Stacy Horn

This book is a winner: fascinating to those who have enjoyed participation in a choral group, or those who have only observed as audience. Personal in Ms. Horn's experiences, both stellar and effort-laden, the joy and vulnerability of a very public offering which provides a membership in a trans-formative gathering is couched with historic context and musicological fascination. I loved this. Many family members are members of various groups, and I confess, I have appreciated their efforts show more through the years but somehow not connected the casual shower songstress and walking singer with the stage sets. The historical framework of choral music shared here was riveting and I found myself not sure which element was keeping me so entranced, the science of music and brains, the conductors, the ensembles, the composers. Stacy Horn has written a title I will be giving again and again, without preaching, to the members of the choir. show less

This muckraker author has done us all a service in disclosing how a Brooklyn neighborhood and its residents are murdered, by street violence, police neglect, and corruption by the FHA, banks, and mortgage brokers. It was a precursor to the 2007-2008 mortgage collapse, but without the worthless tranches created by greedy investment house and banks - for which NO ONE went to jail. Not many did here, either - though the greed in selling unfit homes to poor people and collecting big government show more subsidies for cheating them is a true horror show. The exposure of the corruption, which occurred nationwide, was ignored by the federal government, although George Romney, HUD Secretary, tried and was naively stunned by the criminal activities. There were small successes by community organizations, despite all odds. Author Horn not only describes the investigations, indictments, and trials, but also includes a valuable coda and an epilogue with two of the key players, who make the case that this exploitation of the poorest people in our country continues apace. This is an incredibly valuable record of a particularly disgraceful era. show less

E.S.P., the short form of "extra-sensory perception" has been part of the language for so long, it's hard to believe it was coined by Dr. J. B. Rhine (whose degree is in botany) not all that long ago because it sounded like something Psychologists would study--after all, they study perception, right? Dr. Rhine, "Banks" to his friends, wanted to make the paranormal respectable--a subject studied by real scientists. He tried to avoid the more flashy subjects--haunted houses, reincarnation, show more poltergeists, and the like because they couldn't be brought into the lab and studied in a systematic fashion. He used controlled experiments and statistical analysis to demonstrate that E.S.P. exists and yet today, his work is virtually ignored.

Feller, who wrote my favorite text on Probability Theory thought Rhine's experimental methods faulty but Feller's own students disagreed and found flaws in Feller's reasoning. Warren Weaver, whose name was given to the building in which I went to grad school, found the statistics valid but didn't like what they proved. The scientific community doesn't like E.S.P. but can't seem to explain away Rhine's results. Hence the title "Unbelievable"

The underlying argument is that it ought to be believed since it is scientifically established to be a valid phenomenon. I would like to offer my counter-argument here. Something is "scientifically established" but that something having no supporting theoretic framework can't be just given a name and said to exist, There are in fact multiple ways to characterize the observed facts (Dr. Rhine often choosing his favorite, E.S.P. to explain them all) and in the end all we can say is something exists and needs to be explained.

But I would further argue that not all knowledge is good. In particular, I'm pleased that my government irrationally chooses not to pursue, say, "remote viewing" because I would prefer not to be remotely viewed. Perhaps "unseen forces" which failed to keep nuclear bomb technology from becoming a thing and which has made the world a worse place has drawn the line at keeping the easily misused technologies of psychic phenomena from also becoming a thing. And if there really aren't any "unseen forces" then of course it's also good not to waste time studying them.

Ms Horn wrote this book before widespread knowledge of the abuses of power became known throughout our culture so she naively assumes the more "we" learn, the better off we'll all be.

But back to the book itself. Though generally a good overview of the topic, it is at times rambling, sometimes going into great detail and other times ignoring details that should have been included. One of the latter is the, to me pretty convincing debunking of the Bridey Murphy phenomenon (see my other review of the Bernstein book in which I even quote J. B. Rhine) Still, it remains a solid 3 star book. show less

Wow, what a book!

Stacy Horn did a tremendous amount of research for this. Her book tells of Blackwell’s Island and the different people who lived and worked there. She devotes different sections of her book to the different institutions on the island: the madhouse, the almshouse, the workhouse, the penitentiary, and the charity hospital. This is an incredibly broad scope, but she handles it well, telling her story—or perhaps many stories—with clarity and order. She chose to focus her show more history on the island’s missionary, Reverend French, who accessed each of the institutions on the island and witnessed many of its sorrows. He is the common thread in all of this book’s sections, and as readers, we experience Blackwell’s Island through his eyes. Like him, we are appalled by the violence, neglect, and danger that throve on the island. He worked hard to improve conditions and was met with resistance at almost every turn. He risked his life to minister to the people when the island was quarantined because of illness, he called attention to bad management and lack of funds, and he was behind many of the improvements on the island. He was truly a hero, and I’m grateful to Stacy Horn for sharing his story. Plus, he was responsible for acquiring books and making a library, so it’s obvious he was a great guy!

This was not an easy book to read. Despite many people’s best intentions, a whole lot of bad things happened. There are parts that are horrifying, and I am still saddened to think that these incidents were real. Illness, murder, madness, neglect, infant mortality, child abuse, wrongful convictions, unsanitary conditions, lice, poor ventilation, prejudice, greed—the list goes on and on. The death rates were staggering, and the description of medical “experiments” on a little dog just about broke my heart. Some issues are still relevant today; this book depicts a financial tug-of-war between people who wanted to care for the poor and people who wanted to cut their funding. This book also shows the journey toward something better, as the nurses’ training became more structured and the island’s standards began to improve. This book also touches on the services that prevent (or stop) child abuse. Horn describes the landmark case that changed the way the courts saw child abuse; here, you can read about the little girl who was represented by the ASPCA, because there wasn’t yet a society for the prevention of cruelty to children. Some of the rights we take for granted now had their origin in the reforms described here. Fascinating history, and very poignant.

What I liked: maps, photos of the different buildings, one book section for each island institution, tremendous level of detail, specific information on many individuals, tracking of changes and reform throughout the decades, and clear descriptions that tied up loose ends whenever possible. There were really only two things I didn’t like. First, although the book describes many different people—not just Rev. French, but also reporters, polititians, activists, and, of course, patients and inmates—there were very few pictures. There were more photos on the author’s website. I would have liked to know, while I was still reading, what some of these people looked like, or what the buildings looked liked, or even the island. Since these images exist, I don’t know why they weren’t used. Finally, the chronology was a little difficult to follow. She divides her book into sections for the different institutions, which is great, but it means that she constantly jumping around between different years, even different decades. It’s difficult to know when certain things happened, not just by year, but even in relation to other events elsewhere on the island. Still, a remarkable book that illuminates some very disturbing history. Anyone might learn from this, but it might be of special interest to people who want to learn about the history of New York, of mental illness and its treatments, of criminal justice, of social justice, or of nursing. This was gritty, memorable, and deeply disturbing. show less