“I was kidnapped by a stranger at age eleven. For eighteen years, I was kept in a backyard and not allowed to say my own name.”
A STOLEN LIFE is the sh“I was kidnapped by a stranger at age eleven. For eighteen years, I was kept in a backyard and not allowed to say my own name.”
A STOLEN LIFE is the shocking story of the kidnapping of a young eleven year old girl and the mental anguish she suffered over an eighteen year period at the hands of a mentally ill pedophile, a pervert, a rapist and his enabling wife. Somehow, despite the near complete capture of her mind and soul through Stockholm Syndrome, she managed to escape to return to her family, her mother, her siblings and the real world.
The degree to which Jaycee Dugard’s story is reduced to something so shockingly banal and the fact that Phillip and Nancy Garrido’s criminality is so ordinary, so complete, so overwhelming, and so under-the-radar as to escape detection for such an astonishing length of time in the obvious sight of the entire world including law enforcement and parole officers beggars the imagination. Sadly, it is this very banality and ordinariness that turns A STOLEN LIFE into something that is merely disgusting and cringeworthy without being a story that demands to be read.
If Phillip and Nancy Garrido ever again see the light of day, there is simply no justice in this world.
In late 1929, “ … the Depression began on that manic morning of October 29, to be known forever as Black Tuesday, …”
“… when the easy, buoyant era of In late 1929, “ … the Depression began on that manic morning of October 29, to be known forever as Black Tuesday, …”
“… when the easy, buoyant era of the twenties – the roaring, turbulent, high-flying twenties – came to a dead stop. Yet those fevered October days were more than symptoms of a deeper malady, undiagnosed and untreated.”
And I had absolutely NO idea of the magnitude and depth of those issues – hard-core right wing fascism that threatened to blossom into actual support of Hitler’s Nazism; a paranoid fear of socialism or public programs which knee-jerk reactionaries labeled as Communism; xenophobia and anti-immigrant racism; the enormity of the already well-developed divide between what Hugh MacLennan would characterize as THE TWO SOLITUDES, Quebec, French Canada and the Roman Catholic Church versus English Canada and all comers; the nasty, near criminal nature of Old Boy politics at municipal, provincial, and federal levels; the decade long (and more) domination of federal politics by RB Bennett and Mackenzie King; illegal right-wing police tactics from both municipal forces and the RCMP; work farms for unemployed men more properly described as prisons and military concentration camps; hunger marches, soup kitchens, protests and riots quelled with police batons and truncheons, endemic unemployment, grasshoppers, dust bowls and multi-year crop failures; … I repeat, I had NO idea!
And, suddenly, on September 8, 1939, “ … Parliament declared that a state of war existed between Canada and Nazi Germany. On that day, the Great Depression can be said to have ended. For war, which would bring mutilation and death, would also bring jobs … Suddenly a country that had been unable to provide work for a fifth of its people found work for all. The chronicle of the Great Depression is a catalogue of ironies, but that is the bitterest irony of all.”
The greatest irony of all is that Canada’s conversion to a left-leaning country with universal government paid health care, unemployment insurance, social welfare programs of all stripes, Old Age Security, Family Allowance, minimum wage laws, accident and sickness insurance, amended income tax laws to correct serious inequalities in wealth distribution, laws limiting hours of work, and a host of other ideas which in the twenties and during the Depression would have been reviled as much dreaded Communism is attributable to Canada’s decision to participate in World War II, to combat the Nazism which so many in Canada at the time seemed to genuinely support and believe in. The bullet that we dodged in our development of the policies of that new nation was not a mere infantryman’s bullet fired from the trenches. It was a full-fledged bomb that any tank in the coming war would have been happy to launch at a Canadian population well on its way to right-wing hatred and governmental autocracy.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION should be considered as mandatory reading in any Canadian history course. It’s not light reading and it’s not a short, easy read by any stretch but it’s informative, it’s compelling, it’s gripping, and it’s genuinely eye-opening. Thank you, Pierre Berton.
Paul Weiss
An interesting personal observation:
One of the developments of that decade was the formation of the CCF, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation – the precursor of today’s NDP - a left-leaning political party whose objective was to formulate and effect change through parliament in the manner of Britain’s still youthful Labour Party. With a rather rueful shake of my head, I can recall ever so clearly my deceased father’s (he was born in 1930) pejorative scornful reference to that party “CCFers? Common Cow F—kers!” I guess that will tell you clearly enough what he thought of any new-fangled socialist ideas at the time!...more
The shocking criminal history of American capitalist greed and the sub-prime mortgage crisis that rocked the world's markets!
Make no mistake. THE BIG The shocking criminal history of American capitalist greed and the sub-prime mortgage crisis that rocked the world's markets!
Make no mistake. THE BIG SHORT is a non-fiction piece of American history, it’s a story of American culture, it’s a complex reality tale of the structure of the US economy and its financial markets, it’s a shocking revelation of the negligence of US regulatory agencies and their lack of oversight of the markets for which they were responsible, but, more than anything else, THE BIG SHORT should be characterized as a true-crime dramatization of what was arguably the grandest of grand thefts in the history of the world!
The self-entitled attitudes of the moneyed class in the riotous aftermath of the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage derivative market was simply appalling:
“The ability of Wall street traders to see themselves in their success and their management in their failure would later be echoed, when their firms, which disdained the need for government regulation in good times, insisted on being rescued by government in bad times. Success was individual achievement; failure was a social problem.”
The powers that be could have stepped “in at any time to prevent individual American subprime mortgage borrowers from failing. The powers that be never did that, of course. Instead they stepped in to prevent the failure of the big Wall Street firms that had contrived to bankrupt themselves by making a lot of dumb bets on subprime borrowers.”
“The Wall Street firm became a black box. The shareholders who financed the risk taking had no real understand of what the risk takers were doing, and, as the risk taking grew ever more complex, their understanding diminished.”
But as to laying of criminal charges and the prosecution of traders and corporations and their boards of directors?? Don’t be ridiculous. It didn’t happen then and, to this day, if hard right-wing Republican politicians continue to have their way in government thanks to millions of starry-eyed, gullible, misinformed voters who imagine themselves as the next possible billionaire on the block, it never will happen. Strict regulation of financial markets remains a pipe dream!
“… the unwillingness of the US government to allow the bankers to fail was less a solution than a symptom of a still deeply dysfunctional financial system.”
My mind is still reeling as I try to absorb the reality of a US political, legislative, judicial and regulatory system that betrayed its citizenry by the refusal to recognize the criminality behind the virtually complete collapse of markets in 2008 and the necessity for steps to ensure it doesn't happen again!
“An almost endless series of depredations with human depravity at its worst.”
“The feud began in the spring of 1847 and only a few hours after James Do“An almost endless series of depredations with human depravity at its worst.”
“The feud began in the spring of 1847 and only a few hours after James Donnelly, an Irish immigrant first arrived in Lucan from his native Tipperary. It last nearly thirty-three years; was marked with murders, gang wars, highway robbery, mass arson, derailed trains, mutilations and barbarisms paralleling the Dark Ages.”
When it comes to a compelling portrayal of out-of-control, psychopathic criminality, Truman Capote’s IN COLD BLOOD or Ann Rule's THE STRANGER BESIDE ME pale and, frankly, look like Sunday outings in the park compared to Thomas P Kelley’s THE BLACK DONNELLYS. When Kelley outlines the shocking degree to which the Lucan community was held so completely in thrall that absolutely nobody had the courage to follow through with laying of criminal charges or acting in court as witnesses to the Donnelly multi-year reign of terror (even when law enforcement itself actually mustered the wherewithal to step in and attempt to assist), readers will have to pick up their jaws from the floor and shake their heads in frank disbelief.
The termination of this feud came about on February 4, 1880, when a vigilante mob (aided by more than a few glasses of Dutch courage) slaughtered the entire family in a bloody rampage which Toronto’s The Globe (the 19th century version of The Globe and Mail) characterized as “the blackest crime ever committed in the Dominion”. That’s as may be, from a strictly legal point of view, (said I with raised eyebrows as I read it) but I don’t think anyone, then or now, was shedding any tears or expressing any commiseration over the mistreatment of the Donnelly family. You'll never find a better example of the age old aphorism, "An eye for an eye".
If you’re a fan of the true crime genre and want to indulge in a shocking piece of Canadian history, then pick up this re-issue of Thomas P Kelley’s THE BLACK DONNELLYS. Definitely a page turner.
“A classic adventure story of single-minded obsession”
Shoalt’s luscious but chilling opening paragraph of the prologue will give an adventurous, o“A classic adventure story of single-minded obsession”
Shoalt’s luscious but chilling opening paragraph of the prologue will give an adventurous, outdoor-minded (and jealous, if I may say so) reader an excellent idea of the treats in store in ALONE AGAINST THE NORTH:
“Ahead of us lay the pitiless expanse of frigid ocean known as Hudson Bay. Behind us lay countless miles of windswept tundra, trackless swamp, and impassable muskeg. Half-famished polar bears roamed the desolate coastline. It wasn’t a place one should travel alone – or at all, really.”
ALONE AGAINST THE NORTH is a gripping story that discloses the heart, the mind, the obsession, the adventures, the exploits, the skills, the determination, the courage, and the achievements of a single-minded explorer determined to chart the length of an unknown river in the James Bay lowlands of Arctic Canada. The Again River was a route which might have been traveled on extremely rare occasions at some point in Canada’s past but that had never been documented or mapped in any way. It was also a river that would mercilessly eat up a canoeist with the temerity to attempt to do so who made so much as the slightest error in judgment.
As an experienced (and, I dare say, somewhat accomplished) outdoorsman, hiker, canoeist and camper in all four seasons, I can attest to the awesome difficulty of Shoalts’ achievements on this first-time descent of a terrifying river. Part biography, part adventure story, part environmental diatribe, and part natural science essay, ALONE AGAINST THE NORTH is all a page-turning and completely compelling story. Congratulations to Adam Shoalts on the outcome and the completion of a book that is easy to heartily recommend to both experienced and wannabe outdoor adventure lovers.
“The idea arrived in the most prosaic of ways … in that summer of 1894 when he was twenty years old …”
THUNDERSTRUCK is a story of two men who, except “The idea arrived in the most prosaic of ways … in that summer of 1894 when he was twenty years old …”
THUNDERSTRUCK is a story of two men who, except for what they might have read in news articles, were almost certainly unaware of one another.
The first, Guglielmo Marconi, through a serendipitous combination of persistence, vision, self-confidence and self-promotion, narcissism, an abundance of scientific intuition based on reasonable guesswork (not, to be sure, directed by even the least amount of direct scientific research or knowledge), is now regarded as the erstwhile inventor of wireless telegraphy. He was a self-centered, driven man and, while he might have been considered a decent catch by some ladies owing to his considerable wealth and reasonably prominent social position, he was definitely a poor example of a husband and often might have even forgotten that he was actually married.
The second, Hawley Crippen, was an unlikely murderer. A meek, mild, soft-spoken and unassuming man who apparently allowed himself to be mercilessly browbeaten, henpecked and dominated by a social-climbing woman who, despite being utterly talentless, considered herself qualified for stage and theater, Crippen was, in fact, a brilliant, coldly calculating murderer with nerves of steel, who came within an ace of executing the perfect murder. Despite that, the obvious depth of his love for his second wife, was charming and clearly evoked sympathy even in the mind of the investigating detective who ultimately tracked him down and arrested him.
THUNDERSTRUCK was set in Edwardian London and Cornwall just after the turn of the century and prior to the commencement of World War I hostilities; the weather beaten and Atlantic windswept shores of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Cape Cod; in the stuffy, erudite halls of theaters presenting lectures on the latest advances in the scientific understanding of electromagnetism; in (definitely less than erudite) theaters presenting entertainments ranging from opera to bawdy vaudevillian crudités; and on board the latest and the finest trans-Atlantic cruise ships. The description of the geography and the settings in which the story took place were colorful, evocative, and often (in my opinion, at least) quite luscious. Not that it had anything to do in particular with the story in England, I was particularly taken, for example, by this portrayal of Marconi’s childhood home in Italy:
“ … a large stone box of three stories fronted with stucco painted the color of autumn wheat. Twenty windows in three rows punctuated its front wall, each framed heavy green shutters. Tubs planted with lemon trees stood on the terrace before the main door. A loggia was laced with paulownia that bloomed with clusters of mauve blossoms. To the south, at midday, the Apennines blued the horizon. As dusk arrived, the turned pink from the falling sun.”
Despite the interesting backdrop of Edwardian history conveyed with loving attention to detail, I ultimately felt that the connection between Marconi and Crippen was tenuous and forced at best solely for the purpose of shoehorning two interesting characters into a historical tale that ultimately reached no higher than the level of moderately entertaining. While I’m pleased to have read it and am happy to recommend to readers of non-fiction history, I’ll close with my opinion that THUNDERSTRUCK is not in the same league as Larson’s IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS or THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY.
I read this many, many years ago and, truth be told, I have no recollection of any details. All I recall is that I thought it was simultaneously inforI read this many, many years ago and, truth be told, I have no recollection of any details. All I recall is that I thought it was simultaneously informative, breathtaking, and heartbreaking - an extraordinary portrait of endemic racism in the USA in the 20th century. I recently read Richard Wright's NATIVE SON for the first time, so I reckon it's time to pull this one off the shelf for a re-read....more
An easy-reading but thoroughly gripping biography of a Canadian explorer
The back cover marketing blurb of the edition that I have reads in part:
“SurveAn easy-reading but thoroughly gripping biography of a Canadian explorer
The back cover marketing blurb of the edition that I have reads in part:
“Surveyor, cartographer, fur trader, adventurer, naturalist and entrepreneur, David Thompson is now recognized as one of the greatest explorers and geographers of all time.”
To that list, I would add devoted husband and father, engineer and craftsman, builder, astronomer, cultural anthropologist, writer and historian, linguist and polyglot, hunter, leader and manager, hunter, survivalist, diplomat and peacemaker, and endurance athlete extraordinaire.
While his exploits are known and at least reasonably well-documented, his extraordinary 19th century legacy and his contributions to the opening of Canada’s outrageously expansive wilderness frontiers remain understated among even well read Canadians who claim some measure of familiarity with their own history. A short and really quite exciting biography such as this one should be a part of every Canadian’s library.
CRACKILTON is the dark and definitely gritty “fictionalized” autobiography of a short period in the life of a now sCrack addiction makes an ugly story
CRACKILTON is the dark and definitely gritty “fictionalized” autobiography of a short period in the life of a now straight ( and we hope permanently “recovered”) crack addict. It’s a short read and the range of emotions that you will feel is huge when you think of how few pages the story covers and how little actually happens. You will feel hope and despair, anger, disgust, regret, sorrow, compassion, confusion, and sadness. Joy is not on the menu. CRACKILTON is interesting, informative, and provocative. It is not enjoyable for even a single moment but it’s something that people in a position of healthy and financially solid privilege should take a few hours to read.
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