It’s December 1937 and the Japanese have taken the city of Nanking in China. An American priest, Father Engelman, is protecting a group of 16 St. Mary Magdalene schoolgirls in his church, which is supposed to be on neutral ground in the war between China and Japan. The Japanese have set the soap factory on fire, and a group of prostitutes are also seeking shelter at the church, where they are sent to the cellar to be apart from the young girls. Father Engelman doesn’t have enough food to feed everyone.

“The cellar was not a cellar anymore. It had been transformed into an underground railroad. The women had moved some books from the workshop down to the cellar, and had used them to form platforms on which to sleep. Those who had brought bedrolls had spread them over the cots; silk quilts in impossible pinks and greens, ready for a normal business day by the Huai River.”

Then 29-year-old Major Dai of the Second Regiment of the 73rd Division of the Nationalist Army arrives, climbing over the wall into the church grounds looking for a safe place to stay. “The troops had
almost succeeded in driving the Japanese Army into the Huangpu River in the space of a week.” Major Dai is “hit by a bullet in his left side. After throwing a grenade at the Japanese, he pulls himself towards the foreign American church for shelter.”

Father Engelman is afraid to let Major Dai and other soldiers in (even though he learns that 5 or 6 thousand Chinese have just been killed) because his church would no longer be considered neutral and he couldn’t continue to protect the schoolgirls. Nonetheless he allows Major Dai and two soldiers (Sergeant Major Li Quan and soldier Wang Pusheng, returning from their own hellish stories with the Japanese) to be helped by having his servants dress their wounds, and he asks Major Dai to surrender his weapon. Major Dai is loathe to do this, but finally gives his pistol to Father Engelman. Then Father Engelman relents and lets the soldiers stay in the cellar with the Chinese prostitutes.

“Three hundred thousand (Japanese) soldiers had escaped into every corner of Nanking, every alleyway, every home, every nook and cranny,” which is what Father Engelman, the schoolgirls, the prostitutes and the soldiers are now facing. The terrible stories of war and of the prostitute’s lives (usually sold into brothels when very young if they’re orphaned or have poor parents) are compelling and sad. The young schoolgirls are a symbol of what’s pure and untouched in a greedy and sadistic world. Father Engleman tells us, “I have been thinking about this lack of rationality in the East. It gives birth to the most exquisite literature and arts in Russia, Japan and China, yet also the most unthinkable cruelty.” And the sacrifices of Father Engelman and the prostitutes are truly courageous and caring.

The Flowers Of War is based on a true story about the raping and pillaging Japanese of this time (now a film by Chinese director Zhang Yimou, who made Raise the Red Lantern). Author Geling Yan is an award-winning Chinese novelist and screenwriter who has also written The Uninvited and The Lost Daughter of Happiness. The Flowers Of War is an amazing story about a truly terrible time.

The Flowers Of War by Geling Yan, published on January 31, 2012, by Other Press, 256 pages.

Reviewed by Christina Zawadiwsky

Christina Zawadiwsky is Ukrainian-American, born in New York City, has a degree in Fine Arts, and is a poet, artist, journalist and TV producer. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Award, two Wisconsin Arts Boards Awards, a Co-Ordinating Council of Literary Magazines Writers Award, and an Art Futures Award, among other honors. She was the originator and producer of Where The Waters Meet, a local TV series created to facilitate the voices of artists of all genres in the media, for which she won two national and twenty local awards, including a Commitment to Community Television Award. She is also a contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology, the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, and has published four books of poetry. She currently reviews movies for http://www.filmsay.com, music forhttp://www.musicroomreviews.com, and books for http://www.bookroomreviews.com.

Thanks to a more competitive marketplace and housing and credit markets that support home buyers, it has rarely been easier for home shoppers looking for cheap mortgages.

With rates and historic lows in many parts of the world, including in the US where current 30-year fixed rate loans go for less than 4 percent in many instances, buyers can make home buying a great investment and buy more home than they might normally be able to afford.

To get the best value on your mortgage you need to know your loan options and understand the market. The home loan market includes mortgage brokers and mortgage lenders. The lenders are the ones that actually originate the loan process and fund the loan. Brokers serve as a go-between and help connect prospective borrowers to the best mortgage alternative in their given situation.

Refinancing to a lower rate has been very popular in the last few years as well as many home owners have taken advantage of the opportunity to get better positioned to pay off their loan over the long run. Even a 1 to 2 percent decrease in your rate can save the typical home owner tens of thousands of dollars over the life of a home mortgage.

Disclosure: I have been compensated for this post. Any opinions are mine.

A leading provider of simple and affordable security, energy management and home automation solutions, Vivent has been in business for over a decade. If you read Vivint reviews or look over their website, you will discover the vast array of powerful solutions the company has to offer.

Among the top Vivint products are the company’s base product, the touch screen control panel and other solutions and features that include intelligent climate control, video surveillance, remote access, security sensors, safety sensors, lighting and small appliance controls, automatic door locks, severe weather alerts and non-emergency alerts.

Arguably the main overall benefit of the Vivint product portfolio is the cluster of satisfactions it provides. With an LCD display, the Vivint Go!Control panel is an all-in-one security and home management solution. By combining the benefits of three major devices in one, you have a high value means of securing your home, managing your energy and saving time through the automated solutions.

Energy management has become critical as families try to lower costs and preserve resources. With the Vivint solution’s intelligent climate control feature, you can easily lower or raise your thermostat to keep your home comfortable while optimizing energy costs.

Fire and carbon monoxide safety sensors can help reduce the number of single box fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors you need to cover your home thoroughly.

I have been compensated for this post. However, any opinions are my own.

Philip “Philo” Kassner is the author of a book of photographic essays, Kochanski’s Concertina Beer Hall – The Return Of Rockabilly, that is available on Amazon.com. The accompanying photo was taken at the concertina hall by his wife Colleen Kassner. Here is an interview by Christina Zawadiwsky about his book:

1. Why did you decide to do a photographic essay on Rockabilly music, and why do you like Rockabilly?

Many years ago I listened to such music and found it haunting. When I had the first opportunity to visit Kochanski’s not only did I love the music, as a photographer I realized I had hit the “motherload”. I can give no rational reason for feeling compelled to photographically capture the magic. I simply had to do it. The wonderful music is still echoing in my head.

2. Is it difficult to take interesting photographs of people?

People are so wonderful and varied that I do not consider it difficult photographing them. There are countless opportunities. Any difficulty would simply be that of remaining incognito.

3. Do you regret your decision not to use a flash at Kochanski’s Concertina Hall? Could anything else have been done, other than conversion to black and white?

Since 1970 when I began to use high-speed film, I have always been fascinated with low-level ambient lighting. I do not in any way regret foregoing a flash. It would have changed the mood of the images I was capturing and not given a true view of the “scene”. At the end of the evening I was often thanked by the performers for photographing them without disrupting the mood.

Had I spent considerable time with the images using photographic software, I perhaps could have gotten a few more usable color images. In general I do not believe in more than a smidgen of photographic enhancement. Due to the low-level lighting conditions the photographs looked so much better when simply converted to black and white. I was pleased that they had the appearance of 35mm “Tri-X” film.

4. How and when did you first start doing photography?

In 1955, for my 6th birthday, my parents awarded me with a Kodak “box” camera. I still recall my father teaching me how to load film and use the camera. It was quite straightforward, there was nothing to adjust.

My photographic career started in 1966 however, when my father taught me how to use the more complicated 35mm camera he was given by his brother. I borrowed it when I took a trip to New York. By 1970 I owned my own 35mm camera and began to take a serious approach to photography. I was in the US Army stationed in Europe and had the use of the darkroom on base. Under the tutelage of David Firth, an accomplished photographer and fellow soldier, I was introduced to photographic composition and darkroom technique. Forty years later I am approaching the capabilities he had then.

5. Do you feel that photography is viable as an art form (since many argue that it’s representational and not a matter of interpretation)?

Photography is no doubt a form of art. It simply isolates “what is art” from the jumble of our surroundings.

6. How much of an element does chance play in your work?

Almost 100% chance. I rarely plan anything. The only decisions I generally make are simply where I am going.

7. Do you ever “stage” your photographs?

I do not stage my photography. My tendencies are to “shoot” things the way they are. I have been known to make a rare exception . I once saw my cousin standing next to a “droopy headed” sunflower. I asked him simply to lower his head. He had no idea why I had asked him to do so, but when he saw the result he laughed when he realized he and the flower were standing with similar poses.

8. Who are your favorite photographers and/or artists?

My favorite photographers and artists are the wealth of people I know personally. There are too many to name here.

9. Do you prefer the old-fashioned darkroom photography or digital photography?

I am completely “sold” on digital photography. In a single day I can produce dozens of images. The darkroom, to me, was mostly drudgery.

10. Are you often surprised at the outcome of your digital work?

Always. Many of my best photos were pure accidents.

11. What is your favorite photographic subject?

My wife Colleen.

Art Kochanski’s Concertina Beer Hall is a tradition in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (before this it was Alt Altenberg’s Concertina Bar). Under the old ownership there was polka music, and under the new Andy Kochanski ownership there are two stages that often “battle” with each other, one in the front and one in the back of this large establishment. Both the “new” rockabilly and the old-fashioned polka are represented.

But now we have even more – a visual account of this night-darkened club. Philip Kassner, who’s been a photographer for forty years but whose photo on the back cover shows us a youthful-looking beret-topped bohemian, took on the challenge of documenting the new (but to most of the world, still a secret) concertina hall. “Present day rockabilly is even better now…..I enjoyed the photographic challenge, it was like capturing imagery from the interior of a grotto……The senior patrons of Altenberg’s have been been retrieved and can easily out-dance me. Some of them come in on non-polka nights to enjoy the rockabilly music.”

Andy Kochanski, the new owner, writes, “The building was built in 1900, when everything around it was celery fields……As with many of the taverns from the good ol’ days, music was a part of the bar life, just as it is still here today. Within the confines of these walls, polka was and is still part of the driving force that makes this institution what it is today. The musical genres have been expanded to include Rockabilly, Blues, Bluegrass, Country and Western, Honky-tonk, Punk, and of course Surf music…..Even though this building gives off a special vibe, if it weren’t for friends and family who have helped me, the very talented bands that play here, and the wonderful people that come here, this place would just be an old building.”

With the edge of Diane Arbus but not the ominous and destructive feeling of her photos, Kassner shows us Kent Knapp, ‘the Colonel” – “He is a blacksmith, large and muscular. No one can get a bass to resonate the way he does”; the Brew City Bombshells, a burlesque act, and one of its members, Raven Nevermore; Delilah De Wylde and the Lost Boys, and in one of their photos Delilah looks almost like an opera star, trying to drag her bass towards her; Mary Rogers from The Uptown Savages coolly playing her saxophone, and a variety of other performers. Kassner also shows us spectators: a Beer Drinker, with his dark bottle held up to his lips and his hollow stare moving off to the left; owner Andy Kochanski standing in front of a wild photo of himself; Brush Cut, the profile of an older man with a short haircut, and even the Untitled photo that’s a “Documentation of the last cigarette legally smoked within a city of Milwaukee tavern” that depicts an older woman lighting up her cig with the people and art on the walls behind her looking like ghosts.

Most of the photos are black and white, with “the appearance of sensitive but grainy 35 mm film.” Shot with a Canon 50D (“Ten times more sensitive than a film camera or common digital camera of that era”) but nonetheless “only a few of them had sufficient illumination for me to print color,” what began as as great enthusiasm in showing “the scene”, often in darkness, changed when Kassner refused to use a flash even though “the stage was illuminated by just a few dim, red lightbulbs” because “It would have completely spoiled the atmosphere and have been entirely too disruptive.” But with just “a minimal amount of photo enhancement” Kassner has been successful in capturing, say, the sparkling background contrasted to the effort of the hard blowing of Big Al Groth and his saxophone from the Reverend Raven and the Chain Smokin’ Altar Boys band, or the attentive but sad look of Couple, a man in a suit and hat wearing glasses and his girlfriend at his side watching the action with games and posters lit up behind them.

This book of photos is an achievement in mood – gaiety, confidence, difficulty, burden, enjoyment, sweetness, fun and the usually ever-present “next day” finally put aside for awhile. The same can be said of Philip Kassner’s photos as he says of Matt Tyner and his “one of a kind guitar” – that “You don’t see too many of ‘em” anymore. An unusual and heart-felt book.

Kochanski’s Concertina Beer Hall: The Return Of Rockabilly, a book of photos by Philip Kassner published by CreateSpace on December 8, 2011, 70 pages.

Reviewed by Christina Zawadiwsky

Christina Zawadiwsky is Ukrainian-American, born in New York City, has a degree in Fine Arts, and is a poet, artist, journalist and TV producer. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Award, two Wisconsin Arts Boards Awards, a Co-Ordinating Council of Literary Magazines Writers Award, and an Art Futures Award, among other honors. She was the originator and producer of Where The Waters Meet, a local TV series created to facilitate the voices of artists of all genres in the media, for which she won two national and twenty local awards, including a Commitment to Community Television Award. She is also a contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology, the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, and has published four books of poetry. She currently reviews movies for http://www.filmsay.com, music for http://www.musicroomreviews.com, and books for http://www.bookroomreviews.com.

“It would be difficult to make financial wealth or any measure of true success without having an intact core sense of self. If you believe that having money will bestow on you a sense of self-worth, you will be caught in a classic Catch-22 loop in which self-esteem must be preceded by wealth, but wealth is possible only if you have self-esteem. Indeed, financial wealth does not automatically confer either self-esteem or self-respect. On the contrary, self-esteem and self respect seem to be prerequisites for achieving a life of true wealth and prosperity.”

Author Charles Richards, Ph.D., is a Doctor of Clinical Psychology and a licensed psychotherapist in private practice who has trained and coached the senior executives of many Fortune 100 corporations, so of course he knows what he’s talking about, as he goes on to say, “It is not possible to grant another person an authentic and durable sense of self-esteem – it is a quality that we gain through our own experiences.” Dr. Richards seeks to show us how to desire a more successful life, telling us that “simply by being alive, we are worthy. If our sense of self is damaged, shattered, or fragile, it can be strengthened.” He says that even Walt Disney, who received wealth and many honors and awards as he became an American icon, had a life “riddled with crushing setbacks, disappointments, financial failures, and occasional bouts of depression,” but he learned from his mistakes and from his adversity. If we stay positive and see ourselves as moving forward, we will be ready to use any opportunities that come our way. “And when you choose to make the smallest course corrections consistently, over time, you’ll begin to see amazing results” (quoting SUCCESS magazine publisher Darren Hardy). “A horse wins by a nose, but gets 10 times the prize money.”

Dr. Richards shows us how to distinguish high self-esteem from low self-esteem, how to evaluate our self-esteem, and how to use role models properly. Innumerable stories illustrate how to work hard to overcome difficult circumstances, and how to make the best choices for our individual selves. Keeping complete responsibility for ourselves is an important factor, including responsibility (as Victor Frankl states) about “what we think.” Although a Holocaust survivor, most of us know about the in-depth psychological writing that Victor Frankl created because of his war-time experiences.

Telling the story of Shefik Tallmadge, who won the lottery at age 29 ($335,000 each year for 20 years), Dr. Richards explains to us what can happen even if we have money. Tallmadge says, “I entered into the big shark pool, and I was the little minnow. The lottery did change my life. What I did with it afterward was the problem.” Shopping like crazy, Tallmadge eventually had to declare bankruptcy and now his wife “is the main breadwinner in the Tallmadge family, and he is a stay-at-home dad.”

Dr. Richards suggests that we reclaim our power, paying attention to our thoughts, words, actions and beliefs, and keeping them positive. Quoting Stuart Johnson, the owner of SUCCESS magazine, we learn that “Successful people, like Donald Trump, Suze Orman, and Oprah Winfrey, have tenacity. They can be knocked down, but they’re not knocked out. They have integrity, and they work hard. They put good people around them, and they always seem to really care about others.” Dr. Richards also believes that action is always preferable to inaction – it’s inertia that many of us need to overcome.

Dr. Richards concludes that “Having a wealth psychology means that we feel grateful for what we have and acknowledge what we’ve accomplished. We know that generosity towards others is abundance in motion, and that giving creates more abundance in us. With this psychology, we accept that we’re responsible for what we create no matter what life may provide or remove along the way. We expect the best of ourselves, and we recognize that the golden path to true prosperity, to a life of happiness and fulfillment, begins by showing up and putting one foot in front of the other.” A valuable and optimistic book, The Psychology Of Wealth is abundant in ideas and theories that can take you well on your way to achieving your life’s happiness and goals.

The Psychology Of Wealth: Understand Your Relationship With Money And Achieve Prosperity by Charles Richards, Ph.D, published by McGraw-Hill on 12/20/11, 256 pages.

Reviewed by Christina Zawadiwsky

Christina Zawadiwsky is Ukrainian-American, born in New York City, has a degree in Fine Arts, and is a poet, artist, journalist and TV producer. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Award, two Wisconsin Arts Boards Awards, a Co-Ordinating Council of Literary Magazines Writers Award, and an Art Futures Award, among other honors. She was the originator and producer of Where The Waters Meet, a local TV series created to facilitate the voices of artists of all genres in the media, for which she won two national and twenty local awards, including a Commitment to Community Television Award. She is also a contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology, the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, and has published four books of poetry. She currently reviews movies for http://www.filmsay.com, music for http://www.musicroomreviews.com, and books for

http://www.bookroomreviews.com.

A Walk Across The Sun begins with the quote “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to one another” – Mother Teresa of Calcutta – and it is dedicated to “the unaccountable number of souls held captive in the sex trade” and “the heroic men and women across the globe working tirelessly to win their freedom.” This novel is the story of sister orphans Ahalya and Sita who are abducted and sold to a Mumbai brothel owner to work in the sex trade at ages 17 and 15. Attorney Thomas Clarke of Washington, D.C. decides to pursue a pro bono sabbatical working in India to prosecute human trafficers and tries to rescue Ahalya and Sita.

A tsunami ravages their town of Chennai, and the two sisters begin finding bodies on the beach, including that of their father Nanesh and their mother Ambini. The rest of their family relatives have died also. Ahalya and Sita flee, taking a photo of the family and a box of gold jewelry, hoping to get to St. Mary’s. A man named Kanan takes them in a truck and “Ahalya clutched the satchel tightly. Without hesitation, the young man backhanded her across the face. Ahalya’s cheek smarted from the blow and she tasted blood on her lip. Beside her, Sita began to whimper. The violence had been sudden and shocking. Ahalya handed over the bag” and the young man takes all their jewelry and brings them to his family home where his wife Chako gives them tranquilizers and they fall asleep. The two sisters are sold for ten thousand rupees and sent to Suchir’s brothel in Bombay.

As a virgin, Ahalya is first sold by Suchir to a customer, for ninety thousand ruppees. Sumeera, Suchir’s wife, tells her, “What you have experienced is difficult. The shame is natural. All feel it the first time. But you will survive. You will learn to accept it.” In their “prison of boredom and fear” Sumeera tells them “Desire is the enemy….Desire for the past, desire for the future, desire for love, desire for family. Everything. A beshya has to detach herself from all affections and accept her karma. You will never be happy here. But you don’t need to be sad.” Younger sister Sita is taken away to “a flat in Bombay with a strange man who dealt in drugs” and separated from her sister. She is forced to become a mule, swallowing passed condom pellets filled with heroin and “If a condom ruptures, the heroin will send your body into shock and you could die.” As for Ahalya, “Her only desire was to reunite with Sita. Life had lost all other meaning.” After the brothel she’s in is raided, Ahalya ends up in an orphanage run by Sister Ruth. Meanwhile, attorney Thomas Clarke, whose wife Priya has gone back to India, follows Priya there and begins working in the courts.

How Thomas Clarke tries to help Ahalya and Sita is the crux of Corban Addison’s story. Sita is sent to New Jersey, but Ahalya never gives up the hope of finding her, having given Thomas Clarke their family photo. Ahalya grows a lotus in a pot for Sita, awaiting her return.

Will the two sisters be reunited and will Sita be freed from the sex trade? A man who sells young girls, Dietrich Klein, tells Sita, “You are not here because I enjoy the sale of sex. You are here because men enjoy the purchase of it. I’m simply the broker. Some businessmen sell objects. Others sell knowledge. I sell fantasies. it is all the same.”

A Walk Across The Sun, by Corban Addison, published on January 3, 2012 by Silver Oak Sterling Publishing, 384 pages.

Reviewed by Christina Zawadiwsky

Christina Zawadiwsky is Ukrainian-American, born in New York City, has a degree in Fine Arts, and is a poet, artist, journalist and TV producer. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Award, two Wisconsin Arts Boards Awards, a Co-Ordinating Council of Literary Magazines Writers Award, and an Art Futures Award, among other honors. She was the originator and producer of Where The Waters Meet, a local TV series created to facilitate the voices of artists of all genres in the media, for which she won two national and twenty local awards, including a Commitment to Community Television Award. She is also a contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology, the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, and has published four books of poetry. She currently reviews movies for http://www.filmsay.com, music for http://www.musicroomreviews.com, and books for http://www.bookroomreviews.com.

Author Richard Crossley has been birding since the age of seven, and his book reflects his great love of the outdoors and of birds. His aim is to use new technologies to bring reality birding to a vast audience. Crossley’s book features large scenes (640 in all, taken from more than 10,000 author photos). Each shows birds from any viewpoints, near to far, in all the glory of their plumages and in varied behaviors. You can also see what a bird would look like close-up and in many stages of flight, and how its appearance changes with distance.

Maps show us where the birds live and where they migrate. Birds are viewed as we’d see them naturally in the field. The well-written text tells us how to identify birds (given all their individual differences) and how to enjoy their lovely feathers and looks.

The first of a new generation of nature guides, I found the Crossley ID Guide To Eastern Birds absolutely fascinating. The color photos of landscapes and comprehensive texts can be pored over for hours and hours, and the book is set up for easy learning. Additional information can be found at www.crossleybirds.com.

The Bird Topography and the Introduction help us to use the book by explaining its organization and how to be a better reader by recognizing habitats, behaviors, species, size, color, flight and plumage. Crossley encourages taking many hand-written field notes, as the British do, and realizing that individual birds may vary slightly, so one should certainly believe one’s eyes!

An absolutely attractive (and intrinsically artistic) coffee table book for the browser while at the same time containing all the necessary information for any birder or avid learner, small children all the way up to their grandparents will love this book! One can feel Crossley’s excitement on every page as the field photos bring the birds to life more than any drawings could. Seeing birds from many different angles (e.g. flying as seen from below) is so very different from other books of this type. The largeness of the book is imposing also.

The Crossley ID Guide To Eastern Birds would make a beautiful gift that anyone would love to receive (at a very affordable price, in these stringent economic times). Birds are very similar to humans socially (they live in flocks, mate and stay in pairs, and vocalize to each other as they take care of each other and their entire communities), and seeing these remarkably-composed photographs underscores this point. Most people would find this serious compilation that’s housed in beautifully composed visuals very hard to resist, whether you’re a birder or not!

The Crossley ID Guide To Eastern Birds, by Richard Crossley, published on February 20, 2011 by Princeton University Press, 544 pages.

Reviewed by Christina Zawadiwsky

Christina Zawadiwsky is Ukrainian-American, born in New York City, has a degree in Fine Arts, and is a poet, artist, journalist and TV producer. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Award, two Wisconsin Arts Boards Awards, a Co-Ordinating Council of Literary Magazines Writers Award, and an Art Futures Award, among other honors. She was the originator and producer of Where The Waters Meet, a local TV series created to facilitate the voices of artists of all genres in the media, for which she won two national and twenty local awards, including a Commitment to Community Television Award. She is also a contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology, the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, and has published four books of poetry. She currently reviews movies for http://www.filmsay.com, music for http://www.musicroomreviews.com, and books for http://www.bookroomreviews.com.

Why Has America Stopped Inventing? has as its dedication, “For America’s Inventors,” and rightly so! Today “Americans invent less than half of what they did 150 years ago,” we’re told by author Darin Gibby. “The truth is that if they don’t have the stomach to put $30,000 on a roulette number in Las Vegas, they’d better not try to take on the patent system. Their odds are better in Vegas. Taking on the modern U.S. patent system to secure a patent is an incredibly long shot. And, if they want to launch their product into the marketplace, they’re bound to discover the patent system can present them unseen risks as well. My clients stand a good chance of being hauled into federal court for infringing on someone else’s patent – even if the patent office grants them their own patent.”

After a patent is filed with a a registered patent attorney, an application is filed with the patent office and “then sits for two to three years until an examiner actually looks at it…..When he does, he’s going to reject it – however that’s his job.” Thirty to forty thousand dollars and three to seven years later, after arguments between the examiner and the patent attorney, a patent might be granted. Patent infringement lawsuits are “astronomical”, usually “at least two million.” Also, “Most people don’t realize that even if you have your own idea patented, you can still get sued for a million or more for stepping on somebody else’s patent.” Trying to stop this conflict seems impossible. There was a time when this wasn’t true – the period from the 1830s to the 1850s, “America’s golden age of invention.” But now “Layer upon layer has been added to our patent jurisprudence, making it next to impossible to obtain or enforce a patent.” Now, Gibby says, “We need to invent how to patent in America.”

The first part of the 20th century had no cell phones, computers, or even televisions. “By 1900, our nation’s inventors had already produced the steam engine, the train, the automobile, the telegraph, steelmaking, photography, the typewriter, dynamite, the telephone, the electric motor, the light bulb, the facsimile, and the phonograph.” But now, there’s no cure for cancer, no substitute for automobile fuel, no replacement for the lightbulb. “Today Americans on a per capita basis are granted fewer than half the number of patents issued a hundred and fifty years ago.”

In America in 1790 it cost only four to five dollars to procure a patent (plus attorney fees), after which the steamship was immediately developed. Under a new act in America in 1793 “anyone could get a patent by depositing a model and the right paper work with the patent office, “but it often took months to get a patent.” This greatly affected Eli Whitney “when he tried to stop the hundreds of infringers” on his cotton gin. Whitney lost all of his patent infringement suits. Finally, after years of dispute, in 1806, a year before his patent expired, Judge Johnson made Whitney victorious because the cotton gin “was simply too valuable to the nation’s economy.” But patents were proved basically useless.

Cyrus McCormick invented a grain harvester, a reaper so that man no longer had to gather cut grain and bundle it. Charles Goodyear, stuck in debtor’s prison, invented, through experimentation, non-melting vulcanized rubber. But the 1850s proved to be the decade of the most patent litigation in America’s history, especially the battle over the sewing machine. Elias Howe created the first sewing machine concept (patented on September 10, 1846), but Isaac Singer invented a better one he called the Jenny Lind, with a patent on August 12, 1851. By 1867 there were around 900 patents on the sewing machine and “tens of thousands of pages of testimony resulted from all the trials.” Eventually Howe was awarded a royalty for any sewing machine “all without his ever ever successfully producing a sewing machine” and “Americans understood that they could protect their ideas.”

Litigations, greed, fury, personality conflicts and changing imperfect patent laws all added to the great drama of America’s major inventions. Patent protection continues to be the hub of disputes in all sorts of products, now with big-money corporations usually winning. Darin Gibby vivifies the battles (of which historically there were many) and is particularly detailed in his explanations. Gibby also discusses the telephone, Marconi’s first wireless device, Edison’s phonograph and the Wright Brothers’ airplane, among many other inventions.

Gibby believes that by “granting patents on concepts that have yet to be physically developed, our patent system allows technologies to be ‘locked-up,’ stunting development by at least a decade.” He continues, “Imagine where our electronics industry would be if we could jump ahead ten years” and “what is disturbing is that today’s patent rules are so onerous that they would invalidate most of America’s greatest patents – the airplane, the telephone, the transistor, the lightbulb, the electric motor, the phonograph, Marconi’s wireless device, xerography, just to name a few.” An excellent book, and Gibby has my vote on the need for American patent law reform.

Why Has America Stopped Inventing? by Darin Gibby, published by Morgan James Publishign on December 1, 2011, 252 pages.

Reviewed by Christina Zawadiwsky

Christina Zawadiwsky is Ukrainian-American, born in New York City, has a degree in Fine Arts, and is a poet, artist, journalist and TV producer. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Award, two Wisconsin Arts Boards Awards, a Co-Ordinating Council of Literary Magazines Writers Award, and an Art Futures Award, among other honors. She was the originator and producer of Where The Waters Meet, a local TV series created to facilitate the voices of artists of all genres in the media, for which she won two national and twenty local awards, including a Commitment to Community Television Award. She is also a contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology, the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, and has published four books of poetry. She currently reviews movies for http://www.filmsay.com, music for http://www.musicroomreviews.com, and books for http://www.bookroomreviews.com.

In the first season of the Showtime series “Shameless”, now available on DVD and Blu-ray, viewers see a lot of hardship but the show usually ends with a twist of humor and close family ties. At the end of Season 1, Steve tries to convince Fiona, his oldest daughter, to skip town with him to the warm and beautiful/care-free Costa Rica. This kind of lifestyle would surely be a great change for Fiona, but after initially deciding to go with Steve, she changes her mind and stays with the hard yet humorous, family-oriented life.

This is certainly a challenging dilemma and closely replicates some of the critical life-altering decisions we often have to make in early adulthood or other pivotal points in life. Being a creature of comfort and someone with a strong family foundation, I would probably make the same decision Fiona made and stay behind with family. Having said this, in earlier days of independence, the impulsive might have seemed more appealing.

What would you do?

Season 2 of the series started Sunday the 9th and you can tune in is on Sundays 9PM ET/PT on Showtime.