In this age of freely flowing words–often too many of them–it’s hard to imagine a day when conversation actually had to be nurtured. During the Vietnam War, anti-war activists had far fewer avenues of discussion available than today: no Twitter, blogs, YouTube, or social media. Self-publication was largely confined to mimeographed newspapers. Vietnam anti-war activism… Continue reading Long-Forgotten G.I. Coffeehouses: Hotbeds of Anti-War Dissent
Category: Things You’ve Never Heard Of
Strange “Child Christians” Sect of 19th Century San Francisco
The verse in the Bible, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things,” must not have registered on this group of people living in San Francisco in the 19th century. U.S. newspapers… Continue reading Strange “Child Christians” Sect of 19th Century San Francisco
YouTube’s Video Discovery System is Creepy
As if we needed another example of how technology is creeping into our brains, how about this one: YouTube’s Video Discovery System? It’s one thing for Google and YouTube to follow closely behind your interests; we’re all accustomed to that. But now they want to match you step-for-step and even go ahead of you, predicting… Continue reading YouTube’s Video Discovery System is Creepy
Man-Eating Sex Queen of Great Neck, New York, Dorothea Matthews
This English Tudor house, located at 201 Clent Road, Great Neck, New York, may not look like much of a love nest. But in 1948, its chief female resident, Mrs. Dorothea Matthews turned this house into something approaching the Playboy Mansion, East. It wasn’t until Mrs. Matthews’ divorce proceedings from her husband Mark Matthews in… Continue reading Man-Eating Sex Queen of Great Neck, New York, Dorothea Matthews
Before Borderline Bar & Grill Was Charley Brown’s Restaurant, Thousand Oaks
The Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, site of the November 7, 2018 shooting of 12 people, has been around for a long time in various iterations. In Thousand Oaks, a bedroom community 40 miles from Los Angeles, where everything is torn down and rebuilt on a regular basis, it is virtually unheard… Continue reading Before Borderline Bar & Grill Was Charley Brown’s Restaurant, Thousand Oaks