Book Review: Return to the Sky

Image: the cover of the book is a light blue sky background with two adult bald eagles in the foreground. With white heads, brown bodies and a large yellow bill and talons. One bird is perched on a broken tree with their wings spread and another is flying downward about to land with them. In the upper right corner is "Tina Morris" below that "Foreword by Dr Elizabeth Gray, CEO, National Audubon Society." Below that in larger letters is "Return to the Sky." In the lower left corner is "the surprising story of how one woman and seven eaglets helped restore the bald eagle."
 

Return to the Sky was such a refreshing delight of a bird book and memoir. This review includes my usual diversions from the topic as is customary on any book involving animal research and conservation. Tina Morris' and these eagles' work and life are already interesting in their own light. The way this book is written makes it stand out as more than that. Even starting with the title byline, it is clear that this is not a book about one human saving birds. It is about the birds and this human saving themselves. Morris ponders regularly what the birds must go through, acknowledging the struggle and strength in each personality. Being a woman navigating the highly white male dominated science and conservation fields is of course a large part of Morris' history. Yet, still, even when media wanted to center her in the story in the past, she demanded that the birds be centered. Quite often, nature writing is rife with anthropocentrism and saviorism. It pains me to say as a birder that birding and bird conservation books can sometimes be even moreso than average. I often find myself baffled by how little some authors are able to understand or give credit to the birds they study and/or write about. Tina Morris has a way with story telling that is full of respect and compassion while also being concretely grounded in data and rationale. This mix is hard to come by, though it has gotten better with time- led by many women scientists and naturalists over decades and more. Morris quotes Jane Goodall at one point as a driving force involving the importance of respecting compassion as part of the sciences. This shows through Morris' actions and thoughts on the page. 

Another unfortunately common thing in bird conservation and science is for people to sacrifice their ethics bit by bit when encountering the indoctrination coming from fields and industries that involve captive animal research or exploitation for entertainment (such as zoos.) I can speak to these (attempts) at such in my own past education, even in human animal based research fields- questioning is shut down immediately and ethical concerns are addressed institutionally by a few (mostly) animal researchers in a room (IACUCs) who often do worse ethical things in their own labs. Zoos exist as entertainment businesses before anything else despite rebranding as conservation sites (most animals in zoos are not endangered, most animals will not breed while stressed by imprisonment and being gawked at all day, etc.) It can be a big no no to say anything negative about zoos or captive bred animal labs without being immediately met with defensiveness, clever marketing, industry propaganda, and accusations of emotionality and compassion (as negatives,) and so on.

Morris never falls into this trap. She is open minded and excited by each endeavor into working with other animals that she attempts in early life, not entering expecting to find suffering, but refusing to look away when she does. She does not sacrifice ethics when she is confronted with harm to other animals. We learn about her initial education experiences involving a (captive) animal laboratory and then a zoo and I found myself waiting for the disappointment to hit- when the author gives in and wills themself out of the accurate assessment of harm that they have witnessed in order to fall in line with the propaganda of these industries. Morris' strength of character and ability to take objective stock of what she is seeing allow her to avoid this multiple times. She speaks honestly about suffering that she has witnessed and how each attempt at finding ways to work with other animals would fail when realizing the callousness it would require of her. She even gives zoos another shot later, but finds the next place to be even worse than the last. She does not give up. Even when academic research and veterinary programs required (the now often phased out) harm toward other animals in order to progress, she would move on but continue to find ways to work in conservation and research with other animals. I cannot stress this issue enough: we lose countless brilliant compassionate minds to this. Morris is an exception. There are many others who walk away from their education due to refusal to enact or condone suffering of other animals and never look back. 

Morris' tenacity and brilliance ends up landing her in the wilderness alone raising eaglets of an endangered species with the help of others along the way. She has to overcome pretty insidious fears of heights among other things throughout her journey. She discusses her many trials, tribulations, wonders, and successes all while keeping the eagles at the center of the story. Morris also discusses the grey areas of such work- necessary evils one might say. "Hacking" involves taking eaglets from their parents and transporting them to another location to try to bring the species back from near extinction, with no consent of the parents or chicks. At this time, it was not known if it would even work. The conservation process also involves regularly interrupting their lives for various research metrics and robbing them of a life raised by other eagles. It ended up being wildly successful for this species. Bald eagles were previously heavily hunted and along with DDT poisoning barely stood a chance. Regulations could only do so much to stop their decline. The feeding of the eagles was also interesting- Morris had to fish carp from a local area. Being an introduced species, humans had caused the carp to cause imbalance in the area and thus the eagles became part of the balance. Yet, Morris being Morris, she did not love killing fish constantly. It is frustrating to say that this is one of the rare times I have seen these struggles discussed in this sort of book. The reality that we must be clear about what we are doing causes defensiveness, perhaps due to black and white thinking, some people seeing other animals a homogenized subjects of a whole rather than individuals, or due to cognitive dissonance. We should be thinking about what these birds and other animals are experiencing every single step of the way.

The best researchers are those who can balance honesty and compassion with scientific rigor. Endangered species have a tiny bit more protection in research processes, but most other bird research isn't even covered by the animal welfare act as they are captive bred birds. Wild birds were only given meager protections in the past couple of years- long after Morris was working with eagles. She also discusses the need for detachment and objectivity. One comes to feel like a parent to the birds while raising them, but it is important that they stay as wild as possible and do not grow up seeing humans as a source of safety and food. I am glad that Morris was the person who was involved with the intimate nature of the work. 

Morris wraps up the book with important lessons about the dire situation we are in across the planet. She calls for attention to conservation of not only charismatic species like the bald eagle, but of all other species that may not capture the publics hearts and attention the same way. She also calls for a lead ammo ban. Lead poisoning is causing literal extinctions and interrupting hard conservation work like this every day while hunting and gun lobbies fight against said bans. This is why hunting being rebranded as "conservation" is so offensive when then hunting was part of what drove the extinction and the attachment to lead ammo continues to do so. Regulation is where the conservation is and unfortunately lead ammo and sinkers in fishing abound. (For the record, Morris is not anti-hunting. She is merely urging- as many other actual conservationists have- that lead ammo be banned before hunting wipes even more birds off the planet.) 

When I looked at the goodreads page for this book, I was dismayed that it did not have more attention. It is a beautiful, motivating story. It is very well written and captivating. It is written by someone who seems to be a stellar human being in standout ways. It tells the story of a species that was almost gone forever, who I now see regularly soaring along the water through my binoculars. I hope more people will pick this book up whether you are interested in conservation, research, women in the sciences, birding, natural history, or just love a good memoir.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: We See Things They'll Never See

 

Image: The cover of the book is an extreme close up of a face of a person who is looking downward. They have dark brown skin and there are stripes of dripped black and pink paint going down their face and glittering sheen to their skin. Across the top in white letters is "chantellle jessica lewis and jason arday." Down the center in much larger letters is "we see things they'll never see." Across the bottom is "love, hope, & neurodiversity."

We See Things They'll Never See: Love, Hope, & Neurodiversity is an academic text by academics who actually acknowledge and attend to the fact that they are academics. What I mean by this, is that the language they use is actually defined for a wider audience, they acknowledge when there is a strange juxtaposition between their positions in academia and their criticisms, and generally attempt a self aware approach to the topics discussed. This is one of the strengths of the book and is something I find slightly more common in disability based academia. I cannot count how many books I have read that never define neoliberalism or hegemony- even if they aren't solely written for academics. Chantelle Jessica Lewis and Jason Arday do well to imagine an audience wider than academic or well read activist circles reading this book. This is not to say that it is an easy read or lacking jargon, but it is definitely easiER.

Can we talk real quick about how great this cover design by Heather Hansen is? You should definitely judge this book by this cover because it is gorgeous.

Both authors are in the UK, but with the exception of a few details here and there, the book has plenty that applies to the USA and I am sure other areas of the world if not all in some way. The general argument is that various forms of hierarchy need be challenged and dismantled in order to support a neurodiverse populace, all of which will also benefit people who may not currently fall into the neurodiverse and related labels. 

The authors discuss their process for writing the book at length. At first I welcomed this, as the style is unconventional for the field. They include themselves as subjects in the book rather than only writers making statements about the rest of the world. That said, it got to the point multiple times where this was repetitive and took up far to much space before getting to the good stuff. Or an important point would be cut short to return to the authors interactions while writing again. At one point they discuss using speech-to-text to help write and this made a lot of sense to me. When my hands betray me, I use it, and it always needs to be heavily edited down afterward. This book could have used said editing here and there.

That said, once they got to the meat of the book, I found it interesting and at times refreshing in ways it shouldn't have to be. The authors' use of neurodiversity in this book is mostly in reference to autism, but it does not exclude other groups like some writings regrettably do. Calling someone with, say, schizophrenia "neurotypical" because they are not autistic is pretty ridiculous in my opinion, but I digress. The authors also discuss several topics that are highly neglected in disability discourse, often by the more privileged demographics (middle class+ white folks with low support needs for instance.) One of these is service/care workers. There is often discussion of a social model where care is a given and support is around every corner without confronting who currently offers that support. They discuss who is often doing this labor- poor folks, bipoc folks, undocumented folks, etc or unsupported family. I would add to this that many care workers are disabled or chronically ill themselves and pushing through it to survive while offering care to others for meager income. I appreciated this discussion greatly.

The authors also discuss the problems with meritocracy- something embedded so far in the center left that some of the main reasons given in our current horrorshow of a country that people shouldn't be kidnapped and sent to concentration camps is that they contribute in very specific ways or have specific traits valuable to capitalism. Lewis and Arday discuss the value of people outside of this and how this framework does extensive harm to movements of liberation. They also include solidarity with aging populations- another thing I do not see mentioned enough in accessibility discourse. The vast majority of people will not lead a full life without disability. The amount of access needs humans have often increase with age, so it should be a given that aging folks are automatically part of the discussion. Yet, I sometimes see it as only a footnote if it is discussed at all.

They wrap of the book with a set of recommendations for a more supportive neurodiverse society. Many of the suggestions are apt, but I wish more time had been spent discussing them. I think if we could cut out a big chunk of the repetitive stuff about the authors' writing process and fill that space with more of their thoughts on the solutions at the end, the text would be stronger.

Overall though, I found this discussion of neurodiversity to be important and helpful. It is one of the more inclusive things I have read regarding accessibility at large and I appreciate that the authors found a way to write it together that served both them and their audience. 

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: Free Gifts - Capitalism and the Politics of Nature

Image: the cover of the book is a painting with a bright blue background and a dining table with a rust colored tablecloth in the foreground. On top of the table are the heads and bodies of several species of animals including a hod's head, a basket with a rabbit, pheasant, and other birds are strewn about. There is also a fruint bowl and a pile of vegetables. In the upper left corner is "free gifts" in white. In the center in yellow is "capitalism and the politics of nature." And in the right corner in white is the author's name Alyssa Battistoni.

It can be difficult to review an academic book like Alyssa Battistoni's Free Gifts - Capitalism and the Politics of Nature as a non-academic- or at least as someone who never specialized in this particular field. I feel the need to make the caveat that as a result I may have missed or misunderstood something. I would say that this book is fairly dense and somewhat jargony, but still readable if one is able to take the time and focus denser texts require. The amount of literature that the author reviews throughout the text is impressive. She introduces several new terms. At times I had to go back to bookmarks or to reread things to figure out what was the author's argument and what was an assessment of another writer. That is less a criticism of the writing style and more and acknowledgment of my own stressed out attention span while reading this. 

Battistoni's assessment and summation of capitalism and its history taught me some things that I don't often see in discussions about the topic. The author frames the ability to refuse pollution or to impose pollution on others is a form of class rule. She also discusses past feminist movements' attempts to argue against the idea that labor associated with women (child rearing, housework, etc) being "natural" or nature oriented is inaccurate, and thus said work should be paid. (The author also acknowledges the BIPOC women doing said labor for white women.) Battistoni turns this argument on it's head by acknowledging that something being natural should not mean that it's exploitable.

There is also much discussion about the struggle to categorize nature. Some neoliberal solutions (sometimes seen as a necessary evil) to convince capitalists to believe that respecting nature is in their favor can backfire when they run into a part of nature that resists exploitation, or where the "profit" being discussed is not solely monetary and immediate. There are pieces of the natural world that are capitalized upon and exploited to extinction and others that resist commodification. There will always come a point we're nature is not seen as profitable by capitalists even if it IS infinitely more "profitable" to the human race and the more than human world to protect. It is too costly to capitalism to exploit everything, therefore the socialization of nature as a public source (the public here includes other species,) is a better alternative even for neoliberal and further conservation proponents. Another argument I appreciated is the author's discussion of how many across the political spectrum argue that to protect or respect the natural world would mean destroying our own lives and luxuries. There is a sort of black and white thinking that we are either in this high waste capitalist dystopia or complete primitivism. The author offers ideas that show how one can reduce destruction and exploitation without necessarily taking away quality of life and in fact can often improve quality of life.

Battistoni's language is often on point, such as saying things like "more than human world" or "other than human animals." Yet, at times it's still feels like the author is looking at other animals through a lens of product and capitalism alone. I found that the author focused a bit more on nature as a homogeneous whole for the sake of argument which is advantageous in some ways and disadvantageous in others. There are sections where I felt very engaged by her discussion about how capitalism affects other than human animals, ecosystems, etc. However, more than once, said discussions focusing on those victims were often cut short to return to centering the effects on humans. Perhaps this is an unfair criticism given the broader topic of the book, but it seems like a missed opportunity to treat other animals as an important category of beings with a variety of conscious experiences who are very much active members of systems of exploitation. I also felt that the book missed the opportunity throughout multiple sections to engage with the idea that animals are part of the working class. Battistoni occasionally references thinkers who are more in line with animal liberation but in my opinion doesn't engage enough with their ideas. She also discusses power imbalances between humans and other animals deftly, but still needs to push a little further in my opinion.

This lack of inclusion can cause other problems when one is making an argument about whether or not certain actions would be effective and combating capitalism. There's is occasionally a worn dichotomy made between individual change (portrayed as useless or capitalistic) and systematic change (confronting those at the top) which tires me to no end on the left. Harm to ecosystems and other animals have occurred since long before capitalism ever existed. The death of the ocean and ecosystems worldwide are not solely capitalist issues. Extinctions, exploitation, cruelty, etc have all occurred throughout human existence even back to the most primitive of times. So, one can claim that organizing workers in these industries would be combating capitalism, but by conveniently leaving out the animals victimized by said industries, it makes it seem that combating capitalism would solve the problem whereas avoiding harm to animals when possible would not. I do not think there is a fair dichotomy that actually exists in the world between individual change and systemic change. Furthermore, many systemic changes are a bunch of individuals making changes together.

The author does acknowledge that we can never return to a planet of the past, which is an important distinction often missing from some leftists assessments of the world. The author does not see through rose colored glasses nor does she make the argument that an anti-capitalist framework would suddenly solve all of the problems with society. She makes the far more grounded argument that a more socialized system offers more options to confront problems head on. Many collective liberation, (animal inclusive) anarchist, and indigenous authors' texts support this author's thesis that we must move forward from where we are and incorporate decolonial knowledge without assuming that we can undo everything that has been done and return to a mythical pristine nature harmony that never existed. We must envision and create something new.

The author also encourages the reader not to fall into despair. While things are very bad and they have continued to get worse, that is not a reason to give up entirely. This is another test where I have encountered the "hope without hope" idea that basically fuels me daily- even if only due to the reality that things can and will get even worse than they are now without intervention. The author holds on to some hope that there are still some things that can be healed, some things that can be prevented, and some things that can be overcome.

Overall this was a heavy book with a lot of information that took me a long time to read. I have my criticisms but also believe that it adds a lot of important points of discussion and examples of what a better and more cooperative world could look like.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: Read This When Things Fall Apart

 

Image: The cover of the book is an illustration of a person standing in waist deep water staring out towards a dark blue night sky. The person is drawn in black with long hair and surrounded by lily pads. The water is surrounded by tree silhouettes and flowers. The sky has constellations drawn connecting the stars. The moon in the center has "read this" in black letters. Below that in soft yellow is "when things fall apart" Below that in green "letters to activists in crisis." And on the bottom in yellow is "edited by Kelly Hayes."

I read the anthology Read This When Things Fall Apart at a time when my life had fallen apart within a country falling apart within a world falling apart. This book brought up a lot of feelings. I believe that things like burnout, loneliness, relationship conflicts, and lack of support systems for disability, illness, and aging are some of the biggest threats to activist movements. We can never run long on fumes, vibes, adrenaline, excitement nor despair, urgent anxiety, immediate crisis, and so on. I was never one to find balance in any of these and it is part of what resulted in my own stepping back from most organizing years ago. On top of inevitable things like illness and massive life stress, hyper focusing on activism without building relationships outside of it is a common issue (and is even encouraged by some movements and cultures.) This sort of isolation means that many people do not have anyone to hold their hand and ease the pain of experiencing and/or witnessing the many horrors of the world. Or if they do, they are sometimes too close to offer what someone may need. Enter Kelly Hayes who put together a collection of letters from organizers/activists to others.

The collection follows a similar format with each entry: "Read this when X," followed by words from organizers who then sign off with, "Sincerely, X." The actual content of each entry was a bit variable. Some letters feel very intimate, like the author is sitting there with you and connecting on a personal level. Other entries read a bit more like essays, discussing changes we need to implement and sharing experiences to learn from. 

While all entries had their strengths, I had a few favorites. "If You're Witnessing the Unthinkable," by Eman Abdelhadi about genocide in Gaza (and beyond) was immensely heart wrenching yet hopeful and supportive. It brought tears to my eyes while also leaving me a little more open minded about the future. Aaron Goggans' "If You Are Struggling with Your Mental Health" was a refreshing follow up to the more flawed entry preceding it (more below on that.) He does well to discuss the intertwined relationship between the sensitivity and drive that can both make one good at organizing and also make one vulnerable to trauma. It also introduced me to The Wildseed Society. "If You Are Fighting Deportations and You're Afraid or Discouraged" by Aly Wane brings clarity to the fight against the destructive system of organized terror being waged by ICE and other oppressive institutions. He encourages us to look at the bigger picture and not let details or individual flaws hide the reality of where things could be if we kept going. I also appreciated Shane Burley's entry on fascism. Even though it was one of the entries that felt a bit more like an essay than a letter, it confronts some important truths and conflicts within leftist movements that we need to overcome. Reading this book also pointed me in the direction of other books to add to my endless to-read list such as such as No Cop City, No Cop World edited by Micah Herskind who contributed "If You're Losing and discouraged." I was familiar with many of the authors therein, but this was my first interaction with others.

I found the entry on suicide to be frustrating. It is the longest in the book yet the most flawed. It has strong moments, discussing how mental health causes people to act imperfectly or downright abusive and how this isolates and breaks people apart. However, her entry is less of a supportive letter and more borderline trauma dumping in ways I did not find helpful for such a critical topic that so many of us deal with. Other authors balanced the sharing of personal experiences with the supportiveness of the books format much better. The author also frustratingly diagnoses herself with TWO new illnesses (including DID and a subgroup of PTSD.)* This author was also given a second entry collaboration with another person about disability which is better, but I would have preferred a second entry from one of the other authors instead. I loved this author's work for years, so it is frustrating for that reason as well. Fortunately, the following entry about mental health by Aaron Goggans makes up for the flaws of the suicide entry. 

Read This When Things Fall Apart is another one of those books that I wish would have existed when I was younger. There is so much here that I benefited from even now that could have changed my entire trajectory back then. I hope that it offers support to the organizers of today, especially as I watch my country further expand and strengthen its fascist regime. This is one of the most heinous times in our history- and that is saying something. I fear things will get worse, but hold onto a glimmer of hope. History has taught us how bad things can get and how these things are repeated when we do not learn important lessons. It has also taught me that organized and passionate people can fight those things and win.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

_____

*I didn't want to make too much of this review about this one entry, so I have added this elaboration as an optional end. This entry caused me to put the book down for a bit and had the opposite of the effect the book is seeking out. I know some will bristle at these criticisms, so here is more info on what I mean: I am not against people looking into their struggles and figuring out what they suspect may be going on before seeking higher care- that is good. I am aware of the atrocious healthcare systems both in the USA and elsewhere that complicate access. Pathologizing every single human experience, fixating on or shopping for diagnoses that are most popular in media or social circles, and publicly misrepresenting illnesses- that can take a long time to properly diagnose even by trained people- in an endless telephone game has become a big issue in some communities. It's Schrödinger's diagnosis- wherein seeking professional diagnosis is avoided because doctors are (oppressive/inept/stupid/inaccessible) yet the diagnoses themselves created by doctors are concrete, real, and require no medical training to assess. This is not just simply an annoying phenomenon- it can result in people NOT receiving the correct treatment or help they need (as many diagnoses share features) which can result in worsening illness that becomes harder to treat or even suicide that this essay is meant to prevent. I have severe OCD for instance which shares traits with other disorders whose therapy worsens OCD. Some self-dxers have even advocated removing diagnoses from definitions of disability- which means removing accommodation funding. Doctors are human which means they can absolutely be shitty, but years of intensive education and observed clinical practice is not the same as googling things, chatting with friends, online tests, and highly biased self assessment. Doctors don't self diagnose either- especially not with psychiatric illnesses- because they understand priming, confirmation bias, and the importance of an external observer. 

The right has their anti-science aspects (ivermectin, mask refusal outside of ICE gestapo, racist "research," etc) and we on the left have our own (self dx, treating covid and cancer with homeopathic "medicine," etc.) The author also mentions being against Medical Assistance in Dying which I know is a stance among some disability justice folks due to valid fears of coercion. However, I am tired of MAiD being organized against at every turn as I know what it is like to watch people die slowly in agony or be resuscitated even with a DNR after attempting to end life on their terms. Is the option of choosing to die of starvation and dehydration (which can still sometimes legally be interrupted) kinder to disabled people facing terminal illness? How can we discuss suicide and what can lead to it without engaging with this topic properly? I have faced some things myself and a 4th cancer could come at any moment. I disagree that the only options are genocide or die in agony. I think we can pair medically assisted dying with better support for disability accommodations.

Book Review: Positive Obsession

 

Image: the cover of the book is a painted rendition of Octavia Butler, a dark skinned woman with shorter cropped hair, two long earrings, prominent glasses, and a black turtleneck. She is staring into the camera against a orange-brown background. Across the top in white is "Positive obsession." Across the bottom in orange and white is "the life and times of Octavia E Butler" and "Susana M. Morris."

I count myself among the many people saddened that Octavia Butler was taken from us so soon. I have read every book and almost every story (this book let me know about more that I missed.) Before going into Positive Obsession, I had some information about her life, but it was limited. I jumped at the chance to read a biography (and more) about Butler and the effect she had on the larger world.

Susana M. Morris created a stellar tribute with this book. She manages to navigate past all of the things, that can make biography and literary analysis a slog or impossible to read, with great skill. I will caution readers who have not read Octavia Butler's work to either do so before reading this book or skip over the sections where Morris gets into detail about plots of books and stories. The author has taught Butler as a college professor and it shows in her writing. Positive Obsession is highly readable and flows very well. It is not overly jargony or dry. The author's love, respect, and sheer excitement about Octavia Butler and her work shines through.

This book is not entirely biography in the sense that it does not follow the format of "this happened then this happened" that can make bios dry for me. Morris includes a little of herself in this. She discusses her experiences with teaching and how much Butler has touched and influenced her despite the two of them never meeting in person. There is also literary analysis of each book and story that I would say is a bit more than average for a biography of a writer. I found this to be a good thing. By analyzing Butler's books, sharing personal anecdotes, and telling the history and culture that was surrounding Butler, Morris creates a clearer picture of Butler's life than many biographies manage. It is also simply well done. I felt transported back to when I had read each book. I was often in agreement or enlightened by Morris' assessments of what it all meant to both Octavia and the larger world. Reading this book felt like getting to know someone rather than only about someone.

Morris discusses race and gender in ways that are important and complex. She is able to speak about how Octavia Butler being a Black woman affected her work and life without reducing her to those attributes nor tokenizing her- things that many others unfortunately did. For instance, Octavia Butler was not the first "black woman science fiction author" to win the MacArthur Fellowship (aka Genius Grant.) She was the first science fiction author ever to receive the honor. Morris gives a snapshot of Butler as a highly skilled person in community of writers who is also affected by her own identities in the cultural and political climates of the time. It was interesting to learn more about Butler's political views which I am frankly surprised I did not know more about. I also have decided to reread the Parable series soon due to its bananas prediction of the future. I had forgotten that "Make America Great Again" was the slogan of authoritarianism in that book written long before our current fascist regime was in place. Despite Butler not seeing herself as a prophet, the predictions she made of the future are uncanny. 

There is a great selection of photos in the center of the book taken throughout Butler's life. I also really enjoyed the design format in general of the hardcover. The cover is beautiful and the book feels "just right" in terms of size and so on. I usually don't end up with tons of page flags when I read biographies, but I marked so many sections of this book so that I could return later to stories I have not yet read, quotes from the author, and many standout facts I had no idea about. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to know more about one of the most important fiction writers in history and especially to those of us who have desired something to fill the gap between Butler's final contributions and today.

This was posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: A Mouse in a Cage

Image: the cover of the book is two white mice in a glass container, one with her paws up aganst the glass and the other half hidden behind her. In the background is an out of focus person with goggles and other PPE looking in at the mice. In white letters- A Mouse in a Cage. In pink letters- rethinking humanitarianism and the rights of lab animals. In gray letters- Carrie Friese.

I was not expecting Carrie Friese's A Mouse in a Cage to bother me as much as it did. I read about the author and decided we likely had some common ground and that she was quite possibly adding new and important ethical analyses to the awful subject of nonconsenting animal research. Instead, I found myself angry and even insulted by some of the author's assessments in this text. This author's sensitivity could have been a major strength in some circumstances. Unfortunately here, she limits her sensitivity to commiserating with those who harm other animals in research and the techs that keep the animals alive in between. She does not spend a single moment shadowing someone who has rescued any of these animals after what they have gone through. I don't expect her to dive into the underground of the Animal Lib Front. There are plenty of above ground rescues such as Beagle Freedom Project. For how many times she mentions the "animal rights" people in conflict with animal researchers, she doesn't speak to a single one. This narrows her scope so much that throughout the book, you see her quieting every emotion she has in order to defend the people she has met. She discusses her upset at watching the slaughter of animals so that their ovaries can be transported to a new breeding program almost willing herself out of it. She repeatedly mentions crying, but almost treats these reactions as a problem.

If this was the only point of the book- shadowing people working in the field and talking about them- I would not have been bothered as much. It is fine as an academic exercise of cataloguing the lives of people and what they think of themselves. As a "humanitarian" extension to other animals exercise, it fails immensely. Not only does Friese fail to go deeply enough into how much sacrifice and harm occurs in relation to actual advances, the amount of red tape, hubris, and grant motivation that go into continuing to harm animals, and the issues with industries funded by it all. The biggest problem about the author's arguments for me is that Friese appropriates terminology from oppressed groups and liberation movements and then reconstructs them to describe oppression. Literal suffering and death of nonconsenting beings with absolutely no benefit to those beings, in order to support the careers and occasionally health advances (and mistakes) of another species.

There is also a very dry detached way that she discusses much animal research. It seems that she is doing so because she wants to avoid bias. She fails at this, instead creating what reads very much like an animal testing lobby propaganda piece disguised as an ethical advancement discussion of some sort. I can guarantee that if she spent time with a single one of the people who has taken in one of the very few animals to make it out of these places alive that she could have actually had some balance here. The author is so worried about being biased that she becomes excessively biased, tapping into the anthropocentric nature of our species- to treat those in cages as objects of use and discussion who only need be understood through the words of those who torment them.

At times, her use of terms felt so wrong that it reminded me of a Pride display on Amazon's front page. The audacity of referring to animal research as "care work" made my blood boil. A term of disability and feminist movements, turned on its head to describe people causing fear, pain, injury, illness, and death in other animals. She first uses this to describe lab tech work- the underpaid people who clean cages and so on. This I disagree with, but understand her point. I have met and worked with lab techs after they left the traumatic profession. They do see themselves as caring for the animals and are not in charge of the research decisions. However, to then extend this to the researchers themselves- who literally design systems which cause suffering and death in millions of animals per year- I was floored. Calling them "carers" as if they are somehow in the same league as actual carers was so offensive that I nearly put this book down for good several times. This is another opportunity where shadowing real carers of rescued animals would have better informed her position. Friese also uses identity politics of humans many times as a vehicle to describe nonhuman animal harm as somehow liberatory. She brings up consent multiple times, so I assume she is going to have a big section where she really tackles that. We get a couple of paragraphs that get nowhere.

Friese allows researchers a platform to tout the well worn slogan that animal researchers want their jobs to disappear- something they can say knowing that they will not work towards this goal and will fight it if it comes. Few if any of these people are going to stop their life's work and go back in time to another field- they have said as much quietly. Part of this is because those who would care enough to do so are weeded out early on. My experience in both getting an education and in research has shown me how swiftly ethical considerations for other animals are silenced. They have created literal front groups funded by everyone from researchers to cage makers to fight against any opposition towards animal harm for research. Furthermore, they consistently tout ethical standards- which the author happily repeats- while criticizing the people who are the only reason those standards are in place- animal rights/liberation proponents. They are allowed to both continue doing harm while also taking credit for the ethical work of others all while being wrapped up in a package of "care." Some will tout themselves as victims of activism while failing to even acknowledge the actual victims of their work.

I have had some extremely stressful events occur while reading this book and couldn't even muster up the energy at times to continue it. I told myself I would keep giving the author a chance and finish it. I thought surely she would get somewhere, interview a rescuer, give me something. I did not realize that half of the book was appendices and was grateful when it ended at 144 pages. This life stress likely taints this review, so I decided not to give a star rating. I did put page flags in the book for things that she said that made sense, but none were deep enough to overshadow this fury the mistakes of the text left me feeling.

This was also posted to my storygraph and goodreads.

Book Review: Hope Without Hope

 

Image: The cover of the book is a light blue background with large letters "Hope without Hope." Inside the letters is a photo of Rojava revolutionaries holding up flags on long poles. The flags are yellow and green triangles with a red star in the center. Across the top in yellow is "Matt Broomfield." Across the bottom is "Rojava and Revolutionary Commitment."

I don't think I've ever read anything quite like Matt Broomfield's Hope Without Hope. It often seems like the world falls into polar opposite sides to a spectrum between absolute despair and naive optimism. My pessimism has grown as I've aged and part of me has thought that it's just because I've seen so much suffering and so many things go wrong. I tend to believe I've seen the reality from within communities that others on the left who aren't in them don't understand. I have also been destroyed by the internalization of the shame machine and call out culture, basically directing it towards myself all of the time. However, much of my outlook is just fatigue from being tossed about by the horrors of a dying world. All of this is of course very self-centered. Is my self flagellation and doom scrolling helping the humans and other animals I care so much about? I'm aware of it, but stuck.

It can be easy to feel lost and like there is no point. It can seem rational to take a look at things and decide that putting in effort will only be a waste of energy. On the other side of things, one can look at the world and see many instances where victory has occurred and believe that we can just copy and paste that and we will win. We act on an ignorant form of idealism, falling apart when the messy outcome isn't anything close to what we thought it would be. The author explains how we can acknowledge the bleakness of things without defeat. While Rojava is an anchor for this book, the book is not entirely about Rojava. The people and resistance movements of the AANES are more used as an exercise to explore in practice what it is like to have hope without hope.

Essentially, Broomfield uses his experiences in Rojava as well as other historic events (including war, atrocity, resistance, etc,) philosophy, religion/myth making, analysis of fiction, movement manifestos, and other vehicles to examine how we can both be in touch with the bleak reality of things, while also continuing to move forward. In fact we have to. There is much discussion of truth and factual accuracy and if/when that actually matters. All of this is wrapped up in the ever-present uncertainty of the future. While we may know that things are bad, we really have no idea what is going to work and where. And we have no idea if things that work will continue working or if they'll be obliterated by war tomorrow. I'm honestly finding it difficult to do the topic justice in the realm of a review as I'm still mulling over many of the ideas in my own head. I know that I agree with a lot, I'm not sure whether or not I agree with all of it, and I'm not sure if that matters. The thought exercise that this book has created for me was one that I had not really encountered before. It has challenged me in multiple ways for multiple reasons.

Broomfield is many things, but his journalism chops shine throughout this book and his work as a poet makes the writing all the more enjoyable. He has spent time on the ground and among the people of Rojava and has done his best to see and understand what is going on there as much as an outsider can. He discusses both the tendency of some on the left to idealize Rojava as an anarchist utopia as well as the tendency of authoritarian capitalists to view it as some sort of liberal stronghold. I do think that this book will be a bit easier to take in for someone with at least a little bit of knowledge. I went into it having red articles over time and listening to the women's war podcast. That is to say I don't have a ton of knowledge outside of a little bit of basic foundation. This is part of why I really took my time with this book and read slowly and carefully. Occasionally I would stop by Google to look something up, but a lot of the foundational information is there, at least enough to grasp the thesis.

The more specific discussions about the way things work in the AANES gave me even more respect for these movements. It helped me understand some cultural aspects that help people remain connected and motivated in the struggle. It helped me to understand the absurdity of things like Western media trying to compare Rojava to a small autonomous zone in the US (an actual assignment the author was given by an employer at one point.) What it really drives home is the power of community and the ability of people to create an impressively massive functioning society outside of the brutal authoritarianism it is pitted against.

One practice I have thought a lot about since reading this book is called tekmil. At risk of not doing it justice, I will say that it is essentially an accountability structure where people check in with one another to point out mistakes and how to improve. What I liked about it is that it is truly based and cooperation. You do not apologize in these sessions. They are meant to inform and improve, not to punish. It is also interesting to think of how they have dealt with the massive conflict with ISIS. They essentially have prison villages, but not like what you may imagine with cells and bars. They sacrifice safety in order to create a less controlling atmosphere. It's something I think about a lot with any sort of leftist revolution, especially as I watch my own country descend further and further into an embarrassing (and horrifying) cyberpunk oligarchy. What does a successful revolution do with the masses of people who violently and misogynistically disagree with it if the revolution includes people who are against prisons?

Broomfield also speaks on the way patriarchy and women's liberation work in Rojava. I knew a bit about this from the podcast and things I read, but he goes into it in more complex ways. At the same time he criticizes how identity politics can be used as cheap tokenism for ineffective action. Again, Broomfield is talking about a real world, rather than an imaginary one. At times I felt like his analysis of identity politics would contradict itself anyways I didn't fully understand. However, this book is literally an entire contradiction. That is the central thesis, so maybe that is to be expected. There are many more things about Rojava discussed within the book, but for brevity's sake I just mentioned a couple that stood out to me.

In terms of jargon, this book is divided into different discussions and some of them are more accessibly written while others are a bit more academic than average. I chuckled to myself on occasion, wondering if the author was going to say "neoliberal capitalist hegemony" in every paragraph. That said, I do think it's worth taking the extra time to read this even if you maybe put off by the heavier language. There are times where jargony texts seem to be that way for the sake of it, often hiding the lack of anything substantial behind the language. This book is not doing that. Broomfield is essentially trying to capture endless contradictions and complex topics that require discussion of complicated and specific concepts.

Make no mistake in thinking that this is an exercise in toxic optimism or the power of positive thinking. There is an entire chapter on the falsities in new age ideas (such as Frankl's damaging analysis of life in concentration camps.) The author is clearly critical and rightfully angry about the topics he is writing about. It is a book about straddling the realities of a complex world where we need motivation to keep going even if there is not a concrete and positive victory in sight.

Perhaps my only clear disagreement was the author's points on Westerners avoiding images of horror that those experiencing them must be exposed to every day. The author argues that we should feel bad and not be able to look away. For example, I stopped watching videos of animal cruelty in farming, etc as I realized I was re-traumatizing myself with information I already knew, rather than motivating myself to continue the fight. Rather than helping me keep going, it along with the isolation in a world that mostly does not care even on the left turned me into such an obsessive live wire that I burned out and had to quit everything because my health declined so badly. I've never really been able to psychologically recover from those years.

I remain more open to watching other atrocities in small controlled necessary situations, such as the videos of starving children in Gaza I saw last night. But, we must be careful. There are plenty of studies that show that people double down when faced with conflict (especially men,) desensitize, blame the victim, etc. Human minds will go to great lengths to protect themselves. There is also evidence that exposure to pain and trauma makes people more sensitive and fragile in pathological ways. The answer to atrocity isn't that everyone else should also experience it. It's that no one should.

All of that said, I also understand what he's saying here. Even if you quickly Google the author you see the kind of reporting he's done, the witnessing of violence that he has reported on, and the oppression he himself is faced from various governments including the UK anti-terror squad due to his reporting. I can understand why he and the people living through what he is reporting would scoff at the idea of people not wanting to see what they've endured for mental health reasons. It is a privilege to look away. But the thing about privilege is that privileges are things that everyone should have.

I cannot stop thinking about everything in this book. I feel that it has freed me in a lot of ways. It has reminded me how guilt takes up space, my negativity is not purely rational, my need to control uncertainty will never succeed. It has given new meaning to the "journey not the destination" mantra and has reminded me that even if the end is nigh, we still need to live together today. When there is no hope, it is not necessarily a grounded take to stop hoping. Critical, cynical, absurdist, (and many other adjectives used in the text,) hope not only motivates us to seek more extreme revolution, but to continue on with daily tasks that keep communities going- we need to peel those potatoes.

As many of us know, despair and depression kind of stop everything. Even if we are all careening toward the apocalypse, right now we have to do the best we can. We have to keep going and make our present and future as viable as possible. Many beings of many species including humans will live and die within the period between now and total annihilation if that is indeed what is coming. All of that existence matters.

This is one of my favorite books I've read in a while precisely because it has made me think in ways that I don't recall thinking before. It invites contradiction rather than trying to dispel it. It allows us to be complex, messy creatures who will make countless mistakes, rather than positioning us to the boxes that I and so many others love to place ourselves in. It is a call for action and community rather than to strive toward a guaranteed end point that is a victory. Even if we do only have 11 years left before total climate collapse, a lot can happen in those 11 years.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: The Omnivore's Deception

Image: the cover of the book is a red background with a large chef's knife pointing diagonally up through the center. In black at the top is "The Omnivore's deception." Below that to the right in white is "what we get wrong about meat, animals, and ourselves." Across the bottom in black is the author's name "John Sanbonmatsu."

I went into John Sanbonmatsu's new book The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong About, Meat, Animals, and Ourselves a little nervous. I had seen Sanbonmatsu talk and enjoyed it, but had only read one essay in the past. It was so jargony and academic that I feared that this book might be, too. Luckily, it is readable, though heavy in subject matter as is to be expected. Sanbonmatsu is passionate about these topics, the experiences and worth of animals including humans, and in conveying important information. I have some concerns with how he went about it at times which I will discuss, but overall found this book to be an important addition to the collective liberation canon. I will note that I no longer read or watch most graphic cruelty descriptions or footage (I have witnessed enough for many lifetimes.) There is not a torturous amount in this book, but I did skip paragraphs here and there that I thus cannot comment on as they are the only things I did not read.

Before reading this book, I knew quite a bit of the long dark shadow of Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Many people who have ever been involved in the monumental task of trying to get people to have respect for farmed animals know of the damage that Pollan's feel good copout of a book caused. It gave people who thought they might care about other animals and climate change a way to think that they could change next to nothing and somehow end up helping animals and the planet by harming and killing them the nice way. On top of the widespread negative cultural effects it had, it's also full of absolute bullsh*t. It has been a long time since then, and a book confronting all of this has been long overdue. 

It has been so long that I didn't realize just what I was getting into. Even in hindsight, I did not recall quite how diabolical Pollan's words were, how absolutely cruel his assessments. I did not know that his book is infuriatingly still considered mandatory reading for some courses as some sort of guideline for how to (use liberal capitalism to cause immense suffering and climate destruction for taste.) The cultural lore around Pollan's book made it stick even in my 19 year vegan mind as less horrifying than it was. Sanbonmatsu delves deep into the depths of the text, highlighting just how dangerous the "humane" slaughter movement has been. He shows quite clearly how neoliberal "welfarist" consumerism reduces other animals to the status of products, just like other forms of exploitation towards them. In a way, it becomes more frightening than the callous cruelty in undercover footage that may have gotten some people to pay attention to what happens to other animals before their body parts are packaged. It has taught these people that that cruelty is not cruelty at all. In fact, you should feel good about it. Messages like Pollan's went as far as to pretend people were doing animals a favor by sending them to slaughterhouses. I could go on and on, as you may guess this lit a fire inside me a bit, but I want to focus on this book rather than just one of its many subjects.

Sanbonmatsu uses Pollan's book as an anchor for a far larger scope and discussion of our relationships to harm of other animals. I appreciate that he was clear and direct in his language, calling a spade a spade, rather than allowing industry terms to proliferate. He does well to show how offensive and ridiculous many "humane" slaughter proponents are, using their own words and materials to do so. He shows how the drive for localvoreism caused hippie granola types to embrace the far right and move away from leftist consideration for both humans and other animals (if they were ever on the left, some hippies never were.) He discusses the "femivore" trend wherein women take up harming animals in the many ways men have more traditionally done so (hunting, slaughter, etc) and treat this turn towards patriarchy- complete with their own versions of machismo- as a form of womens liberation. 

Sanbonmatsu discusses connections with various oppressions such as the abuse of slaughterhouse workers forced to do the most dangerous and traumatic tasks of killing animals for those who shield their eyes. He does a decent take down of utilitarianist ableism of philosophers like Peter Singer, which he discovered after initially being inspired by Singer's ethical arguments for other (nondisabled) animals. This was also something I was aware of and had read about before, but somehow, perhaps by grace of the universe, I had not heard of Singer's "Should the Baby Die?" until this. It's even more appalling than I had realized. I am grateful that I could not locate more than citations of posts tearing down the piece during a quick search, so hopefully it will die and no one else will have to read it. Sanbonmatsu also discusses ecofascism and the words of Holocaust survivors explaining their thoughts about the mistreatment of other animals. This was unfortunately one of the few times his mention of the Holocaust felt appropriate. The leads to my criticisms.

I am not someone who thinks one should never discuss intertwined oppression between humans and other animals. I believe all of these things are complex and interconnected in many ways. Many writers and organizers have done far better jobs than I can in a small space here, so I added a few recommendations at the end of this review. It took me a long time to flesh out the ways to discuss collective liberation that is inclusive of nonhuman animals that did not misrepresent or cheapen the struggles of any of the groups involved. It is not easy and I still make mistakes. I do think that Sanbonmatsu makes some mistakes in this book in this regard.

He frequently discusses (US chattel) slavery, Naziism and the (Shoah) Holocaust, and makes some other statements that made me cringe a bit. My issue is not that humans and other animals should never be discussed together. In fact, I and people of many marginalized groups discuss how we are intertwined in solidarity with other animals facing oppression. My problem is when people make direct comparisons that are not apt. For instance, discussion of the atrocities of animal agribusiness alongside genocide, with semi direct comparisons, cheapens and erases BOTH struggles. We are not trying to wipe out farmed animals (I know genocide is far more than that but for brevity's sake...) It's the opposite, they make up most of the birds and mammals on the entire planet because of what we have done to them. That is completely different from genocide. I suppose hunters and ranchers' attempts to wipe out predator species could have some connection, but still has its own horrors. Both are horrifying in unique ways. 

All of these forces do involve the animalization/objectification/pest-ification of others (discussed in better detail in other books at the end) that can be a unifying factor, but that was not the author's focus. We can discuss how the roots of oppression, hierarchy, capitalism, fascism, and so on are the connecting threads between these things without making these sort of comparisons. I do not think Sanbonmatsu actually means to be making 1:1 pairings. But, the way things are written, it reads like he does. I think he needed a bit more practice and feedback regarding the minefield that these discussions occupy before spending so much of the book doing so.

My other issue is the pop psychology sections of the book wherein Sanbonmatsu compares our relationships to other animals with psychopathy and sociopathy. These sections show that he is a philosophy professor, not a psychology one. Much of the info is inaccurate in the same ways journalists writing about science and health can be. Much of it is irrelevant. It is much more apt to discuss industrialized humans in relation to other animals from a sociological/group dynamics perspective. People are not showing traits of individual sociopathy any more than anyone else (as we all have traits of most mental illness in lesser amounts.) People behave these ways because it's what everyone is doing, it's cultural, normative, and accepted, etc. That fits far better into the central thesis regarding Pollan strengthening these dynamics with horrific results. I would also be remiss if I did not mention that Sanbonmatsu discusses his outdoor cats without realization of both the threat this caused to them and how that impacts other animal populations in the area, particularly birds and rodents. A short anecdote, so this is my short response.

Part of why these flaws really get to me is that I believe that they could stop some people from finishing the book. Many people don't finish most books that they start as it is. Sanbonmatsu's book absolutely shines in the end. This is where we get into his academic field of philosophy. The discussions of  personhood and consciousness are by far some of the best I have ever read. These are topics that have been written about and discussed for centuries so that is saying a lot. I put so many flags in that section that I eventually marked the entire chapters. I hope that anyone who may find themselves put off by some of the flaws with this book will simply skip over those parts rather than put the book down entirely. There are some really important thoughts in here that I hope reach a wider audience.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

___

*Note: initially thought Sanbonmatsu was joining VINE book club this month, so I put this off. But, it is actually going to be at the end of August. I will update after that if anything seems important to add.
___

Books that explore collective liberation including other than human animals (I am sure I am forgetting some):

Beasts of Burden and Disabled Ecologies by Sunaura Taylor

Oxen at the Intersection and Birds Eye Views by pattrice jones

Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era Sarat Colling

How to Unite the Left on Animals John Tallent

Feminism in the Wild Ambika Kamath and Malina Packer

Transfarmation Leah Garces

Animaladies: Gender, Animals, and Madness

Aphroism  by Aph and Syl Ko

Racism as Zoological Witchcraft Aph Ko

Meet the Neighbors Brandon Keim

Fear of the Animal Planet  by Jason Hribal

Tongue-Tied: Breaking the Language Barrier to Animal Liberation  by Hanh Nguyen

Veganism in an Oppressive World  Vegan of Color Community

When Animals Speak  and Animal Languages by Eve Meijer

Neither Man nor Beast  and  The Sexual Politics of Meat  by Carol Adams

Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?: Reflections on the Liberation of Animals  Ed. Best and Nocella

Sistah Vegan and Brotha Vegan

Fat Gay Vegan  Sean O'Callaghan

There are a bunch more on  my to-read list , but I did not list them since I have not read them yet or just forgot to. Many of them came highly recommended, particularly works by Lori Gruen and Claire Jean Kim.