Racism and Meth, YIPPEEEEE.

Here's a quick chat about two books I'm about three quarters of the way through. The first one is Native Son, by Richard Wright. I didn't know anything going into this one. It was on my list, and it was 2 bucks on the Kindle store, and I was like OK.

I'm not sure if that's the ideal way to get into it, but since it's the way I did it, I refuse to tell you more than only the barest of details. It's a protest novel about racism in 1940. It's based loosely on a true story, but I don't want to tell you what story it's based on, because then you won't have the same experience that I did and isn't that what life is all about? All of us doing things the same way and then meeting again and comparing notes about how similar our experiences were?

YES.

OK, I'll tell you one thing. It's almost unrelentingly bleak. So much so, that by the third act I was like, Yeah, Ima take a break. So I started Methland, by Nick Reding. Because the only thing that cheers me up more than crushing racism and terrible decisions is maybe the worst drug known to man.

This one I will talk a lot about. Because I can't stop thinking about it.

Welcome to Oelwein, Iowa. Population, about 6,000.

Anyway, yeah. Oelwein, in 2005 or so, we're definitely talking about Trouble with a capital P and that rhymes with pool. 

"I say your young men'll be fritterin!"

But listen, this is no time to be making Music Man jokes, 'cause guys, something in the rural U S of A is broken. 

I was going to look up some of the facts in this book, because they are straight up harrowing. But I thought instead I'd stick with some of the anecdotal information. For example: in Iowa they had to ban bake sales. Why? Because too many kids were bringing in treats with so much meth in them that they were making other kids sick. These aren't intentional drug-laced brownies like they have at your better dispensaries in California. Oh no, this is incidental to the cooking process in their homes.

Or how about this one? Two kids were found to have the most meth residue in their hair of any human being tested. Why, do you ask? Because their parents found a new way to squeeze just a bit more of the powder out of their coffee filters. It's by microwaving them. And, you know, it's the only microwave in the house. And most folks who are cooking meth don't spend a lot of time cooking meals for their children on the stove. 

According to Reding, between 1998 and 2002, meth production and sales went up by 1,000 percent. In 1998, 321 meth labs were busted in Iowa. In 2005 it was 1,370. And not just Iowa. Missouri topped the charts with 2,087. And here's the worst stat in the whole book: the Oelwein chief of police at the time estimated that for each lab found, another 10 existed without their knowing. If you take that number and look at 2003 and 2004, when 700 labs were dismantled in Iowa alone, it means that "at least 7,000 kids were living every day in homes that produce five pounds of toxic waste, which is often just thrown in the kitchen trash, for each pound of usable methamphetamine."

Methland doesn't just dwell on Oelwein, though, or meth all by itself. Reding looks at the impact of meth as a whole on the nation. The way it's been reported on in the news. The pharmaceutical companies' long fight against regulations on pseudoephedrine, and their number one defender:

From the book:

What the Hatch camp wanted in 1995 was proof that pseudoephedrine was being used to make meth. DEA had what it thought to be incontrovertible verification: nearly a quarter of all the meth superlabs it had dismantled in the last year had already made the switch from ephedrine to pseudoephedrine. Even in labs that were still using the old method, agents had founds bills of lading for bulk orders of pseudo, a further indication that the market was in the midst of a dynamic shift. Hatch, though, didn’t consider this compelling enough, and he tabled the proposal by calling for more investigation.

Yeah Orrin! He finally did buckle, though. Sort of.

It wasn’t until the spring of 1996 that Hatch and Haislip finally agreed on language that was acceptable to both the government and the pharmaceutical companies: vendors of pill-form pseudoephedrine would be subject to DEA licensing and bookkeeping unless those pills were sold in the now-ubiquitous clear-plastic containers with aluminum backing. Hatch’s logic, it seems, was that the narco-empire built around methamphetamine would crumble in the face of the tamper-proof blister pack.

Oh. Um.

You guys, I'm just getting to the surface here. This is a book you should read. This stuff is CRAY. And I haven't even gotten to the Mexican drug cartels and their use of meat-packing plants as the perfect cover for dealers. Or Tom Arnold's meth-empire-building sister. Or the Greek restaurant that serves mostly pizza, and not even Greek pizza!!

The Very Genius of War

"Few men ever met with so many hairbreadth escapes in so short a period of time." 

-General Horatio Gates 

Check it out. That monument is of a boot. Just a boot. The inscription reads as follows:

"Erected 1887 By
JOHN WATTS de PEYSTER
Brev: Maj: Gen: S.N.Y.
2nd V. Pres't Saratoga Mon't Ass't'n:
In memory of
the "most brilliant soldier" of the
Continental Army
who was desperately wounded
on this spot the sally port of
BORGOYNES GREAT WESTERN REDOUBT
7th October, 1777
winning for his countrymen
the decisive battle of the
American Revolution
and for himself the rank of
Major General."

No name, though. That's because that "most brilliant soldier" was Benedict Arnold. His leg was seriously wounded in that battle, and he never fully recovered. When, after his betrayal, he asked an American prisoner "What will the Americans do if they capture me?" The prisoner supposedly responded, "They will cut off the leg which was wounded when you were fighting so gloriously for the cause of liberty, and bury it with the honors of war, and hang the rest of your body on a gibbet."

According to Steve Sheinkin, author of The Notorious Benedict Arnold, 

If Arnold had died from his wounds at the Battle of Saratoga, we would think of him today as one of the all-time great American heroes. Aside from Washington, we'd say, he did more to win our Revolution than anyone. We'd celebrate his life as one of the best action stories we have -- Washington never did anything half as exciting as the march to Quebec or the Battle of Valcour Island. Sure, we'd say Arnold was unstable, tormented, a loose cannon. But he'd be our loose cannon.

He didn't die, though. Instead he's gone down in the books as one of the most well-known traitors in history.  He set out to make his name famous, he just didn't do it in the way he'd hoped.

The book also tells the story of British soldier John Andre. Who is, and bear with me here, like a James Bond without the spy skills. I'm saying he was good with the ladies. And for the most part, he seemed to have a fine time during the Revolutionary war. Except for the bit at the end.

Anyway, The Notorious Benedict Arnold isn't very long and it reads like a fine adventure story. You know in movies how the hero seems to be invulnerable to a hail of bullets and you're like what the crap? That's what this book is like, but TOTALLY TRUE. Guns were much less accurate back then, I guess, so you'd think that the guy up on a horse waving a sword around would be the easiest target, but really before rifling became a thing, war at the time was more about shooting walls of lead into walls of dudes at short range, so maybe being up high gave you an advantage.

Whatever, dude was a maniac.

From the Ashes

In the true spirit of Easter, I have decided to revive an old Facebook club, merge it with my previous blog, and make something that is somehow more delicious even then the sum of its parts. You know, like a Cadbury Egg.

Thus we witness the birth of something new, like would emerge from some kind of pagan fertility festival. Or a blackout during a Super Bowl. I bring to you HOWIE'S BOOK CLUB.

In other words, this new blog will do the same thing as my last one did, just minus the video games.

Because I am some kind of optimist, I present to you two main goals of this blog. Number one: I will pledge to you that it will be updated semi-weekly, which I think means twice a week. These updates will occur on Wednesday and Friday. They might not always be a full post, but they will always relate to the books that I'm (and hopefully you!) will be reading. That brings us to the second, and admittedly much more difficult part of this experiment. Yes, imaginary reader, you are correct in the assumption that I am going to invite you to not only read my writings, but those of the authors I'm reading at the time.

I know. It's bold. While we're being bold, though, I'm also going to invite you, the dear reader, to make your own posts if you so desire. IT IS LIKE THE ENTIRE WORLD IS FRESH AND EXCITING. Like if you were a brand-new baby, born approximately nine months after February 3, 2013. (That is a reference to those Super Bowl Blackout babies I was referencing earlier.)

Or maybe it's just like every other book club, except that since I live far away from the vast majority of those I consider dear friends, it will consist mostly of written words transferred over imaginary Internet tubes. Note: Internet tubes are not, in fact, imaginary. We will not, unfortunately, be discussing these books by a fire over a plate of cookies. At least not yet.

Since this is the kick-off post. I will now tell you what I am currently reading or have recently read. I'll be talking about these books in the coming weeks, and you should, too.

• The Notorious Benedict Arnold - Steve Sheinkin
• Native Son - Richard Wright
• Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town - Nick Reding
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin

I've been reading that last one all winter, and probably will be by next winter as well, so no rush on that one, folks. It is amazing, and very long.

I've read a few quick books that I might talk about briefly as well, but are more for fun than for my improvement as a person, so I'm less likely to expound about them. Just be prepared if at some point I say, Yo I just read another Elvis Cole book and it was super duper fun, and then you're like What gives, Howie? I didn't know we were reading that one? What gives is that WE weren't reading that one, I was. So stay out of my life.

Comments? Suggestions? Recipes?