Musical Favorites Reveal Most About A Person, New Book

[From article]
This question, so deceptively simple, is explored to great and fascinating lengths in Tom Vanderbilt’s new book “You May Also Like: Taste in an Endless Age of Choice” (Knopf).
“I was simply feeling overwhelmed not only by choices, but what people were saying about those choices,” Vanderbilt tells The Post.
“A simple trip to a restaurant, or to a site like Amazon to buy a product, or to watch a movie on Netflix became like an epic quest,” he says. “What was the best? Whose opinion should I trust? I felt swamped by other people’s tastes, and I was trying to gain some sense, in essence, where all those preferences came from without simply saying, ‘There’s no accounting for taste.’ ”
As it turns out, there is and there isn’t. Our tastes range from innate to acquired, cultivated to contextual, adaptive to reactive.



Infants, long before they are verbal, express preferences: They stare at more attractive faces longer. Babies like the foods they like and refuse the ones they don’t. Children develop favorite colors and numbers, with no real reason to have either.
We adults are no less cryptic in our tastes. As Vanderbilt writes, we express preferences for such mundanities as toilet paper (hung over or under?), bathroom stalls (middle or end?), and even the color of his book jacket (blue or red?).
[. . .]
“Liking is really about anticipation and memory. Even as you are looking forward to something, you are looking backward to the last time you enjoyed it. You can spend weeks waiting for ‘the meal of a lifetime,’ which will itself last a few hours . . . That so many people photograph their ‘memorable’ meals speaks not only to how fleeting the experience may be but to how photographing it helps actually make it memorable.”
We are all born with the same simple tastes: All infants love sweetness (breast milk, life) and have an aversion to bitterness (possible poison). It’s an evolutionary adaptation designed to keep us alive.
[. . .]
Then, too, are our acquired tastes: Few people like the flavor of coffee or beer upon that first sip, but they force themselves to keep going until they actually experience pleasure.
[. . .]
Just as we can likely guess someone’s socioeconomic background through the way that they talk or the state of their teeth, so we can through taste.
The expressions “good taste” and “bad taste” didn’t enter the lexicon until the 20th century, but ever since, Vanderbilt writes, “taste is social comparison.” More people will admit to listening to NPR than Howard Stern, or reading The New York Times to this very paper, though there is significant crossover with both.
[. . .]



“If all I knew about you was the last five books you read, I probably wouldn’t know much,” chief engineer Glenn McDonald told Vanderbilt. “But if I knew the last five songs you listened to on a streaming service, I’d probably know a lot about you.”
Music is among the most personal, visceral taste we have, one we now engage with, thanks to smartphones, daily and intimately. As Vanderbilt points out, “People will talk about ‘my music’ in a way they do not talk about ‘my movies.’ ”
[. . .]
The only constant when it comes to our tastes, Vanderbilt writes, is that they’re always changing. It’s our basic nature to seek out the new and the normal, the fantastic and the familiar.
[. . .]
“Even when we look back and see how much our tastes have changed, the idea that we will change equally in the future seems to confound us,” he writes. “It is what keeps tattoo removal practitioners in business.”

http://nypost.com/2016/05/08/the-science-of-taste-and-why-the-music-you-like-may-be-the-most-telling-preference-of-all/

The science of taste and why the music you like may be the most telling preference of all
By Maureen Callahan
New York Post
May 8, 2016 | 7:00am

Connecticut Woman With Norman Cousins Helped Expose Nazi Experiments on Women, New Book

Bringing their story to light: Caroline Ferriday (far right) seen with four of the so-called Ravensbruck Rabbits after she flew them over from Poland to be treated for their horrific injuries inflicted in a concentration camp.

[From article]
It was one of the big secrets of the murderous Nazi regime: a camp of 72 female prisoners used as experiments to test torture techniques.
The girls, all high school-age Catholics from Poland, were dubbed the 'rabbits' since they were treated like laboratory animals, and their injuries meant many had to hop instead of walk.
When they war ended, they were rescued by the Red Cross along with the hundreds of other prisoners in Ravensbruck concentration camp - but all accounts of their 'treatments' had been destroyed.
It meant their ordeal paled into oblivion as the world grappled to deal with the aftershocks of the Holocaust, particularly the horrific obliteration of the Jews.
But the women were finally brought out of the shadows in 1958 by an unlikely fairy godmother: a socialite from Connecticut.



Caroline Ferriday, a philanthropist who split her time between New York City and Bethlehem, CT, Caroline Ferriday heard of their ordeal after the war.
She made it her mission to bring them to the States for medical treatment, a road trip across America, Christmas at her holiday home, and a dinner with senators in Washington, D.C.


Tortured: The girls (survivors pictured post-war), all high school-age Catholics from Poland, were dubbed the 'rabbits' since they were treated like lab animals, and their injuries meant many had to hop instead of walk.
The rabbits were not meant to survive; Heinrich Himmler planned to have them all murdered before word got out.
They were brought in to Ravensbruck, 50 miles north of Berlin, in August 1942 to test different kinds of surgical procedures.


The women were brought in to Ravensbruck, 50 miles north of Berlin, in August 1942 to test different kinds of surgical procedures. Ravensbruck (pictured) held prisoners from 30 different countries until 1945.In total, each underwent six operations, having bones broken, muscle tissue removed, limbs amputated, and more - all without painkillers.
The wounds were then deliberately infected so the surgeons could test whether sulfonamide - a kind of penicillin - would cure it.
It came after Himmler's personal doctor, Dr Karl Gebhardt, failed to save the life of a senior Nazi officer, Reinhard Heydrich.
Heydrich, one of Hitler's closest friends, died in a car bomb.
Gebhardt did not use sulfonamide, a drug similar to penicillin, to treat his gangrene.
Hitler believed that decision killed Heydrich.
To disprove Hitler's theory - and to save his own skin - Gebhardt designed a series of experiments: his team at Ravensbruck would wound prisoners and deliberately infect the wounds then see whether sulfa drugs could cure the infections.
At first they operated on male prisoners. Accounts differ on why they switched to women. Some historians say women were typically healthier prisoners. Others say Gebhardt assumed females would be more docile and submissive.


This is an internal view of Ravensbruck and the furnaces which burned gassed prisoners' bodies.

Word of the rabbits leaked outside the walls of Ravensbruck thanks to notes passed from prisoners to sympathetic guards to their families, and so on.
But for a number of reasons their cause did not receive widespread attention for more than a decade.
First, Ravensbruck was one of the last concentration camps to close, its leaders had more time than most to deal with their incriminating paperwork, which informed and dictated the schedule of the war trials.
Second, the world was reeling at the sheer scale of attacks on Jews. Women and Catholics were not immediately the primary focus.
Third, there was not very much that could be done to support the women without funds and connections.
Cue Ferriday, who had spent time in France before the war.
In the 1950s she joined the Association of Deportees and Internees of the Resistance, a group started by four French women, including General Charles de Gaulle's teenage niece, who were all political prisoners in Ravensbruck.
The women, like many of Europe's underground resistance workers, were passionate about the rabbits' cause - something Ferriday had never heard of.
Once she became aware of the story in 1957, she contacted her friend Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review, who was paying to fly Hiroshima victims to the US to receive reconstructive surgery for their injuries.
Ferriday implored Cousins to also champion the rabbits of Ravenbruck. He agreed.
Fourteen of the women had either died of their wounds or were shot after their treatment.
The surviving 58 were taken to Sweden then back home to Poland after they were liberated.
Ferriday flew to Poland to meet with a prosecutor who represented Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and persuaded him to represent the rabbits too.
She then returned a number of times, with Norman Cousins, to meet the women and gain their trust.
Finally, she came back with an American doctor, who surveyed each of the victims and gave a prognosis for what could be done to treat them.
During that time, Ferriday publicized her cause, raising a hefty $5,000 (about $43,000 in today's money).
In December 1958, 35 of the women who wished to go flew to America. They stayed for a year.
They were spread about various cities across the US based on which hospitals were best for their medical needs.
Four of the women spent Christmas in Connecticut with Ferriday.
And all of them united in San Francisco at the end of the year to go on a road trip across America, stopping in Washington, D.C., to be hosted by senators for a dinner.
Cousins wrote three articles about the cause.
He said of Ferriday: 'Caroline Ferriday has an almost magical gift for inspiring confidence.
'Her first few days in Warsaw were not without their difficulties, but after awhile the project began to move.
'Then, at the end of the week, we received a cable saying that the Polish authorities were cooperative and gracious and that prospects were excellent.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3579886/How-American-socialite-helped-rehabilitate-dozens-young-Polish-women-endured-grotesque-experiments-Hitler-s-doctors-recreated-injuries-killed-henchman.html

How an American socialite helped rehabilitate the dozens of young Polish women who endured grotesque experiments as Hitler's doctors recreated injuries that killed his henchman
Caroline Ferriday flew 35 women to the US for treatment in 1958
The college-age Polish Catholic women were subjected to inhumane torture in the Nazi camp Ravensbruck, near Berlin
Nazi doctors broke their bones and amputated limbs without painkillers
It was all a test to see if they could recreate the injuries that killed Hitler's friend, then try to work out what drugs could have cured those injuries
When the women were liberated all documents had been destroyed
But Ferriday heard of their ordeal and championed their rehabilitation
By MIA DE GRAAF FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 14:47 EST, 8 May 2016 | UPDATED: 16:28 EST, 8 May 2016

Europeans Ignore Numerous Books About Threats to Cultural Survival

Winston Churchill

[From article]
While England Slept is the title of Winston Churchill’s 1938 book documenting the failure of England to counter Germany’s rearmament. Despite the gruesome price paid for ignoring Churchill’s warnings, postwar Europe has slumbered for decades while its cultural dysfunctions have nurtured the jihadist violence erupting across Europe. Last week’s attacks in Brussels, coming four months after the Paris attacks that killed 130, suggests there are more attacks to come. According to AP, 400-600 ISIS-trained terrorists are making their way to Europe.
Europe can’t say it wasn’t warned. In 2002 Oriana Fallaci published The Rage and the Pride, a passionate defense of Western civilization and an indictment of those who appease Islamic illiberalism. Ten years ago Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept gave first-hand reports of Europe’s feckless immigration policies that fostered and appeased Muslim radicalism and violence. A year later Claire Berlinski’s Menace in Europe and Melanie Phillips’ Londonistan sounded the same alarms. And there are the dystopian novels of Michel Houellebecq like Platform and last year’s Submission, which link Europe’s cultural and spiritual exhaustion to the rise of homegrown jihadism and Islamization.
An even more important prophet is Bat Ye’or, whose Eurabia (2005) documented “Europe’s evolution from a Judeo-Christian civilization, with important post-Enlightenment secular elements, into a post-Judeo-Christian civilization that is subservient to the ideology of jihad and the Islamic powers that propagate it.” The result is the dhimmi mentality of Europe’s elites, which manifests in word and deed Western inferiority to Islam, and guilt over alleged crimes against the Muslim world.
[. . .]
Islam’s nature, Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna wrote, is “to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations, and extend its power to the entire planet.” Fellow Muslim Brother Sayyid Qutb concurred: “Islam has a right to remove all those obstacles which are in its path.” The Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Iranian Revolution, agreed: “The great prophet of Islam carried in one hand the Koran and in the other a sword; the sword is for crushing the traitor and the Koran for guidance . . . Islam is a religion of blood for infidels but a religion of guidance for other people.”
[. . .]
As such, the jihadist imperative, despite anticolonial and nationalist rhetoric, was the foundational motivation for the military attacks on Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973, and today it still drives the terror campaigns against Israel waged by Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO. Jihad in the name of Allah sparked the Iranian Revolution of 1979,
[. . .]
Nor has the West been spared. Jihad lay at the heart of al Qaeda’s serial attacks on the U.S. and its military in 1993 (first World Trade Center bombing), 1996 (Khobar Towers), 1998 (East African embassies), 2000 (U.S.S. Cole), and the spectacular carnage of September 11, 2001, as well as inspiring the terrorist murders in Madrid (2004), London (2005), Fort Hood (2013), Boston (2013), San Bernardino (2015), Paris (January and November, 2015), and now Brussels. And don’t forget the torture, rape, and murders perpetrated by ISIS, the latest and most successful example of modern jihadism inspired by traditional Islamic doctrine.
We know the terrorists’ Islamic bona fides because they continually tell us why they want to kill us, in speeches, internet videos, and writings filled with Koranic verses and precedents from the life of Mohammed. Yet despite this evidence, elites in Europe and the U.S. refuse to confront the religious origins of jihadism, settling for the stale environmental and psychological causes dear to the materialist mentality. Thus they continue to chant the “nothing to do with Islam” mantra, as our president did in response to the Brussels attack. “ISIL is not ‘Islamic,’” the president asserted. “No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.” The first two clauses are patently false to Koranic commands and Islamic history, and the third is a non sequitur.
But the most powerful refutation of this common delusion is the scarcity of public protests by observant Muslims against the “extremists” who allegedly have “hijacked” their faith. After each jihadist atrocity there is typically more celebratory ululation and cries of “Allahu Akbar” in the Muslim world than marches against terrorism by heretical “extremists.” There are no “million Muslim marches,” no “not in our name movements,” no large scale Muslim attendance at memorial services for the victims. Yet perceived insults to Islam or Mohammed will produce violent mobs and lethal rampages.
Nor should this surprise us, when poll after poll registers significant pluralities and majorities of Muslims who approve of violence against infidels, and support the implementation of illiberal shari’a law. The latest evidence for such support from “moderate Muslims” comes from Brussels, where the planner of the Paris and Brussels attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was hiding in plain sight in the Muslim-dominant district of Molenbeek. Yet it still took four months for Belgian police to find him, and when they moved in for the arrest, they were met with rocks and bottles from residents who knew he was there and never tipped off the authorities.
That is the reality everyone knows who wants to know. But too many in the West do not want to know, just as those enamored of Soviet communism did not want to know about the gulags and show-trials and engineered famines that killed at least 20 million. Like yesterday’s communist sympathizers, today the sleepwalkers of Europe are trapped in their ideological fever-dreams––fashionable self-loathing, guilt for colonialism and imperialism, sentimental one-worldism, and noble-savage multicultural fantasies. Worst of all, they are crippled by a refusal to appreciate and defend their political and cultural inheritance––prosperity, human rights, freedom, consensual government, and tolerance––created by their ancestors.
The character of Michel in Houellebecq’s Platform (2001) articulates the failure of civilizational nerve that has paved the way for metastasizing jihadist violence. Europe’s forbears, the jaded hedonist Michel muses, “believed in the superiority of their civilization,” and “invented dreams, progress, utopia, the future.” But their “civilizing mission,” their “innocent sense of their natural right to dominate the world and direct the path of history had disappeared.” All that is left is the dwindling cultural capital being squandered by their descendants, who have lost “those qualities of intelligence and determination,” and who exist only for the present and its material pleasures. Like like Michel, they are “decadent” and “given over entirely to selfishness.”
But at least Michel, unlike the sleepwalking European elite, recognizes that this is cultural suicide: “I was aware, however, that such a situation was barely tenable, that people like me were incapable of ensuring the survival of a society. Perhaps, more simply, we were unworthy of life.”
The terrorists of Paris and Brussels agree.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/262318/europe-still-sleeps-and-europeans-still-die-bruce-thornton

EUROPE STILL SLEEPS, AND EUROPEANS STILL DIE
And Europe can’t say it wasn’t warned.
March 30, 2016

Bruce Thornton

Amazon's "Best Seller" Lists

[From article]
I would like to tell you about the biggest lie in book publishing. It appears in the biographies and social media profiles of almost every working “author” today. It’s the word “best seller.”
This isn’t about how The New York Times list is biased (though it is). This isn’t about how authors buy their way onto various national best-seller lists by buying their own books in bulk (though they do). No, this is about the far more insidious title of “Amazon Bestseller”—and how it’s complete and utter nonsense.
Here’s what happened in the book industry over the last few years: As Amazon has become the big dog in the book world, the “Amazon Bestseller” status has come to be synonymous with being an actual bestseller. This is not true, and I can prove it.
Last week, I put up a fake book on Amazon. I took a photo of my foot, uploaded to Amazon, and in a matter of hours, had achieved “No. 1 Best Seller” status, complete with the orange banner and everything.
How many copies did I need to sell be able to call up my mother and celebrate my newfound authorial achievements? Three. Yes, a total of three copies to become a best-selling author. And I bought two of those copies myself!
[. . .]
My company has helped sell over 5 million books and advised or managed book launches with every major publishing house, including Amazon.
We have important rules at my company about the projects we take on. We don’t work with authors whose books we wouldn’t read ourselves, and we don’t guarantee best-seller status. We say no to more work than we say yes to, but these principles help us avoid the gimmicky, one-hit-wonders who aren’t looking to write great books but instead are looking to trick people into thinking they have.
[. . .]
It used to be a real mark of distinction to hit the best-seller lists–because there were fewer lists and fewer authors
[. . .]
In most cases, your book not only has to be good enough for a legitimate publisher to publish it, but you have to outsell all the other books out there, past and present, even if you’re paying for it out of your pocket.
[. . .]
Because of the high bar, the term “bestselling author” was a term with some meaning.
[. . .]

Step 1: Writing my book (~2 seconds)
I didn’t feel like writing a book so I instead just took a photo of my foot. I called the book “Putting My Foot Down” and included one page with, you guessed it, a photo of my foot.
[. . .]
Gone are the days of having to be selected to put out a book. Gone are the days of having to go to a bookstore to see what is available. [. . .] These days, over one million books are published each year, with at least half of these self-published.
[. . .]
For the authors: I hope my story illustrates that the best marketing tactic you can use for a book is to write a great book that actually sells over the long term.
[. . .]
focus on crafting a book that will sell for decades.
[. . .]
Author’s update: Since writing this piece and making my debut, my book has inexplicably been removed from the Amazon catalogue. I have yet to hear from an Amazon representative on the matter, but it is clear that something is afoot.

http://observer.com/2016/02/behind-the-scam-what-does-it-takes-to-be-a-bestselling-author-3-and-5-minutes/

Behind the Scam: What Does It Take to Be a ‘Best-Selling Author’? $3 and 5 Minutes.
By Brent Underwood

02/23/16 10:00am

Children's Books Propaganda For Hillary Clinton

[From article]
One feature of the totalitarian mindset is a need to brainwash children into believing that The Great Leader was destined for importance from birth.
[. . .]
Aimed at ages 4 to 8, [it] is meant to instill in girls a thrilling sense of gender pride, even if the book (like Hillary’s campaign) has a difficult time identifying anything she has actually accomplished, other than giving speeches and being in the proximity of famous men.
[. . .]
On page one, we’re informed that “in the 1950s, it was a man’s world” and that girls “weren’t supposed to act smart, tough or ambitious.” Little Hillary, looking spunky in a bright-red dress, is set off against a gray and brown array of celebrated men of the time, including Nat King Cole and Jackie Robinson. “Only boys had no ceilings on their dreams,” go the harrumphing words.
So Nat King Cole, who was once attacked on stage during a concert by a gang of white supremacists, and Jackie Robinson, a sharecropper who on the baseball field had to listen to an opposing manager yell the N-word at him and shout “go back to the cotton fields,” had it easy compared to Hillary, the daughter of a wealthy businessman?
Actually, Hillary’s father was not wealthy, and not really that successful in his drapery business. Some years were good, but others provided little income. I suspect the economic insecurity Hillary experienced growing up has a lot to do with her compulsive need to acquire wealth and the trappings of power. Her father, a white male, is disqualified from victim status, but Hillary, a female, was truly a victim:
After “upstaging boys in class” — not just succeeding but “upstaging boys,” because it’s important that your little girl learn to see life as an us-against-them situation
[. . .]


Compare With Mao (below)

Girls are also told that, [. . .] they should be excited about Hillary’s Arkansas work “at a top-notch law firm,” even though the two people she is pictured with, Vince Foster and Webb Hubbell, respectively committed suicide and were imprisoned amid scandals.
[. . .]



I have to wonder about the poor boys who are assigned this book in school, or who have to sit and listen to it read to a class. They are cast as oppressors who have it easy in life. But that seems to be thrust of most government schools in this era, perhaps one reason why boys fare much more poorly in schools than girls.

January 31, 2016
Hillary hagiography for immature minds
By Thomas Lifson

New Book Discussion On US-Israel Relationship

[From article]
One of the most important points to be made in the book is that presidents, such as Eisenhower, Nixon, Carter, Bush 41, and Obama, were not successful when they chose to redefine the relationship with Israel in order to gain with the Arabs. Yet, those presidents who cooperated with Israel did not have the expected negative fallout with the Arab countries. Ross emphasizes in the book, “As the scope of U.S. strategic and military cooperation with Israel has grown to unprecedented levels, the U.S. presence in a number of Arab Gulf states has also dramatically increased.”
[. . .]
Regarding the Palestinians, President Obama, according to Ross, “sees them as too weak to criticize and therefore reserves his criticism for Israel. The problem is when you give them a pass it becomes difficult for them to compromise because they also see themselves as the victim. If you always give them a pass and never hold them accountable why would they change their behavior? I remember commenting, if they are too weak to be criticized, to weak to be held accountable, then they are too weak to have a state.
[. . .]
Doomed to Succeed offers compelling advice on how to understand the priorities of Arab leaders, Israel, and how future administrations might best shape U.S. policy in that light. This book is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the U.S.-Israel relationship.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/understanding_the_usisraeli_relationship.html

December 29, 2015
Understanding the U.S./Israeli Relationship
By Elise Cooper

Book Predicted Misguided White House Anti American Policies

[From letter]

Published in 2010, most everything you said would happen is happening today. Obama is more concerned in being an “internationalist” than the leader of our country. Is more concerned about apologizing for the Islamist than protecting Americans. Is more concerned about denigrating America than an enemy. More concerned about protecting Hamas than Israel; and of course, he sold out the free world by ramming through the Iran agreement harmful to the free world.

http://pamelageller.com/2015/11/the-post-american-presidency-the-obama-administrations-war-on-america-3.html/

The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America
ByPAMELA GELLER 

November 20, 2015

Psychiatric Diagnosis of a Leader

[From article]
Does this sound like someone we all know?
“Poverty of emotional feelings, lack of remorse or shame, superficial charm, pathological lying, egocentricity, a lack of insight, absence of nervousness, an inability to love, impulsive antisocial acts, failure to learn from experience.”
It’s a summary (by Richard Lynn) of the first ten of sixteen behavioral traits of the psychopathic personality from the classic work on the subject, Hervey Cleckley’s The Mask of Sanity. The book will be seventy-five years old next year.
[. . .]

 

Of course like all personality disorders, psychopathology is distributed widely, in less virulent forms, across a large population. Nearly everyone feels depressed occasionally, but only about 7% of Americans are clinically depressed. However, the distribution of psychopaths or sociopaths (Cleckley in later editions uses the words interchangeably) is not geographically random. There is undoubtedly a high concentration in Washington, D.C. But even among Democrats, few display so blatantly so many of the classic features described by the Georgia psychiatrist as the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
[. . .]



With a few notable exceptions, Jack Cashill’s Deconstruction Obama, Stanley Kurtz’s Radical-in-Chief, Dinesh d’Souza’s The Roots of Obama’s Rage, Steve Sailer’s America’s Half-Blood Prince, biographies of the President have flown to the remainder table at warp speed -- deservedly. One day, when candid, thorough, dispassionate studies of our first post-racial President are written, we’ll have a better idea of the psychopathology this cold-blooded seducer of a nation. Before they sit down with their notes, Obama’s future biographers might want to take a look at The Mask of Sanity.



http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/10/the_mask_of_sanity_psychopathinchief.html

October 12, 2015
The Mask of Sanity: Psychopath-in-Chief?
By Jay Michaels

Illegal Aliens Protest Ann Counter At Book Signing

[From article]
Other activists unfurled a banner reading “Adios, Ann Coulter,” as another yelled at the author, “Go back to Europe!”
Through it all, Coulter remained unruffled and cheerful as she signed books, posed with her fans for photographs, and ignored the protesters.
Security eventually escorted the activists outside, where they began harassing customers leaving the store with their signed copies of Coulter’s book.
The protesters chanted to Coulter’s supporters, “Shame on you.”
One protester screamed at a couple leaving the store, “Don’t have kids! Don’t have kids!”
After the Incident, Coulter was interviewed by Breitbart News.
“You have to understand, screaming and defacing things is how Latin Americans express disagreement,” she said. “At least as long as they were destroying books and screaming in a book store, they weren’t molesting any 4-year-olds.”

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2015/07/03/video-ann-coulters-sharp-tongued-revenge-as-illegals-wreak-havoc-scream-rip-books-at-signing-220459




Video: Ann Coulter’s sharp-tongued revenge as illegals wreak havoc, SCREAM, rip books at signing
July 3, 2015
Michael Dorstewitz

Comedian Writes Book Explaining How To Be Funny, Hahaha

This is like teaching leadership and how to be a great teacher. Great business model. Henry Louis Mencken revealed, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." Best comment about humorless people--"They need the witless protection program."

[From article]
Wit privilege refers to societal privileges that benefit witty people in ways that are unavailable to the witless. It continues to be a potent force in the United States. The witty elite use jokes and anecdotes to win elections, spread ideologies, and market their services and wares. All too often, the witless are the butts of the jokes. They are at a severe disadvantage in virtually every area of their sad lives.
Witty people are more likeable, more popular, and have greater social status. They tend to be cheerful, and they receive more respect and better service across the board. From bankers to beauticians, from the police to pediatricians, from clerks to computer techs, people who provide services of any kind prefer to do business with funny people rather than the grumpy.
The witty are also considered more attractive than the witless. That’s why comedians never have problems finding spouses, or second, or third, or fourth spouses. A review of personal ads will inevitably show that the most desired trait for a potential date is a good sense of humor. Nobody writes personal ads like this: “Seeking somber person to engage in serious conversation. Must hate laughter.”
[. . .]
People who know how to tell jokes and enjoy a good laugh live happier and healthier lives. The witty are able to handle stress and anxiety better than the witless. Laughter is widely regarded as the best medicine, and the witty get it for free. The primary reason comedy isn’t part of healthcare is that they want to keep it to themselves. Meanwhile, people who suffer from humor deficiency pay exorbitant amounts for the prescription and non-prescription drugs they need just to get through the day.
[. . .]
It is deplorable that humorous people have advantages over people who are not funny and who may never become funny. People born witless are human beings entitled to the same freedoms and opportunities as the witty.
The longstanding and systemic abuses of power enabled through wit privilege are a form of discrimination which must be addressed. In the interest of fairness and decency, if an equitable solution cannot be found, the laughter must stop.

Humor 101: How To Tell Jokes (kindle)

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/06/wit_privilege_and_americas_war_on_the_witless.html

June 4, 2015
Wit Privilege and America's War on the Witless
By Danny Murphy

Mindless Authors Support Censorship

[From article]
These six writers have done a great disservice to the vital principle of free expression by their decision. They may not be precisely guilty of intolerance but by their refusal to take part in the PEN ceremony they have shown not only a political bias, to which they, like everyone else, is entitled, but more importantly a lack of courage. Adherence to the doctrine of free speech and courage in Western societies should mean allowing and even bestowing awards on expressions with which one does not agree. The six writers are not entitled to receive their own Freedom of Expression Courage Award.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/04/poisoning_the_free_speech_well.html

April 29, 2015
Poisoning the Free Speech Well
By Michael Curtis

Muslim Terrorists Burn Iraq Library, Destroy Thousands of Historical Manuscripts and Books

ISIS Burns 8000 Rare Books and Manuscripts in Mosul
[From article]

While the world was watching the Academy Awards ceremony, the people of Mosul were watching a different show. They were horrified to see ISIS members burn the Mosul public library. Among the many thousands of books it housed, more than 8,000 rare old books and manuscripts were burned.
“ISIS militants bombed the Mosul Public Library. They used improvised explosive devices,” said Ghanim al-Ta'an, the director of the library. Notables in Mosul tried to persuade ISIS members to spare the library, but they failed.
The former assistant director of the library Qusai All Faraj said that the Mosul Public Library was established in 1921, the same year that saw the birth of the modern Iraq. Among its lost collectionswere manuscripts from the eighteenth century, Syriac books printed in Iraq's first printing house in the nineteenth century, books from the Ottoman era, Iraqi newspapers from the early twentieth century and some old antiques like an astrolabe and sand glass used by ancient Arabs. The library had hosted the personal libraries of more than 100 notable families from Mosul over the last century.
During the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the library was looted and destroyed by mobs. However, the people living nearby managed to save most of its collections and rich families bought back the stolen books and they were returned to the library, All Faraj added.
“900 years ago, the books of the Arab philosopher Averroes were collected before his eyes...and burned. One of his students started crying while witnessing the burning. Averroes told him... the ideas have wings...but I cry today over our situation,” said Rayan al-Hadidi, an activist and a blogger from Mosul. Al-Hadidi said that a state of anger and sorrow are dominating Mosul now. Even the library's website was suspended.
“What a pity! We used to go to the library in the 1970s. It was one of the greatest landmarks of Mosul. I still remember the special pieces of paper where the books’ names were listed alphabetically,” said Akil Kata who left Mosul to exile years ago.
On the same day the library was destroyed, ISIS abolished another old church in Mosul: the church of Mary the Virgin. The Mosul University Theater was burned as well, according to eyewitnesses. In al-Anbar province, Western Iraq, the ISIS campaign of burning books has managed to destroy 100,000 titles, according to local officials. Last December, ISIS burned Mosul University’s central library.

http://news.yahoo.com/isis-burns-8000-rare-books-030900856.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter


ISIS Burns 8000 Rare Books and Manuscripts in Mosul

By Riyadh Mohammed

February 23, 2015 10:15 PM

John Gotti, Jr. Is Writing Memoir

Photo: STEPHEN BARCELO FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

John A. (Junior) Gotti is seen in 2009 outside his Oyster Bay home.
[From article]
The son of late John (Dapper Don) Gotti bares all in his tell-all memoir, “Shadow of My Father.”
From his father’s love of the life to what it was like growing up Gotti, Junior’s tome provides a rare, stunning window into America’s most notorious mob family.
I was about seven at the time I visited my father in Lewisburg Penitentiary. He was there on a hijacking bid; and my mother, my brother Frank, and my two sisters were there to see him. I didn’t understand the concept of jail, so seven-year-old me believed my father when he told me that the place was a barracks and he and his friends there with him were constructing it. He would be home when the construction was finished.
With him in jail were his lifelong friend Angelo Ruggiero, as well as Frank DeCicco, Mickey Boy Paradiso, and George Remini. When I went there to visit, it was like a family reunion. As kids, we were allowed to visit from table to table in the visiting area, which you can picture as being similar to a school lunchroom type setup.
It was around Halloween and my father asked me during the visit, what I was going to be — for Halloween.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/john-junior-gotti-growing-son-john-gotti-article-1.2082804

John (Junior) Gotti on growing up son of mob boss John Gotti: memoir
The son of late John (Dapper Don) Gotti bares all — from his childhood to his initiation into the Gambino crime family to his plea deal — in his tell-all memoir, 'Shadow of My Father.'
BY JOHN A. (JUNIOR) GOTTI 

SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, January 18, 2015, 12:01 AM

Prominent Author Exposed as Fraud

Sounds like all of the character assassination broadcast about me for 44 years. But little of it was written so I am unable to fight it. It exists in the minds of most everyone I knew, know and met. And they are not talking. They just shun me and ridicule me on behalf of the character assassins.  I read the book that was shredded, about Barbara Hutton. Amazing.

[From article]
Given the abundant evidence that C. David Heymann was extraordinarily reckless with the truth, why does CBS continue to sell his books, and push them on teachers? Most publishers rely on their authors to be truthful, and diligent in their research, and most nonfiction books are not fact-checked by publishers. But when a red flag is raised, publishers have an obligation to their readers to investigate. And when a sea of red flags floods their lobby, they need to start pulping the fiction.

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/09/05/c-david-heymanns-career-serial-fabulist-266876.html#.U_5ZfC30vzQ.email

C. David Heymann’s Lies About JFK and Jackie, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor
By David Cay Johnston

August 27, 2014 6:34 AM EDT

Reading Online Differs From Reading Books

[From article]
The 2011 Freshman Survey from UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute found that the top reason for attending college was "to be able to get a better job" (86 percent of respondents, up from 70 percent just five years earlier).
[. . .]
(Adult fiction remains the best-selling category of e-books in both the United States and Britain.)
[. . .]



The bottom line is that while digital devices may be fine for reading that we don’t intend to muse over or reread, text that requires what’s been called "deep reading" is nearly always better done in print.
[. . .]
In this country, 26 percent indicated they were likely to multitask while reading in print, compared with 85 percent when reading on-screen.

http://chronicle.com/article/How-E-Reading-Threatens/147661/

July 14, 2014
How E-Reading Threatens Learning in the Humanities
By Naomi S. Baron

NYC Librarians Reveal Notorious Overdue Book Patrons

[From article]
“It was 36 years, one month and seven days late,” said Louise Lareau, the managing librarian at the Children’s Center on 42nd Street, of a stained copy of “Making the Best of It: A Common Sense Guide to Negotiating a Divorce” — withdrawn during the Carter administration and returned in May 2013.
“He very sheepishly handed it over,” she recalled of the elderly man, who said he found the book in his attic. “He asked, ‘What are the fines?’ ”
But since the book’s withdrawal predated the library’s automation system, there was no record he even took it out.
“So he made a $50 donation to the library. He just threw the money and was out the door. He was rather mortified and embarrassed by the whole thing,” she recalled, adding he never said whether he was the one getting divorced.

http://nypost.com/2014/08/02/librarians-reveal-nycs-most-insanely-overdue-books/

Librarians reveal NYC’s most insanely overdue books
By Gary Buiso
New York Post
August 2, 2014 | 5:24pm

Publishers Refused Book on Diseases and Illegal Immigrants

[From article]
The establishment media’s refusal to acknowledge that once-contained or eradicated diseases are re-entering the U.S. through the latest flood of illegal aliens isn’t a surprise to Michael Savage, who earned a doctorate in epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley before becoming a top nationally syndicated talk-radio host.
“What the liberal media is hiding from you can be dangerous for your safety, your security and your health,” he told his listeners.
After earning his doctorate in 1978 and writing six books, Savage pitched to publishers a book titled “Immigrants and Epidemics,” which he wrote with the dean of a “prestigious public health university.”
“Although all my previous books had done well,” Savage recalled, “all publishers in New York City in 1982 said we cannot publish a book on immigrants and epidemics, no matter how well (documented) or factually true it is. We can’t publish it for political reasons.”
The rejection angered him, he said, and was one of the reasons he eventually decided to go into talk radio, in 1994.

http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/savage-media-hiding-illegal-alien-disease-threat/

SAVAGE: MEDIA 'HIDING' ILLEGAL-ALIEN DISEASE THREAT
'I am not a racist. I am not an alarmist. I am an epidemiologist'

Michael Savage

July 3, 2014

First Bookless Library Opens In San Antonio, TX

http://www.10news.com/lifestyle/bookless-library-first-all-digital-public-library-bibliotech-opens-in-texas01062014

Bookless library: First all-digital public library BiblioTech opens in Texas
Posted: 01/06/2014
Last Updated: 21 hours ago
ABC News San Diego CA

* * *

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/headlines/20140103-nation-s-first-bookless-library-opens-in-san-antonio.ece

Nation's first bookless library opens in San Antonio
PAUL J. WEBER
Associated Press
Dallas News
Published: 03 January 2014 12:10 PM
Updated: 03 January 2014 12:10 PM

Book Recommends Submissive Women

[From article]
The book, which was a bestseller in Italy, preaches a message of "loyal obedience, generosity and submission" on the part of the new wife and offers nuggets of advice for the newly-wed on how to please one's husband.
[. . .]
One passage suggests: "We [women] like humiliation because it is for a greater good."
[. . .]
Granada's Archbishop Francisco Javier Martinez, who chose to publish the book has defended its content and insists that the furore surrounding it is "ridiculous and hypocritical" in a society that allows abortion, which he argues is a much clearer example of violence against women.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/10511139/Book-on-submissive-wives-becomes-hit-in-Spain.html

Book on 'submissive wives' becomes hit in Spain
Book that advises new wives "to be submissive" proves surprise success in Spain but angers feminists
By Fiona Govan, Madrid
2:39PM GMT 11 Dec 2013

NJ Woman Repeatedly Raped By Father Writes Book

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2470141/Aziza-Kibibi-35-music-video-director-father-got-pregnant-times-plans-write-memoir.html

Woman, 35, whose music-video director father got her pregnant five times plans to write memoir about her childhood abuse
Aziza Kibibi, 35, was raped by her father Aswad Ayinde starting at the young age of 10
Over the years, he fathered four of her five children
In July, Ayinde was sentenced to a combined 90 years in prison for abusing both Kibibi and her sister
Kibibi is now married, going to school and running a baking business in East Orange, New Jersey
She is currently fundraising to self-publish her memoir, Unashamed
Kibibi also recently won a $10,000 grant to finish college
By ASHLEY COLLMAN
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 08:51 EST, 21 October 2013 | UPDATED: 09:25 EST, 21 October 2013