Review: How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking

How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lots of great examples and approaches to clear, orderly, accurate thinking.

View all my reviews

Review: The Assyrian Empire

The Assyrian Empire by History Nerds
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The history of the ancient world empire told simply and some reason earnestly as model for moderns to reflect on.

View all my reviews

Review: A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey

A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey by Jonathan Meiburg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Caracaras, which intrigued Darwin (he wrote about them at length) in the Falkland Islands. Also at home in remote Tierra del Fuego and the tropical forests of Guyana, the now rare and inquisitive striated caracaras are center to this history which includes the life and work of William Henry Hudson, a Victorian writer and naturalist who championed caracaras as an unsung wonder of the natural world.

View all my reviews

Review: Say It Plain: A Century of Great African American Speeches

Say It Plain: A Century of Great African American Speeches by Catherine Ellis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Say It Plain samples African-American oratory from an antique recording of Booker T. Washington and others from Marcus Garvey, Shirley Chisholm, and MLK. Host Michele Norris presents the 2005 event from American Public Media. I actually took in an Audible audiobook edition that used to be at this link. Some audio and more can is here from PRX.

View all my reviews

Review: Hannibal: Rome’s Greatest Enemy

Hannibal: Rome’s Greatest Enemy by Philip Freeman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a brisk, entertaining read of Hannibal's long struggle against Rome. Of course, bringing the elephants over the Alps is an exciting chapter here. I was looking forward to reading that. I was also impressed with the multi-day march along the swollen Arno. This area was mostly marshland and happened to be overflowing more than usual that spring. Hannibal knew that this route was full of difficulties, but it remained the surest and quickest way to central Italy. Polybius claims that Hannibal's men marched for four days and three nights "through a land that was under water", suffering terribly from fatigue and enforced want of sleep. He crossed without opposition over both the Apennines (during which he lost his right eye because of conjunctivitis) and the seemingly impassable Arno to lure the main Roman army under Flaminius into a pitched Battle of Lake Trasimene.

View all my reviews

Review: Meister Eckhart's Book of Secrets: Meditations on Letting Go and Finding True Freedom

Meister Eckhart's Book of Secrets: Meditations on Letting Go and Finding True Freedom by Jon M. Sweeney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Poetic Christian mysticism. I was surprised Eckhart suggests at predestination.

View all my reviews

Review: Pudd'nhead Wilson

Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Introduced by Langston Hughes. I read the third printing, Jan. 1984, with different cover.

As I get older, somehow flicks with subtitles and dialect like Twain's characters speak irk me. Still, I have read this crime drama setting with joy. It is a witty indictment of racism, classism and other superficial judgements and xenophobia. Specifically, it exposes as ridiculous the blood laws and slavery institution of Twain's time.

Sort of a crime noir and bit of courtroom drama, of all the setting I think I like most the idea of a group of guys getting together regular to share ideas as a bunch of freethinkers.

View all my reviews

Review: Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent

Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent by Fred Burton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Burton began his career in law enforcement as a police officer in Montgomery County, Maryland and later worked for the U.S. Secret Service. From 1985 to 1999, years of focus here, he was a special agent with the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). He eventually became the deputy chief of the DSS counterterrorism division.

While with the DSS, Burton recalls here Terry Waite and Iran-Contra unfolding early in his SS career. (Terry Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury's special humanitarian envoy, was kidnapped and held captive for nearly five years in Beirut because his humanitarian hostage-negotiation missions were covertly and disastrously entangled with the secret Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages dealings orchestrated by U.S. National Security aide Oliver North.) He also recounts working in Pakistan on the mangos and nerve gas killing of Ziaulhaq as part of the 1988 Pakistan Air Force C-130B crash. He was involved in the arrest of Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 which closes out this memoir.

In the epilogue Burton joins Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based geopolitical forecasting and analysis company, in 2004.

View all my reviews

Review: All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump

All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump by Anthony Scaramucci
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Looking back on buying into the Trump idea, Scaramucci finds three pivotal trends pre-Trump that made his rise possible:

1. Privileging China. Clinton supports the WTO in giving China special privileges in trade, hurting American workers deeply, quickly, and permanently.

2. Waging War Without Taxes. George W. Bush invades Iraq while simultaneously cutting taxes, thereby shifting the cost of a misguided, multitrillion-dollar effort to alter the entire Middle East to ordinary Americans, while removing any buffer between them and ruination.

3. Bailing Out Wall Street. Obama bails out banks and Wall Street, which were failing largely thanks to Clinton's and Bush's finance policies, while ordinary Americans by the millions lose homes and livelihoods.

At least a couple of times her refers to a historical "Crackup" without explanation:

...a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the IMF and the World Bank was loudly interrupted by protests. By June 1999, the movement's organizational power had grown. That month, cities around the world took part in the Carnival Against Capital, and in the Eugene, Oregon, event that day, anarchists clashed with police, with temporary success, pushing them out of a park.

Which I take to be the mixture of anarchism and radical environmentalism, punk rock and old-hippiedom opening the door to populism. He uses the term to describe the social upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a period when the established order began to break down:
• The Fragmenting of Consensus: The sudden shattering of traditional social norms, trust in institutions, and postwar political stability.
• The Countercultural Wave: The explosion of radical anti-establishment politics, hippie communes, anti-war protests, and psychedelic culture that shook America.
• The Political Realignment: Events like the televised clashes between police and anti-war protesters at the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention. Andersen identifies these as early milestones of a "crackup" that permanently fractured the American left and gave rise to a fierce conservative cultural backlash.

By linking the 1999 anti-globalization protests back to "the Crackup that began in the '60s," the author is arguing that the Carnival Against Capital, for example, wasn't entirely a modern phenomenon. Instead, its mix of radical anarchy and alternative lifestyle was a direct echo of that original 1960s cultural collapse.

I don't know if I am entirely convinced of this three root cause. I do believe a manifold of historical events gave the U.S. an authoritarian president and subservient other branches of government. I am more behind his prescriptive cures:

1. Stronger rules against monopoly.
2. Taxation overhaul.
3. Tariff correctives.
4. Election funding reform.
5. Fight partisan gerrymandering.
6. Strengthen investigations to be outside of executive branch control

A small nitpick: I loath the Garamond font used here and popularly. I especially don't like that capital "I" and numeral 1 have the same symbol.


View all my reviews

Review: Opera

Opera by Edward Joseph Dent
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Kinda chronological, but more chronological within region. So, Italy first, England and America last... Key composers, format, and technical (effects) development with quirk illustrations and synopses of many of the operas

View all my reviews

Review: Bella Bella

Bella Bella by Harvey Fierstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wonderful one-man show bringing to life Bella Abzug, first NY female senator and a firebrand w/long, impactful political career without compromise.

View all my reviews

Review: Empire Down: A Historical Look at the Largest Civilizations in History and What Caused Them to Fail

Empire Down: A Historical Look at the Largest Civilizations in History and What Caused Them to Fail by Barrett Williams
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Adequate Virtual Voice narration and shallow content make this a hard pass. It reads like eight grader school assignments,. You'd be better off with he Wikipedia articles. No Macedonian or Greek empires. Han and Gupta empires are nice additions, but nothing from Africa without a pharaoh and nothing from indigenous North America. What order is this in? Ottoman chapters after Byzantine with British empire betwixt....

View all my reviews

Review: Sinatra and the Jack Pack: The Extraordinary Friendship between Frank Sinatra and John F. Kennedy?Why They Bonded and What Went Wrong

Sinatra and the Jack Pack: The Extraordinary Friendship between Frank Sinatra and John F. Kennedy?Why They Bonded and What Went Wrong by Michael Sheridan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book goes deep on the Sinatra-Kennedy connection and uncovers a lot of Sinatra-Mob connections. But still, Sirhan Sirhan was the RFK shooter and the Kennedy patriarch is not proven to have been into rumrunning. Some may disagree.

View all my reviews

Review: All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump

All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump by Anthony Scaramucci
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

1. Privileging China. Clinton supports the WTO in giving China special privileges in trade, hurting American workers deeply, quickly, and permanently.

2. Waging War Without Taxes. George W. Bush invades Iraq while simultaneously cutting taxes, thereby shifting the cost of a misguided, multitrillion-dollar effort to alter the entire Middle East to ordinary Americans, while removing any buffer between them and ruination.

3. Bailing Out Wall Street. Obama bails out banks and Wall Street, which were failing largely thanks to Clinton's and Bush's finance policies, while ordinary Americans by the millions lose homes and livelihoods.

Crackup?

...a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the IMF and the World Bank was loudly interrupted by protests. By June 1999, the movement's organizational power had grown. That month, cities around the world took part in the Carnival Against Capital, and in the Eugene, Oregon, event that day, anarchists clashed with police, with temporary success, pushing them out of a park.

This mixture of anarchism and radical environmentalism, punk rock and old-hippiedom, gave the movement a countercultural revolutionary feeling-hearkening back to the Crackup that began in the '60s. It could also look, at the time, more European than American.

To outsiders, anyway. Definitely to me. As I've said, at the time I didn't get it. The protesters seemed kooky to me-and economically uninformed. But the historical fact is that, in the US, something new was happening.

Andersen uses the term to describe the social upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a period when the established order began to break down. The reference specifically captures:
• The Fragmenting of Consensus: The sudden shattering of traditional social norms, trust in institutions, and postwar political stability.
• The Countercultural Wave: The explosion of radical anti-establishment politics, hippie communes, anti-war protests, and psychedelic culture that shook America.
• The Political Realignment: Events like the televised clashes between police and anti-war protesters at the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention. Andersen identifies these as early milestones of a "crackup" that permanently fractured the American left and gave rise to a fierce conservative cultural backlash.
By linking the 1999 anti-globalization protests back to "the Crackup that began in the '60s," the author is arguing that the Carnival Against Capital wasn't entirely a modern phenomenon. Instead, its mix of radical anarchy and alternative lifestyle was a direct echo of that original 1960s cultural collapse.

View all my reviews

Review: The Stowaway: A Young Man's Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica

The Stowaway: A Young Man's Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica by Laurie Gwen Shapiro
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Pretty interesting life from an era when explorers like Byrd were rockstars and stowaways were a thing. The subject himself did the stowaway thing three (or four?) times to reach Byrd and was a subset of something like eight such cases just for Byrd's ventures.

Billy succeeded and became legit and played a real role:

Billy helped construct: Little America's administrative headquarters and the mess hall, which was not large enough for the men to eat in all at once. There would be shifts. It wasn't long before the shacks were covered with snow, with only the stovepipes peeking out. Long tunnels hollowed out of ice were lined with food and instruments and kennels, and connected the two implausibly located buildings built two hundred yards apart. Once completed, it would be unnecessary to go outside. The men chosen to winter over would live like moles under the snow in houses built from highly insulating ceiba tree pods that had traveled from America.

Even back then, they had to deal with flat earthers:

Imagine the laughter in the New York Times editorial room the very next day when they decided to publish an angry letter from multimillionaire Wilbur Glenn Voliva, an evangelist priest and radio broadcaster, and a forceful proponent of the flat-earth theory. Voliva-based in Zion, Illinois...

View all my reviews

Review: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As President, Donald Trump signed an executive order titled Ending Radical Indoctrination in K–12 Schooling on January 29, 2025, aimed at reshaping how history, race, and social issues are taught in American public schools. Key objectives of the executive order include:
• Promote “Patriotic Education”: The order directs federal resources and strategies toward fostering a traditional, pride-focused understanding of American history and founding principles.
• Restrict Curriculum Topics: It targets instruction that suggests the United States is "fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory," seeking to curtail concepts like white privilege, unconscious bias, and gender identity frameworks.
The 2025 action builds upon similar efforts from Trump's first term, notably the creation of the 1776 Commission in late 2020, which was designed as a pushback against the 1619 Project and critical race theory. Proponents argue the order combats left-wing bias and restores a unifying sense of national heritage and pride. Conversely, educators' unions like the National Education Association (NEA) and historical organizations such as the American Historical Association (AHA) have strongly criticized the order as an act of federal censorship that punishes teachers for presenting an inclusive and honest account of American history.
• The AHA-OAH Statement on the historical community's response.
• New York Times coverage detailing the signing of the January 2025 orders.
• The NEA Press Release for the educators' perspective on the mandate. (NEA President: “Trump’s latest punitive executive order silences and punishes educators for teaching the truth… The Trump administration has issued an executive order that aims to … Restrict educators' ability to teach an honest and accurate...”)
Having been first published in 1995, this book predates Trump’s actions while fighting for high school history education to go further in the direction Trump dislikes. Hiding genocide, racism, and a fear of socialism are exposed in the author’s review of multiple history textbooks. (For burying socialism, it is an interesting angle that Helen Keller’s life as a radical socialist is one thing ignored. Read her writing for yourself.) Also considered is the way such textbooks are composed and updated to fit state boards, especially that of Texas. Maybe at times the author “doth protest too much”. In mentioning the Saigon execution the victim is only a “scared man”. I recall there being at least supposition or even evidence of some crime, although what could justify extrajudicial execution in front of news cameras? It is actually just issues the author wants to see discussed in classrooms. Also, putting a warts-and-all requirement on fantasy fiction machine Disney for their American history display seems a bit much.


View all my reviews

Review: Great Cases in Psychoanalysis

Great Cases in Psychoanalysis by Harold Greenwald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It is interesting to be a fly on the wall during the the revealing and vulnerable moments of people in severe need of psychiatry: bulimia, sexuality, insomnia, etc. The focus is on Freud's theories and Freudian approaches and a lot about Oedipus, anal stage, and dream interpretation makes up the first half. Working also as an overview of the development of the craft (each case includes a short bio of the analyst and their contributions to the field) the second half has anti-Freudian and post-Freudian workers as well as other approaches such as group therapy, etc. Jung, Adler, and other key names are included.

View all my reviews

Review: What Could Go Wrong?

What Could Go Wrong? by Scott Z. Burns
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a compilation of podcast episodes tracking the journey of developing an outline for a sequel to the author's Contagion movie. Burns engages a constellation of AI chatbots with naturalistic voices and backgrounds for writing and standing in as agent and CEOs. Actors and scorer from the original movie are brought in to critique and enliven the process. Overall it is a fascinating model case of AI involvement in creative work.

View all my reviews

Review: Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine

Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine by Peter Firstbrook
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While the focus is on the did-they-or-didn't-they summit attempt in 1924 of the duo, the book is the entire arc of Everest exploration from initial measurements in surveys of British India to footnote to the Great Game and Cold War rivalry with China that access and success became in this endeavor.

View all my reviews

Review: Atheism Explained: From Folly to Philosophy

Atheism Explained: From Folly to Philosophy by David Ramsay Steele
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A wide-ranging and cheeky overview of fallacious logic among theists. I doubt this will make any un-coverts, but it was a fun and easy read.

View all my reviews

Review: Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups

Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups by Richard Belzer
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

* FRANK OLSON - Fell from the thirteenth-story window of his hotel in New York City. CIA admitted doping Olson with LSD. Olson’s death was a clear-cut case of “National Security homicide.” As head of CIA bio-weapons research, he had extensive access to “state secrets.” One of those secrets was that bombs with the anthrax virus had apparently been dropped on North Korea. He’d become increasingly outraged and vocal by what he saw as an immoral use of his research. He told colleagues he was disturbed about evidence of CIA torture-to-death interrogations in Germany and bacteriological warfare on North Korea. He was deemed a security risk. Olson’s family had the body exhumed and reautopsied in the 1990s and forensic experts concluded that Olson was murdered. The second autopsy demanded by relatives confirmed ’blunt force trauma’ and that the victim was rendered
unconscious prior to his fall. Contrary to the first autopsy report, no lacerations were found upon the victim, even though he had supposedly crashed through and out of a plate glass window. The hotel room was so small that it would have been impossible for the victim to build up sufficient running
speed, then catapult over the twin beds that intersected the room and crash through a plate glass window upon impact, especially one that was not very high. See Frank Olson Project.

* HENRY MARSHALL - Five gunshots from a bolt action rifle. This investigator for U.S. Department of Agriculture uncovered vast financial scam being run by Billie Sol Estes and linked to Lyndon Johnson in Texas. Estes later testified that Johnson had ordered Marshall killed, using hit man Mac Wallace. Initial death ruling never even addressed the impossibility of a person shooting himself five separate times with a bolt-action rifle. A Grand Jury later ruled that Marshall's body be exhumed and an autopsy revealed that he had suffered a severe blow to the head prior to his death and that his body contained a carbon monoxide concentration of fifteen percent. The doctor performing the autopsy estimated that the carbon monoxide concentration at the time of death was as high as thirty percent.

* GEORGE KRUTILEK - The accountant for the financial scam being run by Billie Sol Estes and linked to Lyndon Johnson in Texas. Estes later testified that Johnson had personally ordered that
Krutilek be killed, using hit man Mac Wallace. A large bruise on Krutilek’s head indicated that he had been bludgeoned unconscious prior to inhaling the carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide poisoning was the modus operandi of hit man, Mac Wallace.

* MARILYN MONROE - Marilyn Monroe had an affair with President Kennedy and also a brief relationship with his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. L.A. Police Chief Tom Reddin stated: “The Kennedy connection was a matter of common knowledge at the Police Department
level I was at. The Kennedy—I should say Kennedys’—relationship with Marilyn Monroe was pretty generally accepted.” Marilyn considered both relationships serious, not at all frivolous. Previously, she reportedly had an affair with Mob-linked Frank Sinatra and was good friends with Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli (also Chicago Mob), and others, amid what one writer has
called “an astonishing array of indiscretions.” But what set off alarm bells in U.S. intelligence was her friendship with Frederick Field and other known Soviet intelligence agents. Her phones were tapped and her home had listening devices, with eavesdropping conducted by the government and (independently) by the Mob. Her home was “sanitized,” i.e., swept of bugs and sensitive materials
in the hours after her death, accounting for the “missing six hours” before anyone finally called the police. No trace of tablets were found in her stomach or intestines, even though she had enough Nembutal and Chloral Hydrate in her bloodstream to kill an elephant. Computer analysis that compiled all the pharmaceutical data concluded that, to reach those levels, Marilyn would have had to swallow a total of 77 to 88 pills (60 to -70 Nembutal and 17 -to 18 Chloral Hydrate).33 Digestion stops at death, therefore, victims who swallowed pills always have undigested tablets and refractive crystals (the active ingredient of any drug) in their stomach. So there should have been substantial residue, and there are always refractive crystals in an oral overdose. But none were found, even
using a polarized microscope. Medical Examiner Thomas Noguchi: “I found absolutely no visual evidence of pills in the stomach or the small intestine. No residue. No refractile crystals.” Dr. Noguchi also stated that her stomach was almost completely empty. She had not eaten on her last day. Her body was found lying face down, however, secondary lividity marks on her back and posterior aspects of the arms and legs indicate that at some point during the first four hours after death (when lividity occurs) her body was moved onto its back for a considerable period of time (evidenced by strong secondary lividity marks) and then placed back in the face down position before police arrived. The first officer at the death scene (LAPD Watch Commander Jack Clemmons) concluded that the death scene had been cleaned up and staged and that Monroe had actually been murdered. He said there was a major cover-up at LAPD and publicly disputed the official findings:
“It was the most obviously staged death scene I have ever seen.” Mafia sending the Kennedys a message, but they and supporters on the scene got their soon enough to remove evidence of connections between them and Monroe.

* JFK, MLK, RFK - Ballistics and other forensic evidence disproving identified single shooter and blatant cover-up evidence. (On RFK, I don't recall before hearing of the suggested Aristotle Onassis involvement.)

* FRED HAMPTON - I had recently read of the informant and political assassination of Black Panther leader Hampton in Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States.

* VINCE FOSTER - Clinton WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL found in public park on a Tuesday afternoon after the body was apparently moved. The evidence indicates he was murdered with a low-velocity weapon such as a .22, producing no exit wound. Evidence is not consistent with the official version which purports that he shot himself with a Colt .38 at point-blank range (directly into his own mouth) with high-velocity ammunition. Missing crime scene photos and magically appearing keys and a note add to a suggested coverup. (I used to think Foster was just an unusual suicide. This and other investigation has me convinced otherwise.)

* DAVID KELLY - David Kelly. Kelly was a British scientist and authority on biological warfare, employed by the Ministry of Defence and formerly a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. He had an off-record discussion with a BBC journalist concerning a British government dossier about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was cited by the journalist. Kelly's name became subsequently known and he was aggressively questioned by a Parliamentary committee. He was found dead two days later, attributed to suicide. In the book The Strange Death of David Kelly , British politician Norman Baker disputes this version of events and suggests Kelly was murdered: 'I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this could not be suicide. The medical evidence does not support it and David Kelly's state of mind and personality suggests otherwise. It was not an accident so I am left with the conclusion that it is murder.' (This one was new to me)

It's great that in the cast of narrators here is Ice-T. This audiobook is narrated by Richard Belzer, Scott Brick, Kelli Giddish, Laurie Anderson, Stefan Rudnicki, Andre Braugher, Judy Collins, Ice-T, Danny Pino, John Lee, Tom Stechschulte, and Steve Zirnkilton. Jesse Ventura delivers an epilogue.

View all my reviews

Review: Poetry Festival

Poetry Festival by John Bettenbender
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response

What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response by Bernard Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Boiling Point: How America Brought War to Ukraine

Boiling Point: How America Brought War to Ukraine by Stephen Kinzer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: MOLDed: A Memoir of Loss & Resilience

MOLDed: A Memoir of Loss & Resilience by Carol Milberger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: The Wretched of the Earth

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home by Gregg Olsen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Renaissance and Baroque

Renaissance and Baroque by Heinrich Wölfflin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The baroque never offers us perfection and fulfilment, or the static calm of 'being', only the unrest of change and the tension of transience. This again produces a sense of movement, though of a different kind. Tense proportional relation-ships were part of this characteristic action. The circle is for instance an absolutely static and unchangeable form, but the oval is restless and always seems on the point of change; it lacks inner necessity. The baroque sought out such free proportions as a matter of principle; everything that was self-contained and complete was contrary to its essential nature. It used the oval, not only for medallions and similar objects, but for ground plans of halls, courtyards and church interiors. The form made its appearance early, as part of an agitated composition in a painting by Correggio (1515), and this was at a time when no-one in Rome had thought of using it, either in painting or architecture. It was then taken up by Michelangelo for the plinth of the statue of Marcus Aurelius, and passed on to Vignola...

View all my reviews

Review: The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World

The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World by Bojan Pancevski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec Anonymous

We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec Anonymous by Parmy Olson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a detailed, fascinating account of the 2chan -> 4chan -> Anonymous -> LulzSec evolution and the actions/lives of the driving core team including the extent to which they can be identified.

There are some Anonymous culture I only sort of remember such as the shaming "shoe on head" imagery specifically demanded in Anonymous/4chan as a verification method used to prove identity. In September 2012, for instance, journalist Adrian Chen, who had exposed a controversial Reddit moderator, was forced by members of the Anonymous collective to post images of himself wearing a tutu and a shoe on his head to prove his identity and meet their demands.

There is a lot on the Anonymous DDoS activity, particularly with the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) is a DoS-attack tool which multiple untutored volunteers used carelessly allowing their IP addresses to be discovered. All of this was not even essential as the real damage was done with a botnet and even just sharing data shared by others with Anonymous.

It is interesting from the outside the crime noir element where it all falls apart and in the rather typical way of no-honor-among-thieves. Clues are found by determined investigators after sloppily left behind, mostly because a life of crime wasn't connived from birth of course. Then court orders cause HideMyAss.com to reveal what was thought hidden and pers turn CI as in the case of Sabu: https://www.darkreading.com/cyberatta...


View all my reviews

Review: Outsight: A Quarter-Century of Music Journalism: Book 2: Jazzy & Bluesy

Outsight: A Quarter-Century of Music Journalism: Book 2: Jazzy & Bluesy by Thomas Schulte
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850-1950

Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850-1950 by H.J. Simons
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Socialists in south Africa politics

...to collaborate with the Industrial Workers Union of Africa in compiling a leaflet in Sesutu and Zulu. It was the first serious attempt to put Marx's clarion call for unity into an African language: 'Let there be no longer any talk of Basuto, Zulu or Shangaan. You are all labourers. Let Labour be your common bond. Deliver yourself from the chains of capitalism. '14

A few months later the socialists faced more serious charges in consequence of an African strike wave on the Rand. White mechanics employed at the municipal power station came out on strike in May for £8 2s. a week, the equivalent, they claimed, of their pre-war wage of £6. They won their demand after leaving the town in darkness for several nights. Impressed at the success of this operation, Africans working in the municipal sanitary services asked for a modest rise from Is. 8d. to 2s. 6d. a day. But they were black and handled lavatory buckets, not electric generators. The council refused, some fifty men struck work, and all except fifteen were convicted. Another 152 men then came out, initially in protest against having to do the work of the arrested strikers. T. G. Macfie, the chief magistrate and a staunch ally of Crawford, sentenced the 152 strikers on 12 June to two months' hard labour for breach of contract. They would be compelled to do the same work as before, he told them, without pay and under armed guard. They would be shot if they tried to escape and flogged if they refused to work. The harsh threats and the contrast between this treatment and the concessions made to the white strikers infuriated the African public. The ANC launched a campaign for the prisoners' release which soon developed into a demand for a general wage increase of Is. a day, to be enforced if necessary by a general strike on I July.

Socialists and ANC leaders disapproved. Makgatho warned a meeting of nearly 2,000 Africans that striking was dangerous. Even socialists, being white, would join in shooting down Africans. The League retorted that it could have no part in the 'more reactionary, middle-class and religious-cum-racial tendencies' of Congress, though 'the close coincidence of native and working-class interests' might yet force it to play a useful role.

View all my reviews

Review: The 3-Pound Universe

The 3-Pound Universe by Judith Hooper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Longest Year: America at War and at Home in 1944

Longest Year: America at War and at Home in 1944 by Victor Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Donald Trump: The Master of Disaster

Donald Trump: The Master of Disaster by Demetric Canada
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Inside the Nazi War Machine: How Three Generals Unleashed Hitler's Blitzkrieg upon the World

Inside the Nazi War Machine: How Three Generals Unleashed Hitler's Blitzkrieg upon the World by Bevin Alexander
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Best Little Stories from the White House, including First Ladies in Review

Best Little Stories from the White House, including First Ladies in Review by C. Brian Kelly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: The Nuremberg Women: The Untold Story of the Eight Women Who Brought the Nazis to Justice

The Nuremberg Women: The Untold Story of the Eight Women Who Brought the Nazis to Justice by Natalie Livingstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America

Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America by Mary Grabar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States

Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States by Jules Boykoff
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Jonathan Edwards: Basic Writings

Jonathan Edwards: Basic Writings by Jonathan Edwards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism

The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism by Fredy Perlman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.

[Letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803]”
― James Madison
https://share.google/aimode/KW03iLeee...

View all my reviews

Review: In Search of the Maya

In Search of the Maya by Robert Levere Brunhouse
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

https://archive.org/details/cu3192408...
Queen Móo and the Egyptian sphinx / by Augustus Le Plongeon

The Mayan civilization in Central America and its connection with Egypt and Atlantis is thoroughly documented in this basic source- book, written over 100 years ago by this pioneer in Mayan archeology. Includes many of the first photos taken of the ancient temples

View all my reviews

Review: Led Zeppelin IV

Led Zeppelin IV by Unknown Author
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: 127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: Out of the Corner

Out of the Corner by Jennifer Grey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Review: The Enchanted Land: Myths and Legends of Brtiain's Landscape

The Enchanted Land: Myths and Legends of Brtiain's Landscape by Janet Bord
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



View all my reviews