If you’ve ever wondered why it’s important to have regulations and a functioning EPA, read this book and you’ll know.
In the 1920’s a new element was dIf you’ve ever wondered why it’s important to have regulations and a functioning EPA, read this book and you’ll know.
In the 1920’s a new element was discovered that was all the rage. Radium. Soon it was being used in all manor of ways. It was used to shrink tumors, some people took as a supplement for health (I know), and it was being use on dials to illuminate them in the dark. Someone had to hand paint those dials.
The Radium Girls, some were actual girls as young as 14, were hired to paint numbers on watch dials and military dials in dial factories. To paint these small numbers precisely, the girls were taught to lip their brushes to get a fine point. They would dip their brush in the paint, laced with radium, then put the brush to their lips and twirl it...then paint the dial. They would do this hundreds of times a day. They would eat and drink at their work tables, would paint their nails with it, and would take paint home with them to practice.
At night when they would leave work and walk home they glowed. It was in their clothes, in their hair, and on their shoes. They not only brought it home, they spread it throughout the town as they walked.
Needless to say, it was a big mess that was still being cleaned up as late as 2015.
One by one the girls and women started to get sick, and it was gruesome. Radium had settled into their bones and because of the lip/dip technique, often the first place to have problems would be their teeth and jaw bones..... and their face. If you get queasy easily, this book may not be for you.
Even after many women got sick and died (most didn’t see the aged of 30), and after science figured out how dangerous radium was, the big dial companies denied it was dangerous. They took out newspaper ads stating the radium was safe and ‘not to worry.’ They blamed the deaths on the girls themselves because they claimed they were not healthy to start with. Disgusting.
Lawsuits were filed against these companies by a few of the surviving women, which after much ordeal, the women won. This sparked research into the effects of radiation on the human body, in which the women participated, to the point of donating their bodies to science. They were heroes.
Women are strong as hell.
The book was very good, but I can’t say I enjoyed it. Again, if you have a sensitive stomach, read this at your own risk.
Side note: I listened to this book and the narrator was god awful. Her voice was pleasant enough, but it sounded as if she was reading a post by someone who refused to use punctuation. There were....odd...pauses and STRANGE emphasis in places that made no sense. I don’t know for sure, but I assume the author of the book used punctuation. I upped the speed on the audio to 1.5x and, oddly, that made listening to it bearable. If you listen to it, trust me, turn the speed up....more
If you’re in a hurry and have nerd tendencies such as I do, or are an aspiring nerd, then this book is for you. If you are a card carrying, long time If you’re in a hurry and have nerd tendencies such as I do, or are an aspiring nerd, then this book is for you. If you are a card carrying, long time nerd, you’ve already learned all of the stuff in this book.
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is a good start at the subject, and gives you enough information to seek out more if you desire....more
Imagine one day you are fine, going to work and doing what you always done, then out of the blue you start acting strange. You become paranoid, eventuImagine one day you are fine, going to work and doing what you always done, then out of the blue you start acting strange. You become paranoid, eventually you start hearing voices and attempt jumping out of moving vehicles.
You must caught a bit of the crazy right?
Maybe not. This is what happened to Susannah Cahalen, a reporter for the New York Post. One morning she saw a couple of bug bites on her arm and was convinced she had a bed bug infestation. She brought exterminators into her home, even though she couldn't find any evidence of the critters. The exterminator couldn't find them, said they didn't exist, but she insisted they treat the apartment for them anyway.
This was only the beginning. Susannah kept deteriorating, doctors mis-diagnosed her many times, one even blamed it on excessive drinking with a 'wink'. You know, a young girl in New York obviously was partying too hard.....I think I would have punched that jerk in the dangly bits and blamed it on a seizure(of which she had many)"oops! Sorry doc but I couldn't help it!"
One day after about a million dollars worth of tests came up with zilch, Dr. Souhel Najjar came aboard Susannah's case, and it's a darn lucky thing that he did, because he had recently discovered a rare auto immune disease called Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. This basically will make you seem like a crazy person, and make you do odd enough things and movements that will cause people to call in an exorcist. Since this disease has been in existence as long as humans have, it's a pretty safe bet that many of those poor people who were thought to be possessed and subsequently exorcised had in fact Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis and not the devil inside them.
"Magic is only science we haven't discovered yet." Someone said...?? Christopher Moore??
And that is the truly scary part in a very scary tale, that millions of people over countless years have been mis-diagnosed, put in institutions and left to die, or treated as evil and possibly put to a horrible death.
Good times!!
I enjoyed this book and found it fascinating. I just wish Sussanah din't have to go through this for us to get this book, but since she did I appreciate it even more....more
I'm not sure if this type of book could really have spoilers, but I am going to say a great deal about what's in this book. If you don't want to see iI'm not sure if this type of book could really have spoilers, but I am going to say a great deal about what's in this book. If you don't want to see it...then read the book and come back and read my review.
Barbara Ehrenreich was born and raised atheist in a fairly dysfunctional household. Her parents were intelligent, but also alcoholic and they moved regularly which caused problems with Barbara's education and socialization.
Barbara didn't see other people as intelligent and in possession of a mind, she felt completely apart from her species. She would have the fantasy that one morning she would wake up and find that all the people had just up and disappeared (what self respecting introvert hasn't had that one?). She would work out survival scenarios and all the possible situations that would kill her, and she would work out solutions. Some of them were pretty ingenious. But in the end she decided living alone on the planet would be impossible so thought it best the other people exist, but she didn't have to like it.
One day Barbara started having dissociative episodes, where her mind basically detached from reality....same deal that you'd get from LSD, I suppose. The experiences were both incredible and terrifying, which left her changed, as well as pretty saddened that the episode had ended.
One day, heading home from a ski trip with her brother and her friend, they took a detour. The friend wanted to drive through the desert on the way home, and as it got late they decided to sleep in the car by the side of the road. Barbara woke up earlier than the rest and for some reason wandered away from the car...in the desert. She had the most profound and long lasting dissociative episode which lasted the entire day (there about). Not to worry, she did make it back to the others.
When people have this type of episode they change in a big, and (from what I've read) for the better, way. Eckhart Tolle had one on the night he decided to kill himself....he was deep in despair, then something clicked and he had one of these episodes and he came out the other end of it a completely different person. Even my aunt, who was a wild child, partied all the time...rode motorcycles, had one in the shower (of all places) and immediately became her mother.
Both Eckhart and my aunt attributed their experiences as the work of god. Eckhart in a more general, spiritual sense and my aunt in a completely Catholic sense. I'm sure the majority of people who have gone through this call it god, basically for lack of a better explanation. But Barbara, being atheist, did not immediately label it god. She thought she was going coo-coo-banana-cakes....which she kind of did for a while since the experience was almost too much for her brain to process. Instead, she did a lot of research into what might have caused this to happen on a scientific level, and basically kept her mouth shut about it until now, worried that people would label her as crazy and not take her work seriously.
How did this episode change Barbara? She started seeing other people as people, as having their own minds and feelings. She started to become a part of her species for the first time in her life. She became an activist, a feminist...writing such books as Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America.
I thought this book was fascinating and I really enjoyed her perspective....more
I can honestly say I am one of the first people on the planet to have eaten a Chicken Mc Nugget.
This is my dad a few years back [image]
He is a mechaniI can honestly say I am one of the first people on the planet to have eaten a Chicken Mc Nugget.
This is my dad a few years back [image]
He is a mechanical engineer and a total genius. Before I was born my dad had to find a job to support his family (they already had my older sister). My parents wanted to stay near family, so dad started looking around in the Sandusky Ohio area……He got two job offers, one with NASA (yes….NASA) and one with Stein Associates, a brand new company that saw the need for mass food production…..processing it, if you will. They needed someone to design breaders and fryers that ultimately went to companies like Mc Donald’s, Tyson, and Mrs. Pauls, and my dad was the man (Stein offered 10 cents more, NASA lost). They were the only ones out there doing this and had a monopoly on the industry. If it’s been breaded and fried and you didn’t do this yourself, thank my dad.
Dad loved his job was good at it. Really good, he has numerous patents and a Da Vinci Award (a big F’n deal). For years he stood at the end of the line taste testing the food. He brought it home for us as well….hey, anywhere you can save a buck with four kids to feed. He traveled the planet working with various companies to get their production lines working. Japan, The Soviet Union (where he was followed by KGB, he wanted to turn around and point out to them that they asked him to come, but he was wise enough not to), England…..pretty much everywhere.
All of the travel resulted in bad eating habits not to mention the ‘taste testing’ took its toll. He gained weight and eventually became a type 2 diabetic, and has many other weight related health problems.
I don’t know if working at NASA would have been better for his health or wallet, but it would have been way cooler. If I would have ended up with a skinny, healthy dad?…..even cooler.
In Salt, Sugar, Fat the author calls out these big food companies. The CEO’s of companies like Kraft and Nabisco actually sat down one day after studies shown that Americans were getting fat, and it looked like it was their food that was causing the problem. On the chart (they had) showed a steady rise in the average Americans weight after 1980, while before that date we chugged right along at a normal weight. What changed? We didn’t suddenly lose control, in mass, for no reason. It was because of what was being done to the food…..don’t get me started on high fructuous corn syrup. So, these asshat CEOs thought about the problem, thought about making a change, actually tried and failed at a few ideas, and in the end they said “fuck it, let’s just make money”.
The stuff they do to the processed food is done in such a way it actually causes a person to become addicted to certain foods. It activates the same part of your brain as heroin does. I can’t go into all the details about the subject; you’ll have to read the book for that.
Moral of the story, don’t eat processed foods if you can get away with it. Don’t eat fast food like Chicken McNuggets. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store, and avoid all the bad things that taste sooo good.
I am an agnostic which means I am firm in my belief that I have no idea what to believe. I don't know what is true and what isn't and no one, no matteI am an agnostic which means I am firm in my belief that I have no idea what to believe. I don't know what is true and what isn't and no one, no matter how strong your faith, or how strong your lack of faith is.....you don't know either. You don't know what happens to you after you die. You pretty much have to die to find that out. You may really, really, really believe little alien souls are attached to your body and making your life miserable, and that the only way to make it all better is to blow your life savings in Clearwater Florida trying to rid yourself of these little bastards by way of a weird looking machine. It still doesn't make it true, it's purely your free will to believe it is.
Next to art, and generally making things that are pretty and/or interesting, I'm really fascinated with science. Books on the brain are something I generally gravitated towards which is why I picked up Free Will.
Sam Harris is obviously a very intelligent man he generally seems to know what he is talking about. But I can't digest what he is dishing out in Free Will. Basically, if I am following what he is saying (and it is possible I'm NOT) human beings have no free will.....excuse me?
Apparently there have been studies that prove that when we make the decision to do something our brain does the deciding first before we are even aware of our decision consciously. This is done with some fancy imaging machines that catch a blip of some sort go off before you do what you're going to do. So, of course we don't have free will.
I must be missing something.
My head hurts.
Somehow because we don't know what makes our brain decide something before we become aware of what it is that we are deciding we aren't actually deciding anything at all. Uhhh......ok? To me this strengthens the argument that we are something more than just our brains. Maybe....just maybe, what is making the brain do it's business is the energy (or soul if you like to call it that) that animates these meat suits we walk around in. Or not! I don't know but I believe someday science will figure out what that's all about. Science advances insanely fast. Right now I can probably take over a third world country with my Ipad. I can't even imagine what will be invented or discovered in the near future. So for Sam to jump to this conclusion seems premature.
It is more likely we have control over our decisions and that we are responsible for them than not. I believe we have free will to do the right thing despite our circumstances growing up.
I have the free will not to like Free Will all that much and you have the free will to disagree with me about that.....
I really didn't know this fact for sure until reletivly recently. For instance, I didn't know I was in Hello, my name is Stephanie and I'm a Dyslexic.
I really didn't know this fact for sure until reletivly recently. For instance, I didn't know I was in a special reading class when I was young until my mom told me so a couple of years ago.
Dyslexia. Really. Sucks.
It has made my life more difficult than it would have been otherwise. School, 1st through 12th, was not fun. It has been a big pain in the ass in the work place as well.
I am not so dyslexic that I am disabled (I am typing this) though I have met a couple of people who were. My issues are just annoying enough to cause problems. For me, I confuse left and right constantly. More of a problem then you think.
I cannot spell. Now when I tell people this, they laugh and say....yeah, neither can I.....hahaaha. "no, you're not hearing me. I really can't spell, it's not that I don't try, I just can't do it". Then when confronted with one of my creations, they will laugh and point out the misspelling, making me feel stupid. I want to yell "Hey asshat, I told you I can't spell so fuck off!" But I don't. It upsets me.
Most jobs that are easy for the general population are hell for me. Which is why I suck at most "jobs". For instance, I have a friend here on the GRs that can listen to audiobooks while typing in numbers, data. WTF?? That blows my mind, because entering in numbers, in specific order would take every ounce of my concentration. The horror.
So, when I saw the title of this book I had to read it because I have not experienced any particular advantage with the way my brain is wired. What I do well with this particular "advantage" is I am very mechanically minded. Spacial is my thing. I can draw, paint. I like to sculpt as well though I haven't done much in that lately. I make a living (kind of) as an artist because, I really don't feel I have many other choices.
It would have been easier if I were like most everybody else, but life is more interesting because I'm not.
This book is great, and I love the author for pointing out the good stuff associated with dyslexia and how we are as smart as the rest of you. Today, with more knowledge like this, kids with dyslexia will have the fighting chance that I didn't get.
Blinded by science Einstein, Io, comet tails Information glut
I consider myself an intelligent person. I also find science fascinating. I'm just not surBlinded by science Einstein, Io, comet tails Information glut
I consider myself an intelligent person. I also find science fascinating. I'm just not sure what happen between me and Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries.....
Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for a science-y book. Maybe I over estimated my intelligence. Both are quite possible. The whole time I was listening to this, it was like listening to Charlie Browns teacher. whaa wha whaa wha whaa Galileo, wha wha E=mc2, whaa whaa whaa Gravity sucks.
I would get some really good, crunchy tidbit and be riveted.....and then the mind would drift to something like "I wonder if I fed the cats, and CRAP I forgot to start the dishwasher"........then I would drift back to the science stuff.
"Wow! It sure is hot in the desert. Hey, why does that rattle snake have two heads?"
"I can tell you……."
"Oh, hello…I didn‘t see you there, just talking"Wow! It sure is hot in the desert. Hey, why does that rattle snake have two heads?"
"I can tell you……."
"Oh, hello…I didn‘t see you there, just talking to myself and the snake---s. I’m Stephanie, and who are you and what are you doing in the middle of the Mojave Desert?"
"I could ask you the same thing. I’m Annie Jacobson, I wrote a book about Area 51. It’s just over the hill there."
"The hill with the two Hummers on it? Hey, and there seems to be a couple guys with guns…..uh……pointing in our direction."
"Yuup, but it doesn’t technically exist."
"Why? What do you mean by “doesn’t technically exist”? Those guns exist. Is it because of the aliens? Oh it’s because of the aliens! I KNEW it!"
"Yes, I talk about the Roswell incident a bit in the beginning of the book, but then I get into all the crazy military secrets. What I mean by Area 51 not existing is that it has always been a Black Operation, which means our federal government denies it existence even though it sits right over there……as you so astutely observed."
"Thanks! So you mean the President and the rest of the government, close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears and go LALALALALALA………..?"
"Kind of, but not really. No president has ever “known” about Area 51. Vannevar Bush, the engineer that was the primary organizer for the Manhattan Project started up Area 51 because he believed some things are on a need to know basis, and the president just didn’t need to know. In fact, whoever works at Area 51 is on a need to know basis. You only know about your specific field of work and that’s all. I guess no one in that place knows the whole story."
"Did you say Vannever BUSH? Oh god! Those Bush’s are freaking everywhere and they ruin everything! This explains so much……"
"There is no evidence that Vannever and W. Have any familial ties. Relax Stephanie."'
"Oh." "Sorry." "continue."
After WWII the United States government recruited Nazi scientists, because they were the best in the world, forgave all their odious crimes and set them up with pretty swanky jobs at Area 51. This was called operation Paperclip. The Soviet Union recruited some of their own. Joseph Stalin used them to come up with some inventions as well."
"Uuck! We had known Nazis on our soil doing god knows what………and we called it Operation Paperclip? That doesn’t sound very intimidating. Why not Operation Commando Eagle or something like that? What were they up to anyway? Investigating aliens, right?"
"Commando Eagle? Isn’t that an Eagle without underpants?........ Anyway, they were doing all sorts of things, mostly testing nuclear bombs. Bomb after bomb after bomb…….it’s a wonder the planet is still intact. It’s a damn miracle any of us are alive. For one of the tests they put a bunch of sheep, rodents, and 109 beagles in cages, blew up a bomb to see how it would affect them. Turns out, plutonium is only lethal if inhaled; you can touch it, no worries. The aliens, yeah, sort of……I tease about them again in the middle of the book to keep you reading."
"Awe, 109 beagles? They wouldn’t do that kind of crap today; PETA would be all over their ass! By the way, teasing isn’t nice Annie."
"I know, I’m getting to it. Couple of interesting tid bits I need to share first, when they tested some manned rockets they noticed a bunch of black dots high in the atmosphere. It freaked them out until they found out they were dead bugs blasted so high in all the thermal nuclear bomb tests they were sent into orbit. One of the scientist at Area 51 was known for inventing something that kept the astronauts penises from freezing to the urine tube when they had to pee……….and they had this spy operation they called Acoustic Kitty, where they implanted listening devices in cats, that didn’t work out so well…..and…….."
"ANNIE! The little grey men please. By the way, since this stuff is mostly classified, how do you know all of this information?"
"I interviewed one of the original Paperclip scientists for a year right before he died".
"So?"
"Ever heard of Occam's razor?"
"Yeah, given a bunch of solutions to a problem, the simplest one is the most plausible one."
"Right. Well…….."
(view spoiler)["The War of The Worlds radio broadcast caused a huge panic amongst the American public. Aliens creeping out of crashed flying saucers and wreaking havoc sent people running. This did not go unnoticed by Joseph Stalin in the USSR. Pissed at our president for making him look stupid (Stalin could barely read) , he got an idea for revenge from the War of The Worlds fiasco, he had his Nazi scientist invent a flying saucer using electromagnetic field technology."
“Dr.” Josef Mengele, a super nasty evil Nazi, experimented on human beings (Jews, gypsies, and mentally/ physically challenged people) in the most hideous ways. He would remove their eyes and transplant new ones. Removed the skulls of children and replaced them with adult skulls, and injected them with chemicals to make their hair fall out. All this is well documented with sketches and plaster molds. They look a lot like the Greys."
Stalin, the evil bastard, took these kids and put them aboard a flying craft of some sort. Then he took a big plane and launched both the saucer and the other craft from the plane over the US (they came via Alaska). So there were two crash sites in Roswell, one with the dead and dying children and the saucer. Stalin’s goal was to start a panic like the one started with War of the Worlds. It almost worked, but the government stepped in and covered it up, but not for the reasons we thought. They took the saucer and the kids to Area 51, after a trip to Wright Patterson air force base, and reverse engineered the saucer."
"But why don’t we have flying saucers then? I think we do. Those are the UFO’s that are constantly spotted. Made right here in the USA. And they say we don’t make things here anymore."
"This Paperclip engineer also told me that we did our own experiments on non consenting human beings for years, all the way up to the 1980’s. He also said what he told me was only a very small part of what has gone on in Area 51……and what’s still going on."
"This sounds farfetched I know, but I believe it. It makes more sense than a bunch of aliens from another world crashing on our planet."
When I was in the sixth grade we had a science project. I remember this well, we had to learn all about rockets and space travel. When we were to reacWhen I was in the sixth grade we had a science project. I remember this well, we had to learn all about rockets and space travel. When we were to reach the end of all the information, we were going to have a test on what we learned.
Nothing new there right? Oh but there was……
The person who had the highest grade on the test was to be the one to “launch” a rocket, you know, the model rockets made from cardboard with a built in parachute for its descent…the ones that you would sometimes put a toad inside as a passenger (I never did that, but I heard he traveled well…not me I swear!) Those rockets seemed incredibly dangerous. I wonder if they’re still around?
Anyway, I decided that person was going to be me because, at the time, I thought I really wanted to go to space. I studied my sixth grade butt off, and much to the dismay of all the geeky boys in my class I aced that test. That test was mine, and I got to launch the rocket. They all glared at me through they’re sullen eyes during the countdown. Sorry boys.
My grandma declared that I was going to be the first women in space. She was positive I was going to be an astronaut.
I am sooo glad she was wrong, because according to this book there is nothing more unpleasant in every conceivable way than space travel. With the problems of the food going in and then the inevitable coming out the other end, I think maybe they should have just taped a diaper on and been done with it. All the cramped quarters, no way, I get claustrophobic in crowds. And then there is the high likely hood of death…and things like that.
Until the posh Star trek like space ships with gravity are invented I’ll pass on the trip to Mars.
Stephanie *Eff your feelings*
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