The professor who became a freshman at her own school

By DAN BARNETT

Northern Arizona University anthropology professor Cathy Small decided to enroll as a freshman there during the 2002-2003 school year. This was to be her sabbatical project--an ethnographic study of college culture at a public university. She turned in her faculty card and parking permit and lived in a coed dorm, attending classes and taking careful notes--on those around her. She became a participant-observer, going to classes, reading the graffiti in the women's restrooms and probing feelings about cheating.

Taking the pseudonym "Rebekah Nathan" and calling the school "AnyU" to protect those she studied, Small compiled her findings into a book. (According to an article in the New York Times, a New York Sun reporter revealed her true identity last year.)

"My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student" is no dry-as-dust study, but rather an insightful and delightful portrait of ordinary student life. My copy is a hardback published by Cornell University Press ($24) but the book is also now in paperback ($14) from Penguin.

Part of Small's story is about her own ethical concerns over how to handle things told to her by students who think she is (just) a fellow student. She decided not to lie; yet she needed to reveal her true purpose only a few times.

Those around her in the dorms were just not that interested in what a 50-plus student was doing at the school. She was a writer, too, she said, and was going to write about student life.

True enough, and that seemed to suffice. Small determined that her book would not contain descriptions of sexual or drinking practices, and her comments on the group discussions in her sexuality class are kept general since they were confidential.

There is nothing lurid here. Instead, Small draws on previous studies and her own reflections to paint a nuanced picture of contemporary student culture.

As a professor, she writes, "It always comes as a surprise to me that students appear clueless about what happened in the last class, that only a minority of them have done the reading assigned, and that almost no undergraduates ever show up for my office hours unless perhaps they are failing."

After her experience as a freshman, she says, "I see now what I didn't see before. In the time between my Tuesday and Thursday classes in introductory anthropology I have taught only one other class, and I have spent at least some time on Wednesday arranging my Thursday class presentation. By contrast, my students have had at least four other classes in between, maybe more, and they have completed many other reading and writing assignments. ..."

They've gone to work, they've played, they've talked. What Small found was that instead of figuring out how to cram in all the needed study (two hours for every class hour is the expectation), students blocked out a limited time for homework and then asked a series of questions to determine whether this or that assignment merited the investment. Will there be a test on the reading assignment or will the student need it to do the homework or answer a question in class? If not, why read it?

There is a certain logic here, though Small's book is no apology for freshman culture, which has surprisingly little to do with academics.

Students want good jobs; their professors want them to be thoughtful citizens. Can the two, Small asks, be reconciled?

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

For those leaving cults -- sane advice from a Chico State University professor

By DAN BARNETT

We don't hear much these days about the Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate or even Jim Jones. It's tempting to think that the cult movement has faded and that the world's attention is on more pressing matters -- like suicide bombers. But they are all of a piece, according to Chico State University Associate Professor of Sociology Janja Lalich.

In "Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships" ($19.50 in paperback from Bay Tree Publishing), Lalich and co-author Madeleine Tobias, a Vermont psychotherapist, make clear that modern day cults have not disappeared. "If there is less street recruiting today, it is because many cults now use professional associations, campus organizations, self-help seminars, and the Internet as recruitment tools" to entice the unwary.

Who gets sucked into a cult? "Although the public tends to think, wrongly, that only those who are stupid, weird, crazy and aimless get involved in cults, this is simply untrue. ... We know that many cult members went to the best schools in the country, have advanced academic or professional degrees and had successful careers and lives prior to their involvement in a cult or cultic abusive relationship. But at a vulnerable moment, and we all have plenty of those in our lives (a lost love, a lost job, rejection, a death in the family and so on), a person can fall under the influence of someone who appears to offer answers or a sense of direction."

For the authors, "a group or relationship earns the label 'cult' on the basis of its methods and behaviors -- not on the basis of its beliefs. Often those of us who criticize cults are accused of wanting to deny people their freedoms, religious or otherwise. But what we critique and oppose is precisely the repression and stripping away of individual freedoms that tends to occur in cults. It is not beliefs that we oppose, but the exploitative manipulation of people's faith, commitment, and trust."

Written for those coming out of cults, as well as for family members and professionals, "Take Back Your Life" deals with common characteristics of myriad cult types: Eastern, religious and New Age cults; political, racist and terrorist cults; psychotherapy, human potential, mass transformational cults; commercial, multi-marking cults; occult, satanic or black-magic cults; one-on-one family cults; and cults of personality. Chapters deal with the cult experience, the process of healing, stories of families and children in cults and therapeutic issues.

The book features riveting personal accounts from ex-cult members and offers a wide range of resources for the person who is trying to retrieve his or her "pre-cult" personality. Education looms large, for that can begin to break down the narrow black-and-white thinking cult members often display. Many cults redefine common terms or introduce special vocabulary making it difficult for members to make sense of the world outside of even their own inner aspirations.

The authors are also concerned about those in the education and helping professions who don't see the dangers posed by cults both to the individual and the larger community. Part of the purpose of the book is to make a credible case that any course of therapy needs to take into account a patient's cult associations.

"Take Back Your Life" is a book of hope, an excellent starting point for those thinking of exiting a cult and for those who are taking back their lives, one day at a time.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

An Oroville man looks back on his life and his love of planes and trains

By DAN BARNETT

"My first memory," writes Robert "Lonnie" Dakin, "is of the 1939 World's Fair in San Francisco. I was 3 years old, and my father took me to see the train exhibit. I had never seen so many trains in one place.

"There were towns, villages, meadows and tunnels on a huge layout. The engines pulled the cars along shiny tracks. They whistled and clanged and little puffs of smoke came out of their smokestacks. I pressed my nose against the glass separating the teeming crowds from the make believe world of trains. I imaged they were traveling through faraway, exotic places. I kept my father there so long that we almost missed the ferry back to my grandmother's house."

Memories seem to tumble out as Dakin tells his own story in "The Flying Conductor" (a paperback published locally and available through I and L Publishing in Oroville; write inlpublisher @orovillecity.com). For a year, Dakin writes, he dictated the book to his wife and gathered old photographs. "In the 25 years we have been married," he says, "she has heard these stories over and over. Each time I relate one I am always told I should write a book. Well, now I have."

Dakin's story is more of an oral memoir than detailed autobiography. The prose is simple, and the emotions are held in check. It's clear, though, that Dakin does better building train layouts or small airplanes than building human relationships. As a youngster he lived with his mother in Hawthorne, Nev., after his parents divorced, and he was neglected. "My mother ... had trained to be a nurse, like her mother, but she dealt blackjack instead. I was alone a lot and came to love the desert."

Dakin writes "When I wasn't running wild in the desert I was forced to go to school. ... At age 9 I was about 6 feet tall. I stuck out like a sore thumb in my third-grade class. Kids can be pretty cruel at that age and they called me names like Frankenstein or Igor."

Dakin loved math and science. As a kid he got a motorized bicycle; not much later he built a small airplane he flew. He continued to build things, including model helicopters he says were used in "Hawaii Five-0". (He was in the Air Force at the time, stationed in Hawaii, and got to meet Jack Lord and Tom Selleck.)

Sometimes Dakin would stay with his grandmother in Oroville. He attended Oroville High School and, years later, after retirement from the military, he returned to teach shop at Las Plumas High School for some two decades. As a kid he would climb nearby mountains and look down on Feather River before the dam was built. A lot of history is now under water.

There have been quite a few bumps in his personal life. In the service he traveled widely and built model airplanes in North Africa, but that was when he received a "Dear John" letter from his wife. His second marriage fared little better. But his third wife, whom he met while he was taking classes at Butte College, made him feel young again and her family gave him roots.

Dakin writes from the perspective of a 70-year-old man, still thinking about those ups and downs, but still a lover of planes and trains.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

A marketing book for the Internet age

By DAN BARNETT

Marketing is all about turning consumers into Pavlov's dogs, salivating at even the mention of a brand name. That's a stereotype, but even among marketers themselves the received wisdom was that the most heavily promoted brands would have the most loyal following.

If that was ever true, it is less true today with the advent of the Internet. On the Web, consumers have access not just to the "big" brands but to all brands, all equally a click away. It turns out consumers are not dogs after all, but cats. How do you get a cat to stick around?

That's the question a new book for marketers sets out to answer. "Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?" ($19.99 in hardcover from Nelson Business), by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg with Lisa T. Davis, is subtitled "Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing." The authors write that "increasingly, customers are associating brand not with a message but with their entire experiences surrounding the product or service." The central message of the book is that customers, like cats, have a "what's in it for me?" attitude, and good marketing works when it attempts not to manipulate but ("within the confines of profitability and integrity") to delight the consumer. Why? "Delighted customers become repeat customers."

But how does a business provide this delight? The authors have developed a set of conceptual and software tools they call "Persuasion Architecture," which they present in detail in the book. I found the first half of the book quite helpful in understanding how the democracy of the Internet has changed marketing; the latter part of the book seemed to indulge in more and more jargon ("masks," "wireframing," "waypoints," "persuasion entities") with more and more mentions of Persuasion Architecture. The Eisenberg brothers veer awfully close to wanting professionals in their field to salivate at the mention of their brand.

Yet I think the authors genuinely want to be helpful. The CD packaged with the book includes an 80-minute question-and-answer session video and the Eisenbergs are clear they don't have all the answers. The CD also features a PDF file of the entire book which can be sent to colleagues. A delightful touch!

The book is unified around an examination of three questions.

First, "who are we trying to persuade to take the action?" This involves the creation of "personas" on the part of the business so marketers can develop empathy and anticipate questions. "Personas are stand-ins for the various angles from which your customers view their problems and your solutions." As an example, the authors offer Best Buy. One of the company's personas is "Jill," "a soccer mom who is motivated to please and care for her family. She doesn't want an intimidating experience when she shops for appliances or electronics. She needs to feel she has a friend along to help." Empathizing with "Jill," Best Buy can develop ads that talk about "Hassle- and fear-free electronics shopping."

Second, "What is the action we want someone to take?" Imagine a Web page that gives product information but offers no way for the user to make a purchase.

Finally, "What does that person need in order to feel confident taking that action?" This involves answering relevant questions in a timely fashion. Imagine someone about to order a product online who wonders how much the shipping is. Does the site make the consumer complete the transaction before providing that information?

We cats value our time. So delight us!

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Corning writer offers novel about Iraq told through young eyes

By DAN BARNETT

Phil Dynan is a runner, artist and the Peace and Freedom Party candidate for the 2nd District of the California State Assembly (a post now held by Richvale Republican Doug LaMalfa).

He is also a novelist, and his just-published work, "Brother Eagle, Sister Moon" ($12.95 in paperback or $4.69 download at www.lulu.com), tells two stories of modern day Iraq from the viewpoint of 12-year-old Yussef and his 16-year-old sister Nadia.

The author will appear at Lyon Books in Chico at 3 p.m. Saturday for a book signing.

The Corning resident bills his book as a young adult title. Though there are a few salty words the subject matter -- the war in Iraq and Nadia's being forced into prostitution -- is generally handled with discretion. Dynan says his writing enables him to express in gentle form his sympathy toward Iraqis as well as British and American troops. Dynan himself is harshly critical of the Bush Administration but his novel focuses instead on the friendship of the two siblings with Blackhawk helicopter pilot Sergeant Ernesto Alvarez of the 101st Airborne, the "Screaming Eagles."

Yussef finds himself separated from his large family and befriends an orphan goat whom he names "Tenika" after one of his sisters. "Yussef and Tenika spent almost 11 weeks together -- walking the plains, searching the hills and waterholes of Southwestern Iraq. ... They lived from the land, ate dates, berries and grass, and took water and milk where they could find it. They became friends. ... They had 'grown up' together and become young adults. Although they missed their parents ... they had learned to live within the boundaries of their world. ... They lived in harmony with each other and the beasts and other living things that surrounded them."

Then the pair stumbles upon a city, a "sea of humans," in which insurgents hold workers from Doctors Without Borders. Here, Yussef meets Dr. Yvette Prigent and he must mount a courageous effort to take a message to Red Crescent officials for help. He also meets Alvarez, who is about to propose to Prigent, and the pilot is willing to divert his helicopter to help Yussef find his parents. Things do not go well.

But somehow all the harrowing adventures lead to a good end. Along the way there is a healer, called the Ancient One, who touches the sergeant's wounds. He peers inside Alvarez's dreams and carves something on a piece of shrapnel taken from the pilot's arm. Finally, Yussef is reunited with his family.

Later, Alvarez returns to the family to ask Nadia for an extraordinary favor. He wants her to return to Samarra, to the kidnappers who had forced her into prostitution. They have taken several hostages, among them Dr. Prigent, and Nadia needs to guide the forces to rescue those abducted. Nadia undergoes intensive training in handling a gun and defending herself and eventually the chief kidnaper meets his end at the hands of a Fijian sharpshooter stationed with British troops.

At first "Brother Eagle, Sister Moon" struck me as kind of a fairy-story since at the beginning the reader is privy to some of the goat's thoughts. Yet as the novel progresses there is more realism -- though perhaps surrealism is the better term. There are no answers here to the larger conflict, only hints that one day, perhaps, even people can live "in harmony with each other."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

A comprehensive guide to everything Chico

By DAN BARNETT

Chico State University graduate Eric Norlie has had a varied career.

According to a press kit, "following college life, Eric remodeled the old downtown Masonic lodge into the Arroyo Room, managed the deactivated missile base north of Chico ... and scouted locations for the Butte County Film Commission. His connection to Chico also includes working in local news production for KNVR-24 and the Paradise Post newspaper." The 39-year-old Norlie is a "fourth generation Chico native. Eric's great grandparents worked at the Chico Hotel, Diamond Match Lumber and Richardson Springs Resort. His grandfather was a local building contractor and his parents own and operate Norfield Industries, a Chico manufacturing company."

Now he's published the essential guide to everything Chico. "The Chico User's Guide" ($24.95 in paperback from Cognitive Think Inc.) is available, he writes, at the Chico Museum, Lyon Books, Made in Chico, Tower Records, Bird in Hand, Tom Foolery, Zucchini & Vine, Magna Carta, the Associated Students bookstore, Vino100, Barnes & Noble and the new Scrubbs car wash on the Skyway, as well as at www.chicousersguide.com. It's an extraordinary accomplishment.

A little more than 4 inches wide and 51}2 inches tall, and three quarters of an inch thick, its 356 pages contain more than 800 color photographs and an abundance of microscopic print. But the shiny pages (printed in environmentally friendly soy-based ink) are surprisingly readable. The book feels good in the hand.

"The Chico User's Guide" is divided into nine sections: Features (including Chico history, landmarks and Bidwell Park), Activities, Entertainment, Student Guide, At Your Service (transportation, emergency care, recycling, healthy living and party planning), Organizations, Traveling, Reference and Calendar. Dozens of subsections (and a handy subject index) keep the book organized.

There wasn't room for everything. Norlie writes me that he favored "locally-owned and operated businesses and organizations." Some pages (like those devoted to religious life) give only a sampling of the diversity in Chico.

There are two kinds of entries. "Contacts" (such as the Chico Outlaws) provide the address, phone number and Web site address and "events" (such as the Chico Science Fair), which include the recurring date if available. I was struck by a nice little innovation. If a Web address is too long, Norlie saves space by printing keywords instead, optimized for the Google search engine.

Delights abound. There are four pages with full-color thumbnails of Chico wildflowers. Four pages are devoted to science, pointing to Chico State's forensics lab, the Rice Experiment Station along Highway 162 and the Snow Goose Festival each January. Carolyn Spellman Shoemaker is spotlighted. A university alum, she was the co-discoverer of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994.

Another four pages detail Chico film history, listing some 21 pictures shot in and around Chico (including 1955's "Friendly Persuasion" with Gary Cooper and "Stolen Innocence," the 1995 made-for-TV flick starring Chico's own Amanda Detmer).

Two pages are devoted to the area book scene, with local bookstores, libraries and three local publishers listed (a separate section is devoted to locally published periodicals). The Buzz is recognized for its Thursday best-seller lists, though this column is not mentioned (maybe in the next edition?). More comprehensive is the guide to music, dancing and bars and nightclubs. A dozen pages list 40 local groups, karaoke venues and a place to learn belly dancing. There are many pages on sports and recreation, too.

Norlie has done an outstanding job putting Chico between covers. Here's to many future editions.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Cape Cod author bought himself a piece of the Sierra Nevada

By DAN BANETT

Though Brent Harold lives "in Wellfleet, Mass., on outer Cape Cod," part of him, at least some small part, hearkens back now and again to Placer County and 20 acres of land "about 10 miles northwest of Lake Tahoe," part of Coldstream Valley, that he and nine friends bought in 1968. The 10 friends from Palo Alto met at a '60s "encounter group" and they decided that piece of Coldstream was going to become a communal heaven.

The story is light-heartedly and winsomely told in "Owning the Sierra Nevada: The Short History of a Long Infatuation" ($12.95 in paperback from Kinnacum Press, kinnacum@capecod.net). It's about the call of the land even though "of the 36 years of our ownership, my total time there amounts to between three and four months." The youthful idealism did not last long, but the friends never got around to selling the parcel. Harold lost track of some of the owners, but he and a few others over the years made pilgrimages to what they called The Land. In several easy-to-digest chapters the author recounts how his dream of someday setting up a "real life" in the woods was profoundly altered.

Harold had almost completed his doctorate in English at Stanford University when the group of friends decided to buy the property "merely to celebrate friendship." It was, he writes, "a typical moment in that utopian era." He dropped out of Stanford society, "dropped out of what was left of my youthful marriage" and "as a sort of emancipation proclamation I packed some books and writing paper in my VW bug and headed up to the Gold Lake-Sierra Buttes high country." His desires were kindled.

On another journey, this time to the Tuolumne Meadows, he writes, "What stands out when I think of that trip is the sexiness simply of being in the high Sierra: smooth, clean rock, pure water, eternal snow and the huge bowl of dark blue sky. ... That largely treeless, rockbound landscape was sexy in the sense of making one feel exposed -- to an intimate connection with the cosmos; or with something. ('Scuse me while I kiss the sky.)"

Much later he and his girlfriend Susan began visiting The Land. One time, in late spring, they had come back from a hike only to "find the stream risen from snowmelt during the warm day, and the corral of rocks in which we have left our cans of juice and beer ... threatened by the flooding. ... A few cans get loose in the current and we run downstream, with great hilarity, trying to head them off. ... We almost immediately began calling our frantic efforts the Wild Juice Chase. The story quickly in the telling becomes less that of high, feisty waters ... than How a Great Pun was Born." Bravo!

Harold had moved to the Cape Cod region to work. Susan was an Easterner, and eventually the two married, producing a son named Ben. Periodically they sojourned to The Land and Harold had thoughts of constructing a crude cabin, but it never came to pass. Life on The Land was in tents, one might say, and when adjacent landowners moved in with civilization and heavy equipment, something changed. He made his last visit in 2002 but keeps up with developments through e-mail with neighbors.

Ben is 17 now, and maybe one day he'll return to Coldstream and make that cabin a reality. Maybe.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Chico author recalls naval intelligence work during the Vietnam conflict

By DAN BARNETT

Douglass H. Hubbard Jr., born in 1945, joined the Naval Investigative Service Office in Washington, D.C. and became an agent. With dreams of catching spies, he volunteered for service in Vietnam. "I was 23," he writes. "The world was my apple." It was 1969; that year U.S. troop strength would peak at more than half a million. He chose Da Nang.

His story, and that of many of the two dozen Naval Intelligence civilian special agents who also served in Vietnam, is told in "Special Agent, Vietnam: A Naval Intelligence Memoir" ($26.95 in hardcover from Potomac Books). Hubbard stayed in Vietnam for three year-long tours, the most of any Naval Intelligence Service (NIS) agent.

Hubbard notes the passage of time has taken its toll on the agents who served there. Some have died, memories have clouded; he writes that "it fell to me, more than four decades after the first agent deployment (in 1962), to tell as much of that story as possible."

The Navy refused "to confirm or deny the existence of all the documents and photographs that we had written and submitted," so Hubbard has instead relied on interviews with surviving agents, his own memories and publicly available information. The book includes helpful maps, photographs of the agents and a glossary of seemingly numberless military acronyms. The result is a careful study of the role of NIS agents in South Vietnam until the fall of Saigon in 1975. Hubbard's language is measured, but there is passion behind the words.

He investigated allegations of drug use among troops, suicides, rape, mail fraud, smuggling, spying and the death of Australian entertainer Catherine Ann Warnes (whose stage name was Cathy Wayne) in 1969. She "had been shot while performing with her troupe at the staff and officers' club" at a base in Da Nang. (A Marine sergeant was eventually arrested.)

Then there was "fragging," the use of a fragmentation grenade to cause mayhem or settle personal scores. Hubbard writes that "the small M26 frag packed a huge wallop. Its high-explosive charge was wrapped by strands of serrated stainless-steel wire, fragments of which traveled at several thousand feet per second on detonation -- providing a kill radius of about 15 meters."

Some cases were motivated by racial tension, such as the one in 1970 involving Pvt. Ronald McDonald, USMC, who, Hubbard writes, "may well have been a product of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's social engineering plan to fill vacancies in the armed forces by lowering entry standards." McDonald managed to obtain a British 36 "Mills Bomb" fragmentation grenade to use against an officer he felt had insulted him. The grenade went off, the officer survived, but McDonald got 80 years. One of the agents who worked the case told Hubbard in an interview, "They led this guy away in handcuffs, but he was still giving the black power salute."

After his time in Vietnam, Hubbard left the NIS to explore business ventures. He returned to Vietnam in the late 1990s and found much of the destruction had disappeared. "A visitor to Vietnam who knew the country during the war will probably at some point ponder about what difference America's brave attempt to rescue South Vietnam made. As I stared out over the verdant rice paddies in the former demilitarized zone ... I was prompted to think that, despite a preponderance of altruism, we had mattered very little in the context of Vietnam's two millennia of history."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

University of California press publicist is a Chico State University grad

By DAN BARNETT

Heather Vaughan is a mid-list publicist for the University of California Press (headquartered in Berkeley). When she told me she attended Chico State University, I had to find out more. What follows is an edited e-mail interview.

How long were you in Chico?

"I lived in Chico for five years (1995-2000), while attending CSU, Chico. I graduated in 2000 with a BA in English and minors in theater and biology. I spent most of my non-class time in the green room of the theater department."

Do you have a memorable personal story that exemplifies Chico to you?

"One of my English teachers, Lois Bueler (who retired this year), was an inspiration in a lot of ways. Lois ... had this amazing ability to inspire you to do your best." Through some challenging experiences that semester, Vaughn writes, her professor "made me realize that if I really wanted to do something, all I had to do was try as hard as I could, and I could find a way. Lois made me want to try harder, because she had been so dedicated to teaching despite the difficulties in her life."

Why did you leave Chico?

"I left Chico to look for a publishing job in the San Francisco Bay Area ... at a small business-book publisher. In 2004, I graduated with a master's in Visual Culture: Costume Studies from New York University. I moved back to the Bay Area in November 2005 ... and ended up back in publishing."

How did you get the job of "mid-list publicist"?

"I had seen the job posted on several publishing industry Web sites and knew I had the skills necessary to work in the field. I applied in February, went through the interview process, and was hired in early March. My interests (science, theater, art and fashion history, film) definitely helped me get this job (which involves publicizing books in a large variety of academic fields)."

What exactly IS a "mid-list publicist"?

"I handle the publicity for the scholarly/academic titles with print runs smaller than 2,000 copies. This is actually the majority of books that we publish. The topics include everything from science to music theory to anthropology. I also handle two smaller, trade series (the California Natural History Guide Series and The Huntington Library Series). There are four other publicists at the press who handle the remaining trade titles. For the most part, my job consists of getting the academic books reviewed in scholarly publications and print media. However, I do help set up radio interviews, bookstore events and lectures for the trade books I do handle."

Your "other job" is a "fashion and textile historian." What is that?

"Someone who explores history, culture and society through clothing and textiles created by various groups. My experience has been extremely varied, including work as a museum curator, researcher, lecturer, author and as a historical resource for other museums, auction houses and individuals. I am currently working on an article for a juried publication, Dress (a Costume Society of America publication) and on several chapters for an encyclopedia of fashion (1900-1920 and 1920-1939), to be published by Greenwood Press in 2007. I also hope to publish my master's thesis in book form. (It) examines the fashion design career of Natacha Rambova, the one-time wife of Rudolph Valentino."

I wish Vaughan the best and thank her for helping to keep books alive and for letting us glimpse a publicist's life.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Redding author cooks up hard-boiled murder mystery

By DAN BARNETT

It didn't start with murders.

San Francisco-based DelaTek, a software company that employed some 400 people, was poised to hit the big time with a new computer game, a breakthrough in the industry. In the words of DelaTek's chief executive officer, David LaCosta, "We're going after the girls."

The game is called "Whipsaw" and, according to LaCosta, "the main character ... is a young woman named Delilah. She's a spy, and the player can outfit her with different weapons and send her on more than 300 missions. But there's also a full wardrobe to choose from and the player can construct a social life for her. Send her out on dates. It's like James Bond meets Barbie."

The stakes were high for DelaTek. The game, soon to be released, had created considerable buzz. And then came the ransom demand. Turn over $3 million in cash or the source code would be uploaded to the Internet, putting the game in the public domain and DelaTek's stock in a downward spiral from which it might not recover.

Thus begins the newest thriller from Redding's Steve Brewer. "Whipsaw" ($24 in hardcover from Intrigue Press) makes ideal beach reading. The action never falters, the killings pile up and the hero is someone worth rooting for. He's 42-year-old Matt Donohue, ex-Marine, ex-DelaTek employee. He had been in charge of the company's security, but that was before LaCosta had stolen Matt's wife. The divorce was nasty, and Donohue had left the company with lots of stock options and a bad taste in his mouth.

But Matt is drawn back into DelaTek's orbit when a CD arrives at the company and Whipsaw's "Delilah" appears on the computer screen demanding that Matt deliver the ransom in person. Despite his distaste for LaCosta, Donohue is persuaded to make the drop (mostly out of his good guy nature and partly because he wants to protect his portfolio). But things go awry (who would have guessed?) and Matt takes a pounding from the mysterious thieves who get away with the money before DelaTek security can move in.

From there the story gets nicely complicated. Matt meets Kate Allison, head of the DelaTek's network security. "She was tall and slender. ... She looked to be in her 30s, and something about the way she moved made me think she was an athlete. A swimmer, maybe, or a basketball player. I glanced at her hand. No wedding ring."

Then there's Roger Tunney, head of physical security, and Matt's oldest friend, Duke, also ex-Marine, who works for Tunney. "Duke served in the first Gulf War while I was off protecting diplomats" at various embassies, Matt tells the reader. But then Donohue himself is kidnapped by Columbian guerillas. His escape is harrowing. Soon after, Matt musters out and joins DelaTek.

"Whipsaw" features rapid-fire dialogue, a plethora of naughty words, chases, shoot-outs and astute observations: "The two homicide detectives assigned to the death couldn't have looked more different. Frank Kelton was a study in straight lines, mostly vertical. A tall man with a face full of furrows and creases, he wore a narrow black suit that made me think of undertakers. His partner, Lawrence Chin, was roly-poly and friendly, all parabolas and parentheses and pleasant smiles, a happy Buddha in a blue Brooks Brothers suit." Hear the sounds? Straight and tall f's, roly-poly b's. I love it.

Plot twists? Put it this way: If you want sinister set-ups, Steve Brewer is the brew-meister.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

They're not just rocks, they're history -- A guide to the Sierra Nevada's geology

By DAN BARNETT

Three decades ago geologist Mary Hill wrote a handbook to the Sierra Nevada's geologic history and it became the standard guide. The aptly named author has now extensively revised her book. It's an armchair traveler's delight and remains an authoritative guide that will well serve a new generation of hikers, campers, and explorers.

"Geology of the Sierra Nevada: Revised Edition" ($19.95 in full-color paperback from University of California Press) contains almost 200 illustrations, including photographs of rock forms and maps showing where to find them. Hill thanks Bill Guyton, professor emeritus of geosciences at Chico State University, "for his careful reading" of the new manuscript and draws on the research he published in "Glaciers of California" (1998). Guyton distinguished between glaciers and smaller "glacierets" and counted 99 glaciers in the Sierra Nevada and 398 glacierets. Hill notes that "the Sierra Nevada has a lot of glaciers, all of them small. If you are looking for the giants of the Great Ice Age, you will have to be content with their spoor."

The book is divided into two sections. The first offers a "do-it-yourself rock identification key." A series of maps divides the Sierra Nevada into regions and shows where to find prominent rock formations in each area. The first map, mostly of eastern Butte County, locates "conglomerate" ("rock ... made up of grains 2 mm or more in diameter, together with coarser fragments") along Big Chico Creek. You can see shale in the Dry Creek area and lava flow and basalt on Table Mountain.

The second part is the narrative, which takes new research into account. In the last few years, she writes, "the Sierra has been put through the plate tectonics intellectual filter, which has told us how the mountains might have been created, and why they are where they are."

The book also expands its coverage of "human exploration of the Sierra Nevada, not just by geologists" but by others as well.

Here you'll find the story of "the first overland party of settlers to attempt to cross the Sierra. ... The group came to be known as the Bartleson-Bidwell party, as it included two men of leadership mold, John Bartleson and John Bidwell, destined to become eminent in what was to be the 31st U.S. state." Here also is the story of "Snowshoe" Thompson, a Norwegian who for two decades, "beginning in 1856, ... carried the mail across the Sierra Nevada from Placerville, California, to Genoa, Nevada (then called Mormon Station), using long skis (then called 'snowshoes') of his own making."

But Hill's great love is the land itself, the "nervous" Sierra, and her account of the devastating Owens Valley earthquake in 1872 tells not only of human destruction but notes that "the Sierra Nevada itself was severely wracked." She quotes John Muir's eyewitness account: "Shortly after sunrise a low, blunt, muffled rumbling, like a distant thunder, was followed by another series of shocks, which ... made the cliffs and domes tremble like jelly, and the big pines and oaks thrill and swish and wave their branches with startling effect."

At the end of the book, a "coda" reflects on geologic time and human time. "Time is all we have," she writes, "and it behooves us to spend it wisely. Some say that the time spent in the mountains is not subtracted from our allotted three-score-and-ten. So cherish the Sierra, and it will generously reward you."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Redding author's first novel is a page-turning murder mystery with a nice twist of ESP

By DAN BARNETT

High schooler Murray Kiefer and Sierra County sheriff's deputy Roman Gates, based out of Riverton, near Whiskeytown Lake, are both trying to solve the same murder. The two are not working together -- they don't even know each other -- but they are working in concert.

On Oct. 17, Nikki Parker, a 16-year-old cheerleader at Canyon High in Riverton, Murray's school, disappeared from the parking lot after practice. Weeks later there are still no clues to her whereabouts. For Gates, a gambling addict now in recovery, the answer must be out there if only a sufficient number of leads can be followed up. For Murray, outsider and son of a prostitute mother, his best leads come from the town cemetery. He is convinced he hears voices from the dearly departed and he considers himself a "friend to the deceased." But then he hears sobbing, something in his mind that sounds like "please help me." And therein lies the tale.

"Dead Connection" ($16.95 in hardcover from Roaring Brook Press) is Charlie Price's first novel, but you wouldn't know it. The Redding-based author writes with consummate skill, creating and interweaving the lives of multiple characters who are far from cardboard cutouts. Price is an organizational consultant and "executive coach"; he writes me that he spent 35 years in education and mental health. His wife, Joan Pechanec, is a psychotherapist with practices in Redding and Mount Shasta.

Price and fellow Redding novelist Steve Brewer ("Bank Job," "Boost") will do a mutual book signing at the Chico Barnes and Noble at 2 p.m. Saturday. The public is invited.

The book earned starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and Booklist and has been nominated, he writes, for Best Book Young Adults and Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. (A word of caution: There are adult themes and some foul language.)

Murray is the emotional center of the book. A fixture at Forest Grove cemetery ("Don't call it a graveyard!") he hears the voices of "Dearly" (that would be "Dearly Beloved, Born 1944, Died 1969" in a car wreck), "Blessed," "Edwin" and more. They are his friends. "I don't spend much time with the older people," Murray tells us. "I figure they deserved it. Not deserved it, really, but what could they expect? After 40, you're going to die. The ones my age and the children, they almost all need someone to talk to. I comfort them the best I can. They weren't ready. ... Everybody needs a friend."

Enter ninth-grader Pearl (daughter of the kind cemetery caretaker Janochek), who at first sees Murray as some kind of weirdo but later makes alliance with him. Then there's 22-year-old Robert Barry Compton who can just barely hold a job. "His ears were red and pockmarked from several piercings, but he had lost his studs when he was picked up for disturbing the peace in Chico." He is now on strong meds and has trouble remembering. Yet there was something he saw the night of Oct. 17, something terribly important.

Vern Billup is a drunk given to blackouts. Public affairs officer for local law enforcement, Billup has it out for Murray ever since the kid walked in on him and Murray's mother at her home, where she entertained her "dates."

Misfits all.

Plot surprises abound, "dead connection" takes on several meanings, and in the end hope visits the most unlikely of clients. I couldn't put it down.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

A novel approach to science asks if a researcher was cooking the books

By DAN BARNETT

The new novel by Massachusetts-based author Allegra Goodman is nothing to sneeze at. It's a carefully crafted exploration of the social side of science with a central question at its core: Did researcher Cliff Bannaker alter his notes to make it seem that a virus variant he developed, R-7, dramatically shrank tumors in mice?

A former love interest, and lab-co-worker, Robin Decker, is fed up with Cliff receiving all the limelight. She begins to suspect something is amiss and makes her suspicions public. Cliff, furious, wants to deck her for robin him of his glory. Instead, with both parties lawyered up, and Cliff's notes at issue, there is no summary judgment for the reader but instead some intriguing questions about how science works and whether Robin's intuition is based on evidence or is just a matter of a pinion.

Though "Intuition" ($25 in hardcover from The Dial Press) eschews the silly wordplay that burdens this review (Allegra is great for all that eschewing, by the way), her serious novel does not take itself too seriously. Some of its material suggests the author having a great time at the top of her game. When two characters talk about the director of the Office for Research Integrity at NIH, Alan Hackett, he is called an "ambulance-chaser" and a "hack." Names are significant in Goodman's novels.

It is 1985. Sandy Glass and Marion Mendelssohn are co-directors of a lab at the prestigious Philpott Institute near Harvard, and they are both desperate for a "win" in order to keep the grant money flowing. Sandy is a doctor with a consummate bedside manner, self-assured, "a force of nature." Marion is a careful and compassionate scientist, a detail person, suspicious of Cliff's too-good-to-be-true results. Yet now Marion "had been infected by Sandy's hype. ... She had not entirely forgotten the pursuit of truth, but she had begun, like Sandy, to think that she possessed it."

Sandy's youngest daughter is memorizing some of the work of John Donne, who wrote "about how complex and how vast man is. ... And how small and susceptible at the same time." "Susceptible to what?" her father asks. "To sin" is Kate's reply. Donne, of course, is famous for his own wordplay: "When thou hast Donne" (when God has Donne's heart) "thou has not Donne" (there are more sins yet to enumerate).

Goodman evokes life among the postdocs at the lab, toiling away, writing up results, running into dead ends. Until now. After the New York Times runs an article on R-7, People magazine shows up but focuses its attention on Cliff's fellow postdoc (and a partner in the research on R-7), Xiang Feng. Cliff becomes jealous of Feng's media attention. But then they publish an article in the scientific journal Nature and Cliff's reputation seems unassailable.

Then it all goes wrong. Robin files a formal complaint with the NIH. Other labs, ones at Cornell and elsewhere, are unable to duplicate Cliff's results. Maybe their version of R-7 has been contaminated. Maybe Robin is creating a flap to get back at Cliff. Maybe Cliff has cooked the books.

In the end the story is not so much about who did what (there is a satisfying ambiguity here) but what Cliff might be capable of doing. In science, as in any human endeavor, there is enough sin to go around. People who live in Glass houses shouldn't throw lab mice.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Former Chicoans bicycle all the way from Chico to South Carolina in 55 days

By DAN BARNETT

Michael F. Foley, who now lives in the Bay Area, joined a group of five other guys in the summer of 1992 as they embarked on a bicycle trip from Chico to South Carolina.

Part of Chico's cycling community, Foley would join other riders for the Fast Fifty, which begins "Wednesday evening at 'One Mile' in Bidwell Park. ... It was on these rides that I met Ken, Jeff, Jon and Gary." That would be Ken Husband, Jeff Cantarutti, Jon Wynacht and Gary Thompson. Add to the mix Dario Frederick, and you have "Team USA '92."

The cross-country trek, which began June 1 pretty much on a whim, is detailed in "Bicycling Beyond City Limits: A Journal of Endurance, Friendship and Discovery" ($17.95 in paperback from LUF Enterprises, available from ). There are more than two dozen black-and-white photographs, a map, and a list of Foley's gear.

Foley captures each stage in 55 short chapters. On just the second leg, from Quincy to Reno (85 miles), "I start to feel nauseous, bad enough to want to throw up, as we make our way into Border Town, 20 miles short of Reno. Gary stands up on his pedals, coasting, leaning back on one bar end. 'Hey, Mike, you okay?' I force a smile, telling myself to keep moving—push through it! My glycogen levels are way too low—a condition known as 'bonking' among endurance athletes."

Most all of the team members have their difficult days and on occasion humor wears thin. Money is thin, too, so the cyclists spend a lot of time sleeping in tents in fields, tennis courts, RV parks. Here and there some friendly folks take them in for the night, like Lou Jones in Arkansas, the "Dulcimer Lady." Later Foley remarks on "the kindness of the American people," but that is before the little band passes into Tennessee and Georgia.

"It almost feels like we've entered a foreign country," Foley writes. "From ... racial remarks (to) the little kid yesterday who waggled his middle finger at us. ..." And then there's the fried foods. "Fried chicken, fried chicken fingers, fried steak, hush puppies, french fries, and fried potatoes. Oh yeah, and white bread." One waitress responds to their complaints: "But it's fried in real grease!"

Georgia is not much better. "People in this part of the country, especially the young men in their pickups, carry firearms. We remind each other—more so, the guys remind me—to keep our mouths shut and our middle fingers on the handlebars."

Foley excels at describing the natural world. Earlier on the trip, during the hundred-mile stretch from Cimarron to Clayton, N.M, storm clouds chase the riders. "As we continue east on Highway 56 into the early evening, the sky beings to clear. Lavender, blues, reds and oranges mirror off the still water in a cattle trough below the barbed wire running alongside the road. In the field, the skeletal remains of a barn lean to one side. The walls have folded inward and the roof has caved in. Across the crest of the hill, cows follow each other's tails."

And then the trip is over. "A pervasive sense of fulfillment slides under my skin while a deep and complicated sadness sits stubbornly in my gut." But the friends, scattered now from Chico, still meet for the Wildflower Century and to reminisce about that summer of '92.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Chico State University historian on Russia's vodka culture

By DAN BARNETT

"Russians have an almost mystical relationship to drink in general and vodka in particular," writes Kate Transchel, associate professor of history at Chico State University. "Legend has it that a thousand years ago, when Grand Prince Vladimir ... pondered over which faith to adopt, he rejected Islam because it imposed restrictions on the consumption of hard liquor." So, in 986, Vladimir made Christianity the official religion of Russia. Transchel quotes a commentator as saying that "God, bread, water and vodka were the mainstays of Russia."

She writes that "the word 'vodka' historically referred to all common drinks based on spirits. In 19th-century Russian usage, the word 'vino' was more common than 'vodka' but still meant grain alcohol."

Just how ingrained (pardon the pun) vodka consumption is in Russia is the subject of Transchel's new book, "Under the Influence: Working-Class Drinking, Temperance, and Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1895-1932" ($35 in hardcover from University of Pittsburgh Press). Transchel's study is an engaging and accessible look at the culture of vodka in Russia and how even the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, in its forceful effort at building the "new worker," was no match against the "liquid assets" of the working class.

"Under the Influence" is a model of clear writing. Though it is a scholarly work -- the author traveled to Russia to study the archives of the industrial cities Moscow, Kharkov, Saratov and Tomsk -- the book presents telling details of the real life of the industrial worker.

The new Soviet state in the first decade-and-a-half after the Revolution tried "to craft a new society and a new type of citizen" by controlling education, getting rid of "bourgeois culture" and putting an end to "illiteracy, prostitution, religion and drunkenness." But in the 1920s "the Bolsheviks came face to face with their number one quandary: Workers did not act right. The proletariat was the new ruling class, but still it was stamped with the attributes of an oppressed class. Further, the behavior of the new working class, especially those fresh from the village, did not meet Bolshevik expectations: They came late to work, if at all; they broke their machines; they ignored the authority of bosses; and above all, they drank themselves into oblivion."

An attempt at imposing prohibition from 1914-1925 proved disastrous. Transchel reports that "urban workers resorted to drinking anything containing alcohol, including denatured spirits, cologne, lacquer and varnish. For example, in 1915 production of lacquer rose by 600 percent and varnish by 1,575 percent in Moscow. ... One can assume that in the absence of a concurrent surge in wood sales, the Russian populace had not turned to furniture refinishing for solace: A significant amount of these alcohol-based substances was being consumed."

The Bolsheviks were working not only against 500-year old Russian vodka culture but against the traditional state liquor monopoly (which Lenin reinstituted in 1925) and the use of grain for illegal samogon (home brew). Eventually alcoholism was redefined from a social disease "resulting from poor living and working conditions" to an "individual mental illness" (stemming from "believing in God or not learning to read") and official talk of workers' drunkenness ceased.

Stalin declared victory in 1933, urging workers "to reward themselves for a job well done with a 'little glass of champagne'." Just after World War II alcohol sales rebounded ("comprising approximately 29 percent of all state revenues") and a popular poster in the Khrushchev era said: "Delicious, cheap and nutritious -- drink vodka. Absolutely!"

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Chico's Doug Keister pays tribute to America's colorful RV history

By DAN BARNETT

"RVers are some of the friendliest people on earth," writes Doug Keister in his new pop culture history, "Mobile Mansions: Taking 'Home Sweet Home' On the Road" ($24.95 in large size paperback from Gibbs Smith, Publisher). "Unlike the rest of us who are permanently or temporarily moored in our bolted-down communities, they take the bumps in the road of life a little more serenely." And none are friendlier than those who own vintage and classic RVs, the mobile conveyances celebrated in Keister's book.

Replete with 200 color photographs, most taken by Keister himself on location, the book explores not only the history of the recreational vehicle but allows the reader to see inside courtesy of the author's crisp, clear interior shots. From Camp Dearborn, Mich., to Quartzsite, Ariz. (with a quick stop in Chico), Keister documents the development of what used to be called "autocamping."

Autocamping was popularized by Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone (of tire fame), along with an unlikely companion, a naturalist named John Burroughs. After about 1915 the group called themselves "the Vagabonds," attracting newspaper attention everywhere they went. The group was not exactly rustic -- Firestone brought his butler along to help him better appreciate "roughing it."

Later on, the "Tin Can Tourists" organization was established in 1919; they "took their name from the tin can provisions that they subsisted on and, some say, also from the Tin Lizzies many of them drove."

The Great Depression and better roadways put Americans on the road. It was the golden age of the travel trailer. Subsequent decades saw the development of house cars, refined camp cars, family buses, truck campers, vans and motor homes (which had their start with the Frank Motor Home in 1958 which morphed into the Travco Motor Home in 1965.) There are other storied names in the book: Volkswagen, Winnebago, Newell, Barth, Flexible.

Keister devotes a chapter to each kind of "mobile mansion" with a focus on "personal visions" in the last chapter. Pride of place here goes to "Draco," a four-wheel-drive motorhome created by Shahn Torontow of Victoria, British Columbia, who constructed it so his photographer wife, disabled by Lyme disease, "could still go on backcountry photographic expeditions. The bones of Draco are an Oshkosh M-1000 Aircraft Rescue Fire Truck." There's also a wheelchair lift, 14-inch wide tires, a winch and "a 335-horsepower Caterpillar 3406A diesel-pusher engine." The contraption was photographed in Chico. Dishes have magnets glued to their bottoms so they "stick" on steel plate walls and a "macerator-type toilet liquifies waste ... (which) can be pumped into the exhaust system where it is vaporized at over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit."

Pop culture connections abound. Converted Greyhound Scenicruisers (last made in the mid-1950s) help bands reach their next gigs; Charles Kuralt (the CBS "On the Road" guy) used an FMC ("Food Machinery Corporation") motor home; Barbie's "Disco motor home" came from Mattel; Mae West owned "a 1931 22-foot house car build on a Chevrolet truck chassis" -- it slept four and sported a rear balcony where West could address her fans; Ozzie and Harriet used an Alaskan Camper; John Steinbeck traveled with his poodle Charley in 1960 in a GMC pickup truck and Wolverine camper; the Partridge Family's hippie bus was a '57 Chevy school bus; and Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters drove a converted bus, too.

Sprightly fun, Keister's homage to mobile living costs less than 10 gallons of gas -- and lasts a lot longer!

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Dick Cory's memories of growing up in small-town Nebraska playing 6-man football

By DAN BARNETT

"I've ... seen the full blown effects of tornadoes up close and personal," writes former Bidwell Junior High science teacher Dick Cory. "Working for a farmer while in high school, I had the unenviable job of untangling barbed wire fencing and returning it to concrete posts -- all uprooted and entangled by a twister."

Weather played a part in his growing up, of course, but so did six-man football (there were not enough kids at his school for a regulation team), pranks (snipe-hunting), learning to drive a farm tractor, pranks (stealing watermelons), watching a pig being butchered, pranks (something about used tires) and hanging out at Cory's store in Alexandria, Neb. The town, located "in the southeastern corner of the state about 15 miles from Kansas," had a population of about 200. Cory, born in 1936, spent the 1940s and 1950s in Alexandria before beginning a 36-year classroom career, most of it at Bidwell Junior High in Chico.

His memories of quieter times are compiled in 74 short chapters self-published as "Six Boys and a Bag of Dirt" ($20 in paperback from the author at ubangarang@sbcglobal.net). A couple of dozen black and white photographs enhance the tales, which are mostly reminiscences of boyhood chums and the big world beyond Alexandria. Cory lost track of most of the town's denizens but began to write about his experiences in preparation for his 50-year high school reunion in 2004.

The town that year still had pretty much the same population, but had "slumped." "When we left in 1954, there were two grocery stores, two filling stations, a hardware store, two barbershops, ... a pool hall, a post office, a television repair shop, a bank and a 12-grade school. Now all that remains is a hardware store and a grocery/general store plus the post office." What keeps people around? "Not much, unless it is the cheap and slow pace of living. Welfare recipients and retirees find Alexandria comfortable if not too stimulating. Have we been too 'stimulated' by the lifestyles that we enjoy to ever live again in 'Big A'?"

Ah, but growing up in "The Big A" -- that was wonderful. "At my parents' store, there were plenty of distinctive odors. ... My favorite location on open nights was around the meat counter. There was always a coffee pot with saltine crackers, Pream and of course fresh strings of wieners, salami and liverwurst. A sip from the vinegar barrel in the cellar was also quite satisfying. ... Between snacks, I was supposed to wait on customers, slice lunch meat or grind hamburger. These activities kept me going until eleven o'clock, when the farmers returned from the pool hall to pick up their wives, kids and egg cases that now were filled with groceries. If business was really slow, I could go to the middle storeroom and sleep on the stacks of overalls -- which also had a distinctive aroma. ... Life was good in the Midwest."

A lot of water has gone over Big Sandy Creek since then. But the irrepressible author was not above a prank or two in later life. Like the discovery of the skull of the rare Ubangarang "found in a pile of driftwood on a northern California beach in 1972" when Cory "was teaching backpacking with a Chico Unified summer class called Outdoor Living."

Soon the Ubangarang Preservation Society had been formed. Can life as a talking head on CNN be far behind?

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Chico author's kids book - A wildlife gathering at the edge of the Zambezi

By DAN BARNETT

"Here's a hippopotamus, chubby top to bottomus, who nibbles the lilies and daffy-down-dillies that grow in the rivers that flow through the African jungle." Imagine the water lily-munching hippo with a "just what are you looking at?" attitude staring out at the reader from the deep greens, browns, oranges and reds of a full-color watercolor by Paradise artist Steve Ferchaud.

You've imagined yourself into Chicoan Phyl Manning's "Here Is the African Jungle" ($15 in large-sized soft cover from Chico's Wizard Graphics, Inc.), her new children's book that takes us to Southern Africa, "to the trees and water of beautiful Zimbabwe." An author's note continues: "Here are the largest and wisest, tallest, fiercest, cleverest, loudest, hungriest, blindest, the most clever -- surely among the most magnificent of the world's glorious wildlife ... gathered by water at the edge of the mysterious Kalahari Desert."

Manning will be signing copies of "Jungle" at Lyon Books in Chico starting at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and the public is invited. The book is available locally at Lyon, Bird in Hand, African Connection and directly from the author at filmafrica40@cs.com. Part of the book's profits go to help Durham's Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation.

A note says Manning "worked as an educator while living overseas much of her adult life -- the West Pacific, Southeast Asia, Europe -- and has traveled to a large extent along 'paths not often taken.' Africa is a favored destination and the wildlife in Southern Africa a long time passion. 'Here is the African Jungle' is based on a sunset scene at a tributary to the Zambezi River, with animals in the book doing what they normally do '... except of course they don't speak English!'"

The book is full color throughout and the text is witty and bouncy and calls to be read aloud. The story line is simple: as the animals come to drink and bathe in the water, a smug crocodile makes an appearance. "Feel the rough tile of the long crocodile, whose one end is swish and the other is smile. She makes a quick turn and a whole lot of fuss to avoid the huge jaws of Hippopotamus."

One by one more beasts gather. A lion roars, baboons scream, the croc eyes everyone. "Baboon has climbed high to a perch in the sky. Zebras flash in the sun, but they're ready to run. Rhino faces the cat, can smell just where he's at. Giraffe weighs a ton; he's not likely to run. Head and neck are his weapons -- 'though fighting's no fun. Croc's in a bog, where she looks like a log." There's uneasiness here until the greatest beast of all lumbers in. Wise mother elephant explains that there's plenty for everyone in the jungle -- "there's room enough here for fur, scale, hide and fleece -- so isn't life better together in peace?"

Everyone gets something (the croc settles for fish), and so another day passes.

A chart at the end provides interesting information about each of the eight animals featured in the story. Rhinos can weigh four tons; giraffes do indeed protect themselves using their heads as weapons; elephants "purr, squeak, rumble, shriek, cough, roar, plus sounds inaudible to human ear communicate for miles"; and "anticipating food, croc eyes tear (as mammal mouths salivate); so fake sorrow among humans is called 'shedding crocodile tears.'"

The words and illustrations grabbed my attention and made me smile. And that's no croc!

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Shover illuminates 19th-century Chico

By DAN BARNETT

It was a birthday present from her husband, George Lillibridge. Over the years, Michele Shover, emeritus professor of political science at Chico State University, had published articles and given speeches about Chico in the 19th century (and a few other subjects as well, such as how women were portrayed in World War I propaganda). But they had never been collected -- until now.

In an e-mail to me, Shover wrote: "He had the book assembled and at the proof stage when he told me what he was doing. What a lovely surprise! I was 'allowed' to edit the proof! It was a wonderful present, of course. ... Needless to say, I am fortunate in his thoughtfulness. After almost 30 years of pouring over this subject in such minute detail, the book gives me confidence that the information I discovered and 'the stories' will enter Chico's conscious sense of its past which is really pretty remarkable for such a small 19th-century town."

"Exploring Chico's Past ... And Other Essays" ($22.99 in paperback from Xlibris Corporation) is available in Chico at Lyon Books, Barnes and Noble, the university's A.S. Bookstore, Made in Chico and Bird in Hand.

The author will sign copies at Barnes and Noble (2031 Whitman Ave.) at 1 p.m. Saturday and the public is invited.

Though trained as a political scientist, Shover became interested in local history when she purchased the Little Chapman Mansion in 1976. It is perhaps the oldest house in Chico and its history is recounted in the first essay in the book, followed by a guide to "Searching Your Old House's History." Other essays include "Chico Women: Nemesis of a Rural Town's Anti-Chinese Campaign 1876-1888"; "The Black Experience in Chico, 1860-1899: Climbing the Slippery Slope"; and "Women at Work in 19th Century Chico." It's clear, as Lillibridge writes in the foreword, that Shover has an abiding "interest in and concern for the neglected and ignored in society as well as in historical studies."

Shover digs for detail. In a short piece on "Chico's Mystery Tunnels," the author tries to reconcile seemingly conflicting accounts of whether there were tunnels under "New Chinatown" in Chico on Cherry Street. (It was well known that Old Chinatown did indeed have "connected basements beneath the buildings that lined the east side of Flume between Seventh and Eighth streets.") It's likely, she concludes, for security reasons: "At recurring intervals over the 19th century, Chinese in Chico were at mortal risk to eruptions of anti-Chinese violence. Sometimes -- as in 1877, 1887, and 1894 -- these threats arose in the form of vigilante raids on their quarters."

The book also includes an account of the trial of Chico prostitute Molly White in 1883. She had been befriended by the First Methodist Church, North, but then came word "that popular teamster Riley Strahl had died at 1:30 a.m. -- of strychnine, people were saying -- while keeping company with Molly White."

Another short essay situates Chico's founder, John Bidwell, as a liberal; in her note to me, Shover explains: "It doesn't mean liberal as modern wing of the Democratic Party, but Liberal as in classical Lockean Liberal -- i.e., economically focused, individualistic and understanding government as a proper ally of business."

She's at pains to clear away certain myths about Bidwell, and Chico itself, so that Chicoans can "absorb a more sophisticated -- indeed a more interesting -- view of their collective past."

"Exploring Chico's Past" is an invaluable contribution toward that end.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

A quiet journey into nature from an Orland area writer

By DAN BARNETT

Quite a few years ago, Daniel Thomas and his wife, Marilyn, moved from Sonoma County to a 10-acre parcel of land near Orland and staked their future.

Raised in Willows, Daniel Thomas returned to the Sacramento Valley after a series of heart ailments eventually forced his retirement from the public school system in the Bay Area. "The Ten," as the couple called it, was to become a refuge for creatures of every variety, from birds to black widows, from raccoons to opossums, and many cats.

But it took a lot of work. "When we first saw this piece of land," he writes in "Essays From the Ten" ($8.95 in paperback from Stansbury Publishing in Chico), "it was almost treeless. The house itself was in awful condition and a nearby shed was jammed with broken bottles, old tires, discarded tiles, slabs of concrete, rusty cans and rotting lumber. ... The property was littered with mounds of garbage. ... Its most endearing quality at the time was a seasonal creek which sliced through the northern edge of the property. In every other way the property was a disaster. It was love at first sight."

At least for Daniel. But the prospects of solitude worked their way into Marilyn's heart, too, and the couple began to transform The Ten.

In almost two dozen short chapters, Daniel reflects on his experiences. His writing is clear, engaging, humble. In the early days at The Ten he dug pond after pond, but then the work began to take its toll and pond digging stopped. It took years for the rhythm of the natural order to get into his bones.

"There was a time, for example, when I felt the need to count, name and record every bird I'd observe on the property. ... Now I make pleasant note of the egrets that visit my pond, or pause to admire the flitting about of a ruby-crowned kinglet, but I feel no need to jot down my sightings. Have I gotten lazy, or just content to enjoy the moment? A little of both I suppose."

Life on The Ten has meant coming to terms with the competition and violence of the natural world. Beavers return to Jewell Creek and proceed to fell Daniel's carefully planted poplars. Shielding the trees and putting out special Havahart traps are to no avail.

Daniel takes out a deprivation permit and the former hunter takes up the gun again. "The irony was only too clear. I had wanted to create an environment hospitable to a wide range of wildlife. And I had succeeded. Now I was about to violate one of my most sacred principles: on The Ten all life is sacred."

But then there's the story of Lucy and Anna, among 128 pigs from a farm in southwestern New York suffering from neglect and frostbite. An organization called Farm Sanctuary requested new homes for the animals, and the Orland chapter helped place Lucy and Anna on The Ten. They prospered.

"The other day we watched in amazement as the pigs trotted, cantered and then broke into a full trot across the field. Again I thought of Lucy's big chunk of missing ear. Surely, on their best days these pigs could not have dreamed of the splendid life they now enjoy. My wife and I touched hands, shared a loving glance ... and cantered all the way home."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.