STILL CHOOSING

The Produce Lady has raspberries and, surprise!, small wild blueberries. “The blueberries must be from Massachusetts,” says doubting Scott; “I don’t think any Maine blueberries have been harvested yet.” Maybe they’re from New Jersey, I suggest. “New Jersey only has big blueberries,” he sniffs. But he didn’t turn down a taste with a dolllop of Redi-Whip. (A dollop is more than a dot (message to Charlie) but less than a splurge). Summer is in full swing, with warm, humid, days relieved by late afternoon breezes coming across the water from the south (look across water at 60 degree angle on webcam) and keeping any bugs away from porch-sitters with books.

Fig. #38. Busy Tenants Harbor on a perfect day. (Surely they’ll read later.)

And what books are they reading, you ask? Extending the reader cocoon idea of the last previous post, Farhad Manjoo in True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society writes of people who not only choose to read that which agrees with their existing positions, but they read into situations, e.g. referee calls or debates, support for their preconceptions. This seeing or choosing whatever you are already looking for may be the biggest reason to oppose the FBI having access to the titles of your book purchases, library choices, or Google searches, because whatever your reasons for so choosing or searching, the fibbies are looking for evildoing and will assign their evildoer reasons to your choices.

Nicholas D. Kristof (NYTimes 4-17-08) calls Farhad Manjoo’s “terrific new book…the best political book so far this year” and notes that though idea intransigence (my term) afflicts both conservatives and liberals, a “raft of studies shows that it is a particular problem for conservatives.” (“Well,” a chorus of nuancing liberals sighs, “duh.”)

Fig. #39. A stepped rock garden or an iffy rock wall?

Op-Ed columnist Kristof suggests that we get our minds in able-to-argue fighting trim by also choosing from the salad bar of good book options “unpalatable rubbish from fools.” But before I suggest a list of finalists for the Broccoli Prize, I suggest reading novels that include several points of view on a critical issue. For example, Sharyn McCrumb’s Appalchian novels, e.g. The Ballad of Frankie Silver (capital punishment), David Payne’s Gravesend Light (abortion and an unrelated cover picture of Marshall Point Light House), C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett novels, e.g. Free Fire: A Joe Pickett Novel (Wyoming environment) or (Senator) James Webb‘s Lost Soldiers (Vietnam).

These multi-perspective novels on polarizing topics are hard to identify — before reading them which takes a very long time. If you can think of other examples and thereby save family reunions from rants, wagging fingers, silence, and no dessert, please send a comment.