HISTORIC PHOTOS OF MINNESOTA by Susan Marks

Following up my review of “Historic Photos of Minneapolis,” the greatest city ever, Turner Publishing Company just released“Historic Photos of Minnesota,” and I thought that I would take a look through the brilliantly chosen black and white photographs. I have to admit some bias. There is only room in my heart for one state, Nebraska: home of my parents; they raised me in Lincoln. Minneapolis is now my home and it may be in Minnesota, but I will always be a Nebraskan-in-exile. With that said, I have left my first love, like the high school drum major I crushed over, and have entered into a passionate affair with Minnesota.

To be honest, most of my Minnesota experience is limited to the Twin Cities Metro, a failing I hope to remedy. Minnesota has much more to offer than the bright lights and the Minneapolis chain of lakes. It is easy to forget that there is more to Minnesota than Minneapolis and St. Paul. This is one reason why historical collections of regional photography are critical. They remind us that not only was the past important and fascinating, but that there is more to where we live than the tiny worlds that we construct for our families and for ourselves.

Looking through the collection, I found three historical worlds that have shaped the Minnesota that I love. The first of which is on page VI opposite the acknowledgements page, which depicts three visitors to Minnehaha Falls. Two women in elaborate hats and flouncy full-length dresses cross a wooden bridge just bellow Minnehaha Falls. Marks caption reads:

“Visitors to Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, a popular tourist destination after the publication of the epic poem ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1855. Longfellow never visted the falls, but he was inspired by the stories of Mary Eastman and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft about American Indian culture and the imagery of the falls” (VI).

Armed with this new information, I’m reversely inspired having visited Minnehaha Falls several times to seek out Longfellow’s poem and the stories it has inspired.

The second photograph is on page 12, which shows the annual January ice harvest. The ice cubes look as if they are at least half a person in height and at least as wide. Ice is now something that we take for granted, freezers in every home. It has never occurred to me to wonder how ice was delivered and stored before freezers. Marks writes, “During the summer, ice was delivered, block by block, to homes and business for their iceboxes.” I don’t think that I will look at my refrigerator-freezer the same way again.

The third and final photograph that I want to mention is an “image from a civil defense campaign, Minnesota boys have traded in their fort house to dig a backyard bomb shelter,” on page 168. The scene looks like something out of the movie “The Great Escape.” A boy is popping his head out of hole in the ground, hosting up a bucket of dirt to his friends. It looking like this project is taking place in a section of someone’s Victory Garden. I wonder if they asked permission before breaking ground.

There are many more wondrous photos in to examine in the book. I was lucky enough to be able to contact Susan Marks to find out which ones she enjoyed most.

SMR: If you had to pick a favorite photo from the collection, which one would it be?

Susan Marks: I really like 3 photos. One spans page 86 and 87 - it's of two lumber camp cooks standing outside the lumber camp kitchen cabin. It's really a cool winter scene. Through my research I learned that camp cooks were so crucial to the functioning of the camp that cooks were paid twice as much as jacks. The food was abundant and reportedly delicious.

The second photo is on page 121 - it was taken in Gemmell MN during the Great Depression by a Farm Security Administration photographer, Russell Lee. Gemmell was once a thriving lumber town and by the time this photo was taken - the town had all but shut down. The mother/restaurant owner looks away from the camera with her hand in her head and another arm around her daughter who stares directly in the lens of the camera. The daughter has a look on her face that almost defies words.

The third photo is on page 30 - an overtly staged boxing match scene between members of the Minnesota Boat Club. It doesn't scream Minnesota, but it is compelling.

SMR: What is it about Minnesota that made you want to celebrate it though a collection of photographs?

Susan Marks: I was asked to write these captions and text for the book and I was thrilled because I've been researching and writing about Minnesota's history for a long time. Minnesota is a land like no other and it has everything to do with the considerable natural resources (The Mississippi River, lakes, farmland, rich mineral deposits, forests, etc) that attracted so many unique individuals and groups to this state.

Even though I’m originally from Lincoln, NE, I have come to love Minnesota. It might get down right cold, and we might get less than 60 full days of clear skies, but the people are compassionate and are source of hope in an otherwise dog-eat-dog mega cooperate machine. There is a loving sense of community that waits for anyone willing to step out side and embrace it. I wouldn't want to live any where else.

Marks, Susan. “Historic Photos of Minnesota.” Nashville, Tennessee: Turner Publishing Company, 2009

FOOD, Inc (2009)

My wife and I knew what we were getting into when we chose to see “Food, Inc.” this afternoon. She has read several books by Michael Pollan, and I have seen interviews with him and researched food production in order to add relevance to my environmental science class that I teach at a culinary school. So, please understand that when I say that I was under whelmed by the content of the film, it is not because the information was interesting or engaging, but that it did not have anything new for me as a viewer. Nevertheless, the film was interesting, horrifying, and heart breaking.

“Food, Inc.” sets out to lift the veil on food production. Do you know where everything in your kitchen came from, how it’s produced, and how far it has to travel before it reaches your favorite supermarket? If you don’t, you might be surprised to know that food travels, on average more than 1,000 miles before it reaches the grocery store. The system that provides fresh fruit to Minnesota in the dead of winter is a system that requires huge amounts of fossil fuel to sustain.

Beyond fossil fuel and America’s dependence on foreign oil to keep our food system lubricated, there are other costs involved, such as, abuses of human labor, disease, unsustainable monocultures, regardless of your view on the ethic treatment of nonhumans. “Food, Inc.” spends little to no time on the ethical treatment of animals. There are a few scenes of industrial feedlots and chicken coops, but ultimately the movie was trying to appeal to the human fear of disease. It is not healthy for the animals that we eat to walk around in their own feces or to force upon them a diet of cheaply produced grain that they were not meant.

I expected organics to play a role in the film as a solution to some of what is wrong with our current food production methods, and they did. However, it was interesting to see just how many large companies are scrambling to obtain a piece of the organic market. Wal-Mart, one of the few corporate giants that willingly participated in the film, made it clear that they will try to supply what the consumer demands. “Food, Inc.” went so far as to say that Wal-Mart, most likely put the final nail in the coffin of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). If this is true, go Wal-Mart!

Including Wal-Mart in a documentary on food in a positive light was not the only surprise. I knew that the companies that produce our food have a strong legal hold on what can and cannot be said about their products, but I did not know just how strong or enforce able those laws are. Several people were interviewed about food laws were fearful of the repercussions. Not everyone has enough money to fight the felony charges for slandering food like Oprah. Laws that put a limit on free speech make me question my county’s greatness, which brings to why our country is the best in the world: consumers control demand.

The lasting message of the movie is a simple one. Each and every time the scanner at the checkout lane beeps, you and I are casting votes. We are voting for foods that we want to be produced and sold in our grocery stores. If a company as large as Wal-Mart is still sensitive to the desire of its customers, there is hope. However, we need to know what we are voting on when we shop. We need a better information system so that consumers can make better-informed choices. We need to know where our food is produced, how it is being produced, and what is in it. Armed with the good information, we can accurately and effectively vote on food products that we what to survive the market and which one we want to see fail.

“Food, Inc.” is an important movie, one that shouldn’t play in movie theaters where it will only reach the interested and already convinced, but it should be run on television during primetime.

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Lastly, an apology to my friends over at Attack of the Movie Watchers for posting this movie review here instead of there. I enjoyed posting reviews of moves on that site, but it is just not working out. Sorry.

HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED: WHY WE NEED A GREEN REVOLUTION—AND HOW IT CAN RENEW AMERICA by Thomas L. Friedman

I just finished Friedman’s book. It is the most illuminating book written that I have read on the subject of Global Climate Change. There are many important books, journals, and studies, which lay out the deadly global trends that add up to the most important challenge to confront our species. Friedman collates those ideas and orders them into an understandable and accessible system. A system that America needs to adopt in order to successfully renew our Global Leadership before rival nations, like China, discover that to dominate the global market place in the Energy Climate Era is to out-green all other countries.

I’m breathless. My heat pounds in my chest. Typing this review brings tears to my eyes because it will not have the impact that I desire. I’m ready for the revolution, a revolution with a capital “R,” one that is not easy, one that is painful. I don’t make a lot of money. I spend more time weighting the opportunity costs of my dollar-earned than a sane person should. However, if America needs a lasting market price-signal that will turn my dollar into seventy-five cents or even fifty cents so that we can show the world that America is the greatest most flexible economic green-machine, I am ready.

I don’t write to my elected leaders very often believing that individual voices that are not backed with healthy campaign contributions are rather worthless, but I wrote to both Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar this week encouraging them push through the energy-climate legislation that the House of Representatives had the courage to pass (NYTimes.com 6/26/2009). I’m no expert on how laws and regulations that impact markets, but Friedman puts forward a convincing argument that the only thing that can put America on tack to meet the demands of the Energy Climate Era is a market price-signal, which will provide the long term market stability necessary to attract venture capitalists to invest in clean renewable energy. It is my hope that this energy-climate bill will be such a price-signal.

My understanding of how such a price-signal will spur the type of innovation necessary to for America to become the global leader in the Energy Climate Era is sketchy at best. I will need to study those chapters a few more times before I feel truly comfortable with the intricacies of the system, and just how to turn the price-signal key that will drive us into a clean, sustainable energy future. However, what I did understand is that is no other way to be green in the Energy Climate Era. There are thousands of lists with millions of ways for individuals to go green, but not a one of those will matter without a market that can quickly develop and bring to scale new ideas and technology.

I keep my house warm in the summer and cold in the winter. I recycle everything that I can. I support local farms. I use CFLs. I ride my bike 11 miles to work and 11 miles back (when I can). And I try to minimize my ecological footstep whenever I can, but none of that is going to matter if the American market does not receive a price-signal. I will not give up on my personal footstep. I will continue to seek ways to reach a carbon-neutral future because it is important. However, I am now more motivated than I have ever been before to see that my elected leaders are held responsible for the creation of such a signal.

Beyond the elected leaders and markets, Friedman suggested that our friendly meteorologists have both the access and the most public capital to expend in educating the home viewers about the connections between climate and weather. I agree. For what it will be worth, I plan on writing each of my local meteorologists encouraging them to read Friedman’s book, point out how they can make a difference. But not only that they can make a difference by adding short quips and climate vocabulary to their information, but that the first one of them to do so will not only be report the weather, but becoming news themselves increasing ratings and their popularity. This could be their late-breaking-story that puts them in limelight, rather than settling for partly cloudy with a high of 75 F.

It is so clear to me now that we have passed beyond the time of inaction. If America desires to remain the Global Economic leader, the model for which all other countries aspire, we must act now. The time for being green to mean a granola-eating activist with a clipboard full of signatures has passed (however, they are still vitally important). We all must get involved. Citizens must elect leaders that are willing to do what is right, what is necessary, and what is hard. Elected leaders must follow the advice and expert learning as put forward in scientific peer-reviewed journals and not lobbyist contributors. Meteorologists must begin to show the citizens the connections between local weather and climate, and how they influence the natural resources that we cannot survive without, like water.

If America cannot get Global Climate Change right, we will be the next great society to be come extinct, out competed on all sides by one that does. And it is not just America’s global dominance that is at stake, it is the Earth’s ability to sustain life that is ultimately at risk. The current rate of species lost is at a historical high. The rate of species lost is calculated to be 1,000 times greater than baseline projections. A loss that Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin believe may be the “Sixth Extinction” (which is the next book that I’m going to read). We must ensure that we do not create a scenario in which Mother Nature can no longer support humans. Alan Weisman wrote, “The World Without Us,” a narrative of what planet earth will look like when humans have become extinct, which gives me hope for that planet, but is a prediction that I do not wish to see come true.

If you are serious about being green in the Energy Climate Era, your first step must be to read “Hot, Flat, and Crowded.” And when you’ve read it, do everything in your power to motivate others to join the only green revolution that can create lasting change.

Thomas L. Friedman. “Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America.” New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008

THE SOULLESS MACHINE REVIEW June 2009

THE LAST RESORT by Alec Nevala-Lee
ICARUS SAVED FROM THE SKIES by Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud
YOU ARE SUCH A ONE by Nancy Springer
HUNCHSTER by Matthew Hughes
MORALITY by Stephen King

Extras:
FAITH, HOPE, AND IVY JUNE by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

FAITH, HOPE, AND IVY JUNE by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

See my review by clicking here: Citizen Reviews: Faith, Hope, and Ivy June - We continue our occasional series of customer reviews with Aaron Wilson's reaction to the latest young adult novel from Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. - Magers and Quinn Booksellers

RE: THE LAST RESORT by Alec Nevala-Lee

I was troubled by one of the images in Nevala-Lee's story. A lot of attention was paid to a monkey wench. I didn’t get it. So, I looked it up. As it turns out, a monkey wrench references Edward Abbey’s “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” which is credited to have spurred on the more aggressive environmentalist movement.

I ran out and bought a copy of Abbey’s book today.

THE LAST RESORT by Alec Nevala-Lee

Some days, I feel that my two passions, Writing Fiction and Environmental Science are galaxies apart. When I’m teaching English or Literature, my mind is focused on craft and language, seeing the world as a writer and consumer of literature and good writing. When I teach Environmental Science, I notice more of the natural world around me and focus my attention on the systems and cycles that feed the natural capital upon which all human systems are based. Because I seem to have at least these two competing personalities, I am thankful for stories like Nevala-Lee’s “The Last Resort,” which combines good fiction with characters that are passionate about science and the environment.

“The Last Resort” is the ever present struggle between the economic opportunity to profit by exploiting natural resources and the ecological mandate for the preservation and protection of our environmental inheritance. Helki is an expert in field of Herpetology, a branch of Zoology focusing on amphibians and reptiles. She has been called in by a friend to help assess the ecological impact of a new Ski Resort on the local population of Garter snakes, a breading ground lays within the influence of the resort’s plans.

Helki is a mother, a wife, and a snake expert. She feels like a sell out after a brief encounter with three activist-hikers. The hikers were waiting for her. They knew that she would arrive and begin her assessment of the area that day. After their brief conversation, it is apparent that the hikers belong to an activist that is not afraid of action, something that Helki envies about them. However, she says, “It’s a class privilege [ ] It’s easy to care about the planet when you’ve never had to worry about anything else” (56). They go on their separate ways. Helki has a job to do, a job that almost gets her killed.

It would seem that the activist-hikers were of the radical variety, willing to make sacrifices for a greater good. What are a few snakes, a rare breading ground, and human lives when you are fighting for mother earth? An explosion at the developments cooling station sets off a chain reaction that no one could have predicted. Well, almost no one, a report submitted to the parent company of the resort was ignored. A report that alluded to the environmental impact of pumping water under up the ski slopes to remove surface heat in order to keep the slopes cool enough so that the snow wouldn’t melt.

With all natural systems, when one element of the system is removed or significantly altered, ripples can some times become unstoppable catastrophes. To find out what happens and if anyone survives, you will need to pick up a copy of the September issue of Analog.

The sadness of Nevala-Lee’s story is that in this case, the work was done, an environmental assessment was conducted. One of the leading causes of environmental problems is humans trying to manage nature without fully understating it. This time the impact was known, but it was ignored, furthering the struggle between a society that values short-term profit over sustainability.

Truly, “The Last Resort” is a must read.

Nevala-Lee, Alec. “The Last Resort.” Analog . September 2009, Vol. CXXIX, No. 9. P. 54 - 71

ICARUS SAVED FROM THE SKIES by Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud

I’ve been playing with Internet browsers and not a single one of them will consistently and dependably load pages without errors. I know that technology is moving forward at a breakneck speed, but if consumers of the information are not able to accesses it with accuracy then what is the point. The big three need to figure it out: Internet Explorer 8, is just okay; Goggle Chrome, has some good features but times out pictures, and; Fire Fox, way to slow.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen anything from me lately, it is because I have been fighting with Internet browsers to correctly resolve The Soulless Machine Review on my computer. The comforting thing is that when I try it anywhere else, it works just fine…but that just adds fuel to my fire at home. Blah …

“Icarus Saved from the Skies” is a story that has been translated into English by Edward Gauvin from the original French. The story brought to mind a non-hero version of Marvel’s Warren Worthington III, the feathered playboy with an obsessive grudge against Apocalypse for turning him in the monster Archangel. However, Chateaureynaud’s story isn’t about a Marvel Mutant, but a poor sap who sprouts worthlessly weak feathered wings.

Chateaureynaud writes from the under-winged angle’s perspective, which has the definite feel of an abridged memoir or diary. The accounting of events begins in his twenties as small lumpy stubs begin to protrude from his shoulder blades. The story jumps forward through his life as he dates, finds love, marries, and falls out of love. All the while, his wings grow and fill out, but they are too small to carry him into the sky as Icarus’ had lifted him from his prison toward the sun, but too large to effectively hide under clothing or large coats. He is a prisoner in his own home. His wife, not so much loving, is a dedicated observer and fanatic believer that one day he will fly and carry her superman-style.

“Icarus Saved from the Skies” is a train wreck of emotions that sends the winged-narrator over the side of a cliff. Don’t miss it. I recommend this story to anyone who likes Marvel Mutants, but is sick to death of their wars and fighting and would rather read a story about an individuals struggle to find peace with himself.

Chateaureynaud, George-Oliver. “Icarus Saved from the Skies.” Fantasy & Science Fiction. August / September 2009, Vol. 117, No. 1 & 2. p. 140 - 145

YOU ARE SUCH A ONE by Nancy Springer

“You are Such a One” is a pleasant surprise in a world full of first person and third person narrators. As the title suggests Springer’s story is told in the second person, meaning that the narrator pronoun is ‘you’ instead of ‘I’ or ‘s/he.’ Second person is a dangerous writer’s toy, an experimental point of view that is rarely used, simply because it is so different that readers will focus on the point of view and not the story (just as I am doing here), but where many second person stories fail this one succeeds.

The reason that Springer’s story succeeds is that the point of view, even though it is second person, is unobtrusive and does not distract from the story. Instead, the point of view gives the reader an added level of ghostly horror. The main character is experiencing, reliving a very traumatic experience that makes the displaced narrative sense seem psychologically appropriate; she is literally standing next to herself in a déjà vu nightmare of domestic horror.

The main character is a woman out of one of those classic tales that feminists will explore about the 50s and 60s male-female domestic home dynamics. He goes to work. She stays at home. He pays the bills. She does the housework. Except that, she has a job at the local bank as a teller. She is modest and soft-spoken, and doesn’t feel the need to speak up about men who have been promoted while she has not. She glides through her life taking the paths of least resistance, even when it mean letting six people cut in front of her at the grocery store.

Then one day, while driving down the highway in Nebraska count the number of painfully abrupt and sweaty hot flashes, she comes to discover that she is a ghost. She haunts a little middleclass house that no one is willing to live in except for the Hispanic caretaker, who has experience dealing with ghosts. He tells the narrator that she has been haunting this house for years and that he sees her almost every night.

She is rightfully disturbed to discover that she is a ghost and has to find the underlying cause of her personal mystery right away. However, what she discovers is horrifyingly sad.

Whatever your reason for reading this story, read it because it is good fiction. However, it is nice to happen upon a well-written ghost story about a menopausal woman in the second person point of view.

Springer, Nancy. “You are Such a One.” Fantasy & Science Fiction. August / September 2009, Vol. 117, No. 1 & 2. p. 50 - 60

HUNCHSTER by Matthew Hughes

I love to play Texas hold’em. It is a game that is 1/3 part numbers and odds, 1/3 part empathic reading of non-verbal tics (or “the tell”), and 1/3 part luck. Just like the group of guys in Hughes’ story “Hunchster,” I believe that playing poker with five or more is best. Groups allow you fly under the radar, bluff a few, and pass more often without hindering the pace of the game. To that end, the guys have included the oddball who lives downstairs, renting the spare room.

The oddball living in Lee’s basement “…liked us to call him ‘the Hunchster’” (87). He had a fourth strategy for winning hands that rarely failed him. He played hunches. He would look at his cards, but the guys could never catch him even peaking at the flop or at them. He would keep his eyes to himself and speak only to answer direct questions, bet, pass, or fold. And he’d win. He’d win their nickels, dims, and quarters.

This group of guys played for pocket change because times were tough in town. Several of the local businesses had gone under when dotcom bubble burst. Only work in town was the penitentiary. It did not pay well and there were no benefits, but it was work and they all had families to support. Families that they would do anything to keep together, perhaps even murder to protect.

“Hunchster” does not seem extra ordinary. The story is about passing bad times by playing a little poker and getting together with friends. However, the oddball living in Lee’s basement was some kind of genius. He was working on something he called “temporal recapture.”

Temporal recapture gives the guys a reason to worry. These guys aren’t stupid. They can put two and two together, and temporal recapture would spell disaster for the town and their families. Something must be done.

Hughes’ story is a good read. It combines an obvious love for poker and science fiction. I could see this story being a prequel to Philip K. Dick’s “The Minority Report,” minus the need for precognitive humans. It is a story that you will not want to miss.

Hughes, Matthew. “Hunchster.” Fantasy & Science Fiction. August / September 2009, Vol. 117, No. 1 & 2. p. 87 - 93