Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon WooMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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Sunday, October 5, 2025
Review: Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon WooMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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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
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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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Saturday, September 6, 2025
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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
Monday, August 25, 2025
Review: No End Save Victory: Perspectives on World War II
No End Save Victory: Perspectives on World War II by Robert CowleyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Great collection of deep views into many different facets of this manifold topic. I was particulary impressed with the stories of the attempted coup in Japan, the Flying Fortress tailgunner diary, and the behind-the-scenes stories of Bataan and the Bridge at Remagen.
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Review: No End Save Victory: Perspectives on World War II
No End Save Victory: Perspectives on World War II by Robert CowleyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Great collection of deep views into many different facets of this manifold topic. I was particulary impressed with the stories of the attempted coup in Japan, the Flying Fortress tailgunner diary, and the behind-the-scenes stories of Bataan and the Bridge at Remagen.
View all my reviews
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Friday, August 22, 2025
Review: Trump Unmasked: Conspiracy and Power
Trump Unmasked: Conspiracy and Power by John ConnollyMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
1 Shadowed Alliances: Unraveling the Russian Collusion
2 Unveiling QAnon: Inside the Conspiracy Alleging a Deep State Battle
3 Entangled Fortunes: Untangling Trump's Business and Presidential Deci-sion-Making
4 Silenced Voices: Unveiling Alleged Voter Suppression in Trump's Rise to Power
5 Temporal Intrigues: Unraveling the Alleged Time Traveler Influence on Trump's Ascendancy
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Thursday, August 21, 2025
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Saturday, August 16, 2025
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Sunday, August 10, 2025
Saturday, August 9, 2025
Review: Match Wits With Mensa Complete Quiz Book
Match Wits With Mensa Complete Quiz Book by Marvin GrosswirthMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you're taking a test in which you're given a limited time in which to finish, first tackle the questions you can answer immediately, without taking time to think. After you've done that, go over the ones you skipped and answer those that require a brief moment of thought. Finally, do the ones you really have to ponder over.
Always review your work. People often find a care less error or two that can be immediately corrected. You may also find that you missed an important direction or instruction, for which you may be penalized.
And above all, remember to come to any test fresh, rested, and in as cheerful a mood as circumstances will allow. That alone can add 10 percent to your score.
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Friday, August 8, 2025
Review: Rock-O-Rama Records: The Outrageous Story Of The Bizarrest Music Label Emerging From The Punk Movement
Rock-O-Rama Records: The Outrageous Story Of The Bizarrest Music Label Emerging From The Punk Movement by Björn FischerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Brutal vomit
Until 1983 it was only OHL with ROR, who somehow had strange lyrics and were politically controversial, but they always talked themselves out of it by saying that they were simply neutral and didn't want to be pushed to one political extreme. We hadn't noticed any parallel failures of other bands in our area. Egoldt wasn't present during the recordings; we weren't there for his 'fantastic' mixing session. The result came as a surprise in the post. The ROR sound was generally shit, and BV sounded particularly crappy of all the bands. Maybe he mixed it himself, or the mixer must have used his typical ROR records style.
...
We didn't go to Egoldt's record shop, we didn't have the time, Max had to go back to his job in Allgäu. We had been customers of the ROR mail-order company until the day we received the Brutal Verschimmelt LP. We were horrified by the cover motif with the cleaver skull and the monster animal, which was smeared by us because we didn't like Egoldt's grotty cover. The collage we submitted for it, painstakingly made in a snippet layout-anti-war images of torn, mutilated war victims - was probably too political for him, and I never got it back. The collage also had an appropriate title, but I don't remember it. In the end, Egoldt did what he wanted without any consultation. All texts with left-wing political content were also omitted from the text sheet of his production. We were absolutely furious about the high-handedness and the unannounced 'surprise' and immediately added an extra sheet with a statement and the omitted texts to our 100 pieces of payment in kind...
M.a.f.rrr 24
"When we arrived in Cologne, we received the first setback from Egoldt when he drastically rejected the suggestion to call the LP Bomben über Deutschland [Bombs over Germany], arguing that otherwise people would think we were 'Neos' [Neo-Nazis] and that could damage the reputation of his label. Egoldt said it was very worrying that Karstadt [a big German department store chain] didn't want to sell ROR records. On top of that we had to change one of our titles ('Ficken' ['Fucking']) because Egoldt also thought it was too harsh, his suggestion ('Emanzipation ['Emancipation']) seemed too ridiculous to us, which made him angry". (Band statement in Anti System zine 1983).
Neos
The later Rock-O-Rama label band Brutal Attack, for example, was mentioned positively as a punk group in an early issue of the German punk zine Der Aktuelle Mülleimer, and their bassist made it onto the cover of the first Punk And Disorderly LP compilation. The band eventually found the punk movement increasingly commercial and hippie-like; they felt more at home with the skinheads.
"Early British punks deliberately used Nazi devotional material to annoy and provoke their parents and grandparents", recalls Thomas from Hamburg's A.d.s.W. zine, "it had nothing to do with politics. The fact that this was adopted by the West German punks, of course, shows their youthful lack of reflection and their British attitude; I don't exclude myself from this at all, I also went around with an Iron Cross (inherited from my grandfather, by the way) - it's obvious that this led to applause from irritating quarters when some pensioners suddenly praised me for my short hair and visible Iron Cross... Becoming a skinhead in West Germany was a fashion among (former) punks, at first apolitical, but from 1981/82 with a clear, at first provocative right-wing tendency, before it became visibly and tangibly unpleasant especially for the remaining punks! In 1982 I could walk past a horde of skins from Hamburg and Frankfurt/Main with dyed green and black hair without being made fun of, because most of them had been punks before - a year later this was absolutely unthinkable, because many hooligans who had not been punks before had now joined them. And from then on it became really dangerous, not only at concerts, but in general 'on the street' ...
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...Egoldt continued to pay for the studio time for his productions, in the case of White American Youth (W.A.Y.) it was 1,372 s for five days. In his book Romantic Violence, a late reckoning with his own political past, W.A.Y. singer Christian Picciolini recounts his encounter with Egoldt during royalty negotiations for the 1992 LP Walk Alone: "I showed up without an appointment to Rock-O-Rama headquarters in Brühl where I dropped in unannounced on owner Herbert Egoldt, a round, jolly old man who I quickly realized wasn't even a racist. Seemed he didn't give a damn about much of anything but making money. He was a capitalist pure and simple. As he led me into his office, I met his shallow eyes with a steely stare, letting him know I was onto him. He'd pay my band album sales royalties, never mind that Rock-O-Rama was widely known as a non-paying label. I would be the exception to his rule. I'd lead the way for him to start paying the bands he'd fleeced for years. Slime ball. He may have given us a platform to promote our message, but he'd be giving us our hard-earned money, too, if I had anything to say about it. Not for a lack of trying, I never got a dime from Herbert or the label. His bulky warehouse goons made sure of that. But I did manage to leave with a small box of about thirty various white power CDs...
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