Review: Need some pandemic reading? These two books offer pertinent context on the plague we’re in
By Harold C. Ford Two recent reads provide some historical context for the current coronavirus pandemic: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (1999, W. W. Norton & Company) traces the long history of human pandemics to the domestication of animals. How to Hide an Empire, A Short History of the Greater United States, by Daniel Immerwahr (2019, The Bodley Head) details the racial inequities of health care and research by...
Review: “Power, Participation, and Protest in Flint, Michigan” probed in Ashley Nickels’ enlightening new book
By Robert Thomas An abiding iconic Flint visual for me is the news photo of a child holding a protest sign stating the case for what happened in Flint: “I’ve been POISONED by Policy.” The photo quickly leads to the question: “How does that happen?” Ashley E. Nickels, a professor of political science at Kent State University, offers cogent insights in her book Power, Participation, and Protest in FLINT, MICHIGAN. The...
Review: “Daring Trader” captures profound role of Jacob Smith on how Flint became Flint
By Harold C. Ford “In the signing of the 1819 treaty by the Chippewa and Ottawa, (Jacob Smith) had earned himself several hundreds of dollars in payment from the government for his secret work, while also quietly sowing the seeds for his white children to each receive hundreds of acres of desirable property where white settlement would almost certainly take place and a town (Flint) would grow.” …from The Daring Trader, Jacob...
Review: Connor Coyne’s serial Flint allegory “Urbantasm” continues with”ambitious, authentic” Book Two
By Robert R. Thomas Flint author Connor Coyne’s Urbantasm is a serial novel composed of four books. Last year I read and reviewed Book One: The Dying City (EVM July 2, 2018). So surprised had I been by Coyne’s ambitious allegorical teen noir serial novel that I approached Book Two: The Empty Room with something akin to an elderly version of the unabashed exciting curiosity the Saturday matinee movie serials at the Roxy Theater brought...
Review: Riveting Semaj Brown “bleeds fire” at Mott Warsh Gallery performance
By Jan Worth-Nelson Facing lies, atrocities and daily affronts to self-love and spiritual peace, “we have to tap that eternal spring of regenerative light,” Flint poet, artist, musician, scientist and activist Semaj Brown implored a rapt audience Aug. 21 at the Mott-Warsh Gallery, 815 Saginaw St. Brown, who moved to Flint from her hometown Detroit in 2003 after marrying local family physician James Brown, combined...
Book Review: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism–the Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
By Robert R. Thomas When entering foreign territories, orientation is the key to survival. Who is in charge? What are the rules? In her masterful analysis of the current state of global capitalism, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Shoshana Zuboff, the Charles Edward Wilson Professor emerita at Harvard Business School, puts it like this: “Who knows? Who decides? Who decides...
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