Eat That Cookie! by Liz Jazwiec

Jazwiec, Liz.  Eat That Cookie!  Gulf Breeze, FL: Fire Starter, 2009.

Liz Jazwiec is a former hospital emergency department director and current consultant and speaker.  In her book, Eat That Cookie!, she draws upon her experience in creating a positive workplace to show the benefits of positivity and how it can be created.

Jazwiec was a hardnosed nurse who didn’t have time for fluff.  Her job was hard.  Her hospital was in a rough and poor neighborhood.  Oh, and some people are just stupid.  She was skeptical of the positivity movement in her hospital and she only go on board because of the unsubtle threat of consequences if she didn’t.  Slapping on a smile and being nice to people wasn’t going to make things better.

Except it does.  Kindness, even if it is fake, makes people feel better.  Expressions of

gratitude grow goodwill.  Letting go of judgment also means letting go of a lot of frustration.  Fun and productivity can coexist, even thrive together.  Celebration is important; you need to recognize achievement if you want to keep getting it from people.

Each chapter touches on a subject related to positive workplaces and how it helps make workplaces more productive.  The book is full of examples, some from Jazwiec’s work as an emergency department director and some from clients or other hospitals.  The title come from the example of a hospital unit that instituted a weekly no negativity day, with smiley face cookies served to staff that day as a reminder.

Cookies may sound silly.  Sometimes the silliness is intentional.  It is a reminder, and remembering  and keeping people accountable is an important part of a positive workplace.  Positive workplaces are made and sustained through effort and consistent, reinforced behaviors.  Jazwiec is practical-minded in this regard.  Positive workplaces don’t just happen.

To that end, the book contains a lot of advice.  Leadership needs to provide accountability, fairness, and a focus on behavior.  Don’t overwhelm people with changes.  Institute three or four changes a year, and make sure you have a high level of compliance before introducing something new.

As a consultant to hospitals, Jazwiec focuses on them.  Almost any workplace could benefit from positivity in the same ways, though.  Her examples could easily be adapted to other organizations.

In fact, much of what Jazwiec writes about is simple.  As I often say, “If simple were easy, more things would be simple.”  A workplace won’t become more positive overnight just because you feed people smiley face cookies.  It takes time, clear expectations, accountability, consistency, and successive changes, especially if negativity is engrained.  Jazwiec’s little book may help you get started.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

Revved! by Harry Paul and Ross Reck

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On the Mainlines by William B. Claycomb & Katy Depot Historic Site edited by Deborah Biermann

Claycomb, William B. On the Mainlines: Railroading in Sedalia, Missouri. Sedalia, MO: Sedalia Heritage Foundation, 2003.

Biermann, Deborah, ed. Katy Depot Historic Site. Sedalia, MO: Sedalia Heritage Foundation, 2002.

Two small books describe the import of the railroads to the town of Sedalia, Missouri, and one of the architectural remnants that era, the Katy Depot. On the Mainlines by William B. Claycomb and Katy Depot Historic Site edited by Deborah Biermann are published by the Sedalia Heritage Foundation.



Neither book has the volume to be comprehensive histories of Sedalia railroading, though only the most die-hard devotees of railroad or Missouriana might read such a book. For the more casual reader, Claycomb’s monograph has lots of interesting tidbits about both of the major railroads that operated in Sedalia. Each short chapter covers an element of the railroad operations there, the depots, the shop yards, even the railroad hospital. A few stories and anecdotes are thrown in to spice it up.

Katy Depot Historic Site focuses on one structure and its part in the Sedalia rails. Built by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad (MKT or Katy), the depot was once hub of activity with rails running on both sides and features that might normally be found only in larger stations. Now it’s part of a state park and sets on an open stretch with easy access to a trail that follows the old rail line. The book briefly covers the history of the depot and the efforts of local organizations to preserve it.

Sedalia was built with the hope of attracting the railroads. The Missouri Pacific was the major railway, but the Katy railroad was also significant to the town. Sedalia’s fortunes rose and fell with the railroads, too. The state fair still attracts travelers to the town, and if you’re there you might check out some of town’s preserved railroad heritage.

If you’re interested in these books, you may also be interested in
Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

HeLa is an immortal human cell line. It is immortal in the sense that the cells will live and grow in culture indefinitely. Since it was first cultured in 1951, the cell line has been an important part of medical research. It was used to develop vaccines for polio and HPV (Human Papilloma Virus). It has been used to study cancer, HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), other diseases and drugs to treat them. HeLa cells have made medical science as we know it possible.

These cells came from a real person. Her name was Henrietta Lacks. She was a poor, black woman who went to Johns Hopkins Hospital for treatment of what turned out to be cancer. The cells were taken from a tumor by a doctor who was treating her.

Cancer took the life of Henrietta Lacks, but her immortality in the form of the cell line has caused a lot of pain and distress for her descendants. Rebecca Skloot tells the story of Henrietta, her family, the HeLa cells and their legacy in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

It is a bit unusual in a book of biography or scientific history to write in the first person, but is the approach taken by Skloot. In order to emphasize the humanity of Henrietta, she tells a personal story of her research and the relationship she develops with the Lacks family, especially Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah.

This is important. It’s easy to get swept up in all the incredible results that have been produced from developing and testing with the HeLa cell line. It is harder to look at the individual lives on people, especially when those people are treated with little respect by the scientists and physicians who are benefiting from the cells taken from her mother.

These men saw little if anything wrong in what they did by taking the cells and growing them. They were doing what was legal at the time (and still legal) and in keeping with the ethical standards of the time. There is still much debate over the ethics of using human tissues in research. Though there are standards related to samples taken from humans, the only legally binding ones relate to federally-funded research. Issues of informed consent, ownership, and commercialization are still being worked out. If you’re a corpse, the law is fairly clear. If you’re a participant in a research study, legal and ethical standards assure some level of informed consent. If tissues are taken from a living patient for purposes of diagnosis or treatment, what can happen to those tissues is up for grabs.

I think this is a book worth reading. HeLa is an interesting scientific story. The ethical issues related to research using human tissues deserves more attention that it gets. I think the most important thing to remember is that the things we do affect human beings. Science, law and philosophy can become so abstract they are nearly pointless if we lose sight of how the things we say and do, individually and as a society, affect the lives of real people.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested it

Better for All the World by Harry Bruinius

War Against the Weak by Edwin Black

Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Crown, 2010.

Writer Harvey Pekar Passed Away at 70

Writer Harvey Pekar was found dead in the early hours yesterday (July 12, 2010). He died at home in Cleveland Heights, OH, where he worked for many years as a file clerk at a Veterans Administration hospital in addition to writing semi-autobiographical comics and jazz reviews.

Pekar is probably best know for his comics, mostly published under the title American Splendor. He drew on his own life experiences and often wrote about seemingly mundane things that, cumulatively, have a great impact on life. The first anthology of these comics won the 1987 American Book Award.

The comics he wrote were drawn by a number of notable artists. Some of these are Robert Crumb, Dean Haspiel, Joe Sacco, and Frank Stack.

This work is the basis for the 2003 biopic that is also entitled American Splendor. The movie won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

The cause of death has not been announced, though the Cuyahoga County Coroner announced an autopsy will be performed. Pekar suffered from a number of health problems including prostate cancer. He and his wife, Joyce Brabner, wrote about his battle with cancer in their book-length comic Our Cancer Year.

Pekar is survived by his wife, Joyce Brabner, and their foster daughter, Danielle Batone. He was born October 8, 1939, in Cleveland, where he lived for most of his life, notably excepting his time of service in the Navy.

Additional resources:
A PEKAR TRIBUTE: Collaborators & colleagues remember 'sweet, curmudgeonly' Harvey
Comic book icon Harvey Pekar dead at 70
Harvey Pekar, Cleveland comic-book legend, dies at age 70
Harvey Pekar dies at 70; comic book author known for 'American Splendor' series
Harvey Pekar lives on via the web
Harvey Pekar, RIP

The Great Stink by Clare Clark

Clark, Clare. The Great Stink. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2005.

William May, the fictional protagonist, is a surveyor for the real Metropolitan Board of Works. From 1856 to 1870, the board led by its chief engineer Joseph Bazalgette who plays a minor part in the novel, built 80 miles of sewers under London. This massive infrastructure transformed the city and the Thames that runs through it.

May spends a lot of time in the crumbling old sewer that are soon to be joined and transformed by the board. The filth of London is the least of the horrors of Victorian England that he must overcome. He faces the Crimean War, a military hospital ship, corruption in politics and business, an insane asylum, prison, an indifferent justice system and his own misunderstood mental illness.

Though the novel is set in the midst of an enormous engineering project and the main character has such a breadth of experience, the story focuses on a few people coping with a changing (modernizing) world. Their stories are brought together by petty murder committed by a greedy man.

May, who except for his misfortune might be considered middle-class by 19th century standards, is contrasted to Long Arm Tom. Tom is a tosher; he makes his living recovering copper and other valuable material from the sewage and waste of the city. Many of London’s poorest lived by extracting meager value from waste. The great sewer project was brining and end to Tom’s profession.

May and Tom are witnesses to a murder. May almost hangs for it; it is luck, including the good fortune of having a conscientious lawyer assigned to his case, that rescues him. Tom becomes an accessory to the murder, and later uncovers it to get revenge.

Class was a huge part of English life, and it clearly comes through, but Clark resists taking a romantic view of it. Tom is not virtuous because or in spite of his poverty. He is a wily and unscrupulous denizen of a corrupt world. May is a professional who ostensibly has the most to gain from the social changes occurring, but deeply damaged and almost destroyed by the highs and lows of a society in flux. His lawyer, Sydney Rose, is the scion of an impoverished peerage. He is motivated by his hopes to move up in society as much as by any sense of noblesse oblige. His victory is due as much to luck and determination.

The pace of the book is slow compared to other thrillers of mysteries. The book is as much about May and Tom coping with a changing world as it is about murder mystery. It tempo picks up in the final chapters as Rose begins to put together a defense for May.

Overall, it is an enjoyable book. It works in its combination of history, mainstream fiction, mystery and picturing of a world that is rapidly changing through new technology.

(If you're interested in the history of the great London sewer project, see this review of Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury.)

Order this book here.