Ten Days a Madwoman by Deborah Noyes

Book jacket with title and blue tinted photo of Nellie BlyTen Days a Madwoman: The Daring Life and Turbulent Times of the Original “Girl” Reporter: Nellie Bly by Deborah Noyes (2016)

A charming and beautifully designed book that gives the high points of Nellie Bly’s life and unfortunately premature death from pneumonia at age 52. It was especially interesting to me, having lived in Queens across from Roosevelt’s Island (unrecognizable to me today with the massive development in the 20 years since I was there). This island was the location of the horrific Blackwell Sanatorium for mentally ill, who, of course, especially with women I am sure, were as likely to be sane as not; especially when they had rich relatives who wanted them away.The brutality of the treatments she documented were as bad as the notorious Bedlam I suspect. Cruel and thuggish nurses torturing the patients, starving them, depriving them of everything even the right to speak to each other or do something other than sit rigidly on a bench for 10 hours or more a day. Held underwater in cold water tubs for sport, and sent to miserable excuses of beds. And then, being told, since it was charity, she had no right to complain.

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The Economic Illusion by Robert Kuttner

black and white title textThe Economic Illusion: False choices between prosperity and social justice  by Robert Kuttner (1984)

Robert Kuttner has become a favorite author because he really knows his stuff and is a very good writer making for an enjoyable read. He is also the author of Debtors’ Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility. This book had one of my favorite chapters ever, titled The Moral Economy of Debt [link to come later], basically pointing out the contradiction between the treatment of bankruptcy by individuals as a moral failure contrasted with the get out of jail free card by failed corporations (like Donald Trump’s 4 instances where he sheltered his personal wealth from the risk he took with his businesses).

In this book he makes the case that social justice does not preclude a dynamic economy. This book written a tad more academically than his later books, but is fascinating also because of the date it was published –  1984! [nod to Orwell fans out there since what he discusses is exactly true today] Here are some long quotes from the book.

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Is God to Blame? by Gregory A. Boyd

book cover man sitting in chair arm bent on knee leaning forwardIs God to Blame?: Beyond pat answers to the problem of suffering. (2003)

First off, full disclosure, I consider myself to be an atheist. I was brought up Lutheran and have many Catholic cousins. In living around the country I came to know all kinds of different people with different beliefs, including Jewish faith, and Mormonism. When I was little, I had my doubts because every week the pastor would preach about how we are all sinners and owed money to God to get his forgiveness. Then they passed the collection plate. Well, my parents did not seem like sinners to me. My dad was a WWII hero. However, the Germans on the other end of the bombs from his B17 probably had a different perspective on things. Maybe because of the immediacy of the presence of the war in my childhood, and with it, the Holocaust and the evilness of Hitler in particular, but later of course I learned of Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, Pol Pot, et al, I had good reason to question the very basis of there being a “kind and loving god” at all. Tens of millions dead across the world because of a handful of despots. The cruelty and pervasiveness of the torture and brutality did not seem to indicate there was an omnipotent god.

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Gentlemen and Scientists by Tom Shactman

a slice of a portrait of a revolutionary war man and blueprintsGentlemen Scientists and Revolutions: The Founding Fathers in the Age of Enlightenment (2004)

This is a terrific book. I have to return it to the library so will have to come back another time to add some quotes of the best bits. But I highly recommend it as very entertaining and informing reading. The minds and education and quality of our Founding Fathers make me weep is shame for the politicians we suffer from today. They are mostly would be tyrants just as Abigail predicted for husbands which is also true for women’s rights today still. And getting worse, people like Ted Cruz want to remove the Constitutional government these brilliant men formulated and put his god on top with himself as the interpreter of “god’s will” which can be summed up as god wants the rich to be rich, the poor to remain poor, and women to bear children every year until they die to provide cheap labor and cannon fodder for the wealthy few and their corporations.

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Why Beauty is Truth by Ian Stewart

butterfly in blueWhy Beauty is Truth: A History of Symmetry (2007 )

This is a pretty readable book on mathematics because it takes a creative nonfiction point of view to illustrate some of the points. He approaches the development of mathematical equations and discoveries by telling the stories of the people who developed or discovered them. As an artist who once took advanced placement math, and really liked algebra, but was doomed by geometry to end that pursuit, I still appreciate the mathematics of beauty and how beautiful mathematics, or elegant equations would stir the sample visual pleasure and the belief that if something is awkward and tough to fit into an equation, it must not be the right equation.

The Golden Ratio, the rule of thirds in photography, even the symmetry in asymmetry works; it is fascinating to identify the math underlying images perceived as beautiful.

Since I have not done algebra for decades and have only read about physics, some of my understanding of both is very amateur, but this book helped me understand why various things mattered and how they interconnect, and how mathematics is a crucial tool for the world.

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