I read A Vindication of the Rights of Woman as part of A Year of Feminist Classics.

Don’t read the book like I did though. That is to say, don’t go to Project Gutenberg, download the text, and read that. It’s tempting because it’s free. I discourage this not because it’s stealing from the author. No, I discourage this method because Mary Wollstonecraft wrote this book around 1790. In other words, because of the language and style of writing back then, I had know idea what she was talking about about 2/3 of the time. Sometimes it’s the archaic words, though those can be looked up. Sometimes it’s the context. Much of the text is a response to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whom I haven’t read, for instance. And some of it is just obtuse. I counted fifteen clauses in one sentence.

Do yourself a favor and buy an annotated and footnoted edition. You’ll get a lot more out of it than I did out of this.

Originally, I planned to write something more detailed. Instead, I think I am going to just put in some reactions I had as I read through the text, with just a little bit of context for each.

Introduction. The male pursues, the female yields—this is the law of nature; and it does not appear to be suspended or abrogated in favour of woman. – Wollstonecraft makes lots of scientific pronouncements of fact that just aren’t so. I don’t think it’s unusual for the day and age. The scientific method didn’t become firmly established for another hundred years, was badly implemented often even then, and even intellectuals today get it wrong. Wollstonecraft invokes reason as the basis for modern thought, but reason and science aren’t exactly the same. To me, science should be the basis for knowledge and action, with reason as a supplement. Wollstonecraft’s reason is sometimes imperfect, but especially here it becomes awful because it is based on false premises. What’s more, and what stood out in this and a few other passages was that her false premises work against her ultimate aim, to secure rights for women. I don’t expect perfection from an early work of feminism (or even current ones), but it sure makes me cringe to see her blithely accept some of these things.

from every quarter, I have heard exclamations against masculine women, but where are they to be found? I love this bit. The internet did not spawn concern trolls.

My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces Is that sarcasm? I sure hope so!

The Rights and Duties of Mankind Considered. Consequently the perfection of our nature and capability of happiness, must be estimated by the degree of reason, virtue, and knowledge, that distinguish the individual Wollstonecraft wants to base her vindication on first principles, which she considers to be reason, virtue, and knowledge. Certainly it’s a step up from divine revelation, but there’s a lot of fuzzy wiggle room in there, particularly with virtue. What one person considers to be virtuous is a sin to another. And shortly afterward, Wollstonecraft identifies a flaw in reason…

Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed Yup. We still do. In our defense, I think this failing is common to humanity. But it’s particularly dangerous to classes of people that do not have power when those in power do this.

the regal power, in a few generations, introduces idiotism into the noble stem Wollstonecraft has a very anti-authoritarian bent. Through the book, she criticizes kings, men, the military, and parents as their mere exercising of authority makes them stupid. I wonder what level of authority she would have found acceptable.

The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed. Many are the causes … that contribute to enslave women by cramping their understandings and sharpening their senses. One, perhaps, that does more mischief than all the rest, is their disregard of order. Wollstonecraft is careful to lay the blame for this one women’s education, but her overall frustration with how much women hurt their own causes comes through. She rails over and over against the predominant view that men think and women feel, and that’s the way things are supposed to be.

Youth is the season for love in both sexes, but in those days of thoughtless enjoyment, provision should be made for the more important years of life, when reflection takes the place of sensation. This is another thread that runs throughout the work, that how women are taught to behave isn’t a good basis for a lasting companionship. Being flirty and pretty is good to attract the attention of a man, but it isn’t good to hold it. Wollstonecraft repeatedly praises the value of friendship and respect in marriage. I don’t exactly cotton to her notion that gallant love has little place after the initial attraction has passed, but she’s quite correct that people really need to have something to talk about to make them effective long term.

however convenient [gentleness] may be found in a companion, that companion will ever be considered as an inferior, and only inspire a vapid tenderness, which easily degenerates into contempt. I don’t have anything to say about this one. It just needs quoting.

Let [women's] faculties have room to unfold, and their virtues to gain strength, and then determine where the whole sex must stand in the intellectual scale. One of Wollstonecraft’s arguments seems to be, paraphrased, What have you got to lose? If I’m wrong, women will still be at the place they are intellectually, and it won’t have been imposed on us by fiat. She makes this argument over and over in various ways.

The Same Subject Continued. That a girl, condemned to sit for hours together listening to the idle chat of weak nurses or to attend at her mother’s toiler, will endeavor to join the conversation is, indeed very natural; and that she will imitate her mother or aunts, and muse herself by adorning her lifeless doll, as they do in dressing her, poor innocent babe! is undoubtedly a most natural consequence. Just pointing out that supposedly differences in the sexes don’t occur in a vacuum, so that even the differences that appear early in life aren’t necessarily innate. It’s passages such as this that make me think that Wollstonecraft sometimes uses the word “education” in a broad context, though sometimes she also uses it to refer only to formal teaching.

Observations on the State of Degradation to Which Woman is Reduced by Various Causes. I lament that women are systematically degraded by receiving trivial attention, which men think it manly to pay attention to the sex, when, in fact, they are insultingly supporting their own superiority. Again, just needed quoting.

if fear in girls, instead of being cherished, perhaps, created, were treated in the same manner as cowardice in boys, we should quickly see women with more dignified aspects. There are likely underlying emotional differences between women and men due to differences in hormones, but I’m of the firm belief that they are generally minor. I think nearly all of the emotional differences are the result of cultural inculcation.

many girls become the dupes of a sincere affectionate heart, and still more are, as it may emphatically be termed, ruined before they know the difference between virtue and vice: and thus prepared by their education for infamy, they become infamous. Wollstonecraft laments the pernicious effect of what is now commonly called slut-shaming, but being a person of her times, sees the remedy as better education to avoid being a slut, rather than not shaming people. In a later passage, Wollstonecraft seems to be expressing even more dismay at people’s lack of sexual virtue than even those at the time held. There’s a streak of feminism that’s based on a prudish morality. That’s not surprising given that Western society as a whole has been pretty prudish. Feminism, for all it’s radicalness, can’t completely get away from the society from which it comes. The branches that I identify with more will be the ones that celebrate sexuality. Perhaps that’s merely the male gaze in me, but I’ll live with it.

Animadversions on Some of the Writers Who Have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, Bordering on Contempt. As the conduct of a woman is subservient to the public opinion, her faith in matters of religion, should for that very reason, be subject to authority. Every daughter ought to be of the same religion as her mother, and every wife to be of the same religion as her husband … As they are not in a capacity to judge for themselves, they ought to abide by the decision of their fathers and husbands as confidently as by that of the church. What is to be the consequence, if the mother’s and husband’s opinion should chance not to agree? … Indeed, the husband may not have any religion to teach her though in such a situation she will be in great want of a support to her virtue, independent of worldly considerations. First, I had never heard the word “animadversion” before, and I love it. This chapter has Wollstonecraft doing what I’m doing here: quoting other writers on the woman’s place, and giving her comments. First up is Rousseau, who Wollstonecraft rightly calls out for his serious WTFery. If you are prone to religious bullshit, Rousseau’s advice is hideously dangerous to your eternal soul. Here you are going to heaven for your belief, and then you get married and your husband immediately consigns your soul to eternal damnation by making you believe sinful things. Of course, Wollstonecraft’s most dreaded fear is that the husband gives the woman no religion, which I should think would be an improvement over giving you one. Which also makes me wonder, was Deism as popular among Europe’s elite as it was among America’s around the same time?

true grace arises from some kind of independence of mind Quoting the section where she rips a Dr. Fordyce.

Modesty Comprehensively Considered and Not as a Sexual Virtue. What can be more disgusting than that impudent dross of gallantry, thought so manly, which makes many men stare insultingly at every female they meet? Is this respect for the sex? This loose behaviour shows such habitual depravity, such weakness of mind, that it is vain to expect much public or private virtue, till both men and women grow more modest — till men, curbing a sensual fondness for the sex, or and affectation of manly assurance, more properly speaking, impudence, treat each other with respect It would be hypocritical of me to rail against the male gaze because I do love to look at pretty women, but the woman does have a point.

On this account also, I object to [women being cloistered]. They were almost on a par with the double meanings, which shake the convivial table when the glass has circulated freely. But it vain to attempt to keep the heart pure, unless it is furnished with ideas. This is the passage I noted above, where it seems like Wollstonecraft is more prudish than those with whom she associates. They seem to have no problem with using double meanings in their dinner conversation, but it does upset our author.

Morality Undermined by Sexual Notions of the Importance of a Good Reputation. Although I agree with the gist of Wollstonecraft’s criticism that women bear the brunt of bad reputation effects, again her solution is to hold everyone to unreachable standards of sexual morality. Rather, I say, Good Reputation is Undermined by Sexual Notions of Morality. For the most part, people ought not to care about who people are fucking. That’s another time though.

Of the Pernicious Effects Which Arise From the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society. But what have women to do in society? I may be asked, but to loiter with easy grace, surely you would not condemn them all to suckle fools, and chronicle small beer! No. Women might study the art of healing, and be physicians as well as nurse. And midwifery … They might also study politics … Business of various kinds, they might likewise pursue. Another set of things that just needed quoting.

Would men but generously snap our chains, and be content with rational fellowship, instead of slavish obedience, they would find us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers — in a word, better citiznes. Which reminds me I do need to point out that although some of Wollstonecraft’s complaints about sexual prejudice remain relevant today (we still often assume women aren’t good at math), her prescriptions wouldn’t work today. In fact they didn’t really have the effect she thought they would when they were enacted.. She thought educating women would turn them into paragons of virtue. All she had to do was look at educated men to realized that education does not make people behave righteously. It makes them smarter, and able to stand on their own, which are sufficient reason alone. Don’t expect better government or business when women and minorities finally make it to the head of the table in force. They are as fallible as the rest of us in the patriarchy.

On National Education No quote here. This is the meat of Wollstonecraft’s policy prescription. By and large it’s come to pass in Western society. She proposes a government paid for and run system of school that will educate everyone, rich and poor, male and female. She desires for them to be day schools. That is, not boarding schools. Wollstonecraft felt that the approach of vacations made boarding schools a bad choice for education. They would be co-educational; she felt that was the only way to get teachers to treat the sexes equally. That also would allow the students to cross pollinate and develop grand passions for the arts, or politics, or whatever. Whether public schools have had the effect of reducing inequality I’ll leave for the exercises.

Oddly, I made few marks in the last chapter. The only big one is the portion where Wollstonecraft inveighs against novels. These days, novels and the theater are considered cultural. Some day, perhaps, reality television will be considered in the same manner.

No links to other blogs. I read that A Year of Feminist Classics will do some roundup posts, so follow them to see what other people are saying about the tome. I’m going to move on to January’s second book, So Long a letter, by Mariama Bâ. January is going to be a very feminist month. I’m also going to be reading the recent Carl Brandon Parallax Award winning Distances by Vandana Singh. The back cover blurb appears to make it out to be about math.

Title: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Author: Mary Wollstonecraft
Imprint / publisher: Project Gutenberg
Format: Electronic book
Length: approximately 120 p.
Publication date: September 2002

Quite a number of former prisoners the U.S. held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba have been released. I have not read any of their accounts of their time spent in prison. The only account of that prison that I’ve read was from the former chaplain there, James Yee. I refuse to use the word detainees as it feels like doublespeak to me. I’d rather use words like prisoner and victim, because those words appropriately impart greater emotional weight.

Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen who lived his entire life in Germany, was kidnapped in Pakistan and sold to the U.S. military as a possible terrorist. He was held in Kandahar, Afghanistan and in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He alleges he was tortured during his captivity, particularly during the period at Kandahar. In 2006, the U.S. repatriated him to Germany where he currently lives without restriction on his freedom. He was never charged with any crime and independent judicial review of his status as an enemy combatant judged that allegation as ludicrous.

Reading his account was vicariously painful. I have no independent way to assess whether Kurnaz is telling the truth. I suspect he largely is, the exceptions being due to faulty memory. His treatment includes no methods worse than what we’ve learned happened in Abu Ghraib. The summation of his treatment is much worse though. Five years worth of frequent minor torture makes for a major case. Isolated incidents of unnecessary force we can live with as a country. Weekly beatings, stress positions, contempt of cop control by guards, extreme temperatures, undernourishment, and isolation should prompt collective outrage. That the outrage has come from only a part (though significant) of the U.S. populace is a shame.

His homecoming at the end moved me the most. Mistreatment makes me angry, but I am not an angry person by nature. I don’t feel anger in a visceral way. But loss is a whole ‘nother story. Kurnaz married a Turkish girl (who he only names by pseudonym) shortly before traveling to Pakistan. He had no contact with her while imprisoned, and on his return finds out, second-hand, she’s divorced him. Reading his account of meeting his parents and brother brings home the loss. Kurnat also had several close relatives due while he was illegally imprisoned. None of this changes even if he wasn’t tortured.

Kurnaz never got even an oops, we goofed from the U.S. government.

His account is pretty much what I expected. That he’s a likable kid is apparent in this account, and I don’t see a hardened militant faking it his attitude. There are no great revelations, nor will anyone find it much different than other accounts of people held incommunicado. But I believe it’s important to read something from a victim of our national shame, and Kurnaz account does well enough for that purpose.

Title: Five Years of My Life: An Innocen Man in Guantanamo (originally Fünf Jahre Meines Lebens in German)
Author: Murat Kurnaz; Helmut Kuhn
Translator: Jefferson Chase
Cover creator: David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Imprint / publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Format: Hardcover
Length: 255 p.
Publication date: February 2008
ISBN-10: 0-230-60374-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-230-60374-5
Subject: Kurnaz,Murat, 1982-
Subject: Prisoners of war — Legal status, laws, etc. — Cuba — Guantánamo Bay Naval Base — Biography
Subject: Human rights — Government policy — United States
Subject: Combatants and noncombatants (International law) — Biography
Subject: Military bases, American — Law and legislation — Cuba
Subject: Detention of persons — Cuba — Guantánamo Bay Naval Base
Subject: War and emergency powers — Unites States
LC classification: KZ6496.K87 2008

This book reminds me a lot of the movie Pump Up The Volume. The only real common plot element is a teen working underground inspires a rebellion among fellow youth against unjust authority. But the main similarity I think is more the feel of the work: wishful thinking. I agree with the politics. I think kids need to rebel, not for their sake, but for society’s. But I still think the book is wishful thinking.

Marcus Yallow is a teen geek. He ditches school one day with three friends to play an alternate reality game (A.R.G.) which involves running around the streets of San Francisco looking for clues. As they do so, terrorists blow up the Bay Bridge. In the panic and confusion, the band of youth are picked up by the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) and held for six or so days incommunicado, subject to minor torture. One doesn’t make it back.

Although scared and afraid, Marcus fights back against the fascist D.H.S. takeover of San Francisco through underground computer networks, flash mobs, and culture jamming. But fear of D.H.S. keeps him underground and keeps him from revealing his incarceration and the one friend left behind.

I really liked the book, despite the tendency for Doctorow to info dump lots of background on various geeky topics. I think the information is cool. Though it does sometimes come across as lecturing by the author/protagonist. But I bet a lot of people purposely fry their R.F.I.D. chips after reading the book as a result of the info dump.

One question in my mind though is whether the book will break out of the geek set. I just can’t see non-geek kids really getting in to this with all the technology-geekism. Civil liberties aren’t really sexy enough for high school kids to get interested in droves. It should be. And Little Brother has as good a chance of any book at doing it. But… wishful thinking.

For those already of the techno-civil liberties mindset, this is a great book.

Plus, Little Brother is available free from the author’s web site. The Creative Commons licensed version also has a dedication to a bookstore before each chapter. What I love about the dedications, other than them being totally cool, is that he includes chain book stores as well as little independents. Too many times the chains are vilified as if they don’t provide hundreds of thousands of titles at low price to people who want to read. Doctorow sings their praises just as much as he does the small guys.

Title: Little brother
Author: Cory Doctorow
Imprint / publisher: Tor
Format: E-book (published version is hardcover)
Length: 155 p. (hardcover is 384 p.)
Publication date: April 2008
ISBN-10: 0-76531985-3
ISBN-13: 978-00765319852
Subject: United States. Dept. of Homeland Security — Fiction
Subject: Terrorism — Fiction
Subject: Computer hackers — Fiction
Subject: Civil rights — Fiction
Subject: Counterculture — Fiction
Subject: San Francisco (Calif.) — Fiction
LC classification: PZ7.D66237 Lit 2008

My Sunday Salon reading this week is Lani Guinier’s Lift Every Voice. But I started off the day updating this site to run on WordPress 2.5. I like a lot of the new features, but a few things are kind of annoying. In the middle of my upgrade work, I participated in this week’s episode of the Wordsy Podcast, where Hans Dekker, Erik Hare and I discussed a few of the top literature stories on Wordsy. Hans doesn’t have the episode posted yet, but it won’t be long unless he runs into technical difficulties. This is the third time I’ve appeared on the show, but it’s the first time I didn’t think I sucked afterward.

Now, on to a discussion of my reading.

I realize this might be ancient history, so here’s the quick background. Lani Guinier was nominated for an Assistant Attorney General position in charge of civil rights by Bill Clinton in 1993, shortly after he took office. Nearly immediately, the nomination became controversial. After a firestorm of criticism, Clinton withdrew the nomination. I was not fully cognizant of the issues at the time, but I did follow the story. Guinier was tagged by several right-wing pundits as the Quota Queen for her advocacy of alternative voting systems, particularly that of cumulative voting. I never understood how that translated into advocacy for quotas (and Guinier in this book vehemently disputes that she did so), but I was uncomfortable with the idea of messing with majority rule. Not that I was against changing the system; I just didn’t understand enough about it and the alternatives to get past my resistance to change.

Guinier discusses a number of topics in this book:

• her nomination,
• her childhood,
• her experience as a civil rights litigator, and
• her ideas for promoting more inclusiveness in government.

The book is most interesting when she writes about the last topic. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really come until the last couple of chapters. And she jumps around quite a bit between the first three topics, much diminishing how they affected me. Although she claims this book is not about settling scores, she comes across to me as very aggrieved and personally hurt by the withdrawal of the nomination. Given her take on it, I agree with her. She was wronged. Nevertheless, as she writes several times, people don’t want to hear a litany of complaints from a victim. And to me that’s what a lot of this reads like.

While undoubtedly there are things that the Clinton administration should have done differently, from reading this book I would not want Guinier as a co-worker. Sometimes a person has to take one for the team. But she didn’t see herself as part of the Clinton team. She saw herself as part of the civil rights team. Throughout the book she tries to draw many connections between civil rights pioneers and herself, usually pretty ineffectively. My reaction in reading most of these parts was that Guinier had an over-inflated sense of her own worth, particularly in connection with the Clinton administration. She wanted them to fight for her, and they did not. She saw that as a betrayal of civil rights. There are dozens of people who could have been nominated and still not betrayed the cause of civil rights. In fact, the eventual person to fill the job was Deval Patrick, a fellow litigator with Guinier (and I believe now the governor of Massachusetts).

This is frustrating to me, because the two chapters where she discusses her ideas on reforming our system are quite good. One chapter discusses voting systems in a fair amount of depth. Things like cumulative voting, proportional representation, preference voting, and other alternatives to the 50% plus one system we generally have now. I think we would do well do adopt some of these systems for many of our elections.

The last chapter is Guinier’s call to have a national conversation on race. I’ve heard this phrase used quite a bit and I usually cringe when I do. I associate it with people sitting around on Oprah-like talk shows discussing how race affects them. I cringe because I tend to be action-oriented and an airing of grievances usually polarizes. But Guinier is looking at something different. It is more of a series of local focus groups set up to make changes to local issues that have racial implications, but conducted across the country. She has pretty detailed ideas on how this could work, and I tend to think she’s correct in her assessment of their efficacy.

If you come across the book, my recommendation is to skip to the last two chapters. Or at least read them first so if your reaction to the personal stuff is like mine, it won’t color your perception of her ideas.

Title: Lift every voice
Author: Lani Guinier
Imprint / publisher: Simon & Schuster
Format: Hardcover
Length: 336 p. (includes index)
Publication date: 1998
ISBN-10: 0-684-81145-6
Subject: Guinier, Lani
Subject: Afro-American women civil rights workers — Biography
Subject: Civil rights workers — Biography
Subject: United States — Politics and government — 1993-
Subject: Clinton, Bill, 1946-
Subject: Civil rights movements — United States — History — 20th century
LC classification: E185.97G94G85 1998

Perilous Times won the 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History, but I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten wider acclaim, much like A Bright Shining Lie, And the Band Played On, and Hitler’s Willing Executioners have. Of course, those works brought information to light that previously hadn’t been widely known. Perilous Times covers ground that has been tread before, but from much different directions.

Geoffrey Stone’s book is a detailed examination of the United States treatment of free speech during wartime. I put that term in quotes because several of the eras discussed weren’t times of war, declared or otherwise. In the late 1790s, fear of an impending war with France swept the nation, and the Federalists in Congress and President John Adams enacted and enforced the Sedition Act of 1798 as well as several other laws designed to limit the liberty of residents of the United States. Following that, despite several intervening wars, the next period that that saw a significant attempt to restrict free speech was during the Civil War under Abraham Lincoln. Following those two periods, Stone also inspects our record during the first World War and the red scare shortly thereafter, during World War II, during the Cold War, and during the Vietnam War.

In each era, Stone offers a history of the conflict and the U.S. government’s response to dissent during the conflict, focusing on the expression of dissent through free speech in particular. Each section additionally includes Stone’s analysis of the response by three institutions that make up the federal government: the Congress, the executive branch, and the courts. For each, he examines the actions they took and the justifications for each and measures how well the reasoning holds up in hindsight. Far from being knee-jerk criticism of repression, Stone understand the tendency to clamp down on dissent during times of crisis and offers reasoned analysis giving much consideration to the understanding of the First Amendment at the time. In a couple of cases, Stone also examines the responses by state institutions, non-governmental bodies, and individuals.

Abraham Lincoln first rose to national prominence during the Mexican-American War as a result of his criticism of President James Polk’s handling of that war. Just a few years later Lincoln’s own election to the Presidency kicked off the war; Southern States would not accept a Republican as President. If ever there was a war where dissent and free speech could cause danger, it was the Civil War. Loyal subjects and rebels were mixed together, sometimes splitting families. On the other hand, the proximity of the belligerents made it much harder to suppress free speech. At a minimum, smuggling printed materials across the border and the lines was easy. Lincoln also did not want to risk losing more border states by clamping down hard.

However, his military wasn’t quite so deliberative. In the biggest free speech incident of the war, Congressman Clement Vanlandigham violated a anti-sedition order promulgated by the military commander in Ohio, Ambrose Burnside, without consulting Lincoln. Once done, Lincoln felt he had no choice but to uphold his military. Even though he would not have prosecuted the case, he wrote thoughtful epistles justifying the action in response to criticism from his opponents. Generally, he allowed criticism of his policies to appear unabated, and the opposition pilloried him.

One of the most surprising things to me, is that in each period Stone discusses with the exception of the Cold War, there was effective deliberation in government in the handling of free speech restrictions. By that, I mean that Congress and/or the President held back on some of the most extreme restrictions. The Sedition Act of 1798 had an explicit sunset provision. Lincoln only suspended habeas corpus in limited and narrow circumstances, Congress toned down President Wilson’s requests for nearly unlimited power to control dissent, and Roosevelt’s Attorneys General Murphy, Jackson, and Biddle were committed civil libertarians who held in check Roosevelt’s tyrant tendencies. Still, however effective these people were, they were not nearly effective enough and extreme abuses stifled opposition during each of these periods.

I have only one criticism of this book, which was extremely informative and thought-provoking in it’s entirety. And by thought provoking, I do not mean Stone confirms my civil libertarian tendencies. Quite the opposite in fact. After reading the book, I can understand the legal logic that justifies these restrictions, even if I completely disagree with the need to subdue dissent during wartime except in extremely narrow circumstances (e.g., revealing troop movements). My one criticism has to do with the formatting. Stone uses extensive footnotes and endnotes. I’m a habitual footnote reader, particularly when both endnotes and footnotes are used in the same work. If it appears in a footnote, it’s probably interesting to read. Most of the footnotes here were. But the asterisk marking most of them never stood out well enough for me to notice it. So I’d get to the bottom of the page with the footnote, and then need to rescan the page looking for the text to which the footnote related. Really really annoying.

Title: Perilous times: free speech in wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism
Author: Geoffrey R. Stone
Award: 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Format: Paperback
Length: 558 p. (730 p. including notes and index)
Publication date: 2005
ISBN-10: 0-393-32745-0
Subject: Freedom of speech — United States — History
LC classification: JC591 .S76 2004

I tend to be a sucker for stories of the righteous being downtrodden and still winning. It’s no surprise that I liked this story. In particular, I liked it because I am really tired of reading stories about those the Bush administration and it’s flunkies beat down, and when called to task the Bush administration wins. Well, this time they didn’t win. Legally, James Yee won on all points. He was still drummed out of the Army, but that happens often enough for simple office politics.

For those who didn’t follow the story in the newspapers, here’s the basic story as recounted in this book. James Yee is the son of a Chinese immigrant family (I can’t recall offhand whether it was his parents or grandparents who came to the U.S.) who joined the Army and attended West Point after graduating high school. While at West Point, he converted to Islam. After his enlistment was finished (aided by early discharge bonuses when the military downsized in the early 1990s) he attended an Islamic school in Damascus, seeking to be an imam (which I believe it the equivalent of a priest). When he returned to the U.S., he re-enlisted in the Army becoming a chaplain. Shortly afterward, the U.S. plunged into the war on terror and re-christened the Guantánamo base (famous from A Few Good Men) as a prison for foreigners swept up. Since most of the prisoners are Muslim, the Army assigned a Muslim chaplain to the camp. Yee was the third of those.

Despite 10 months of glowing reports on his work there, Yee was viewed with suspicion by his Christian and nationalistic superiors. He was arrested when he left the base on leave, then held in solitary confinement for 76 days. Despite bombastic rhetoric about his ties to Islamic terrorists, he was never charged with any terrorist crimes, and eventually the charges for the minor crimes were dismissed. Basically, his life was turned upside down for nothing.

The story is compelling, and so is the book. Yee’s ghostwriter, Aimee Molloy, has done a fine job of pacing the text. Boring and repetitive tales of nothing from before Yee’s enlistment aren’t included. There’s enough to give you an idea of what Yee was like. The bulk of the book is what life was like working in Guantánamo. And of course, the latter part of the book regards Yee’s legal woes.

Title: For God and country: faith and patriotism under fire
Author: James Yee, Aimee Molloy
Imprint / publisher: PublicAffairs / Perseus
Format: Hardcover
Length: 240 p. (includes index)
Publication date: 2005
ISBN-10: 1-58648-369-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-58648-369-2
Subject: Yee, James
Subject: United States. Army — Chaplains — Biography
Subject: Chaplains, Military — United States — Biography
Subject: Chaplains, Military — Islam
Subject: Muslims — United States — Biography
Subject: Chinese Americans — Biography
Subject: Guantánamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba)
Subject: War on Terrorism, 2001- — Social aspects
Subject: Muslims — Civil rights — United States — Case studies
Subject: False imprisonment — United States — Case studies
LC classification: UH23.Y44 2005

This book I picked up for 75¢ at the Friends of the Seattle Public Library book sale last year. Stuart Scheingold wrote this treatise in 1974. The Politics of Rights is a look at the means and theoretical effectiveness of cause lawyering. Scheingold is a political scientist. This is an academic book. It’s dry. It’s boring. I skimmed some parts. Most of it was uninteresting, except for where he identifies why simply winning a rights case isn’t very effective, and but that having a judicial decision can be used as a base to energize and mobilize a constituency. Part three of the book examines the movers of shakers of activist lawyer (though not really by name). He breaks them down into three groups and then analyzes whether or not those groups will be effective in the long run. He concludes that a severe lack of excitement, numbers and funding will keep activist lawyers to a severe minority on the side of American politics. I mention this because I wonder what Sheingold thinks of this prediction 30 years later. Not sure I want to read any of his later books to find out if he changed his mind though. As I said, dry dry dry. Like the footnotes though. May go look up some of the book used in footnotes.

Author: Stuart A. Scheingold
Title: The politics of rights : lawyers, public policy, and political change
Publisher: Yale University Press
Format: Paperback
Publication date: 1974
Length: xiv, 224 p.
ISBN: 0-300-01811-8
Subject: Law — United States
Subject: Law and politics
Subject: Civil rights — United States
Subject: Lawyers — United States
LC classification: KF380 .S3