We’d both read The God Delusion and enjoyed it very much. Other than that one book, we’d not read anything else in common. Dick got up from the table and went to his office to get his copy of Farewell, My Beijing: The long journey from China to Tucson, a paperback book written by a lady he had met during a bridge match. He was clearly very excited about the book and the story it told.

“You have to read this book,” Dick said as he handed me his copy. “You’ll find the story fascinating and spellbinding. I guarantee that you will be impressed.”

In fact, he was so enthused that he wanted me to actually meet the author, Chi Newman, and her husband Richard, in person -- if a visit could be arranged while I was in Tucson. Later that afternoon, while Dick ran some errands and I retired to the guest bedroom to relax, I started reading Chi’s book.

Farewell, My Beijing might be considered two books under one cover. The two main sections of Chi’s story could be easily be expanded into separate books because their themes are so different as they cover two major periods in her life.

The first section is called “Pre-Communist Days in Beijing,” a rather short group of nine chapters that describe her childhood growing up in China as a member of a privileged and influential family. She tells of her relationships with her twin sister, her mother, and her father. She speaks well of the excellent education she received at a Catholic school that served the children of diplomats and other important people.

Chi’s description of her life in China, while brief, is quite vivid. You feel like she really has shared her memories and experiences as a child growing up in affluence, while being surrounded by poverty within a society hamstrung by its own traditions.

The last chapter in the first section, “Good-bye, Beijing,” describes her harrowing experiences during the early stages of the Communist takeover of China. Her parents made hasty arrangements to have Chi and her twin sister Lu transferred out of the country to Taiwan to live with their older sister. Taiwan was still under the control of the Nationalist Chinese government, so it offered some safety from the Communists and the atrocities they committed against all of the mainland Chinese that could not escape.

History Lesson -- Chi Newman lived through these events

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ-PbppXLic

After eight pages of photographs covering most of her life, Chi begins the second part of her story. Stories she tells about her travels around the world in this section could easily fill another substantial book.

Few of us could brag that we had been to practically every continent, but to also have lived and worked in cities as diverse as Taipei, Brasilia, Pretoria, Athens and Washington D.C. would be unimaginable. Yet Chi has “been there, and done that” in all of those far-flung places and more.

As I read the 160 pages of Chi’s book, I was not only hooked on her story, but I was craving more. To her credit, she is able to briefly describe the major events of her life -- but maybe in some cases just a bit too briefly. There are a places in the book where I wished that she had taken more time to expand, especially on the major incidents and experiences in her life, as well as describing in more detail the people she met and lived with.

One chapter describes the kidnapping of her husband, Richard, by Guatemalan rebels. While his kidnapping was apparently more for propaganda purposes, it was no less harrowing for him and stressful for Chi. In a mere eight pages, Chi manages to describe not only how Richard was captured, but also his experiences, his feelings, and how the final outcome was arranged. In the same chapter, she also shares her own feelings during the incident and tells how some of the other women in the community came to her aid and comfort.

Although the book ends with Chi and Richard Newman in active retirement in Tucson, Arizona -- my story continues. While I was busy reading the book, Dick Kelly managed to set up a meeting at their lovely home so that I could meet them in person. I thought I might be a little out of my element meeting the Newmans, both veterans of years of diplomatic service throughout the world, and especially Chi, a published writer, artist and contract bridge player.

I realized immediately why Chi had so many friends not only in Tucson, but throughout the world. She had not only lived a life that most of us could only dream about, had survived one of the major political upheavals in all of human history, but had also faced the dangers associated with diplomatic service in many countries. Yet there I was in her home and she was as warm and welcoming to Dick and me as if we had been close friends for years.

Get the book, whether you purchase it from Amazon.com (link is in our side panel to your right), at your local bookstore, or through Chi’s website at Chi-Newman.com. You’ll find it an easy and exciting read and I’m sure that it will be one of those books that you will want to share with your friends and family.

My hope is that Chi will return to her computer and write another book that expands on the stories she has shared in Farewell, My Beijing. As Senior Editor of Just One Opinion, I am grateful that Chi has agreed to share her insights about modern China and is willing to educate us about the history and culture of her ancestors. We are very privileged…

Editor’s note by Dick Kelly: Jon Waalkes lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Along with his wife, Kim, Jon has a passionate interest in making this earth a healthy and prosperous place for his future yet-to-be grandchildren to live when they are old enough to be responsible caretakers for our beautiful planet.

I recently finished reading The Green Collar Economy just in time. Because, for over the past month, the need for action at the level that the author, Van Jones, described has been ratcheted up a few notches. As the Senate debates the current stimulus package, the opportunity to make the changes described in this book is a distinct possibility. At least, I hope so.

Converting from a carbon/oil based economy to a green-collar economy and the subsequent use of renewable energy to power our lives, I believe, will not happen if the governments of the world don’t dramatically change the incentives and funding behind the change. This change must start with the United States. As one of the big abusers of the world’s environment, our country must change in order to have the world follow, and to persuade others by our standards and purchasing power.

The opportunity is now! The challenge is to make it financially viable for individuals to participate, businesses to start up, and communities to change. This is where the federal government needs to get involved. The government needs to spend on green initiatives, finance community spending, and rebate individual consumers for energy improvements to their homes and transportation.

In addition, the government must accelerate spending in research and development into alternative energies, as the efficiency model of 2020 that will finally cut our addiction to oil has yet to be developed. This is where the stimulus bill should be headed – real jobs, right now.

Tax breaks will not create stimulus. The old conservative model of the trickle down economy is obsolete. The tax breaks for the wealthy will only result in bigger investment portfolios—investments that don’t equate to jobs for the poorest of our society. It only equates to a CEO, with a bloated salary and bonus structure, making layoff decisions based on a quarterly dividend for the portfolio holders. This is why we need to give incentives to spending in green technologies as our way out of the ecological and economic mess we are in.

The other point of Van Jones’s argument is to develop a system that penalizes violators. The government needs to make it painful to these business offenders. Tax breaks to oil companies need to be reversed and a carbon tax/cap and trade system needs to be developed. The government’s role should be to accelerate penalization without creating economic difficulties for the poorest of Americans. To do this, the economic price of alternatives needs to be subsidized for the short term.

As I read The Green Collar Economy, I kept hoping the author would tell me about a successful, green collar, free-enterprise business model—a company that could be replicated over and over across America, rewarding investors and providing long-term financial opportunities to stakeholders (vendors, employees, and community). However, that company doesn’t yet exist – at least not one that doesn’t cater to just the eco-conscious elite of our society.

The serious deficit that renewable energy must overcome is witnessed by the recent layoffs at many of the wind turbine manufacturing plants. As the economy has turned downward, so have the employment levels of many startup turbine manufacturing companies that have created new hope in many communities across America. The financial incentives of alternative energy are not present at this time, requiring that the government must fully support the change to alternative energy in order to level the playing field. Government backing will make wind, solar, and geothermal energy a financial reality for everyone.

The author of The Green Collar Economy did identify some non-profit organizations that are doing well, but this approach alone is not going to cut it. Things must change, and that change must be initiated by Washington. It appears that we will need to ask our government to act with the power to both move mountains and stop the removal of mountain tops!

While I really enjoyed reading the book, it is a bit scary knowing that the roadblocks to achieving a green collar economy are so huge and some of the solutions still very far from our grasp. However, I look forward to hearing from other readers of JustOneOpinion.com on their views of the reality of a green collar economy?

Jon Waalkes

The book’s author, Van Jones, presents a well-written, substantive, and viable first-draft plan for solving what I believe are some of the biggest issues facing our country today. These include repairing the failing economy, eliminating our foreign oil dependency (a major threat to national security), and efficiently reducing our reliance on fossil fuels with clean and renewable energy.

I think the author may have tried to appeal to too many constituents because I felt the first 77 pages of the book dragged a bit and I was suspicious that this was just pie-in-the-sky stuff. When I finished reading the book in its entirety, however, I was a believer.

Am I getting soft in my old age? I don’t think so. I’m still a capitalist at heart, a business man who wants data, facts, and numbers, not wishful thinking.

Jones contends that our current economy is built on and powered almost exclusively by oil, natural gas, and coal—all fast-diminishing non-renewable resources. Our government subsidizes tens of billions of dollars a year to this pollution-based “gray economy” with little incentive for change.

Jones calls this potential new paradigm “The Green Collar Economy,” believing that it could create millions of new jobs for American workers. For this new economy to blossom and flourish, government policies must play a key role in setting standards, spurring innovation, realigning existing investments, and making new investments. It must include all segments of society. Jones also contends that only the business community has the requisite skills, experience, and capital to make it work. Success will be tied to new “eco-entrepreneurs”—and the success and survival of their enterprises.

We can no longer afford to engage in the old politics of naming, blaming, and shaming someone else, while concealing our own faults, flaws, and hypocrisies. It is most unlikely that the present high lords for oil, coal, and armaments will reverse course or give up their power without a bitter struggle. So a new force must emerge to realign American politics, transform the political landscape, and supplant the Texas/Pentagon axis.

If it is to succeed, the critical mass of businesses in this green collar economy must produce renewable energy and reduce energy waste. This can be done with the use of wind and wave farms, solar energy, bio fuels, solar-powered hydrogen farms, improved weatherizing of homes and office buildings, just to name a few. The author also lists over 50 companies that are currently making money in these market niches.

What I liked most about Van Jones’ vision was his macro view of today’s major problems and how everything is interconnected. More importantly, he spends the bulk of his time re-framing these problems into definitive opportunities that even I could understand, refusing to get mired in details or playing the blame game. And he does not advocate that government create a new bureaucracy to exploit this monstrous, once-in-a lifetime opportunity.  Instead, he reminds the reader that no major new set of modern industries—from the railroads, to nuclear power, to the Internet—has ever succeeded without government playing a powerful and supportive role.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj-7uRCLoX4

Take the time to read this book, all 197 pages, and you’ll come away with a totally new way of looking at “green.” It’s not about narrow-minded Ralph Nader hoopla and scare tactics, and you don’t have to believe that Global Warming is what Al Gore makes it out to be. Frankly, I’m turned off by all the misinformation about how to save the planet. However, my business instincts, as a consequence of the 33 years I spent in manufacturing conveyor belt products, tell me that the Green Collar Economy is a real business opportunity.

In summation, The Green Collar Economy presents an excellent first draft vision of what America could and should do to revitalize its standing in the world community. And it matters not whether you believe that global warming is a serious threat to future generations or a cyclical phenomenon. If you are concerned about the current economic woes, you owe it to yourself to read this book.

The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems

I thought it was ironic that 61 years ago a middle-aged woman came to my mother’s home, knocked on her door (the story is told in Growing Up In Mama’s Club), and gave her a book, purporting with certainty that a new world, a pollution-free paradise earth, was hers to have in her lifetime if she believed, followed its interpretation of the Bible, and proselytized its unique message. Unfortunately, Mama is still waiting for her new world that was supposed to arrive before I reached the age of 20.

At Christmas this year, a middle-aged woman came to my home and gave me a book, The Green Collar Economy. She didn’t set high and lofty expectations, but simply said, “Read it Dad. I think you’ll like it.” After twice doing as she instructed, making extensive notes, and confirming the author’s credibility, I was a believer. However, I realized that there is no certainty that any of this stuff can ever happen unless there is a groundswell of support -- from the President, members of Congress, and the majority of all the citizens of this country, not just a majority made up of affluent people.

Now, like Mama, I intend to proselytize the potential for a “new world”—not the one she hoped for—but one with a green collar economy driving it, a truly sustainable new world for generations to come. - Richard E. Kelly

Business Opportunities for the Green Collar Economy

• Wind Power Farms
• Wave Energy Farms
• Weatherizing & Retrofitting millions of Homes & Office Buildings
• Solar-Powered Hydrogen Farms
• Refining waste oil into Bio-Diesel
• Manufacturing and Installing Solar Panels
• Manufacturing ultra efficient vehicles, such as plug-in hybrids
• Produce/Farm more local, organic food, decreasing transportation costs
• Improving the Mass Transit System
• Manufacturing & Servicing Electric Vehicles powered by a clean energy grid
• Production of more Bio-Fuels
• Production of renewable fuels from non food biomass (switch grass, etc.)

What We Must Stop Doing

• Subsidizing fossil-based fuels
• How we transport food to reduce energy costs
• Using food biomass for fuel
• Allowing Rainfall runoffs to become “storm water”
• Using fossil fuels in our fertilizers and massive Robo-tractors
• Building new coal plants that can’t safely capture & store emissions

He also shares the following 1981 quote from the father of the USA conservative movement, Barry Goldwater: “There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this Supreme Being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of these political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who think it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I’m warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.”

Today, Douglas Adams says that respected writers and politicians, particularly in the United States, are no longer willing to challenge religious ideas. They are not allowed to say those things. And yet, when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn’t be as open to debate as any other. Fortunately, it was a Brit, Richard Dawkins, who had the courage to speak up, fervently believing that religious extremists are a serious threat to democracy and human betterment. His book, The God Delusion is easy to read and loaded with facts to support those assertions.

“Oh, but he’s an Atheist,” some will say. But be reminded that people like Einstein and Carl Sagan, to name just a few, did not believe in a personal god. However, that didn’t diminish the scientific data they accumulated and shared in their lifetime.

My mother, a hard-core Jehovah’s Witness, won’t read the book. Her church leaders tell her that it is “the work of the Devil.” That’s a pretty good reason why I think a thinking person would want to do otherwise.

What Richard Dawkins has to say and how he says it in The God Delusion is not only an important work of science, but a clear, articulate warning of what could happen if the current wave of passionate religious irrationality is allowed to continue unchecked. It is one of the best books I have read in the last ten years and I agree with the New York Times Book Review when it said that The God Delusion contained “Lots of good, hard-hitting stuff about the imbecilities of religious fanatics and frauds of all stripes.”

As a boy of fifteen, Samuel Clemens had an acquaintance he was very fond of - a delightful young black man named Jerry – a slave – who had the daily habit of preaching sermons from the top of his master’s woodpile. He imitated the pulpit style of the clergymen of his day, and did it well. And one of Jerry’s favorite texts was, “You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell what his ‘pinions is.”

It seems that the black philosopher’s idea was that a man is not independent, and cannot afford views which might interfere with his bread and butter. If he would prosper, he had to train with the majority; in matters like politics and religion, he had to think and feel with the bulk of his neighbors, or suffer damage in his social standing. In other words, he had to restrict himself to corn-pone opinions – at least on the surface. He must get his opinions from other people; he must reason out none for himself; he must have no first-hand views.

Mark Twain thought Jerry was right, in the main, but he did not go far enough. It was Twain’s belief that a man conforms to the majority view of his locality by calculation and intention; that a coldly-thought-out and independent verdict upon a fashion in clothes, or manners, or literature, or politics, or religion is a most rare thing – if indeed it ever existed.

Basic human instinct moved one to conformity. It is man’s nature to conform; it is a force which not many can successfully resist. And the cause is the inborn requirement of self-approval. And its source was the approval of other people.

We get our notions and habits and opinions from outside influences; we do not have to study them. We are creatures of outside influences; as a rule we do not think, we only imitate.

The outside influences are always pouring in upon us, and we are always obeying their orders and accepting their verdicts. Morals, religions, politics, get their following from surrounding influences and atmospheres, almost entirely; not from study, not from thinking.

Why are Catholics, Catholics; Baptists, Baptists; Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jehovah’s Witnesses; Republicans, Republicans; and Democrats, Democrats? Mark Twain believed it is a matter of association and sympathy, not reasoning and examination, that hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon religion or politics which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there is nothing but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, corn-pone stands for self-approval.

Men think they think upon great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently. They arrive at convictions, but they are drawn from a partial view of the matter in hand which is of no particular value.

We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it’s the Voice of God.

Now I don’t know if my awareness of corn-pone opinions is why I have no religious affiliation or why I can’t join a political party. But I’m not ashamed to admit that a lot of what I believe, I learned from Mark Twain. Like he said, “The trouble with the world is not that people know so little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.”

For those of you who may have read my earlier post about Kelly and his book, you might remember that I mentioned that his pre-release version had already received great reviews from its 200-plus readers.  The Second Edition is very likely to become a classic to those who follow the history and activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses and their Watchtower Society.

Kelly very clearly emphasizes that his goal in writing the book was not to try to expose any of the Watchtower’s dirty laundry.  All he was trying to do was to try to get readers to understand what it is like to be a kid being raised in such a religion. 

At ten years of age how do you please your parents who teach that “society is evil” - and then try to go out and function normally within that society? Kelly says that for some children it is almost impossible, often resulting in their suffering mental problems and eventual financial ruin.

Kelly’s first book stops rather abruptly at age 20 when he first makes his decision to break away from the Jehovah’s Witness culture.  But this is only the beginning.  His next book, “Ghosts of Growing Up in Mama’s Club” will pick up from where his first book leaves off and carries the story through his next 40 years.

According to Kelly the real damage of “Mama’s Club” comes after he grows up and his fight to free himself from the Jehovah’s Witness organization had only really started in his early 20s.

Kelly says that it will be several months before the second book will be released, probably sometime in 2009.  In the meantime he is concentrating on getting orders filled for “Growing Up…” and getting distribution channels finalized. ”I think getting the book distributed will turn out to be even a bigger job than writing it,” Kelly jokes, “And it took me over six years and two versions to get that part right!”

Anyone interested in getting a copy of Kelly’s autobiography should contact him through his website at RichardEKelly.com.

I’ve just heard it through my private little grapevine that Richard E. Kelly, a Michigan based writer, is about to release his first major book to the public in August (2007).  The book is “Growing Up in Mama’s Club – A childhood perspective of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”  The book is described in more detail at his new website www.RichardEKelly.com.

The August 2007 release is actually the 2nd Edition; the first printing of 200 copies was only distributed to friends, critics and agents for review purposes.  The feedback Kelly got was overwhelmingly positive and many reader suggestions were used to rework the 2nd Edition that’s being released to the public.  The book will be offered online and through several major retail channels.

Kelly tells the story of his mother’s conversion to Jehovah’s Witnesses when he was just 4 years old.  At that age, he just assumed that his mother had “joined a club” – so to speak.  Eager to please his mother, he joined with her in attending the regular meetings and activities of the Witness organization and grew up not really knowing any other way of life.

But through his teen years, he realized that although he loved his mother and continued to want to please her, the teachings and cult culture of the Witnesses was becoming more and more difficult for him to live with and to rationalize his continued involvement.

Kelly relates how he actively participated in field service and meetings, and even voluteered to go and work at the Watchtower printing factories in Brooklyn, New York.  But even his involvement at that level – even in close daily contact with the leaders of the Watchtower organization – could not change his realization that he had to get out from under the control of the Witness religion.

Kelly makes it clear that he no longer holds any grudges or dislike anyone within the Witness religion, past or present.  Part of writing this book was purging all of those feelings from his mind and heart.  His real purpose is to describe what it is like to grow up in such a restrictive religion and its actual effects on young children and teens.  This same situation existed within the extreme examples of Jonestown and Branch Davidian cults.  It still exists today within the polygamist branches of the Mormon Church (Latter Day Saints).

Kelly reports that he has been overwhelmed at the acceptance and the feedback he has received from the readers of the pre-publication edition of the book.  The buzz about his book is moving like wildfire throughout the blogs and online discussion forums that are frequented by ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses and JW wannabees.  Current JWs are known to lurk and read online Witness discussion groups, so there is a clearly a ”hidden” market for his book and others like it. 

I’m sure the exposure on the Internet about these types of religions has contributed to the slowdown in conversions and the loss of many current members of the JW organization.  Books like Kelly’s from other former Witnesses must be giving the leaders of the Watchtower Society in Brooklyn nightmares. 

Kelly wants to emphasize, however, that his book isn’t really a discussion of the teachings and practices of the Witnesses.  Rather his is more of a psychological study of what it is like to grow up as a JW from the viewpoint of a child, not as an adult. 

He points out that similar situations exist in most every religion, but especially among fundamentalist Christians, Moslems, and Jewish sects.  For that reason his book should be read by everyone who is a member of that kind of religion.  They need to know the real damage that they might be doing to their children. 

Kelly says that he will be sharing comments from his readers and also providing updates to the book on his website at www.RichardEKelly.com.