test blog #10

If only Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist  could be required reading. Everyone who has ever scoffed cynically at protesters. Everyone who has ever seen a mainstream news report showing a burning car, over and over and over, but not showing tens of thousands of peaceful protesters, and looked no deeper. Everyone who has ever denied police violence against peaceful, law-abiding citizens, or assumed that police violence is necessary to maintain order at protests. Every one of these people should read this book. In this impressive debut novel, author Sunil Yapa takes us into the so-called " Battle of Seattle " -- the protests against the World Trade Organization summit in that city in 1999. But the time and place could be any of the G8 or G10 or G20 summits -- any of the meetings where the ruling elite side-step the democratic process as they carve up the world for global capitalism. The reader sees the mass protests through the eyes of many different characters: activist...

The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is an outstanding book -- meticulously researched, but written in a compelling, accessible style, and with great humanity and compassion. Author David J. Morris unearths the social and cultural history of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the fourth most common psychiatric disorder in the US. He surveys the potential treatments. He explores the role of social justice in our understanding of PTSD. But above all, Morris confronts the meaning of trauma, in society and in his own life. Morris was a U.S. Marine stationed in Iraq. After narrowly escaping death, he returned home questioning everything he thought he knew -- and eventually having to face the reality of his own trauma. Morris' dual role as both researcher and subject give this book a unique power as history, social science, and personal essay. People have known for centuries, for millennia, that traumatic events produce after-effects, but different cultures ...

Are there bag signs where you live? In Mississauga and perhaps most suburban places, people put up bag signs advertising services. The signs are cheap to buy and easy to post. They are also illegal. To me, they are the Nexus of Evil: advertising plus visual pollution plus polyethylene waste. I have called 311 to complain about these signs in my neighbourhood, and if the City has someone available, they will sometimes dispatch a crew to remove the signs. Presumably this crew is also doing other outdoor maintenance, or perhaps they are driving around removing bag signs, which would be awesome. Allan and I also remove these signs ourselves. When we lived in a house, we would throw the signs in the garage until enough had collected, then bundle up the vinyl for trash and the metal frames for recycling. Now, while we're out with our dogs, we'll just put the whole thing in a public trash barrel. This morning while I was out with Diego, I slipped the vinyl off a bag sign, crumbled it ...

Another awesome athlete protest that I have no time to write about. I can only thank Colin Kaepernick for his courage. Joy of Sox speaks for me:  To Mookie Betts (And Others): The Right To Protest Has Nothing To Do With The Military .

How have labour unions benefitted our society? Union activism brought us: Weekends! Literally. There used to be an expression: "Don't come to work on Sunday, don't come to work on Monday." Meaning, if you took one day off, you were fired. Vacations - any vacation Paid vacations The 8-hour work day An end to child labour, so every child could have an education Rest breaks Equal pay for equal work for women Sick leave Canada Pension Plan Universal health care The minimum wage Pregnancy and parental Leave The right to strike Anti-discrimination rules at work Overtime pay Health and safety rules The 40 hour work week Worker’s compensation for on-the-job injuries Employment Insurance Pensions Public education! Collective bargaining rights Wrongful termination laws Whistleblower protection laws Anti-sexual harassment laws Holiday pay Unions even help nonunionized workers get better pay and benefits. Here's how. Unions have a substantial impact on the compensation and wo...

I spoke to a customer yesterday who was visiting from Denmark. He described himself as a trade-unionist, and he came to the library, looking for me, to learn about our strike! He also said he had read a book he loved, and was looking for more like it. He described the book: "by a Canadian author, takes place in Toronto, about the struggles of workers building a viaduct". It is some measure of my Canadian acculuration that before he finished his sentence, I idenfitied Michael Ondaatje's  In the Skin of a Lion , an excellent work of historical fiction and labour history. For the "more like that" question, I immediately thought of The Given Day , by Dennis Lehane, which led me to write this post about historical fiction in general.  So on the Labour Day weekend, I thought it would be fun to do a little labour-themed readers' advisory. Here's my list. Fiction In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje The Given Day - Dennis Lehane Ironweed - William Kennedy T...