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"He continues to be a master of his craft, offering up the common man in all his hopes and despair. The veteran returning from war; a cancer patient contemplating suicide until ; an everyday father of three writing a rambling diary about his need to keep up with the Joneses, then buying lawn ornaments that happen to be live girls strung on wires. See?"

-Craig Wilson

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"George Saunders' new short-story collection has been hailed as The One Book You Must Read This Year. It's "Tenth of December," a title its writer insists has no significance whatsoever." -Jack Handey

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"For 20 years, George Saunders has been writing short stories. Once a geological engineer who traveled the world, he started crafting wondrous short stories that combine the absurd and fantastic with the mundane realities of everyday life. One story, about a professional caveman inspired those iconic Geico commercials."
-Jacki Lyden

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Official website of New York Times bestselling author, George Saunders. His new book, Tenth of December, is on sale January 2013.

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Saunders's new book Tenth of December is the year's standout collection of short stories, and a treatise on the value of kindness. We got ourselves some life advice from the man himself

We don&#x2019;t mean one of those block-jawed, Tony Robbins-looking loudmouths. Saunders is not interested in motivational mantras. He&#x2019;s not, as he puts it, into &#x201C;pulling up my big manure truck of ideas and dumping it on poor, unsuspecting you.&#x201D; What the celebrated writer does prescribe is the idea that we should approach every person and situation with unflinching kindness. This theme runs throughout Tenth of December, the year&#x2019;s standout collection of short stories. It&#x2019;s also central to his poignant commencement address at Syracuse University in May. Consider both required reading. In the meantime, get your guidance straight from the source.

How to Be Decent: The big kahuna of all moral questions, as far as I&#x2019;m concerned, is ego. How do you correct the fundamental misperception that we are all born with, i.e.: I am permanent, I am enduring, I am central. All of the nasty stuff in this life comes out of that misunderstanding. And I&#x2019;d say that&#x2019;s the central moral dilemma for men, women, children, old people-you name it. Or to put it another way: the separation between ourselves and everything else that we all feel, deep in our gut-is incorrect. So to the extent that we are rushing around trying to underscore that distinction and put distance between ourselves and others, and (once and for all!) &#x201C;win&#x201D; that game-that&#x2019;s an error. But not one that I&#x2019;ve learned to stop making, at all.

How to Age: I would like to not accrue any cynicism as I&#x2019;m aging. If someone&#x2019;s in an anxiety-producing situation, it&#x2019;s sort of natural to act like you&#x2019;ve seen it all before or try to propose that nothing can surprise you. I&#x2019;m actually all about the opposite. To get up in the morning and go, &#x201C;Let&#x2019;s pretend you don&#x2019;t know shit about life. You&#x2019;re fifty-four years old, but nothing&#x2019;s happened to you yet. Everything&#x2019;s a blank slate.&#x201D;

I feel myself judging less and being awed more-I&#x2019;m interested in people and am more inclined to see this whole thing as a crazy beautiful display, and less as a problem to be solved. And I&#x2019;m more inclined, when evil does occur, to see it as a deeply regrettable playing out of pre-existing circumstances, by someone who, maybe in a very confused way, was trying to make himself happy. Something like that.

How to Write: Writing teaches the value of not being too sure-this idea of being open to what actually is, instead of trying to force your version of events on to that reality. What I think good writing does: enlivens that part of us that actually believes we are in this world, right now, and that being here somehow matters. It reawakens the reader to the fact and the value of her own existence. How? By holding up the things of the world up for examination in a semi-sacred way.

I try to keep myself as free of preconceptions about where a story&#x2019;s going or what it means from the very beginning. I tend to start with some little fragment that&#x2019;s almost not meaningful, or isn&#x2019;t overtly meaningful-not thematically charged or something. I&#x2019;ll just start farting around with that piece of text. Trying really hard to keep any bigger tension out of my head. Weirdly, you do that and the direction will tell you what the next beat of the story is, or some question that it&#x2019;s raising. So for me, the whole thing is to be very, very unsure about what the story is going to do.

Writing is great training for life-this idea of being open to what actually is, instead of trying to force your version of events on to that reality. No autopilot-we have to learn to continually live with uncertainty.

How to Teach: Every year is a reminder that talent is always with us. Maybe as you get older, you might tend to slip into that old guy mode-&#x201C;Oh, the kids these days.&#x201D; But being around our students, you see that that&#x2019;s just false. Every generation is full of talented young people who are newly discovering the power of the word and are fired up about what it can do in its traditional form. It&#x2019;s just like having your faith renewed every day.

The thing I like to teach, if I can-because it&#x2019;s kind of a superpower-is revision. If you can open that door for a young writer, that&#x2019;s a lot. So this semester, I had a student who was a really amazing writer but wasn&#x2019;t big on revision. And we broke through that. I just made a bunch of edits and challenged her to try them-and she was very courageous, and did it-and in our conference I could see that that habit-of cutting, and being bold enough to move bits around and so forth-was now hers. She had tasted it and internalized it and would have that ability the rest of her writing life.

It&#x2019;s intense. These kids are so good that you always have to be at the top of your game.

How to be a Man: When I got married and we started our family, life got better and simpler, because the story of every day was: honor that connection, honor those people. It took a lot of things and attitudes off the table. I wasn&#x2019;t interested in the sort of surficial aspects of &#x201C;being a man&#x201D;-being tough, being stylish, going out, being in control of all things, being Alpha, etc. The whole definition of &#x201C;man&#x201D; changed, from &#x201C;some sort of swaggering person always in control,&#x201D; to something more like: &#x201C;he who provides and honors&#x201D;-and that, turns out, takes a lot more real toughness than my previous mode of being. Because whatever you have to do to make it work for your family, you do it. For me, that just meant working a pretty difficult and dullish job for eight years, while I wrote my first book-a job that, at least in the beginning, I couldn&#x2019;t find any glamour or cool in at all. There was no way, in that job, to feel I was the master of my domain, is how I might say it. And that was great for me. Why do I have to be master of anything? So-to learn to subjugate yourself to something bigger than just yourself-I mean, that&#x2019;s the main thing for any adult, male or female.

How to be Himself: I&#x2019;m a pretty nice guy. I&#x2019;m kind of alright. I&#x2019;m funny sometimes. But when you let me have eight months, I can put together a refined and more intelligent and more kindly version of myself on the page. Fiction is the one place where you can go back and refine your expressions so that it&#x2019;s kind of you at your very best. I think it&#x2019;s a little bit like a recording studio. You can go in and do take after take after take. Then, at the end, you can select the ones that sound the most natural. In my real life, I&#x2019;m not so excessive or controlling. But in writing, that&#x2019;s the one place where I&#x2019;m a fanatic.

What I&#x2019;m working on is to try and live on the assumption that other people are just as real as I am. When I meet someone, to try and notice what assumptions I&#x2019;m making about them and what defenses are springing into place and disable those to the extent I can. To feel: Oh, that person is just me on a different day (or, in a different life, or in the thrall of a different destiny or set of karmic circumstances.) So the idea would be to feel that the person was just as real and valid as I am. That he is interested in and worried about and afraid of the same things I am-that he loves his family and so on just as much as I do. Is it always true? No. But as a starting place there&#x2019;s a strange kind of power in it. It&#x2019;s true much more than it&#x2019;s false, and it serves as a wonderful door opener. And this aspiration is a great connecting corridor to a lot of other moral issues.

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS ONE

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George Saunders - GQ Men of the Year 2013 - Life Coach

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Saunders's new book Tenth of December is the year's standout collection of short stories, and a treatise on the value of kindness. We got ourselves some life advice from the man himself We don’t mean one of those block-jawed, Tony Robbins-looking loudmouths. Saunders is not interested in motivational mantras.

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Q&A between Bill Clinton & George Saunders.

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An exclusive Q&A with Bill Clinton. PLUS: A slideshow of photos from Clinton's African tour, by Brigitte Lacombe

Africa is a shambles, beset by ghastly levels of disease and destitution. In the December issue of GQ, George Saunders travels the continent with Bill Clinton, the man who's doing everything in his power to make it better. Read an exclusive Q&A with the former president, and see a slideshow of photos from the journey, here on GQ.com. And pick up the December 2007 GQ to read Saunders's complete story.

A GQ.COM INTERVIEW WITH BILL CLINTON

Bill Clinton: How are you

George Saunders: Good, sir. Busy day

Not too bad. It's a pretty easy day, and so is tomorrow. But I've got to get sleep tonight so we can go to the crater. I always have trouble sleeping in Africa-mostly because I get excited, you know Just happy to be here, and get carried away.

Well, as you may have heard, I'm mainly a fiction writer. So I apologize in advance for my ineptitude. But to start: People like yourself and Ira Magaziner and Tom Hunter and Paul Farmer and so on-can you tell me, what's the difference between those people and other people who are just as gifted and accomplished but don't choose to go in the direction of service

Well, I think the people who do it, do it because they feel morally obligated to do it-because they can, because they have the capacity to make a contribution, because they believe it will make a difference. Maybe because someone asked them to do it. And because they find it more rewarding than the other things they could do with their time or money. It's pretty straightforward. I don't think most people who do it consider themselves any better than anyone else... If you think you can make a difference-if you know enough to know that there are things that you can do that empower other people, so that you actually give them the opportunity to change the way things work-then you should do it. I also think it makes people happier when they do it.

I've done a lot of interviews with novelists and so on, and one thing I always like to ask them is if there was a moment when they first kind of went, Ah, I'm processing experience differently than most people. Was there a moment where you realized you had these abilities-not only of energy but of empathy

On a personal level, it happened when I was... I don't know. I'm trying to remember how old I was. I think I was in the seventh grade. I was walking home from school, and this guy that was a year older than me, but not as big as I was, had been taunting me. He must have followed me home-I was walking home with two or three of my friends, about a three-mile walk-and for, I don't know, more than half the walk he taunted me and pushed me and finally he hit me. And I turned around and I drew back and hit him, and he turned to run away so fast I hit him in the back-not because I intentionally hit him in the back, but he was smaller and faster...and then I got to worrying about whether I'd hurt him or not, and when I got home I made my mother call his house and make sure he wasn't hurt. And she thought that was strange that I didn't... She was glad. But a couple years before that, I realized I was fascinated by politics, by the ability to use your powers to help other people.... Nobody in my family is particularly involved in politics. I'd had an uncle who served one term in the legislature in his life and then quit. And that was about it. I also was deeply committed to the integration of the schools in the '50s. Most people I knew weren't-in the South, you know. And I began to be aware that I had been raised by my grandparents and my mother in a way that was different, to see the world in a different way.

A few months ago, I did a story on the U.S.-Mexican border for GQ, and I ended up spending some time with the Minutemen, and then some Mennonites, and it was so striking to see that if you put the Other in front of two different kinds of people, some say, "Get thee behind me," and some say, "What can we do to help" It struck me as almost neurological.

Well, you know, it's very interesting. If you look at the history of human society... Robert Wright-who wrote a very interesting, and more famous, book called The Moral Animal, that a lot of people have read, which was not personally righteous but rather was about: How do we do learn to develop relationships with one another-wrote a less famous but I think ultimately more important book called Nonzero. That's a game-theory word, right A non-zero-sum game is one where everybody wins: In order for me to win, you have to win. As opposed to the soccer match or golf tournament or most sporting contests, which are zero-sum games: In order for me to win, you have to lose. And Wright basically says that you can view all human history as a result of people coming in contact with the Other and either changing their view of them-from "Us and Them" to "Us and Us," and thus widening the circle of interdependence-or fighting with them and using them in a way to solidify the existing group and struggle. And he says, basically, there were rational reasons for viewing people as the Other at various points throughout history where they wanted to destroy you or you were fighting over scarce resources or whatever, you know There were reasons. But that what has allowed humanity to survive is the constant widening of the circle of Us and the shrinking of the circle of Them as we come into contact with more and more different kinds of people. A really interesting idea.

So much of what I've heard you say, if you just changed a couple words, is basically Buddhist epistemology. Is this something you've thought about

A lot. I've thought about it a lot. I'm reading a fascinating book, the Dalai Lama's most recent book, about his encounters with science. He's been fascinated with science since he was a boy, and I knew this from reading his autobiography, but this is literally his attempt to explain the intersection of how he practices his Buddhist faith with why he takes science seriously and why he believes in the scientific method. It's an attempt to integrate science and his faith. It's quite interesting, because most people who respect both science and religion simply say they're two different spheres with two different objectives. Like Stephen Jay Gould, not long before he died, wrote a great book called Rocks of Ages, in which he basically argued that the religious enterprise-which he said he didn't embrace but did deeply respect-and people of faith might be right, but since science could never prove them wrong (or right), it was about different things. It was about the tangible as opposed to the spiritual world, and therefore we should have a separation of church and state but we should also-as a matter of governance, but in our dealings with others-we should recognize that these are two different areas of life that don't intersect. The Dalai Lama claims they do intersect, and that because in Buddhism practice is important and that in the end, practice is... He said if your experimentation, for example, with concentrated meditation finally contradicts some doctrine you're being given, even by a fellow religious teacher, that your search for truth has to, in the end, go with your honest experience. So he said because of that, that has enabled him to construct this whole theory about why science is wonderful and his faith is wonderful, and they both require practice. And therefore when you're practicing both, you'd have to practice science with a certain reverence for humanity and the possibility that there's a larger meaning to all of this, and you have to practice faith with a respect for the scientific method, and you should want to learn about the facts of the earth. It was really interesting because... This is, you know... I'm about a third of the way through the book, but I think that all of the disciplines are tending towards what Einstein hoped to find, which was a unified theory of time, space, matter, and beyond. It's about, you know, who we are and how we are and what we're made up of...but that's all highly consistent with the politics of interdependence, practiced by not only people in government but by private citizens who seek to do public good.

In your spiritual life, is there something akin to meditation

I wouldn't say akin to meditation. but there are a lot of-an enormous number of-admonitions in the Christian New Testament where Jesus says, and the apostles say, we should pay attention to the plight of the poor, the ill, the imprisoned, those with physical handicaps; that we should not judge, but extend a helping hand to, people who have done things that society considers wrong, whether they're abusive tax collectors or prostitutes; that, you know, we should not look upon any person as less human than we are.

Steven Mitchell, as you may know, has written a lot of serious books about Buddhism and also about Christianity and other faiths, at Harvard. He did a very interesting little book on the teachings of Jesus, in which he attempted to present them, as best scholars can determine, in chronological order rather than the way they are organized in the current version of the Bible. And he says the very last encounter Jesus had with his religious adversaries was when they brought him the woman who was caught in the act of adultery, and it's in the eighth chapter of the book of John, and they were attempting to catch him in some religious error, some doctrinal error, and he was into practice-he had already been attacked for performing miracles on the Sabbath, for saving lives on the Sabbath-and his answer was that the Sabbath was a day to keep holy and he didn't sanctify it by refusing to do his father's work to help the needy. So in this case, they bring in this woman who's weeping and crying and throw her on the ground, and they say, "Master, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Mosaic law says we should stone her. What say you" And in the Scripture, it says that he kneels down and draws on the ground-doesn't say what he was drawing-and he stands up and looks at them and says, "Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone at her." And he kneels down again and doesn't even look up. And it says, "And they, being convicted by their own conscience, went away, beginning with the eldest, to the youngest." And then he stands up and says, "Woman, where are those who condemned you There's no one here to condemn you" She says, "No, Lord." And then, in the King James version, he says, "Then neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

So it's this thought that... The whole Scripture is full of... The book of James, which is very much debated in Christian circles-particularly among conservative fundamentalists, who have a tough time with it-says faith without works is dead. "Show me your works and I will know your faith," you know... For 500 years now, we've been struggling-the Protestants of the world at least have-over the relationship of faith to works. But there is no doubt that while there is no explicit reference to, let's say, homosexuality in the New Testament, no explicit reference to abortion, there are hundreds and hundreds of references to the imperative of acting to help people who are in genuine need, who are less fortunate than you, whom you can help, and you're supposed to do it without regard to your own economic or social standing. The only test is whether you can make a difference in someone else's life without disadvantaging or really hurting someone in your circle of primary responsibility-you know, your family. It's fascinating.

I was raised Catholic, and my wife was born-again Christian. So when we had our kids, of course we went running back to the church. But the thing that I found was that, okay, say I took the injunction to be kinder: Somehow I would reach the limit of my own kindness and not know what to do. But with meditation, I have found that somehow it actually does change your capacity for kindness.

I think, you know, the Buddhists teach that service to others is essential for developing a heart free of jealousy and bitterness. The ability to look at other people without wishing you had what they had, resenting that they have had the life they've had, or resenting that you don't have something you don't have...and that the spirit of giving to other people is actually a great gift to you, because it helps to lift your own sense of self to a much higher level so you don't have petty jealousies...that the act of relating to others less fortunate than you purges you of resentments with whom you have been in competition or who may have been more successful than you financially or whatever else. It basically just puts you in a more anchored place in life.

There are actually practices where you imagine yourself as face-to-face with an enemy and try to imagine them, understand their viewpoint.... One thing I notice about you is that if somebody has criticized or done you wrong, you seem to just sort of-at least from this distance-to try to walk away from it.

I've struggled with it all my life, but I have never been a long-term grudge bearer. I must say that I was tested as never before when I started running for president, just because it seemed so crazy. But, um, it's something you have to practice and think about and work on, even if you're inclined- inclined -to forgiveness or inclined to rise above attacks. You have to realize, if you're in public life especially, that not everyone who criticizes you will be wrong. I mean, you can't live under that much pressure and make that many decisions for that long without making mistakes-certainly public mistakes, and often private ones, too. You just can't do it. You can't. Nobody can live at that sustained level of activity, under that much pressure, and never make a mistake. So you first have to realize that, in the words that Hillary used to give me, it's important to learn to take criticism seriously but not personally, because if you start taking it personally, then you're incapable of taking it seriously and you can't sort through what's accurate and not. That requires an enormous amount of discipline. And then when you get out of it and you get back in it, it's like having to learn it all over again. I see that now. When Hillary started running for president, I found that I would get much more upset if someone said something about her that I thought was unfair than I ever was when they said something about me. It's a little different when you've got a guy like, you know, Ken Starr, with an unlimited budget, who's trying to wreck the lives of everybody who ever knew you, you know I mean there seems to be a presumption among a certain element of the political press that anybody who was from my native state was by definition subhuman and deserved whatever punishment they got, no matter how innocent they were...that they were necessary fodder for a larger war or something. I was horrified by that. And I just, I just-if I think about it in the wrong way for too long, I get mad all over again. So I work on it all the time. But I do believe that this whole deal about forgiveness is absolutely essential for a healthy life. It's nice for the people you forgive, but it's lifeblood for you.

When I was president, I got every book I could about this, I listened to what Mandela said, I fought through this, and I realized how just harboring constant anger, no matter how well justified it is-almost the more justified it is, the more toxic it is to you. The fact that you've got a legitimate right to be angry at other people doesn't mean it still doesn't hurt you after a certain point. It's okay to be angry in the moment and try to rectify an imbalance, but just to carry it around, it just eats you alive. Mandela would be dead now if he carried all his justified anger around and allowed it to poison him. He wouldn't be celebrating his eighty-ninth birthday....

Maybe it's just getting older-and I think maybe surviving this heart scare had something to do with it-but I am more likely than I used to be not to get mad at somebody because they don't weigh things on the same scales as I do. Their whole world view about what really matters to them is different. I realize all I can control is what really matters to me. If I want other people to care about what really matters to me, then I have to both talk about it and model it.

When I read your autobiography, I was struck by how literary your high school and college years were. There are parts where you mentioned you'd memorized poems...and to me, it felt like there were was a link between your current philanthropic activities and that early literary development.

Absolutely. I think...most of that is rooted in the time I spent in my early years with my grandparents and, you know, just, in my own childhood, growing up. But I don't think there's any question that the reading I did... I'll never forget, I went to summer school one summer and took an English course. I don't even remember why I did it now. I was 15 years old. And I remember my teacher-he was a high school teacher and superficially not erudite at all; he affected to be just a good old boy, you know-but he started talking about Julius Caesar-we read Julius Caesar-and what you could learn from it, and about human nature, and what made somebody a tragic as opposed to a happy figure. And so I learned to think about Shakespeare in terms of the people that I knew. I learned to see [in them] the qualities of tragedy and greatness that he wrote about in general terms.... And I read, you know, James Baldwin and other contemporary writers. I liked reading Dickens. I thought it was a hoot. I didn't read it all; I still haven't read it all. Most of the fiction I read now is just cheap thrills. [laughter]

You've said that the measure of political activity is "Are we better off than when we started" But when you look at, you know, the last seven years, the reversals-

Well, I'm disappointed they cut back on-I'll just give you some examples-after-school programs for poor kids. Because I think it will, in the end, undermine academic performance and increase social problems. And I think it will make it harder for kids in difficult circumstances to make the most of their lives.... I mean, I get why they'd like to see the private sector perform things instead of the government, but why they believe the private sector ought to be subsidized to compete with the government-that's, that's not my idea of having an efficient private sector. But anyway, that's the kind of ideology. It bothers me because I think it hurts other people. But it doesn't bother me from a philosophical point of view, in the sense that I think all you can control in politics is the here and now. And if you believe in democracy and freedom, then people have a right to take a different course. I do not believe that they had any clue in 2000 when they elected President Bush. I think they heard the "compassionate conservative" instead of the specific things he said in his campaign. He actually was not misleading except in tone and rhetoric, that phrase, in what he said. If you really paid attention to his specifics, he told us pretty much exactly what he was going to do, how he was going to run the government, and that there'd be a much heavier emphasis on the "conservative" than the "compassion." And that it would be an ideological sort of conservatism and not a traditional philosophical conservatism, a more radical conservatism. He was very forthright about it, if you paid attention to what he said. But in the ebb and flow of politics, no achievements are permanent. The only thing that is important is that while you're there, that you keep moving America in the right direction, both in terms of its timeless principles and in terms of the time in which you govern. Democracy is always going to be uneven and jagged and sometimes downright ugly. It stumbles in the right direction; it doesn't sprint.

You know, the other day when we were in the Dominican Republic and you walked into the restaurant, a group of guys stood up behind us-do you remember that They yelled, "Holy shit! Bill! Bill!" I went over and talked to them afterwards. They were four auto-workers from Detroit whose jobs were being cut. All four of them said they had voted for you twice. I asked how many of them had voted for Al Gore. None. I've noticed this in my own sphere-a lot of working-class people who were lifetime Democrats, and in the last X number of years they've gone right. Do you have a sense of why

Well, but I think... There's a new book out. There's a guy named Thomas Frank who wrote a little book called What's the Matter with Kansas-with which I only partly agree. It basically says that the Democrats lost because they weren't populist enough on economics. And he's not right about that. Right now, there's nothing the matter with Kansas. Kansas has become a Democratic state since he wrote his book-at the state level. They elected a woman governor; she was overwhelmingly reelected. And the chairman of the Republican Party, in 2000 until 2003, was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor this year, because the Republican Party had gone so far to the right. The attorney general this year, the Democrat, was a Republican prosecutor until early in this decade. So the Democrats have brought in their tent and taken over the state of Kansas, and they're going forward. So I don't agree with Frank. But a new book has just come out called The Political Brain, by Drew Westen, which I highly recommend to you. Because he is a psychiatrist and a student of brain science, of how the brain developed. And he explains why all of us are values voters-you and I are, too. I mean, I certainly am. If I were a narrow-self-interest voter, I'd be for Bush, because he gave me five tax cuts. I think it's horrible. We never had a time in the history of the country when rich people got tax cuts in wartime. In wartime, in every previous example, the people who were the most fortunate were asked to step up and do more, when we had to make financial sacrifice. That is, whether you agree or disagree with our policies in Iraq or Afghanistan-and I agree with one, disagree with the other-those are our kids, and they're out there, and instead of doing this, we're borrowing money from the Chinese, even the Mexicans. We're having this fight over illegal immigration, and we think it's good policy to borrow money from Mexico, a country with a per capita income of $1,500, to give Bill Clinton a tax cut and finance our soldiers And we act like we're doing them a big favor. To me, that's a values issue. And I think, as a philosophical matter, that in an interdependent world there is not a clear difference between enlightened selfishness and selflessness, because our fates are too bound together. So a truly smart selfish person in my income group would not want these tax cuts. A smart selfish person would want more educated children, all kids to have health care, a responsible fiscal policy, and less mortgaging our future to people whose interests do not entirely converge with ours, or may not in the future, and wouldn't want this loaded on our kids.

Can I take you back to this trip to Africa for a minute What were the particular moments that stood out for you, if you're talking about gratification What were the moments that made all of this worthwhile

Well, when we were in Malawi, the project we're doing in Malawi is our attempt to use the lessons we learned fighting AIDS and apply them to the more complex area of development in which other people's behavior is more important. I mean, if you're just trying to save lives from AIDS by diagnosing, providing care and treatment, then what we did in lowering the cost of AIDS drugs and finding cost-effective ways to train people and develop paramedical personnel, you can replicate that. I mean, you still have to get other people to change in terms of stopping new infections, absent a vaccine or a cure. But it's straightforward. When you get into development, you're trying to deal with health care, education, and economic opportunity-in effect, creating a whole different social structure so people are empowered to lift their lives. It's a little more complex. I loved being out there in Malawi and seeing how all these things are working, because the Malawian government-and we always do what the local people want-they said, "Well, we want you to do this work with the farmers"...which we knew. You know, these guys were talking a little bit about what we'd done...but we'd done much more extensive work as of this day with farmers in Rwanda than Malawi...'cause these guys said, "Look, first, if you're going to go out there in this area, people have to be able to stay well...and we have no health care." And I realized how intimately related all these things are in our own society, and we don't see it. There were over 500 construction jobs created because we're building a hundred-bed hospital, and we had to build housing for people to come do that. But what I loved seeing-to me what was most rewarding-was hearing the farmers talk about what they were doing and how happy they were, you know, to be getting the help with fertilizer and things like that. And seeing all these women as well as men out there learning new skills. They were, all of them, making their own definition of progress. We were there helping them to live their dreams, not imposing some notion we had about how they ought to live. They bought into a certain vision of what they wanted. It was their deal, and you could tell. And I loved it. I think my favorite moment was hearing that farmer talk about his crops. That older guy, he was just so excited, remember that... I loved the pharmaceutical stop, the distribution stop that we did in Lusaka. Not only because it was extremely impressive and well done, but because it was a symbol of a much, much larger issue, which is that incapacity of people to change their fate in poor countries because of the absence of systems. If you really look at it, having good systems is almost more important-except in terms of keeping body and soul together-than any kind of aid you can give people. Because otherwise there's not a predictable consequence between the effort they ert and the result they get. I loved that distribution center. And I loved the crowd yesterday here, in Tanzania, because I had the feeling... I don't know if you noticed that they were quite quiet when I was talking; they are very well aware that a lot of them die from malaria, and they know that we helped them get medicine for AIDS. And I know that it was a Sunday afternoon, and they weren't working, and that they didn't, you know, have the option of staying inside and watching the British Open on TV. It's not like... I mean, it was like the only show in town, I got that. But I also believe a lot of them came because they hope that their families and their country can be liberated from this... I mean, I had the feeling it really was a mini-ercise in, you know, participatory government and democracy. They were... It was nice, they were enthusiastic and glad to see me, did all the greeting and everything, but to me the most moving thing was just how quiet and respectful they were. They were listening, in large numbers, and I had the feeling they really would do what I asked them to do and go out and talk to their neighbors and start talking about it. Those kinds of things make you think change is possible.

Africa's pretty great, don't you think One of the other journalists asked me why I liked it here so much. And I said, you know, I love traveling the world, I love Latin America and the Caribbean, I have really deep feelings when I go to Cambodia and Vietnam, particularly because of my history with that. I've had some of the greatest days in my life, in mystical ways, in Japan and China. But I believe that on this continent, under the most adverse circumstances, in country after country, you find the highest percentage of the people that go through every day with a song in their heart. It reminds me of when I was a little boy, you know When I was born in Arkansas at the end of World War II, the per capita income was barely half the national average. So by conventional American standards it was quite a poor place. But the people I knew didn't consider themselves poor as long as they had clothes to wear and food to eat and they could feed somebody else if they showed up at the door. They didn't think about it. And they learned to enjoy the rhythms of daily life and their interactions with their neighbors and to live without a lot of resentments and anxieties. So the trick is to keep the song in their hearts and allow them to shed their shackles. They refuse to let their lives pass by just because they're poor. It's a beautiful thing to see.

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An exclusive Q&A with Bill Clinton. PLUS: A slideshow of photos from Clinton's African tour, by Brigitte Lacombe Africa is a shambles, beset by ghastly levels of disease and destitution. In the December issue of GQ, George Saunders travels the continent with Bill Clinton, the man who's doing everything in his power to make it better.

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Saunders explains his writing process.

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George Saunders: On the Tricks of the Writing Process

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George Saunders shares the tricks of his writing process and describes his own 'inner nun' in this extra interview from our latest short film, George Saunders: On Story. See the full film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQae42N1WWM

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This article is about the school Saunders attended growing up.

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Colorado School of Mines is a public research university devoted to engineering and applied science. It has the highest admissions standards of any public university in Colorado and among the highest of any public university in the U.S.

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( getting him to stay still for a second was a real challenge!)

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This article describes the history and life of George Saunders.

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About George Saunders, bestselling author of short stories, essays, novellas and children's books. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's and GQ, among other publications.

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History and functions of Child Protective Services in America.

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HISTORICAL OVERVIEW CURRENT SYSTEM
William Wesley Patton
William Wesley Patton
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

No ancient civilization considered child protection to be a governmental function. In ancient Rome, for instance, fathers were vested with an almost unlimited natural right to determine the welfare of their children. The welfare of minors was a family matter, not a governmental interest or obligation. Most other governments of the ancient world provided no limits to a father's right to inflict corporal punishment, including infanticide.

English Common Law

In addition to the case-by-case determinations by the chancery court regarding children's property and guardianships, Parliament, in 1601, promulgated the Poor Law Act, which, among other provisions, provided the government jurisdiction to separate children from pauper parents and to place poor children in apprenticeships until the age of majority (21 for males and 16 for females). In 1660 Parliament passed the Tenures Abolition Act, which presaged the end of feudalism, including guardianships in chivalry that had formed the basis for the earlier Court of Wards and Court of Chancery over the guardianship of both children's and the Crown's inheritance and property interests. ("Guardianships in chivalry" provided that when a tenant on a lord's land died leaving an heir under the age of majority, the lord could control the minor heir's inheritance until the child became an adult.) The Tenures Abolition Act was revolutionary because it vested in the father the right to appoint a guardian for his child heir, which was previously forbidden under the feudal inheritance laws.

From 1660 until 1873 the Court of Chancery administered equity jurisdiction in conflicts between private parties over testamentary guardianships. It was during these equity determinations that the Court of Chancery expanded the substantive scope of child protection to include, in addition to inheritance and property, concerns over a ward's rights to marry, to a particular type of education or school, to the choice of religious training, and to child custody arrangements. In 1839 Parliament dramatically expanded the court's jurisdiction to determine the best interest of children through the Custody of Infants Act, which provided court jurisdiction to over-ride a father's parental rights, including rights to custody and visitation. Most historians would agree that by the nineteenth century governmental concern in the child's best interest were perfected directly through the doctrine of parens patriae, rather than indirectly through legal contests over property and guardianships.

The American Colonies

The child protection policies of the early American colonists closely mirrored those of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Britain. The colonists emphasized two aspects of English child protection theory: "the common law rules of family government; and the traditions and child-care practices of the Elizabethan Poor Laws of 1601" (Thomas, p. 299). Although colonial remedies of placing pauper children into involuntary apprenticeships or into poorhouses initially followed English legal customs, soon colonial theorists expanded court jurisdiction over juveniles to include contexts beyond poverty. For instance, in eighteenth-century Virginia, courts separated children not just from poor parents, but also from parents who were not providing "'good breeding,' neglecting their formal education, not teaching a trade, or were idle, dissolute, unchristian or 'uncapable"' (Rendleman, p. 210). Calvinist notions of poverty as idleness and sin permitted court expansion into the normative definitions of the "best interest" of children.

Until the mid-1800s, child protection laws did not differentiate among different classes of children; so that dependent children, status offenders, and juvenile delinquents were either housed together in poorhouses with adults or involuntarily apprenticed. However, by 1830, "an embryonic reform movement had begun," which removed dependent children from the teeming poorhouses and placed them in large orphan asylums. (Thomas, pp. 302-303). Due to the refuge movement (1824-1857), private corporations such as the New York House of Refuge (founded in 1824) received public funds and cared for both neglected and delinquent children in large institutions that separated juveniles from adult criminals and paupers. However, by the mid-1850s an anti-institution movement had developed, with the goal of placing poor city children in country foster placements rather than in large city institutions. Even though numerous state statutes were promulgated in the nineteenth century to care for abused and neglected children, government machinery was inadequate to implement sufficient protection.

In 1875 in New York, the first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (SPCC) was founded to help enforce child protection laws. However, since the SPCC was composed primarily of "wealthy, white men, almost all of them Protestant," who hired middle-class men as family investigators, the families that were targeted were largely poor immigrant families, who were judged by middle-class mores and vague standards such as "without proper parental guardianship" (Schiff, p. 413). The numerous competing reform movements and children's aid societies of the mid-to late 1800s focused on the child as a member of a family group, not as an autonomous individual, and most emphasized removing children from their own families and placing them into a different home environment. By 1879 the New York Children's Aid Society had sent 48,000 children out of New York to live with other families. After its first fourteen years, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children "investigated nearly 70,000 complaints of ill-treatment of 209,000 children. Prosecutions were pursued in 24,500 of these cases, resulting in almost 24,000 convictions and the removal of 36,300 children" (Schiff, pp. 413-414).

By the beginning of the twentieth century the tide had turned away from family separation and toward family preservation. At the 1909 White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children, it was declared that "[h]ome life is the highest and finest product of civilization. It is the great molding force of mind and of character" (Tanenhaus, p. 550). The twentieth century ushered in a dramatic shift away from private child protective services in favor of governmental control by public agencies authorized under both federal and state child protection statutory schemes. In 1899 Illinois promulgated the first juvenile court, whose stated purpose was to provide for the care and custody of children in a manner that was an alternative equivalent to that of their parents. By 1920 all but three states had a juvenile court system.

But the goal of family reunification was rarely realized by the early juvenile courts, because few services were made available to assist poor uneducated parents in curing the conditions that led to state intervention. Instead, children remained in out-of-home placements for considerable periods of time. For instance, in Chicago, the city with the nation's first juvenile court, the rate of family reunification in 1921 was about the same as in 1912 (70%), but in 1921 more children were staying in institutions for longer periods than in 1912.

The Constitution and Child Protection Laws

Between 1875 and 1900 numerous challenges to the vague legal definitions of child dependency and the informal legal proceedings leading to the separation of parents and children were denied. Early court decisions did not speak in terms of parents' constitutional rights to rear their children, did not closely circumscribe the state's parens patriae power to protect children, rejected arguments based upon criminal law analogies, and failed to articulate procedural due process protections for families caught in the child protection legal maelstrom.

Although state and county juvenile courts continued to evolve and to provide different levels of due process in child protection proceedings, the modern child dependency court development was shaped by several decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, which formalized the court process. In Meyers v. Nebraska (1923) the Court held that parents have a fundamental constitutional liberty interest in rearing their children. Based upon that liberty interest, the Court held in Lassiter v. Department of Social Services (1981) that, under certain circumstances, parents are entitled to court-appointed attorneys when they face involuntary termination of their parental rights in child protection proceedings. And in Santosky v. Kramer (1982) the Court held that the state has the burden of demonstrating, by clear and convincing evidence, that termination of parental rights is necessary to protect children. Local juvenile courts no longer had unbridled discretion to informally and permanently separate parents and children. However, the U.S. Constitution became the sounding board only in cases involving permanent severance of parental rights. States are still free to provide fewer due-process procedural rights in temporary child protection cases.

Federal Statutory Policy

In the 1980s and 1990s the autonomy of state child protection schemes was further compromised and homogenized by a series of federal statutes. In 1980, Congress passed the first comprehensive federal child protective services act, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (Pub. L. 96-272), which focused on state economic incentives to substantially decrease the length and number of foster care placements. This act also required specific family reunification services, reflecting the goals of the 1909 White House Conference. However, in 1997, in order to cure many of the defects in the 1980 act, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which shifted the focus from family reunification to expeditious permanency for children in adoptive placements. All state child protection systems adopted the federal guidelines as a requirement for receiving federal subsidies. Thus, because of constitutional and federal statutory requirements, the genesis of America's child protection system has led to great uniformity among state programs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

C OGAN, N EIL H OWARD. 1970. "Juvenile Law, Before and After the Entrance of Parens Patriae." South Carolina Law Review 22:147-181.

R ENDLEMAN, D OUGLAS R. 1971. " Parens Patriae: From Chancery to the Juvenile Court." South Carolina Law Review 23:205-259.

S CHWARTZ, I RA M.; W EINER, N EIL A LAN; and E NOSH, G UY. 1998. "Nine Lives and Then Some: Why the Juvenile Court Does Not Roll Over and Die." Wake Forest Law Review 33:533-552.

S CHWARTZ, I RA M.; W EINER, N EIL A LAN; and E NOSH, G UY. 1999. "Myopic Justice? The Juvenile Court and Child Welfare Systems." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 564:126-141.

In the United States, methods for protecting abused and neglected children have progressed over the years. During the colonial era, the policy was to house pauper children in poorhouses or assign them to apprenticeships, while in the early nineteenth century the preference was to place these children in orphanages and industrial schools run by private societies. During the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century, state child-dependency statutory schemes became prominent, based upon the state's jurisdiction, through parens patriae ("father of the country," used in law to denote the government's power to protect its citizens), to intervene in family affairs for the protection of at-risk children. Contemporary children's services are characterized by a shift in power from state to federal policy control, with a resultant structural uniformity among state child-protection models.

Federal Policy

Federal child-protection policy has historically favored family preservation over the institutionalization of dependent minors. As early as 1909, through the White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children, the federal government identified the importance of the home as the central forum for child development. Until recently, the history of child protection in America has reflected this presumption of family preservation being preferable to moving an at-risk child to a possibly better or safer environment. However, it was not until 1980 that Congress passed the first comprehensive federal child protective services act, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (Pub. L. 96-272), which focused on state economic incentives to substantially decrease the length and number of foster care placements. This law also required specific family reunification services, reflecting the goals of the 1909 White House Conference.

In 1997, however, in order to cure many of the defects in the 1980 act, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which shifted the focus from family reunification to the best interests of children in expeditious permanency, which aims to rapidly finalize a permanent custodial home for minors rather than placing them temporarily in a series of different foster homes. Unlike the lengthy reunification services under the 1980 act, which often resulted in the termination of parental rights after two or three years of juvenile court intervention, the 1997 act required states to engage in "concurrent planning" at case intake. The federal goal of child protection had substantially shifted toward the child's individual needs, rather than primarily attempting family reunification through state services. In fact, in cases involving allegations of serious abuse, the 1997 act deleted the prior requirement of state reunification services and permitted states to immediately seek to sever parental rights and place children into the new preferred placement, adoption. The 1997 act created adoption subsidies and incentives to states. This federal adoption preference soon resulted in unprecedented increases in the number of dependent children being adopted.

Problems with the 1997 Act

Even though the 1997 act reduced the time within which dependent children placed outside the home would remain in temporary placements and increased the number of adoptions, it has also created new problems. First, the federal adoption subsidy program has convinced many potential foster parents to become adoptive parents, thus reducing the number of temporary placements for abused children. The adoption subsidy has also driven social service agencies toward decisions to sever parental rights in close cases, rather than continuing family reunification and temporary foster placements.

The greatest impact of this new rush to permanent adoption has been on sibling relationships. Most state statutory schemes do not recognize that significant sibling bonds are a sufficient reason to continue temporary placements, rather than splitting siblings into different adoptive homes. Child welfare theorists argue that the speedy adoption permanency requirement of the 1997 act is having a significant deleterious cultural impact on poor and minority families. "Black families, who dominate foster care caseloads, are the main casualties of this shift away from a service provision toward coercive state intervention, which includes the requirement to relinquish custody of children as a condition of financial assistance" (Roberts, pp. 1641-1642).

Educational Implications

Prior to the 1997 act, dependent children often lived with many different foster families in different neighborhoods, and they therefore lacked any continuity in their formal education, either with teachers or with curricula. For instance, in 1993 California foster children "attend[ed] an average of 9 different schools by the age of 18 ... [and] demonstrate[d] significantly lower achievement and lower performance in school" (Kelly, pp. 759-760).

This educational discontinuity results in a continuing introduction and departure of new and different friends and teachers, inadequate transfer of educational records, and lost academic credit. Even though "60% of children in foster care have measurable behavior or mental health problems ... [and][a]pproximately 35-45% ... have developmental problems," most do not receive appropriate diagnosis for special education classes or psychological treatment (Practicing Law Institute, p. 115). It is clear that children with disabilities trapped in this legal maelstrom are not receiving the education promised by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which established legal means "to ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for employment and independent living."

The Decline in Child Dependency Cases

Child neglect and abuse reports increased an average of 6 percent annually from 1985 to 1991, when the number of reports reached 2.9 million. However, since 1991 there has been a continual decrease in the number sexual abuse reports, with a 26 percent decline from 1991 to 1998 in the number of reports and an average decline for all states of 37 percent in substantiated cases. In Los Angeles County, which has more foster children than any other county in America, the number of foster care children dropped from 18.7 per thousand in 1997 to 13.1 per thousand in 2001, and the number of reported child abuse cases dropped from 71.2 reports per thousand in 1996 to 53.1 per thousand in 2000.

In 1990 the United States Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect determined that the most significant factor in failing to provide dependent children with adequate services was the overload of cases. If the decline in the number of reported child abuse cases continues, and if social services agencies do not respond by a corresponding reduction of current staff, it may become possible to provide dependent children the social services and educational services commensurate with their needs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997. U.S. Public Law 105-17. U.S. Code. Vol. 20, secs. 1400 et seq.

J ONES, L ISA, and F INKELHOR, D AVID. 2001. The Decline in Child Sexual Abuse Cases. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

P RACTICING L AW I NSTITUTE. 2000. "Early Intervention and Special Education Advocacy: A Missing Link in the Representation of Children in Foster Care." Practicing Law Institute, Litigation and Administrative Practice Course Handbook Series, Criminal Law and Urban Problems 185 (C0-0016):103-166.

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Child Protective Services - HISTORICAL OVERVIEW, CURRENT SYSTEM

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HISTORICAL OVERVIEW CURRENT SYSTEM William Wesley Patton William Wesley Patton No ancient civilization considered child protection to be a governmental function. In ancient Rome, for instance, fathers were vested with an almost unlimited natural right to determine the welfare of their children. The welfare of minors was a family matter, not a governmental interest or obligation.

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Timeline of the accomplishments through farming and agriculture.

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This teacher and kid friendly web site provides educators and students with information, lesson plans, activities, and state contacts to increase agricultural literacy.

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This article explains how animal abandonment is a crime.

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How to Help a Neighbor’s Neglected Animal

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It can be heartbreaking to see a neighbor’s animal suffering in a situation of neglect. Depending on the situation, there are various ways you can help the animal or animals involved.

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This Article states the rights of children. For example: protection, food, shelter, etc.

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The meaning of the child and the rights of children
"Humanity has to do its best for the child." Declaration of Geneva.
Definition of the child

Etymologically, the term "child" comes from the Latin infans which means " the one who does not speak ". For the Roman, this term designates the child from its birth, up to the age of 7 years.

This notion evolved a lot through centuries and cultures to finally designate human being from birth until adulthood. But this conception of the child was wide and the age of the majority varied from a culture to another.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 defines more precisely the term "child":

"[...] a child is any human being below the age of eighteen years, unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier"

The idea, through this definition and all the texts concerning child welfare, is that the child is a human being with rights and dignity.

What characterizes the child, is their youth and vulnerability. Indeed, the child is growing, a future adult, who has no means to protect themself.

So, the child has to be the object of a particular interest and a specific protection. In this perspective, texts proclaiming the protection of the child and their rights were adopted.

Definition of the rights of the child

The recognition of the rights of the children

Children's rights were recognised after the 1st World war, with the adoption of the Declaration of Geneva, in 1924. The process of recognition of children's rights continued thanks to the UN, with the adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959.

The recognition of the child's interest and their rights became a reality on 20 November 1989 with the adoption of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child which is the first international legally binding text recognizing all the fundamental rights of the child.

Children's rights: human rights

Children's rights are human rights. They protect the child as a human being. As human rights, children's rights are constituted by fundamental guarantees and essential human rights:

Children's rights recognize fundamental guarantees to all human beings: the right to life, the non-discrimination principle, the right to dignity through the protection of physical and mental integrity (protection against slavery, torture and bad treatments, etc.)

Children's rights are civil and political rights, such as the right to identity, the right to a nationality, etc.

Children's rights are economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to education, the right to a decent standard of living, the right to health, etc.

Children's rights include individual rights: the right to live with his or her parents, the right to education, the right to benefit from protection, etc.

Children's rights include collective rights: rights of refugee and disabled children, of minority children or from autochthonous groups.

Children's rights: rights adapted to children

Children's rights are human rights specifically adapted to the child because they take into account their fragility, specificities and age-appropriate needs.

Children's rights take into account the necessity of development of the child. The children thus have the right to live and to develop suitably physically and intellectually.

Children's rights plan to satisfy the essential needs for good development of the child, such as the access to an appropriate alimentation, to necessary care, to education, etc.

Children's rights consider the vulnerable character of the child. They imply the necessity to protect them. It means to grant particular assistance to them and to provide protection adapted to their age and to their degree of maturity.

So, the children have to be helped and supported and must be protected against labour exploitation, kidnapping, and ill-treatment, etc.
Find out More

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Rights of the Child The meaning of the child and the rights of children "Humanity has to do its best for the child." Declaration of Geneva. Definition of the child Etymologically, the term "child" comes from the Latin infans which means " the one who does not speak ".

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This article describes the cultural practices of farmers and crop keepers.

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Chapter IV: Cultural Practices | Vegetable Resources

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Texas A&M University - Academic analyses and information on horticultural crops ranging from fruits and nuts to ornamentals, viticulture and wine.

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Timeline of animal rights throughout American History.

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American Humane was the first to serve in promoting and nurturing the bond between animals and humans

In the late 1800s, several Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had been established throughout the United States. Although these organizations met great successes throughout their existence, they lacked a unified voice in promoting the humane movement. So, four years later, delegates from 27 humane organizations from 10 states joined together in the first forum where they could combine their strength and unite their missions. It was at this meeting that American Humane was founded, and it immediately began to address one of its first tasks - to put an end to the inhumane treatment of farm animals and the deplorable conditions in which they were kept.

Since that fateful meeting in 1877, American Humane has held to our ideals, mission, and vision as the only national nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the welfare of both children and animals. The mission of American Humane, as a network of individuals and organizations, is to prevent cruelty, abuse, neglect, and exploitation of children and animals and to assure that their interests and well-being are fully, effectively, and humanely guaranteed by an aware and caring society.

American Humane envisions a nation where no child or animal will ever be a victim of willful abuse or neglect. As a recognized leader in professional education, training and advocacy, research and evaluation, American Humane joins with other similarly missioned individuals and organizations to make this vision a reality.

History and Milestones

1877

American Humane - the country's first national humane organization - was founded on October 9 in Cleveland, Ohio, by local humane society representatives from around the United States. The new organization's first goal was to secure humane treatment for working animals and livestock in transit.

1879

American Humane passed a resolution to promote humane education in public schools and to discourage animal cruelty in classrooms experiments and demonstrations.

1883

Concerned about child abuse and abandoned babies, American Humane promoted the passage of the first Cruelty to Children Act.

1884

American Humane became the official name of the organization through an amendment to its constitution.

1885

American Humane advocated for "humane fountains" - still found in many city squares today - as one of many improvements in the care of fire department, police, and postal horses. Other improvements included humane shoeing and retirement for older and police horses.

1890

American Humane outspokenly opposed corporal punishment of children in school.

1891

American Humane launched a national campaign to draw attention to the increasing crime of infanticide.

1893

American Humane's member societies prosecuted 5,520 cases of cruelty to children.

1894

The Link® between violence toward animals and violence toward people was first mentioned at American Humane's annual convention: "The man who was cruel to his beast would be unkind to his wife and child."

1898

Responding to intense pressure from American Humane, Congress passed a bill prohibiting the practice of vivisection (dissection of live animals) in schools and placed scientists who perform the procedure under governmental regulation and supervision.

1902

Along with the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, American Humane formed a major committee to limit child labor in the emerging textile industry in the South.

1905

American Humane headquarters established in an abandoned hospital in suburban Albany, N.Y. Prior to this, the organization had no regular office, no furniture, and no paid employees.

1907

"Homes of rest," which provided stalls, food, and pasture for horses too old to work, were a product of an American Humane campaign to improve treatment of workhorses.

1909

American Humane spearheaded a campaign for the passage of national child labor laws.

1910

American Humane joined in partnership with local police forces to prevent the abuse of workhorses and assist in cruelty investigations.

1912

American Humane spoke out in favor the rights of the child: "[A child] has a right to good health; to good sanitary conditions in home and school; to three good meals a day; and to an everyday, useful education."

1913

American Humane's quarterly magazine, The National Humane Review, was published for the first time. The magazine featured articles on humane issues, profiles of prominent humanitarians, briefs on humane legislation and reports from local organizations. President William H. Taft sent a telegram saying, "I am interested in humane education and the teaching of peace principles to the children of the United States and wish it success."

1915

American Humane initiated Be Kind to Animals Week® and launched a national poster contest for children. Be Kind to Animals Week is still celebrated annually during the first full week of May and is one of the oldest special weeklong observances in the U.S.

1916

The U.S. Secretary of War invited American Humane "to undertake the work of doing for Army animals what the American Red Cross is doing for soldiers." American Humane created American Red Star Animal Relief to rescue wounded horses on the battlefields of World War I.

1920

After the war, the Red Star program turned its attention to rescuing animals caught in disaster areas, and provided money to purchase feed that saves thousands of elk in Yellowstone National Park from starving to death.

1921

American Humane called for legislation to protect children working in the motion picture industry.

1925

American Humane set up a committee to investigate cruelties in the training of animals for the movies.

1930

Rear Admiral Richard Byrd honored with American Humane's Humanity Medal for the special care and humane treatment of the dogs of his polar exhibition.

1931

American Humane approved a set of standards for child protection societies, which urged them to maintain the privacy rights of the children and adults they serve and to employ professional caseworkers. The organization also encouraged child welfare agencies to protect families and remove children from their parents only when absolutely necessary.

1932

American Humane campaigned against children being given and using firearms.

1932

American Humane campaigned against children being given and using firearms.

1933

American Humane launched a campaign to end the practice of giving children dyed chicks as Easter gifts.

1936

American Humane petitioned the League of Nations and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce for an international treaty calling on nations to stop polluting the seas and save bird life.

1937

The Mississippi River flooded and American Humane's Red Star Animal Relief helped rescue and feed stranded farm animals.

1943

The National Education Association and American Humane launched a campaign asking teachers throughout the United States to refrain from any kind of hatred in education and to protect children from racial or religious taunts.

1947

American Humane started training programs for professional in humane fields.

1950

American Humane issued Standards for Child Protective Services Agencies, which clearly defined physical abuse, neglect and emotional abuse and identified a three-stage process of child protective work, including fact-finding, diagnosis and treatment.

1954

As American Humane's influences grew nationwide, it moved its headquarters from Albany, N.Y. to Denver.

1955

American Humane published detailed guidelines on child protection standards and practices for child welfare practitioners, educators, and administrators.

1956

Vincent De Francis, director of Children's Services at American Humane, published the results of the first national inventory of child protective services, which provided comprehensive report of the state of child welfare practice in the United States.

1957

American Humane published No Substitute for Child Protection and Interpreting Child Protective Services to Your Community by Vincent De Francis, aimed at broadening public understanding of child protection.

1959

The Royal SPCA in England and American Humane formed the International Society for the Protection of Animals.

1967

Red Star sent aid to help animals abandoned or left homeless after the Detroit riots.

1970

American Humane tackled pet overpopulation, suggesting that owners spay or neuter their animals. Critical attention was also drawn to the emergence of mass breeding operations, or "puppy mills."

1977

American Humane celebrated its centennial. Over the course of 100 years, the organization expanded its mission, influenced public policy, framed philosophies of animal and child protection and provided thousands of professionals and laymen with humane training and education.

1979

American Humane published its third nationwide survey of child protective services. The major finding was that the increase in child abuse reports was not matched by an increase in personnel, producing overwhelming caseloads and resulting in inadequate services.

1983

At American Humane's urging, the U.S. House of Representatives established the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families.

1990

American Humane took a leadership role in addressing ethnic and cultural issues related to child protection. The organization supported the Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Protection Act, which required reporting of abuse and provided for prevention and treatment in Native American Communities.

American Humane held its first national humane education workshop giving educators curriculum ideas and methods of teaching humane values.

In honor of the 75th anniversary of Be Kind to Animals Week, Congress passed a resolution declaring May 6-12, 1990 Be Kind to Animals and National Pet Week.

American Humane held its first National Cruelty Investigations School for animal control officers and shelter workers.

1991

To keep soldiers from having to permanently give up their pets, American Humane developed guidelines for animal shelters to foster pets of military reservists sent to the Middle East during Operation Desert Storm.

1993

American Humane held a national meeting on disaster preparedness in Florida.

American Humane established the Be Kind to Animals Kid Contest to honor children who show exceptional care for animals.
American Humane testified before Congress in support of funding for state and local level family support and parenting programs and innovative child welfare services as family preservation, reunification, and respite care.

1999

American Humane's first Tag Day™ was celebrated to help lost pets get reunited with owners.

American Humane sent posters to advertising agencies advising how to portray animals in advertisements responsibly.

American Humane held a national forum on animal adoption procedure to discuss research and best practices for increasing animal adoptions.

American Humane-backed legislation passed, allowing all those in federally-assisted housing to benefit from the companionship of pets.

2001

After terrorists attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, American Humane's Red Star® Animal Emergency Services delivered supplies and equipment to New York City and provided medical examinations, care and decontamination for search-and-rescue dogs.

2002

Red Star responded to the Rodeo-Chediski fire in Arizona, the largest wildfire in Arizona history.

2006

American Humane hosted its first differential response conference. Differential response is an approach that allows child protective services to respond differently to each child abuse report, depending on the severity of the abuse, the family's history and other factors. To address growing issues in child welfare, American Humane established the Immigration and Child Welfare initiative and the Fatherhood initiative.

The American Red Cross and American Humane renewed a groundbreaking agreement to provide for mutual cooperation between the two organizations in the emergency relief of domestic animals, the assurance of their care, and the search for their owners.

Following devastating wildfires in Texas, which burned more than 1 million acres, Red Star responded with food, supplies, and medical attention for burned and displaced horses and cattle.

American Humane held its first Differential Response conference. Differential Response is an approach that allows child protective services to respond differently to each child abuse report depending on the severity of the abuse, the family's history, and other factors.

2011

Established the Animal Welfare Research Institute to explore and achieve advances in predictive, preventive and participatory methods to save animals' lives and improve their quality of life.

Launched the American Humane Hero Dog Awards™ to honor dogs who transform people's lives through unconditional love, devotion and intuition.

As the world watched in horror over the combined earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear incident in Fukushima, Japan, American Humane mobilized resources and financial aid for animal rescue organizations in Japan.

Dire flooding in Memphis and Minot, North Dakota brought Red Star teams to provide care and sheltering for the affected animals.

In response to a catastrophic tornado afflicting Joplin, Missouri, Red Star was deployed to help the animals in need.

2012

Launched the Children's Innovation Institute to improve the welfare, wellness and well-being of America's children.

Red Star Rescue services was sent to Memphis on an emergency deployment to shelter more than 50 dogs seized from the back of an animal hoarder's truck. The animals were airlifted to safe shelters where they were adopted into forever homes.

American Humane and Pfizer Animal Health released Phase I of a groundbreaking new research study, "Canines and Childhood Cancer," on the beneficial effects of animal-assisted therapy on children with cancer. The results were reported worldwide.

Following some of the worst wildfire conditions in our nation's history, Red Star teams deployed to the Colorado Springs area, sheltering animals, and reuniting more than 200 with their families.

After the movie theatre shootings in Aurora, CO, American Humane worked to give parents, teachers, and others information to help children cope with and overcome the trauma.

American Humane released a major new research report, "Keeping Pets (Dogs and Cats) in Homes Retention Study," seeking to keep pets in their homes and reduce the number of healthy, adoptable animals being destroyed in shelters each year.

Red Star Rescue services deployed to Tennessee to intervene in a mass cruelty case involving 168 animals in terrible condition. Medical care, sheltering, and adoption services were provided to the dehydrated, hungry, and frightened animals.

American Humane's Animal Welfare Research Institute released a survey, "People, Pets and the World We Share," demonstrating the lasting impact pets have on children.

Our Red Star Rescue teams deployed to help the 30 million animals in the path of Hurricane Sandy, bringing help, hope and more than 100,000 pounds of emergency food, medicine and supplies to the eastern seaboard with the help of MARS Petcare US, makers of Pedigree® brand, Whiskas® brand, and Royal Canin® brand, Pfizer Animal Health, Cat's Pride© cat litter, FreeHand™ pet food, Always Express, Yukon Graphics, and Julian James Advertising Design.

2013

Released vital new data showing that of all the animals adopted from shelters, up to one million are lost, die, or given away within six months.

Deployed our Red Star Animal-Assisted Therapy team to help children, families, and mourners following the Boston terror bombings.

Partnered with major corporations to provide millions of dollars of food and health supplies to the nation's shelters.

Sent our animal rescue teams to save lost and frightened animals left homeless in the wake of the EF-5 tornado that wiped out Moore, Oklahoma.

Released results from the second phase of a groundbreaking research study designed to measure the effectiveness of therapy dogs in helping children with cancer.

Provided a major grant to help the more than 1,000 animals still languishing in shelters two years after the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown.

Quintupled the number of animals under the protection of our Farm Animal Program, from 200 million to 1 billion million.

Provided therapy animals for the children of military families at more than 10 "Operation Purple" summer camps across the nation.

Reached hundreds of millions of people with information designed to protect children and animals from abuse, neglect, manmade and natural disasters.

Assisted with the second-largest dog-fighting raid in U.S. history, helping to shelter and care for 267 animals.

The National Fire Dog Monument, America's first national tribute to arson dogs and their handlers, was permanently installed in Washington, D.C. through the efforts of American Humane and State Farm.

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In the late 1800s, several Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had been established throughout the United States. Although these organizations met great successes throughout their existence, they lacked a unified voice in promoting the humane movement. So, four...

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“O.K., then, all right, they would adopt a white-trash dog. Ha ha. They could name it Zeke, buy it a little corncob pipe and a straw hat. She imagined the puppy, having crapped on the rug, looking up at her, going, Cain’t hep it. But no. Had she come from a perfect place? Everything was transmutable. She imagined the puppy grown up, entertaining some friends, speaking to them in a British accent: My family of origin was, um, rather not, shall we say, of the most respectable...
Ha ha, wow, the mind was amazing, always cranking out these—”

George Saunders
2017 Goodreads Inc

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George Saunders has published over twenty short stories and numerous Shouts & Murmurs in The New Yorker since first appearing in the magazine, in 1992. His work includes the short-story collections (a finalist for the 1996 PEN/Hemingway Award) (a finalist for the Story Prize), “Tenth of December" (a finalist for the National Book Award and recipient of the Folio Prize).