Uncategorized – Page 4 – meghan rose allen

This book might win for Most-Descriptive-Title-I’ve-Read-In-A-While. Indeed, there is a Hannah Mary Tabbs, and there is a Disembodied Torso. No bait-and-switch here. Instead we have an overview of a Philadelphia murder case from 1887 stemming from the discovery of a racially-ambiguous disembodied torso, that of Hannah Mary Tabbs’ alleged paramour. Randomly located body parts and illicit love affairs being as salacious then as now, the investigation and trial was well-covered in the press, although as Gross posits, the whole starting point was the inability to determine the race of the torso; since there was a possibility it was white, the investigators did their thing. If it had been obviously that of a black man, then, like the other body parts found later in the book determined not to be part of the torso in question, then it would have simply been discarded.

(Side note: apparently there were just body parts strewn here and there in Philadelphia at the time, which is interesting in and of itself. Also creepy.)

Thus, via saved press clippings and trial notes that Gross has dug out from various archives, we have a glimpse into the lives of black men and women in 1880s Philadelphia, a group generally excluded from any degree of anthropological or sociological study at the time. So that’s interesting, although the crime aspect of the book is pretty cut-and-dry. It isn’t like a riveting true crime story with lots of twists for an engaging plot. The authorities figure out the who-dunnit without much misdirection. There’s bits of analysis here and there, but, based on some of her comments in the introduction, it seems like Gross is trying to write for general readership rather than pure academic audiences, so she likely scaled the analysis and theory back a bit.

But did she need to? If the book is supposed to be a 101-style-primer, then more context about race, society, race-in-society, etc., at the time frame would be welcome, and flesh the story out a lot more (think The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or Manning Marable’s Malcom X biography). If it’s not meant to be 101, then all we have are the facts of a case with a smidgen of a view into black life in Philadelphia in the 1880s. While such a glimpse is rare, a presentation of such research without analysis doesn’t give the reader much to chew on. The book, both in length and scope, is slight. Diversionary, but slight.

Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso by Kali Nicole Gross went on sale January 28, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Uncategorized

questions that broker no response

By meghan rose on Thursday, January 21, 2016

At Costco.

Geoff: Are you sure we really need that much Nutella?

Uncategorized

Review of Skeptic by Michael Shermer

By meghan rose on Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Well, now I feel squishkly.

There’s a lot I can get behind in the skeptics movement; I’m a (former) scientist so of course I love science. I think more needs to be done to educate non-scientists about how science works. I think homeopathy works as well as drinking a glass of water (because that’s all you’re getting with homeopathy) and I’m a pretty big booster of vaccinations (unless, for documented, scientific, medical reasons, such as a suppressed immune system, one cannot safely be vaccinated). But I don’t think being an arrogant dickhead about being a skeptic, as Shermer comes off in these seventy short essays, is a way to go about convincing anyone of anything. Plus the squishkliness.

Skeptics aren’t big on faith. That’s fine. You don’t have to believe what you don’t believe in. But I really don’t see the harm if someone also accepts, say, evolution, and believes in God, as long as they recognize that the scientific method isn’t applicable to a belief in God. But I can’t see Shermer being fine with that. I can see Shermer, if the tone in this book is anything like how he is in person, berating someone for believing in God, even if that person’s belief has no impact on their acceptance of science. Shermer is like Christopher Hitchens or any of them: not going to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with them. Is the goal of the skeptic movement to illuminate the non-scientific about science, or is it to be a pretentious ass about being “smarter” than those with religious or magical or pseudo-scientifc convictions? My money is on the second.

Plus, the essays here aren’t even that convincing. They can’t be. They are all short, seven hundred to one thousand word tidbits, which is not enough space to expound on much of anything. I don’t really see the point of putting them together in a book since all-in-all, the flippancy of their length make the whole book almost pointless. Scientists will already know this stuff. Anti-scientists are unlikely to keep reading after Shermer essentially calls them morons. So who’s the audience? Skeptical sycophants? I thought sycophants were exactly what skeptics want to avoid.

And I’m going to go back to the squishklyness. I recognize my squishkliness is unfair. The book should be judged on its own merits, which, in my opinion, is a bunch of slight, antagonistic essays that will be lauded by people who already agree with everything Shermer stands for, in a scientific sense. Even I agree with his science stuff. I just don’t agree with his tone, style, and alleged behaviour. Or his dismissal of the Humanities’ concern about science being a white, male, cabal (especially since the majority of scientists he mentions in his essays are white and male).

I got very little out of this experience.

Skeptic by Michael Shermer went on sale January 12, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.