Book: "The GI Bill, A New Deal for Veterans"
Authors: Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin
Publication date: 2009
Ten years after WWII, the Census Bureau found that 15.7 million veterans had returned to civilian life in the United States. Of that number, 12.4 million (78 percent) benefited directly from the GI Bill. When surveys were taken of American veterans, two-thirds of them answered, "The GI Bill changed my life."
That information is part of a paragraph from the book titled "The GI Bill, A New Deal for Veterans" by authors G. Altschuler and S. Blumin.
The authors note that the GI Bill became the largest government program in American history. "By providing job training, unemployment compensation, housing loans, and tuition assistance, it allowed millions of Americans to fulfill their dreams of upward social mobility."
The GI Bill, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 under the name of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, allowed soldiers coming out of the world war, following the decade of the Great Depression, to go to college, acquire job skills, buy homes, and, in essence, create a strong middle-class for a healthy U.S. economy. It was, and continues to be (to this day), an economic stimulus package in reward to veterans for service to their country.
The book provides an interesting history of American politics concerning the treatment of veterans, dating back on the continent to settlers of Plymouth in 1636 with a measure "to maintain for life any soldier maimed in the colony's service."
Several dozen veterans' benefit laws--the first in 1776--addressed the needs of soldiers and veterans of the Revolutionary War. In 1817, fifth U.S.President James Monroe proposed that Congress award pensions to Revolutionary War veterans. At first, while Union soldiers benefited from national pension laws following the Civil War, soldiers of the Confederacy had to rely on the limited resources of their home states. Eventually, the Civil War pension system was expanded to all veterans. World War I veterans waited only 12 years for the enactment of a non-service-related disability or needs-based pension, according to the book, compared to 35 years for Revolutionary War veterans and 25 years for Civil War veterans.
But the largest expansion of assistance for veterans came with the FDR New Deal program in the 1940s. And it came the fastest for the WWII veterans.
Over the next few years, with government-backed loan guarantees, 4 million vets bought homes at low interest rates and 200,000 purchased farms and businesses, according to the book. "Education and training became the great surprise of the GI Bill. A whopping 51 percent of GIs took advantage of this provision: Altogether 2.2 million attended college or university and 5.6 million opted for subcollege training." The veterans were known for taking education seriously. According to the book, a Harvard professor said, "The window-gazers and hibernators have vanished. This crowd never takes their eyes off you." A student, competing with the veterans, said, "It's books, books, books all the time. They study so hard we have to slave to keep up with them." Harvard University's president, who had once been a critic of federal funding for higher education, said the GI Bill was "a heartening sign that the democratic process of social mobility is energetically at work, piercing the class barriers which, even in America, have tended to keep a college education the prerogative of the few."
Veterans became civilians and went to college, acquired job skills and went to work, bought homes for new families, and created a middle-class in the decades to follow that was probably stronger than any other time in U.S. history. And the whole nation benefited.
"The GI Bill, A New Deal for Veterans" is interesting and insightful. I found it at Murrell Memorial Library at Missouri Valley College, but it can probably be found in libraries and bookstores through America.
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
"To Kill A Mockingbird" marks anniversary...
As this year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, I wanted to present a book review that I wrote for the Sept. 26, 1997 issue of the Mirror, the student newspaper at the University of Northern Colorado, when I served as general manager there. I had written it for "Banned Book Week" and the student editor had generously allowed for its publication. For my review at the time, I noted that it was available at UNC's Michener Library, the college bookstore, and many locations. It is available now at bookstores and libraries everywhere.
The 1962 film version, starring the great Gregory Peck, is also excellent. (It was a good year for movies with serious themes. Other films that same year included "The Miracle Worker" about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, "Days of Wine and Roses" about alcoholism, "Lawrence of Arabia," "Long Day's Journey Into Night," "Bird Man of Alcatraz," "Lolita" and "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?")
I could also mention a lighter moment in education one time when I asked students to tell me what book Harper Lee had written. One student responded, "To Kill A Salesman." Probably its sequel was "Death of a Mockingbird," as I realized that the student had mixed up the titles of Lee's "Mockingbird" and Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman." Needless to say, education is an ongoing process. !!!! Anyway, here is my book review...
When Atticus Finch gives his children an air rifle, he tells them that they should never kill a mockingbird. Providing beautiful music to the world, mockingbirds do no harm to anyone, he says.
Harper Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "To Kill A Mockingbird" is a story about two children and the powerful lessons they learn from their father and from the racial inequities within a small Alabama town in the 1930s. Told from the narrative viewpoint of a 6-year-old girl, the story follows a lawyer's attempt to seek justice for a black man who is falsely accused of raping a white woman. The lawyer is the narrator's widowed father. He represents justice in a town where the Southern culture has preserved its corrupting traditions of racial and class prejudice.
The book emphasizes that children are born with an instinct for justice, but learn prejudice through socialization. Respect for the individual is also addressed in the relationship between the children and the father. Throughout the story, the father's messages to his children are a constant and deliberate attempt to lift them above the community's racism. "You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them," he says to his children. He tells them to judge people by their character and not the color of their skin, which is one of the strongest messages of the Civil Rights Movement.
Another lesson in this book is about real courage. Among many instances, the novel includes a scene of the lawyer, Atticus, facing an angry, gun-carrying mob as he sits unarmed in front of the jail where his client is being held.
Author Harper Lee, a descendant of General Robert E. Lee, undoubtedly rankled white Southern readers at a time that coincided with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In more recent times, the books has drawn anger from black readers who are particularly offended by the use of racial epithets by many of the characters. Since 1980, the book has been challenged in a New York school district as a "filthy, trash novel," in Indiana schools because it "represents institutionalized racism under the guise of good literature," and also in Arizona, California, Illinois, Mississippi, and Missouri schools because of racial slurs and profanity. The book was removed from a Louisiana school library shelf because of its "objectionable content," and was banned from a Texas school's English reading list because of "conflicts with the values of the community."
Racial epithets and a few off-color words are in the novel. However, people or groups who are offended by that kind of literary license should not read the book. If they don't want their children to read the book, that is also their choice in the role of parental guidance. Yet, book-banning is another matter. It is an infringement upon the rights of every reader within the school or community. Practically speaking, book-banning doesn't work. Many of the books at the UNC Bookstore's "Banned Books Week" display are best-sellers that have reached classic status.
"To Kill A Mockingbird" is one of the leading fiction books of all time. More than 15 million copies of the book have been sold. Those who punish "Mockingbird" for its harsh wording are missing the greater lessons of how prejudice undermines justice.
After years of being edited, "To Kill A Mockingbird" progressed from a short story to a novel. Lee's fictional and somewhat biographical novel has won widespread acclaim as well as a Pulitzer Prize. Lee, like the characters of "Mockingbird," was born and grew up in an Alabama community and her father was a lawyer there. According to the Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature, Harper Lee, born in 1926, was six months away from earning a law degree at the University of Alabama when she went to New York in 1949 to pursue a literary career.
Lee's "Mockingbird," as any mockingbird, provides beauty and song within the world that sometimes isn't so beautiful. It would be terrible to kill a mockingbird. It also would be terrible to ban a book that provides many excellent cultural insights.
The 1962 film version, starring the great Gregory Peck, is also excellent. (It was a good year for movies with serious themes. Other films that same year included "The Miracle Worker" about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, "Days of Wine and Roses" about alcoholism, "Lawrence of Arabia," "Long Day's Journey Into Night," "Bird Man of Alcatraz," "Lolita" and "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?")
I could also mention a lighter moment in education one time when I asked students to tell me what book Harper Lee had written. One student responded, "To Kill A Salesman." Probably its sequel was "Death of a Mockingbird," as I realized that the student had mixed up the titles of Lee's "Mockingbird" and Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman." Needless to say, education is an ongoing process. !!!! Anyway, here is my book review...
When Atticus Finch gives his children an air rifle, he tells them that they should never kill a mockingbird. Providing beautiful music to the world, mockingbirds do no harm to anyone, he says.
Harper Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "To Kill A Mockingbird" is a story about two children and the powerful lessons they learn from their father and from the racial inequities within a small Alabama town in the 1930s. Told from the narrative viewpoint of a 6-year-old girl, the story follows a lawyer's attempt to seek justice for a black man who is falsely accused of raping a white woman. The lawyer is the narrator's widowed father. He represents justice in a town where the Southern culture has preserved its corrupting traditions of racial and class prejudice.
The book emphasizes that children are born with an instinct for justice, but learn prejudice through socialization. Respect for the individual is also addressed in the relationship between the children and the father. Throughout the story, the father's messages to his children are a constant and deliberate attempt to lift them above the community's racism. "You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them," he says to his children. He tells them to judge people by their character and not the color of their skin, which is one of the strongest messages of the Civil Rights Movement.
Another lesson in this book is about real courage. Among many instances, the novel includes a scene of the lawyer, Atticus, facing an angry, gun-carrying mob as he sits unarmed in front of the jail where his client is being held.
Author Harper Lee, a descendant of General Robert E. Lee, undoubtedly rankled white Southern readers at a time that coincided with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In more recent times, the books has drawn anger from black readers who are particularly offended by the use of racial epithets by many of the characters. Since 1980, the book has been challenged in a New York school district as a "filthy, trash novel," in Indiana schools because it "represents institutionalized racism under the guise of good literature," and also in Arizona, California, Illinois, Mississippi, and Missouri schools because of racial slurs and profanity. The book was removed from a Louisiana school library shelf because of its "objectionable content," and was banned from a Texas school's English reading list because of "conflicts with the values of the community."
Racial epithets and a few off-color words are in the novel. However, people or groups who are offended by that kind of literary license should not read the book. If they don't want their children to read the book, that is also their choice in the role of parental guidance. Yet, book-banning is another matter. It is an infringement upon the rights of every reader within the school or community. Practically speaking, book-banning doesn't work. Many of the books at the UNC Bookstore's "Banned Books Week" display are best-sellers that have reached classic status.
"To Kill A Mockingbird" is one of the leading fiction books of all time. More than 15 million copies of the book have been sold. Those who punish "Mockingbird" for its harsh wording are missing the greater lessons of how prejudice undermines justice.
After years of being edited, "To Kill A Mockingbird" progressed from a short story to a novel. Lee's fictional and somewhat biographical novel has won widespread acclaim as well as a Pulitzer Prize. Lee, like the characters of "Mockingbird," was born and grew up in an Alabama community and her father was a lawyer there. According to the Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature, Harper Lee, born in 1926, was six months away from earning a law degree at the University of Alabama when she went to New York in 1949 to pursue a literary career.
Lee's "Mockingbird," as any mockingbird, provides beauty and song within the world that sometimes isn't so beautiful. It would be terrible to kill a mockingbird. It also would be terrible to ban a book that provides many excellent cultural insights.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Book review...
BOOK: "Nothing to Fear, FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America" by Adam Cohen, 2009.
As we all know, America can be divided historically into two time periods. One time period is "Before FDR" and one time period, the more fortunate era for us all, is "After FDR." Of course, after FDR and his huge jobs creation effort, America then had safety nets and prudent economic security measures for many Americans, including Social Security, FDIC, and others.
But before FDR, when the Great Depression almost collapsed the nation, with one-fourth of American workers without jobs, bank failures, farm foreclosures, soup lines and "Hoovervilles" involving needy and homeless people, the times were grim for Americans.
To get a sense of it, here is an excerpt from the "Nothing to Fear" book:
Edmund Wilson, the well-known writer, toured Chicago in 1932 and found a "sea of misery." On one stop, he saw an old Polish immigrant "dying of a tumor, with no heat in the house, on a cold day." In the city's flophouses, Wilson encountered "a great deal of tuberculosis" and "spinal meningitis." Worst of all were the garbage dumps, "diligently haunted by the hungry." In the summer heat, when "the flies were thick," a hundred people descended on one dump, "falling on the refuse as soon as the truck had pulled out and digging in it with sticks and hands." Even spoiled meat was claimed, since the desperate foragers could "cut out the worst parts" or "scald it and sprinkle it with soda to neutralize the taste and smell." A widowed housekeeper who was unable to find work showed up with her 14-year-old son. "Before she picked up the meat," Wilson wrote, "she would always take off her glasses so that she would not be able to see the maggots."
As we all know, America can be divided historically into two time periods. One time period is "Before FDR" and one time period, the more fortunate era for us all, is "After FDR." Of course, after FDR and his huge jobs creation effort, America then had safety nets and prudent economic security measures for many Americans, including Social Security, FDIC, and others.
But before FDR, when the Great Depression almost collapsed the nation, with one-fourth of American workers without jobs, bank failures, farm foreclosures, soup lines and "Hoovervilles" involving needy and homeless people, the times were grim for Americans.
To get a sense of it, here is an excerpt from the "Nothing to Fear" book:
Edmund Wilson, the well-known writer, toured Chicago in 1932 and found a "sea of misery." On one stop, he saw an old Polish immigrant "dying of a tumor, with no heat in the house, on a cold day." In the city's flophouses, Wilson encountered "a great deal of tuberculosis" and "spinal meningitis." Worst of all were the garbage dumps, "diligently haunted by the hungry." In the summer heat, when "the flies were thick," a hundred people descended on one dump, "falling on the refuse as soon as the truck had pulled out and digging in it with sticks and hands." Even spoiled meat was claimed, since the desperate foragers could "cut out the worst parts" or "scald it and sprinkle it with soda to neutralize the taste and smell." A widowed housekeeper who was unable to find work showed up with her 14-year-old son. "Before she picked up the meat," Wilson wrote, "she would always take off her glasses so that she would not be able to see the maggots."
Book review...
BOOK: "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi, 2003.
In light of the recent protests in Iran, which have gone from the issue of the election to the greater issue of freedom, rights, and treatment of people, one interesting book is "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi (2003). The author, who eventually flees to America, was an English professor in Iran who finally quit her job, unwilling to accept the ongoing restrictions on education and social life that was imposed by the Ayatollah Khomeini (the first Iranian ayatollah leader) and the Islamic republic's theocratic rule.
Then, as a very dangerous act at the time, she began conducting secret book-club reading sessions for some of her women students in her home. The women read "subversive" books by Jane Austen and F. Scott Fitzgerald. And another book was "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov.
Now, I have long followed the arguments by American professors of English about the value and quality of the book "Lolita." In some classes, I have shown the opening scene from the two movie versions of "Lolita," in order to contrast how movies have become more provocative. As you can imagine, the presentation of sexuality in the 1990s version is more explicit than the 1950s version, though the first one was the more controversial because of the times. I also wondered what we, as readers or watchers, were supposed to learn because the story is quite awful, a story about a middle-aged pedophile who obsesses over and eventually rapes a 12-year-old girl. To this day, it is controversial book in America, let alone in Iran and the other dictatorships of the Middle East.
So, I was intrigued that author Nafisi put "Lolita" in the title of her book. Nafisi wrote, "Teaching in the Islamic Republic, like any other vocation, was subservient to politics and subject to arbitrary rules. Always, the joy of teaching was marred by diversions and considerations forced on us by the regime--how well could one teach when the main concern of university officials was not the quality of one's work but the color of one's lips, the subversive potential of a single strand of hair? Could one really concentrate on one's job when what preoccupied the faculty was how to excise the word 'wine' from a Hemingway story, when they decided not to teach Bronte because she appeared to condone adultery?"
In the novel "Lolita," the pedophile Humbert obsesses over the girl. In Iran, the regime with its clergy as leaders obsesses over Iranian women. The women can't show hair strands because that tempts men. The women can't wear lipstick because that tempts men. On and on and on, women can't because of what it will do to them, the men. Obsession.
In the novel, the pedophile Humbert also rapes Lolita. Does the Iranian Islamic government "rape" figuratively (or, in some cases, literally, because of the male-dominated dogma and discriminatory laws) the women of Iran by denying them freedom and equality? That's a dangerous comparison for an Iranian author to make, but I think it is accurate as we see the restrictive and brutal actions of the Iranian government and its Baiji thugs.
Nafisi confuses me a little when she says in the book that Humbert and Lolita aren't meant to represent a country or regime or society or women, but then, in more recent TV interviews, she says that's exactly what they represent. I think the latter is correct, probably because the former was stated within the book at a publication time when any author might wonder if such statements could lead to bounty retribution, as was the case for novelist Salmon Rushdie.
Obsession seems most likely part of the rule of law there, as the Iranian regime wants to turn its people into figaments of its highest religious leader's own narrow imagination. Said one of the women students in Nafisi's reading club, "Everything is offensive to them. It's either politically or sexually incorrect." Said another student, "There must be some blasted space in life where we can be offensive." Thus, readers can learn from "Lolita" that obsession and rape is not just practiced by pedophiles. Totalitarian and theocratic regimes are masters of it, too.
Nafisi also noted Nabokov's book "Invitation to a Beheading," which is written from "the point of view of the victim, one who ultimately sees the absurd sham of his persecutors and who must retreat into himself in order to survive."
Nafisi wrote, "Those of us living in the Islamic Republic of Iran grasped both the tragedy and absurdity of the cruelty to which we were subjected...What Nabokov captured was the texture of life in a totalitarian society, where you are completely alone in an illusory world full of false promises, where you can no longer differentiate between your savior and your executioner."
In light of the recent protests in Iran, which have gone from the issue of the election to the greater issue of freedom, rights, and treatment of people, one interesting book is "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi (2003). The author, who eventually flees to America, was an English professor in Iran who finally quit her job, unwilling to accept the ongoing restrictions on education and social life that was imposed by the Ayatollah Khomeini (the first Iranian ayatollah leader) and the Islamic republic's theocratic rule.
Then, as a very dangerous act at the time, she began conducting secret book-club reading sessions for some of her women students in her home. The women read "subversive" books by Jane Austen and F. Scott Fitzgerald. And another book was "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov.
Now, I have long followed the arguments by American professors of English about the value and quality of the book "Lolita." In some classes, I have shown the opening scene from the two movie versions of "Lolita," in order to contrast how movies have become more provocative. As you can imagine, the presentation of sexuality in the 1990s version is more explicit than the 1950s version, though the first one was the more controversial because of the times. I also wondered what we, as readers or watchers, were supposed to learn because the story is quite awful, a story about a middle-aged pedophile who obsesses over and eventually rapes a 12-year-old girl. To this day, it is controversial book in America, let alone in Iran and the other dictatorships of the Middle East.
So, I was intrigued that author Nafisi put "Lolita" in the title of her book. Nafisi wrote, "Teaching in the Islamic Republic, like any other vocation, was subservient to politics and subject to arbitrary rules. Always, the joy of teaching was marred by diversions and considerations forced on us by the regime--how well could one teach when the main concern of university officials was not the quality of one's work but the color of one's lips, the subversive potential of a single strand of hair? Could one really concentrate on one's job when what preoccupied the faculty was how to excise the word 'wine' from a Hemingway story, when they decided not to teach Bronte because she appeared to condone adultery?"
In the novel "Lolita," the pedophile Humbert obsesses over the girl. In Iran, the regime with its clergy as leaders obsesses over Iranian women. The women can't show hair strands because that tempts men. The women can't wear lipstick because that tempts men. On and on and on, women can't because of what it will do to them, the men. Obsession.
In the novel, the pedophile Humbert also rapes Lolita. Does the Iranian Islamic government "rape" figuratively (or, in some cases, literally, because of the male-dominated dogma and discriminatory laws) the women of Iran by denying them freedom and equality? That's a dangerous comparison for an Iranian author to make, but I think it is accurate as we see the restrictive and brutal actions of the Iranian government and its Baiji thugs.
Nafisi confuses me a little when she says in the book that Humbert and Lolita aren't meant to represent a country or regime or society or women, but then, in more recent TV interviews, she says that's exactly what they represent. I think the latter is correct, probably because the former was stated within the book at a publication time when any author might wonder if such statements could lead to bounty retribution, as was the case for novelist Salmon Rushdie.
Obsession seems most likely part of the rule of law there, as the Iranian regime wants to turn its people into figaments of its highest religious leader's own narrow imagination. Said one of the women students in Nafisi's reading club, "Everything is offensive to them. It's either politically or sexually incorrect." Said another student, "There must be some blasted space in life where we can be offensive." Thus, readers can learn from "Lolita" that obsession and rape is not just practiced by pedophiles. Totalitarian and theocratic regimes are masters of it, too.
Nafisi also noted Nabokov's book "Invitation to a Beheading," which is written from "the point of view of the victim, one who ultimately sees the absurd sham of his persecutors and who must retreat into himself in order to survive."
Nafisi wrote, "Those of us living in the Islamic Republic of Iran grasped both the tragedy and absurdity of the cruelty to which we were subjected...What Nabokov captured was the texture of life in a totalitarian society, where you are completely alone in an illusory world full of false promises, where you can no longer differentiate between your savior and your executioner."
Monday, July 27, 2009
Book Review 1...
BOOK: "Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream" by Adam Shepard.
One book that I read this summer was "Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream" by Adam Shepard. It is 2008 book about Shepard, a recent college graduate, who decided to see if he could attain the so-called "American Dream" through meager beginnings. His beginning thesis is youthfully and naively wrong, I think. He wants to prove that he can go from a homeless wanderer with only $25 to a business success. Yes, that can be done by some people, but he fails to consider the inequalities of life from its very basics to its complexities. His cover photo shows this rather athletic, boy-next-door look. He's also white. He's from the typical suburban family and upbringing. So, he could be already ahead of lots of people, in terms of power and privilege, though there are never any guarantees. America attempts to provide legal equality to all of its people, but social and economic and even physical equality doesn't exist as every person is different and is forged by different experiences and DNA. We reach our goals and successes because of our drive and diligence and skills, because of our circumstances and sometimes desperation, sometimes because of others we know, sometimes because we just lucked out at getting the right advice or tip or being at the right place at the right time. Graduates know this, I imagine. But Shepard does redeem his attitudes, I think, especially at the end of the book. He has succeeded in finding the jobs along the way that ultimately raises his bank account to more than $5,000 in a year's time. But there are many circumstances that don't burden him. For example, he doesn't have a disability, doesn't have the responsibility for a child, and didn't get sick in a major way. Both of his parents are diagnosed with having cancer and so even they find themselves on a new road with unanticipated circumstances. At the end, Shepard looks analytically at opportunity and poverty and makes the following good suggestions: More free classes on parenting, more government commitment to safe and affordable housing, more financial literacy instruction, reading instruction is an important and foundational need, an increase in customized social services, and more. He notes the familiar scene at an airport when all the passengers are hurrying to get their own incoming luggage off the conveyor belt. Does anybody care about the little old lady who is struggling with her one piece of luggage? In redeeming tone, Shepard writes, "There it is. Life is like a baggage claim: You can be aggressive and self-serving or you can be aware of those who need help and lend a hand." The book was a good and entertaining read. Any books out there that you all are reading this summer?
One book that I read this summer was "Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream" by Adam Shepard. It is 2008 book about Shepard, a recent college graduate, who decided to see if he could attain the so-called "American Dream" through meager beginnings. His beginning thesis is youthfully and naively wrong, I think. He wants to prove that he can go from a homeless wanderer with only $25 to a business success. Yes, that can be done by some people, but he fails to consider the inequalities of life from its very basics to its complexities. His cover photo shows this rather athletic, boy-next-door look. He's also white. He's from the typical suburban family and upbringing. So, he could be already ahead of lots of people, in terms of power and privilege, though there are never any guarantees. America attempts to provide legal equality to all of its people, but social and economic and even physical equality doesn't exist as every person is different and is forged by different experiences and DNA. We reach our goals and successes because of our drive and diligence and skills, because of our circumstances and sometimes desperation, sometimes because of others we know, sometimes because we just lucked out at getting the right advice or tip or being at the right place at the right time. Graduates know this, I imagine. But Shepard does redeem his attitudes, I think, especially at the end of the book. He has succeeded in finding the jobs along the way that ultimately raises his bank account to more than $5,000 in a year's time. But there are many circumstances that don't burden him. For example, he doesn't have a disability, doesn't have the responsibility for a child, and didn't get sick in a major way. Both of his parents are diagnosed with having cancer and so even they find themselves on a new road with unanticipated circumstances. At the end, Shepard looks analytically at opportunity and poverty and makes the following good suggestions: More free classes on parenting, more government commitment to safe and affordable housing, more financial literacy instruction, reading instruction is an important and foundational need, an increase in customized social services, and more. He notes the familiar scene at an airport when all the passengers are hurrying to get their own incoming luggage off the conveyor belt. Does anybody care about the little old lady who is struggling with her one piece of luggage? In redeeming tone, Shepard writes, "There it is. Life is like a baggage claim: You can be aggressive and self-serving or you can be aware of those who need help and lend a hand." The book was a good and entertaining read. Any books out there that you all are reading this summer?
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