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Quilts and war; breastfeeding; colleges with a conscience
Passing on the Comfort: The War, the Quilts and the Women Who Made a Difference
by An Keuning-Tichelaar and Lynn Kaplanian-Buller '72 (Good Books, 2005. 160 pages, $14.95 paperback)
During World War II, a young Dutch Mennonite woman, An Keuning-Tichelaar, and her husband were active in the nonviolent resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and sheltered many people in their home, including Jewish refugees, members of the resistance and injured civilians. After the war they opened their home to Mennonite refugees who had fled Russia. All of those who took refuge in their home were offered food, clothing, shelter and comfort. The refugees slept on and under warm homemade quilts and comforters made by North American Mennonites and sent to Europe by the Mennonite Central Committee.
This book pieces together the stories of An Keuning-Tichelaar and the Dutch Mennonites with the story of Lynn Kaplanian-Buller '72, co-owner of the American Book Center in Amsterdam, who rediscovered the quilts years later. She is also active in the Dutch Mennonite Relief organization.
The book includes the story of Russian Mennonites in search of a new home after the war and the commitment of the Mennonite Central Committee and the North Americans to provide relief, comfort and hope.
Sports and politics
Dave Zirin '96 loves sports. He just hates the way they're packaged and manipulated, especially since 9-11.
Dave Zirin '96 is the author of the new book What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States (Haymarket Books). The title is taken from Muhammed Ali's taunt of his opponents in the ring. Ali's refusal to use his given name, Cassius Clay, was a watershed moment in the 1960s when sports and politics collided, Zirin argues.
Zirin's work has been praised by a number of people from sports commentator Frank Deford to consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Zirin is editor of the Prince George's Post in Maryland and the author of the weekly sports column "Edge of Sports," which appears at edgeofsports.com. He spoke with Doug Stone, director of college relations and a former journalist who teaches a journalism course at Macalester.
How did you get into sportswriting?
I was raised on my father's stories of Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers, so sports and its history has always been part of my life. But as I started to get my head around politics, I became more and more frustrated with mainstream sportswriting. Too much of it was like cafeteria food: easily consumed and easily forgotten (Kagin excluded of course). Too much of it was also bled of any political content, when I believe sports is among the most deeply political spheres in our society.
How did you develop your style and your take? So few sportswriters offer the political analysis you do.
We are taught that politics are just what happens on C-SPAN between two guys in bad haircuts. But politics are in every aspect of our life from the air we breathe to the quality of our schools. Politics also deeply imbue the wide world of sports. I find this intersection fascinating, but it is often either ignored or openly disparaged by mainstream sportswriters.
What motivated you to write this book?
I started my column "Edge of Sports" with a readership of just my brother-in-law and me and on a good week, my partner Michele. But I posted it to the Web--thanks to the Web design skills of fellow Mac alum Nico Berry '96--and I found that there were other people, thousands of them like me, who were sports fans but completely alienated from both the apolitical and even right-wing way sports is sometimes hustled.
What was there about Macalester that helped prepare you for what you do now?
Macalester was a great school to be different, iconoclastic, rebellious and free to explore the intellectual underpinnings of those impulses. I think they would balk at being called mentors, but the instruction of Professors Peter Rachleff and Clay Steinman has been absolutely invaluable--more so than they surely realize. Peter taught me that a life at the service of social justice was a life well spent and Clay showed me how culture and politics don't exist in vacuums but actively feed and shape one another in a dynamic fashion.
In the book, and in your work in general, you bemoan the use of sports as a patriotic activity, particularly post-9-11. Why is that so bothersome to you?
This is the only country in the world that feels the need to compel their sports audience to stand and salute before watching a game. It's been this way for decades, but since 9-11, as patriotism has been manipulated to support what I believe to be an immoral and illegal invasion and occupation in Iraq, many sporting events take the character of consolidating support for "the troops," which is a cover for supporting the war. Why was [former NFL player] Pat Tillman's funeral broadcast nationally? Why has a second anthem been added to baseball games during the 7th inning stretch? Why were a week of "Sports Centers" (on ESPN) broadcast from Kuwait? And most critically, why is none of this challenged, either by sportscasters or fans who may oppose the war?
You talk about the artistry of sports--the double play, a Lebron James pass, a Mia Hamm goal. Why is that important?
I absolutely and unabashedly love sports. I just hate the way it's packaged and manipulated. Sports to me is something that can rise to the level of art. It's beautiful. I want my book to be a contribution toward reclaiming sports, and disconnecting the beauty from a lot of the racist, sexist garbage that sticks to it like barnacles on a boat.
You defend Barry Bonds in the steroid controversy. Have you taken heat for that?
Yes, I received thousands of e-mails from Bonds haters, despising the fact that anyone would dare defend him. But the only actual evidence that Bonds used anything comes from leaked grand jury testimony. He also has flourished into his early 40s, when most steroid users crumple by their mid-30s. People just don't like him because he isn't warm and cuddly, and he's outspoken and black. That doesn't mean one is a racist if they don't like Barry Bonds. He certainly gives enough reasons not to like him, but it's an element and one worth challenging.
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Colleges with a Conscience
by the Princeton Review and Campus Compact (Princeton Review, 2005. $16.95 paperback)
Macalester is one of 81 "colleges with a conscience" listed and described in this guidebook, which is intended to help prospective students "find a school that won't force you to choose between your desire to make the world a better place and your desire to succeed in college." The guide was prepared by the Princeton Review, which helps students with their college choices, and Campus Compact, a coalition of more than 900 college and university presidents committed to supporting the public purposes of higher education.
The book says Macalester "boasts not only a strong reputation, but also an uncommonly unified spirit of social and political awareness." The Community Service Office, which serves as the campus' catalyst for civic engagement efforts, "will keep growing bigger and better, thanks to a plan to launch a new and improved Center for Global Citizenship," the book notes.
In addition to helping students, the book's editors hope to "applaud the good work being done by colleges and give visibility to their civic efforts--public work that's often invisible to people outside of higher education."
Spilled Milk: Breastfeeding Adventures and Advice from Less-Than-Perfect Moms
by Andy Steiner '90 (Rodale, 2005. 178 pages, $12.95 paperback)
"Five years ago, I was a breastfeeding expert," Andy Steiner writes in the introduction to her book. "I'd read all the books, I'd taken a class and I'd even observed other mothers in action. I was a pro. Then my daughter was born."
A journalist and former senior editor at Utne Reader whose work has appeared in Ms., Glamour, Mademoiselle, Self and Modern Maturity, Steiner set out to write a book about the realities of breastfeeding by interviewing women around the country about their breastfeeding experiences. She asked each to provide tips to nursing mothers. Steiner, a mother of two who describes her own breastfeeding experiences, weaves together their practical, humorous and non-preachy stories and advice for "a rollicking discussion about what can only be called the world's first fast food."
Justice in the Making: Feminist Social Ethics
by Beverly Wildung Harrison '54, Elizabeth M. Bounds, Ed., Pamela Brubaker, Marilyn J. Legge, Ed., Rebecca Todd Peters (Westminster John Knox Press, 2004. 252 pages, $24.95 paperback)
Beverly Harrison has long fought for women and others at the margins, challenging the ways in which women's intellectual contributions, gifts of ministerial leadership, reproductive capacity and sexual identity have been defined. This collection of essays and lectures, presented over the course of her career, demonstrates the progression of her contribution to the field of Christian ethics and the evolution of her thought in response to changing social realities. Throughout the book, conversations between Harrison and the editors update and amplify her views.
Harrison is Carolyn Williams Beaird Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where she taught for more than 30 years. Her books include Our Right to Choose and Making the Connections.
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