Some Books

And Also: I should add here that the Mets have been doing well. They won seven in a row before finally losing a close game. The Mets are still under .500 but with the weakness of the NL, they are in the Wild Card Hunt. 

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson is an expert on Freud, psychotherapy, and related subjects. He also wrote many books about animals. 

The Cat Who Came In From The Cold is "a fable" about the first cat who decided to stay with humans. The cat travels around India, talking with different animals about their relationship with humans. An imperfect one at best, the cows perhaps particularly not that impressed ("sacred cows").

It is a charming little book with some lessons along the way.

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“When you’re actively listening, you’re not just receiving information, you’re saying something even when you’re not even speaking.”

“Listening skills will help you in pretty much every relationship – professional, personal, or some combination of the two.”

Being a good listener is “about noticing cues that signal something might be up, responding to shifts in tone or topic appropriately, and knowing how to ask questions that open a space for discussion.”

Say More: Lessons From Work, the White House, and the World by Jen Psaki is not a regular memoir. The subtitle tells it all: it is more of an instruction manual about communication with wide applications. She has a lot of good advice. Sometimes, I wished she had a final checklist or something to sum things up better! 

I miss her being President Biden's press secretary. Her replacement is likely quite qualified in various ways. Nonetheless, Psaki has a certain ease up there that made it enjoyable to watch. Karine Jean-Pierre has a less smooth approach. It comes off as more scripted and forced. Not "must see."

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I enjoyed a young adult book on the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The author is best known for her fiction. Nonetheless, the book crisply summarised the basics. 

The longer (still reasonable length) book by Mary Ann Glendon (perhaps best known for her conservative-leaning legal philosophical views on subjects such as abortion) did not really add much more. 

A World Made New (written around twenty years ago, but nothing much changed) adds a few details. The best chapter might have been a short one discussing how a special panel independently agreed that there were certain universal dos and don'ts that the world's society could agree upon. This belies the concern that there are really no universal truths. 

It was a good read overall. Still, the other book was fine.

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I should add -- since I used my entry on Christine Blasey Ford to mostly talk about the issues -- her book is well written. She has an honest and open tone that is very appealing. Not bad for a first book by a person who specializes in data and research. Yes, she is a professor too so has some skills in translating stuff for an audience.

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The new book (Undue Burden) on multiple human stories regarding life after Roe is a major accomplishment. I just did not have it in me to read around three hundred depressing pages of stories.

I also thought the introduction was too strong. Roe v. Wade was not "clearly" on the way out for years. It was a close thing that it eventually overturned. If Ruth Bader Ginsburg lived a few more months, things could have been significantly different. 

I re-read the shorter Generation Roe by Sarah Erdreich. I briefly talked about the book here back in 2014 (sigh):

It is quick reading and covers standard ground from an activist's perspective c. 2013. Some good stuff included: perspective of medical students, abortion portrayal on t.v. and the conservative nature of big abortion rights groups. References but does not discuss, to its detriment, the abortion battle during the ACA legislation process.

I suppose the matter has gotten better, but one thing that stands out there is the portrayal of abortion on television and films. I don't begrudge a film like Waitress (for purposes of plot; she also lives in the South, where certain values could have been drilled into her) but too often the idea on television is that people who would otherwise have an abortion for a variety of reasons have the baby. Abortion is a common procedure. You might never know it from its portrayal on television, especially back in the day.