Read Beat (...and repeat)

Most of us assume the motion picture camera was brought to us by Thomas Edison or the Lumiere Brothers out of France. But Paul Fischer makes a case for Louis LePrince, "a self-taught generalist" who lived in France, England and the United States.
In fact, Fischer notes in his book, "The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures" that LePrince was on his way to join his family in New York to announce his invention when he mysteriously disappeared.
The year was 1890 and LePrince had boarded a train headed for Paris. From there he was going to the United States where he'd already spent a number of years. But LePrince was never heard from again.
His family initially assumed he was simply delayed before realizing, weeks later, that no one had any idea where he was.
Shortly after LePrince's disappearance, Edison made his announcement of a movie camera that bore a striking likeness to the contraption that LePrince had spent years developing.
Fischer provides plenty of history in his work, noting that LePrince not only had patents and a working model of his camera (that still exists) but photographic proof of motion film years before the Lumiere's.
Other central characters in this real-life mystery include Lizzie, Louis' wife, and other members of the family. You also learn about other inventors' efforts in the late 1800s, a time of epic discovery and change.
History may have forgotten LePrince but Fischer certainly hasn't and delivers a fascinating story that readers aren't likely to forget.

Another book on the Titanic? Daniel Stone, the author of "Sinkable," admits there's a fixation with that ship that collided with an iceberg in 1912 and, regrettably, sank. But that's the focus of the book: it's about shipwrecks and the most famous of them all remains the Titanic.
Stone, a former staff writer for the National Geographic, wonders aloud what is it about the Titanic that makes it the poster child for disasters at sea.
He tells Steve Tarter that he's finally come up with the reason the Titanic has been enshrined in history. "There were 1,500 people who died on board but there were 712 survivors--many of them children who would go on to tell their story for decades," said Stone.
Stone's book details other major shipwrecks, accidents that haven't caught the public's eye like the Titanic. There's the  Waratah, for example, sometimes referred to as "Australia's Titanic", a 500-foot steamer with 211 passengers on board that was on its way to Africa before disappearing without a trace in 1909. 
Stone also relays the story of the USS Maine, the ship sent to Havana Harbor that exploded and sank in 1898, setting off the Spanish-American War. The Maine was later patched up, raised and sunk in deeper waters in 1911, he said.
The sea can be a dangerous place. More people have died on boats and ships than ever will be killed in automobile accidents, related Stone, pointing out that passage by sea, once the most common way to travel long distances, was often steeped in peril.
There's still danger today, he noted. The giant container ships that ply the oceans bringing goods to anxious consumers will occasionally disappear but we don't hear about it, said Stone. More often, individual containers, often stacked high on these ships, are lost at sea, he said.
Shipwrecks stay in the news. Earlier this year Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance, a long-lost treasure, was found near the South Pole, said Stone.

When John Ikerd talks about industrial agriculture in the United States, the professor emeritus at the University of Missouri is referring to a farm system supported by big business, the government and most schools of agriculture across the nation.

“We are told that industrialization is the inevitable consequence of human enlightenment and technological progress,” said Ikerd. “But the industrialization of agriculture is neither enlightened nor progressive.”

Ikerd is a believer in the small farm and in sustainability. His book, “Small Farms Are Real Farms,” is a battle cry, a call for a revolution in agriculture. 

But Ikerd, who spent 30 years in various professional positions at North Carolina State University, Oklahoma State University and the University of Georgia along with Mizzou, knows what he’s up against.

“The sustainability revolution is not one that will be fought on the battlefield, in the streets, or even necessarily in the halls of Congress. Instead it’s a battle for the hearts and minds of the American people,” said Ikerd, who believes the stage is set for change.

The present industrial model is propped up by government subsidies, he said. People are still hungry in this country while many others are suffering from health problems due to the food being raised. Our rural communities have been devastated by industrial agriculture while environmental issues abound, said Ikerd.

The idea is not to simply get bigger and bigger, the ways farms have been developing in this country but to adopt a sustainable model that allows for smaller farms to prosper, he said.

“The industrialization of farming—with its mechanization, hired labor, genetic selection, irrigation, agrochemicals, antibiotics and hormones, and more recently, genetic engineering—is the result of farmers’ historic struggle to establish control over the chaos of nature,” said Ikerd.

“The failure of industrialization is seen in the ever-growing ecological and social costs, which are not reflected in food prices but borne by society in general,” he said.

 "There is an alternative," said Ikerd, referring to a system that involves small farms, a system which can be financially successful. "Small farmers focus on creating value, as well as reducing costs--they are niche marketers. They give individual consumers what they want, rather than produce bulk commodities for mass markets," he said.

Those Vietnamese refugees able to escape from their war-torn homeland in the 1970s found a refuge on the Texas Gulf Coast where they engaged in shrimping, something they knew from experience.
Their story is described by Kirk Johnson in "The Fishermen and the Dragon" as these shrimpers run up against the opposition of the white fishermen who resent the arrival of the Asian newcomers.
In an effort to expel the Vietnamese fishermen, the Klu Klux Klan is brought in to run a two-year campaign of threats and violence.
This all plays out against a backdrop of pollution in the bays that have sustained generations of shrimpers and crabbers. Petrochemical plants, oil spills and the continued dumping of chemicals goes on unabated as one lone woman fights to stop the environmental degradation.
Johnson told Steve Tarter that his book is a study in who America is for, who gets the benefit of the democratic ideals that are held so highly.  

The NRA is characterized by NPR investigative reporter Tim Mak as "the most powerful political advocacy group in the country" but he adds it's also an organization that's stumbled badly in recent years.
In "Misfire," Mak relates some of the problems--lavish spending by NRA executives including CEO Wayne LaPierre--while rank-and-file employees of the NRA, a non-profit, are underpaid.
Having performed hundreds of interviews from inside the NRA, Mak told Steve Tarter that after the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2011, the organization went from taking a gun-rights stand that would seek to involve Democrats on occasion to a "culture war" organization that relied strictly on conservative support.
The NRA spent $30 million on the Donald Trump candidacy in 2016, said Mak, but, ironically, was less successful during the Trump administration than in previous years.
Mak also points out how the NRA was "played" by Russian intelligence as NRA executives made a 2015 trip to Moscow, a by-invitation affair that was packed with meetings with Russian government officials, diplomats, and oligarchs--all seeking influence in American politics. 
Despite all this, even a crippled NRA remains a political powerhouse, warns Mak.

An enrolled member of the Ottawa Tribe and a former U.S. Air Force officer, D.J. Eagle Bear Vanas talks about the concept of the Native American warrior spirit. 

“A true warrior is not the toughest or bravest person in the room,” Vanas told Steve Tarter. ”A true warrior is committed to self-mastery, transforms setbacks into opportunities for achievement, refuses to quit, and most importantly, always fights for something bigger than the self,” he said.

In his book, “The Warrior Within,” Vanas details the way of the warrior for everyday use.  Having spoken at Fortune 500 companies, tribal nations, and even at the White House, Vanas offers the same encouragement he provides to organizations on how to apply the warrior spirit principles at work.

“Courage is not about an absence of fear but conquering it,” he said.

Vanas also warns his audience to stay positive. “The information and ideas we consume can fuel the spirit of a warrior or a worrier,” he said, advocating music and laughter as “medicine” that can help the body, mind and spirit.

Also, warriors don’t retire, said Vanas, pointing to the importance of elders to help the young with daily challenges.

In an effort to boost literacy, Maya Payne Smart has written a book to help parents get children started on the reading road.
"Reading For Our Lives" is a guide book for parents, particularly helpful since the brain architecture for reading develops rapidly during infancy. Early language experiences are critical to building it, she told Steve Tarter. 
"Many people believe that at some point everyone learns to read but the reality is that for many people it requires additional instruction to get there," said Smart.
"When people struggle, schools aren't equipped to help them catch up. There aren't people in a high school building whose job it is to help kids read before they graduate," she said.
Reading aloud to our kids is good but it's not enough to ensure school readiness, said Smart, who offers personal stories, historical accounts, scholarly research, and practical tips to help parents develop young readers.
Smart noted that Frederick Douglass, the former slave who became the great advocate of civil rights, made a special effort to learn to read and, as a result, became one of the 19th century's greatest orators.
Douglass said the ability to read translated to a need for freedom, she said.

It occurred to historian David Stewart, who has written extensively on the founding of America (books on James Madison, Aaron Burr and the U.S. Constitution) that, when asked by readers who the most important person was in the forming of America, his answer was George Washington.
"After giving that answer a couple of dozen times, I realized I might be missing the point," Stewart told Steve Tarter.
Now Stewart has delivered a book on the single most important figure in the formation of the country.
While giving Washington his due: winning elections unanimously when "a unanimous election was no more common in the late eighteenth century than it is today," he also details the fact that Washington managed almost 700 slaves from 1760 on at his Mount Vernon plantation. Of that number, 46 tried to escape, noted Stewart.
Yet Washington opposed the importation of slaves as early as 1774 and freed his slaves at his death. But Stewart also notes that Washington's statements and actions about slavery "would always be inconsistent."
Stewart's efforts to liberate the man from "the mists of myth" make for a fascinating interview.

Douglas Wolk has read all 27,000 Marvel comics. He says it's all one big story but who among us would dare to complete such a story with all its mutants, monsters and mysteries?
"All of the Marvels" is Wolk's book celebrating the feat. It's also a tidy comic history that dates back to 1961 when Marvel burst upon the scene with eight issues a month (now they produce 50 a month).
"All of the Marvels" strolls through the years, highlighting special social and comic issues along the way. Wolk's not hearing the line that comic books are dying, by the way. Indeed, he says the industry is thriving with digital comics "a new frontier."
Those Marvel movies, the blockbusters that Hollywood depends on these days, hasn't pre-empted the comics but augmented them, he says.
Wolk marvels at Marvel's success. "Marvel has moved to the center of our popular culture. Everyone knows who Spider-Man is," he told Steve Tarter.
"It's Marvel, Star Wars and Harry Potter and not much else," he said of that popular culture.
Marvel, meanwhile, continues to fascinate Wolk, noting that he's a fan of a more recent creation, Ms. Marvel, a Pakistani-American Muslim teen superhero.
  

You just can’t pass up a guidebook to smell. After all, they say smell is the sense that comes closest to pure perception. Smell can collapse space and time, unlocking memories and transporting us to worlds both new and as familiar as a whiff of the old gym. 

We can recognize different smells--the bright tang of citrus, freshly sharpened pencils, the fish counter but do we understand how and why we smell?
 
 In “Revelations in Air,” Jude Stewart takes us on a journey into the weird and wonderful world of smell. Beginning with lessons on the incredible biology and history of how our noses work, Stewart teaches us how to use our noses so that we can smell better. 

While humans lack the ability of the average dog, people aren't bad, said Stewart, noting that a person can differentiate from 80 million to a trillion different odors.

When people lost their sense of smell as a result of covid, Stewart told Steve Tarter that it often led to other problems such as overeating junk foods in an effort to experience familiar smells and tastes.

Tarter recalled a childhood visit to Lake George in New York where the idyllic lake was overshadowed by the fumes emanating from a paper mill on the lake.  

Stewart noted that smell-induced memories tend to be earlier than other memories.

In her book, she breaks down smells into categories such as funky or pungent, challenging readers--and smellers-- to add their own items to the list.

With engaging exercises for listeners to refine their own skills, "Revelations in Air" offers a doorway into the surprising, pleasurable, and unfamiliar landscape of smell.