Resisting at the QFC

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Poor QFC manager. Not her fault, perhaps. But I’d like to see some low level managers with enough spine to resist criminal orders from their bosses. In any event, taking out my iPhone camera was enough to convince her to fix the misleading price posters on the tomatoes today.

Some days I just can’t help myself. If it’s a day when I find myself at the grocery store, then they’d better not have a big sign boasting of the low price on avocados posted in front of the boxes of tomatoes which cost a good deal more in hopes that busy shoppers will buy the tomatoes and not notice the price they’re charged at checkout.

I’ve messed with QFC before and won, and even if this was another easy win, it keeps me in practice for when I need to protest bigger things, such as a refugee ban. When I called her attention to the misleading signs, she informed me that Kroger policy required her to post the avocado sign by the tomatoes. Yikes! (But she did admit that a sign for the tomato price should be there next to it.) Well, when I left the store, I noticed that the display had only the tomato price without the avocado price. Good! Perhaps my camera helped her develop a bit of spine for the day.

 

Glimpses of the Spanish Civil War

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The Spanish Civil War captured the imagination of activists, artists, and writers from many countries. Hotel Florida is one many histories of this period, has some great reviews, but is not my personal favorite. I would direct readers instead to Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, a first-person account by an author best known to us for his other works.

Hotel Florida tracks the lives of three couples and additional friends and lovers drawn to Spain to get close to the action in order to advance their careers. Homage to Catalonia chronicles Orwell’s contact with various partisan groups as well as his personal participation as a combatant, service cut short when he suffered life-threatening injuries.

I encourage those of you who enjoyed Hotel Florida to use the comment option to share your reasons for liking the book. I’m going to use my space to tout Homage to Catalonia. If you’ve read other books about the Spanish Civil War, please direct us to those you found valuable.

One reason I enjoyed Orwell’s book is that it gives us a peek at the person behind the books we all know, 1984 and Animal Farm, as well as vocabulary such as Big Brother. The one similarity to Hotel Florida is that Homage is also the tale of a couple as Orwell’s wife joined him in Spain. In Orwell’s case, he was committed to tackling totalitarianism with action as well as words, not just observing and reporting.

Was Spain in the 1930s comparable to Syria in the 2010s? Certainly there were many factions, much name-calling, and difficulty knowing what was happening in various regions at any given time. The fascist label was thrown around with abandon to shape the narrative. Factions paired up and split apart frequently. Foreign powers shipped arms, fighters stole arms, and some fought with sticks, stones, and trickery for lack of arms.

Orwell talks of his admiration for the anarchists, a section of the book that was valuable to me. I have a narrow perspective of anarchists, seeing them only as black-clothed thugs who like to break things and use any organized protest as an opportunity to mess things up. Orwell tells of the uplifting feeling of fighting with troops without rank.

Beyond his description of the anarchists, Orwell “clarifies” the mess of the many factions opposing Franco’s attempts to defeat the Republican government. The one thing these factions really had in common was the desire to defeat Franco. Their disunity and disarray, their focus on one angle such as workers’ rights, or anti-clericalism, or some other angle could only have helped Franco prevail in the end.

When a book leads me to learn more about a subject, I consider that a good book. Homage to Catalonia has done that. I don’t want to know the details of the Spanish Civil War, but I do want to better understand Europe during the decades between the wars.

Serious Fun: Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz

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Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz is fun. Right now, I need fun, so even though I read this ages ago, I’m re-reading it. A Washington Post reviewer described Being Wrong as “an erudite, playful rumination on error,” and I’m going to second that description. Almost all reviews, even those that are critical in some way, praise the writing, so this isn’t an important book that is painful to read. Rather, it’s an important book that’s a pleasure to read. Find a copy and enjoy!

After entertaining us with examples of error that are both astounding and informative, Schulz concludes by delving into our attitude toward errors and strategies to prevent them. Here, she unearths a common theme: to prevent error, we need to acknowledge the possibility of error. Well, duh, you say. Yet, hospitals and airlines have learned the hard way that simply training people well does not prevent catastrophic error. Checklists prevent error. Protocol, discipline, and creating a culture in which underlings are allowed to call attention to the possible errors of their “betters,” these are strategies that minimize error.

Why is acknowledging the possibility of error so important? If we underestimate how common error is, if we think that being right is the norm and being wrong is tragic, it can become much more difficult to let go of faulty thinking. Schulz presses the point throughout the book that being wrong is an essential aspect of being human. What other creature mulls things over and comes up with new theories based on new information such as shifting from an assumption that the sun revolves around the Earth?

There are plenty of recent books that explore the way brains work and how we make decisions. One of my favorites is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. I recommend this book, too, but it’s just not as fun as Being Wrong. It’s more “sciencey,” however, so if you prefer such an approach, it’s a good choice. Thinking…  challenges our sense of ourselves as rational beings by describing lots of experiments that explore how we come to judge things and make decisions.

I happen to be of the opinion that we all need a good dose of humility, and soon, if we are going to sort out any of our many problems. Schulz and Kahneman both humble us, and both point to strategies that could lead to “better thinking.” So whichever approach works for you, breezy or sciencey, take your pick and prepare to be humbled.

Often I’m mystified by the certainty my friends possess about things that are clearly not black and white. I, on the other hand, seem to reside in a state of perpetual doubt, skepticism, and uncertainty, and that feels “right” to me. But I haven’t got much company. I love to engage in conversation with others who don’t yet have all the answers, but it’s really hard to find them. Even groups of skeptics can evolve into comfy bunches of like-minded folks. So I read books; I click about on the Internet; I venture out into groups of strangers. But often I just accept my frequent status as “minority of one.”

Then every once in a while I stumble upon a treasure of a book such as Being Wrong, and I feel better. Check it out!

Headscarves and Hymens

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Taking advantage of the fact that I now live within walking distance of Elliott Bay Bookstore, I decided to listen to Mona Eltahawy when she discussed her new book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution. It was worth every step to get there and every minute of listening. What a great spokesperson against misogyny – and not just in Islamic countries, but worldwide.

Eltahawy approaches issues from a secular perspective yet fully aware of ways that religion is often used to justify traditions that vary between communities of believers. Rather than get into the fray of “my verse” against “your verse,” Eltahawy simply evaluates practices against the criteria of whether or not they are good for women. She has not renounced her Muslim faith. She believes it is compatible with full equality for women and policies that honor the worth of every person. With her knowledge of historic figures from the Muslim faith who believed in the value of women, she challenges both religious and state authorities who perpetuate the subjugation of women.

As one who pays some attention to the news and to women’s issues globally, I was familiar with many of the practices described in the book. That said, I found it useful to have these concerns explained in more detail. What was totally refreshing was learning about the many ways that women are protesting and speaking up about abuse and restrictive policies, even in countries where governments are trying desperately to keep women under wraps.

As always, one of the saddest states is our “friend and ally” Saudi Arabia. Do we have to wait until the oil in the Kingdom is totally depleted before we pay attention to the status of women in this most absurd country? I would like the rest of the world to use all of the tactics that were applied against Apartheid in South Africa to bring change for women in Saudi Arabia. Still, I understand that the Middle East is not South Africa. While Eltahawy documents a history of feminist thought in Islamic countries, there are still many who regard feminism as a Western value. Best if change emerges from within rather that from outside pressure.

When you see Muslim women locally wearing headscarves or even the niqab, if you wonder if they feel free to do otherwise, you will appreciate Eltahawy’s extended discussion of her own choices over the years. Headscarves now carry political significance; they are cheered and jeered by men from opposite perspectives. Liberal “cultural relativists” cheer; critics of Islam jeer. This only complicates the decision women face. Truly they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Even in countries where women are free to veil or not to veil, it is uncomfortable to know that your decision will give comfort to either one group of men who don’t value you or to another group of men who don’t value you.

Read and weep. Read and cheer. Read and take comfort in the knowledge that women are striving for their own freedom in places where you didn’t think it was possible.

ISIS: What to Do?!

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Bless Patrick Cockburn: Rather than simply blame the US, he has managed to find multiple causes for the emergence of ISIS. In The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution, he considers middle east history from several perspectives. Especially interesting was his discussion of Saudi Arabia, a country which has exported Islamic fundamentalism, but is now fearing blowback from its own actions.

As one who’s inclined to avert my eyes from the middle east thinking it’s simply too much of a mess for anyone to fix, my attitude was only reinforced. Not only is the US not in a good position to help resolve anything, but countries in the thick of things are not finding easy solutions either. Nation States created after WWI never really jelled, although some enjoyed decades of uneasy peace with their diverse populations living side by side without constant bloodshed. Now? No one is safe.

With the advantage of distance, both physical and psychological, it’s clear to me that at some point communities within the diverse Muslim world will need to voice support for protection of people who have different beliefs, different points of view, different dress, different food, different cultural practices. Perhaps people who abide by these differences will spend eternity in hell, but that’s the risk they take, and it’s not your problem if they aren’t bothering you.

So, dear ISIS, there is no way out of this mess if you do not respect my right to believe things you don’t believe. I am not going to let you slaughter me just because I don’t share your beliefs, and there are many others closer to your self-proclaimed caliphate who agree. So until you chill out, we’ve got a problem.