Thursday, August 29, 2019

Review: The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War by Eilleen Welsome

Eileen Welsome's The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War should be a cautionary tale for all people considering scientific and technological solutions to grave problems. People in authority -- intelligent, ambitious, competent, hard-working people who talk well, smell good and love their children -- will always place their goals above the harms their actions do to people they consider less consequential. As humanity approaches the cliff of the climate catastrophe, many beneficiaries of greenhouse gas emitting economic activities will propose technological remedies with unknown and unknowable consequences, and you can be sure that these proposals' main feature is they keep the people on top in the same relative position of privilege.

Welsome's book is like a compilation of "long-read" articles describing various aspects of the United States's military's dealings with nuclear energy during the development of the first atomic bomb and through the next few decades as it attempted to find tactical uses for nuclear weapons.

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Review: Love Thy Neighbor: A Muslim Doctor's Struggle for Home in Rural America by Ayaz Virji with Alan Eisenstock

Maya Rao reviewed Love They Neighbor: A Muslim Doctor's Struggle for Home in Rural America by Ayaz Virji with Alan Eisenstock for the Lincoln Journal Star for August 11, 2019.

So many narratives about rural America in the wake of President Donald Trump's election have been told through the eyes of the white working class. Yet Ayaz Virji's memoir as a Muslim doctor in small-town Minnesota offers a revealing perspective that challenges us to think more broadly about community and faith in Trump Country, where the author chronicles the conflicts between his calling to practice rural medicine and find acceptance in his religious identity. --- read more ---
National Public Radio published an interview with Dr. Ayaz on June 19, 2019.

I have not read the book. Find it in a nearby library.