The First Chief Justice: John Jay and the Struggle of a New Nation by Mark C. DillonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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Tuesday, September 9, 2025
Review: The First Chief Justice: John Jay and the Struggle of a New Nation
The First Chief Justice: John Jay and the Struggle of a New Nation by Mark C. DillonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
View all my reviews
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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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
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Wednesday, August 13, 2025
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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' ...
-----------
...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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Tuesday, August 5, 2025
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Review: Case Histories of Deviant Behavior: An Interactional Perspective
Case Histories of Deviant Behavior: An Interactional Perspective by Gloria Rakita LeonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Wolpe stated that neurotic habits followed the principle of primary stimulus generalization. The intensity of the neurotic reaction in a given situation would then be determined by the degree of similarity → between the present stimulus and the original conditioned stimulus. Bandura (1969) cited evidence demonstrating that the emotional responses elicited by a particular stimulus often generalized to other cues on the same physical or semantic dimension as the original stimulus. As a result of this conditioning process, it would be possible for the individual to experience continual or "free floating" anxiety.
Wolpe (1969) asserted that therapy should be specifically aimed at modifying the maladaptive conditioned response. He considered the procedures of reciprocal inhibition and the counterconditioning of the anxiety response to be crucial processes for unlearning neurotic re-actions. Thus, the technique of systematic desensitization was originally based on the principle of counterconditioning a relaxation response to inhibit and take the place of the anxiety response. However, this viewpoint of how systematic desensitization functions has been challenged by other behavior therapists (e.g., Lazarus, 1971).
Knowledge of the past history of an individual is important in understanding personality development and in analyzing how a specific behavior was learned. However, that knowledge may not be particularly relevant in teaching a troubled individual alternative and more adaptive ways of dealing with the environment. The most fruitful and efficient approach to treatment may therefore be one that focuses on modifying the interaction patterns in the present environment that are maintaining the particular maladaptive behaviors. A given behavior problem can therefore be analyzed from the standpoint of how the individual's behavior determines the manner in which that person interacts with others, and conversely, how the behaviors that the person has learned to emit affect the way others respond to one.
Rx
The Antabuse treatment procedure consists of the administration of daily doses of this drug, with the dosage adjusted to an optimum level for that person. The medication usually has little overt effect on the individual as long as there is no alcohol in the bloodstream. However, the person will become violently ill if alcohol is used when the drug is present in the body, i.e., during the four or five days subsequent to the ingestion of Antabuse. The symptoms of Antabuse in combination with alcohol include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, head-ache, and heart palpitations (Strecker, Ebaugh, and Ewalt, 1955).
Antabuse treatment must be initiated in a carefully controlled setting because of the strength of the physiological reaction to the drug when alcohol is ingested. For ethical as well as safety reasons, the helping professional must make sure that the patient undergoing Antabuse treatment does so voluntarily. Further, the effects of the drug must be fully explained and demonstrated to the individual.
In order to promote this understanding of the drug's effects, the alcoholic, while in the hospital, is given a small amount of alcohol after taking Antabuse. The individual then experiences an attenuated version of the physical symptoms associated with drinking while Antabuse is present in the body. This procedure may be repeated several times during the individual's hospitalization in order to clearly demonstrate the association between Antabuse and alcohol. For many alcoholics, Antabuse treatment has been a successful means of preventing further alcohol consumption. However, Antabuse therapy may have a sup-pressive rather than an extinguishing effect, i.e., the alcoholic will not drink after taking Antabuse but may skip the medication and consume liquor when the Antabuse is no longer present in the bloodstream.
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Friday, July 25, 2025
Review: The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity, Enlarged Edition
The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity, Enlarged Edition by Edwin O. ReischauerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
China adoption and independent development
https://sjsu.edu/faculty/y.shimazu/fe...
By the twelfth century Japan was on the threshold of an even greater departure from East Asian norms. This was the development of a feudal system, which over the next seven centuries was to go through phases that had many striking parallels to the feudal experience of Western Europe between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. These similarities to Europe cannot be laid to mutual influences, since there was no contact between the two. The parallels are more likely to have been the result of similarities in the social and cultural ingredients that be-came mixed together in these two areas-namely, tribal societies and relatively advanced political and economic systems. In the West, tribal German groups fell heir to the wreckage of the administration and land system of the Roman Empire. In Japan, the tribal islanders adopted the political institutions and land system of the Chinese Empire. In both cases, these two elements worked on each other over a long period in relative isolation, and out of the amalgam emerged a complex political system based on bonds of personal loyalty in a military aristocracy and the fusion of public authority and personal property rights to land.
As the authority and power of the central government declined in Japan, various groups of local leaders in the provinces banded together for mutual protection. These groups were made up of the officers of the old provincial administrations and the local managers or owners of estates. At first such groups consisted of relatives or neighbors, centered frequently around some charismatic figure who inspired loyalty. Because of the strong Japanese sense of hereditary authority, nothing was more prestigious than imperial descent. Thus, many of the groups came to be led by cadet branches of the imperial family that had received the family names Taira or Minamoto and had moved out to the provinces to make their fortunes as the representatives of central authority...
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Sunday, July 20, 2025
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Review: From parlor to prison: Five American suffragists talk about their lives
From parlor to prison: Five American suffragists talk about their lives by Sherna Berger GluckMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ex president Cleveland 1905
Despite initial hostility, the General Federation of Women's Clubs grew to two hundred thousand members by 1902, and in 1904, a discussion of suffrage was included in their biennial convention, with a woman voter, Sarah Platt Decker of Colorado, elected president.
By 1902 membership in the clubs constituting the General Federation of Women's Clubs had reached two hundred thou-sand. This remarkable growth occurred despite relentless ridicule and hostility from the press. Men were clearly aware of the threatening implications of women organizing, even in this most genteel way. Of even greater significance than the numerical growth of the club movement was its change in direction. No longer a mere resting place for the middle-class matron, the women's clubs were paying more and more attention to current events and to civic improvements in their com-munities. That this change was a self-conscious one was amply demonstrated at the biennial convention in 1904. Not only did a discussion of suffrage take place for the first time, but a woman voter, Sarah Platt Decker of Colorado, was elected president.
Jesse haver butler
As a matter of fact, it was not a healthy environment, in a way. There was a great deal of homosexual relations going on there, and we had a terrible tragedy in our class that nobody had coped with. There was a girl who was a very masculine type of girl, head of the basketball program, and another who was a very beautiful, sweet, delicate, typically feminine girl. The two of them lived together. The one girl loved boyfriends and dancing, and she went up to Dartmouth a great deal. A boy in Dartmouth fell in love with her, but her roommate was determined to break that up. That summer during our junior year the roommate persuaded her to cancel the engagement; she had found out that the mother of this perfectly brilliant, gifted young boy had been in a mental institution.
Press Democrat, Volume XXXV, Number 99, 30 April 1909
MURDER AND SUICIDE
Senior at Smith College Shot for Breaking Her Engagement
Northampton, Mass., April 29.—Enraged because she had broken her engagement with him and refused to renew It, Porter Smith, of Chicago, who was graduated from Dartmouth College, last year, today shot and fatally wounded Miss Helen Ayer Marden, a senior at Smith College, and then committed suicide. Miss Marden Is a daughter of Frank Marden. of Somerville. She died shortly before noon today.
Butler wages
that a I didn't know what to think! As soon as the women had the vote, they just quit. It's one of the tragedies of the whole era slump took place. Women stopped seeking higher degrees in college, they stopped trying to be better educated. Many young women left school for marriage and many went to work to help husbands secure degrees. Over the years this custom has become commonplace-a strange reaction to the fire and the drama of the fight for woman's suffrage.
Maybe we needed new issues. Alice Paul was right. She began immediately to plan to introduce to the Congress the equal rights amendment. Although she had helped to secure woman's suffrage, she still believed that woman's suffrage alone was not going to give women everything they wanted and needed. They had only secured the right to vote. Even now the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that the only status women have in our government is as voters. Any state today can still pass any law they'd like against women, and they have no recourse except perhaps to vote against them. There are now a thousand very bad laws on the records of state legislatures against women. This is added proof that Alice Paul is a woman with a profound mind. Getting woman's suffrage was not enough, it was just the first...
Deforestation anti-evolution
After 1922, when Maynard had his first heart attack, he was not well enough to do very much. It was enough to be going around doing all the lecturing and all the writing. And then, from 1924 until 1932 we were absorbed in the anti-evolution fight. That took up all the energy either of us had.
Maynard founded the Evolution or Science League because one state after another began having these anti-evolution bills.
He had written to every scientific and scholarly organ you can think of and they all answered that "yes, somebody should do it, but it wasn't their line." Finally, in despair, when he was doing a long lecture series, at the end of one of them he out-lined the situation and we started right there. That night we collected eleven dollars and nineteen members, and that was the beginning. This was before the Scopes trial. In fact, most of the witnesses for Scopes were our members. We were very, very select. We had practically every well-known scientist in the country, but we didn't have an awful lot of them.
We had a secretary who was supposed to do the office work, but his salary got so far in arrears that he had to get a job some-where and I did most of it from that time on. We organized branches in Los Angeles and San Diego and Sacramento and we'd take organizing tours. Sometimes I went along, sometimes I didn't.
At one time we had something like a thousand members, not all scientists, of course. Anybody who wanted to could join. I remember there was an old man in Nevada who hadn't any money and he used to send rabbits he'd kill. Once a rabbit arrived on Saturday, when we weren't there, and when we opened the door Monday morning, it was horrible. It was like a grave. There was another old man, in Georgia, an old Spanish War veteran who would sometimes be paid five dollars for someone to sleep in his bed while he slept on the floor. He'd send us the
five dollars, which was very touching. The League lasted until 1932, when Maynard's health got so bad that he couldn't go on with it. We just had to let it go, and by that time it was long after the Scopes trial. About this
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Friday, July 11, 2025
Review: Nostalgic Crossword Puzzles: 70 Large Print, NYT Style Variety Puzzles for Memory Recall and Brain Health to Reclaim Mental Clarity and Rediscover Past Joys
Nostalgic Crossword Puzzles: 70 Large Print, NYT Style Variety Puzzles for Memory Recall and Brain Health to Reclaim Mental Clarity and Rediscover Past Joys by Nerdy Skull Puzzle BooksMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Easy
1. Iconic film actress, "---ty Davis"
2. "The King" of Rock and Roll, "---is Presley"*
...
4. "Revolu---n", a sudden, radical change
21. Tommy of Cheech and Chong
Medium
2. Hasbro toy for aspiring chefs ---- -ake Oven"
hidden word & riddle answers (medium puzzle themes)
nohard
solutions
final very little black squares in a 15x15 and nearly 20 answers of eight or more letters
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Tuesday, July 8, 2025
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Review: The First Chief Justice: John Jay and the Struggle of a New Nation
The First Chief Justice: John Jay and the Struggle of a New Nation by Mark C. Dillon My rating: 4 of 5 stars ...
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Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America by M. Stanton Evans My ...
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1920: The Year of the Six Presidents by David Pietrusza My rating: 3 of 5 stars The presidential electio...
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Trump in Exile by Meridith McGraw My rating: 4 of 5 stars [I read the Audible version narrated by [auth...
