Holiday Gifts for Nerds: Good Books

Is there a nerd on your holiday shopping list for whom you have a hard time selecting a gift? You could always opt for white crew socks, but if you want to do better, a nerd will appreciate a good book. Here are some suggestions:

Health Care: "The Healing of America," by T.R. Reid

We keep hearing all of these conservative rants against so-called "Obamacare." An advantage of this easy-to-read book is that it was researched and penned before Barack Obama became president. And so T.R. Reid provides no particular bias, other than to factually assert that the United States, in relation to the general population and poor people, has the modern world's worst health care system. The "world's best" care that anti-Obama critics often reference is available only to the most wealthy people, both in the United States and to those who visit from other nations. Reid also skillfully rebuts those who would describe any form of national public health care as "socialized medicine." (That's the same thing they said back in the '60s about Medicare and Medicaid.)

Reid picked a great premise for his international research. Suffering a persistent bum shoulder from a youthful military accident, he traveled to places ranging from England and France to Taiwan and India to seek treatment. This helped to give him a bird's eye view of health care, spanning the globe.

Reid finds no ideal answer internationally. He simply suggests that the United States, as the only First World nation that fails to offer some sort of universal coverage, should get off the schneid, end all of the foolish bias, and patch together the best ideas from other countries.

Everyday citizens often complain that elected leaders are always bickering, rather than addressing problems. If there ever can be common ground found on health care, it's in this book.

Finally, in reading The Healing of America, take note of how much of a higher percentage of GNP, Gross National Product, is spent on U.S. health care than elsewhere. To me, the fervent anti-tax and anti-government Tea Party citizens should be the first folks to seek some sort of national care, rather than being so virulently opposed. They are acting against their own self-interests, in some cases because they so blindly despise President Obama.

(Footnote: For more complex and difficult info regarding health care, consider "Deadly Monopolies" by Harriet A. Washington. She's an African American medical researcher and journalist. Her book explains how drug companies shamefully produce and market overpriced, ineffective and sometimes dangerous prescription medicines. Mine eyes were opened and so will be yours, and your gift recipient's. Harriet Washington also wrote "Medical Apartheid," which explores racism, both intended and systematic, in the health care industry.)


Environment: "Life Without Oil," by Steve Hallett

As a teenager during the late '60s and early '70s, I had yet to hear the term "environmentalist." But in my otherwise ignorant adolescence I always wondered, don't people realize that we one day will run out of oil? How can people act as though oil is an infinite source?

Here we are. We're going to run out of oil, and live without oil, sometime between 2050 and 2100. Well, to me and my fellow and sister older scolders, it won't be "we," but rather our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids.

So what are we doing about it? We are belittling people like Hallett (and Al Gore and Barack Obama) as Chicken Littles. We are asserting "no new taxes" for research and development of alternative energy. And many of us are still driving all sorts of gas-guzzling miles, and flying as we please, in violation of what Hallet describes as a "public commons" in which we all should share our limited resources.

Hallett quotes a person of whom I had never heard, Sheikh Rashing al-Maktoum, emir of Dubai: "My grandfather rode a camel. I drive a Mercedes. My son flies a jet plane. His son will ride a camel."

The author describes how previous societies depleted resources. Here's something that had never occurred to me: The reason there are deserts in the Middle East is because the Romans cut down all the forests. We are taught that the Roman Empire collapsed because of some sort of moral decay, but the Romans also ran out of wood, just as we are going to run out of oil.

Here's another thought: Without oil, how can we transport windmills and solar panels to their locations? There are hundreds of parallels. Perhaps one good one is that WalMart won't be able to survive without oil.

Criminal Justice: "The Anatomy of an Execution," by David R. Dow

The author has represented more than 100 death row inmates, and this is the story of one of them, Willie Pondexter. The issue isn't whether Pondexter is innocent, although like many people on death row, Pondexter claims he is. The issue is whether, innocent or guilty, capital punishment should be an established practice in the United States. We all know, or we SHOULD know, about all the racial disparities and prejudices. But there is more to the story than that.

David Dow writes in a wonderful way that I find difficult to describe, in streams of thought, but without meandering all over the place.

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