The 88 Books that Shaped America (and perhaps the future me!)

I was just reading an article that mentioned that the Library of Congress has compiled a list of the 88 books that have shaped the United States. To my surprise, Ben Franklin has three books on this list and there are a number of children's books. Although I am not interested in a lot of the books, my new goal is to try to read/reread all the books on the list. (I am feeling apprehensive about this, so I will likely start with the books for kids!) Here's the list: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (1884); Alcoholics Anonymous, anonymous (1939); American Cookery, Amelia Simmons (1796); The American Woman's Home, Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1869); And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987); Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (1957); The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X and Alex Haley (1965); Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987); Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown (1970); The Call of the Wild, Jack London (1903); The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss (1957); Catch-22, Joseph Heller (1961); The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger (1951); Charlotte's Web, E.B. White (1952); Common Sense, Thomas Paine (1776); The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, Benjamin Spock (1946); Cosmos, Carl Sagan (1980); A Curious Hieroglyphick Bible, anonymous (1788); The Double Helix, James D. Watson (1968); The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams (1907); Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Benjamin Franklin (1751); Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (1953); Family Limitation, Margaret Sanger (1914); The Federalist, anonymous (1787); The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan (1963); The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin (1963); For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway (1940); Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (1936); Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown (1947); A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, Noah Webster (1783); The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (1939); The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925); Harriet, the Moses of Her People, Sarah H. Bradford (1901); The History of Standard Oil, Ida Tarbell (1904); History of the Expedition Under the Command of the Captains Lewis and Clark, Meriwether Lewis (1814); How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis (1890); How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie (1936); Howl, Allen Ginsberg (1956); The Iceman Cometh, Eugene O'Neill (1946); Idaho: A Guide in Word and Pictures, Federal Writers' Project (1937); In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (1966); Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison (1952); Joy of Cooking, Irma Rombauer (1931); The Jungle, Upton Sinclair (1906); Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman (1855); The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving (1820); Little Women, or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, Louisa May Alcott (1868); Mark, the Match Boy, Horatio Alger Jr. (1869); McGuffey's Newly Revised Eclectic Primer, William Holmes McGuffey (1836); Moby-Dick; or The Whale, Herman Melville (1851); The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass (1845); Native Son, Richard Wright (1940); New England Primer, anonymous (1803); New Hampshire, Robert Frost (1923); On the Road, Jack Kerouac (1957); Our Bodies, Ourselves, Boston Women's Health Book Collective (1971); Our Town: A Play, Thornton Wilder 1938; Peter Parley's Universal History, Samuel Goodrich (1837); Poems, Emily Dickinson (1890); Poor Richard Improved and The Way to Wealth, Benjamin Franklin (1758); Pragmatism, William James (1907); The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., Benjamin Franklin (1793); The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane (1895); Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett (1929); Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey (1912); The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850); Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Alfred C. Kinsey (1948); Silent Spring, Rachel Carson (1962); The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats (1962); The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois (1903); The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner (1929); Spring and All, William Carlos Williams (1923); Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein (1961); A Street in Bronzeville, Gwendolyn Brooks (1945); A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams (1947); A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America, Christopher Colles (1789); Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs (1914); Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston (1937); To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (1960); A Treasury of American Folklore, Benjamin A. Botkin (1944); A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith (1943); Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852); Unsafe at Any Speed, Ralph Nader (1965); Walden; or Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau (1854); The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes (1925); Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak (1963); The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum (1900); The Words of Cesar Chavez, Cesar Chavez (2002)

You're Never Too Young To Learn About the Dangers of Tort Reform

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with my nephew, Mikey. Mikey is 12 and totally awesome.

Since Mikey entered middle school, I have not gotten the opportunity to spend as much time with him as I would like—he’s a busy tween. So I talked him into spending the night Wednesday because he is on a vacation from school.

Before I took him home yesterday afternoon, we stopped at the library so I could pick up a copy of Hot Coffee—a movie that I have been very excited about seeing. I had ordered the movie through interlibrary loan. Because the movie is categorized as educational, I did not have to pay a rental fee. The librarian who checked me out did not understand why the movie was educational, so she asked what it was about. I told her that the movie was about lawsuits. Mikey asked for more information, and I told him that I would tell him all about the movie when we got to back the car.

I started off by saying: “There are people in this world who will try to trick you, and those people are called republicans. In fairness, sometimes though those people are called democrats too.” Then I went on to explain that Hot Coffee is a movie about famous lawsuits, including the McDonald’s coffee case.

Most people who have heard of the case only know that a lady once got burned by hot coffee and then she sued McDonald’s and won some crazy amount of money. The case is often used as a rallying cry for advocates of tort reform. The reformers, however, either do not know or do not care about some key facts surrounding the case.

If my information is correct, these facts include: 1) the coffee’s temperature was over 150 degrees; 2) the plaintiff required multiple surgeries to treat her severe burns; 3) she offered to settle with McDonald’s for her medical expenses, but McDonald’s blew her off; and 4) the trial judge reduced the amount of the verdict. Also, after the lawsuit, and I would say as a result of the lawsuit, McDonald’s and other restaurants lowered the temperatures at which they serve hot beverages. Now hot beverages are safer for consumers.

So I told Mikey the version of the case that is often related by the tort reformers. I expected him to express the same outrage shared by most people who hear the condensed version. Instead, he said: “Good for her.”

I was stunned. Then he added, “Now she is set up for life. And her grandkids are set up for life too.” I said, “You’re missing the point of the story.” (I did give him a high five though first.) I went on to explain the other facts, how the case is misrepresented by tort reformers, and how lawsuits help to protect consumers from dangerous products. (And, in the interest of full disclosure, I did admit to him that some people do file abusive/frivolous lawsuits.)

Mikey seemed to agree with me. But at one point, he became concerned that McDonald’s might not have enough money to pay for such an expensive verdict. After I explained that McDonald’s has billions of dollars, Mikey asked why the workers get paid so little. This earned him another high five and another lecture, but I’ll save that for another day.

Shopping

Near my house is a small Middle Eastern convenience store. I visited the store once before my trip, but I was not impressed.

Today I decided to give the store another chance. Now that I have more experience with Lebanese groceries, I thought that I might do better.

When I entered, I heard a customer talking to the storeowner in Arabic. Although I did not know what they were saying, it quickly became clear to me that they were Lebanese and discussing Israel and the Palestinian Territories. At one point, the customer stated: “. . . yanni, from one bullsh*! to another . . . .” For some reason, this really cracked me up.

Normally, I hate it when people say yanni. “Yanni” is basically the Lebanese word for “um.” According to my teacher, it actually means “this means.” But the word is overused and is just annoying. (Bill thought that saying yanni made him sound more authentic, so it was his favorite word. Yikes!) I think I found yanni funny today though because of the English that followed it. And perhaps absence, yanni, makes the heart grow fonder.

Lastly, I did have a better shopping experience. I got a great deal on salt and tomato paste. I also picked up some tea which, fingers crossed, will be the same Lipton I had in Beirut. And if Bill’s really lucky, I may even make lentil soup for dinner.

The Trouble with Trash Talk

Feeling like a hipster shortly after our return from Lebanon, I challenged my Iraqi-American nieces and nephews to an Arabic writing competition this Ramadan. At the time I threw down my glove, I was feeling pretty good about writing in Arabic. I mean, I had bought back special calligraphy pens from Beirut. But now that I have been back a few weeks, and have not practiced writing at all, I am starting to question my decision.

I just looked at my calendar, and there are ten days until Ramadan begins. This means that I have ten days to seriously get busy studying or I risk losing my street cred. Wish me luck!

Decency and the United Arab Emirates

Unfortunately, I fell off the wagon with updating my daily activities. I will try to catch up later, but for now, I wanted to share excerpts from the Sharjah—Decency & Public Conduct & Rules & Objectives Handbook that was in our hotel room when we visited the UAE earlier this month. I was really struck by the suggestion that restriction of the individual actually creates human rights. Take a look for yourself:

Introduction
The law stipulates that the rights of people should be protected and their liberties should not be violated by acts that breach public conduct. This handbook has been composed to promote further understanding of the decency and public conduct rules in Sharjah and to serve to uphold these beliefs and preserve our cultural heritage.

It is an undisputed fact that societies differ in their perceptions and vision. A conservative society is one that can accommodate all ethnicities and religions with their diverse habits and norms, while successfully maintaining their self-respect and human rights. It can also preserve the social structure and the integrity of the family by maintaining a high standard of moral conduct. Society should be able to preserve moral decency, both in private and public, avoiding immoral and anti-social behavior that threatens its very existence and safety. Article (44) for the Constitution of the United Arab Emirates requires “Respect of constitution, laws and orders issued by public authorities (in execution thereof) observance of public order and respect of public morality and duties incumbent upon all inhabitants of the Union.[“]

With a belief in enjoying the benefits of modern civilization and technology, we feel compelled to preserve our heritage and social values. These values are based on knowledge that clean life entertainment and safe and healthy habits between diverse ethnicities and cultures can only function in environments that encourage human virtues and are guided by honorable values. In support of the rules of decent conduct, and in expressing society’s conscious need to stand against indecency, and to preserve public civility, and to clarify that proper conscious need to stand against indecency, to maintain public courtesy, and to encourage a proper concept of personal freedom, through the safeguarding of the rights of others. It is vital to abide by these directives (No. 1) for the year 2001 [SIC?] in the Emirate of Sharjah.

1. Decency
Decency is behavior or an attitude that conforms to commonly accepted standards of what is right and respectable.

Its broad and universal meaning has been proclaimed by all spiritual and religious practices. It is the sum of practices that keep a human from doing wrong. Decency is against vulgarity and shamelessness, it is the opposite of indecency, in appearance and in speech. Decency is the basis of all honorable values. It is that which is civilized as opposed to immoral or degenerate, sophisticated rather than harsh or rude, is the epitome of decency.

It is one of the natural habits, and a virtue in all religions. Adherence to it is an act of worship, and practicing it is a virtue. It results in comfort for all. Its adherence will be rewarded, while those negligent of it will be in sin.

A. MEN’S DRESS CODE
Indecent dress or behavior:
●Very short pants in public or commercial places . . .
●Bare chest
●Ezar in public places (Ezar is the local Emirate male underwear) and houses of
worship

B. WOMEN’S DRESS CODE
Indecent Dress:
●Clothing that exposes the stomach and back
●Short clothing above the knee
●Tight or transparent clothing that emphasizes the body

2. Rules Regarding Public Beaches

Omitted.

3. Ladies Area
●For social and cultural consideration, women have their own private areas that are not to be used by men . . . .

4. A Man and a Woman Illegally Alone
●It is not permitted for a man and a woman who are not connected within a legally acceptable relationship to be found alone in suspicious circumstances.

5. Irritating of Disturbing Others
●Keeping peace in public places is important to provide society with the right atmosphere that stimulates productivity. The protection of civil rights shows the true face of a society. Therefore, please consider the following:
∙Do not bother or disturb the peace with acts of vulgarity or loud noise.
∙Do not engage in acts of harassment that violate public decency.

6. The Sanctity and Holiness of Attending Mosques
Omitted.

7. Guidance

. . .

Sharjah police, designated employees, security officers, and building guards are ordered to observe, coordinate and ensure adherence to these rules of decency and public conduct . . . .

When violators of this code seek any service, it may be refused and they should be made aware of these regulations.

*The handbook was published in seven languages: English, French, German, Russian, Arabic, Persian (?), and Hindi (?).

Tuesday, June 7

Not too much to report today. We met one of Bill's hiking friends at Cafe Eunice. I had an appointment with my friend's brother, a dentist, to get my tooth fixed, so I did not get anything to drink. (All night I kept worrying that my tooth was going to fall out. I also worried that he would give my friend a bad report about my resistance to flossing. I know it is important, I just don't like it!)

Dr. Jad was a miracle worker and fixed my tooth. He also insisted that I pay a reduced fee because I am friends with his sister. If I did not have a history of needing emergency dental care, I would cancel my insurance and just pay to see him twice a year!

Unfortunately though, my mouth was a little sore afterward so I mostly just rested for the rest of the day.

Monday, June 6

Today I went into the office to finish some work. Alas, however, I was not able to finish the project. No matter how many times I look at a document, I always just seem to find one more thing that needs tweaking.

While at the office I ran into the groom of the wedding of the century. We talked a little bit about the wedding. I tell you, the surprises just keep coming. Apparently a famous Lebanese violinist will be performing at the wedding. I have decided to pick up his CD and have him autograph it at the wedding. I will let you know how it is.

The groom also said that Bill will have a surprise role to play at the wedding. Will Bill be reprising his role as Papa Noel?

After dinner, a stew from Bill’s new Cypriote cookbook, we met up with some folks from the university at Bread Republic. We initially resisted Bread Republic—it seemed like an expensive version of Panera Bread. But, we have had some tasty things there, and now I really like it.

Because we had already eaten dinner, I was not very hungry. I did, however, have a piece of apple pie. It was very delicious.