Lloyd Alexander, Westmark

The Prydain books have been some of my favorite since I first read them out loud with my family about 10 or 15 years ago. I just discovered that this book existed and read it last night.

I liked it. I will try to figure out why and add to this post.

Stephen C. LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri

In this day and age it seems almost ridiculous that the National Guard would be called out to shoot at members of a religious group rather than to protect their basic civil rights. But the Mormon War in western Missouri was real. This was a different time and place: in 1839, the Missouri militia stood toe-to-toe across the border from the Iowa militia over a border dispute, and the future Kansas City area was very much the frontier, where insulting a gentleman might get you killed.

I read this book a year or two ago for several reasons. I had ancestors in northwestern Missouri in the 1830s. I dabble in reading Mormon history. I attended the "Mormon Experience" conference a couple of years ago at the Capitol building in Jefferson City. I found this book very interesting.

The book includes a brief but markedly understated anticipation of some fascinating historical research presented at the Jeff. City conference and I believe published recently. "The Mormons, like their Missouri neighbors, were 'squatting' on their claims, waiting to purchase the land from the government. The principal Mormon settlements in Daviess County, including Diahman, would become available for public purchase on 12 November. Sidney Rigdon claimed that, shortly after the Saints left DeWitt, Sashel Woods called his men together and told them, 'if they could get the Mormons driven out, they could get all the lands entitled to preemptions.' The Carroll vigilantes hurried their preparations, hoping to reach Daviess and drive the Mormons from the county before they could make good their claims to the land." (p. 110)
The Jeff. city presentation I referred to above was by a historian who mapped 1838 land purchases from public records and confirmed that the feared land grab did happen, and that the largest buyers of the land on the day the government opened it for sale--while the Saints were held at gunpoint for a week by the Missouri state militia--were Lilburn Boggs (commander in chief of the militia) and his minions. "Follow the money" worked on the 1830's frontier just as well as it works now.

Overall I feel the author was pretty even-handed in his coverage of problems on both sides. I felt he was too generous in treating the state's one-sided prosecution after the surrender. Nevertheless he does point out, "The reexamination of Mormon claims regarding the Richmond hearing may lead the reader to conclude that justice was served by this judicial inquiry. Just the opposite is true. ... Missouri officials made no effort to prosecute anti-Mormon vigilantes who drove Mormon settlers from their homes, plundered, and burned. There was no court of inquiry to investigate ... the slaughter of Mormon settlers at Haun's Mill. Western Missouri officials conducted a one-sided investigation." (p. 216) As Parley P. Pratt wrote to Judge King, "When the authorities of the State shall redress all these wrongs, shall punish the guilty according to law, and shall restore my family and friends to all our rights, and shall pay all the damages which we, as a people, have sustained, then I shall believe them sincere in their professed zeal for law and justice; then shall I be convinced that I can have a fair trial in the State." (pp. 217-218)

Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, translated by William Weaver

I read this about 6 months ago. It had been on my list forever, partly because his nonfiction work "The Search for the Perfect Language" was on my list first.

I must say I was disappointed. I was not disappointed by the author's skill: he writes well, his characterization is wonderful, the plot is reasonably complex yet grabs one's attention and won't let go, and the book builds toward teaching a message. But I don't like the message: fear piety, fear those who are convinced of the truth, but don't fear God (see the last few pages before the epilogue). Perhaps it was especially frustrating to build anticipation for the conclusion for 600 pages only to get that conclusion.

Plus, after Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci Code I am tired of reading books by authors who must really hate the Roman Catholic church. I know there was misconduct in the monasteries, but this reads as if there was nothing more.

Like many modern works, I lay this in the pile of "great work was done here ... great but misdirected."

David Weber, Shadow of Saganami

Another exciting book from the "Honorverse," i.e. a series of books (this one from a spinoff series) about a future (and female) Horatio Hornblower.
I preferred the Honor Harrington books. Opinions in this household about her mental health vary.

Charissa's mission 20091202

Subject: So this is it...the last email from Slla Black!
Date: Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:15:36 +0100
From: Charissa Black

Buon giorno!

I can't believe it, but it's here--the last email I'll send you all as Sorella Black.

Charissa's mission 20091125

Subject: I love Sicily!!!
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:04:59 +0100
From: Charissa Black

Buon giorno!

So this Sunday was the twice yearly meeting with all the members from Sicily, and we were all together in Catania where we heard some wonderful remarks on unity and love, and how we can improve ourselves.

I took advantage of the fact that I had to go to Ragusa for scambi anyway

Charissa's mission 20091118

Subject:	Here's another one....
Date:	Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:36:58 +0100
From:	Charissa Black <sorellablack@myldsmail.net>

Buon giorno!

What a gorgeous day! I really am loving the Sicilian sun, and the smiling Sicilians...We've gotten to know some more families here, and are happily going around Siracusa talking with them.

John LeCarré, Russia House

It did not surprise me that this novel has plot and kept me up late to finish it. Two things did surprise me. One, there is good prose and good character development. Two, the first chapter is very clever: first, the limited use of first-person viewpoint, and more interesting to me, the realization near the start of the next chapter that this character whose perspective introduces the story is really a bit player from whom we will barely hear again.

Grisham's The Associate

This 373-page book is a great page-turner and a good book overall--he even does a reasonable conversion story--except for the very disappointing pages 374-390.

Charissa's mission 20091111

Subject: from Siracusa with love
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:07:03 +0100
From: Charissa Black
To: ...

Buon giorno!

So this week has been another great week in Siracusa! We are proud owners of a fixed toilet, and a new vegetable peeler.

Charissa's mission 20091015

Subject:	Musings from Monday's Meeting
Date:	Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:57:37 +0200
From:	Charissa Black
CC:	...

Buon giorno!

It's officially fall now (there are some torrential rains outside the door here), and I am wearing my little flight attendant type scarves and everything. Yet another fabulous week in Siracusa and Catania has flown by. (I'm what's called the sorella coordinatrice, and so I make sure that the other sorelle in Catania and Ragusa are doing ok...I'm so happy for the chance to see Ragusa next week :).

Monday we had a conference at Catania with all the missionaries from Sicily and so we heard many wonderful suggestions

Charissa's mission 20091007

Subject: the week from slla black
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:49:07 +0200
From: Charissa Black
To: ...

Buona sera!

So it's a wonderful week here in Italy. I am just loving every minute of it! (I know, I say that every week. Sorry if these are just super monotonous, repetitive emails. But I really do love it...) It's been full of more tasty Sri Lankan fried things, a week full of

Charissa's mission 20090930

Subject: Saluti da Siracusa...did I use that already?
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:53:12 +0200
From: Charissa Black
CC: ...

Buon giorno!

Recently the sun has been back, we've been walking all over as usual, and we're very excited because this Saturday and Sunday is what's called General Conference.

try it out

Try out the new calendar (s).
Love,
Dad

The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic

Monday, December 29, 2008 2:10 PM
Kevin Black wrote:

The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic, by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny. Jackson, TN: Bellevue Literary Press, 2008.

An MSW colleague of mine lent me this. Here is my note to her after I started reading it.

======================================

Dear _______,

I read the book you lent me about suitcases in an asylum’s attic, or at least I read about half of it. Unfortunately that was all I could stand. In case you are considering lending the book to others, especially students, I would like to share my thoughts on the book.

The authors have a stridently anti-psychiatry worldview, and do not admit their own biases. To give one example, after going on for pages about how the hospital was warehousing this guy against his will, they admit the hospital had repeatedly offered to place him out for over a decade and he had continually refused. Another example is saying that none of the patients had tried to kill themselves or others, but even in the stories I read there were patients who struck out at others, had the cops called for threats they made, etc., and they admit one person did try to starve himself. The authors do admit in one spot that there is inherent selection bias in choosing as they did to look at people whose luggage was left there—e.g. it selects for those without families, those who stayed until they died, etc.—but do not appreciate in the rest of the book that this bias could explain a lot of the things that they point out as recurrent themes in these patients. There are a lot of similar examples that I’m not quoting here, but I can bring in my notes if you’re interested.

More importantly, there are numerous factual errors, like saying that there is no evidence that antipsychotics reduce emotional symptoms in people with schizophrenia. That’s just silly—there are many dozens of randomized controlled trials that prove that very point. The authors appear to assume that if one would just talk to the patients, they would get better. They supply no details of how this would be done, and no evidence for the effectiveness of this approach, yet it seems this is one of their main complaints about how the patients were treated. Ironically this also directs attention away from the non-medication intervention that is most proven to work in schizophrenia: family education.

Plus there are repeated insinuations that psychiatrists are motivated mostly by greed and ignorance and paternalism. I’m sure this describes some psychiatrists some of the time, and it does appear that mistakes were made in the care of some of these patients and that some of them could have been sent home (if they had a home). But it is not only factually wrong but also mean-spirited to assume that’s always what is going on. This is frequently accompanied by “scare quotes,” like saying that hospitals wouldn’t release names of patients at their death ‘due to “confidentiality” concerns.’ Additionally, the authors are upset that patients seemed to get no useful treatment, but the book covers only the first half of the 20th Century, and in fact there were no useful treatments for schizophrenia at that point in time, and only one really useful treatment for major depression, and that after about the 30's. The repeated implication is that patients still get no useful treatments today. Similar comments could be made about the authors’ description of unmodified ECT, which hasn’t been used in America for decades now.

Finally the authors endorse some really wacky, out-there stuff, like saying explicitly that hallucinations are to be welcomed not treated. The book repeatedly implies that the patients’ symptoms—which, when described, are often quite serious—would not really be a problem for the patients if the psychiatrists would just stay out of the way.

The stories are actually interesting, and the authors obviously invested a lot of work in researching the patients’ lives, so it is a shame that the book is full of dangerous misinformation and hateful innuendo.

Thanks,
Kevin


Sunday, January 04, 2009 1:08 AM
Kevin Black wrote:

About my comment that there were no effective treatments in the early 1900s . . . it's not quite accurate, though it is true that the first effective specific treatment for schizophrenia was not discovered until the late 1950's. Actually, leaving aside belladonna, opium, magnesium salts, and other naturally occurring pharmaceuticals, chloral hydrate was synthesized as early as 1869. Apomorphine was synthesized in the same year and soon thereafter was tried as a treatment for schizophrenia (marketed today in the U.S. for treating Parkinson disease; it has no pharmacologic similarity to morphine despite the name). Barbiturates were first sold for medical use in 1903-1904. The psychiatrist Wagner von Jauregg received the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 1927 for his fever therapy for neurosyphilis--actually giving people malaria on purpose to provoke bouts of fever, then giving quinine to kill off the malaria. (That may sound nuts now, but if you read the Nobel speeches, available online, quantitative response data were available, and at the time this was dramatically more effective than previously available therapy for this [then] major cause of psychiatric illness. Still, his public health work with iodine therapy for dementia due to dietary hypothyroidism is generally felt to be a more long-lasting contribution.) ECT (for schizophrenia), lithium salts (for mania) and amphetamine (for what we now call ADHD) were all introduced in about 1937. They are all still important mainstays of treatment, though ECT's efficacy for schizophrenia is quite limited and it is now used primarily for treating mood disorders. It is still the most effective known treatment for major depression.