most good with a capital G. I guess I would like to make a case for that. I don't think a leader should be penalized because he or she knows stuff.

She was also on The Daily Show last week striking back hard against all the anti-East Coast crap that has been dished out lately. (It's interesting to note that NYC was not elitest when it was attacked on 9/11. How has that attitude changed so fast?)

Alaskan author Nick Jans on Sarah Palin:

Like many Alaskans, I resent Palin's claims that she speaks for all of us, and cringe when she tosses off her stump speech line, "Well, up in Alaska, we???." Not only did I not vote for her, she represents the antithesis of the Alaska I love. As mayor, she helped shape Wasilla into the chaotic, poorly planned strip mall that it is; as governor, she's promoted that same headlong drive toward development and despoilment on a grand scale, while paying lip service to her love of the place.

It's all there - including the 14 dead wolf cubs who were shot by Fish & Game in a practice that has been illegal for 40 years. What the hell those guys were thinking I'll never know, but they're dreaming if they think they'll get away with it. Too many people are too ready to file lawsuits as soon as the formal investigation is over (or if that doesn't happen). From Jans again:

Now her administration has pointedly refused to respond to repeated public information requests (I'm one of the petitioners, and a potential litigant), regarding the apparently illegal killing of 14 wolf pups at their dens on the Alaska Peninsula this spring by state personnel, including two high-level Department of Fish and Game administrators. A biologist at the scene admitted to an independent wolf scientist that the 6-week-old pups were held down and shot in the head, one by one. This inhumane practice, known as "denning," has been illegal for 40 years. But a simple request for information on the details of this operation, including to what extent the governor was involved in the decision, has resulted in a typical Palinesque roadblock and a string of untruths.

And from Alaskan author Seth Kantner:

In the Arctic, where global warming is melting our world regardless of Palin's lone charge against reality, her alleged appeal leaves many of us cold. With our long winters and tough trails, we still value a beaver hat and common sense more than high heels and clip-on hairdos. We simply don't want another leader less intelligent than we are.

Eight years with the cowboy and copilot Halliburton at the helm has been hard on our land. Too much polluting, an unnecessary war draining our economy and both men too cool for global warming. We can't afford to turn now to a beauty contestant and an old guy who's acting like he's run the Iditarod too many times without winning. (Beating his dogs, he's so desperate to win.)

Come on, people. Our ice is melting. Your jobs are turning to dust. Everyone's bank statements are on the verge of being firestarter. Your heating oil is $4 a gallon, ours is $8.

John McCain's answers to those problems? Heck, I honestly don't know what he stands for this week. Talk about a shifting ice floe. But his running mate, we've heard her answers: She's already sued the polar bears, now she's chanting, "Drill, baby, drill!"

Wake up, folks. Sarah Palin is America's bridge to nowhere. Get off it.

And in case you have forgotten why voting matters and why government must be held accountable, consider what has happened to Iranian American Esha Momeni:

Esha Momeni, a graduate student at California State University-Northridge, was arrested October 15 in Tehran for unlawfully passing another vehicle while driving, according to Change For Equality, an Iranian women's movement.

"We're seeking additional information about this case," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Wednesday. "We stand with all those in Iran who are working for universal human rights and justice in their countries."

Momeni, who was born in Los Angeles, California, is a member of Change for Equality's California chapter. She arrived in Tehran two months ago to work on her masters thesis project on the Iranian women's movement, according to the group, which is in touch with Momeni's family in Iran.

She was interviewing Iranian women about equal rights and is now in prison. Politics matters, people. That is why you must vote - always and forever, vote. (And don't forget to spread the word on Blog the Vote which goes live the weekend of November 1st.)

[Post pics: wolf in Denali National Park, polar bears in ANWR.]

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Audubon has a comprehensive article on the energy policies of Senators McCain and Obama. It includes ten questions and answers put to each. Here is a bit:

How do you intend to put the United States again at the forefront of efforts to understand and address the world’s most serious environmental threat, global warming?

MCCAIN: Global climate change is one of the most important issues facing our nation and the world today, and I have made it a priority throughout my career to address the problem. I pledge to work with Congress, local government leaders, and the full range of stakeholders to promote U.S. energy security and implement a national market-based, cap-and-trade system tailored to protect the nation’s economic, environmental, and national security.

OBAMA: I will start by implementing a cap-and-trade system in the United States to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The legislation that I push will require a 100 percent auction of carbon allowances to ensure that all polluters pay for their emissions.

In terms of restoring American international leadership on global climate change, I was the first presidential candidate to call for creating a standing Global Energy Forum—a body which will include the world’s top emitters from the developed and developing world. I will also re-engage the U.S. with the post-Kyoto international climate negotiations.

More to follow.

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Alexandra Fuller gained accolades for her first book, Don't Let's Go the Dogs Tonight, about growing up in Rhodesia. Her latest title, The Legend of Colton H. Bryant is a thoroughly American story about a young man in Wyoming who dies working on an oil rig. I thought the book would be about energy and the environment but I was wrong; this is about class - the working class - and about an odd twist that has found us with a western mythos that now can not support itself.

Fuller writes the book in a series of short chapters that focus on Colton's entire life. She has clearly spent an enormous amount of time talking to his family and his best friend and various chapters focus on their lives as well. This fits into the narrative of hard life on the plains as all of them - everyone it seems - is tied in one way or another to the oil industry. What we learn from the beginning is Colton was kind of a goofy kid, not all that interested in school, picked on by bullies and more at home running around outside, on horseback, and spending time with his family. He comes across as a very lovable character: kind, hardworking, even endearing. His needs and wants are simple and revolve around the people he cares about, the place he loves, and a maybe getting a truck and a stereo.

Colton was not the kind to reach for the moon, but rather his universe was in Wyoming. The west - the iconic vision of the west that is about horses and outdoors and feeling the beauty of the wide open spaces - is all that he wanted to be part of. It's finding a job and way to survive there that proves to be so damn hard.

Here is a passage about Colton's father, Bill Bryant, and a lifetime spent working the rigs:

There have been some rigs Bill's worked on where he was gone for a month, back for a week. He's done two weeks on, two weeks off. He's done a week at a time. He's done flat out, day in, day out, until the hole was drilled. He's done pretty much every variation of time you can think of. And in that time, first Preston and then Colton followed him onto the rigs. What hasn't changed is the company Bill's drilled for - for over thirty years he's drilled for the same company, but they still have him on their books as a part-time laborer, which makes it easier for them to fire him the moment he gets too old or too slow or if he slips. And just recently, some kid out of the head office saw a ten gallon discrepancy in a fuel tank filled by Bill and fired him on the spot. So the next week Bill was back out in Casper submitting himself to urine tests and physicals and safety talks so he could sign on with a new company.

But none of this seems to bother Bill much. He looks at the terms of his employment much the way most men think of women or the weather or something beyond the power of his control.

This notion of powerlessness in your job, of doing the best you can in school and then getting a job that pays decent and finding all joy only in the family you make or the quiet moments away from work, permeates the book. It's not that Colton hates the rigs, but he does hate the time away from home (especially after he gets married) and he hates the boredom of the job - the doing nothing or doing the same thing over and over followed by doing something suddenly and in a blind rush. He hates the lack of rhythm, the lack of sense. He hates that he just has to do what he has to do. But he doesn't know what else to do. He tries construction but it doesn't work out because the money is not as good. The lure of that money makes it hard to walk away from the rigs, even though honestly the money is not all that great and the benefits are appalling. Fuller makes it clear that only when compared to dismal options does working the rigs in Wyoming seem like something to aspire to. But to everyone there, those dismal options seem like the only ones they have.

I did wonder if Fuller had fallen into some hyperbole with her story - it's so damn compelling and Colton is such a sympathetic hero that the temptation to make him a victim on multiple levels had to be great. So I looked around a bit and came across this huge article at High County News from last year about safety on the oil rigs. Suffice to say, Fuller was not exaggerating.

From Louisiana to Alaska, oil and gas is an industry in a rush, spurred by a sense of worldwide shortage and entranced by escalated prices and inordinate profits. And the industry targets the Interior West, especially; the region’s summertime total of drilling rigs has soared since 2000, from 204 to 447, according to RigData, a Texas company that tracks the industry. With that increase in drilling and related activities, the number of fatal accidents has also risen. Last year alone, 20 people died doing jobs directly related to drilling and servicing wells in the region. And for the whole time period I studied — 2000 to 2006, roughly encompassing the current boom in coalbed-methane and other natural gas exploration — federal and state records show at least 89 people died working in energy extraction in the states of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Montana and North Dakota. That toll is almost certainly an understatement, and not just because the average oil and gas death gets less publicity than, say, a fatal traffic wreck. This industry’s true accident totals, fatal and otherwise, are as shrouded in obscurity as the Laster case is.

Working the oil rigs is a dangerous job but here is the catch - it does not have to be. One of the things I learned early on working in aviation in Alaska was that most of the accidents were caused because people were doing things they should not do and often did not want to do. They took chances to keep jobs or keep their company going so it could pay them, plain and simple. It was insane and while you can blame them for taking those jobs the reality in that industry is that there is little you can do beyond starvation wages until you get enough flight time to apply to the majors (and that takes years of flight time). Flying a commuter will earn you less than $20,000 a year and you're gone from home for more than half the month. Go to AK and fly like a maniac for half the time and you get twice the hours (we just fly a heckuva a lot more there than the average scheduled commuter pilot). So I know about taking changes and putting up with a dangerous environment. I also know there is nothing romantic about it and all you walk away with is money and the names of a bunch of dead friends.

Ray Ring's article in High Country News is a litany of both those truths.

After reading The Legend of Colton H. Bryant I am horrified all over again by what we do not know about how people work and live in this country. And I'm tired - deeply, intensely, very nearly overwhelmingly tired with the argument for how much we need oil. I get it, I know it, we are addicted as President Bush declared so well several years ago. But what we don't see is how much we are paying for that addiction, how incredible the high price is in terms of hopes and dreams and desires for a good life. Colton Bryant didn't want much and he should have been able to have it all. He should have been able to live out all his happy golden years in Wyoming.

He should have made it past the age of twenty-five.

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Rory Stewart, author of The Places in Between, (see my review) has an excellent short article in Time on what has been done right and wrong in Afghanistan. Here's a bit:

A smarter strategy would focus on two elements: more effective aid and a more limited military objective. We should target development assistance in provinces where we have a track record of success. Our investment goes further in stable and welcoming places like Hazarajat than it can in hostile, insurgency-dominated areas like Kandahar and Helmand, where we have to spend millions on security and the locals do not contribute to the project and will not sustain it after our departure. We should focus on meeting the Afghan government's request for more investment in agricultural irrigation, energy and roads. And we should increase our support to the most effective departments, such as education, health and rural development; they are good for the reputation of the Afghan state and the West. Creating more educated, healthier women and men and better transport, communications and electrical infrastructure may be only part of the story, but they are essential for Afghanistan's economic future.

Our efforts in nation-building, governance and counternarcotics should be smaller and more creative. This is not because these issues are unimportant; they are vital for Afghanistan's future. But only the Afghan government has the legitimacy, the knowledge and the power to build a nation.

He explains a lot about how more troops will only anger the Afghanis (something we should understand - who wants to be occupied forever?) and that bigger, Western-controlled government, will be equally unwelcome. (Again, see Iraq.) The feeling I got from this piece was that it is a lot like what the Three Cups of Tea author has accomplished - work from the bottom up, help people help themselves and make sure they have ownership in the project and you have a good chance at success. (Keeping in mind that security must be maintained.)

Of course this is something we have barely figured out in our own country, so whether or not our government will make the leap when it comes to Afghanistan, I have no idea. (See New Orleans for evidence of government errors versus private enterprise success.)

Stewart's conclusion is a bit startling:

Transforming a nation of 32 million people is a task not for the West but for Afghans. Creating a narrative of national identity is not a technical engineering problem but more a question of mythmaking. Afghanistan's future must combine elders like Nabi with the aspirations of 5 million refugees, recently returned from Pakistan and Iran. And it will be influenced by even larger forces: the eddies of local ideologies, charisma, the fundamentals of population growth and natural resources, global commodity prices and the nation's relations with its neighbors, from Iran and Pakistan to China. It will draw on government bureaucracies and opaque tribal structures, on old constitutions and new cultures, on religion and luck. Afghans have the energy, the pride and the competence to lead that process. The West, however, does not. It should not waste its money, its lives and its reputation trying to do the impossible. It should invest in what it does well. We do not have a moral obligation to do what we cannot do.

He lives in Kabul and he knows these people and this place. I wonder if Senators McCain and Obama have taken the time to read what he has to say.

More on Afghanistan in coming months, especially as I review the amazing nonfiction picture book, Afghan Dreams by Tony O'Brien.

[Post pic is the famous shot of the young Afghani girl from two decades ago. One wonders what might have happened if the Cold War had never arrived at her doorstep and she had been permitted instead to go to school.]

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From Philip Gourevitch at Talking Points Memo on writing his new book with Errol Morris, Standard Operating Procedure:

No, the real shock in the Abu Ghraib story when it broke in 2004, was that there was no political price for it, no accountability for it, no public debate about whether these photographs were the way that we Americans wanted to be projecting our image and our force into the world at the start of the twenty-first century. The pictures themselves had instantly become iconic, the most witnessed images on earth since the collapse of the World Trade Towers, and it was obvious that their infamy belonged to the entire nation - and not just to the hapless soldiers who were court-martialed and sent to the brig for taking and appearing in them. I mean, nobody was carrying those pictures in protest through the streets of Baghdad, or Jakarta, or Tehran, to demonstrate against Charles Graner or Lynndie England or Sabrina Harman or Meghan Ambuhl or Jeremy Sivits or Javal Davis or Ivan "Chip Frederick, the seven "bad apples" whom the Administation's master framers wanted us to believe were solely responsible for the nation's dishonor.

So that dishonor was compounded by our acquiescence in it. The expose had become the cover up.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Morgan Tsvangirai's announcement yesterday that he will not participate in Friday's runoff election in Zimbabwe because people would be risking their lives to vote for him:

"There has been too much violence, too much intimidation. A vote held in these conditions would lack all legitimacy," Ban said. "I would strongly discourage the authorities from going ahead with the runoff on Friday; it would only deepen divisions within the country and produce a result that cannot be credible."

Ban dismissed claims -- advanced most prominently by South Africa -- that the political turmoil in Zimbabwe was a domestic matter that should be resolved by the country's political leaders and friendly neighbors. He said that the government's effort to thwart fair elections impose the "single greatest challenge" to stability in Southern Africa.

"What happens in Zimbabwe has importance well beyond that country's borders," he said. "The region's political and economic security are at stake as is the very institution of elections in Africa."

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, has said only God will remove him from power.

As to what the U.S., Iraq and Zimbabwe have in common, here is the money quote:

The chair of Zimbabwe's electoral commission admitted that there is political violence but said it was not "serious enough to discredit the election as not being free and fair."

"Some people can also describe an election held in Iraq as free and fair depending on how you evaluate," commission chair George Chiweshe said. "We do not have a war in Zimbabwe . . . we will be able to hold a credible election on Friday."

What gives me hope in the midst of all this:

"The government admits that Mohammad Jawad was treated “improperly,” but offers no remedy. We won’t use any evidence derived from this maltreatment, they say, but they know that there was no evidence derived from it because the government didn’t even bother to interrogate him after they tortured him. Exclusion of non-existent evidence is not a remedy. Dismissal is a severe sanction, but it is the only sanction that might conceivably deter such conduct in the future.

February 7, 2002. America lost a little of its greatness that day. We lost our position as the world’s leading defender of human rights, as the champion of justice and fairness and the rule of law. But it is a testament to the continuing greatness of this nation, that I, a lowly Air Force Reserve Major, can stand here before you today, with the world watching, without fear of retribution, retaliation or reprisal, and speak truth to power. I can call a spade a spade, and I can call torture, torture," - Air Force Major, David J. R. Frakt, in closing arguments on June 19, 2008.

Let freedom ring..............

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From The Legend of Colton H. Bryant by Alexandra Fuller:

"This is the story of Colton H. Bryant and of the land that grew him. And since this is Wyoming, this story is a western with a full cast of gun-toting boy heroes from the outskirts of town and city-shoddy villains from the head office. There is a runaway mustang and crafty broncos. There are men worn as driftwood and salted women and broken-hearted oil rigs. And in this story, the wind is more or less incessant and the light is distilled to its final brightness because of all the hundreds of miles it must cross to hit the great high plains. And the great high plains themselves, dry as the grave in these drought years, give more of an impression of open sea than of anything you could dig a spade into. A beautiful drowning dryness of oil."

It's amazing.

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I am planning to write a feature in the August issue of Bookslut on political books with appeal to teenagers. I don't have a list yet, although I imagine Little Brother will be front and center, but there is a stack of books, both fiction and non, that I'm considering. (David Levithan's amazing Wide Awake which I've already reviewed and the charming but slightly crazy Under My Roof by Nick Mamatas will be included for sure.)

I also plan to include a couple of nonfiction titles that will hopefully make YA readers think a bit about American foreign policy and how we need to be more careful about what we do around the world and the long reach our decisions can have. (Gerald Caplan's The Betrayal of Africa, one of the Groundwood Guides, is looking like an excellent choice.)

The point with this project is that I can't expect a sixteen-year old to run out and read Samantha Power's latest book, but I can certainly get him or her primed to read Power a little later. It has not escaped most of us that young voters are heavily involved in the Democratic primary in ways that they have never ever been engaged in the past. As someone who was utterly and completely nonpolitical through college, I am thrilled to pieces to see seventeen and eighteen year olds so jazzed about presidential primaries. I voted as my parents did for years - I voted (and that's something I'm proud of) but I didn't put a lot of thought into who I was voting for. It honestly did not occur to me to care too much. I figured if my parents felt the guy was good, then that was good enough for me. When I moved out of state and didn't have any guidance I had to work it out on my own and I did, plus the older I got the more I read about world events and the more I paid attention. But I was easily in my late 20s before I really had a handle on every election I voted in.

Figuring out the political process when you are nearly 30 is way too late and it is part of what has gotten our country in such a huge mess. We trusted generations who had gotten complacent (and I say this with all the love and respect in the world for people who worked hard and did their best to keep America strong) and we didn't voice our opinions. We didn't make suggestions, we didn't come up with alternatives, we didn't think.

We just haven't been thinking for a long long time.

So. I'm doing a feature on political books (my column in August will eco-titles, both fiction and non). And while that is all well and good I'm thinking it is not nearly as huge a deal as it should be. It's not just teenagers that need to be reading books of political importance it is ALL OF US. We all need to be reading about foreign policy, the environment, civil rights, Iraq, Guantanamo, renewable energy, coal mining, the polar bear, trading with China, oil policy and on and on and on.

We all need to be getting smarter about what we want for our country and ourselves.

Last August we did Recommendations Under the Radar week and it was pretty awesome. As we all know, August is a pretty slow month for literary news so what if we spent the month blogging about political books? What if we did a concentrated effort across the lit blogosphere to write about books that make us think, make us consider new ideas, make us commit to becoming politically involved. They don't have to be nonfiction - Jo Walton is one of the greatest political writers I know - so go with what works for you. But if enough of you are excited about this, then I'll run a master schedule here and the only thing I ask is that every review you post on a book that fits the political description you let me know about and you link to the schedule in your post. That way your readers will be able to find out about other political books and by the end of the month we will have an absolutely killer list to spread around.

You can just do one book in the month - or five or whatever. Your choice. And genre is wide open (graphic novels are great, etc.) and this is NOT an YA only deal. Any age you want to target would work - I'd appreciate it if you could let me know if it's a little kid book though, so I could note that in the schedule. And please don't cover a ton of historical titles...we all know there are a bazillion books on the American Revolution for 4-8 year olds; I'd rather aim a bit more at books relevant to modern times. This doesn't mean a historical book wouldn't work (again with Jo Walton!) but it has to transcend the period it is written about, if that makes any sense.

Oh - you guys know what I mean. Just write about great books!

There you go, that's my plan. I'm committed already but if anyone else wants to join then that would be fabulous. This is an incredibly significant election year; we are in a lot of trouble in a lot of areas and whatever change happens in November, it's going to be significant. Let's not take this one for granted; let's all participate in fixing the country. One way to start is to learn about options and in order to do that we need to start reading.

This will be cool, (in a remarkably current events geeky kind of way), I promise.

UPDATED: If I wasn't clear, adult book are excellent for this - we're talking an all ages event here, so books from 4-100. Don't be held back thinking it's only for kids.

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The last four or five times that I attended the SCBWI Mid-Atlantic Fall Conference , I was an esteemed MOTA. (Member of the Audience) I warmed my hard plastic chair to the best of my ability, and listened with my whole body to keynote speeches by such greats as Katherine Paterson and the late David Wisniewski. (This year, Bruce Coville had the honor, and next year it's going to be Jane Yolen!) I had no idea that my presence was noted by anyone other than my writing group. This year, I found out how wrong I was.

This year, I was up on stage. Only for an hour, as part of the Editor and First-time Author Panel, but that was enough to find out how important MOTA's are. Whenever I thought about being nervous, I would look out at them. Contrary to popular movies, the whole room was not a blur. I could see individual faces. I most definitely saw Anne Marie Pace's lovely face (and silently thanked her not only for her rapt attention but for her earlier labor, hauling all those hard plastic chairs for all those MOTA's.) I saw members of my writing group that had supported me for years. (Doris! Linda! Barbara! I'll say it again: You saved my life.) And I saw lots and lots of MOTA's I didn't know, but whose faces were just as important to me because MOTA's, fellow writers, lovers of children's books: You are my tribe. And I need you.

You are the reason I didn't write out my answers to the panel questions. I noticed that all the editors did. They came ultra-prepared, with detailed notes, carefully typed. (And that's exactly how I want editors to be, by the way. No vagueness from them, please.) But as for me, I wanted to be able to speak from the heart. To tell the story of how a MOTA became a MOTF. (Member of the Faculty) I wanted to trust you to hear my unpolished words, and to encourage you, and to give you hope. I wanted you to see that I had doubted, and struggled, and failed, and it was only by the grace of other MOTA's that I was able to keep going.

And I really, really want a MOTA from this recent conference to get up on the stage at another conference four or five years down the road and tell the same story. By the way, if it's you, it's okay if you write out your answers. I won't be checking. I'll be applauding.

UPDATE: By the way, when did this happen? No longer required? Why didn't they send out an email?

■Although the apostrophe is no longer required to form the plural of letters and numbers such as two Ph.D.s and the 1980s, use it when needed for clarity: four I’s and p’s and q’s.

So, I guess I could've used MOTAs. You wouldn't have been confused. Oh, wait. Audience IS already plural. Drat. Plural must be MsOTA. Or just MOTA. Pardon my utter confusion.

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