Review: The Aspirin Age: 1919-1941: The essential events of American Life in the chaotic years between the two World Wars

The Aspirin Age: 1919-1941: The essential events of American Life in the chaotic years between the two World Wars by Isabel Leighton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

1919

Contents

The Forgotten Men of Versailles HARRY HANSEN

1920

The Noble Experiment of Izzie and Moe HERBERT ASBURY

1921

Aimee Semple McPherson: "Sunlight in My Soul" CAREY MCWILLIAMS

1923

The Timely Death of President Harding SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS

1923

Konklave in Kokomo ROBERT Coughlan

1924

Calvin Coolidge: A Study in Inertia IRVING STONE

1926

My Fights with Jack Dempsey GENE TUNNEY

1927

The Last Days of Sacco and Vanzetti PHIL STONG

1927

The Lindbergh Legends JOHN LARDNER

1929

The Crash-and What It Meant THURMAN ARNOLD

1930

The Radio Priest and His Flock WALLACE STEGNER

1931

The Mysterious Death of Starr Faithfull MORRIS MARKEY

1933

The First Hundred Days of the New Deal ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER, JR.

1934

Full House: My Life with the Dionnes KEITH MUNRO

1934

The Peculiar Fate of the Morro Castle WILLIAM MCFEE

1935

Huey Long: American Dictator HODDING CARTER

1936

"The King and the Girl from Baltimore MARGARET CASE HARRIMAN

1937

An Occurrence at Republic Steel HOWARD FAST

1938

The Man on the Ledge

JOEL SAYRE

1938

The Night the Martians Came CHARLES JACKSON

1940

Wendell Willkie: A Study in Courage ROSCOE DRUMMOND

1941

Pearl Harbor Sunday: The End of an Era JONATHAN DANIELS

Madge Oberholtzer who brought down D.C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan. Newsman Harold C. Feightner wrote about her saying, “Few deaths of comparatively inconspicuous people have had the far-flung effects that hers did”. Her passing marked the beginning of the end of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana; it resulted in the indictment of several political figures and the complete change in the capital cities’ administration, and it nearly wrecked a political party.

------------------------

Source: The Irish Times https://share.google/aL2vtNRCw7wR8Ey7C

It is not likely that Father Coughlin or any of his American imitators can ever again be more than public nuisances, vermin in the national woodwork. But let conditions again become as bad as they did in the deep thirties, and the vermin will reappear.

On the other hand, there will be thousands of Americans, burned by this one experience with fascism under an American and Christian label, who will be warier when the next demagogue arises. The last ironic act of Ben Levin's real-life drama was symbolic, and like the death of his son it had almost too pat a moral. When the contents of his dead son's pockets were sent him by the War Department, he donated the money not to any golden-tongued radio orator or any leader with a panacea, but to a Good Neighbor Association formed to resist the racial hatreds that the leader had brought on.

https://share.google/aimode/kxIq6DDLX...

Letters poured in. Some wanted to know, as correspondents wanted to know for the next twelve years, what a priest was doing talking on such subjects. Others cheered and wanted more. Taken together, that flood of mail meant that people would listen to anyone who sounded as if he knew answers. Father Coughlin's trial balloon had proved what people wanted to hear, and had shown him how to spread the walls of the Shrine of the Little Flower and bring into one audience thousands upon thousands of listeners. Most of those listeners were angry at the bankers; many were afraid of Communists. Though he added other scapegoats later, Father Coughlin really built his structure on those two. By a miracle of illogic, he eventually combined them.

By the end of 1930 the priest had organized his unseen listeners into the Radio League of the Little Flower, dedicated to the unraveling of the tangled economic web, and was pulling in letters in quantities that amazed WJR and may have amazed Coughlin. Other demagogues in the American tradition have been hay-wagon orators, shirt-sleeve spell-binders from park bandstands and town-hall platforms. But Father Coughlin was the first to discover how he could do the whole job by remote control, be free of hecklers, be just as sure of taking up the collection, and in addition have documentary proof by letter of what his audiences wanted.

From 1919 "The forgotten men of Versailles" by Harry Hansen

The day after the Jewish representatives made their plea for Palestine, a remarkable letter, filled with the spirit of good will, was sent by the Emir Feisal to Felix Frankfurter. In it he spoke of the deep sympathy with which the Arabs, "especially the educated among us,” looked upon the Zionist movement, and said the Arab deputation considered the Zionist proposals both "modern and proper." "We will do our best," he continued, "in so far as we are concerned, to help them through; we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.... The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist; our movement is national and not imperialist; there is room in Syria for us both."

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Review: Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael B. Oren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

From 1919 "The forgotten men of Versailles" by Harry Hansen anthologized in The Aspirin Age: 1919-1941

The day after the Jewish representatives made their plea for Palestine, a remarkable letter, filled with the spirit of good will, was sent by the Emir Feisal to Felix Frankfurter. In it he spoke of the deep sympathy with which the Arabs, "especially the educated among us,” looked upon the Zionist movement, and said the Arab deputation considered the Zionist proposals both "modern and proper." "We will do our best," he continued, "in so far as we are concerned, to help them through; we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.... The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist; our movement is national and not imperialist; there is room in Syria for us both."

Was there a better way this could have gone?

Maybe, I don't know...

I do know that once the fighting started, but this history is a rather thrilling tale of underdog success as Israel triumphs over the distrusting and non-cooperative Arab nations. Israel captured and occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. I wasn't aware of the Jerusalem reunification under de facto Israeli rule as an outcome of this conflict.

The story told brings in roots from the Mandate era and later.

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Review: The Book of the Duncow

The Book of the Duncow by Walter Wangerin Jr.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: In Search of Forever

In Search of Forever by Rodney Matthews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Large, nearly full page color reproductions allow close, detailed appreciation of the fantasy art. Much evokes Tolkien and there was a long working relationship with Michael Moorcock for artwork for his novels.

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Review: Poland 1980-1982: Class Struggle and the Crisis of Capital

Poland 1980-1982: Class Struggle and the Crisis of Capital by Henri Simon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: Never Caught: Unsolved Serial Killer Cases

Never Caught: Unsolved Serial Killer Cases by Ethan Hayes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: The Cultural Tutor’s Grand Tour: The Story of Europe in Six Cities

The Cultural Tutor’s Grand Tour: The Story of Europe in Six Cities by Cup and Nuzzle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Review: Unsolved Child Murders: Eighteen American Cases

Unsolved Child Murders: Eighteen American Cases by Emily G. Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Review: Writers in Prison

Writers in Prison by Ioan Davies
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy

My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy by Randal Maurice Jelks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is written as a commentary on select Langston essays, poems, and speeches. These were published in diverse forums, and publications. It is my desire to have readers take in his views for themselves and not simply my interpretation of them.

Gerald L. K. Smith - https://share.google/KBXORkJY9JHNtUDLH
Fascism
Racism
Lure of communism

Abraham Lincoln brigade integration
https://share.google/aimode/cxpFdMeTB...

Historic 'Scottsboro Boys' linked to start of Woke movement
https://www.waaytv.com/news/historic-...

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Review: Phyllis Coates: Not Just Lois Lane

Phyllis Coates: Not Just Lois Lane by Bill Cassara
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Event model

In April of 1948 while Phyllis was under contract to Warners, she was assigned with another starlet, Patricia Northrup, for a photo shoot at Toluca Lake. The occasion was for a demonstration of a surfboard powered by batteries, called "The Motorboard." The inventor was Mr. Joe C. Gilpin who invited a publicity crew to document the maiden voyage. What better way than to have two beautiful women showing how it's done? A film crew showed up and Life magazine came to record the occasion. Phyllis was prominently displayed standing and in prone position to navigate the rudderless surf board across the natural lake.

The event drew none other than Harpo Marx...

Phyllis said that the place was packed with service men on leave. They hooted and yelled when Ken Murray would banter with his star performer, Marie Wilson. There were "boob" jokes galore.

Also on the bill was an old-time vaudeville musical artist by the name of Fred Sanborn. He was famous for his eccentric xylophone playing and his mute character. He had originally been one of Ted Healy's Stooges on Broadway along with Larry Fine, Shemp and Moe Howard in the film, Soup to Nuts. "

In later years on TV, The Mary Tyler Moore show, also in a newsroom office setting, Ed Asner (boss to Mary) told Mary that she had a lot of "spunk." Mary took it as a compliment until Asner said, "I hate spunk." If he had worked with Phyllis Coates' "Lois Lane," he would have seen spunk in spades.

In the first year of Adventures of Superman, the Lois Lane character was no "damsel in distress." She got herself in jams, but considered herself self-reliant. Lois often shook off Clark Kent's journalism partnership and even mocked him. She would often ridicule Clark for scurrying away before Superman arrived to save the day.

When Lois Lane enacted her primal screams, it was reaching a decibel level designed to repel dangerous men. That may have been her first line of defense, but Phyllis' Lois Lane was not afraid...

Scream queen Phyllis has been recognized with her distinct shrieks by all discerning viewers of Superman. She has often been compared to Fay Wray (King Kong's reluctant girlfriend). Randy Sadewater compiled a list of Phyllis' screams....

Coates comes across as spunky at least

Death Valley Days (1964)
The Left Hand is Damned was the title of this episode. It had a double meaning harking back to some cultures that the left hand was perceived to be sinister or evil (defined, of course, by right-handed people).

The main antagonist in this is a right-handed cowboy that gets his hand shot up. Phyllis is a saloon girl that witnesses the out-of-town gambler who is shot by the proprietor of the establishment. She scolds him for being insensitive to the badly wounded boy, then helps him recover. The incident did little to quell his anger at the proprietor and instead swells more hate, announcing revenge on him. His right hand incapacitated, he starts practicing shooting with his left hand. The cowboy seeks retribution and thinks he sees his adversary's silhouette through the window. Instead of hitting his intended victim, he shoots Phyllis' character, Dora, in the back. She gives a surprise expression, and then drops down for one of her infrequent death scenes.

I actually viewed this one with Phyllis when it was first released on videotape. She told me, "A whore with a heart, those are the best kind of roles."

It was time for Phyllis' daughter, Christopher, to go to college and she chose the University of Oregon. She came back with a new sense of self-awareness and embraced the woman's liberation movement. Not impressed, Phyllis told her: "I've been liberated my whole life."

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Review: Red Star Rogue

Red Star Rogue by Kenneth Sewell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a _lot_ of speculation. The author overtly states that yet for this first third or so of the book I was thinking two stars and regret. But, the details on the possibilities of the K-129 sinking and especially the US recovery efforts, first with USS Halibut (don't remember knowing of that one), then with Hughes and the Glomar (long interested in this one).

It is fascinating to learn of the permissive action link and how informal sharing of this preventative tech with the Soviets may have prevented a rogue nuclear attack on Pearl Harbor (Honolulu) by bad actors seeking trigger a China-US conflict. (I am paraphrasing a main theory presented here.)

Sonic monitoring in the Pacific Ocean of a capability unknown to the USSR captured three explosions which led to locating the sub and suggesting what happened.

The Cold War history here ties together the possible fate of the USS Scorpion (torpedoed in revenge?), the USS Pueblo

Among the mysteries explored here is
* the anonymous 11-man unit added last-minute to the boat,
* bodies crowded in one end more like confined than anything explained by the disaster itself
* Potential role of Stalinist instigator Mikhail Suslov and in general KGB hawks.

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Review: The Conspirators Hierarchy: The Committee of Three Hundred

The Conspirators Hierarchy: The Committee of Three Hundred by John Coleman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

John Coleman (author https://sobrief.com/authors/john-coleman
https://www.conspiracywatch.info/en/c...
https://bookstation.org/library/commi...
Dr. John Coleman- The Committee of 300 (1994) Full" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/Sc1NxfmtOTc?si=baTta...

The Club of Rome
https://share.google/aimode/7WtijiYkQ...

Traditional views under assault

...Committee mandate to "soften up" the United States. After 47 years of waging war on the people of this nation, who will doubt that it has indeed accomplished its task? Look around and see how we have been demoralized. Drugs, pornography, rock and roll "music," free sex, the family unit all but totally undermined, lesbianism, homosexuality and finally, the ghastly murder of millions of innocent babies by their own mothers. Has there ever been a crime so vile as mass abortion?

Great replacement theory

The United States will be flooded by peoples of an alien culture, who will eventually overwhelm white America; people with no concept of what the United States Constitution stands for, and who will, in consequence, do nothing to defend it, and in whose minds the concept of liberty and justice is so weak as to matter little. Food and shelter shall be their main concern.

Social media face recognition
https://share.google/aimode/bNY8e1ZfY...

Lenin and Marx acknowledged was needed, we now have the In addition to religion, "the opiate of the masses," which opiates of mass spectator sport, unbridled sexual lusts, rock music and a whole new generation of drug addicts. Mindless people from what is happening all around them. In "The sex and an epidemic of drug usage was created to distract Technotronic Era," Brzezinski talks about "the masses" as if people are inanimate objects, which is possibly how we are viewed by the Committee. He continually refers to the necessity of controlling us "masses."

At one point, he lets the cat out of the bag:

"At the same time, the capacity to assert social and political control over the individual will vastly increase. It will soon be possible to assert almost continuous control over every citizen and to maintain up-to-date files, containing even the most personal details about health and personal behavior of every citizen, in addition to the more customary data.

"These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities. Power will gravitate into the hands of those who control information. Our existing institutions will be supplanted by pre-crisis management institutions, the task of which will be to identify in advance, likely social crises and to develop programs to cope with them. (This describes the structure of FEMA, which came much later).

FEMA

... build up the cult of Christian fundamentalism begun by the British East India Company's servant Darby, which will be misused to strengthen the Zionist state of Israel by identifying with the Jews through the myth of "God's Chosen People," and by donating very substantial amounts of money to what they mistakenly believe is a religious cause in the furtherance of Christianity.

Population lessening wars also being out to eradicate the author's favorite Christianity

...settlers who came here and founded a country based on the Christian Bible and Christian morality. Of the 55 men who framed the Constitution, 52 were Christians. So-called "multiculturism" is tearing the United States apart-as was intended by our secret government.

"Moriah Conquering Wind"
a book regarding occult and Illuminati history, as well as a song.
Book: (Moriah Conquering Wind), the Cult of ... Adam Weishaupt is a 2008 book written by Jonathan Pentadragon (published by Lulu.com). It discusses topics such as the Illuminati, secret societies, Adam Weishaupt, and occult knowledge, often touching upon themes of "Ancient Moriah Illuminati" as a bloodline order.

Flat Earthers like current anti-vax population control even Great Replacement
Magic

What was their report all about? It did not differ fundamentally from what Malthus and Von Hayek preached, namely the old question of not enough natural resources to go around. The Forrestor-Meadows Report was a complete fraud. What it did not say was that man's proven inventive genius would in all likelihood work its way around "shortages." Fusion energy, the DEADLY enemy of the Committee of 300, could be applied to CREATING natural resources. A fusion torch could produce from one square mile of ordinary rock enough aluminum, for example, to fill our needs for 4 years.

International bankers, Freemason, Fabian Socialist
conspiracy a go go Slacker

How is it that the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry could brainwash John Hinckley into shooting President Reagan? Why do we have such secret orders as the Knights of Malta and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the Round Table, the Milner Group, the Process Church, and so on down line of layer upon layer of secret societies? They form part of world-wide chain of command and control running through the Club of Rome, NATO, the RIIA and finally right up to the Committee of 300. Men need these secret societies because their deeds are evil and must be hidden. Evil cannot stand in the light of truth.

Three Mile Island staged for fema One world government

Today, in 1993, the National Teachers Association (NTA,) has become a formidable Socialist tool, in the struggle for possession of the minds of our children. Outcome Based Education (OBE), is the method whereby the wholesale socializing of American school children is being carried out. Another aspect of OBE is its heavy attention to "sex education," and its insidious pumping of lesbianism and homosexuality into the minds of grade and secondary school children.

Rock music
https://share.google/aimode/U3erpDwGv...

Following the Beatles, who incidentally were put together by the Tavistock Institute, came other "Made in England" rock groups, who, like the Beatles, had Theo Adorno write their cult lyrics and compose all their "music." I hate to use these beautiful words in the context of "Beatlemania;" it reminds me of how wrongly the word "lover" is used when referring to the filthy interaction between two homosexuals writhing in pigswill. To call "rock," music, is an insult and likewise the language used in "rock lyrics."

No outside evidence
Sheldon Arenberg "systems development corporation"
https://share.google/aimode/AXX4S7PpZ...

JFK

It is worthy of note that Tibor Rosenbaum's bank was used by the shadowy North American chief of British Intelligence. Sir William Stephenson, whose right hand man, Major Louis

Mortimer Bloomfield, a Canadian citizen, ran Division Five of the FBI throughout the Second World War. Stephenson was an early member of the 20th century Committee of 300, although Bloomfield never made it that far. As I revealed in my series of monographs on the Kennedy assassination, it was Stephenson who master-minded the operation which was run as a hands-on project by Bloomfield. ... assassination was done through another drug-related organization, Permanent Industrial Expositions (PERMINDEX), building in downtown New Orleans. created in 1957, and centered in the World Trade Mart

Bloomfield just happened to be the attorney for the Bronfman family. The World Trade Mart was created by Colonel Clay Shaw and the FBI Division Five station chief in New Orleans, Guy Bannister. Shaw and Bannister were close associates of Lee Harvey Oswald, accused of shooting Kennedy, who was murdered by CIA contract agent Jack Ruby, before he could prove that he was not the assassin who shot President Kennedy. In spite of the Warren Commission and numerous official reports, it has never been established that Oswald owned the Mannlicher rifle, said to be the murder weapon, (it was not), nor that he had ever fired it. The connection between the drug trade, Shaw, Bannister and Bloomfield has been established several times, and need not concern us here...

NWO brave new world

Pornography shall be promoted and be compulsory showing in every school classroom, theater and cinema, including homosexual and lesbian pornography. The use of "recreational" drugs shall be compulsory, with each person allotted drug quotas which can be purchased at One World Government stores throughout the world. Mind-control drugs will be expanded and usage become compulsory. Such mind control drugs shall be given in food and/or water supplies without the knowledge or consent of the people. Drug bars shall be set up, run by One World Government employees, where the slave-class shall be able to spend their free time. In this manner, the non-elite masses will be reduced to the level and behavior of controlled beasts, with no will of their own, and easily regimented and controlled.

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Review: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History

Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould
My rating: 4 of 5 stars











Leonardo's Mountain of Clams is the title essay in this anthology and highlight's Da Vinci's brilliant insights in Bible-defying natural history facts from observing fossils. Also in the general theme here of evolution as promulgated and contended with is the epistolary respectful disagreements between
James Dwight Dana and Darwin wherein Dana long clung to a theological view before giving in to Darwin's mountain of evidence. More generally, Gould shows how assuming linear development as opposed to variational bushiness has led to entrenched inaccuracy in other fields.

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Review: Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the Black Market

Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the Black Market by Eric Schlosser
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Porn Was Legalized 50 Years Ago, This Is How The Business Has Changed"
Fifty years ago something new and exciting was taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Scandinavian country had lifted the ban on pornography on July 1, 1969

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Review: The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins

The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins by Burton L. Mack
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As for Christian origins, it suddenly became clear that the conventional scenario was deeply indebted to the apocalyptic hypothesis. If Jesus had not been an eschatological prophet, the presence of apocalyptic language in the early traditions of the Jesus movements would have to be explained some other way. The conventional view of Christian origins assumed an apocalyptic imagination at the beginning and a gradual shift to the language of wisdom when the world did not end as expected. Now the sequence worked the other way around. The shift was not from apocalyptic announcement to instruction in wisdom, but from wisdom to apocalyptic. This switch forced a total reconsideration of Christian origins and of the way in which apocalyptic language had been understood to function. The assumption had been that preaching an apocalyptic message of judgment could attract people to a movement that promised salvation from that judgment. It now appeared that an apocalyptic imagination worked only in sup-port of social values and commitments that were generated by other attractions and persuasions already at work within the group.

.....

As interest grew in knowing more about the community of Q, however, studies began to appear that bumped up against features of the text that did not seem to fit the standard scenario etched in the Christian imagination. Not only was there no reference to the death and resurrection of Jesus, no mention of Jesus as the Christ, and no instruction to Peter and the other disciples about continuing Jesus' mission and baptizing converts into the church, the instructions in Q were couched in curious aphoristic discourse, addressed to individuals, and recommended strange public behavior. So the first attempts at describing the community of Q aimed at understanding how these odd features of the text could be made to fit the traditional picture of Christian origins.

Some modern scholars suggest Jesus shared similarities with ancient Greek Cynic philosophers due to his itinerant lifestyle, rejection of material wealth, and radical social critiques. However, this is a debated topic, as Jesus's apocalyptic, communal, and Jewish-focused message differed significantly from the individualistic, ascetic nature of Greek Cynicism.

Similarities to Cynicism:
Lifestyle: Jesus lived without456 many possessions and advocated a simple life, similar to Cynic "hardihood".
Rhetoric: Jesus’s direct, challenging teachings and parables sometimes mirrored the witty, biting, and confrontational style of Cynic philosophers.
Social Critique: Jesus critiqued the power structures of his society, promoting a "brokerless" kingdom in opposition to Roman imperialism and temple elites, note The Contemplative Life.
Distinctions from Cynicism:
Context: Jesus was deeply rooted in Jewish tradition and apocalyptic expectations, whereas Cynics belonged to the Hellenistic, Greco-Roman tradition, according to The University of Chicago Press: Journals.
Community: Cynics were often solitary, radical individualists, while Jesus gathered a community and taught about community, love, and the "Kingdom of God" rather than just individual virtue, note Reddit.
Mission: Jesus's actions were driven by a mission from his Father, rather than the rejection of conventionality for the sake of defying convention itself.

While scholars like John Dominic Crossan and Burton Mack have explored the "Jesus as Cynic" hypothesis, it is generally not accepted that Jesus was a "card-carrying" Cynic, but rather that his methods of communication and social critique in Galilee may have resembled those of popular Cynic preachers.

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Review: On the Poverty of Student Life: Considered in Its Economic, Political, Psychological, Sexual, and Particularly Intellectual Aspects, and a Modest Proposal for Its Remedy

On the Poverty of Student Life: Considered in Its Economic, Political, Psychological, Sexual, and Particularly Intellectual Aspects, and a Modest Proposal for Its Remedy by Internationale Situationniste
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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