Our cherished culturally shared beliefs stem from a variety of sources, many of which propagate old wives’ tales, myths, self-serving fantasies, innocent fallacies, or sheer nonsense. History is replete with stories of great men and events that either never happened or didn’t happen the way we were told they did. Such items are part of our common knowledge. They are taught in schools. They are passed down to us by our families and friends and have become part of shared cultural knowledge, accepted without question. And they are wrong. Here, Herb Reich explodes 200 myths that you probably accept as fact, including: Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player in the major leagues. The captain of a ship can perform marriages. Mussolini’s trains ran on time. Charles Lindbergh was the first man to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday in 1839. The Mason-Dixon line was drawn to separate the slave South from the free North. Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag. Cleopatra was Egyptian. Chicago is called “the windy city” because of the gusts off Lake Michigan. It is a cliché that history is written by the victors. But Don’t You Believe It! will demonstrate that it is also written by teachers, by newsmen, by heirs, by hucksters, and occasionally by someone who has a lousy memory or an axe to grind.
What does the number 67 mean to you? Do you associate it with a year? After all, 1967 was the year The Beatles released both Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour. It was also the year the first Super Bowl was held and in which Ernesto “Che” Guevara was executed. But maybe the year 1967 isn’t the first thing that comes to your mind. Maybe when you think about the number 67, you think of the . . . Age of George Washington at the time of his death, on December 14, 1799. Atomic number of the chemical element holmium, symbol Ho. Number of counties in each of the states of Alabama, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Most doubles hit in a season in Major League Baseball history (Earl Webb, Boston Red Sox, 1931). Number worn by partners Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin in the dance marathon scene in the 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Estimate number of miles, in millions, from Venus to the sun In Numberpedia, author Herb Reich examines all of the random, seemingly unrelated trivia related to numbers 1 to 100 in painstaking detail, revealing lore, myths, and every bizarre factoid you’d ever want to know about those numbers—except, of course, those concerning math.
Debunks commonly accepted fallacies from history, including that George Washington was the first U.S. president, Johnny Appleseed was a fictitious character, and a cold can be brought on by chilly weather.
Complaining, psychologists assert, is good for your health. It acts as a relief valve to help dispel the pent up energy generated by our daily frustrations, personal peeves, and life-long vexations. Now curmudgeons, gripers, grousers, and complainers have their own place to discard their tension! 101 Things That Piss Me Off is the manifesto guaranteed to help even the crabbiest soul let loose. Here is just a sample list of items guaranteed to piss anyone off: •Aggressive drivers who give the finger •People who graduated from assertiveness courses •Elevator music •Having the best senators money can buy •Appliances that fail the day after the warranty expires •Nineteen-year-old tech millionaires •People who are more inept than we give them credit for
History is replete with stories of great people and extraordinary events that either never happened or didn’t happen the way we were told they did. Such news or embellishment thereof are part of what we consider common knowledge – information taught in schools and passed down to us. And they are wrong. How about these gems: The winter of 1777-78 was the coldest winter in Valley Forge in years, and many Continental soldiers died from the sub-zero weather: LIE Mohandas Gandhi held a lifelong belief in nonviolence, that characterized the struggle for Indian independence: LIE The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the mostr destructive air strikes against Japan during World War II: LIE Lies, Lies, and More Lies is a humorous, witty, and charming collection of anecdotes surrounding history, pop culture, and more. It is a book that will have readers questioning what they’ve learned or been told and, for these 250 facts anyway, the book advises you: Don’t You Believe It!
Debunks commonly accepted fallacies, including that St. Patrick was Irish, the captain of a ship can perform marriages, and Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player in the major leagues.
History is replete with stories of great people and extraordinary events that either never happened or didn’t happen the way we were told they did. Such news or embellishment thereof are part of what we consider common knowledge – information taught in schools and passed down to us. And they are wrong. How about these gems: The winter of 1777-78 was the coldest winter in Valley Forge in years, and many Continental soldiers died from the sub-zero weather: LIE Mohandas Gandhi held a lifelong belief in nonviolence, that characterized the struggle for Indian independence: LIE The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the mostr destructive air strikes against Japan during World War II: LIE Lies, Lies, and More Lies is a humorous, witty, and charming collection of anecdotes surrounding history, pop culture, and more. It is a book that will have readers questioning what they’ve learned or been told and, for these 250 facts anyway, the book advises you: Don’t You Believe It!
Adam Czerniakow heads the governing body of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto, the Judenrat. He is frustrated by his role of implementing irrational Nazi orders, by his inability to protect a half-million sick and starving ghetto inhabitants. Now he is being forced to help Hitler in a plot to defeat Russia. Sam Bender, a 90s businessman and family man, has his own demons. He is haunted by his past relationships with a brother serving time for murder, and a father who died years ago leaving a trail of deceit and conflict. Suddenly, his father and brother are thrust to the forefront of his life. These two worlds, separated by half a century in time and thousands of miles, suddenly collide. Bender inadvertently acquires a long lost diary. Through it, he begins to learn about an isolated Jews struggle against overwhelming odds to stop German aggression. At the same time, Bender and others become targets of neo-Nazis bent on taking whatever steps are necessary - burglary, assault, kidnapping, murder - to recover the diary. * * * * * Bender is outwardly congenial and affable, ten years into a comfortable second marriage, devoted to his and Rivas kids. But demons gnaw at his gut. He silently reviles a brother who was his childhood tormentor. And he fights a constant urge to examine the residue locked in the wall safe in his den - the legacy of his father. On a business trip to Rome, Bender ends up with a small, tattered notebook whose contents are scribbled in a language he cant read. When he tries to return the book, he discovers its previous owner, Dominick Sorrento, has been murdered. He asks Don Slatter, an English professor and part-time Eastern European translator, to look at the book. Slatter determines it is a Polish diary written during the World War II era, and agrees to translate it. But others want the book. Sams home is ransacked, a smoke bomb is planted in the Slatter house, and one of Rivas friends is bludgeoned to death. Police on two continents are now actively involved in finding the murderers of Dominick Sorrento and Rivas friend. In Italy, a search gets underway for a former Sorrento employee, someone tied to the neo-Nazi German National Party. This search leads the police to a fatal stabbing at the Jewish Synagogue in Florence. In Maryland, with Benders help, police discover the three murders are connected and are the result of the GNPs attempts to steal the notebook. In the meantime, Slatters translation reveals the book was actually a diary, written by the Chairman of the Warsaw Jewish ghetto, Adam Czerniakow, during the 1940-1941 time frame. It hints at an attempt by Hitler to use Czerniakow in a scheme to outwit the Allies, and a plan concocted by Czerniakow to outwit the Third Reich. As Bender and Slatter begin to unravel the secrets of the notebook, Sams brother escapes from prison, Riva is assaulted, her daughter is kidnapped, and Bender is shot.
Using extensive, previously undiscovered archival documentation, the author provides an analysis of the history and techniques of nationalist mapping in inter-War Germany and challenges the belief that national self-determination is a just cause.
Adam Czerniakow heads the governing body of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto, the Judenrat. He is frustrated by his role of implementing irrational Nazi orders, by his inability to protect a half-million sick and starving ghetto inhabitants. Now he is being forced to help Hitler in a plot to defeat Russia. Sam Bender, a 90s businessman and family man, has his own demons. He is haunted by his past relationships with a brother serving time for murder, and a father who died years ago leaving a trail of deceit and conflict. Suddenly, his father and brother are thrust to the forefront of his life. These two worlds, separated by half a century in time and thousands of miles, suddenly collide. Bender inadvertently acquires a long lost diary. Through it, he begins to learn about an isolated Jews struggle against overwhelming odds to stop German aggression. At the same time, Bender and others become targets of neo-Nazis bent on taking whatever steps are necessary - burglary, assault, kidnapping, murder - to recover the diary. * * * * * Bender is outwardly congenial and affable, ten years into a comfortable second marriage, devoted to his and Rivas kids. But demons gnaw at his gut. He silently reviles a brother who was his childhood tormentor. And he fights a constant urge to examine the residue locked in the wall safe in his den - the legacy of his father. On a business trip to Rome, Bender ends up with a small, tattered notebook whose contents are scribbled in a language he cant read. When he tries to return the book, he discovers its previous owner, Dominick Sorrento, has been murdered. He asks Don Slatter, an English professor and part-time Eastern European translator, to look at the book. Slatter determines it is a Polish diary written during the World War II era, and agrees to translate it. But others want the book. Sams home is ransacked, a smoke bomb is planted in the Slatter house, and one of Rivas friends is bludgeoned to death. Police on two continents are now actively involved in finding the murderers of Dominick Sorrento and Rivas friend. In Italy, a search gets underway for a former Sorrento employee, someone tied to the neo-Nazi German National Party. This search leads the police to a fatal stabbing at the Jewish Synagogue in Florence. In Maryland, with Benders help, police discover the three murders are connected and are the result of the GNPs attempts to steal the notebook. In the meantime, Slatters translation reveals the book was actually a diary, written by the Chairman of the Warsaw Jewish ghetto, Adam Czerniakow, during the 1940-1941 time frame. It hints at an attempt by Hitler to use Czerniakow in a scheme to outwit the Allies, and a plan concocted by Czerniakow to outwit the Third Reich. As Bender and Slatter begin to unravel the secrets of the notebook, Sams brother escapes from prison, Riva is assaulted, her daughter is kidnapped, and Bender is shot.
Yehuda Roitmentz is a boy growing up in pre-World War I Germany. His father is one of the few Jewish officers who served in the Kaisers army. His mother and uncle are determined to instill in Yehuda all the knowledge and traditions of his Jewish religion. He grows into an ambitious, well-educated man who takes over his fathers clothing factory and makes it thrive. However, everything changes when the Nazis come to power. Life becomes stressful, difficult, and even dangerous as anti-Semitic laws make earning a living almost impossible for Jews. Yehuda is soon forced to manufacture uniforms for the German army, even as he joins the resistance movement in the hopes of disrupting the Nazis as much as possible. Yehudas resistance earns him a place in a concentration camp, but he is able to flee to Poland. Now, he must find a way for his wife and their baby to travel across Germany to join him. How can one man stand up to the Nazi agendaespecially when the Gestapo has put him on their Most Wanted List? It will take ingenuity, heroism, but most importantly, love to triumph over those who wish him dead and to find the freedom he seeks.
A story of survival, hunger and reflection from a teenaged prisoner of war inside Germany near the end of WWII. From capture at the Battle of The Bulge to the final escape from his German guards, the author allows us a glimpse into the despair and agony of being a prisoner in a foreign land.
A book about being a jazz and commercial musician in New York, and the author’s run-ins with crooks, cops, drugs, stars, and sex. If he were famous it would have no trouble selling a million copies. However, like the blurred picture, he is a famous unknown, an adventurous kid from Coney Island who managed to stumble into the world of music and make an original life for himself.
“There is science and there is religion and never the twain shall meet.” Is that to be the fate of these two disciplines? Having one foot in the religious world and the other in the scientific can be as precarious as attempting to remain astride two logs in a river. In this sequel to A User’s Guide to Our Present World: What Everyone Should Know about Religion and Science, complexions of what religion and science look like today are investigated. It discuses topics from Jesus and family values, evangelists who arrive at your door, discrimination and racism, and the dark side for religion, to delicate balances impacting us and the world, climate change, the pandemic, and how ancient structures like Stonehenge and the pyramids could have been built for science. The study then turns to theological implications of scientific theories, including relativity and quantum. Sure to ruffle the feathers of some from both sides, the examination focuses on how scientific paradigms fail to cohere with traditional theological doctrines and presents the potentially uncomfortable view that scientific revolutions might warrant a corresponding revolution for theology itself.
Despite a perilous childhood in Nazi Germany and immigration from Germany to Canada in 1951, Herb Duerr finds all but a few things amusing, and he never fails to write about the world as he sees it, based on his extensive travel and fascinating experiences. Following The Unhyphenated Canuck and several autobiographical books, Duerr has done it again with stimulating musings and personal adventures that cover fifty years of historical, cultural, and social evolution in the Canadian milieu-just as he lived it. Conformist Kraut to Contentious Canuck portrays Duerr's struggle to become Canadian by conviction and commitment. Providing entertainment and information in equal measure, this collection follows Duerr's progress as he confronts the challenges of a strange new world in the context of historical facts and causes. His observations are embarrassingly revealing, ominously critical, and impertinently controversial, in relation to current affairs. Duerr's opinions are both contentious and refreshingly playful. In his words, "I documented my experiences and views, never hesitating to reveal my ignorance, folly, or just bloody-mindedness." Using pertinent anecdotes and self-deprecating humour, Duerr's latest thoughts will fuel your interest from beginning to end.
Over one million copies sold and nine months on the New York Times bestseller list! For readers of the bestsellers Atomic Habits and Never Split the Difference—this bestselling classic will teach you to hone your intuition to effectively communicate and negotiate...making sure you win every time. These groundbreaking methods will yield remarkable results! YES, YOU CAN WIN! Master negotiator Herb Cohen has been successfully negotiating everything from insurance claims to hostage releases to his own son's hair length and hundreds of other matters for over five decades. Ever since coining the term "win-win" in 1963, he has been teaching people the world over how to get what they want in any situation. In clear, accessible steps, he reveals how anyone can use the three crucial variables of Power, Time, and Information to always reach a win-win negotiation. No matter who you're dealing with, Cohen shows how every encounter is a negotiation that matters. With the tools and skill sets he has devised, honed, and perfected over countless negotiations, the power of getting what you deserve is now a practical necessity you can fully master. "Flawlessly organized." —Kirkus Reviews
I would like to thank Timothy King, who actually wrote my story, and his wife Tammy, who transcribed most of our interview tapes, for all their labor in putting this work together"--Page v.
Like many who emigrated from Europe after World War II, author Herb Duerr left Germany for Canada in 1951, seeking peace and the possibility of a better life. The Unhyphenated Canuck: Reflections and Confessions of an Opinionated Immigrant traces Duerr's life, beginning with his arrival as an adolescent in his chosen country, and portrays his struggles to mesh into a strange new world and to advance in an unfamiliar, competitive environment. With an occasional delicate, private adventure combined with extremely critical observations of current events, Duerr reveals his opinionated analysis with a mixture of contention and amusement. The Unhyphenated Canuck presents his well-researched perspective and personal experiences over fifty years of historical, cultural, and social evolution of the Canadian milieu. With his engaging narrative, Duerr sustains curiosity while presenting historical context and causes, providing entertainment and information in equal measure. Pertinent facts and often self-deprecating humour fuel the interest of The Unhyphenated Canuck from the initial introduction to the final page.
A persuasive and passionate plea from two mental health professionals to ease use of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders under their belief that it is leading to an over-diagnosed society. For many health professionals, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is an indispensable resource. As the standard reference book for psychiatrists and psychotherapist everywhere, the DSM has had an inestimable influence on the way medical professionals diagnosis mental disorders in their patients. But with a push to label clients with pathological disorders in order to get reimbursed by insurance companies, the purpose of the DSM is no longer serving as a reference book. Instead, it is acting as a list of things that can qualify a patient’s diagnosis. In Making Us Crazy, Stuart Kirk and Herb Kutchins evaluate how the DSM has become the influence behind diagnoses that assassinate character and slander the opposition, often for political or monetary gain. By examining how the reference book serves as a source to label every phobia and quirk that arises in a patient, Kirk and Kutchins question the overuse of the DSM by today’s mental health professionals.
Our economy has spiralled out of control with too much focus on the quantity of production. The way to reduce this wasteful overproduction of goods and services is to increase their quality. In this groundbreaking book, industrial designer Herb Bentz explains how to fix the economy and break the environment versus economy deadlock. Bentz tells us how the use of good design can improve the quality of what we produce and how a beneficial growth in quality can substitute for the destructive increase in quantity. Tying together many diverse aspects of the economy--economic growth, unemployment, the welfare state, and the need to ration--Rationing Earth provides a critical analysis and a way forward at this crucial moment. Despite high wealth in rich countries, there is still poverty and inadequate funding for social programs. This unjustified austerity has resulted in a persistence of economic insecurity, the proliferation of poor quality products, and inadequate action on environmental problems. Bentz provides an economic solution from a designer's perspective. By using elements of design thinking to achieve an overarching synthesis of the world's challenging problems, including effectiveness of government, the opposing demands of capital and labour, positive and negative effects of technology, and the absolute boundaries of a finite earth, he presents practical solutions to the conflicting needs for economic growth, full employment, and reduced consumption. In each of these areas, Rationing Earth addresses the toughest questions: How will we adapt to less economic growth? How do we solve unemployment? What is the proper role of government? And how can we create an economy that effectively rations scarce resources without reducing prosperity? Bentz blends an entertaining style with a concise but broad analysis that is provocative, informative, and pertinent to anyone interested in economic change that has a positive impact on the environment.
Groupwork is an evolving area, and the authors of this book seek to encourage and inspire practitioners into thinking and developing new methods. Subjects covered include group therapy and spirituality, experimental groups, merging and splitting, playback theatre and sociodramas.
Spring in coastal Normandy along the French beaches was a magical timeunless it was 1944. There were no gleeful noises of vacationers along the Normandy beaches that spring. Hitler had invaded France several years earlier and the French people were then under the tyrannical influence of German troops, who had taken up residence in the nearby towns and villages around Normandy, building gun turrets and fortifications to bolster the coastal region defenses facing the English Channel. Magic times appeared gone forever. French citizens spoke in hushed tones lest a German sympathizer hear or mistake a comment that could lead to arrest. One never knew who was listening or who was a spy for the feared Germans. No one dared refuse the Germans anything, whether it be their home, their food, or their land, and the German soldiers had a tastes for French wines. The outlook was bleak if you were a Frenchman during those dismal times. Anxious eyes cast out over the English Channel searched the waters for any sign that reported Allied help was coming, only to have those reports cascade into rumors that bore no fruit. Days turned into weeks, then months, and then years, with no sign of help. The spring of 1944 appeared to be a repeat of the previous springs. Such was the life in France under Hitlers reign. But help was coming. And it was to be dramatic. Herein is the story of one man who took part in not only the invasion of Normandy on D-Day (winning the Bronze Star) but also in Holland for Operation Market Garden, where he won the DSC, as well as in the freezing cold December at Bastogne, where the 101st Airborne Division was surrounded and cut off from help. He left there with a Silver Star.
In a search for origins it is necessary to balance the facts, the What Ifs? and a healthy dose of the imagination. The facts include descriptions of historical realities, philosophical foundations and religious beliefs. The What Ifs? include the shadow side of reality when one ponders why this and not that, or how different the end result might have been, if! To imagine one's origins is to enter the world of dreams where all things are possible. In My Loyalist Origins I focus on what America was, what it became and what it is now. This includes the earliest explorations, the establishing of British colonies and the fight for independence. At every stage there are characters who stand out because of their strong convictions and others who belong in the shadows because their beliefs are not supported by their actions. Because this history is marked by periods of conflict I ask the question, "Do we as Christians have an obligation to offer an alternative to the claim that in order to 'have peace' we must 'go to war'"? As an Anabaptist Christian I hear Jesus saying, "blessed are the peace makers." Not only saying, but living out in his willingness to die for that truth." For the "Loyalists" this meant leaving hearth and home for a new life in a new place.
When it was first published in 1980, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition--univer-sally known as DSM-III--embodied a radical new method for identifying psychiatric illness. Kirk and Kutchins challenge the general understanding about the research data and the pro-cess that led to the peer acceptance of DSM-III. Their original and controversial reconstruction of that moment concen-trates on how a small group of researchers interpreted their findings about a specific problem--psychiatric reliability--to promote their beliefs about mental illness and to challenge the then-dominant Freudian paradigm.
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