Mountains Beyond Mountains - Tracy Kidder

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Category: Biography Acquired: Gift from Betsy/Todd, Christmas 2007 Read: January 2007 Briefly: bio of Paul Farmer (1959- ), physician, anthropologist and epidemiologist, who has spent much of his life bringing healthcare to the poorest of the poor, particularly in Haiti. He fights root causes - not just malaria, but the living conditions that make traditional treatment ineffective... and the poverty that perpetuates the living conditions... and the social and political injustices that perpetuate the poverty... and the evil nations and greedy corporations that are (in his belief system) the root of all injustice.

Comments: What I find impressive about Farmer is: a) the depth of his compassion and commitment to the poor; and b) the way his commitment drives him into practical action. Not just safe actions like writing a check, but extraordinary steps such as leaving the comforts of home to run a clinic in one of the most unpleasant environments in the Western Hemisphere. And not being the rich white doctor behind the locked gate, but serving as the local country doc, working to build personal relationships among the Haitians, walking 4 hours to make a single house call, just because he believes that understanding and addressing the patient's home environment is the best way to ensure treatment success.

I don't know how much I'd actually like Farmer if I met him. As portrayed by the author, he comes across as somewhat arrogant. He rails constantly against the western economic system that traps Haitians in poverty (not that all his points are invalid - far from it), but with no acknowledgement that everything he is and has accomplished has been enabled by that system. And because the system is evil, he seems to feel free to manipulate it any way he chooses in order to accomplish his own goals - including what he gleefully calls the "redistribution of wealth" (i.e. medical equipment and supplies), from an unsuspecting US hospital to his own clinic. I generally like rule-breakers, but there's a thin line between that and becoming a law unto yourself, and it often seemed to me like he was stepping over it.

On the other hand, so what? I'm not commanded to emulate Farmer or anyone else, I'm simply told that "...whatever you did [fed, clothed, housed, etc.] for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for Me." So even if Farmer will never be my role model, he's still someone whose compassion is an example and challenge for me, and for any Christ-follower.

Isaac's Storm - Eric Hansen

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Category: non-fiction, history, biography Acquired: gift from Mom Voelker, Dec. 2007 Read: Dec/Jan 2007 Briefly: when Galveston was surprised and devastated by a hurricane in 1900, the US Weather Bureau came under severe criticism for their failure to forecast it. A lot of the heat fell on their local station manager, Isaac Cline, who had actually done the best he could, despite the Bureau's total lack of knowledge about hurricanes, coupled with a stifling bureaucracy. This book follows Cline through his formative years in the Bureau, portrays the events leading up to the failed forecast, and then provides hour-by-hour detail as the disaster unfolds. It's almost like reading about Pearl Harbor - there were adequate chances to avert disaster, but as you watch the web of human failures grow, you know full well how it's going to turn out.

Comments: I always enjoy books that explore the history of technology, particularly when the human element is involved. The technology here is the science of weather forecasting, and the human element is the fledgling U.S. Weather Bureau, under attack at the turn of the century for being very poor at actual weather forecasting. They've responded to these attacks by drawing inward, creating a paranoid bureaucracy where all forecasts and warnings are issued from Washington, D.C. only, and where individual forecasters have virtually no authority to act on their own. The inevitable results, documented here, remind me why I'm so hesitant to see crucial social functions removed from the private arena and entrusted to the federal government.