jiujensu's reviews
444 reviews

Kindle edition. 

Books like these are helping me make sense of my evangelical past. I grew up in what became an increasingly Christian nationalist environment. I wrote and occasionally talked to people I trusted about my concerns around what I called "politics in/and the pulpit." It was Christian nationalism, I found out later. 

The four categories in the book - rejector, resistor, accomodator, ambassador - are a more nuanced way to look at the problem than most political assessments I've seen. While in the church, I was in the camp of strong belief  prayer, attendance, etc but those things reinforced my support for social safety net, anti-war efforts, questioning patriotism narratives as opposed to the legislating the Bible into everyone else that was the prevailing view of everyone I worshiped with. 

It will take time to understand why I rejected Christian nationalism and those around me embraced it, but now there are ways to describe the trends and correlations I saw.

This is a pretty good collection of studies and thoughts on empathy. It makes some surprising points - or at least contrary to the prevailing narrative - that conformity and technology/social media aren't inherently bad or cruel, they're just tools. You can even use them to cultivate empathy.

I appreciated the nuance in the contact theory of the way the power dynamic affects benefit or lack thereof in the interaction we might assume to be equally beneficial. 

The policing example was difficult, though there was acknowledgment that police still prefer their own in group. I don't know for sure, not having much experience, but I feel the the autism example might be problematic. And another glaring issue was describing the Palestinian and Israeli contact approach as something like sports fans connecting rather than occupied/occupier in an apartheid power dynamic.

But overall, it was good to think of what empathy is and how studies have measured it, how can we increase it. There was even a discussion of decreasing your in group empathy as opposed to only increasing your own capacity for it.

Capitalism prioritizes greed, but:
"...People who stop to help others won't have the time to innovate, and will inevitably finish last. As we've seen, this is a myth--empathic individuals are more likely to succeed in a number of ways."

More hopefully:
"We are not merely individuals fighting to empathize in a world of cruelty. We are also communities, families,... that can build kindness into our culture, turning it into people's first option."

The Twilight Zone is a favorite on its own, so much packed into each little episode. The words on the page add so much more - get inside characters heads a bit more and even some of the descriptions convey Serling's outlook more explicitly (for example, talking about the pilot as fatherly or God-like). It's a surprisingly wonderful treat and supplement to the shows.

Ah supplements. So many opinions and everyone's an expert. This book is really good and could help be a reality check for lots of folks. People assume supplements are under the same sorts of rules as foods and drugs, but that is far from the truth. Everyone should read up on where and how that diverged.

Besides that, though, the story of discovering the deficiencies and vitamins are worth digging into. The stops and starts, false leads, drama, public opinion shifts - just regular science stuff. If you don't have a science background, I think this helps explain following all the leads, having hypotheses, being wrong a lot, one study doesn't prove it, and a lot of things that get lost in the usual day to day reporting on science. At one point other scientific discoveries like germ theory and antibiotics hold up the deitary deficiency theories. And with scientists popping poo pills and regurgitating meat - glad we don't do those experiments anymore - what more do you need? Read it.

I read this pretty fast - it hooks you early and deep. Incredibly sad but hopeful. It's definitely about being the child of an immigrant parent, that dilemma of wanting your American peers' approval, proving you belong, and also wanting to feel 100%, be able to navigate your immigrant parents' culture as they do, prove yourself. 

But it's also about connecting through generations, illness, losing a loved one, belonging and dysfunction. Everyone's family story. 

It's always beautiful to see the threads the child thinks are unravelling at the parent's death are still there intact to be carried in memory and art.

This is a pretty amazing work. 

If you're like me and don't care for self help, that's not the main focus, don't worry. It covers a wide range of topics in the history of what we consider work, why is productivity so important, why do we monetize hobbies or multitask, what is a workday, what is leisure, and how capitalism affects them. 

If you do enjoy self-help, there is an element of that too. She admits to her bit of privelige but also offers suggestions to help you stop working so much and learn to relax, if that's what you want to use the book for.

I thoroughly agreed with the pushback to the capitalist greed and multitasking productivity driven horserace approach to life and I'm impressed with how this is a self help book even those of us who hate that genre can like. 

This is a pretty amazing work. 

If you're like me and don't care for self help, that's not the main focus, don't worry. It covers a wide range of topics in the history of what we consider work, why is productivity so important, why do we monetize hobbies or multitask, what is a workday, what is leisure, and how capitalism affects them. 

If you do enjoy self-help, there is an element of that too. She admits to her bit of privelige but also offers suggestions to help you stop working so much and learn to relax, if that's what you want to use the book for.

I thoroughly agreed with the pushback to the capitalist greed and multitasking productivity driven horserace approach to life and I'm impressed with how this is a self help book even those of us who hate that genre can like. 

If you're looking to understand the history, context, and details of what's going on in Palestine/Israel, you should add this book to your list. 

This is a great overview of issues concerning the liberation of Palestine. It's socialist focus is internationalist and brings together all struggles/ divisions - imperialism, capitalism, patriarchy, gender, race, class, nationality, religion which, in my opinion, is missing from many discussions from a liberal perspective (even more is missing from conservative...).

Each section discusses important bits that I hear well-meaning people get very wrong. There's a discussion of the Israeli  left/socialists, Zionism, agreements and negotiations through the years, Arab leaders' support for imperialism, the Arab Spring. 

There were great sections at the end on BDS, gender, and Black-Palestinian solidarity. It ends on a rather inspiring  note for a book full of facts I wish I had a photographic memory to hold with an essay by Remi Kanazi.