1968: The Year That Rocked the World by Mark KurlanskyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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Friday, November 7, 2025
Wednesday, November 5, 2025
Review: Brain Droppings
Brain Droppings by George CarlinMy rating: 0 of 5 stars
I'm happy to tell you there is very little in this world that I believe in. Listening to the comedians who comment on political, social, and cultural issues, I notice most of their material reflects an underlying belief that somehow things were better once and that with just a little effort we could set them right again. They're looking for solutions, and rooting for particular results, and I think that necessarily limits the tone and substance of what they say. They're talented and funny people, but they're nothing more than cheerleaders attached to a specific, wished-for outcome.
I don't feel so confined. I frankly don't give a fuck how it all turns out in this country-or anywhere else, for that matter. I think the human game was up a long time ago (when the high priests and traders took over), and now we're just playing out the string. And that is, of course, precisely what I find so amusing: the slow circling of the drain by a once promising species, and the sappy, ever-more-desperate belief in this country that there is actually some sort of "American Dream," which has merely been misplaced.
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Sunday, November 2, 2025
Saturday, November 1, 2025
Review: Cults on Trial: A Cross-Examination of Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Hitler… and Donald Trump
Cults on Trial: A Cross-Examination of Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Hitler… and Donald Trump by Lance MooreMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Narrated by Virtual Voice, which does a pretty good job on this one with only occasionally mispronouncing or oddly pausing.
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Review: The Holographic Universe
The Holographic Universe by Michael TalbotMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Mystical
The holographic model has been accepted by scientists as a possible explanation for various paranormal and mystical experiences, including telepathy, precognition, and psychokinesis.
But the most staggering thing about the holographic model was that it suddenly made sense of a wide range of phenomena so elusive they generally have been categorized outside the province of scientific understanding. These include telepathy, precognition, mystical feelings of oneness with the universe, and even psychokinesis, or the ability of the mind to move physical objects without anyone touching them.
Indeed, it quickly became apparent to the ever growing number of scientists who came to embrace the holographic model that it helped explain virtually all paranormal and mystical experiences, and in the last half-dozen years or so it has continued to galvanize researchers and shed light on an increasing number of previously inexplicable phenomena.
Real 'Sybil' Admits Multiple Personalities Were Fake - NPR
https://share.google/cjRuJ9q7o6s25nxbY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley...
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Placebo
...treatment include migraine headaches, allergies, fever, the common cold, acne, asthma, warts, various kinds of pain, nausea and seasick-ness, peptic ulcers, psychiatric syndromes such as depression and anxiety, rheumatoid and degenerative arthritis, diabetes, radiation sickness, Parkinsonism, multiple sclerosis, and cancer.
Clearly these range from the not so serious to the life threatening, but placebo effects on even the mildest conditions may involve physio-logical changes that are near miraculous. Take, for example, the lowly wart. Warts are a small tumorous growth on the skin caused by a virus. They are also extremely easy to cure through the use of placebos, as is evidenced by the nearly endless folk rituals-ritual itself being a kind of placebo-that are used by various cultures to get rid of them. Lewis Thomas, president emeritus of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, tells of one physician who regularly rid his patients of warts simply by painting a harmless purple dye on them. Thomas feels that explaining this small miracle by saying it's just the unconscious mind at work doesn't begin to do the placebo effect justice. "If my unconscious can figure out how to manipulate the mechanisms needed for getting around that virus, and for deploying all the various cells in the correct order for tissue rejection, then all I have to say is that my unconscious is a lot further along than I am," he states.
Visualization: control of future, 221-23; healing, 83, 188-89; Sufis and
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Raw synchronicity
Jungian dream interpretation
Pauli jung nature of the psychedelic
Years later the Japanese attacked China and bombed Wuchang Hospital. The woman sent Meier a copy of Life magazine containing a double-page photograph of the partially destroyed hospital, and it was identical to the drawing she had produced nine years earlier. The symbolic and highly personal message of her dream had somehow spilled beyond the boundaries of her psyche and into physical reality. 24 Because of their striking nature, Jung became convinced that such synchronicities were not chance occurrences, but were in fact related to the psychological processes of the individuals who experienced them. Since he could not conceive how an occurrence deep in the psyche could cause an event or series of events in the physical world, at least in the classical sense, he proposed that some new principle must be involved, an acausal connecting principle hitherto unknown to science.
When Jung first advanced this idea, most physicists did not take it seriously (although one eminent physicist of the time, Wolfgang Pauli, felt it was important enough to coauthor a book with Jung on the subject entitled The Interpretation and Nature of the Psyche). But now that the existence of nonlocal connections has been established, some physicists are giving Jung's idea another look.* Physicist Paul Davies states, "These non-local quantum effects are indeed a form of synchronicity in the sense that they establish a connection-more precisely a correlation between events for which any form of causal linkage is forbidden."
Another physicist who takes synchronicity seriously is F. David Peat. Peat believes that Jungian-type synchronicities are not only real, but offer further evidence of the implicate order. As we have seen, according to Bohm the apparent separateness of consciousness and matter is an illusion, an artifact that occurs only after both have unfolded into the explicate world of objects and sequential time. If there is no division between mind and matter in the implicate, the ground from which all things spring, then it is not unusual to expect that reality might still be shot through with traces of this deep connectivity...
D Scott rogo
McKenna
Lucid dreaming
Rupert Sheldrake
Part I - Mind, Memory, and Archetype: Morphic Resonance and the Collective ...
https://share.google/e1kkAAC5M52dB8BP2
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Friday, October 31, 2025
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Review: In Guns We Trust: The Unholy Trinity of White Evangelicals, Politics, and Firearms
In Guns We Trust: The Unholy Trinity of White Evangelicals, Politics, and Firearms by William J. KoleMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Evangelicals
Politically, the evangelicals among whom I used to find a home are a force to be reckoned with. Multiple surveys show 80 percent of evangelicals faithfully vote, making them far and away the most dependable electoral bloc in the nation. Their numbers and their turnout have cemented their status as influencers and kingmakers in presidential elections and congressional midterms alike. It's difficult to win the White House without the blessing of the religious right, and in red states, it's practically impossible to gain or defend a US House or Senate seat without their backing.
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Sunday, October 26, 2025
Review: Lincoln's Ghost: Houdini's War on Spiritualism and the Dark Conspiracy Against the American Presidency
Lincoln's Ghost: Houdini's War on Spiritualism and the Dark Conspiracy Against the American Presidency by Brad RiccaMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
In 1926, Houdini Spent 4 Days Shaming Congress for Being in Thrall to Fortune-Tellers
The congressional hearings on the supernatural were very theatrical.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles...
John Slater – Psychic Medium, 1898 - https://share.google/3Kdn1rOk0StCdqw1z
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Charmian London - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charmia...
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Saturday, October 25, 2025
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Review: The Brothers Reuther and The Story of The UAW: A Memoir
The Brothers Reuther and The Story of The UAW: A Memoir by Victor G. ReutherMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Next to our pictures contrasting tin-and-tarpaper shacks with Grosse Pointe mansions, under a caption from Goldsmith "Where wealth accumulates and men decay" - we commented on the "homes that a dying social order is providing for its unemployed workers ..."
These unemployed workers had made dugouts along the railroad tracks in the Detroit city dump, using discarded dump truck bodies for shelter, lard cans for stoves, rags and newspapers for beds. We nut pictures of these "houses" next to pictures of the Dodge estate mate
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The other, less rosy side of the international labor story reflects a sad image of some of our countrymen during the decades between World War II and the seventies. The revelations of the Nixon scan-dal even now continue to cast light on some of the more melodra-matic domestic and foreign adventures. Among these are the extended CIA operations, some of which, under the guise of international trade union work, brought corruption and shame, weakness and betrayal to the cause of international labor solidarity.
Soon after I accepted the European directorship in behalf of National CIO (before the merger with AFL) I became aware of a suspicion, pervading European labor and political circles, that some of those acting in the name of U.S. labor were spending money far beyond what normal trade unions would have had available at that time. The activities of the AFL's Irving Brown were especially mis-trusted; it was thought that he was receiving incredibly large funds from some U.S. Government source in an effort to get European trade unions in his pocket and to dictate the foreign policy of both European and African countries. In plainer words, the hysterical fear of Communism that produced McCarthyism in America was being spread, by means of CIA money, first by the AFL and later by the AFL-CIO under Meany's autocratic rule.
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
List of books 1930
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Hoovervilles prostitutes
Our frontispiece included a small parody of the opening of the Gettysburg Address:
Fourscore and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new economic system, conceived of the policies of "laissez faire" and dedicated to the proposition that private profit is the sole incentive to progress. Now we are engaged in a great economic struggle, testing whether this nation or any nation so deceived and so dedicated to rugged individualism can long endure.
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This is one of the memoirs of this era that points out there was a Communist and non-Communist Left, generally at war with each other.
"Exposure, not repression, must be our goal. We must get the Communists out of the political back alleys and walk them up Main Street in the full light of informed opinion." It took five years to break their power in the Ford Local 600, mainly because Walter would not use the autocratic methods John L. Lewis had used in dealing with Communist infiltration of his mine workers. The democratic process required time-consuming efforts to educate the rank and file, but that is what Walter preferred.
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John F. Kennedy's election increased the growth of hate crusades and he became the object of systematic vilification, reminiscent of the attacks on Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the world of the right wing, Kennedy had against him his youthful charisma, his wealth, intelligence, New England and Harvard background, his religion, his wife, brothers, advisers, his support of the blacks, his refusal to drop the bomb. He sounded a rational note on the subject of hate-mongers in a speech in the fall of 1961:
In critical periods there have always been those on the fringes of our society who have sought to escape their own responsibility by finding a simple solution, an appealing slogan or a convenient scapegoat They look suspiciously at their neighbors and their leader. They call for a "man on horseback" because they do not trust the people. They find treason in our churches, in our highest court. .. They equate the Democratic Party with the welfare state, the welfare state with Socialism, Socialism with Communism Let our patriotism be reflected in the creation of confidence in one another, rather than in crusades of suspicion - above all, let us remember, however serious the outlook, how-ever harsh the task, the one great irreversible trend in the history of the world is on the side of liberty.
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International
https://www.nytimes.com/1961/06/10/ar...
Experts' Mission Specified
By Damon Stetson Special To the New York Times.
June 10, 1961
"...fund-raising activities are continuing under the direction of Mrs. Roosevelt, Walter P. Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers (A. F. L.-C. I. O.)..."
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D. Memo to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy: Prepared by Victor G. Reuther, Walter P. Reuther, and Joseph L. Rauh, Jr.
THE RADICAL RIGHT IN AMERICA TODAY
President Kennedy's addresses in Seattle and Los Angeles on November 16 and 18 evidenced both a deep concern with, and a profound understanding of, the serious problems injected into American life by the growing strength of the radical right. A spate of articles in responsible newspapers and peri-odicals reflect this same concern and understanding. Perhaps therefore this memorandum will prove but a repetition and restatement of suggestions al-ready under consideration by the Administration. Since, however, the pub-lic discussion to date concerning the radical right has produced little in the line of suggested policies and programs for dealing with the serious prob-lems raised, this memorandum may have some value in focusing attention upon possible Administration policies and programs to combat the radical right.
Initially, it needs to be said that far more is required in the struggle against the radical right than simply calling attention to present and potential dangers. If the Administration truly recognizes this as a serious problem, as it certainly appears to do, it is most important that President Kennedy's addresses in Seattle and Los Angeles be implemented. Speeches without action may well only mobilize the radical right instead of mobilizing the democratic forces within our nation. It is with this consideration in view that there is set forth below an estimate of the extent of the problem and suggested Ad-ministration policies and programs for dealing with the problem.
EXTENT OF PROBLEM
The radical right or extreme right-wing, or however it may be designated, includes an unknown number of millions of Americans of viewpoints bounded on the left by Senator Goldwater and on the right by Robert Welch. The active component of these radical right millions would, of course, be only a small fraction of the total.
...stronger and are almost certainly better organized than at any time in recent history. ...
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Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Friday, October 10, 2025
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Review: Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917
Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 by Gail BedermanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Progressive era? Resolutions?
Ida B. Wells - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._...
Teddy
California State University, Northridge https://share.google/nEXxTVoTYQuofrJmi
By depicting imperialism as a prophylactic means of avoiding effeminacy and racial decadence, Roosevelt constructed it as part of the status quo and hid the fact that this sort of militaristic overseas involvement was actually a new departure in American foreign policy. American men must struggle to retain their racially innate masculine strength, which had originally been forged in battle with the savage Indians on the frontier; otherwise the race would backslide into overcivilized decadence. With no Indians left to fight at home, then, American men must press on and confront new races, abroad.
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Sunday, October 5, 2025
Saturday, October 4, 2025
Review: The Student Debt Crisis: America’s Moral Urgency
The Student Debt Crisis: America’s Moral Urgency by Jamal WatsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Education Data Initiative https://share.google/OCSbOwk43zzSARm3o
Over the past few decades, the cost of higher education has skyrocketed, outpacing inflation and wage growth. The numbers are both startling and alarming. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, between 1980 and 2020, the average tuition at public four-year institutions increased by 169 percent after adjusting for inflation. This dramatic rise has shifted much of the financial burden onto students and their families.¹ One key factor contributing to rising costs is the steady decline in state funding for public universities. As states have aggressively
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Friday, October 3, 2025
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Friday, September 26, 2025
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Review: Head in the Cloud: Why Knowing Things Still Matters When Facts Are So Easy to Look Up
Head in the Cloud: Why Knowing Things Still Matters When Facts Are So Easy to Look Up by William PoundstoneMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
learning causes higher brain function which leads to higher income
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Saturday, September 20, 2025
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Review: Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill by Riki OttMy rating: 0 of 5 stars
"This book doesn't just change our view of the Exxon Valdez spill; it forces us to dramatically reassess the risks from petroleum and the enormous costs that industry is imposing on our health and planet."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
President, Waterkeeper Alliance
Legacy of the spill: The book exposes the long-lasting environmental damage caused by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and chronicles the health problems experienced by cleanup workers.
The toxicity of oil: Dr. Ott, a marine biologist, shows how the event provided a "portal to understanding a startling truth: oil is much more toxic than we previously thought". Specifically, she details the harmful effects of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a component of crude oil that the EPA designated as "persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic" in 1999.
Corporate accountability: The book reveals how corporate greed, government negligence, and media manipulation concealed the full truth about the deadliness of PAHs. It calls for people and policymakers to inspire a shift toward a clean energy future.
Chronic Symptoms (1990 to 2003)
Nagel traveled in Central America off and on for the next three years. His health started to deteriorate. He said, "It seemed like every time there was a flu going around, I always got it and it stayed with me longer than anyone else." He was in Costa Rica in 1994 when he became very, very ill. He checked into a hospital and discovered he had cancerous tumors in his stomach and intestines. During emergency surgery, part of his stomach and intestines were removed.
When he was in Portland, Oregon, teaching a Hazwoper class on early response and hazardous waste handling, a friend jokingly asked him if he would like some Inipol? Nagel responded, "Exxon or French?" His friend handed him the original MSDS on Inipol from the French company, Elf Aquataine. Nagel was stunned-the French MSDS showed that Inipol caused cancer in laboratory mice; the MSDS supplied by Exxon in 1989 did not. Exxon had supposedly altered the chemical composition of the product, however, the captain realized the time frame between product testing and approval was probably too short to determine if the revised product caused cancer in mice.
Dr. Miller collaborated with Nicholas Ashford, PhD, a professor of Technology and Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches courses in environmental and occupational health law and policy. They published a groundbreaking book, Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes (John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1991), which they revised in 1998. In it they explain their view that chemical sensitivity is not just a single syndrome, but rather a whole new class of disease, which they describe as "toxicant-induced loss of tolerance" or TILT. This phrase takes into account the fact that caffeine, alcoholic beverages, various drugs, and foods can trigger "chemical" sensitivity symptoms in individuals who already have lost their natural tolerance through an acute chemical exposure or other initiating event.
By the late 1990s it was understood that the initiating event for chemical sensitivity, or more broadly TILT, can occur either as a intense abrupt event like a pesticide spill or as an intermittent repet-itive exposure (Wilkinson 1998). The EVOS cleanup workers had it both ways-the chemical exposure was intense, but also repetitive, intermittent for those who took breaks or were otherwise in and out of oiled areas, and prolonged for individuals who worked for months on the beaches. Those who studied TILT found that the nervous sys-tem, quite independent of the immune system, has the capacity to "amplify responses to stimuli that are perceived as dangerous to the organism" (ibid., 59). Once the stimulus is stopped, the nervous sys-tem initiates a process of amplification, so that the next time the per-son encounters that stimulus, or anything that can similarly trigger the nervous system, even at a much lower dose, there is an amplified or exaggerated response.
This process is known as "limbic kindling," and it is the leading theory among environmental medicine doctors to explain the etiol-ogy or cause of chemical sensitivities and other TILT symptoms (Ashford and Miller 1998; Kilburn 1998; Rea 1995; Wilkinsen 1998). Limbic kindling is a type of epilepsy that involves abnormal firing of the limbic system-the part of the brain with a direct connection to the nose. The olfactory system is the normal pathway for airborne chemicals to interact with the brain; the limbic system is where the immune, nervous, and endocrine systems interact. Chemical-induced seizures cause the amygdala in the limbic system to misfire signals to the hypothalamus, which communicates with both the olfactory and limbic systems, regulating chemicals in the entire body.
The hypothalamus governs body temperature, reproductive urges and functions, metabolism, and even aggressive behavior. It also influences some immune system functions. Disrupting the hypothalamus-with any of a variety of chemicals once a person loses his or her initial tolerance-can create havoc in many different parts of the body and lead to the multiple system dysfunction experienced by people with severe chemical sensitivities such as La Joie.
Pesticides and solvent exposures are known to cause or facilitate limbic kindling. The EPA lists 2-butoxyethanol as one of the pesticides it has tested (CAS number 111-76-2) and it lists this chemical as one of the ingredients to avoid in its Janitorial Products Pollution Prevention Program. The EPA web page states products with the listed ingredients "pose very high risks to the janitor using the product, to building occupants, or to the environment." Comments under chronic effects for 2-butoxyethanol list reproductive and fetal damage, liver and kidney damage...
Blockade
https://share.google/KdIc1aRKKSzbA0L4p
Prince William Sound fishermen, facing financial ruin after collapses of herring and pink salmon populations, blockaded Valdez Narrows from August 20 to 23, 1993, to focus attention on the ailing Sound. As a result of this blockade, scientists funded through the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council conducted three seminal ecosystem studies and determined that very low levels of oil were much more toxic to fish and wildlife than previously thought. Similarly, medical doctors have found oil (PAHs) also poses human health risks.
Changed paradigms
Physical shoreline habitat
OLD PARADIGM: Oil that grounds on shorelines other than marshes dominated fine sediments will be rapidly dispersed and degraded microbially and pos cally
EMERGING APPRECIATION: Oil degrades at varying rates depending upon environ genation, and photolysis retaining contamination by only partially weathered of ment, with subsurface sediments physically protected from disturbance,oy for years.
Oil toxicity to fish
OLD PARADIGM: Oil effects occur solely through short-term (~4 day) exposure to water-soluble fraction (1-2 ringed aromatics dominate) through acute narcosis mortality at parts per million concentrations.
EMERGING APPRECIATION: Long-term exposure of fish embryos to weathered oil
(3-5 ringed PAHs) at parts per billion concentrations has population conse quences through indirect effects on growth, deformities, and behavior with long-term consequences on mortality and reproduction.
Oil toxicity to seabirds and marine mammals
OLD PARADIGM: Oil effects occur solely through short-term acute exposure of feathers or fur and resulting death from hypothermia, drowning, or ingestion of toxics during preening.
EMERGING APPRECIATION: Oil effects also are substantial (independent of means of
insulation) over the long term through interactions between natural environ mental stressors and compromised health of exposed animals, through chronic toxic exposure from ingesting contaminated prey or during foraging around persistent sedimentary pools of oil, and through disruption of vital social functions (care giving or reproduction) in socially organized species.
Lower level toxicity
When he called Short for advice, the chemist suggested that he
not re-coat the rocks with oil. Instead, Short suggested that he just
expose the second batch of herring eggs to water flowing over the
older, more weathered oil from gravel that had already been flushed
with water during the pervious year's experiment. Short told Carls that
the pink salmon researchers were finding effects on embryos around
one part per billion PAHs-and that the larger PAHs, the ones that
weathered out last into the water, were more harmful to salmon
embryos than the aromatic hydrocarbons in the WSF. Carls decided to
take a chance. He exposed the second batch of artificially fertilized
herring eggs to initial PAH levels in the water of less than one part per
billion, a fraction of the level supposedly "safe" for marine life. The data were crystal clear-and astonishing. Larvae exposed to oil from the first experiment had twisted spines, misshapen jaws, and other skeletal deformities as well as genetic damage (Carls, Rice, and Hose 1999). The tiny fish had metabolic problems and tissue damage as well, a frequent problem being severe "ascites" or swollen bellies caused by retained water. The balloon-bellies restricted blood flow to tissues and organs, stunting growth and development. Larvae exposed to oil had trouble swimming, they were a smaller size because of premature hatch, and many more died than larvae not exposed to any oil. Carls detected harmful effects in larvae exposed to initial PAH levels that were 30 times lower than the federal water quality standard. Results from the second batch of eggs were gener ally identical, but more frightening. The more weathered oil was much more toxic-larvae suffered harmful effects at initial PAH levels that were 750 times lower than the federal standards. The Bue effect!
Carls realized that state and federal laws regulating oil pollution are not at all protective of aquatic life because the laws are based on the wrong oil fraction! The Auke Bay Lab fish research proved large PAHs are much more deadly to precious fish embryos than smaller aromatic hydrocarbons in the WSF; however, the laws based on 1970s research treat the large PAHs as if they are harmless.
Pervasive persistent
What they found surprised them. Poking around with their shov-els in the quadrants and transects dictated by their study design, they discovered liquid oil at fifty-three of the ninety-one beaches. The oil was buried just below the surface and it welled into the pits, leaving a rainbow sheen on the water surface. Most of the subsurface oil was in the mid-intertidal zone-well below the bathtub ring, the visual stain in the upper intertidal area, and directly within the richly productive biological region.
Using forensic chemistry, Short analyzed dozens of typical sediment samples and determined that 90 percent of the surface oil and 100 percent of the subsurface oil was from the Exxon Valdez (Short et al. 2004). The remaining surface oil was from the Monterey (California) Formation-heating oil spilled during the 1964 earth-quake when storage tanks ruptured in Valdez. Rice and his team esti-mated the total beach area contaminated by residual Exxon Valdez oil, counting both surface and subsurface deposits, was twenty-eight acres (ibid.). They reasoned this was a low-end estimate; it did not include the lower intertidal zone where they had not sampled very extensively because they had not expected to find oil there. Instead they found this was where more of the buried oil was located. They conservatively estimated the weight of the intertidal residual oil was over 56 tons (122,320 pounds), but felt a more realistic number was probably twice that (ibid.).
While this may not seem like much in the greater scheme of things, anyone who has struggled with cancer knows it doesn't take much to threaten life. Further, the subsurface oil is harbored in the biological equivalent of a critical organ in the Sound-marshes and gravel beaches. As Phil Mundy, the science director of the EVOS Trustee Council told Meg McKinney in an April 2004 interview on KCHU public radio, these areas are relatively rare in the steep, rocky-walled fjord system and they are critical habitat for wildlife.
The stunned team mulled over their discovery. How could hundreds of scientists completely have missed the mother lode of oil for twelve years? This was not oil that had migrated down slope from the and it was consistently there, buried in the middle intertidal zone, upper to the lower intertidal over time-there was too much of it low
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Tuesday, September 16, 2025
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Saturday, September 13, 2025
Review: The Affluent Society
The Affluent Society by John Kenneth GalbraithMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The two other distinctively American figures had more enduring influence. These were Henry George and Thor-stein Veblen. But so far from manifesting the exuberant attitudes of the frontier, both were prophets of a gloom that was, in some respects, more profound than that of Ricardo. Henry George (1839-1897) was like Marx the founder of a faith, and the faithful still assemble to do honor to their prophet. Like Adam Smith he made clear his view of the social prospect in the title of his remarkable book: Progress and Poverty. An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth. In the opening chapter he posed his basic questions: Why in a time of general economic advance-he was writing in the depression years following 1873-should so much labor "be condemned to involuntary idleness," should there be so much "pecuniary distress among businessmen," and so much "want, suffering and anxiety among the working classes?"3 Why, to press things further, should there be so little gain to the poorest classes from increased productive power? "Nay, more," why should its effect be "still further to sup-press the condition of the lowest classes?"
The reason for this perverse aspect of progress was again part of the almost infinite legacy of Ricardo. Labor and capital increased in productivity; the land supply remained constant in quality and amount. Rents, as a result, increased more than proportionately and made the landlords the undeserving beneficiaries of advance. The anticipation of rent increases and attendant speculation in land values was also the cause of depression. ...
trap
A word of summary is now in order. We are impelled by present attitudes and goals to seek to operate the economy at capacity where, we have seen, inflation must be regarded not as an abnormal but as a normal prospect. The same attitudes which lead us to set store by capacity use of plant and labor force largely deny us the use of measures for pre-venting inflation. Monetary policy collides with the process of consumer demand creation and, since it works on business investment, is in conflict with our emphasis on growth. It is also ineffectual, discriminatory and, possibly, dangerous. Fiscal policy is sharply at odds with the commitment to a level of output that insures full employment and the accompanying economic security. Direct controls, which in theory might reconcile high employment with price stability, are under a comprehensive ban. We assume that we must have them in unworkable mass or not at all. They are in ostensible conflict with the goal of efficient production, for that has anciently been identified with market allocation of resources.
These conflicts are partly obscured. The conservative dis-guises the conflict between monetary policy and production by his faith that his policy has occult or other transcendental effects not visible to the naked eye. The liberal, including the Keynesian economist, conceals the conflict between fiscal policy and production at full employment not so much by resort to mysticism as by a systematic refusal to face issues.
Fact check
Not all venders of professional services do suffer. Occasional groups have discretion over their prices and are able to take prompt advantage of the general increase in money wages and demand, to raise their own charges and revenues. Lawyers and doctors normally fall in such a category. There are others. In 1942 a grateful and very anxious citizenry rewarded its soldiers, sailors, and airmen with a substantial increase in pay. In the teeming city of Honolulu, in prompt response to this advance in wage income, the prostitutes raised the prices of their services. This was at a time when, if anything, increased volume was causing a reduction in their average unit costs. However, in this instance the high military authorities, deeply angered by what they deemed improper, immoral, and indecent profiteering, ordered a return to the previous scale.
In a free market, in an age of endemic inflation, it is unquestionably more rewarding, in purely pecuniary terms, to be a speculator or a prostitute than a teacher, preacher, or police-man. Such is what the conventional wisdom calls the structure of incentives.
Chase
the tensions and the dangers of a society in which the pursuit of goods is para-mount and which does not pause to reflect on the devices -mass persuasion leading on to mass encouragement to indebtedness-which further the chase.
Poverty
The first and strategic step in an attack on poverty is to see that it is no longer self-perpetuating. This means insuring that the investment in children from families presently afflicted be as little below normal as possible. If the children of poor families have first-rate schools and school attendance is properly enforced; if the children, though badly fed at home, are well nourished at school; if the community has sound health services, and the physical well-being of the children is vigilantly watched; if there is opportunity for advanced education for those who qualify regardless of means; and if, especially in the case of urban communities, law and order are well enforced and recreation is adequate then there is a very good chance that the children of the very poor will come to maturity without grave disadvantage. In the case of insular poverty this remedy requires that the services of the community be assisted from outside. Poverty is self-perpetuating because the poorest communities are poorest in the services which would eliminate it. To eliminate poverty efficiently we should invest more than proportionately in the children of the poor community. It is there that high-quality schools, strong health services, special provision for nutrition and recreation are most needed to compensate for the very low investment which families are able to make in their own offspring.
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Tuesday, September 9, 2025
Sunday, September 7, 2025
Review: The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes
The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes by David RobsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you consider classrooms in the UK and USA, for instance, our mental worth is often judged by who can put their hand up quickest – giving us the subtle signal that it’s better to go with an immediate intuitive response without reflecting on the finer details. And you are not going to be rewarded for admitting that you don’t know the answer; intellectual humility is actively discouraged.
Worse still, the lessons are often simplified so that we can digest the material as quickly as possible – leading us to prefer ‘fluent’ information over material that might require deeper consideration. Particularly in earlier education, this also involves glossing over potential nuances, such as the alternative interpretations of evidence in history or the evolution of ideas in science, for instance – with facts presented as absolute certainties to be learnt and memorised.12 The assumption had been that introducing these complexities would be too confusing for younger students – and although the teaching methods do allow more flexibility at high school and university, many students have already absorbed a more rigid style of thinking.
Even some well-meaning attempts at educational reform fall into these traps. Teachers have been encouraged to identify a child’s learning style – whether they are a visual, verbal, or kinaesthetic learner. The idea sounds progressive, but it only reinforces the idea that people have fixed preferences for the ways they learn, and that we should make learning as easy as possible, rather than encouraging them to wrestle with problems that aren’t immediately straightforward.
It’s little wonder that students in countries such as the USA and UK do not tend to score well on Igor Grossmann’s tests of evidence-based wisdom, or the measures of critical thinking that predict our susceptibility to misinformation.
Now compare those attitudes to the Japanese education system, where even students in elementary school are encouraged to wrestle with complexity every day; they are taught to discover new ways of solving problems for themselves and, when they have found one answer, to consider the other alternative solutions. If you don’t immediately understand something, the answer is not to ignore it and reinforce your own beliefs, but to look further and to explore its nuances. And the extra thinking that involves is not a sign of weakness or stupidity; it means that you are capable of ‘eating bitterness’ to come to a deeper understanding. If you initially fail, it’s fine to admit your mistakes, because you know you can improve later.
The students are simply better prepared for the more complex, nuanced, and ill-defined problems the real world will set against them during adulthood. And this seems to be reflected in their higher scores on measures of open-minded, flexible reasoning.13 Various studies, for instance, have found that when asked about controversial environmental or political issues, people in Japan (and other East Asian cultures) tend to take longer to consider the questions without offering knee-jerk reactions, and are more likely to explore contradictory attitudes and to think about the long-term consequences of any policies.
If we return to that idea of the mind as a car, the British and American education systems are designed to offer as smooth a track as possible, so that each person can drive as fast as their engine can possibly let them. The Japanese education system, in contrast, is more of an assault course than a race course; it requires you to consider alternative routes to steer your way around obstacles and persevere even when you face rough terrain. It trains you to navigate effectively rather than simply revving the engine.
Let’s be clear: we are talking about averages here, and there is a huge amount of variation within any culture. But these results all suggest that the intelligence trap is partly a cultural phenomenon born in our schools. And once you recognise these facts, it becomes clear that even small interventions can begin to encourage the thinking styles we have explored in the rest of this book, while also improving the factual, academic learning that schools already try to cultivate.
Even a simple strategic pause can be a powerful thing.
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Review: Viet Nam: History, Documents, And Opinions On A Major World Crisis
Viet Nam: History, Documents, And Opinions On A Major World Crisis by Marvin E. GettlemanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Communist Party of Indochina is founded. It is the party of the working class. It will help the proletarian class lead the revolution in order to struggle for all the oppressed and exploited people. From now on we must join the Party, help it and follow it in order to implement the following slogans:
1-To overthrow French imperialism, feudalism, and the reactionary Vietnamese capitalist class.
2-To make Indochina completely independent.
3-To establish a worker-peasant and soldier government.
4-To confiscate the banks and other enterprises belonging to the imperialists and put them under the control of the worker-peasant and soldier government.
5-To confiscate all of the plantations and property be longing to the imperialists and the Vietnamese reactionary capitalist class and distribute them to poor peasants.
6-To implement the eight hour working day.
7-To abolish public loans and poll tax. To waive unj taxes hitting the poor people.
8-To bring back all freedoms to the masses.
9-To carry out universal education.
10-To implement equality between man and woman.
NGUYEN AI QUOC
PART FIVE: THE FATE OF THE GENEVA AGREEMENTS: TESTIMONY OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION FOR SUPERVISION AND CONTROL IN VIETNAM
The First Six Months of the International Commission for Supervision and Control.
Vietminh Compliance with the Agreements.
Differences in Compliance (1955).
Differences in Compliance (1956).
The Agreements after the Deadline for Elections.
Airfields and U. S. Arms
Violations of the Agreements by South Vietnam.
Achievements and Setbacks of the Commission.
"Democratic Freedoms" in 1961..
Military Operations in Vietnam.
Aggression, Subversion: A Divided Commission.
The Commission in Escalating War
Cardinal Spellman
Thomas A. Dooley
DELIVER US FROM EVIL
B. MILITARY PERSONNEL
The following are individual case histories of North Viet-namese soldiers sent by the Hanoi regime into South Viet-nam. They are only an illustrative group. They show that the leadership and specialized personnel for the guerrilla war in South Vietnam consists in large part of members of the North Vietnam armed forces, trained in the North and subject to the command and discipline of Hanoi.
1. Tran Quoc Dan
Dan was a VC major, commander of the 60th Battalion (sometimes known as the 34th Group of the Thon-Kim Bat-talion). Disillusioned with fighting his own countrymen and with Communism and the lies of the Hanoi regime, he sur-rendered to the authorities in South Vietnam on February 11, 1963.
At the age of fifteen he joined the revolutionary army (Vietminh) and fought against the French forces until 1954 when the Geneva Accords ended the Indochina War. As a regular in the Vietminh forces, he was moved to North Viet-nam. He became an officer in the so-called People's Army.
In March 1962 Major Dan received orders to prepare to move to South Vietnam. He had been exposed to massive propaganda in the North which told of the destitution of the peasants in the South and said that the Americans had taken over the French role of colonialists. He said later that an important reason for his decision to surrender was that he discovered these propaganda themes were lies. He found
the peasants more prosperous than the people in the North. And he recognized quickly that he was not fighting the Americans but his own people.
With the 600 men of his unit, Major Dan left Hanoi on March 23, 1962. They traveled through the Laos corridor. His group joined up with the Vietcong First Regiment...
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Sunday, August 31, 2025
Review: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom WolfeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
The next Acid Test that the Pranksters host is in Watts, a place where massive race riots broke out just months before. According to Claire Brush, an editor for a hipster magazine in LA, the choice had to do with "the politics of taking such a party into the recently stricken neighborhood, as a friendship-thing; also a humorous - ironical? - site for such carryings-on."
Clair goes to the Acid Test, and at first thinks it is kind of lame. People are just sitting around, watching the film of the Pranksters' bus trip and various slide shows of things like flowers. Then, someone pulls out a giant trashcan full of Kool-Aid. Clair, who has never used drugs in her life, doesn't know the Kool-Aid is laced with LSD. She starts drinking it, and then begins her first acid trip. She doesn't know what's going on, and keeps asking people until finally someone tells her. The whole room begins to melt around her, and a person holds her close. She feels that their bodies melt into one, their "bones merged, our skin was one skin, there was no place where we could separate, where he stopped and I began."
- http://gradesaver.com/the-electric-ko...
Author’s Note
I was also fortunate to find people like Clair Brush, who wrote for me a 3,000-
word description of her experience at the Watts Acid Test, much of which I quote
in describing the Test.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_t...
Second march: "Turnaround Tuesday
...He finally wound up enrolling in the University of California, in Berkley, where he hooked up with a hip, good-looking chemistry major named Melissa. They dropped out of the University and Owsley set up his first acid factory at 1647 Virginia Street, Berkeley. He was doing a huge business when he got raided on February 21, 1965. He got off, however, because there was no law against making, taking, or having LSD in California until October 1966. He moved his operation to Los Ange-les, 2205 Lafler Road, called himself the Baer Research Group, and paid out $20,000 in $100 bills to the Cycle Chemical Corporation for 500 grams of lysergic acid monohydrate, the basic material in LSD, which he could convert into 1.5 million doses of LSD at from $1 to $2 apiece wholesale. He bought another 300 grams from International Chemical and Nuclear Corporation. His first big shipment arrived March 30, 1965.
He had a flair, this Owsley. By and by he had turned out several million doses of LSD, in capsules and tablets. They had various whimsical emblems on them, to indicate the strength. The most famous, among the heads, were the "Owsley blues"-with a picture of Batman on them, 500 micrograms worth of Super-hero inside your skull. The heads rapped over Owsley blues like old juice heads drawling over that famous onetime brand from Owsley's Virginia home territory, Fairfax County Bourbon, bottled in bond. Owsley makes righteous acid, said the heads. Personally he wasn't winning any popularity contests with the heads or the cops, either. He is, like, arrogant; he is a wiseacre; but the arrogant little wiseacre makes righteous acid...
While some saw New Journalism as the future of literature, the concept was not without criticism. There were many who challenged the believability of the style and there were many questions and criticisms about whether accounts were true.[8] However, Wolfe challenged such claims and notes that in books like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, he was nearly invisible throughout the narrative. He argues that he produced an uninhibited account of the events he witnessed.[9] As proponents of fiction and orthodox nonfiction continued to question the validity of New Journalism, Wolfe stood by the growing discipline. Wolfe thought that this method of writing transformed the subjects of newspapers and articles into people with whom audiences could relate and sympathize.[9]
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Friday, August 29, 2025
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