Book Club Review of Angry Pigs

Posted on by

apoagWe belong to a book club called “Denver Read and Feed,” and the club takes turns selecting a fiction book for everyone to read and hosts a meeting with a sit down meal to discuss the book or whatever else anyone wants to share. It was my turn, and the book I selected was “Angry Pigs Organized Against Gerbils: The Farmer Island War.” I am the author of that book and Andrew Brown, one of the four grandchildren listed in the book as “Creative Staff and Illustrators” attended the meeting. (The other three grandchildren are Davis K. Hobbs, Clayain M. Hobbs, and Campbell E. Brown.)

One tradition of the club is for each of the members to record their comments about the book in the “official record” and to rate it from one to ten, with one being pathetic and ten being excellent. I’ll turn over the review to the members after noting that Cathy and Tara were unable to attend, but Tara provided comments and a score by email.

Steve—What can I say, I loved the book. The story was original and well structured. The illustrations were very creative as well. Great book…8

Paul—This inspired me to look into publishing one of my own books. Great collaborative effort with the grandkids. I really liked the rat and pigeon spies. It surprised me that the kids wanted there to be killed animals in the book, but kids are more precocious that I was at that age. Good job. 7

Barb—Good story and delightful idea to co-write a book, granddad and grandchildren. 7.5

Steph—My favorite part of the book is the collaboration between the generations in making the book. My favorite part of the story is when the pigs matured (evolved) enough to realize they didn’t need war to fix a problem. 7

Frank—I think the story of how the book came about was at least as good as the book. I liked the escalation of the story and how the conflict was eventually resolved. Great illustrations as well. 7

Sally—Very interesting story about war and pigs. I liked the kid-friendly treatment of topics that were, frankly, above my head. I am interested to see where the story goes—next time, more character development would make it even better. Great illustrations and collaboration! 8.5

Farrel—Of course I loved this book, since I wrote it with the grandkids. 10 (of course!)

Sheryl—Cute book—nice story—painful to watch the person write—a fun and easy read. 7.5

Tara—I absolutely loved that you got your grandchildren involved in doing a book with you. What an amazing and powerful experience for them…! On content…my favorite part was the illustrations. They are so charming, intuitive and well done. I would have liked to have been there last night to tell the illustrator(s) personally. 🙂 I agree they should be darker in the next one, if only to make their specialness more apparent. The storyline had proper conflict and a positive resolution, which was important to this story. If I had any constructive criticisms…it would be to include more storyline detailing the characters themselves and their relationships with others. That being said, however, I loved the book!!! 10

Andrew—I think the book could have used a few more explosions, but overall, I really loved the book and my first time in book club. I also had a great time writing it with my grandad. 9 (Andrew was pleased  that several book club members had him autograph his illustrations.

The composite score was 7.8, which is higher than the overall average for books read and rated by the members. Farrel and Andrew’s ratings were not included in that result. 

Information about the sequel is included in the “Continuing Adventures” link on our web site.

Rule of Thumb

Posted on by

Phrases.org.uk has some interesting discussion about the origin of this idiom. It has been incorrectly attributed to a supposed law in England in the 1700s that allowed a man to beat his wife as long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb. The origin is described as being unknown. However, it is speculated that thumbs have always been used to estimate distance by seeing how much of the object is covered by holding the thumb up and over the object. The thumb is also used to estimate the temperature of beer. The length of the thumb nail or the width of the thumb has also been used to estimate an inch.

The Litigators

Posted on by

the-litigatorsThis fiction book by John Grisham is entertaining and educational. It begins with a young lawyer working a hundred hours a week in a giant legal sweat shop snapping under the pressure, bolting out of the office, getting very drunk in the first bar he sees, and winding up in the office of two ambulance chasers based on an ad he sees about their specialty of defending drunk driving charges. The wife of the lawyer is perhaps the most understanding person on the planet, since she agrees with the decision to walk away from a job paying hundreds of thousands a year to one that pays perhaps a thousand a month. “Decision” is undoubtedly too strong of a word to describe the chain of events leading to the new job.

David Zinc’s new job is working with two men who can barely stand each other. They do have some skill at finding clients who might have a claim against someone or business that might have money. The woman who manages the office is much easier to like than either of the lawyers, and there is a crotchety dog that seems to have no role other than to occasionally growl when something irritates it.

David Zinc is portrayed as being meticulously ethical throughout the book, which might be the one part of the story some readers will find to be difficult to believe. I will say that there are some parts of the story that are predictable, but there are also some surprises.

One of the lawyers stumbles on the idea that the anti-cholesterol drug “Krayoxx” is killing people because of heart damage. He begins going anywhere there might be overly large people, such as an all-you-can-eat pizza restaurant, and hanging ads announcing the dangers of Krayoxx and offering the services of the law firm. Office activities become a constant search for people who have died after using Krayoxx or are still using the drug. The firm manages to sign up eight clients whose spouses have died and over 400 who are using the drug. They agree to join with a huge firm that has made billions in legal fees by specializing in suing drug companies.

The story that unfolds is an instructive trip through the process that is required to file and pursue a product liability suit and how the large pharmaceutical companies combat such suits. None of the three lawyers at the “boutique” law firm of Finley & Figg have ever been involved in such a suit, and there is an ominous feel to how they are spending money. They are forced to hire expensive “experts” willing to testify that a drug has caused damage regardless of whether the data actually supports such a finding. They also are burning through money from a loan on the office building to screen their living clients for heart damage. The results are not encouraging, unless the objective is to find healthy hearts.

Varrick Lab, the manufacturer of Krayoxx, identifies that that Finley &Figg is the least prepared law firm in the swarm that is gathering against them. They succeed at getting that firm’s suit to be heard quickly in the court of a federal judge who has a record of being impatient with frivolous suits. Oscar Finley, the lead lawyer for Finley and Figg collapses from a heart attack when he begins to give the opening argument and the other partner manages to cause a mistrial and accumulate $15,000 in fines and court costs by cracking a terrible joke, “Oh, the wonders of Krayoxx. Wally Figg, the remaining partner makes it through one day in court before he succumbs to alcohol and disappears. David Zinc is the last remaining lawyer to present the case for the firm, and his admirable wife agrees to set behind him and pretend to be a paralegal to give him moral support. The lawyers for the defendant seem almost compassionate about his dilemma.

David manages to make it though the case despite the horrible performance of their Russian-born “medical expert” who tries to explain why he thinks Krayoxx has damaged hearts in a mixture of Russian and broken English. The man who is supposed to serve as the next witness flees in terror before his court appearance. That leaves only the economist who presents information on how much the death of husband has cost the widow. The outcome of the trial is predictable, although David Zinc does surprise everyone in the court by making some strong points against Varrick Lab.

There are two side stories about David Zinc taking on the case of illegal immigrants being underpaid on a construction project and a Burmese couple, who are legal immigrants and whose son who is desperately brain damaged and ill from lead poisoning that resulted from ingesting paint on fake vampire fangs called “Nasty Teeth.” There is a somewhat difficult to believe story about David breaking the jaw of a man who posts anonymous blogs, including one in which he calls David’s wife a bimbo. David gets away with merely paying medical expenses.

I recommend the book and especially to people who own common stock in “big pharma.” The stocks of many of those companies are paying dividend rates that far exceed the traditional investments people have used for fixed income in the past, and there has been a rush to buy stocks that pay dividends. The book gives a running commentary on the price of Varrick Lab stock as it collapses with bad news about the lawsuit and rises when the news is better. People complain about the price of medications. The discussions of how much it costs to get a new drug approved and the litigation risks with putting it on the market made me think that the business has to be very profitable for companies to want to be in the business.

Drug Litigation and Tort Reform

Posted on by

The title of this posting represents a dilemma for the country, and I credit John Grisham’s book “The Litigator” (reviewed on this web site) with the idea for this posting. New drugs have to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after exhaustive testing, but there is no “safe” drug. Every pill anyone pops has side effects, regardless of whether it is aspirin or something used to combat pain, depression, cholesterol, or disease. People want relief from their ailments, and look to the big drug companies to provide that in the form of pills. People with loved ones who have uncommon diseases want the drug companies to spend the billions of dollars required to research possible cures. Lurking in the wings are the law firms specializing in suing drug companies after some people take their pills and suffer ill effects. The ill effects don’t even have to be associated with the pills to make the lawyers looking for cases happy. Apparently the FDA that approved the drug has no liability.

Anyone with a television understands the magnitude of the problem. Television ads are continually searching for people who willing to join a claim about a “bad drug” or a dangerous substance, such as asbestos. I’ve known that “Doug” has meothelioma for months or years now.

Tort reform is a one way of controlling the problem, but a couple of presidents have stood in the way. President Clinton vetoed legislation that had been carefully crafted to control frivolous lawsuits while allowing legitimate claimants their day in court and compensation. When a senator was asked why the bill was vetoed, the three words that were used to explain were, “The trial lawyers.”

Another president who avoided the wrath of trial lawyers was Mr. Obabma. He and his supporters in the legislature emphasized that the reason for “Obamacare” was to control escalating medical costs. One of the most obvious causes of escalating medical costs was and is the cost of litigation and costs of insurance for pharmaceutical companies and medical professionals. The final bill had nothing about tort reform despite the effort of some legislators to include language to address the problem. As to why this was so, once again, “The trial lawyers.”

Tighter Than Dick’s Hat Band

Posted on by

Answers.com says that the originated with Richard Cromwell who was the son of the English dictator Oliver Cromwell. Richard succeeded his father but was quickly deposed. The phrase is said to refer to the crown he never got to wear. Wikianswers.com has a slightly different version, saying it refers to a crown that was too tight for one of the kings. Regardless, the expression is used to describe anything that is too tight.

The Reshaping of Everyday Life: 1790 – 1840

Posted on by

Reviewed by Kathy London

reshapingI just read on livescience “Almost two-thirds of Americans [surveyed] said the …country is moving away from traditional notions of the ideal life…” We seem to have been moving away for a long time.

Jack Larkin’s book was written about a time period I assumed was stable and uneventful: America after the Revolution and before the Civil War. But Americans at the end of that period “looked back with a sense of profound change in customs, manners and social tone…. already nostalgic for vanishing ways of …life.”

Surviving artifacts at museums and historic sites suggest Americans lived a comfortable life in the late 1700s. This is far from true. Larkin offers a compelling description of the reality, often gritty, dirty, smelly, tedious, and backbreaking; but also based on deeply intertwined economic and social relationships.

An industrial economy was replacing self-sufficient farms, rural artisans, and barter. Even farming became more business-like and less communal. Trends started in the Northern cities of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, spread to Northern rural areas, then gradually to the South and West. Attitudes changed towards drinking, childrearing, education, the role of wage labor, diet, sexual habits, and slavery. While change was unevenly distributed, many Americans reshaped much of their everyday world.

Larkin includes black Americans in every section of his book with a surprising amount of detail. Almost all were slaves and their llives were as hard as you might guess. Only a few pages are devoted to Native Americans, who had been driven out of the states.

The book covers too wide a swath of life to mention all the topics in this review but I’ll discuss a few.

Americans have always been in motion. A person would live for a while at a neighbor’s to pay barter debts or earn extra resources, or spend months living with married siblings. (“Living” and “working” were synonymous.) Hired help moved frequently. Every year, close to a quarter of all Bostonians changed their residence. In one central Massachusetts community, over a third of households counted in one census moved before the next one. In frontier towns, two-thirds might move. Itinerant peddlers, tinkers, showmen, portrait painters, and various teachers roamed the roads bringing novelty to rural communities.

Settlers on the frontier might go months without seeing anyone outside their household, but in well-established communities, men and women visited neighbors daily. There were “frolics” to husk corn or raise barns, Sunday meetings, sewing circles, nursing help, and afternoon tea. Visitors would often “tarry” overnight. Socializing moved in time with agricultural work. Visits were shorter during planting and harvesting. To bring in the Northern hay crop, other activities stopped and even shops closed as everyone went to the hay fields.

Health care was one of the most egalitarian aspects of American life. The most expensive care was as (in)effective as home remedies. “Humors” were believed to be out of balance in patients and had to be corrected by inducing bleeding, blistering, purging, or puking. No wonder homeopathy became popular – at least it didn’t hurt the patient. Despite the sorry state of medicine, there was one major success: the discovery that infecting people with the mild disease cowpox protected them from smallpox.

Casual violence was part of daily life. Social ways were painfully coarse, sometimes cruel and violent, even bizarre. Drunkenness was astonishingly common. “Blood sports” showed people’s indifference to the suffering of animals. Duels were fought between gentlemen, and fights between common men could end with an eye gouged out. White Southerners lived in fear of their slaves, but “in daily reality, slaves has far more to fear from them.” The Temperance Movement, the “Second Great Awakening” of religion, and efforts by the well-off to “advance civilization” make a lot more sense given this context.

Early American homes were dingy, unadorned, and surrounded with trash. But people must have yearned for decoration. I was struck by the image of a woman, after a long day of hard labor, taking the time to sweep a pattern into the sand floor of her kitchen before going to bed.

Larkin draws on a vast array of primary sources, including diaries and journals, letters of foreign travelers, probate inventories, federal censuses, and contemporary books. I was intrigued by the unique 1798 Direct Tax records: created to support the first Federal property tax, assessors recorded every free family’s possessions and dwelling in detail.

Larkin presents a thorough picture of life across America into the 1800s, enlivened with quotes from primary sources and full of evocative details. It provides an excellent context to any other histories you may read about this era.