Web magazine co-edited in Magalia features Chico artist, Paradise poet

By DAN BARNETT

Lara Gularte is co-editor of the Web-only magazine called Convergence (www.convergence-journal.com); the Spring/Summer 2007 issue is now online.

Gularte moved to Magalia from San Jose in 2004. "However," she writes me, "my parents have lived in Magalia since 1983 so I am no stranger to the area. & I also host the monthly Poets on the Ridge poetry readings in Paradise." A poet herself, Gularte's work can be found at www.laragularte.com-a.googlepages.com.

The current issue of Convergence, Gularte writes, "features a local artist, Caitlin Schwerin. Much of her art was inspired by the landscapes of the Chico area, & art that will remind you of home. One of our poets, Shana Youngdahl, is a native of Paradise and a graduate of Paradise High School. Her poem, 'Walking the Sutter Buttes,' was inspired by a hike she took with her dad when she was 14 years old."

The poem contains striking lines:

You help me to where
the wind lives, and below
California spreads the
sky.
My arms are pale, body
losing its form,
in this long
December,
I'm half-way to 14.
Above our great valley
I hear your deep
laugh
talk to cattle; it almost shakes
trees, and I know I will
forgive
you, everything.

The mission of Convergence, Gularte says, "is to unify the literary and visual arts and draw new interpretations of the written word by pairing poems and short fiction with complementary art. We keep the Web site free of clutter in order to better showcase the art and literature. In submissions to the journal we look for freshness, originality and a mastery of craft. Since 2003 Convergence has attracted national and international attention."

Convergence is ad free: "We do it for the joy of sharing quality art and literature with others by means of the Web. & Convergence's webmaster, Luis Ledesma, works as a mathematics and engineering professor at the National Hispanic University in San Jose. Elaine Bartlett, co-editor of Convergence, is a fiction editor for the literary journal, Meridian. I am a retired Santa Clara County public guardian/court investigator. I received my MFA degree from San Jose State University in 2006. I teach writing classes at Paradise Parks and Recreation and work as a tutor part time. From 2005 to 2006 I was a tutor at the Center for Academic Success at Butte College."

Click on the cover art by Caitlin Schwerin, entitled "E Neuf is E Neuf," and then scroll to the bottom to see information about free subscriptions and submission guidelines.

Convergence is a site to savor.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Shooter terrorizes a high school — A harrowing novel from a Chico teacher

By DAN BARNETT

Carrie Gordon Watson says on her Web site (www.cgwatson.com) that she is "a high school teacher and young adult author. I haven't always been a teacher, but I've always been a writer." The Chico resident writes to me that "my 20 years of observation in the classroom have definitely helped this novel to take shape. & We as a community need to engage in discussion about school violence."

In "Quad" ($16.99 in paper from Razorbill/Penguin), the violence begins in the first chapter. Ranger Ng, a high schooler in his middle teens, is dying for a Mountain Dew. So, steeling himself against the bullies he knows hang out in the quad of fictional Muir High, Ng walks to the student store to satisfy his craving.

Sure enough, Ng has to deal with the jocks, including Brad Calvert, clustering near the soda machine. But their repartee ends suddenly when the sounds of "pop, pop, pop" register on Ng's brain. He shouts for the jocks to get inside the store. "Adrenaline shot through Ranger's body, coming out of his mouth in a blast of credibility. A flurry of students dashed past him into the student store. & Ranger turned, saw the wave of fearful expressions. Who would do this? he wondered. Who would want to shoot up the quad?"

Turns out plenty would. Watson's novel is really about what leads up to the violence, how so many of those in high school are victims of the meanness of others. The story is told in staccato chapters that move from the shooting going on in the quad to incidents in the preceding weeks and back again. There's Stone, characterized by Ng's friend Rufus as "the head juicer — Mr. Captain-of-the-football-team himself," whom the girls lust after. Like Brittany Smith, Nicole McClintock, Hayley Banks. Shaped by a dysfunctional home life, Stone is a demanding charmer who doesn't quite know when to stop.

Others have cause for rage, too. Sage Wood and her friend Paisley Reed are the butts of cruel jokes. Theo the brain and Maggie the writer are outsiders who plot revenge. Perry has never gotten over Christopher and now Christopher is falling for Stone, of all people, whom he is convinced is falling for him.

The language of the book is raw teenager as the freaks, the jocks, the preps, the choirboys, the techies and drama queens are confronted by the consequences of their choices. There is no happy ending here, just the haunting question: What has become of our sons and daughters?

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Colorful new gardening book focuses on state's native plants

By DAN BARNETT

Bay Area botanist Glenn Keator and San Jose horticulturalist and designer Alrie Middlebrook are on a mission. They want to convince Californians to plan and create gardens with native plant species in mind.

Why?

As Keator writes, "the most compelling reason is to create a sense of place. & What better way is there to remind ourselves of this special geographic region we call home than to recreate, in our own yards, the native gardens found in the wild? Anyone can have a garden with roses (mostly hybrids from China and Europe), petunias (from South America), fuchsias (from mountainous South and Central America), and impatiens (many from Africa)."

Besides, says Keator, native plants are already adapted to the area and likely will survive. They attract native pollinators and reduce the amount of water and pesticides required. Keator and Middlebrook make a convincing case in "Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens" ($27.50 in paperback from Phyllis M. Faber/University of California Press).
More than 300 full-color photographs enrich the book and several appendices provide sources of natives and a planting calendar.

The book is a practical exploration of a dozen plant communities in the state, several of which are well represented locally. Each chapter begins with an overview and is anchored by a diagram and explanation of one of Middlebrook's own garden projects or concepts.
Readers are provided with design notes, a scope of work for the given project and a rich compilation of plants to use. The goal is not to duplicate Middlebrook's work but rather to appreciate the beauty that can be created using California natives.

The authors conclude their chapters with an annotated list of "places to visit" to see the native plant communities in the wild. The Oak Woodland chapter, for example, pictures a "carpet of Ithuriel's spear (Triteleia laxa)" on Table Mountain; readers are directed to Loafer Creek State Park at Lake Oroville to observe "blue oak woodland mixed with gray pines and scattered interior live oaks." Keator notes that "many fortunate gardeners already have oaks on their property, yet many ornamentals require the summer water that slowly kills these magnificent trees. California's oak woodlands provide a fine palette of plants perfectly adapted to grow under oaks."

In the Grasslands chapter, Bear Valley in Colusa County features "glueseed, goldfields, royal larkspur, creamcups and owl's clover"; Feather Falls, an example of mixed-evergreen forest, presents such understory plants as western mock-orange and Sierra fawn lily.

And then there's the ponderosa pine. A sense of place, indeed.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Swimming with dolphins -- Chico biologist finds power in life stories

By DAN BARNETT

"When I was a junior in high school," Chicoan Cara Gubbins writes, "and had the opportunity to be a volunteer on a research project studying communication between people and wild dolphins, I jumped at the chance.

"On the day before we were to sail home, a huge group of at least 30 dolphins surrounded the boat. Everyone raced into the water. Dolphins of all ages and sizes surrounded us. Mothers whizzed past me with their calves in tow; juveniles swam in large packs, circling the swimmers while remaining a few tantalizing inches away from outstretched hands; older dolphins cruised the perimeter, eyeing the humans and watching for danger. ... Back on the boat, I knew that I had found my calling."

But the journey to a doctorate in biology was not the straight path Gubbins might have imagined. Personal tragedy intervened, her self-confidence withered and her dream died. But later, when a "summer job as a rafting guide" turned full time, her ability to face dangers restored her sense of self. She accomplished her goal.

Gubbins' account, "On Becoming a Scientist," is one of almost two dozen inspirational life tales collected in "Power Stories: Everyday Women Creating Extraordinary Lives" ($20 in paperback from JADA Press or www.powerstories.com). Gubbins, who teaches biology at Butte College and is a Powerstories workshop leader, edited the volume in conjunction with Laurie Santulli and Fran Taylor Powers.

Santulli, now an executive consultant, realized her own dream of becoming a bodybuilder. Powers founded the Powerstories Theatre in West Tampa, Fla., in 2000, where, as Powers writes, "seven amazing women, most without any stage experience, were selected to perform in our first show, 'Let the Stories Move You.' For eight months we wrote and re-wrote our stories, memorized lines from the script I wrote to link our lives together, and learned to sing and move on stage." It was a resounding success.

Powers and Santulli tell their own stories in the book, a celebration of what might be called realizing the potential within. Rose Bilal, in "Don't Blame the Road," writes about being molested as a girl but triumphing over fear -- and prison; Iranian-born Afsaneh Noori (her first name means "fairy tale") talks of finding "Power Within"; Lisa Shannon tells of the death of her older brother, Scott, and discovering how to keep life "juicy and flowing."

And Ellen Winner, breast cancer survivor, finds the lighter side of turning 50. She quotes a birthday card: "Don't worry; you're not having hot flashes. It's your inner child playing with matches!"

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

CSUC professor takes stock of interfaith movement

By DAN BARNETT

Kate McCarthy, associate professor of religious studies at Chico State University, has done us all a great service in her survey of "Interfaith Encounters in America" ($22.95 in paperback from Rutgers University Press). Her research led her to examine several interfaith Web sites (including Beliefnet.com), conduct interviews with 14 people "involved in interfaith partnerships" and compare the Chico Area Interfaith Council with the more urban Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee. Prefaced by an examination of scholarly work on the way religions see the "other," the book is generous, deeply honest and marvelously readable.

"Interfaith projects & bring Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Pagans and others into conversation. But more subtly, they also expose the internal diversity of each of these traditions. In Chico & one Catholic church participates in the interfaith organization, another does not.

"As a Roman Catholic Christian," McCarthy writes, "I am also acutely aware of being a woman, which makes me in many ways an alien in my own tradition. & At the same time, I also inhabit, among other things, feminism and American political liberalism." Those who participate in interfaith community groups tend toward progressive politics and liberal religion. More conservative religious leaders, such as evangelical pastor Larry Lane of Chico's Neighborhood Church, tend to stay away. Why? McCarthy's long interview with Lane leads her to conclude that interfaith groups suffer from a perception problem. The reality is that "most members of community interfaith groups do not espouse the kind of pluralism that deems all religions equal or essentially the same."

Nevertheless, "too often, interfaith enthusiasts dismiss the efforts of dogmatically committed people of (usually Christian) faith on the assumption that anyone who believes anything that strongly must be closed to the enriching possibilities of conversation with a religious other." Interfaith groups focus on good works and "it was perplexing to me & to see how little conversation about religion was to be heard in their gatherings." The real place of negotiation between and among diverse religious traditions may be in interfaith marriages and on the Internet.

In the end, "It is worth attending & to the lessons from these encounters as we plod through what is coming to feel like our interminable culture war. They are relatively simple: (1) Be quiet and listen. (2) Find a point of connection, but not too many -- allow the other to remain other. (3) Enter deeply into your own religious identity, with all its difficulties and ambiguities. (4) Don't just talk; find something to do."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Listening to audio version of 'Thirteenth Tale': Grand story and spellbinding performances

By DAN BARNETT

Jill Tanner, born in England and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, plays Vida Winter, a reclusive writer, a modern-day Dickens, in Diane Setterfield's "The Thirteenth Tale."

Published in hardcover ($26 from Atria Books), and scheduled to come out in trade paper in September, this first novel was a featured selection at Barnes and Noble stores across the nation. It's ideal for local reading groups and a great beach read (but more suited to old libraries where "Jane Eyre" jostles with "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes").

When Winter, aging and infirm, invites antiquarian bookseller Margaret Lea to be her biographer, Margaret hears an extraordinary and complex tale of green-eyed twins and families gone awry as Vida narrates what she calls "a ghost story." Margaret Lea is played to perfection by Bianca Amato, and the result is a 16-hour escape into a world where shadows lurk, the mists obscure one's vision, and the very nature of the story keeps the reader guessing.

The unabridged audio version is available direct from Recorded Books (www.recordedbooks.com) as cassettes or CDs or as a download to an iPod or other MP3 device through Audible.com. (Audible's license allows downloading to multiple computers and iPods.)
I couldn't stop listening. The book begins with a quotation from Vida Winter herself: "All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won't be the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story."

But is Winter's story the truth? As more and more of her past is revealed, the pieces seem less and less to fit. Who is she? Who was she?
And then, after months of trying to put the picture together, Margaret knew: "I stopped dead in my tracks. For my mind, racing ahead of itself in a momentous act of premonition, had already submitted to this revised version of events. In a single moment of vertiginous, kaleidoscopic bedazzlement, the story Miss Winter had told me unmade and remade itself, in every event identical, in every detail the same -- yet entirely, profoundly different."

The performances are superb and lend gravitas to the unfolding tale. Entranced, I listened to the entire recording over two days, spending hours glued to a chair long after bedtime. The shadows were dispelled, but the emotional impact of the listening experience still lingers. If you're new to audio books on your iPod, start here.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

North state writer offers pictorial tour of Lassen area's pioneer towns

By DAN BARNETT

"During the 1915 eruption (of Lassen Peak), Alice Olson and neighbors were fishing on Summit Lake. As smoke and ash intensified, they were forced away from their cabins. Crossing a part of the already devastated area, they led their spooked animals and went to Lyonsville, not returning until the following spring." (That's when Olson "spotted a hole in the shingled roof, and upon entering & found a hole in the kitchen table and a five-pound volcanic stone embedded in the floor.")

History is embodied in this caption, which appears underneath a picture of the simple cabin, and it is unfolded in "Towns of Mount Lassen" ($19.99 in paperback from Arcadia Publishing) by William Shelton. Part of the "Images of America" series, the book includes more than 200 black-and-white photo-graphs, most from Shelton's collection.

According to a news release, Shelton himself "is the curator of his own museum which houses his families' collection (Gathering Grounds Museum in Durham) as well as the Bruce Mansion in Chico." A retired logger with roots in the California timber industry going back six or seven generations, Shelton is "also retired from a second career in law enforcement."

Olson, of Red Bluff, was the author's great aunt; Shelton writes that she "homesteaded on Grassy (Horseshoe) Lake and named Jakie Lake for her son, Jakie Olson."

The book begins with several mesmerizing images of the mountain, which is actually misnamed in the book's title (it's Lassen Peak).
But the story is really about people, and the photographs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, taken in Lyonsville, Knauss Ranch, Engebretsen Town, Shelton's Camp and other locations, give a glimpse into the difficult life of logging.

Tidbits abound. "Samuel Westrope was born in Grants Lick, Kentucky (in) 1813, and was a cousin of Daniel Boone. Arriving in Chico & in 1864, (he) did not fit into city life, so he sold the family's home and came to what is now Mineral."

Another passage: "The greatest court trial in Tehama County history to this point was over whether Thomas J. Shelton Sr., who was accused of 'stealing and carrying away' 12,600 pine shingles from J.R. Markley, was guilty. He was consequently found not guilty for lack of evidence. This was mainly because the shingles in question had disappeared, having been flumed down to the Sacramento River the previous night."

Trestles, train wrecks, Dolbeer Donkey engines, the Champion Mill -- they're all here, in a volume that ends with a serene picture of the sleeping mountain, 31 years after the eruption.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

First novel of Chico native's wife is a captivating contemporary romance

By DAN BARNETT

Darrin Gee was raised in Chico but in 2000 he and his wife, Darien Gee, moved to Hawaii to tend to Darrin's Spirit of Golf Academy.

Though Darien had been a well-paid consultant, she says in her Amazon biography that "I felt the nagging call to write something other than client proposals and corporate finance reports."

And now it's happened. Writing under the name of Mia King, she has published "Good Things" ($14 in paperback from Berkley/Penguin, www.miaking.com), which was listed on the Barnes and Noble general fiction trade bestseller list. The story is a page-turning modern romance featuring 40-year-old Seattle-based Deidre McIntosh. Her Martha Stewart-like home show is abruptly canceled when a rival TV station begins its own lifestyle show with socialite Marla Banks; on top of that, when her gay best-friend roommate moves out to join his French-doctor boyfriend, Deidre is left alone, single and unemployed. Then she loses her lease.

Deidre's life seems to be crumbling around her until she meets a man named Kevin Johnson. His gaze was "steady, attentive, intelligent. And handsome wasn't the right way to describe him; devastatingly handsome was more appropriate." It's mutual attraction, and their lives, haltingly, begin to intertwine. As King deftly plots the course, she fills her tale with the delights of hot food and hot sex (and even offers recipes for "orgasmic corn fritters" and "chocolate cherry crackle cookies" in a postscript).

Kevin is something of a corporate jet-setter but he has a retreat near the very small town of Jacob's Point four hours from Seattle, near Lake Wish, and he invites Deidre to stay there while he is away. Deidre finds a small cabin and moves in. Appalled at first by the dirt, she sets to cleaning the place. She meets Lindsey, owner of the town restaurant, The Wishbone, which refers, says Lindsey, not only to the lake but also to food, "about finishing a good meal down to the wishbone. My kids think it's about people, because you can't pull a wishbone by yourself, you need another person."

Over the next few weeks Deidre begins selling Lindsey some of her maple walnut scones in origami parchment pockets, just to raise some money. They're a hit. Deidre knows she won't stay in Jacob's Point forever, but how can she finance the pilots for her proposed new TV series?

Deidre has much to learn about the meaning of success. "Once you believe in yourself," Lindsey says, "the right people show up to help you." That's the nature of good things.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Chico native writes on mastering golf's inner game

By DAN BARNETT

The Oakmont course was tough. Angel Cabrera seemed to falter last Sunday on holes 16 and 17 in the U.S. Open, but on 18, according to Sports Illustrated's Gary Van Sickle, "he hit the gutsiest tee shot of his life & and made the most important par of his life. He earned the trophy."

In Chico not long ago, 102-year-old Elsie McLean hit a pretty gutsy hole in one, becoming, according to National Public Radio, "the oldest golfer ever to score an ace on a regulation course." What's the secret? Former Chicoan Darrin Gee says successful golfers know how to play the inner game as well as the outer one.

Though now living on the Big Island of Hawaii with his wife, novelist Darien Hsu Gee, and their two children, Darrin wrote me that he grew up in Chico, attended Sierra View Elementary and Bidwell Junior High and graduated from Pleasant Valley High School. He added that "my parents, Arthur and Betty Gee, are longtime Chico residents and active in the community (Chico State University professor emeritus for 30 years and Enloe hospital volunteer). & I did a guest clinic at Bidwell Golf Course a few of years ago for the members and other Chico residents."

Bothered by his own lack of progress in the game, he realized he was "trying too hard." Meditation and yoga helped him let go, and in 2000 he established Darrin Gee's Spirit of Golf Academy in Hawaii. From his experiences has come "The Seven Principles of Golf: Mastering the Mental Game On and Off the Golf Course" ($16.95 in hardcover from Stewart, Tabori & Chang). The book is beautifully illustrated with line drawings of simple golf exercises.

He begins the book with a question. How long does it take to play a round of golf? Four hours is average but, since each actual shot takes just a few seconds, maybe only three minutes are really devoted to swinging the club. It follows that "a golfer only needs to concentrate for a few seconds at a time & one shot at a time." Gee calls this the "inner game" "as it implies more than just mental mastery; sometimes the best thing you can do for your game is to get out of your head and trust your body."

So "get grounded" by finding the body's balance as you prepare the swing. "Feel the shot," "visualize it," and "find your natural swing." Develop a modest "pre-shot ritual" and "play one shot at a time."

Realize "golf is a journey" -- and so is life.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Chico writer journeys through loss, to creativity, to play

By DAN BARNETT

About a decade has passed since Chicoan Susan Wooldridge published "poemcrazy," a book about the magic of words that was a longtime offering of the Quality Paperback Book Club. Words still beckon, but times have changed, and now the creative impulse is called to sustain her in the midst of loss, failure, death. In "Foolsgold: Making Something From Nothing and Freeing Your Creative Process" ($22 in hardcover from Harmony Books), Wooldridge takes the reader into her sanctuaries: Chico Creek, One-Mile, the Upper Crust Bakery.

"When I started the book," she says in her introduction, "I was grieving the death of my father, the end of my long marriage, and the breakup of a subsequent romance. & I began writing these pages when I decided to make a small collage box each day for a year with what I found on my walks -- often the most ordinary, seemingly worthless bits of nothing. That's when fool's gold became foolsgold for me, a field around us, or state of being, where everything can be transformed by our seeing and creativity.

"Merged into one word, foolsgold describes a paradox, the value in what may seem to be worthless. Foolsgold reminds us to look beyond appearances, even in ourselves. What seems to loom in us most darkly may finally be what brings the most light. Everything can be transmuted by attention, play, love." Wooldridge's maiden name is "Goldsmith."

The book contains almost 50 short meditations on life, loss and creativity. Wooldridge wonders how best to celebrate the life of her Poppa Julien, "the renegade bright-star atheist scientist who fled the Jewish fold. ... Sifting through small pebbles as Chico Creek rushes past, playing with juxtaposition, I feel as if I'm engaged in a kind of primitive and almost unconscious creekside alchemy. I search for a way to contain, classify, make sense. & I suspect this is what Poppa, a geochemist, was up to when he was studying mineral & structures in a high-pressure lab with ominous warnings on the door." Poppa is honored by the family with a telephone Kaddish from cousin Harold -- an embrace of ritual -- and, a year later, a scattering of his ashes in Chicago, the day the author's divorce is final.

The spontaneity of creativity, Wooldridge realizes, must be given form by ritual. The chapters of her book "help me wrestle emotions into shape. Frame them." The community she has built, with her two children and the 30 families where she now lives in Valley Oaks Village, has freed her to dance.

It is enough.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Caring for a spouse at the end of his life: north state poet's words are simple, poignant

By DAN BARNETT

"For thirty years," writes the poet, "they have sat together / as day fades into evening // Lifted glasses in toasts / smiled over triumphs / raged or wiped tears / over plans and people that sank &" And now he himself is sinking; that strong man who nailed and planted and "cradled / an armful of kittens": "Today, as he tries to rise / from his crouch, his legs tremble. / His foot slips on a damp / patch of earth and he spills / like an overturned flower pot."

Poet and publisher Patricia Wellingham-Jones captures the sheer physicality of caring for her husband, Roy.

"End-Cycle: Poems About Caregiving" ($8 in paper postpaid from PWJ Publishing, www.wellinghamjones.com) won the Palabra Productions Chapbook Contest for 2006. The book is also available in Chico for $6 from Lyon Books as well as the Vagabond Rose, "the downtown art gallery where Bob Garner also exhibits his work on occasion (and where I bought the original painting which became the cover art)."

The 31 poems in "End-Cycle" are self-reflective but not self-indulgent.

There is the "First Night": "Like an anxious mama / I tiptoe through the house / check on you and your new bed / in the office turned bedroom & I want to cry / in what little sleep I get / for the change from marriage bed / to hospital bed at the end of a very long hall &"
There is the effort to hold on: "I want you / to remain part / of our decision making. & Your hearing aids / muddle the message / before it even hits / your poor tangled brain. // I realize my effort / to keep you involved / is one more / small cruelty."

There is the downward cycle: "When you fret about jobs you think you didn't do / or worry about Smudge the cat / outside in dark rain // I'm thankful I can soothe your spirit / and you remember the cat's name / (though not mine) and care & When you praise me and the other two women / taking good care of you // I'm thankful you know you're in good hands / though all those women are me."

Then, in "Vigil": "The hospice nurse whispers / in your abandoned ear, / It's all right to go, / Pat will be okay." And then it is over.

Later, in "Rainstorm Room," "I weather the end of winter, / know spring will come."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Sassy novel puts hospital volunteering at center stage

By DAN BARNETT

Why was novelist Jane Heller invited to appear earlier this month at Chico's Enloe Conference Center to celebrate hospital volunteerism?
It turns out her 13th novel, "Some Nerve" ($24.95 in hardcover from William Morrow), does exactly that. After life as a publicist (working with the likes of Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark), Heller turned to her own writing, producing a series of satirical, breezy romances that People magazine called ideal beach reading.

In "Some Nerve," Ann Roth, a reporter for Famous magazine, is assigned the "get" of a lifetime -- an interview with reclusive Hollywood hunk Malcolm Goddard. But Roth has to get the get, and Goddard is notoriously unavailable to celebrity mag "parasites." When Roth's bravado proves no match for Goddard's egocentricity, Roth begins to suffer from panic attacks and finds herself back home with her dysfunctional family in Middletown, Mo., as phobic and washed up as they are.

Until she begins volunteering at the local hospital. And wouldn't you know it: Guess which actor shows up incognito for heart tests?

On her Web site, Heller writes that "the idea for 'Some Nerve' was triggered by a conversation I had with the agent who handles the movie rights to my books. It had been widely publicized that Julia Roberts was flat on her back at a local L.A. hospital while she was awaiting the birth of her twins. My agent and I were dying for her to read 'An Ex to Grind' and play the part of the heroine, Melanie Banks, so she said, 'Why don't you sneak into the hospital as a volunteer and hand her the manuscript? She has plenty of time to read.' She was kidding, of course, but my imagination took off. I came up with the story of a celebrity reporter who becomes a hospital volunteer in order to get the story on an ailing actor.

"And then I went straight to my local hospital in L.A. to speak to the head of volunteers. I asked her if I could observe for a few days, to research my novel. She said no. 'We don't allow access to our patients for "material,"' she said. 'But if you'd like to become a volunteer, we'd love to have you.'"

According to Enloe Medical Center Director of Volunteer Services Roseanna Galindo-Kuhn, Heller, now based in Santa Barbara, fell in love with hospital volunteering. The lives she touched changed her own. That's Roth's experience, too, and it's pretty clear how things will turn out romantically. But, oh what fun getting there.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Eureka newspaper columnist turns novelist, tells tale of a famous railroad dog

By DAN BARNETT

Tim Martin normally writes a column about running for the Eureka Times-Standard. But he was so entranced by tales of a black Labrador that rode the lumber trains in the early 1900s he decided to write a children's book.

"The Legend of Boomer Jack" ($16.95 in paperback from PublishAmerica) is aimed at readers from 9 to 12 years of age, and it's a fast-paced story sure to draw reader interest with its account of old steam locomotives, a little girl who longs to be Boomer's owner and a mean-hearted drunken dog catcher named Fisk.

"Boomer was no ordinary dog," the narrator tells us. "He loved trains, and more than anything he wanted to be a railroad dog. But he belonged to Mrs. Warren Palmer, whose husband was a very influential man, and she wanted Boomer to be a house dog. Boomer was just a pup when he climbed aboard his first locomotive. It happened on October 23, 1914. That was the day Mr. Palmer officially opened the Northwestern Pacific Railroad line at a place called Cain Rock, California."

The story Martin tells really gets started a year later at the Willits Station, about 70 miles away from Cain Rock. Old Number 12 arrives on time, carrying a load of lumber. "The brakeman grabbed a club, stuck it through a hand wheel and gave it a wrench. The brakes of the car clamped tight on the resisting wheel, slowing the big train." Paddy the engineer is inside with Jonsey the fireman, who is "absentmindedly stuffing wood into the firebox."

Then: "The safely valve lifted, singing a high pitched wail against the full pressure. A column of steam shot high into the air. Nearby, a horse reared, throwing its rider into the mud. Jonsey glanced sheepishly at his partner. 'Pressure's down,' he said."

That's when Boomer shows up, obviously escaping from the confines of Mrs. Palmer's perfumed drawing room. Mr. Tilley, the station manager, tells Paddy: "He's just like those railroad workers who pass through town. He's a boomer, a drifter."

But Boomer has a part to play, especially some while later when Number 12 has to high-tail it to San Francisco. Boomer proves especially adept at scaring elk, bulls and cows off the tracks, and much later at saving 10-year-old Sara Parsons.

Before the end, Sara has a lesson to learn, "that true happiness is not to possess, but to love." The story is cinematic (Martin has written a screenplay of the book), full of humor, danger, sadness and new beginnings.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Chico guest to speak on radical politics, Asian spirituality, hash smuggling

By DAN BARNETT

Jerry Beisler is in the midst of chronicling his eventful life, decade by decade, in a series of books called "As the Prayer Wheel Turns." The 1970s is covered in "The Bandit of Kabul" ($29.95 in paperback from Regent Press), studded with black and white photographs of the times and the people -- from Rebecca, whom he marries in 1971 in Goa, India, to Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, to "Dutch Bob," who "tried to recruit anyone of worth he met in the Kathmandu Valley to assist him in his Hash-to-Amsterdam deals." The author signed up.

He will also be signing copies of his book tonight at 7 at Lyon Books in Chico. The public is invited to attend what is likely to be a freewheeling discussion.

An author's note sets the tone: "This book is set in some of the world's most remote and exotic locations, but you will not be reading poetic or minute descriptions of the sights, sounds or smells of those places. & There is no time for dwelling on these things during this era of endless war that produces murderous national leaders, idiotic economic policies and draconian, tyrannical laws. But the historical facts, the action and adventure, the spirit and spirituality of human beings are here; this story beings and ends in love."

It's also the story of Beisler's entrepreneurial spirit. Gravitating away from the "false-bottom suitcase parade" smuggling contraband into Amsterdam, he and Rebecca would return periodically to their ranch in Northern California where Jerry would sell museum-quality Tibetan carpets and tend his marijuana garden (now long gone, of course, replaced by "ecologically perfect nut trees").

He also helped produce music shows "for the local college crowd & about 8,000 party-hungry students." It sounds like the unnamed "state university" was Chico State University, described as somewhere between the Bay Area and Oregon, 157 miles from San Francisco, just outside the radius promoter Bill Graham insisted on when he booked his acts so as not to dilute the potential audience. For Beisler that meant "Fleetwood Mac, Santana and Taj Mahal, came through town on their coastal swings to or from San Francisco."

During a time of estrangement from Rebecca, Jerry had met a woman in San Francisco. Later, once again united with Rebecca, he received a letter from "that 'hot-house flower.'" Almost matter-of-factly she wrote: "I am going to have your baby in a few months & and someday, if the child asks about the father, I'll just say he was the Bandit of Kabul."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Chico pilot's first novel is adventure tale of drug running and government corruption

By DAN BARNETT

Dean O. Talley is one busy flier. This month it's agricultural aviation, where he's spending a dozen hours a day "flying rice"; by the end of May he'll join air crews for fire season. According to an author's note, Talley has worked seasonal fire contracts for almost 30 years and has flown "O2, S2, DC-4, SP2H, and P3 aircraft."

If those designations touch a chord, Talley's novel, replete with loving attention to airframe detail, is a must. But earthbound onlookers (like your friendly columnist) also have a cause for cheer. They'll find a gritty, intertwined tale, leavened with wry humor and a touch of sexiness, of a group of misfit flyboys in the late 1970s. As the plot unfolds, these pilots find themselves deeply involved in the cocaine trade and Central American gun running after routine marijuana transport and appliance smuggling into Mexico lead to some very bad choices.

"Flyboys--Risky Business" ($14.95 in paperback from Long Palm Publishing) is available in Durham at Durham Veterinary and Crazy Crab and in Chico at ABC Books, Made in Chico, Lyon Books, Northgate Aviation and the Chico Aviation Museum, as well as the author's Web site at www.flyboys-riskybusiness.com.

Charlie Jones "liked to fly, and he'd fly just about anything. & He liked the rhythmic growl of a big round engine and feeling its pulse in the palm of his hand resting on the throttle. Charlie knew the edges of the envelope. That's where he lived. He could feel a plane straining to lift, knowing when to apply pressure with a foot or a hand, floating on the brink between chaos and flight. & He knew the acrid smell of burning wire, and the taste that a cloud of hydraulic oil leaves in your mouth when a pressure line fails and the volatile mist envelops you. & He knew the gnawing void felt when you might not make it."

Charlie was a flyboy, which Talley says is a "somewhat anachronistic term yet descriptive of a breed of airman who, facing the threat of extinction, fans the flame to keep it burning bright rather than let it flicker and die a slow death." The novel is about a strange brotherhood, even among flyboys at odds with each other: a banding together to resist the common enemies of coercion, treachery and state corruption.

The story has breathless twists and turns aplenty. In the midst of it all Charlie talks with Nancy, the deliciously beautiful sister of Woody Grant. (Grant would co-pilot a DC-6, "an old freighter," into Mexico in a daring rescue effort with a decidedly motley crew.) "It's not exactly what I had in mind for the weekend," Charlie says, "but what's a guy to do? Some Mexican general wants your airplane to go into the drug business, so he sabotages a couple of your friends. He puts them in jail and makes a deal to spring them for the airplane. That gets screwed up when he shoots one of (them) and holds him hostage. We may be just a & bunch of flyboys, but we're there for each other. That old man means more to me than a bunch of people I don't know."

Nancy is no mere decoration. Stowing away on the rescue flight, she is the book's moral compass, a "save-the-world type" who helps save the world -- or at least the flyboys' honor.

And maybe that's the riskiest business of all.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Hey, before you send another e-mail, read this book!

By DAN BARNETT

So, which is it: Is the "hey" in the column title just a friendly attention-getter, or am I chiding you, Gentle Reader, to be more careful with what you send? It's hard to tell without some context. Imagine the title appearing as the subject line in an e-mail sent by your boss. Without further clarification, it's hard to tell whether it's a friendly note from a fellow book lover or whether your next employee evaluation will pretty much tank.

E-mail is ubiquitous. Besides that, it's everywhere. Fortunately, David Shipley (the Op-Ed page editor of the New York Times) and Will Schwalbe (editor-in-chief of Hyperion Books) have gone to bat for those adrift in a sea of electronic communications. Or something like that. The authors are most concerned about keeping e-mail simple -- not too simple since you may come across as terse -- but easily understandable. And that means avoiding angry words, attempts at sarcasm, and just plain lying. If you're going to lie, do it face to face.

"Send: The Essential Guide to e-mail for Office and Home" ($19.95 in hardcover from Knopf) is not about managing the abundance of e-mail (there are other guides for that) but about composing just the right e-mail for the occasion. Someone who missed the boat on that -- who proved in the end to be a little dinghy -- was one Michael Brown, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. During the height of the Katrina disaster, Brown sent the following e-mail to his staff: "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god."

Shipley and Schwalbe point out that in just about a decade e-mail has changed the way the world communicates and has led to all kinds of (unreasonable) expectations. The authors note that "a 2006 survey asked office workers if they would consider it rude not to receive a response to an e-mail within three hours. Fifty percent said they would. What's more, one in 20 expected to hear back within five minutes."

"Send" is a thoughtful, practical and witty guide to leveraging e-mail's strengths while minimizing its weaknesses. There are lots of reasons to love e-mail; it's great for conveying "essential information"; it has an amazing reach. It creates a record that can be searched (good news for us if we're looking for notes to that last phone conversation; not so good for Enron executives). It gives us time to choose our words carefully.

Often we don't, though; we are seduced by the ease of e-mail and assume the recipients will get the "tone" of what we write. Yet, "if you don't consciously insert tone into an e-mail, a kind of universal default tone won't automatically be conveyed. Instead, the message written without regard to tone becomes a blank screen onto which the reader projects his own fears, prejudices and anxieties." For instance, if your boss writes with the question "Will you be late for the meeting?" it's hard to "hear" the tone.

On the other hand, though, save overt emotional expressions for the phone or in-person conversations. Because e-mail can be forwarded in an instant, the world now knows that an executive of a certain big company forgot his keys and got upset at his secretary. The secretary forwarded the note to the press and the executive resigned.

The bottom line: "Think before you send; send e-mail you would like to receive." Hey, that's good advice!

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Further adventures of Dick Cory, retired teacher

By DAN BARNETT

Dick Cory tries to offer solutions to the problems ailing modern society.

Take cell phone addiction.

"Constraint induced movement therapy shows promise," he writes. "Tie down the arm that holds the phone, take out the batteries, or duct tape over the receiver. & Producing phones that limit conversations to less than three minutes before going silent for 15 or that give electrical shocks would provide limits. & I can think of more, but you will have to excuse me, someone is calling on the other line."

Cory wrote about growing up in Nebraska in "Six Boys and a Bag of Dirt" and now he reflects on the adult world in "After the Dust Has Settled." Both books are self-published paperbacks and sell for $20 each. Copies can be obtained by writing the author at ubangarang @sbcglobal.net or at Cory's book signing from 1-3 p.m. Saturday at ABC Bookstore, 868 East Ave. in Chico.

In its 70 not-always-politically-correct chapters, "Dust" provides a rich mix of humorous recollections, social commentary and glimpses into the author's sometimes painful personal life. In 1980, his wife of nearly two decades asked for a divorce. "She had found another man," he writes, "and wanted a new life. & Today, I admire her courage to break the pattern. At the time, I felt abandoned, jealous of the intruder, angry, hurt and worried about my new responsibilities."

Time passed, and both Cory and his former wife "found others with whom to share our love. I now understand her frustrations. I'm very proud of our sons and their families. I am also proud of their mother & and the faith she kept for nine years in the battle with cancer, which she lost March 22, 2005."

Cory was single for some five years after his divorce. He writes that "at one time I was trying to 'play the field' with three women concurrently," which left him exhausted. "Good for the ego, but not the healthiest for someone in his mid-40s!" Something had to change. Celebrating after a city league baseball game (20 years ago now) he was pulled over by an officer for "reckless wet." "I survived the night in the tank, bruised pride and all, took the ribbing from my teammates, and the loss of our first game. Somehow everyone forgave me, and Jan and I are still together." Cory, a Democrat, and Jan, a Republican, have been married for 20 years.

Cory writes about politics, his "progressive puzzle" invention, skinning a skunk (on five beers), and kerf (the "lost measure of wood or other material due to the thickness of the cutting blade").

"Dust" begins in somber tones with reflections on 9/11. "Chaos seems to reign supreme in the universe, so maybe we should expect it to be common on Earth."

The last chapter is more personal, as Cory writes about meeting some of his former students (after 36 years of teaching science and math there are a lot). "I appreciate them recognizing me in retirement. It is a validation of life that each of us needs. In fact, I think it is the greatest perk of an educator."

In between, Jan contributes a short essay on winning the KGO Radio cookie contest one year. Thinking about her lucky day, she writes that she then bought a $5 lottery ticket and got back $53. In a world of chaos, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

The Navy's wooden boats - North state teacher on the history of minesweepers

By DAN BARNETT

Retired Navy commander David D. Bruhn now teaches at Las Plumas High School.

During his naval career he served aboard an ocean minesweeper (MSO) and later commanded mine countermeasures (MCM) ships. When he learned that the minesweeper Excel "had been decommissioned and relegated to the 'ghost fleet' at Suisun Bay, near San Francisco," he began to think of writing her story.

Eventually, his history expanded to include 65 MSOs and MCMs on which some 50,000 sailors served during the last half-century. The result is "Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The U.S. Navy's Ocean Minesweep-ers, 1953-1994" ($37.50 in paperback from www.davidbruhn.com), featuring a cover painting by Richard DeRosset of the USS Endurance (MSO 435) during the war in Vietnam. The book, encyclopedic in its coverage, contains numerous black and white photographs and maps and a comprehensive index.

Bruhn writes that "during the past 50 years, a total of 19 U.S. Navy ships were damaged or sunk by missiles, torpedoes, aerial attack, terrorist attack or mines. More startling than total numbers is that casualties to 15 of the ships, nearly 80 percent, were due to mines and not, as one might imagine, by & terrorist-employed explosives." The need for minesweepers seems obvious, though Bruhn notes in measured terms that "if the submarine force is the 'silent service,' mine warfare is the 'unknown service' within the Navy, receiving few resources and little publicity." He adds that "mine warfare has not traditionally been viewed by officers as particularly exciting or noble work, a perspective that is not unique to the U.S. Navy. A First Lord of the British Admiralty once characterized it as 'unpleasant work for a naval man, an occupation like that of rat-catching.'"

The turning point in the development of the MSOs was the Korean conflict in which "the ineffectiveness of older-type minesweepers with metal hulls was illustrated graphically in Wonsan Harbor, where such ships fell victim to magnetic mines. To combat a deadly menace it became necessary to construct a vessel displaying no magnetic characteristics, or 'signature.'" That led to a host of design problems since engines built of non-magnetic aluminum, bronze or brass didn't last very long. The boats leaked in storms.

The book goes into great detail about ship design, how minesweepers were used in salvage operations and the U.S.-manned space program and Atlantic and Pacific operations. (Whereas MSOs tried to locate mines and detonate them, MCMs used sonar to locate mines and steer around them.) Perhaps of most interest to the general reader are the last chapters, dealing with the U.S. involvement in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 (Operation Earnest Will) and in Desert Storm. Kuwaiti harbor areas had to be cleared of mines and the Persian Gulf kept open for shipping. Mine clearance is tedious and dangerous business and mines continue to be ideal "sea denial weapons" since they are cheap for the damage they can cause and they require a significant investment of "ships, helicopters and divers" to counteract them.

And that has Bruhn worried. What if an enemy were able to place mines near U.S. waters? The Navy, he says, is "woefully short of mine countermeasures ships." New technologies could produce safer and more versatile vessels; the author hopes that one day "sailors who go down to the sea in wooden ships will receive the same level of support and consideration for their service as those who sail in steel-hulls, upon or under the sea."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com.

Sports journalist Frank Deford comes to Chico State University with novel view of baseball

By DAN BARNETT

Sports Illustrated senior writer Frank Deford is also known for his Wednesday commentary on the National Public Radio program "Morning Edition."

Publicity materials suggest Deford knows a thing or three about his subject: "The winner of an Emmy, a Peabody and a National Magazine Award, Deford has been elected to the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters, and has been voted U.S. Sportswriter of the Year six times."

Deford will speak at Chico State University's Laxson Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Sponsored by Chico Performances, Deford's presentation is titled "Sports: The Hype and the Hypocrisy." Tickets are $18 for adults, $16 for seniors and $14 for students and children at the University Box Office (898-6333).

Deford is also the author of "The Entitled: A Tale of Modern Baseball" ($24.95 in hardcover from Sourcebooks, Inc.), which is set to be published in May. The quotations that follow, from my advance reading copy, give a flavor of the book but may be revised in the final publication version.

With that said, I can report that "The Entitled" kept me interested from first to last. Engrossed would be the better word, and I really don't know anything about baseball. Years ago, during my stint on the KPAY morning show, Sports Director Mike Baca explained to me the delight he took in watching a baseball game -- not only for the action on the field but especially for the intense strategizing that went on when nothing appeared to be happening. Deford's fictional novel makes that observation a compelling reality.

"You gotta always think ahead," Howie Traveler says to his girlfriend, Margo. Howie, at 57, is the manager of the Cleveland Indians. "You've got to consider the possibilities. Like tonight. Dinky Furlong is pitching for me, and he's getting them out, but Connie and me, we know he hasn't really got his best stuff. They're gonna get to him, for sure, but when do I start warming somebody up? Too early, maybe I altogether waste a guy I might need tomorrow. And Furlong is very insecure. He's like some pitchers: He sees a guy warming up, he takes it personally. But if I wait, maybe then it's too late, and the Yankees are into a big inning."

Baseball is about people, all right, and Howie is altogether (his favorite word) enmeshed in the life of his star player, maybe the best in the game: Jay Alcazar, who Howie calls a "five-tool player": "That means & he can hit, hit with power, run, field and throw." Alcazar also has a way with women, and his one-night stands are legion. But one night, as Howie walks down the hotel corridor to his room, he sees the door to Jay's room open. A woman is trying to get out, but she is pulled back inside and the door kicked shut. Soon afterward, the woman charges Alcazar with rape, and Howie is forced into an ethical dilemma. Should he tell the police what he saw, and maybe lose his star player and his job? Or should he keep quiet?

Deford illuminates the politically incorrect world of Major League Baseball even as he creates sympathetic characters that linger in the memory. An altogether captivating performance.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Chico peace activist spends Easter 2006 as a 'Prisoner of Conscience'

By DAN BARNETT

The letters and journal entries of self-described peace activist Dorothy J. Parker have been collected in "You Too Could Go To Federal Prison!" ($15 in paperback from the author's Web site, www.dojustpeace.com, or from Lyon Books in Chico). Parker was 76 when she was arrested at Ft. Benning, Ga., in 2005 when she "crossed the line" and purposely trespassed onto the base, sliding under a chain link fence. "Thirty-six of us knelt in prayer awaiting the arrival of the security guards who had spotted our unorthodox entrance into forbidden territory."

Parker and the others, under the auspices of a human rights group called "SOA Watch," were protesting the continuing presence at the army base of the "School of the Americas" (SOA Watch calls it the "School of Assassins"), recently renamed WHINSEC (Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). According to an article in the Sacramento Bee, SOA "is a school chartered by Congress to provide 'professional education and training for civilian, military and law enforcement students from nations throughout the Western Hemisphere.' ... The school has been a target of protests since 1989, when some of its graduates were linked to the murder of six Jesuit priests and two women in El Salvador."

SOA Watch was founded by the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest, and (according to a Web site article from The Progressive) has in turn been subject to "counterterrorism monitoring" by the FBI.

Parker herself , active in the Chico Peace & Justice Center, worked for quarter century as a drug and alcohol recovery counselor with what was then called Butte County Mental Health, and since 1989 has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity to build houses in Nicaragua's rural areas. She told a judge after her arrest at Ft. Benning that she was a "Prisoner of Conscience."

The author spent 57 days in the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, Alameda County. Though it is called "minimum security," because of ongoing repairs to some of its facilities Parker found herself spending much of her sentence in the "Special Housing Unit" for women prisoners who had broken the often arbitrary house rules. There she was given no more than a hour a day to exercise outside and found herself frequently shackled and treated with disdain by prison officials.

A deeply spiritual person, Parker draws on the writings of Mary Baker Eddy (in the Christian Science Monitor), the Buddhists Tich Nhat Hahn and the Dalai Lama, and Meister Eckhart. The spiritual center of Parker's book is a meditation on Henri Nouwen's little book on the Stations of the Cross. He writes: "I may become an activist, even a defender of humanity, but not yet a follower of Jesus. Somehow my bond with those who suffer oppression is made real through my willingness to suffer my loneliness. ... We must each take up our own cross and follow Jesus, and so discover that we are truly brothers who learn from him who is humble and gentle of heart."

Parker took communion in "heavy chain shackles! Very moving symbolism for us (and the priest as well)." The feast of the Resurrection, Easter Sunday morning, turned out to be "cold cereal, a cold bagel with grape jam packet, milk and an orange."

I'm not sure I understand all that motivates Parker nor am I comfortable with her politicized brand of liberal Christianity. But if Jesus is risen indeed, maybe my comfort is decidedly not the point.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@ maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Chicoan muses on "old hurts, softened by the caring"

By DAN BARNETT

A friend of the author sent me a little book of poems by longtime Chico resident Archie Dan Murphy. "Poem Pudding" ($12.95 in paperback from PublishAmerica) distills a lifetime of experience into simple words, words that speak of mysteries that can never be put into words.

He writes in "Sundown Blues":

Ever hear the silence.
Roaring in your ears;
Bringing tumbledown
memories,
happiness, and tears?

"Born into poverty in California," a note about the author says, "Archie Dan Murphy, an Irish Cherokee, worked many jobs before finding his passion in surgery as an operating room aide. Many children, lovers, pets and friends and experiences have been his inspiration. He currently tends his garden and reflects on life's mysteries."

Murphy's poems have been printed exactly as he submitted them to the publisher, with his own spelling and syntax intact. Friends encouraged him to get them into print, especially after a house fire some years ago destroyed much of his work. On the page the simple, almost innocent words convey between the lines a life of tumult and desire.

Sometimes Murphy is philosophical, as in "Within Each of Us":

We have within us great joy,
and great sadness.
To reconcile the two is,
perhaps,
the spark of life itself.
...
To embrace life, and become a
part of the
greater whole, justifies our existence.
In doing this, we ease
the pain of old wounds,
and it gives us the means to salvation.

But the poet is not always meditative. The very next poem is called "Drinkin' Whiskey and Eatin' Licorice."

Murphy is making sense of life by means of his art. He recognizes there is something greater than his lone existence. In "Forgiveness" he writes:

Though our lives are not perfect, can we
not count our blessings?
Should
we not give the fates, what they have given us? Forgiveness.
One of the last
words from the cross."
Elsewhere, in "AKA Murphey," a kind of epitaph, the
poet says:
"We are gathered here,
to remember a man named
Murphey;
actually Murphey, Archie Dan,
born 2-17-36.
...
He had a
great need to do what the
Buddhists say, 'Right Work.'
...
Now it is
your destiny to be torch bearers. So
take heart, and persevere and
care;
for he will be there, somewhere.

In "The Dance," the poet admits:

Beer and roses don't go together
it's true, but Miss Bartender,
they do
seem right, when I look at you.
I don't want to go home,
I'd rather be
here.
I guess the lonely night,
is what I fear.

There were other loves, and deeper, and a simple reflection, in "Due To":

Lust, Greed and
long ago dreams, unrealized;
ponder, ponder, ponder.

It is the sole poem on the page.

But that's not the end. In "Yester-Dance" the poet says:

I put on my dancing shoes,
once each year.
I may not go dancing,
but I
put them on.

The poet has come to terms with solitude yet recognizes that through his words he is not alone. In "A Gentle Addiction" he writes:

So far, at this sundown age,
all these musings help me
fill a page. There
meaning is given life
by you, Dear Reader.
Easing pain, puzzlement and
rage.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Butte College administrator is a friend of hard-boiled novelist John Shannon

By DAN BARNETT

Ken Meier, on the job for less than a year as Butte College's vice president of learning, introduced this naive book review columnist to the gritty work of Los Angeles writer John Shannon.

In a series of nine novels featuring Jack Liffey (who recovers missing children), Shannon plumbs the cultural diversity of the south land. The fourth Jack Liffey novel, "The Orange Curtain," puts the detective in Little Saigon in Orange County, looking for the missing daughter of a Vietnamese bookseller. I haven't read this one, published in 2001, but I do know it's dedicated to Ken Meier.

Shannon's Web site explains the book's epigraph: Meier, he says, has been "my political mentor for almost 30 years, though he tried to abandon me almost as soon as we met by moving to rural Arizona to teach in a community college, a calling which he fiercely believes in. A working class lad himself, who could have become a first-rate professor of the history of ideas at any Ivy university, he has dedicated himself instead to making our community colleges fulfill their forgotten promise to the children of the working class." Now, of course, after serving a stint in Bakersfield, Meier finds himself at Butte College.

National book critics have found John Shannon. In late February, the New York Times Book Review published a note by Marilyn Stasio about the ninth (and newest) Jack Liffey novel: "Long a champion of teenagers in trouble, especially kids from L.A.'s culturally torn-up ethnic neighborhoods, this hard-boiled sleuth is on familiar turf in 'The Dark Streets' (Pegasus, $25), searching for a Korean film student named Soon-Lin Kim who went missing. But the landscape shifts when Liffey discovers that a paramilitary group of Asian-Americans has taken an interest in Soon-Lin Kim's student project. Although racial tensions always run high in Liffey's world, the violent turn they take here causes him to question his faith in 'the innate goodness of man.' And another old friend loses his way in the dark."

If he doesn't lose the way, perhaps the author might one day turn up in Chico for a reading and book signing.

"The Dark Streets" was my first foray into Jack Liffey's world. He is 60 now; his daughter, Maeve, who was shot in a previous installment, is now 17 and hot for the guy next door, a gang leader named Beto. Jack's girlfriend, Gloria, "a half-blood Paiute ... raised by Indian-hating fosters," is a cop and breast cancer survivor. Maeve's mother divorced Jack years before after he lost his aerospace job and turned to drugs and booze. His new job has not come cheap. Jack "had a metal plate in his head, titanium pins in his legs, a bullet scar on his shoulder and a weakened lung."

Kim's project is about the so-called "comfort women," Koreans forced into prostitution during World War II. Japan has not apologized, and an international hearing on the matter generated headlines in our own world just in the last few days. Liffey also gets caught (who knew?) on the wrong side of the Patriot Act.

The book is a verbal analogue to "24," keeping multiple storylines in the air at once, quick cutting from one to another. Yet "Streets" is not as dark as I expected and by the end it's clear there is at least some rough justice in the world. And Maeve, Jack realizes, pregnant Maeve, is still a sign of grace.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Discovering Our Importance TO Nature

By DAN BARNETT

As part of the "On the Creek Lecture Series," noted author Dan Dagget recently spoke at Chico State University.

Dagget's first book, "Beyond the Rangeland Conflict, Toward a West That Works," was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His latest work, "Gardeners of Eden: Rediscovering Our Importance To Nature" ($24.95 in large-size paperback from The Thatcher Charitable Trust and EcoResults!) expands on his alternative view to the "leave it alone" philosophy that has governed much thinking about the environment in the last few decades. According to a press release, EcoResults!, of which Dagget is CEO, is "a nonprofit foundation that finds funding for land managers seeking to turn their operations into a means to restore and sustain environmental values."

Just what that means is the subject of "Gardeners of Eden," a lively and personal exploration of how a new kind of environmentalism is being born among those who see themselves, and their skills, as part of the ecosystem, part of nature.

The huge mistake we modern humans have made, Dagget insists, is in thinking that "the only way we can really heal the land is to protect it from impacts created by humans: to 'leave it alone.' This widely held assumption is why, when we talk of healing the land, we invariably talk of protecting it, of preserving it. ... That's why articles that deal with land issues treat the word 'protecting' as having the same meaning as 'healing' or 'restoring.' It is why those articles never explain how protecting the land will heal it."

The assumption that healthy land is land humans leave alone is based, he writes, on another assumption: "that all environmental problems are caused by humans. ... We don't think of butterflies or deer or wolves as creating environmental problems."

But, says Dagget, there is a group of what he fondly calls "Lost Tribe gardeners" whose actions have benefited the land, have made it "outperform the Leave-It-Alone approach." To these people, such as Tony and Jerrie Tipton, who solved an "eco disaster" in the Nevada desert, the word "protection" is another name for "abandonment."

A Nevada mining operation had left a 300-foot pile of crushed rock "polluted with cyanide and covered with salt." The Tiptons "dragged a length of railroad rail over the part of the pile they intended to treat, breaking up the salt crust. ... Then they scattered the seed, spread the hay and straw, and released the cattle. The cows ate most of the hay and a little of the straw, and what they didn't eat, they trampled into the rocks along with the seeds and the microbe-rich organic fertilizer they provided from their guts." Years later native plants are still growing there, in an area with less an inch of rain.

Early in Dagget's career he demonstrated for Earth First! and in 1992 was named to a list of top grass-roots activists by the Sierra Club. But since then Dagget has come to realize that an environmentalism that insisted on defining healthy land as that least touched by human hands -- even if those land tracts were devoid of life -- simply made no sense. His book cites many examples of human intervention helping ecosystems thrive by their being used to grow food or raise cattle.

Careful management is needed, but that's the point of gardening.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Twenty Years of Learning

By DAN BARNETT

This column began March 4, 1987, and has continued as a weekly feature of this newspaper for some 20 years. I'm fairly astonished at that. When it started I was a spry young man in his mid-30s with boundless energy; now, about a thousand columns later, the energy is still there — but it takes twice as long to do anything. Make that three times as long.

Though much of my life is spent using computers these days, I remain a bookish short, enthralled and entranced at some of the things I've read, appalled at others. But I'm not going to name names.

The growth of desktop publishing has meant just about anyone could become a published author. It's easy to get a friend to write a review and post it on Amazon.com, but it remains difficult for local authors to achieve some of the recognition they deserve. Perhaps this column has helped in that regard. One of my great joys is learning that someone bought a book I've reviewed and enjoyed it. One of the great joys of authors is that someone bought the book.

Back in the summer of 1968 I decided to keep a list of every book I read. I was devouring a lot of science fiction in those days, so the first few handwritten pages are full of works such as "A Canticle For Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller Jr. As the years passed my interests broadened to include Saul Bellow, C.S. Lewis, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Dickens. By the end of 1986, when the list ended, I had reached book number 1,016. Some six months later a new kind of list began, this one called the "Biblio File."

I'm missing the first few columns, but the others I do have suggest that back then I was a chatty soul, devoting column inches to local folks who had had letters published in the Wall Street Journal or who had written magazine articles on overcoming addiction. Actual books by local authors were relatively rare, so I took to trying to make a local connection to books from the wider world. "With winds clocked unofficially at more than 100 mph a few weeks ago at the Chico airport — and with the word 'drought' increasingly on our lips — weather is once again in the forefront." That was in March 1988, and I reviewed a couple of weather-related works, including "Rhymes to Predict the Weather" by someone named Don Haggerty.

A year earlier, in a column called "To Squash a Conspiracy," I noted the appearance at Chico State University of an animal rights advocate. Apparently I wandered in on his lecture and asked about, well, vegetable rights. "His face grew pale. A carrot doesn't have a biography, at least that I know of, he said." But later I came across a book that claimed that vegetables feel things in ways we can't understand. I concluded that there is then nothing left for humans to eat and ended that April 1, 1987, column with: "Never again will I trust an artichoke. Never."

As more local books have been published I've put away sophomoric humor. Well, no I haven't, but my focus has been on the books themselves. I hope in most reviews I can convey the main point and give you a feel for the writing. I've learned a lot, and read a lot, and am ready for more. If that potato would just stop eyeing me.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.