Which is Smarter - MI or AI?

Raebsamen, Lynn.  Artificial Stupelligence: The Hilarious Truth About AI.  n.p.: Lyra Press, 

       2025.   ISBN: 9783952622308 

 

Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) an oxymoron or a "contradiction in terms" which is what many folks say about military intelligence (MI) or is AI just an overly broad term that covers so much territory that almost anything can be shoved in?  Lynn Raebsamen does not weigh in on MI, but she does cover most all the fronts of the ongoing war AI enthusiasts insists on waging on common sense with a nice blend of facts and anecdotes.

 

 Lynn Raebsamen opens the book with an overview of where AI came from and how we got to the present day.  She covers voice controls ordering doll houses; self-driving cars and their quirks; crazy issues with facial recognition and their ethical implications; chat bot mishaps, missteps, and hallucinations; AI crashing markets; IBM Watson misdiagnosing patients; AI running amok in HR; AI trying to "create" art; content moderation, cybersecurity, and image recognition; as well as AI visiting the classroom, politics, and "saving" the environment.  She finishes the book with a visit to virtual reality and then a few success stores of AI actually working as designed.

 

If you want something more then the AI hype found in most news stories, check out Artificial Stupelligence for a chance to laugh as you learn!   
 

The Long Road to the Medal of Honor!

Davis, Paris.  Every Weapon I Had: A Vietnam Vet's Long Road to the Medal of Honor.  New York: 

        St. Martin's Press, 2025.  ISBN: 9781250387653 

 

 

So how much do you know of the Green Berets' operations in Vietnam during 1965?  Just the movie?  Well, settle yourself down and follow Green Beret Captain Paris Davis on his most harrowing time on a knoll in Binh Dinh Province on 18 June 1965!  And stay seated as he describes his journey to finally being presented the Medal of Honor by President Biden on 3 March 2023.

 

Paris Davis sets the stage with a brief description of the action on 18 June 1965, but takes the reader to his family setting in Cleveland (OH) and the circumstances that led him to attend Southern University (LA) where he joined the ROTC which lead him to an Army career,  He joined Airborne and jumped out of planes, then Ranger School before heading to Korea in 1960.  In 1962, Davis attended Q School to become a Green Beret and had his first tour in Vietnam, after which he got married to his college sweetheart.   In 1964, he went to Okinawa to lead an A-Team in the Green Berets which led to him leading the team into Vietnam to train indigenous residents in counter-insurgency operations.  It was on a training mission to take out what was that to be a North Vietnamese company that led Capt. Davis, members of his team, and trainees into the firefight on 18 June 1965.   His commanding officer put in the paperwork of a Medal of Honor award (the paperwork disappeared).   Later that year, Capt. Davis was severely wounded in an ambush and sent home to recover.  Davis went on to serve at the Pentagon and eventually as commander of the 10th Special Forces Group that would handle counter-insurgency operations in Europe if war broke out there. Col. Davis retired in July 1985 due to medical issues and eventually started a paper in the Washington, DC area.  But he kept wondering what had happened to the Medal of Honor paperwork that had been submitted multiple times, but no records of the paperwork could be found.  Finally, with the assistance of multiple people and the assistance of several congressmen, Col. Davis was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Biden in March 3, 2023.  

 

If the reader is looking for an engaging story of courage, endurance, and grit, pick up Col. Davis' Every Weapon I Had!

Mars on Our Mind!

Baron, David.  The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-
       Century America.  n.p.: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2025.  ISBN: 9781324090663

 

"Why Mars?" is the question asked not only by the author, but of the reader.  Why this fascination with the red planet, one of Earth's closest neighbors?  And why was there this fixation on canals and intelligent life on Mars?  Where did that come from and what has it spawned?  Those are some of the questions that David Baron seeks to answer in The Martians.

 

David Baron divides his tale into three parts - Part One - Century's End - 1876-1900, Part Two - A New Civilization - 1901-1907,  and Part Three - The Earthlings Respond - 1908-1916.  David Bruce brings in all of the big guns of the day - Percival Lowell who became enthralled with the Far East before he turned his vision onto the heavens,  the Widow Guzman who funded the Pierre Guzman prize for communication with another planet, or star, Camille Flammarion, a French astronomer,  and color-blind Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli who mapped Mars and drew in the canali or channels that he saw on the surface which caused much confusion when the term migrated into English as "canals."  Later on Nicoli Tesla makes his appearance along with H. G. Wells who brings a Martian invasion to his local village.  A whole host of British and American astronomers who argue both for and against the concept of Martian life spend decades going back and forth over the evidence that Lowell and others produce until newer and better telescopes clarify the view of Mars from Earth.  David Baron not only tells the tale of the Martian craze, he also provides the context in which it occurred giving the reader a feel for the popular culture that existed alongside it and the consequences and influence the craze had on American and world culture. 

 

If a well-written true science tale mixed with popular culture is what you crave, pick up David Baron's The Martians and be prepared to enjoy yourself! 
 

 

 

A Graphic Mitford Sisters Story

Pond, Mimi.  Do Admit!: The Mitford sisters and Me.   n.p.: Drawn & Quarterly Books, 2025.  

         ISBN: 9781770468047

 

 

So how much do you know of the Mitford Sisters?  Did you know that one was a personal friend of Adolf Hitler while another was a Communist who had traveled to Spain to cover the Civil War?  Or that several of the sisters became well-known authors in England and the United States?   Mimi Pond invites the reader to come with her on a graphic exploration of these sisters whose lives intersected with so much of 20th Century history.

Mimi Pond sets the stage for the entrance of the sisters with a graphic summarization of each sister in chronological order - Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah.  She follows this with an interlude of how she became interested in these British ladies while growing up in in 1960-1970s southern California.  During the rest of the book Mimi pops herself in briefly. Then it is back to 1920's England for the Mitford Sisters saga.  Pond takes the time to highlight each sister and the interactions they had with each other and the larger world as they grew.  Nancy became friends with a number of up and coming authors such as Brian Howard and Evelyn Waugh through her brother Tom and started mining her family for her writings.  Pamela tended to hang out in the countryside.  Diana married to get out of the house but then met up and flung herself upon Oswald Moseley who formed the British Union of Fascists.  Unity met and befriended Adolf Hitler while traveling in Germany.  She survived shooting herself in the head after Britain declared war on Germany in 1939.  Jessica had set up a "running away" fund at a local bank at age 12.  She used that fund to travel to Spain with radical journalist Esmond Romilly to cover the Spanish Civil War.  The two married and moved to the United States.  After Esmond's death as a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, she married Bob Treuhaft, a civil right lawyer.  She later wrote several muckraking books such as The American Way of Death.  Deborah was know for her expressions, but her marriage to Andrew Cavendish  paid off when she became the Duchess of Devonshire at the age of 40.  The Cavendish's now had 5 country estates to care for and maintain with Chatsworth House being the most famous.  All the sisters' tales are followed until they reach their end.

 

Mimi Pond takes what could be a boring topic but with her drawings, page design, and text keep the reader exploring the lives of these women and learning the impact they had on history that most readers likely did not know.   This title provides an interesting picture into a family and a time fading into history that should be remembered! 

 

Fairy Tale Originators?

Harrington, Jane.  Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance: The Forgotten Founding Mothers of the 

         Fairy Tale and the Stories That They Spun.  New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 

        2025.  ISBN: 9780762488704 

 

So who started the fairy tale craze?  It definitely was not the Brothers Grimm since they only compiled tales that they gathered from the country folks they interviewed.  Charles Perrault is often credited as the "Father of Fairy Tales" but maybe he should be credited as "Mother since his most famous creation is Mother Goose.  What is forgotten and not credited are the women who gathered in salons in the 1690s and later to write tales together.  They called themselves conteuses and would set challenges for the types of tales to write.  They would then come back together and compare tales.  

 

In Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance, Jane Harrington provides brief histories of seven of these women and one or two of their tales.  The women are Marie-Catherine D'Aulnoy, Henriette-Julie Murat, Charlotte-Rose La Force, Marie-Jeanne L'Heritier, Catherine Bernard, Catherine Durand, and Louise D'Auneuil.  Also each tale has gorgeous illustrations created by Khoa Le. Harrington also provides a bibliography of sources so that interested parties can follow up on areas of interest. 

 

If the reader enjoys fairy tales, especially ones not well known, do pick up Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance!
 

An author reflects on his past, his place, and his craft

Russo, Richard.  Life and Art: Essays.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2025.  ISBN:

        9780593802168

 

Are you interested in what makes a writer write?  What demons or angels perch on his or her shoulders and whisper in their ears words of encouragement or discouragement?  Some authors are willing to take the reader behind that curtain where the sausage is made and discuss their process.  Other authors are more willing to talk about what inspired them to write a particular story or novel.  Richard Russo is more of the latter in this volume of essays.

 

Part 1 of this collection  - Life - has essays dealing with his life, his parental relationships and how those shaped his life and his writing.  He warns folks to be wary of writers since they are often guilty of taking events that they witness and using them as fodder for their stories.  He pleads guilty to that fact in regard to a number of his books.  He also reveals family events and interactions during the essays to make a point with the reader.  

 

Then in Part - Art - Russo discusses both the craft and the storytelling aspects of  writing.  He elucidates on using other folks lives in his stories, how the order of words affects the message being delivered, and then has fun discussing books, movies, and the art of turning one into the other.

 

So if you are looking for one author's perspective on a varied number of topics, feel free to pick up and peruse Richard Russo's Life and Art!  

 

Do you belong to a cult?

Borden, Jane.  Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America.  New York: Atria/One 

         Signal Publishers, 2025.  ISBN: 9781668007808  

 

Do you self identify as American? Do you hold to the so-called "American Dream" however you define it?  Mind you the "American Dream" is aspirational, not reality.  Do you hold that following particular rules will lead to wealth and prosperity?   Or do you believe that only the "chosen" will succeed and be blessed with wealth?  In Cults Like Us, Jane Borden takes these concepts and more in a deep dive into a variety of organizations and movements to try and make the case for all Americans being infected with cult-like thinking with specifics being provided..

 

Jane Borden opens the book with an alternative view of Columbus's reasons for discovering the New World then segueing into the Separatists/Pilgrim's voyage in 1620.  She conflates the Separatists and later Puritan settlers beliefs and practices into the Protestant work ethic that some claim infects the core American values.  She then uses various aspects of group psychology as placeholders to examine various cults.

 

The meat of the book is Jane Borden's dive into various cults and cult adjacent groups of various flavors.  There is the Church Universal and Triumphant, Christian Nationalism, the Oneida Community and related communes of the 1800s, the manifest destiny myth, the various "hidden rulers" conspiracy theorists (think Deep State these days), anti-intellectualism, rural/urban identity clashes, personal growth scams such as Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (M.S.I.A) and NXIVM which had roots with Phineas P. Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy are covered in several chapters..  Amway and other multilevel marketing organizations have their own chapter.  Then there is the chapter populated with us-vs-them cults such as the Nuwaubians, the Moonies, Scientology, and Heaven's Gate.  The final chapter looks at compensatory control groups through the lens of Love Has Won, the American monomyth, and the Internet.  

 

If you are looking for examples of how cults have shaped and are still shaping American culture, pick up Jane Borden's Cults Like US, but don't expect step-by-step solutions.  Those you need to figure out for yourself.