Carol Smaldino's The Human Climate

Tony Gaskew is Professor of Criminal Justice and Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, Bradford. He is a Critical Race theorist and teaches Critical Race Theory at the U. of Pittsburgh as well. He is currently a full Professor of Criminal Justice and Africana Studies, Director of the Criminal Justice Program, and Founding Director of the Prison Education Program at the University of Pittsburgh, Bradford.

Tony has worked in and written of policing, of prison re-entry and education while in prison. His is a strikingly articulate and profound voice, and his experience covers work in the Middle East as well. His most recent title is: Stop Trying to Fix Policing: Lessons Learned from the Front Lines of Black Liberation. (2021)

Tony is a teacher of Black incarcerated students, and he sees education as one way to move from humiliation to humility. He is about claiming the right and experience of resistance of Black people in a systemically racist society in which white people, liberals included, benefit from white privilege.

Tony manages to be fierce while not being full of hatred; he apologizes for nothing but humility and love are also his remarkable attributes.

Tony does not flinch in his vision which can be controversial to white people, and no doubt to some Black people as well.

Mark Vonnegut, is a pediatrician, write and son of iconic author Kurt Vonnegut.

Mark is a pediatrician who cares deeply about the availability of medical care for all. He was at a commune he started in Canada when he suffered his first mental breakdown. He wrote The Eden Express about the beginnings of falling apart. Then he became a pediatrician, attending the only school that accepted him, Harvard.

He wrote Just Like a Person Without Mental Illness Only More So, about his successive mental breakdowns, and the book includes much about his personal life as well. 

His book The Heart of Caring is recent, and in it, Mark includes much of the wisdom he has gleaned from patients as well as stories of victory and defeat in his work. Always humanizing he speaks of journeys to Haiti and to Honduras, where he learned to value native authenticity. He cannot abide the current medical system which leaves out so many people in need.

In addition Mark probes some of his history with his father Kurt, along with the price of fame in his father’s life.

Mark is testament and gives testimony to the idea that one can be mentally ill and have a productive and passionate life.

Rather than seeing life as a closed affair based on competition, Niki Harre sees it as an open game based on rules evolving as we go along, 

And as Niki is inspired by psychological research and social activism, she shows how the game of life can be open ended and open to new and diverse players. Nikki’s more recent research addresses issues of sustainability, values and care for the common good. The question that drives her is how to engage people in creating a more sustainable and equitable society. She has been motivated to research and teach on the area of psychology and sustainability.

Niki Harre is professor of psychology at the University of Auckland in Auckland, New Zealand.

Rosalind Wiseman has for many years been inspired to to foster civil dialogue and work with communities to build strength, courage and purpose. Rosalind is the founder of Cultures of Dignity, the author of the curriculumOwning Up: Empowering Adolescents to Confront Social Cruelty, Bullying, and Injusticeand a multiple New York Times bestselling author including Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World.

Rosalind and her staff, including students, create curriculum for teachers and students including adopting practical methodologies for interpersonal and family relationships. She also concentrates on diversity and on having difficult dialogues in respectful styles.

Mary Gordon is founder and director of Roots of Empathy in Toronto, Canada. Empathy, she realizes is a foremost resource for both individuals and groups and nations, etc. The innovative theme of her program is the practice of teaching empathy to children in schools.

A baby is brought by a caretaker into a given classroom where the stages of development and the meaning of the baby’s cues are taught to the children. The class becomes attached and better equipped to read the baby’s cues, and a wide variety of children, from autistic to acting out to isolated refugees, are positively influenced by these experiences. Mary, is both full of empathy herself and understands what happens in a world where it is missing. Her conferences include world leaders and her admirers include the Dalai Lama.

Jennifer Thompson founded Healing Justice Project based on her experience with a failing criminal justice system. After being raped at knife point she was propelled to identify the wrong person, Ronald Cotton, who went on to spend 11 years in prison. With new DNA material, he was freed and after some further guilt and heartache, Jennifer met with Ron and they have since become friends.

She went on to found Healing Justice which proposes and enacts restorative justice, a healing rather than a punitive pursuit. They have services related to victims, exonerees and the families of all parties.

Jennifer has been to hell and back and she has found the capacity to enjoy her family and her commitment to Healing Justice. She herself is a lay therapist who is mightily aware of the systemic racism in our criminal justice system and how often there are instances of false confession and wrongful confession. Jennifer is an activist and a healer, and brings stories of inspiration from the field.

James Trainum is an ex-detective living and working in Washington, D.C. After realizing that he personally had imposed a false confession in his work, he left law enforcement and became a consultant helping families navigate the criminal justice system. Jim is an expert in the psychology and dynamics used in inducing and obtaining false confessions. He also teaches people within law enforcement agencies and is a strong advocate for the more respectful police treatment of criminal suspects.

Jim is the author of: How the Police Generate False Confessions: An Inside Look at the Interrogation Room.

I first read of Ben Tumin in a New York Times profile in July 2021. Ben is a “historical satirist”. He is loath to be called a historian because for one he isn’t but also perhaps “real” (quotation mine) historians would take umbrage. However he reads a lot and knows a lot and seems to be always learning, even to the extent of following facts that might be controversial at least for writers of typical textbooks. 

Ben is the founder of Skipped History, a movement/blog—some entries are for members only-- that uses satire and theater to promote learning about times in history that have been skipped over. Among other topics he is quite expert on various US invasions and invasions across the globe.

Larry Siems’s career in human rights and free expression advocacy includes 17 years directing Freedom to Write and International Programs for PEN, the international writers’ organization. At PEN, he designed and coordinated global campaigns to protect writers and defend the right of all to freedom of expression, and supported the efforts of writers in more than a dozen countries to defend journalism, literature, and free speech. 

Larry has been an impassioned critic of US military torture and collaborated with the ACLU to write The Torture Report. And his editing of Guantanamo Diary allows for the full benefit of Mohamedou Slahi’s spirit and humor, his friendships with peers and with guards. As such the reader does not easily become overwhelmed by the acts of torture described, only because they do not eliminate the other parts of Mohamedou’s human experience. 

Wolfgang Fasser, born and raised in the countryside outside of Zurich, was always most at home in nature and in looking for God. He became blind at 18 and went on to study music therapy and physical therapy. He became a healer and receiver of healing in Lesotho, a small country in Africa, where he continues to travel a few months per year. Wolfgang worked for many years at Romena, a spiritual retreat center in the Casentino, a rustic area of Tuscany in Italy. In addition to leading groups for week long silent working meditations and therapeutic groups, he has taken groups of sighted people through the forest in the dark. Recently Wolfgang has returned to Switzerland where at 66, he can receive more care for himself, and where he continues to practice his therapies. In addition he plays the saxophone in an ongoing Klezmer band started in Italy. We touch on the phenomenon of putting people on pedestals, the fact that he is often seen as “amazing”, something he protests.