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Book Reviews
westbynorthwest.org
Declare your independence! Beyond the best sellers
lists and media hype there is a world of big books concepts being brought forth by
small, independent presses. Meet a few of them, their books and authors.
Big Books
Small Press
Ever wonder how many books come to be? The small press
world is alive and well. The independent small press can take a chance or do something
the big corporate publishing empire would never dare. Explore a few small presses
with big ideas. We look at Waging Peace
For A Living: An Action Plan for Survival of Lie on Earth,
The Magic Fish,
When Spirits Come Calling, Cradle to Cradle:
Remaking the Way We Make Things and Saving Wilderness in the Oregon Cascades: the Story
of the Friends of the Three Sisters
Waging Peace For A Living
An Action Plan for Survival of Life on Earth
by Walt Taylor, 1999
231 pages soft cover $25
Copies of this book are available from
95 Knoop Lane
Eugene, OR 97404
add $5 to cover postage. |
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Book Review
by Lois Barton
This book presents a carefully thought out concept inspired by extensive awareness
of social, political, economic and ecological affairs the world around. The first
chapter sets the stage for seriously engaging ourselves in a program to avoid terra-cide,
the ruin of the planet through human action and policies. Throughout the book we
are reminded that the "powers that be" control dissemination of information,
including a statement by nearly 1700 of the world's leading scientists from 71 different
countries, 104 Nobel Laureates among them, which was signed in 1993. This two page
statement warns humanity of impending catastrophe if we do not reverse our present
direction.
Walt Taylor proposes developing a list of all the work needed to turn our world to
sustainable development, and the means for paying for the work. He is concerned that
unemployment is used as a tool for controlling inflation. Everyone deserves the right
to gainful employment at work that is beneficial to the planet and its people. Using
dictionary definitions for "growth" and "development" he point
out that we cannot continue economic "growth" based on natural resources
which are finite.
He suggests to have some non-governmental organizations (who are already at this
kind of work) collaborate to develop such a comprehensive list of needed work, and
a cooperative funding arrangement to make it do-able. He posits a trillion dollar
annual fund to cover this work, and suggests a common fund shared by all the NGOs
as the most reasonable procedure. Taylor concedes that he is an incorrigible optimist,
but justifies this condition by what he calls Taylor's Law: "Optimism is essential
for life even when it may not seem justified by the available evidence."
He lists seven reasons for optimism.
1. Expanding public awareness.
2. Greater appreciation for aboriginal wisdom.
3. A demonstration of sustainable forestry.
4. A change already exists in the hearts and minds of people.
5. The Jubilee 2000 international debt cancellation program.
6. Taking responsibility for the next seven generations.
7. Waging Peace for a Living.
Appendix I lists 96 NGOs whose platform include certain characteristics:
international peace, human rights, ecological economics, survival interests, women,
minorities, aboriginal and third world concerns.
Appendix II is a draft time table for waging peace.
Appendix III is a draft budget for the one year research project.
Appendix IV lists the purposes of a Waging Peace society which was established July
26, 1993 in British Columbia, Canada.
This book is a rare blueprint of reasons and methods for change that will benefit
all being on this planet.
Walt died in June, 2002
Saving Wilderness in the Oregon Cascades:
The Story of the Friends of the Three Sisters
by Lawrence C. Merriam
published by Friends of the Three Sisters Wilderness
Eugene, Oregon 1999
52 pages $5.00 including postage.
Lovely identified color photos on the cover and in a center fold.
Many black and white photos and 5 maps. |
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Book Review
by Lois Barton
Here is a prime illustration of how a few concerned individuals can effect public
decision making. A handful of members of the Obsidians (a Eugene outdoor club) formed
a committee to help protect the Three Sisters Wilderness Area, a group of three high
peaks of the Cascades Mountain range and their watersheds and meadows. Twenty four
years later President Carter signed the Endangered American Wilderness Act of 1978.
A major victory but the effort wasn't over. Many areas still needed to be included.
An introduction in this booklet provides some geological and historical background
of the Cascade Mountains, the creation of the United States Forest Service in 1905,
the development of wilderness areas and the Willamette National Forest. After WWII
timber interests began challenging restrictions against logging in national forests.
In 1954 the Forest Service regional office in Portland announced a recommendation
to reclassify the Three sisters Wilderness Area to allow logging. In October that
year a committee of the Obsidians met to organize Friends of the Three sisters Wilderness
Area.
This booklet follows the development of that Committee and its work over the next
forty years. Details of specific areas under dispute are followed blow by blow, including
the participation of many other organizations, U. S. presidents and elected representatives
in the national congress to reach final definition of borders and multiple use of
the area. Names and photos of active participants in the work are included. The Friends
organized annual treks to parts of the area sometimes including more than two hundred
people for a three day camp out.
The first appendix is a copy of the minutes of the organizational meeting. Appendix
II lists by year from 1955 to 1998 the location of annual summer camps and remarks
about attendance, access, etc. Appendix III has personal comments and recollections
by, and photos of, fourteen of the organizers, early leaders and council members.
A bibliography of notes and references provides chapter and verse for each step in
the process.
This is an impressive record of the value of persistence and political know-how in
achieving environmental goals. And the photographs are lovely.
Copies are available from:
Ed Sullivan
973 Northridge Ave.
Springfield, OR 97477.
Phone (541) 747-8010.
Book Review
by Lois Barton
Sylvia Hart Wright, a graduate of Cornell University, holds advanced degrees in sociology
and information science and believes in the enduring individual spirit after death.
How does an academically trained skeptic come to this position? Her interest in after-death
contacts developed after she was widowed and began sensing her former husband's spirit
contacting her. Her experiences pop up throughout the text.
Using the techniques of the researcher and social scientist, Wright interviewed 78
people who have had such contacts. They are reported under chapter headings such
as "Sensing Someone Else's Death," "After a Suicide," "Lights
That Blink a Message," "Symbolic Events," "Animal Stories,"
and "More Help and Guidance from Loving Spirits."
Around each topic (and there are seventeen chapters) Sylvia Wright questions and
analyses the meanings and apparent validity of the reported experiences. Her commonsense
purview in everyday language laced with witty asides reflects a delightfully straightforward,
avowedly skeptical approach.
Princess Marina dreams of her lost mother in Shakespeare's
Pericles, Prince of Tyre from the book Tales from Shakespeare by Charles
and Mary Lamb, illustrations by Elizabeth Shippen Green Elliot, Children's Classics,
NY, and New Jersey, 1986.
Shakespeare, like many of his contemporaries, loved and wrote good "ghost"
stories such as Hamlet and psi stories like Pericles.
In many old translations from Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Sanskrit, the words ghost
and spirit are interchangeable.
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Closing chapters examining "Who Becomes a Sensitive" and
"Spiritual Experience and Religious Belief" are based on extensive research.
Does psi run in families? What is the role of childhood abuse in creating sensitives?
What about twins? Each chapter includes references to many studies relevant to the
topic. A section on notes in the back of the book lists the sources for these references.
This book offers a new perspective to those people who believe this life is all there
is. The evidence in these many personal stories is overwhelming. The recognition
of cultural and religious taboos that create negative disbelief is clearly conveyed.
On the other hand, it is apparent that human awareness of psychic contacts has been
part of human history since the beginning. "...Throughout the millennia humans
around the globe have turned to sensitives to penetrate the veil of death... Today's
scientists have developed awesome skills for weighing and analyzing material things
but so far they've failed to detect the fine, essential stuff of spirit... To the
open-minded it should be clear that spirit exists".
Sylvia says, "Over time, my own experiences, plus scores of interviews with
people who've had similar ones, have transformed me from a total skeptic to a firm
believer in survival of the spirit after death."
She invites you to check out her website at www.spiritscomecalling.com
Sylvia will be at:
Borders Books and Music
5 Oakway Center in Eugene, Oregon, 7 p.m., Thursday, July 18th, 2002.
She'll talk 15-20 minutes, take questions, then do a book signing. This event is
free.
Unity of the Valley
3912 Dillard Road (at the corner of Hilyard and 39th), Eugene, Oregon, 7-9 p.m.,
Monday, July 22, 2002.
This is a longer presentation. Admission is on a sliding scale. For more information,
call 345-9913.
The Magic Fish
Poems on an Edward Boccia Sketchbook
by Jennifer Bosveld
Pudding House Publications
134 pages, $18., $2.50 postage
e-mail orders: pudding@johnstown.net |
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Book Review
by M.G. Hudson
This book is a work of love. It is beautiful. The soft-bound cover is a painting
by Boccia of the magic fish. (Boccia is a professor of art and a poet himself as
well as a world recognized painter with pieces in collections, galleries and cathedrals
all over the world.) Every left hand page is exquisite with his surrealistic and
whimsical pen and ink drawings. On the next page is the verbal counterpoint. This
poetry is an ekphrastic celebration, making poetry more like polyphonic musical accompaniment
to visual art than a kind of literature. What's that, you say? Yes, Jennifer Bosveld,
an award winning poet (Ohio Arts Council), is a revivalist in the art of ekphrastic
poetry - that an archaic form of poetry which is meant to bring interpretations and
increased attention to visual art.
Looking for a different kind of art book for yourself or a lover of poetry and art?
Here is a rare find.
Mosaic Man, pen & ink, 1992
by Edward Boccia
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from The Magic Fish
Mosaic Man
He is the gentlest of the gentlest souls you know
whole head functions sweet as honeydew
plum humble eyes
soft as a grandmother he is
kind as new rain
His mouth was made to recognize your
every well-performed task, with the
kindest words you've ever heard
His energy fields flies all the way to Saturn
His beauty surpasses the myths of Apollo
and his hearing is accurate and divine
You never looked in the right place
You never asked the right person
All you ever needed was for someone to tell you
All you ever wanted was to know for sure
Jennifer Bosveld, 2002 |
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"The poet and the painter must give way
to the irrational which includes humor and mystery."-- Edward Boccia
Book Reviewed
by Buhrayin at Amazon.com,
At 1-1/4 lbs, "Cradle to Cradle" is more than twice as heavy as a same-size
paperback edition of John Steinbeck's "The Winter of Our Discontent" and
the fact is more than incidental.
"Remaking the Way We Make Things", the book's subtitle, is the social agenda
of its authors, architect Bill McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart. They take
issue with the three R's of environmentalism, "reduce, reuse and recycle."
The process by which plastic bottles are recycled into carpet, for example, also
produces considerable waste and the carpet itself "is still on its way to a
landfill; it's just stopping off in your house en route."
The authors advocate designing products so that after their useful lives, either
the product components provide biological nutrients for new products or circulate
in a closed industrial loop.
The Yanomamo of Brazil whose banana soup dish may contain the ashes of their dearly
departed was one source of inspiration for Braungart and McDonough. They were moved
by the simple, natural and effective technology of the Bedouin whose goat hair tents
ventilate hot air up and out and, when it rains, swell with absorbed moisture and
provide protection.
The authors are walking the talk with the physical design of this new book. It is
made of a waterproof polymer developed by Melcher Media so it can be read in the
bath or at the beach, provided you have sufficient wrist strength to hoist it to
viewing level. And the book can be "upcycled", made into a high quality
polymer, at least theoretically. Until such time, place this book on the shelf above
your hot tub next to Aqua Erotica, a collection of stories dealing with water and
sex, another book of "Durabook" construction.
Undoubtedly, an electronic edition of the book would be most eco-effective. Also,
a digital version would be searchable and might compensate for lack of an index.
Despite its flaws as a model, it offers a vision of the future in which people and
their stuff can co-exist.
What books are you reading? Send your review to publisher@westbynorthwest.org
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