The theme seems to be how the grocery business has brutalized the supply chain – from fishermen to truckers.
Even when chains try to do business in ethical fashion, like Trader Joes back in the day, they get subsumed.
I’m glad I read it.
My stupid gripes are that some of the paragraphs were soooooo long. I dislike long paragraphs.
And there were lots of footnotes. I get irritated by footnotes because if you don’t read them, you might miss something. But if it’s something worth not missing, why can’t it be in the body of the page?
I wanted to enjoy this book, but sadly, it wasn’t compelling to me. There was a general history of how TB has been endemic during history. It is a slow moving killer.
Now it is generally curable, although it is building drug resistance.
Since it seems to be a disease of poverty and uncleanliness, not much effort is being put in to eradicate it. The last half of the book seemed to be making this point over and over. The point may be true, but I found the repetition tiresome.
Life death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity. by Katherine Boo.
I found this book to be compelling and a bit disturbing. It’s a tragic study of our modern world. Here is an excerpt:
But the slumdwellers rarely got mad together-not even about the airport authority. Instead, powerless individuals blamed other powerless individuals for what they lacked. Sometimes they tried to destroy one another. Sometimes, like Fatima, they destroyed themselves in the process. When they were fortunate, like Asha, they improved their lots by beg- garing the life chances of other poor people. What was unfolding in Mumbai was unfolding elsewhere, too. In the age of global market capitalism, hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted a sense of common predicament. Poor people didn’t unite; they competed ferociously amongst themselves for gains as slender as they were provisional. And this undercity strife created only the faintest ripple in the fabric of the society at large. The gates of the rich. occasionally rattled remained unbreached. The politicians held forth on the middle class. The poor took down one another, and the world’s great, unequal cities soldiered on in relative peace.
“powerless individuals blamed other powerless individuals for what they lacked” – that touched me. So true.
I read this book my dad wrote. I really enjoyed it and was overwhelmed by my Dad’s thoughts. I have not lived the life of engagement that my dad and mom did, and I feel not worthy.
Here is the first paragraph of the introduction, which is worth the read. I wish I could say “So, world, count me in.”
This book is written by my Uncle, John Ruth. It’s a very topical conversation, even going on right now at the UU Church, where we acknowledge , at each service, that we are on land taken from others. Jack Brubaker described it as “Thick with facts,” which was a bit of a euphemism.
The Epilogue was quite interesting, and worth the read to get there.
I didn’t think I would enjoy this book because I assumed Jurek is some sort of self-promoting narcissist. But, instead, he is just an old guy searching for meaning in his life and relationships. The book was very enjoyable. I really like learning about the culture and danger of the AT and the experience of AT through hikers.
