Pax: Journey Home by Sara Pennypacker
Pax, Journey Home picks up a little after the end of the first Pax book. Pax has moved on with his mate Bristle and Bristle's brother Runt. Bristle recently had three kits and Pax is helping teach them the ways of the fox world. When it seems that humans are again coming in large numbers, Pax sets out to find them a new home. But, what Pax didn't realize is that the female kit followed him. During their journey Pax is surprised to find Peter, the boy who raised him, is back near his old home. Peter is struggling with grief. He had already lost his mother, lost then found and released Pax, and now his father has been killed in the war. Peter has decided that the best thing to do is never allow anyone close enough to him that he could be hurt again. He signs up to work with the Water Warriors who are working to help clean the water in the surrounding areas that have been contaminated by the war. When his work takes him a little too close to where he last saw Pax, Peter has to decide whether to start to heal or continue to harden himself. It's at that moment that Peter and Pax reconnect and Peter gets a second chance in several ways.
I LOVED the first Pax book and was so excited when I saw there was another one. This one is also beautifully written and alternates between Peter and Pax's points of view. I wasn't as blown away by this one, but it's still a beautiful story of love between a boy and his fox that is expanding to the next generation in Sliver.
I LOVED the first Pax book and was so excited when I saw there was another one. This one is also beautifully written and alternates between Peter and Pax's points of view. I wasn't as blown away by this one, but it's still a beautiful story of love between a boy and his fox that is expanding to the next generation in Sliver.
Smoke But No Fire: convicting the innocent of crimes that never happened by Jessica S. Henry
Most of us have heard news stories about someone wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn't commit, but who were exonerated. In this horrific book, Jessica Henry looks at another facet of wrongful conviction - people who were convicted of crimes that never happened. According to Henry, "...nearly one-third of all known exonerations of innocent people involve no-crime wrongful convictions." (p. 4) This is terrifying and Henry looks into the many factors involved in these kind of prosecutions and wrongful convictions. The three main issues at hand are 1) forensic error - a natural death that is treated as a homicide, 2) false accusations, and 3) our legal system - police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges. She also explores the issue of misdemeanors and how they factor into these overall issues in our justice system. I've read a lot about true crime and miscarriages of justice, but what I read in this book was absolutely appalling. It's hard to fathom that this is everyday business in the United States and you're not reading about a third-world country or time in history that we've since overcome or changed for the better. I think most people think something like this only happens to "other people" - people who are involved in criminal life or live a high risk lifestyle, etc. But, Henry shows that this could literally happen to anyone from any walk of life. Although, people with more money and privilege are less likely to languish is prison awaiting trial or have to rely on a public defender.
I grew up watching Perry Mason and Law & Order on TV and thinking that the defense attorneys were the "bad guys" who were defending the criminals. Today, I can hardly watch Law & Order re-runs because of the cavalier attitudes of the police and prosecutors on that show. The more I read and watch documentaries on true crime, the more I realize just how much the whims of the police and prosecutors are at play in the justice system regardless of the fact that their decisions destroy people's lives daily. We shouldn't have a justice system based on whims and gut feelings. This book should be required reading for everyone.
There are a lot of quotes I liked:
"Once the police commit to a theory, tunnel vision may blind officers - and eventually the prosecutors to whom the case is referred - about who is telling the truth and who is lying. Cognitive biases cause the police to overvalue evidence that reinforces the lie, and to discard or minimize evidence that would otherwise indicate that something is rotten at the foundation of their case. When a wrongful conviction results, the lie becomes a legal truth, and a factually innocent person becomes a guilty one in the eyes of the law." (p. 47)
[On police arrest quotas] "In Miami Gardens, Florida, officers claimed they were told by superiors to 'bring in the numbers' and were ordered to stop all black males between fifteen and thirty years old." (p. 66)
[On prosecutor incentives] "In Colorado, prosecutors who obtained a 70 percent conviction rate (or higher) received a monetary bonus. Peers boast to one another about their convictions and hold raucous celebrations when a jury renders a guilty verdict. I've always found something peculiar and inappropriate about this celebratory aspect of obtaining convictions: 'We just sent someone to prison! Wha-hoo!' To me, a conviction of another human being, and their condemnation by the state to a term or prison or even death, is a somber and sobering moment, even when the defendant is factually guilty." (p. 85)
"We have an adversarial system that pits the prosecutor against the defendant in a courtroom battle where justice is the theoretical objective but where the measure of a prosecutor's success is their number of convictions. Then we tell the prosecutor that they have to turn over to the other side all the evidence that hurts their case. That's like asking the wolf to guard the chickens in the coop." (p. 97)
"Finding out that the prosecution possessed exculpatory evidence but did not turn it over is often a matter of pure luck or happenstance. How can a defendant learn that the prosecution hid evidence the defendant never knew about in the first place? They often can't." (p. 99)
"In 2009, Louisiana public defenders handled the equivalent of 19,000 misdemeanor cases annually, which gave them seven minutes per case...In Louisiana, a single public defender randomly selected by the New York Times had a caseload on a given day of 194 felonies. The Times calculated that the Louisiana lawyer would need almost 10,000 hours (the equivalent of five work-years) to provide truly competent representation to his existing clients." (p. 111)
"One may wonder in shock how it is that our system is so broken that judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and even defendants tolerate the idea that innocent people should plead guilty to crimes they did not commit because the alternative is worse." (p. 125)
[On judges] "In 2007, Pennsylvania was rocked by the 'Kids for Cash' scandal after it was discovered that two county judges had received more than 2.6 million from for-profit juvenile detention companies in return for steering as many juveniles as possible to their detention facilities." (p. 136)
"A 1982 study found that a reduction of just 10 percent in the number of defendants who plead guilty would require more than twice the number of judges and related judicial resources than existed at the time. And that study was conducted before the tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and 1990s flooded the criminal justice systems and left judges staggering under heavier caseloads...the number of judges in federal court, for instance, increased by 4 percent from 1993 to 2013, while caseloads in that same period increased by 28 percent." (p. 143-44)
"One 2008 study about the TAP [Trespass Affidavit Program] program found that 'approximately 30% of the residents [who lived in specified housing units run by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)] reported they had been charged with trespassing, despite the fact that they lived there. Approximately 70% of those surveyed at the NYCHA Thomas Jefferson Houses reported that they had been repeatedly stopped by police officers when simply coming and going around their homes.'" (p. 164-65)
"A plea hides police wrongdoing, cloaks weaknesses in the prosecution's case, gives a pass to harried defense lawyers who have no time to provide real representation, and enables judges to keep their dockets moving. Further, pleas to crimes that never happened waste precious taxpayers' resources, with the police and prosecutor investigating fictional events and defense lawyers, mostly at taxpayer expense, trying to stave off the state. Worst of all, they harm innocent defendants who become permanently branded a criminal after serving whatever sentence they receive. Because the plea system circumvents the fact-finding function of a trial, a defendant's willingness to plead guilty is treated as evidence that he or she is guilty. This is, of course, simply untrue." (p. 185)
I grew up watching Perry Mason and Law & Order on TV and thinking that the defense attorneys were the "bad guys" who were defending the criminals. Today, I can hardly watch Law & Order re-runs because of the cavalier attitudes of the police and prosecutors on that show. The more I read and watch documentaries on true crime, the more I realize just how much the whims of the police and prosecutors are at play in the justice system regardless of the fact that their decisions destroy people's lives daily. We shouldn't have a justice system based on whims and gut feelings. This book should be required reading for everyone.
There are a lot of quotes I liked:
"Once the police commit to a theory, tunnel vision may blind officers - and eventually the prosecutors to whom the case is referred - about who is telling the truth and who is lying. Cognitive biases cause the police to overvalue evidence that reinforces the lie, and to discard or minimize evidence that would otherwise indicate that something is rotten at the foundation of their case. When a wrongful conviction results, the lie becomes a legal truth, and a factually innocent person becomes a guilty one in the eyes of the law." (p. 47)
[On police arrest quotas] "In Miami Gardens, Florida, officers claimed they were told by superiors to 'bring in the numbers' and were ordered to stop all black males between fifteen and thirty years old." (p. 66)
[On prosecutor incentives] "In Colorado, prosecutors who obtained a 70 percent conviction rate (or higher) received a monetary bonus. Peers boast to one another about their convictions and hold raucous celebrations when a jury renders a guilty verdict. I've always found something peculiar and inappropriate about this celebratory aspect of obtaining convictions: 'We just sent someone to prison! Wha-hoo!' To me, a conviction of another human being, and their condemnation by the state to a term or prison or even death, is a somber and sobering moment, even when the defendant is factually guilty." (p. 85)
"We have an adversarial system that pits the prosecutor against the defendant in a courtroom battle where justice is the theoretical objective but where the measure of a prosecutor's success is their number of convictions. Then we tell the prosecutor that they have to turn over to the other side all the evidence that hurts their case. That's like asking the wolf to guard the chickens in the coop." (p. 97)
"Finding out that the prosecution possessed exculpatory evidence but did not turn it over is often a matter of pure luck or happenstance. How can a defendant learn that the prosecution hid evidence the defendant never knew about in the first place? They often can't." (p. 99)
"In 2009, Louisiana public defenders handled the equivalent of 19,000 misdemeanor cases annually, which gave them seven minutes per case...In Louisiana, a single public defender randomly selected by the New York Times had a caseload on a given day of 194 felonies. The Times calculated that the Louisiana lawyer would need almost 10,000 hours (the equivalent of five work-years) to provide truly competent representation to his existing clients." (p. 111)
"One may wonder in shock how it is that our system is so broken that judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and even defendants tolerate the idea that innocent people should plead guilty to crimes they did not commit because the alternative is worse." (p. 125)
[On judges] "In 2007, Pennsylvania was rocked by the 'Kids for Cash' scandal after it was discovered that two county judges had received more than 2.6 million from for-profit juvenile detention companies in return for steering as many juveniles as possible to their detention facilities." (p. 136)
"A 1982 study found that a reduction of just 10 percent in the number of defendants who plead guilty would require more than twice the number of judges and related judicial resources than existed at the time. And that study was conducted before the tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and 1990s flooded the criminal justice systems and left judges staggering under heavier caseloads...the number of judges in federal court, for instance, increased by 4 percent from 1993 to 2013, while caseloads in that same period increased by 28 percent." (p. 143-44)
"One 2008 study about the TAP [Trespass Affidavit Program] program found that 'approximately 30% of the residents [who lived in specified housing units run by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)] reported they had been charged with trespassing, despite the fact that they lived there. Approximately 70% of those surveyed at the NYCHA Thomas Jefferson Houses reported that they had been repeatedly stopped by police officers when simply coming and going around their homes.'" (p. 164-65)
"A plea hides police wrongdoing, cloaks weaknesses in the prosecution's case, gives a pass to harried defense lawyers who have no time to provide real representation, and enables judges to keep their dockets moving. Further, pleas to crimes that never happened waste precious taxpayers' resources, with the police and prosecutor investigating fictional events and defense lawyers, mostly at taxpayer expense, trying to stave off the state. Worst of all, they harm innocent defendants who become permanently branded a criminal after serving whatever sentence they receive. Because the plea system circumvents the fact-finding function of a trial, a defendant's willingness to plead guilty is treated as evidence that he or she is guilty. This is, of course, simply untrue." (p. 185)
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Cloud Cuckoo Land follows 3 very different storylines in 3 different historical settings. Konstance is aboard the spaceship Argos that is fleeing Earth for a new potential planet to establish with human life. Zeno and Seymour are in present day (and slightly into the near future) Boise, Idaho - Seymour is an autistic teenager hyper-focused on environmental destruction near his home and Zeno is an eighty-six year old man helping middle schoolers create a play based on an ancient Greek text he translated. Finally Anna and Omeir are caught up in a battle against the city of Constantinople in 1453. Without giving anything away, somehow Doerr connects these three very different time periods and stories through the story/book of Cloud Cuckoo Land. Beautifully written and with some similarities to All the Light We Cannot See like warfare, children, orphans, and disability.
I LOVED All the Light We Cannot See and didn't want to have too high of expectations for this one, but it was very good and worth the 600+ pages. I did like All the Light We Cannot See better, but I'm still thinking about all the nuances of this one long after I've finished it too. I will say I saw in several reviews people complaining about the one "villain" being autistic and that that is derogatory/mean/stereotypical/etc. I will say that the villain is not the villain BECAUSE he's autistic, but more likely his autism created the OCD/obsession with environmentalism that led him down the path of radicalization. I personally loved that 4 of the 5 main characters were somehow flawed, yet kept going - just like Aethon in Cloud Cuckoo Land. I would highly recommend this one!
A quote I liked:
"Moonlight and Tree stand patiently in their yoke, horns dripping, backs steaming, and the boy checks their hooves for stones and their shoulders for cuts and envies that they seem to live only in the moment, without dread for what is to come." (p. 159)
I LOVED All the Light We Cannot See and didn't want to have too high of expectations for this one, but it was very good and worth the 600+ pages. I did like All the Light We Cannot See better, but I'm still thinking about all the nuances of this one long after I've finished it too. I will say I saw in several reviews people complaining about the one "villain" being autistic and that that is derogatory/mean/stereotypical/etc. I will say that the villain is not the villain BECAUSE he's autistic, but more likely his autism created the OCD/obsession with environmentalism that led him down the path of radicalization. I personally loved that 4 of the 5 main characters were somehow flawed, yet kept going - just like Aethon in Cloud Cuckoo Land. I would highly recommend this one!
A quote I liked:
"Moonlight and Tree stand patiently in their yoke, horns dripping, backs steaming, and the boy checks their hooves for stones and their shoulders for cuts and envies that they seem to live only in the moment, without dread for what is to come." (p. 159)
No Cure for Being Human by Kate Bowler
I loved Everything Happens for a Reason and was excited to read this new one. But, I felt like it was kind of a shorter repackaging of the content of Everything Happens for a Reason. Not that it was bad or poorly written, but I didn't feel like there was a lot of new content. I don't know if I would have picked it up if I had known it was a lot of the same concepts just repackaged. In Everything Happens for a Reason she focuses more on struggling with having a terminal diagnosis at such a young age, and in this book she does kind of focus more on how to live once she is in remission, but the majority of this book was still her dealing with the cancer and the treatments. I guess I hoped it would start after her remission and not re-live the whole cancer treatment again. I still love Kate Bowler and her story and all that she has discovered through her illness and miraculous recovery, but I didn't love this book as much.
When Women Invented Television by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
When we think of women in early television most people think of Lucille Ball and I Love Lucy, but there were women both on camera and behind the scenes before her. In this book Jennifer Armstrong tells the stories of four women who helped invent television - Irna Phillips, Gertrude Berg, Hazel Scott, and Betty White. These four women were very different, but were all trailblazers as women and in the new field of television. They all struggled with being working women in the 1950's when being a mother and housewife were the societal norm. They also struggled with racism, anti-Semitism, and being blacklisted during the McCarthy/anti-Communist era. It's sad that several of the early shows these women created and starred in have been lost because early television was live and not recorded (Lucille Ball was one of the pioneers of filming and editing her show which is why it's still around in syndication today). But, Armstrong does a great job of telling these women's stories and showing the impact they had on television and society during their lives. And amazingly one of them - Betty White - is still around and about to turn 100 years old! This is a unique look at the beginning of television and how these four women helped shape it into what we know today.
Some quotes I liked:
"[Irna Phillips] $300,000-per-year pay put her into the upper echelons of all American earners at the time but was particularly astonishing for a woman. (An average nonfarm family took in about $3,000 per year in 1946, for comparison. In 2020 terms, she was pulling in nearly $4 million a year.)" (p. 32)
"[I Love Lucy] was all recorded on film to be edited later, which was significantly more expensive than broadcasting live. Arnaz and Ball agreed to a pay cut to help offset the costs, a deal that in exchange gave them ownership of the film of the show itself. For decades their method would be the industry standard for half-hour comedies...A significant unforeseen benefit of shooting on film emerged later: it preserved the show in pristine recordings, which allowed it to be shown in syndicated reruns for decades to come and now even to be shown via streaming services...The bargain Arnaz and Ball made to shoot on film so they could remain in Los Angeles also paid dividends for the rest of their lives; they owned the films, so they reaped the syndication profits...Her undeniable influence as a creator, producer, and visual comedy genius would grow larger over the decade as many of TV's early female pioneers faded from view. She was the explosion that came at the end of a long line of women before her, and she would shine so brightly that those women's contributions would be forgotten." (p. 170-71)
"White did, however, have more radical plans afoot. She invited the dancer Arthur Duncan, who had been a guest performer several times on Hollywood on Television, to appear on her show several times. The difference this time was that a Black tap dancer would be seen nationwide, rather than just in Los Angeles. That included the American South...[when stations complained and threatened to boycott her show] Her response: 'I'm sorry. Live with it.' She used Duncan as much as she could. The network, at least, backed her decision...White's casting of Duncan would lead to his becoming one of the first Black regulars on a variety program, The Lawrence Welk Show from 1964 to 1982, and a major inspiration for the future tap superstar Gregory Hines." (p. 219-21)
"But no one who knew Gertrude Berg ever knew the woman to cook. Her hired cook, Louise Capers, was the one who made the food in the Berg residence. That didn't stop Berg from agreeing to coauthor a cookbook. Nor did her penchant for fine dresses, furs, and pearls stop her from putting her name on a popular line of housedresses. Empire building required perpetuating such illusions at times - that is, if you were a woman building an empire...As her granddaughter said, 'She would never have worn a housedress. I mean never.' This woman had her hair done, in her classic chignon style, even when she was at home with her family. Her grandchildren never saw her hair down. In fact, they never saw her bare feet, either. She owned dozens of dress gloves, hats, fur coats, and opulent pins. She would have no use for a low-cost, simple frock meant only for a housewife to do her housework in. But Berg did not pass by an opportunity when it presented itself to her." (p. 236-38)
"The Guiding Light would eventually run continuously on radio and television for seventy-two years, making it not only the longest-running soap opera but also the longest running of all scripted programs in broadcast history. Phillips created the genre itself and is credited with several of its innovations: professionals such as doctors and lawyers as main characters with endless story possibilities, episode-ending cliff-hangers, organ music cues, and characters who crossed over from one serial to another. The daytime soap never truly gained the respect Phillips deserved, likely because it was associated with female audiences." (p. 263)
Some quotes I liked:
"[Irna Phillips] $300,000-per-year pay put her into the upper echelons of all American earners at the time but was particularly astonishing for a woman. (An average nonfarm family took in about $3,000 per year in 1946, for comparison. In 2020 terms, she was pulling in nearly $4 million a year.)" (p. 32)
"[I Love Lucy] was all recorded on film to be edited later, which was significantly more expensive than broadcasting live. Arnaz and Ball agreed to a pay cut to help offset the costs, a deal that in exchange gave them ownership of the film of the show itself. For decades their method would be the industry standard for half-hour comedies...A significant unforeseen benefit of shooting on film emerged later: it preserved the show in pristine recordings, which allowed it to be shown in syndicated reruns for decades to come and now even to be shown via streaming services...The bargain Arnaz and Ball made to shoot on film so they could remain in Los Angeles also paid dividends for the rest of their lives; they owned the films, so they reaped the syndication profits...Her undeniable influence as a creator, producer, and visual comedy genius would grow larger over the decade as many of TV's early female pioneers faded from view. She was the explosion that came at the end of a long line of women before her, and she would shine so brightly that those women's contributions would be forgotten." (p. 170-71)
"White did, however, have more radical plans afoot. She invited the dancer Arthur Duncan, who had been a guest performer several times on Hollywood on Television, to appear on her show several times. The difference this time was that a Black tap dancer would be seen nationwide, rather than just in Los Angeles. That included the American South...[when stations complained and threatened to boycott her show] Her response: 'I'm sorry. Live with it.' She used Duncan as much as she could. The network, at least, backed her decision...White's casting of Duncan would lead to his becoming one of the first Black regulars on a variety program, The Lawrence Welk Show from 1964 to 1982, and a major inspiration for the future tap superstar Gregory Hines." (p. 219-21)
"But no one who knew Gertrude Berg ever knew the woman to cook. Her hired cook, Louise Capers, was the one who made the food in the Berg residence. That didn't stop Berg from agreeing to coauthor a cookbook. Nor did her penchant for fine dresses, furs, and pearls stop her from putting her name on a popular line of housedresses. Empire building required perpetuating such illusions at times - that is, if you were a woman building an empire...As her granddaughter said, 'She would never have worn a housedress. I mean never.' This woman had her hair done, in her classic chignon style, even when she was at home with her family. Her grandchildren never saw her hair down. In fact, they never saw her bare feet, either. She owned dozens of dress gloves, hats, fur coats, and opulent pins. She would have no use for a low-cost, simple frock meant only for a housewife to do her housework in. But Berg did not pass by an opportunity when it presented itself to her." (p. 236-38)
"The Guiding Light would eventually run continuously on radio and television for seventy-two years, making it not only the longest-running soap opera but also the longest running of all scripted programs in broadcast history. Phillips created the genre itself and is credited with several of its innovations: professionals such as doctors and lawyers as main characters with endless story possibilities, episode-ending cliff-hangers, organ music cues, and characters who crossed over from one serial to another. The daytime soap never truly gained the respect Phillips deserved, likely because it was associated with female audiences." (p. 263)
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