Political Potential by Dean Lofton

Dean Lofton’s (pictured) Aug. 25, 2013 post

Dean's List - Let's get smarter - A writer's rambling blog

The call for a Citizens’ Filibuster to testify against appalling legislation moved me out of a decade of political apathy. My work as a women’s political group founder and feminist journalist in South Carolina left me burned out on political action, and since arriving in Austin six years ago I’ve been hesitant to put down roots in another politically repressive state. I’m an independent voter and not a member of any of the organizations who did an amazing job mobilizing the masses to testify and protest.

I spent about 35 hours over three days observing the Texas legislature’s first special session. I was still there in the early morning hours when Cecile Richards stood in the packed-to-capacity capitol dome and read Senator Wendy Davis’ text relaying that SB5 had been defeated. And as I sang “The Eyes of Texas” for the first time in my life with over 1,000 of my new best friends, I knew I was a Texan and I was home.

I also knew the citizens made a difference just by showing up. While it seemed like a short-lived victory, the community building, organizing and inspiration will last far beyond this one issue or bill. It sounds cheesy, but it restored my faith in humanity to see people show up, speak up and rise up. I loved the visible expressions of resolve and commitment on citizen’s faces as they settled into their seats in the galleries with books, knitting, laptops and phones and filled the hallways waiting in line. The group dynamics were a mix of rage at having to address this issue again, and joy at seeing the increasing numbers of protesters grow throughout each day.

There was an intense sense of immediate emotional connection with the massive crowd of mostly strangers – each with their own stories and reasons this moment was their call to action. I’ve tried to describe the silent acknowledgment as our eyes met in the galleries and hallways, but words don’t seem big enough to hold it. The photos, videos and press coverage come close to conveying it, but there’s something more. There was a sense of awe and hope for the future and wondering – if we can do this… imagine what else we can do. The hours of silence in the galleries and the roaring voices of the people were full of the potential for real change.

Write Your Life as a Woman - Sunday, September 22 – 1-5 pm

The Writing Barn

10202 Wommack Road

Class fee: $100

Class size limited to 15

Register here

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Join a gathering of women for a grounding and inspiring afternoon writing retreat. Experience the radical self-care of putting away all electronics, turning off your phone and turning on your creativity.

In the style of journal writing workshops, participants write by hand – pen on paper –  in response to writing prompts and class content. With a focus on the process and experience of writing, there is no critiquing – only gentle encouragement in anon-academic, creative environment. No writing experience is necessary.

What happens in class…

• Escape all things digital – write by hand with pen or pencil on paper. Old school. No laptops, iPads or phones allowed. Phones are turned completely off and stored securely in another room.
• Write and read out loud in class. However, you can always “pass” and no one will mind a bit. (Bullies do not take this class. Only really nice people take this class.)
• Even if you don’t like to write, don’t worry… words will be spilling out of you right away… it’s magical.
• Guaranteed good for the head and heart. 

Head West

100 Things I Want to Tell My Children and Grandchildren: #2

Fun is not a thing. It is a place in your mind. 

(Yes, that's me in my feral youth - about 6 years old.)

When I was very young I only cared about the next fun thing I was going to do, until those unwelcome moments when my body trumped my mind, forcing me to eat or collapse into a bottomless sleep. But around the time I entered the age of double digits, I began to wonder what life was like for mom and dad when they were kids.  So, to my children and grandchildren, here is a story of what my life was like when I was a kid.

If you asked me what my life was like before the age of five, my response would be more supposition than fact, speckled here and there with truths captured more accurately on photograph paper than on my mind.  By the time I popped uninvited into the family, mom was 40 and dad was 60 and they had four other kids. I asked my mom how she could have become pregnant at that age and she replied that “back then” birth control was more of an art than a science and “those things happened.”

Even as a 10-year-old I found it remotely peculiar that my elder sister Gloria had kids older than me. Nowhere in Dick and Jane or the Bible, my two major sources of information at that time since TV hadn’t arrived in our neck of the woods yet, did I see a family that looked quite like ours. Family photos from that era look like scenes from a daycare – lots of babies, toddlers and young kids, and a scattering of young adults. Gloria’s five kids, middle sister Dot’s two, and youngest sister Honey’s four. My brother J. S., dad’s namesake and my only male sibling, was 12 when I was born, so he understandably appears in my childhood photos as a surly teen.

We were living in Iraan, TX, where I believe Mom and Dad and the balance of the family had lived for the previous 20 years or so. Dad, feeding off the growing West Texas oil boom spurred by World War II, had a seemingly lucrative construction business, building roads, bridges, well sites, etc. Our property, a quarter of a city block a couple of blocks off the center of town, consisted of a three-bedroom flat board house with a screened-in front porch and an unfenced front and back yard, a large service garage, a small office, a grease rack, and a large equipment yard filled with bulldozers, maintainers and dump trucks. There was no end to the intriguing and dangerous things I could get into without ever even leaving our property.

I can’t imagine that Mom and Dad didn’t tell me not to go out into the equipment yard because I could get run over, and not to play in the service garage because it was full of dangerous things. But I don't recall that they did and those places, accompanied by my very vivid imagination, were my playground. Being the fifth of five kids to parents anesthetized by time and experience had its advantages. Most days along with a varying assortment of neighborhood kids (in a town of 1,200 people, every kid is a neighborhood kid) I would play “war” or hide and seek, or act out life dramas around the construction yard. 

Cluster Critiques

Joyland by Stephen King

Every now and again Stephen King writes a really good book. Joyland, his most recent, isn’t one of those.

The setting is ripe, a carnival and all of the attendant carny creepiness. And, of course, King occasionally drops in a showstopper sentence, like:

“When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction,”

and 

“When you're twenty-one, life is a road map. It's only when you get to be twenty-five or so that you begin to suspect that you've been looking at the map upside down, and not until you're forty are you entirely sure. By the time you're sixty, take it from me, you're fucking lost.” 

Set in North Carolina in 1972, Joyland is a murder come ghost come coming of age story, none the telling of which stir the heart, or give goose bumps, which is disappointing because Lord knows King can. But the problem with Joyland, and the reason that I recommend you skip this barely passable paperback, is the characters are characterless. Even the villain isn’t villainous.

It will be interesting to see what King does with his next book, the sequel to The Shining, Dr. Sleep. Redrum Redrum!

Wool by Hugh Howey

We (the public) seem to never tire of post-apocalyptic sci-fi, as if we keep reading about it, it won’t actually happen. When I bought Wool I didn’t buy it because it was sci-fi, I bought it because it came so highly recommended. Of course what I've learned, as the result of many disappointing sci-fi reading experiences, is that sci-fi aficionados read through a different lens than us amateurs.

Actually the story wasn’t bad, and the concept was quite intriguing. A thousand or so people have lived in an abandoned missile silo for so long that no one remembers when they didn’t live there. Earth’s environment is toxic and all that visibly remains are the ruins of skyscrapers in the distant horizon. This miniature of earth struggles with the same issues as always, power, class distinction, law, etc., which eventually result in “ranging against the machine.” The major difference being that it all happens with a 15-story silo. I thought the following description of the story from Emily Ding on the Litro website was good:

This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.

To tell you much more would be a spoiler so I’ll just say that Wool isn’t perfect, but it is a better than average sci-fi thriller.

Me Before You by JoJo Moyes

I didn’t want to like this book, and I was almost successful. Me Before You started out feeling like a mystery, swerved dangerously towards feeling like a romance novel, and then pulled up just in time to provide a very satisfying ending, a feature that is inexplicably rare in best sellers.

Louisa Clark, a nobody very satisfied to live a nothing life in the suburbs of London for the rest of her life, stumbles over chance and ends up the caregiver to a James Bond-type used-to-be, now paraplegic and really pissed about it, Will Taylor. Over time these two halves make a whole and we enjoy the ride. 

Moyes’ writing is simple, subtle and flows easily over you. The well-paced story keeps you headed in a direction you’re not sure of but sure you want to follow. Read Me Before You before you read anything else.

Fatal Vision by Joe McGinniss

OK, OK. I confess. I like true crime, which is a bit of a misnomer because when a true crime book is really good, you’re never entirely sure what is true and what isn’t. Fatal Vision is the nearly endless (945 pages) and relentlessly compelling (I finished it) story of Dr. Jeffery McDonald. He is a Princeton-educated, Green Beret, too nice and too good-looking guy, who over the period of nine years was suspected of, and eventually convicted of, killing his wife and five and two year-old daughters in an extremely macabre and bloody manner. The aspect of the book that made it most interesting to me is that much of it is verbatim-recordings made by the author, McGinniss.

Being the narcissist that he is, McDonald actually hired McGinness to live with him and record everything so that the two of them could publish a book about the murders, investigation and trial following McDonald’s vindication and release.

Well, it didn’t turn out that way, as McDonald was finally convicted and eventually sent to prison for life. McDonald, a very charming and popular guy, to this day has thousands of people claiming his innocence, him being one of them. He still says a bunch of drug-crazed hippies did it.

There are two really scary things about this book, other than the brutal murders of course:

If you think he is guilty, and I do, it is scary how close he came to getting away with it, and it is scary to know that he is being held in a “minimum security” prison in Bastrop, Texas, just 45 minutes from my house.

If you think he is innocent, it is scary because he will spend the rest of his life in prison because he couldn’t prove his innocence.

If you like true crime, you will love this book, and you might just like it even if you don’t.

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala

At first, the title of this book turned me away. Just as after September 11, 2001, the word “tower” had new meaning, so too does the word “wave” mean something quite different after December 26, 2004.  That was the day that the world as Sonali Deraniyagala knew it ended.  In a matter of seconds she lost her mother, father, husband and two young sons, swept away by the tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people, and nearly took her life as well. That kind of tragedy is too hard to face. I turn away not wanting to know that it could happen to anyone, to me, to you.

But I took a chance on Sonali Deraniyagala, and I am glad I did. With heartbreaking dignity and spare narrative, Deraniyagala made me feel, not sorrow nor pity, but rather extreme gratefulness. Not just grateful it didn’t happen to me, but also grateful for the way the author expresses her astonishment, loss, guilt, sorrow, hate, debasement, love, memories and so much more.

For example, when she grieves less for her parent than for her husband and children she thinks, “How hideous, that there should be a pecking order in my grief.”

Here’s another example. “I can only recover myself when I keep them near. If I distance myself from them, and their absence, I am fractured. I am left feeling I’ve blundered into a stranger’s life.” I recommend that you read Wave because it is a beautiful love story.

100 Things I Want to Tell My Children and Grandchildren: #1

If you work hard and excel you will reap rewards, the best of which are memories.

(Photo is of my kids and grandkids, taken 2011)

When I was growing up, and throughout my mom’s life, I asked her lots of questions about her and dad’s families, and about their early life together. I mostly asked Mom because my dad died when I was 12-years-old, about the time I became curious about my heritage.

Mom’s typical response to my inquisitions was, “Oh honey, that was so long ago. I don’t remember.” Occasionally, however, she would spontaneously lay a snippet of family history out like a jewel for me to ogle, like, “My grandmother owned the first car in the county.” Or “My Uncle Wells built a three-story house and claimed he could not die until he owned all the land he could see from the top floor. And he did.”

“They were French, you know,” she would add, as if that explained everything.

All my life I’ve clung to those rarefied and slim nuggets of my family’s history, like water in a wasteland of inconsequential days, and I’m not sure why. Perhaps I just want to know more about the genetic bolt of fabric from which I was cut. Perhaps knowing that information would tell me nothing. I do know the absence of my parents’ intimate history makes me feel like I’ve lost a piece of my own life’s puzzle. So whether my children and their children want to know my history, and the things I have learned in the process of making that history, or not, here it comes, via 100 Things I Want to Tell My Children and Grandchildren.

Wow! Where to start? Well, let’s just start with the first thing that comes to mind.

I had tea at the White House in 1990. The fact that this was the first thing that came to mind is probably a story within the story, but let’s not start there. Let’s start here. 

(photo is me in the Red Room at the White House)

When I was the executive director of Keep Texas Beautiful (KTB) we won a national prize that was awarded at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House. I was seated on the front row next to a small riser and podium. When I sat down, dizzy with the sheer drama of being in the executive mansion, I noticed on the stage two small cards. One read “President Bush,” and the other said, “Mrs. Bush.” And I then realized for the first time that, one, they would be there, and, two, I would actually be sitting within five feet of them. I don’t care what your politics are, when you are in the presence of a president, you feel incredibly honored.

Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards by Jan Reid

Ann is what I call her, although I should properly address her as Governor Richards. But then everyone calls her Ann, as if she were a close friend, a sister, a neighbor, still alive. 

We all read books through the veil of our own experiences. As I read Jan Reid’s absorbing book Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards, there was a parallel story running through my head. Where I was when Ann did this. The words I said to Mark McKinnon when that happened in the book. My shouting match with Lena Guerrero behind closed doors on a certain day in the book.

Yes, my position as the President of the Texas Women’s Political Caucus during Ann’s successful run for Governor of Texas was fortuitous. But this is a book review, and my stories about my relationship with Ann, and some of the other characters in her life-drama are for another day.

Jan Reid (pictured), longtime writer for Texas Monthly, begins with Ann’s youth in Waco, Texas, and ends with her tombstone in the Texas State Cemetery. In between he provides an entertaining look at how Ann goes from the high school debate team, to marriage and motherhood, recovering alcoholic, county commissioner, governor and icon.

 Many of the details in Reid’s book are repeats to anyone who has read Ann’s two books, Straight from the Heart and I'm Not Slowing Down. But what I did find very satisfying about Let the People In were the details about Ann’s gubernatorial administration; what she accomplished, what she didn’t accomplish; and why. The players, the disasters, the almost constant drama behind closed doors kept me awake and reading even though I already knew they were coming and the outcomes, which is a tribute to Reid’s writing.

Of particular interest to me was Ann’s relationship with Bob Bullock, the bulldog Lieutenant Governor. One minute they were close as kittens, the next they were fighting like brother and sister. Anther relationship struggle I was unaware of was between Ann and humorist, Molly Ivins. In fact, according to Reid, Ann had the capacity to irritate, antagonize and occasionally tear people apart. Some of the comments he gleaned from Ann’s staff were cautious, but clearly not complementary. And I did pick up a few tidbits I probably should have known, but didn’t. Like the fact that Ann managed Sarah Weddington’s successful Legislative bid in 1972.

As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling by Anne Serling

Last night after finishing Anne Serling’s stunningly beautiful book about her dad, I turned off the light; lie back on my pillow, closed my eyes, and in a borderland state of sleep, saw my dad in our sunlit living room. I was eleven. Mom was at school, teaching 3rd grade. Daddy was watching TV and I was brushing his hair in the way that little girls do. I knew that something was different. He was so rarely home in the middle of the day, and mom let me skip school to be home with him. Then he said, “Call your mother and tell her she needs to come home.” This wasn’t a dream. It happened. He died less than a month later. As I dream-floated through this memory last night, I awoke to find that for the first time in 53 years, I was crying for my daddy (below right).

It was with excitement and trepidation that I anticipated reading As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling by Anne Serling. Excitement because I wanted to know more about the man who so impacted my outlook on life, and trepidation because I was afraid that I would be disappointed in the book. Almost from the opening sentence, however, as if Anne were tucking a down comforter into the contours of my mind, I felt myself settling in warm and comfortable. If I didn’t before believe that there is a specific gene for writing, I do now.

The author (pictured left) recalls in exquisite detail her memories of her very loving relationship with her dad. There’s the requisite telling of his childhood and growing up, his extremely traumatic WWII service experience, his fascinating tenure writing for television and movies, his less well-known human rights activism, and his early death at the age of 50. But what makes this book so special, beyond Anne’s inborn writing skill, is the extraordinary depth of emotion with which she tells her father’s story. I particularly enjoyed how the author wove in excerpts of her father's eloquent personal letters and some of the of The Twilight Zone themes to demonstrate the substance of her dad's highly evolved humanity. 

Clearly, I wasn't the only person impacted by  Rod Serling’s iconic The Twilight Zone television series. Yet at the time it felt strangely personal, as if Serling were speaking directly to me. Without question, Serling’s writing shaped my morality. In fact, his parables found greater purchase in my psyche than the confusing and outdated biblical teachings that also populated my childhood. 

Anne Serling’s memories of her father, as poetically presented in As I Knew Him, may stir emotions you haven’t felt in years. I for one am grateful for the experience and believe that you will be too.

Very Smart Gals Brunch

On April 20, a small syndicate of Very Smart Gals gathered for brunch to welcome Sandra Martin, CEO Emeritus of The Center for Child Protection back to Austin for a brief visit. Sandra recently retired and moved to San Diego to be closer to her family. That was the occasion; the setting was the beautiful Mandola Winery Trattoria Lisina (left).

Wine was judiciously sipped (ha ha), dish after dish of delish Italian cuisine was consumed, and laughter was rampant. 

Guests included the following (in order of above photo, left to right): Debbie Tate, Director of Development, Center for Child Protection; Bobbie Mae Matthews, Director Emeritus, The Settlement Home for Children; Cathy Crabtree, Director of State Chapter Development, National Children’s Alliance; Amy Cranfill, Executive Assistant, Center for Child Protection, Debbie Kern, CEO, i3 Event Marketing, Sandra (holding a picture of me – long story); Misty Crawford, Operations Manager, Texas Medifast; and Loralee Martin, Private Chef, and Events Coordinator for “I Live Here, I Give Here.” 

Cluster Critiques

The Science of Fear: How the Culture of Fear Manipulates Your Brain by Daniel Gardner

We live in a very dangerous world.  Of course you probably already know that because you watch the 6 o’clock news.

Actually the world is only extremely dangerous for those of us who drive or ride in cars/trucks. Otherwise, The Science of Fear author Daniel Gardner explains, our generation is living in a world that is safer than at any other time since the beginning of time.  For example, a baby born in 1725 could expect to live 32 years. By 1800, that number increased to 56 years. Today, average life expectancy is 78 years.

The Science of Fear tells us what we already know but seem unwilling to keep in sight. We are afraid of the wrong things (e.g., terrorists, child abduction, flying, cancer) and oblivious to the real dangers in life (e.g., driving a car, getting the flu, drinking booze). Bottom line do not drink and drive, and as our moms always told us, wash your hands.

Read The Science of Fear if you have an insatiable appetite for learning (and re-learning) and a high tolerance for statistics.

The Round House by Louis Erdrich

This “best books of 2012” and winner of the National Book Award has plenty of provocative ingredients: rape, mystery, coming of age, tribal life, the ambiguity of tribal legal jurisdiction, and revenge. Set on an Ojibwa reservation in North Dakota in 1988, The Round House by Louise Erdrich begins when fifteen-year-old main character Joe’s mother is raped and beaten but won’t tell who did it. When conflict between tribal and US law prevents the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator, Joe and his best friend Angus decide to bring the rapist to justice. What they learn is that revenge is overrated, indelible, and unjust.

Erdrich, who has written 26 other books mostly centered on Native American life, certainly knows how to string words together. Unfortunately, confusing and superfluous plot lines, too many characters I couldn’t and didn’t particularly want to keep track of, and an overdose of proselytizing (guilt-tripping us about the plight of American Indians) gets in the way of an intriguing, and otherwise beautifully written story.

The Round House is a better than average read, but not as good as its press.

The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug by Thomas Hager

The Nazis accidentally discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and singlehandedly shaped modern medicine. Although some claim that antibiotics are the bane of our generation, I cannot imagine a world without them, so when I saw The Demon Under the Microscope, I snapped it up.

I love to read about the history of science, but the soap opera of antibiotics is colorful enough to entertain just about anyone: Scientists bickering over patent rights, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s son being saved by the first commercially-available antibiotic, a pharmaceutical company improperly mixing a batch of antibiotics that killed hundreds of Americans, which led to the creation of the FDA.

The Demon Under the Microscope is a lot more readable than it should be.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

This book won so many accolades in 2012 that I feel conspicuous in panning it! I am not alone, however, as about one-third of the reviewers I saw online were less than thrilled. So what gives?

Behind the Beautiful Forevers features parallel stories of several residents of the Annawadi slum on the outskirts of Mumbai India, as marginally fictionalized by Pulitzer Prize winning author Katherine Boo, who lived three years “among” them. There’s Abdul, an enterprising Muslim teenager, who recycles the garbage of the wealthy; Asha, the Annawadi version of the “stage mother” who will do anything to give her daughter a better life; and Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap metal thief. All are seeking “the beautiful forevers.”

I didn’t like this book because I didn’t like the people in the book, and I didn’t feel that Boo's narrative was particularly unique. Her characters seemed singularly harsh, as if the circumstances irrevocable made them so. Regardless of the level of financial and societal stresses, whether it is pennies a day or millions a day, our humanity plays a role. We love, we laugh, we cry and we move on. I didn’t see that humanity in Boo’s characters, and that made her tale feel like a sad, voyeuristic exploitation of our guilt for being born into a better life.

If you want to read a truly inspiring book about the character that comes with survival in poverty, read City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre, or A Far Country by Daniel Mason. 

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook--What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing by Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz 

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog is not about a boy who was raised as a dog. It is about a psychiatrist whose practice is primarily focused on traumatized children. The title is misleading and exploitive, and I’m ashamed to say I fell for it hook, line and sinker.

In truth, the book is a series of reports about Dr. Perry’s various patients, and how his experiences treating traumatized children informed his theory that they are more damaged than we understand. This is important because it is contrary to the commonly shared belief that children, like rubber balls, can bounce back from anything.

Although Dr. Perry’s accounts range from mildly interesting to stomach turning, he spends more time telling you how brilliant he is than he spends sharing the details of his experiences working with traumatized children.

One thing that jumped out of me is the fact that far more children are traumatized by ignorant and/or mentally ill parents/caregivers than by child abductors sensationalized in the media.  

There are surely better books on this topic. Mark this one off your list.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson

This “best books of 2012” about Lawson’s childhood read like the rural equivalent of an Augustine Burroughs or David Sedaris book; pathetically funny and horrifically dysfunctional.  Although that may sound like an endorsement, it isn’t. Having been raised in a somewhat similar culture of country life (and less than 100 miles south of Lawson’s hometown), I found her stories sensationalized, her use of profanity superficial and very uncharacteristic, and her too frequent asides distracting.

Lawson’s chronical of her somewhat unusual upbringing has garnered some curiosity-seekers, but I can’t help but wonder, like Burroughs and Sedaris, what will she write about after she runs out of stories about her crazy family And will it matter? Her blog is much better. 

Let’s pretend this book was never written. 

You’re Next by Greg Hurwitz

Kid gets left on a playground at the age of four. Grows up in foster care. Claws his way to respectability, a home, a career, wife and child. Then “dangerous men” deliver the message, “You’re next,” and he doesn’t know why and the police inexplicably won’t help. Then we enter into a repetitive loop of threats and near misses until you finally just don’t even care. 

Shallow characters, empty plot, forgettable. Don’t bother.

Under and Alone: The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America's Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang by William Queen

This supposedly true and illogically highly rated book is about a Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent who goes undercover to infiltrate the southern California Mongols motorcycle gang. Somebody stuffed the ballot box. Under and Alone is a intriguing book title, a lot of macho posturing, and much noise about nothing. I feel like Bevis & Butt-head for buying this POS.