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Friday, 07 December 2007 |
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Up Close and Personal
By Clint Hyde
My kids and family are accustomed to my response every year when they ask what I want for Christmas. I always tell them I want world peace and harmony. Since they can't deliver on that request, they press for more specific, concrete suggestions, and I always tell them I have all the things in the world I could imagine needing, but experiences are welcome. They can't afford to send me on an African safari or Himalayan trek, so I remind them that books and music are my favorite experiences. I read at least one book a week and listen to music enough to wear out some CDs.
Are you looking for some good books to share with that special person? Need suggestions, since you haven't invested in the History Book Club or Quality Paperback Club? You don't get the New York Times Sunday Book Review? Here are a couple winners that I have read this last year.
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln won author Doris Kearns Goodwin the Pulitzer Prize. I assure you there is a lot more than history in these 754 pages. Goodwin weaves together the biographical details of the rival candidates for president in the 1860 election. All of them were more privileged and some more experienced on the level of national politics than Lincoln. She accounts for his winning the presidency to an extraordinary ability to “put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.” He created the most unusual cabinet by bringing all these political opponents together and keeping them engaged in the discussion of important decisions throughout his term and the Civil War. Lincoln was definitely not a “yes” man. He could handle dissent, since he would put the question of the day to his cabinet of rivals, sit back and listen to the discussion, and then make his decision. Sometimes his appointees threatened to quit because they did not like his ultimate decision, but in the end they recognized his ability to sort through the arguments and they appreciated his decisiveness. Some even considered him a friend after a couple of years.
Reading this book reminded me of a business consultant I met a couple years ago. He conducted workshops for political groups and businesses, using historical decisions as the basis for analysis. He showed the participants how flawed and how brilliant some politicians and business leaders acted when making important decisions for the future of their company or this nation. You don't know anyone who might benefit from receiving this book for a year-end or holiday gift? Look around, you might see a business person, developer or local elected official who could make a difference to our community after reading Team of Rivals. Surprise them with a gift that might keep on giving.
The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan, traces the source of all the ingredients for four different kinds of meals, from the planting of the vegetables, the feeding of the animals, the slaughter and the preparation and cooking. On the surface this might sound rather boring, but Pollan takes a journalistic approach and allows the readers to draw their own conclusions. He starts with a Chicken McNuggets meal from McDonald's, moves on to an “all natural, organic” meal from a Utopian farm in Virginia and later discovers how to shoot a wild boar in Northern California and add self-harvested truffles to this wild game. Ultimately he describes in great detail the process of buying a calf on a farm in North Dakota, following it to the feedlot and through the slaughterhouse. The reader will learn a lot about the “industrial complex” of food production. Corn can sound downright evil once you discover the indigestible properties of corn for humans as well as livestock. I won't reveal how corn has come to invade almost three fourths of the food chain, but Pollan makes a compelling argument for deciding for yourself what you want to eat. “You are what you eat” is more than just watching out for pesticides and selecting organic, free range chickens.
Here’s a tip for those of you who like to order online. You all know the challenge of determining if the company you are buying from will use a courier or the United States Postal Service. There is a new complication I have encountered twice in recent months. DHL/Airborne has a new service called DHL at home delivery. I have watched on the tracking website as my package traveled from Ohio through LAX and suddenly was handed over to the Post Office branch in Van Nuys. I gave the shipper my complete address with physical location, plus Post Office box on the second line, plus the four digits of my postal box after the Mammoth Lakes zip code, but DHL only puts the physical address on the label. They are, after all, a courier service. I got the e-mail notification that my package was delivered to the Post Office in the afternoon while I was at work. I arrived there at 8:30 a.m. the next morning to learn my shipment was turned around and left on a truck a half hour earlier. Needless to say I have informed this company that I will no longer order anything from them if they insist on using DHL.
Happy shopping!
Clint Hyde left home at an early age and lived in Europe before traveling the rest of the world, working in international marketing. He moved to Mammoth in 2002 to pursue mountain biking, snowboarding, backcountry and cross-country skiing, hiking and backpacking. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent policies and opinions of the staff or owners of the Mammoth Times. Reader response is encouraged. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 21 December 2007 )
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