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When it comes to sensitive issues of cultural complexity, issues necessarily rendered even more complicated by virtue of the perspectives inherent in one's own racial, ethnic or national identity, Susan Lasley has a refreshing and intriguing range of insights to offer. And truly, it would not be easy to find an author of a more cosmopolitan background to do so. She is a woman of multiracial origins, being of African-American descent on both sides, and also of Irish-American descent on her mother's side and of Cherokee-American descent on her father's side. She is a professional person of multifaceted talents, possessing a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Michigan State, an M.B.A. in Finance and Marketing from Harvard, an M.A. in Liberal Studies from Duke, and an M.St. in Historical Research/Economic History from Oxford. She has lived, studied and worked in the United States, Great Britain, Europe and Australia. She has extensive experience as a design engineer, product development engineer, marketing manager, technical writer and technical editor. Weapons of Mass Affection is her first book, a collection of essays exploring the many subtle ways in which apparently innocuous words and phrases can be used to obscure and distort, rather than clarify. The weapons of mass affection in the title are simply the words of everyday language, often terms evocative of some positive sentiment, perverted to mask and thus perpetrate otherwise unspeakable human behavior.

"George Orwell is one of my favorite essayists," Lasley explains. "Every couple of years something happens that reminds me of what he wrote about the political uses of language, and recent developments have brought lots of examples." The initial essay, "American Pet," is a stylistic venture worthy of the master, focusing a uniquely North American variant of Orwell's penetrating vision on a topic he would have endorsed as absolutely essential for any civilized society to assess: capital punishment. The opening sentence meets Orwell's key recommendations for effective writing: a clear statement, conveyed in simple and direct language. "Even the fans agreed the job was botched." This almost laconic introduction ushers us immediately into a chamber of horrors most people would choose to shun - at the very least in imagination, let alone in physical reality. The job, we learn, was the execution by electrocution of Pedro Medina: the place, the execution chamber of Florida State Prison. The date, March 25, 1997. The "fans" were, in the first instance, those summoned by official policy to witness Medina's death: a death inflicted by a device called "Old Sparky," a grotesquely antique lethal contraption first assembled 75 years earlier, "a three-legged oak chair constructed by Florida prison inmates from an old army boot, roofing material, and a stainless steel bolt from a hardware store."

Here's what Old Sparky does to any unfortunate strapped tight in its embrace, once the switch is thrown.

The flames shot up nearly a half foot after the right side of Medina's black face mask ignited; he had already clutched his hands into fists and lurched backwards. The current surged through his body, peaking as high as 2,000 volts. His chest heaved, and gurgles welled up from within his throat. ...The fire flickered for a few seconds before it died and filled the execution chamber and the viewing room with the intense, acrid odor of the man's burning flesh.

The "fans" present, thirty-nine official witnesses, were understandably sickened and brutally shaken by such a revolting spectacle. So, too, were many of the other "fans," citizens across the nation who had acquiesced in the concept of capital punishment, citizens now having second thoughts as accounts of the event were published. If this wasn't the "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by American law, then what else on earth could it possibly be? But in stark, even analytic prose, Lasley traces the linguistic process by which Old Sparky was swiftly metamorphosed from instrument of torture back into a cherished symbol of American justice.

"Old Sparky," she contends, "is our All-American pet." The very name "Sparky," although it does logically suggest both electricity and fire, also resonates with positive nuance: it is a favored name of a beloved pet, such as a kitten or puppy. And "once one's thoughts have been transformed by pet language and the relationships and behavior that flow from it, it's hard to change those thoughts without changing the language." Old Sparky had been created to "protect" decent citizens, a positive function akin to that of a trusted guard dog; and yet, given the horrific mauling of Medina, many decent citizens "realized that the electric chair was not acting like a pet." Could it be a rogue device, something that had to be put down itself? To address that issue, a court hearing was convened, only to reinforce execution by electrocution through reassuring technical expertise. Those responsible for making Old Sparky ready to receive Medina, the court was told, did not correctly follow procedures. Moreover, according to the state's medical examiner, there was "no evidence that Medina suffered"; in fact, he actually died "a quick, humane death." The presiding judge consequently ruled that "but for human error, the execution would have been without incident." And so Old Sparky was restored in the public mind to the more benign image of protective instrument: "the potential for harm to the owner is for the most part gone, and the instinctual aggression which is still in the pet is directed toward the scent of evil outsiders, at those whom we believe have come to harm us." Old Sparky immediately went back to work, and within a single week dispatched four more condemned prisoners. As Lasley caustically observes, the United States has become "one of the world's busiest executioners, keeping company with the likes of such autocratic nations as China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia."

The central theme of this essay is reiterated throughout the collection, providing structural unity to a wide span of topics. "It may be easier to keep lying about something so awful that we are afraid to name it," Lasley reminds us, time and again, in one context after another. "It can be a frightful thing to name the truth." So it is with the continuing support for capital punishment, masked in part with affectionate names like Old Sparky: "if people visualized a realistic image of the electric chair during discussions about it, perhaps many of them would push for an end not only to electrocution, but to the death penalty as well." And so it is with the continuing tolerance of a multitude of other bizarre aspects of social behavior. To take a second instance, how about the Ku Klux Klan as a civil rights organization? Yes, really. Only in America, you say? It is to be hoped, only there, and nowhere else. In "Black Like Us," Lasley traces the brazen audacity of the Klan's misappropriation of the entire apparatus of the civil rights movement - strategy, tactics, slogans and all - finally to march as champions of racial equality and freedom of speech in New York City on 22 October, 1999. Manifesting itself as "the Church of American Knights," mouthing parodistic sentiments like "white pride" and "white power," the Klan enlisted such unlikely allies as Norman Siegel of the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Reverend Al Sharpton of the black activist group National Action Network. Underscoring the irony of all that with a chillingly succinct account of the Klan's violent and hatred-impregnated history of racial, ethnic and religious bigotry, Lasley recounts the events of the march itself, emphasizing the shrinking appearance of fifteen terrified Klan members shielded by two thousand riot police from some eight thousand anti-Klan protesters. It was then, she notes in grim satisfaction, that the Klan genuinely "became black." And "perhaps when they come back, they'll be blacker than before," she concludes: "maybe then they will have learned to speak proper Eubonics like they were born-again Soul Brothers."

Ultimately, this is a book about fears or inadequacies parading as strengths, with the dress uniform on every occasion nothing more than positive language strangely misapplied. Consider the curious category of racial epithets reserved by North American minority groups for persons of their own race who are deemed to defend the privileges of the white majority. African Americans reserve their deepest contempt for an oreo (black on the outside, white on the inside); Native Americans will disdain an apple (red on the outside, white on the inside); and Asian Americans scorn above all a popcorn (yellow on the outside, but turns white under heat and pressure). Why the choice of foods for this purpose? "Naming the reviled and despised members of our societies after beloved foods certainly has deep meaning," Lasley argues. "Food is a central value in American culture, because of our descent from immigrants whose food was one part of their heritage that could not be stripped away by assimilation." Moreover, any foodstuff of whatever origin was once a living entity, sacrificed to our appetite and consumed for our sustenance. This is a perfectly natural process, an unthinking process, and "there is no guilt associated with this form of consumption." Hence, "in a way, food epithets may make it more palatable to sacrifice or consume the targets." Here we have food for thought, indeed.

A brief review can only serve as an invitation to the reader. There are ten essays in this book, and this review has only managed to brush against three. A further abundance awaits those seeking to expand their understanding of how language can be used and abused. "There are different levels of abstraction in language, " Lasley insists, "and it is useful to be clear about them." Weapons of Mass Affection , sometimes surprisingly acerbic, sometimes gently sensitive, sometimes delightfully humorous, but always intellectually stimulating, provides a welcome access to precisely that sort of clarity.