Hi Tom,

Thanks for posting that. I thought the one about the meaningless expressions of art was very interesting and sadly all too many of those goals have been achieved.

I have a vast collection of magazines from the 30's and 40's and reading the 'confessions' of US communist leaders who 'changed over' as far back as the mid - thirties is fascinating and VERY revealing. Many folks with little or no appreciation of history see only the present and forget that the present is composed of the evolved past.

In a 1940 issue of College Life magazine, their is an amusing article about the Communist parties attempts to seduce young men into joining. It seems the communists had several women on each major campus who would provide a 'rewarding experience' for every young man who would sign up. Supposedly thousands of communists were signed up in a short period of time on many campuses.

Never underestimate those communists!!

One of the best things about these old mags is the inspiring and beautiful artwork which graced them. The artists of our grandparents generation were true masters - and that it was used hand in hand with capitalism helped make a society which was lifting itself up from the farmland nation of homesteaders into a modern society.

The symbols of America - the Empire State Building, the passenger aircraft, streamlined buses and trains - and a cozy family which loves each other were the ideals of this era.

With the fifties the nation spread out with the freeway bill (ironically sparked as to make exodus from the cities easier in case of nuclear assault) and the suburbs were suddenly a viable alternative for those who would normally be city-dwellers.

One of the fifties flaws the US made, was allowing General Motors to dismantle the railroads and destroy much of the rail infrastructure. The railroads, should still be a fundamental alternative to autos. These trains served wonderfully when moving our armed forces, and materials around during WWII.

Yes, there is a vast and valuable education about the US and the world in our periodicals - and old books.

One of my criticisms of libraries (which I care so much about that I even have a few issues of the magazine American Libraries ;-) is the constant push to modernize - and replace old volumes with new.

While I understand there is a lot of value in keeping current - it should never be so strong as to obliterate the past. As a whole, old books are much BETTER than newer books especially when dealing with non-fiction subjects and history.

I am sure some would say that their is also a vast PC'-ing of our libraries underway. This is probably true. However, many of the still valuable children's educational texts they discard in favor of some agenda-driven, bad-art fluff piece - I manage to save a lot of them from the waste bin. I could probably open up my own library branch soon (it would be like re-visiting a small town's library content of twenty years ago, old book smell and all ;-)

Believe it or not - some of the texts that do not sell at book sales or FOL (Friends of Library) type events are eventually DESTROYED.

This is the biggest crime of all. It is in a small scale, a few books at a time, the burning of the Alexandria library all over again. I have a few friendly librarians on my side, who kindly tip me off when a nice piece is considered too damaged for even the FOL stuff (Such as some really older stuff, books missing spines, or pages etc.)

One example I will cite is the discarding of the book 'the Girl in White Armor' - by A.B. Paine - a friend of Twain who was probably influenced by his own fondness of Joan of Arc.

This book was a 1968 reprint and in good condition asides from a very small pencil scribble on one of the pages. I had seen this book in the Children's section and thought it was nice to see the kids get a comprehensive selection.

While they still have books on Joan (which library doesn't!) they are almost exclusively more PC books stressing Joan as a feminist role model or lumped in with a group of famous women. (Some have some pretty god-awful art in them too). Most have not nearly the comprehensive story of Joan as presented by Paine.

Another example of terrible kids books is the recent book 'No David!' (or is it David, No!' ?) Which stars a kid with all fangs who misbehaves. This book subtly glorifies kids misbehaving. The art in this is also elaborately awful. I think this book was on a recent issue of 'READ'. Books like this are glorified and contribute little to the child's knowledge base other than to laugh and see David run buck naked down the street.

Libraries as rule are great places - each and every one of them. I am a bit saddened when I see most of the kids just on the computers though - and very few checking out the books. But even that is at least exposing them to the library system.

Well..I gotta go...

But thanks for posting it...I may post some of these older things from time to time too.

SDAI-Tech1