Election Section

Three recent books with local connections explore a variety of approaches to the topic of what it means to do public service. 

Zac Unger (a Berkeley resident and frequent Daily Planet contributor) has written a personal memoir of his career as an Oakland firefighter, a profession he embarked on almost by accident while trying to decide what to do after he finished an Ivy League education. He combines vivid descriptions of what he does with introspective passages about why he does it. The excitement is a big part of why, but also, he says, because "I know that if I don’t do what I’m supposed to, then nobody else will either." 

Working Fire: The Making of an Accidental Fireman, Zac Unger, Penguin, March 2004. 

Mary Tolman Kent’s memoir of her 80 years of life describes public service of an older school: the generation of women who devoted the major part of their lives to home and family, and who were movers and shakers by virtue of their volunteer activities. She was a faculty wife when that was almost a career in itself, and she and her husband, University of California professor and Berkeley City Councilman Jack Kent, were deeply involved in Democratic politics, civil liberties and other liberal causes. She lost a son to AIDS and her husband to Alzheimer’s disease, and the book is also a moving account of how she has survived these losses. The book was published by the now defunct Creative Arts Book Company, but can be found in local bookstores or purchased from the author. 

The Closing Circle, Mary Tolman Kent, Creative Arts Book Company, 2003. 

MoveOn.com, the online political action organization which is Berkeley’s current pride and joy, has lent its name to a compendium of short essays on 50 Ways to Love Your Country, with introductory remarks signed by founders Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, today’s inheritors of the Berkeley political mantle of Jack and Mary Kent. Most of the recommended activities are the same ones activists did in the last generation: registering voters, writing letters to the editor, holding house parties for candidates, running for office. The new twist is that with modern technology it is theoretically possible to do it all faster and better. The book doesn’t dwell on this aspect, however. 

50 Ways to Love Your Country: How to Find Your Political Voice and Become a Catalyst for Change, Inner Ocean Publishing, March 2004.