Department of Book Reports: The Invention of Air

Steven Johnson's The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and The Birth of America (Riverhead Books $25.95) centers upon the figure of 18th century intellectual luminary, Joseph Priestley. In an era that included such figures as Dr. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Antoine Lavosier, as well as the French Philosophes, Priestley still remains an intellectual giant. Not only was he the man who discovered oxygen (although he did not get the chemistry of his discovery and Lavosier was the scientist who named the element), he was a political thinker who supported both the American and French revolutions, and minister as well, who founded with Theophilus Lindsey the first official Unitarian denomination in England.

Johnson explores the milieu in which Priestley made his discoveries. He examines both Thomas Kuhn's notion of Scientific revolution, as well as Karl Marx's notion of dialectics, in order to explain how this unlikely man (who also discovered the idea of soda water) could make the discoveries he did, and finds both models incomplete. Johnson examines the London Coffee Club which provided a culture where Priestley could share his ideas with his friends, including Franklin. The group Priestly belonged to was the Honest Whigs; in the 18th century, the notion that one could separate science from religion and politics did not occur to them, and many lively discussions were had. (Johnson rightly notes that science is not ever far removed from politics, reminding us of the issues of global warming and stem cell research.) Johnson also discusses the changing social landscape of England and its contributions to Priestley's thought, with the coal rich and indutrializing northern England, as opposed to the agrarian south.

Priestley suffered for his radical political positions. In the end of his time in England's green and pleasant lands, rioters burned down his home in England, which prompted him to become the first of many men of science who would someday emigrate to the fledgling American republic. Even in the last decade of his life, Priestley could not avoid politics. Only the intervention of his one-time friend, President John Adams, kept him from being prosecuted under the Alien and Sedition Acts.

In his lifetime, he also published a work taking on what he considered the corruptions of the English church, a work that much influenced his other great American friend, Thomas Jefferson's version of the Bible. Whatever the stereotypes of the Church now, to be a Unitarian in the 18th century was to be a heretic. Unitarians denied the concept of the Trinity (hence Unitarian and not Trinitarians) as well as the divinity of Jesus. Unitarians could not hold public office in England. In America, there was no such prohibition.

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Steven Johnson
www.colbertnation.com
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Johnson has written a superior and fascinating intellectual history, one that will reward any reader. Now, one of these days, I need to read another novel. But as long as books like this get published, it may be a while.

And if I may be indulged a couple of asides. First, my friends over at The Political Carnival, GottaLaff and Paddy, have done some great work on the detainees at Gitmo, which was discussed on David Shuster's show on Friday. Go please take a look.

I also want to reiterate the General's invitation to join us Second Life progressives at tonight's showing of A Soldier's Peace. After the show and the interview, we will have some live music, courtesy of the author of the piece, Zathras Afarensis, and then I will spin some tunes. Please feel free to join us. We have many people who would be happy to mentor new SLers, including my wife, the lovely BookemJackson Streeter.

How to stalk an author

Garth Stein announced a contest this week; download the "lost dog" poster and snap a picture in a cool location. Sure I coulda gone around Hoquiam and posted it, but I thought it'd be fun to take it to Second Life. I spent all afternoon serial Tweeting my search for Enzo. Here's a re-cap:
First I put it up at Cafe Wellstone, where I'm hosting the Album Cafe tonight: Nick Lowe's Jesus of Cool, 30th anniversary edition.
Michele's lovely rooftop garden. Enzo got to drink from the pond.
Enlisting the help of the Tiny Troops at the Tiny Yak. Enzo! don't drink from the toilet! Tinys pee there!
The beach at the Blue Footed Booby. Dances every Thursday after Virtually Speaking.
I didn't tweet this pic of the lovely Luna as it was so hard to see Enzo begging scraps under the table at the Barefoot Lass Tavern.
Night time at the General & Witchy's gazebo. Don't go into the woods, Enzo! There are bears at the Hetstance Ranch!
Back to the Blue Footed Booby Bar to drown my sorrows with flat Jack Sparrow.
Returning home. Hey! There's Enzo waiting on the steps! Isn't that the way it always goes?
Finally a moment to relax. Good boy, Enzo!

Big Thanks to all my Second Life friends who helped with these photos.

I had asked Garth last week to read The Art of Racing in the Rain at the SL bookstore and when he asked "Where/what's SL?" I sent a lengthy essay with links. His reply: "Oh, god, you're a nut. This is too much for me to learn." But the pictures today did the trick! From Twitter: "garthstein@jacksonstbooks Oh, that is quite brilliant. I am definitely doing a reading at SL. As soon as my 13 yr old teaches me how."

My work here is done :)

June Strawberry Days

Ruby jars of June sunshine captured for a cold rainy winter's night.
Can't stop stirring now! Full rolling boil for one minute.
Spooner Farms is one of the fields I picked as a fourth grader. I think we got 50 cents per flat. You wore a punch tag on a string around your neck and on Friday you turned them in to collect your pay. If you were lucky enough to be assigned nice clean rows and picked pretty berries like these, you got moved up to pick for the fruit stands. Then you'd get 75 cents a flat. I hope they pay better now-a-days, as this half flat costs $10.00

Strawberry bombs were a favorite field prank. Find a really large berry, that's over-ripe and squishy, preferably with a slug or two attached. Insert firecracker into stem end, ignite and toss into the row in front of your friend. Hilarity ensued.
I can't can Strawberry Salsa because I don't have a pressure cooker, so we'll have a fresh batch tonight with avacadoes

The Revolution Will Be Twittered.

Twitters from Iran



Picassa page by Bahramks

I never want to hear how st00pid or worthless teh intertubes are. The failure of American and international media is stunning.

That a new information technology could be improvised for this purpose so swiftly is a sign of the times. It reveals in Iran what the Obama campaign revealed in the United States. You cannot stop people any longer. You cannot control them any longer. They can bypass your established media; they can broadcast to one another; they can organize as never before.

The Art of Racing in the Rain, now in paperback!

The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein (HarperCollins $14.99) I told you about this book last year, when I said "Heartbreaking and achingly perfect this book is really impossible to describe. Enzo is a dog who can explain what it is to be human." I told you I was evangelical about this book and I still am. You must read this book. I'm not alone, the Pacific Northwest Bookseller's Association thinks so too.

My friends Village Books twittered recently:

Sign of a good book: When you tear up as you're telling someone about it.

and oh, yes, I've teared up in writing this book report.

Garth also twitters while he's on the road:

There's a goldfish swimming in a fish bowl on the floor outside my hotel room. Why?

Being the smart-ass I am, I couldn't help re-tweeting with the advice:

/U must be @ a Klimpton.It's a loaner pet, not sushi

Which was met with this poetic reply:

This is just to say. I have eaten the fish that was in the fish bowl and which you were probably saving for breakfast

forgive me. it was delicious. so sweet and so cold.

One of my favorite memories from just before we left Seattle was attending Garth's premiere signing. My date that night was the lovely and talented Kevin O'Brien. We went out for burgers and beers afterwards and I asked a gal to snap a pic for me. I forwarded it to the guys the next day and mused "why do we lean in, when we know perfectly well a digital camera can capture the entire room?" Garth replied "We lean because we love."


Jackson Street Books has paperback copies and Signed & Dated, First Printing hardcovers with publisher promo pieces laid in (and buttons!) If I didn't convince you last year, Go! Now! Read this book.

I thought I was aware of all internets traditions.

One of my favorite blogs is P.Z. Meyer's unpronounceable Pharyngula. It's all science-y and I usually learn something from P.Z. whenever I read it. But today, I learned something from one of his commenters, E.V.

Turns out, it is a well known internets tradition to get nakie when taking a picture of something shiny.
'sTrue! Snopes even says so! Who knew?

Congrats on being awarded that shiny phallic symbol P.Z. (most likely for something all science-y humanist).

But please, get nakie next time you take a picture, P.Z.

Department of Book Reports: The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right

There is probably no better authority writing today about the American Right than David Neiwert, who is the founder of the Orcinus weblog and frequent poster at Crooks and Liars. And Neiwert brings his knowledge and analytical gifts to his important, new book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right ( PoliPoint Press $16.95). And nothing brings this book more into focus than the events of the past two weeks, with the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and the assassination of Dr. George Tiller.

Neiwert defines Eliminationism as "a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile and ejection, or extermination" and that uses a rhetoric that is focused on an "enemy within" and that advocates the excision and extermination of said enemies by violent or civil means. This brand of endemic nativist American thought is transmitted into the mainstream of political discourse by the usual suspects: your Limbaughs, Coulters, O'Reillys and often presented as "jokes". Limbaugh, for instance, once said, "I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus -living fossils-
so we never forget what these people stood for".

Neiwert goes onto show how these once fringe ideas have permeated the Republican Party in the past two decades, especially those who had previously been involved in the Reform Party and the Patriot movement, with the result that the political center of the the Conservative movement has shifted further to the Right and morphed into what Neiwert calls Para-fascism. Although not outright revolutionary in tone, and paying some lip-service to law and order, para-fascism is in danger of becoming more proto-fascist in the coming years. The final chapter of the book is titled "It Can Happen Here".

Neiwert examines the nature and history of fascism, which is not so much an ideology, than an emotional response to the modern world. In fact one of its more important facets is the mutability of fascist thought. He looks at the history of Eliminationism in American history, from the American Indian from the beginning of European colonization, to post-bellum lynchings of African-Americans in the South, to the anti-Chinese exclusion acts and the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. It continues today with the Lou Dobbs' of the world, in the anti-immigration crowd, who fear a "Hispanic Reconquista" of the American Southwest and the "English" only movement.

He points out the root of eliminationism is the objectification of "the other" and it's pursuiant demoniziation of one's enemies. We can see that in the manner of which the Right has talked of Sotomayor. And it is certainly visible in the discussions of "baby killer" Dr. George Tiller.

Neiwert's book was published before those events. But he warns, "As America moves forward amid the reality of a President Obama, it may want to brace itself for a spate of domestic terrorism and homegrown violence. Because even before Obama's election, it was clear that some of the more violence-prone sectors of the Far Right were winding themselves up for such an eventuality". He aruges that we cannot ignore the spectre of American Fascism, and we must be willing to confront it and do so with our better natures: by giving them the very recognition that they would deny us, not indulging in demonization and dehumanizing our "others".

This book is the most important book on contemporary politics this year. I implore you to read it.

*cross-posted at teh General's place