βDo No Harm: 5 Steps to Align Police Actions with Organizational Valuesβ
By Ramon Batista and Mark D Ziska. Do No Harm Publishing. $16.97; Kindle $.99
Nobody really wants to defund the police, observe the authors, but people are justified in expecting that encounters with them will be safe and respectful. βDo no harm,β a term borrowed from medical ethics, speaks directly to the heart of this well-reasoned book on police reform. In it, authors Batista and Ziska address this hot-button societal issue by viewing it through the dual lenses of opportunity and organizational best practices. The result is a step-by-step response offering a commonsense approach to planning for change that calls for addressing the challenge from within the ranks of law enforcement itself, effectively avoiding piecemeal and uninformed legislation likely to do more harm than good.
The authors boast impressive rΓ©sumΓ©s in their respective fields: Ramon Batista, a career law enforcement professional who worked his way up the ranks in Tucson and former police chief of Mesa, is currently a member of the Police Executive Research Forum. Mark Ziska, former senior director of human resources for Raytheon, chairs the Arizona State Personnel Board.
They begin with a brief but eye-opening history of community policing: in colonial times, βnight watchβ (primarily patrolling for gambling and prostitution) was an unenviable assignment, akin to being punished, and often given to men who were not altogether trustworthy. Two hundred years later, in the Southern states, law enforcement took the form of slave patrols, sowing the seeds for a system that would, over time, become synonymous with segregation and discrimination.
Aware of historyβs implications, the authors combine their professional knowledge and experiences to identify the issues facing police departments and the communities they serve, examine how an agencyβs values shape its tactics and strategy, and provide planning tools for achieving the ultimate vision of effective policing that engenders trust and βdoes no harm.β The target audience for this very accessible book is, naturally, law enforcement leadership, but it contains valuable content for anyone involved in government, community organizing, or human resource management of public service personnel.
β Helene Woodhams
βEmpathyβ
By Stacey Hoff. Self-published. $9.99; Kindle $4.99
The definition of empathy is the ability to understand and share the thoughts and feelings of another, as in βI feel your pain.β Author Stacey Hoff explores the ramifications of empathy by taking it to its extreme in this new novel, with a protagonist who literally absorbs the pain of everyone she comes into contact with.
Orphaned at a young age and taken in by Ruth, her grandmother, Avery Daniels exhibited fearful behavior consistent with having lived in an abusive family. But over time, Ruth realized that Averyβs agitated reactions to nearly everyone who approached her actually signaled the childβs visceral response to their aches and pains. To protect her, Ruth minimized Averyβs contact with the outside world by creating a protective bubble of sorts on her isolated Arivaca ranch. Later, as an adult taking tentative steps into the world, Avery discovers that her peculiar ability, which she views as a curse, is considered a gift by people who find relief in her presence. Itβs revelatory, but as Avery begins to adjust, she is confronted by ghosts from the past who threaten to destroy her.
The borderlands setting of this novel is not coincidental. Averyβs exaggerated empathy is an interesting foil to the unsympathetic, sometimes inhumane treatment encountered by vulnerable immigrants attempting this dangerous crossing, and it speaks to Averyβs own origin story. Hoff, who lives in Tucson, earned a journalism degree from the University of Arizona, and has worked for both the Arizona Daily Star and the former Tucson Citizen.
β Helene Woodhams βLooking Beyond: Invitation to Understanding Global Sustainabilityβ
By Rosemary Johnson. Dorrance Publishing Co. $12; Kindle $7
Rosemary Johnson wants readers to accept the interdependence of all life on Earth and, because knowledge is power, she urges everyone to read, learn, ask the hard questions and use that knowledge to respond to the environmental crisis facing the planet. The octogenarian author has done just that. With this book she describes the path that led her to become an ardent proponent of global sustainability efforts, and she provides a template for like-minded people, focusing on the influential voices that guided her.
Her journey began decades ago when, in a state of spiritual paralysis, she realized she needed guidance to make changes. Her search for answers brought her to an Earth Literacy course where she was βimmersedβ in the writings of Thomas Berry (the Christian philosopher famous for promoting care of the Earth) as well as other theologians and scientists who have guided her thinking about personal responsibility and interconnectedness for more than 30 years. This slim volume includes study materials she has found particularly valuable, as well as inspirational readings for reflection. Johnson, a retired registered nurse, lives in Tucson.
β Helene Woodhams βArrival β¦ At the Speed of Darkβ
By Jon Langione. The Jonathon Company LLC. $11.95 paperback
In this sci-fi βtext artβ novel, a female alien comes to check out Earth by landing on a Tucson golf course on βa dark and stormy nightβ (monsoons), befriends a psychiatrist and an astrophysicist, learns English, absorbs the Encyclopedia Brittanica, gets pursued by bumbling cops and UFO chasers, falls in love, gets a job, and cures cancer with red triangles.
And thatβs all without a single mark of punctuation save the ellipsis ... (Itβs a ββ¦ punctuation is overrated production β¦β)
Tucsonan Jon Langione clearly had fun with his experiment in punctuation-free novelizing.
Problem is, βArrival β¦β is also setting-free, description-free, narrator-free, and fairly suspense-free. It does read like a text thread β flat on the page, like texts without emojis:
ββ¦i think i have one for us said nurse henry β¦
β¦a chemo clinic asked meganβ¦
β¦and an oncologist to go along with us replied nurse henryβ¦
β¦you did not mention anything about the red triangles did you asked meganβ¦.β
The thing is that fictional conventions β a narratorβs voice, a little setting, character development, and β yes(!) β punctuation can lift a tale off the page and give it dimension and energy.
That said, though, you canβt fault a fella for experimenting, and having fun in the process.
β Christine Wald-Hopkins βNo Way to Winβ
By Robert H. Kruse. Self-published. $13.99 paperback
The last thing βMacβ McDonnell expects from his first-ever gallery opening is a miraculous cure, a stampede of TV camerapersons, and a fist in the face from a malevolent TV star. But thatβs what he gets. And it sets in motion a chaotic pursuit of an 8-year-old healer by a legion of sick folks, skeptics, Satan-seeing evangelicals, rabid media, and even a shadow U.S. government agency determined to kidnap the child and exploit his healing powers.
McDonnell, who made a killing in tech and has retired to follow his dream of being a painter, would have been more inclined to sit in his studio and muse about his mysterious muse than to insert himself between young Davy Franks and the hordes bearing down on him, but he does intervene and helps the boy. And that makes him the new target of the government plot. Murder attempts ensue, along with real murders, arson, SUV versus bicycle chases, a grisly highway accident, and the inexplicable theft of one of McDonnellβs paintings, which adds a twist to the plot
Although the novel opens with so many characters and competing plot possibilities that it stumbles out of the gate, it eventually gains traction and finishes satisfactorily. What is praiseworthy, however, about βNo Way to Winβ are its descriptions of the work of the painter β both practically, in the physical processes he follows to paint, and cerebrally and intuitively β in the creative impulse that gives rise to the work of art. Those scenes read as insightful and authentic.
β Christine Wald-Hopkins βShin Dagger: Selected Poems,
1977-2017β
By D.C. Davis. Wheatmark. $21.95 hardcover; $12.95 paperback
Although Tucsonan D.C. Davis claims these poems are arranged randomly, thereβs an organic underlying organization in his collection: You sense the poet at different stages in his life.
Davis, βraised in the Southwest β¦ exploring and hiking the region, when he wasnβt playing music or tuning pianos β¦β gathered this collection of nearly 150 poems from 40 years of journals and notebooks.
The topics of Davisβ poems are recurring β music, being in the moment, the meaning of life, the natural world, cultural and historical references, the power of sexual attraction, relationships.
Each of the three sections is introduced by an illustration and a short poem. βTwo,β for example, has a woodcut of a mandolin with dark desert behind it, and this poem:
βEveryone wrestles with madness
some wrestle to win, and
some just wrestleβ
The section includes entries as divergent as a poem referring to a biblical passage (βI feel like the fig tree that Jesus cursed/ just biding my time to flower/ according to figgy natureβ¦God can be petty and vindictive, foolish and proud,/ just like a humanβ¦.β) and a poem about President Clinton eating Mexican food in Tucson (ββ¦Big ambition, big appetites./ The only time I chanced to match him/ forkful for forkful and dish for dish/ It was all I could do just to keep up.β)
My favorite poem in the collection, though, is the one that opens the first section, which includes reflections on the poetβs early years. Itβs accompanied by the photograph of a vast old tree:
βI was so raw
I wasnβt even greenβ
I was blue
I was yellowβ
β Christine Wald-Hopkins
