reviews

America's Great Novelist Speaks Out... Author:  Mark Twain The list of noted advocates is a short one, including Woody Allen, Truman Capote and Cosmo Kramer.  Little did I know that Mark Twain belongs on the list.  While on a tour of Europe in 1879 he gave a speech to a Parisian men’s club entitled, “Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism.”  As biblical scholars will remember, Onan was killed by God for refusing to father children with his sister-in-law, instead he “spilled his seed” on the ground.   Since that time, “self abuse” has been condemned by the church and society [...]

The Past Lives On... Author:  Sanford Tweedie Sometimes adventures just happen to people, other times they go out of their way to find them.  Either way, in the hands of a talented writer, the result can be enlightening reading.  In the fall of 2000, Sanford Tweedie – a writing professor at Rowan University in New Jersey – accepted a Fulbright scholarship and moved his family to Erfurt, Germany, a city of about 200,000 people that resided in the southwest corner of East Germany until reunification in 1990. Tweedie had visited Germany before, but had never ventured behind the defunct Iron [...]

Traditional vs. Modern... Author:  Jared Diamond What are the best things about living in a modern civilization?  It’s not hard to come up with compelling list of benefits when one compares modern living with the lives of our more primitive hunting, gathering and farming ancestors.  But maybe it’s not that simple.  Maybe traditional society – which was all there was for the first six million years of human existence – features some assets that have been left behind in the inexorable drive toward “progress”.  Fortunately, there are still some people who continue to live in the traditional way and they [...]