The Delicious History of Chocolate

Who doesn't like chocolate? Although humans consume about 16 billion pounds a year of the stuff, not every chocolate lover knows its fascinating history. So let's explore that history, from a beverage considered the "food of the gods" in the New World to an inexpensive candy in North America and Europe, and beyond.

The core book, by two anthropologists, The True History of Chocolate, starts with the earliest known consumers, the Mayans, and moves to the Aztecs who used cocoa beans as currency as well as a source of a drink reserved for the elite. Europeans then transformed the drink and developed chocolate candy. When demand exceeded supply, they turned some of their colonies near the equator into chocolate plantations. Eventually enterprising chocolate lovers were determined to bring affordable chocolate to everyone, but at considerable cost to the growers and harvesters in Africa. And today's entrepreneurs are responding to a renewed interest in innovative high quality chocolate candy. 

Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution

Their shows are American classics: “Oklahoma!,” “Carousel,” “The King and I,” “Sound of Music” and “South Pacific,” to list just some of them.

Their songs are classics of the American Songbook. Inspirational, but perhaps a little corny (“Climb Every Mountain,” “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and “My Favorite Things.”) 

But few people know that Rodgers & Hammerstein were the radical pioneers of the “book musical” (where the songs were integrated into the story, as opposed to just dropped in for fun like the old vaudeville shows that proceeded them). And they were the first musicians to tackle serious subjects such as spousal abuse, suicide, male chauvinism and, especially, racism — in a time when even the movies wouldn’t touch such subjects. 

This SDG will not only take us through their work — show-by-show (and, of course, we’ll be listening to some amazing music and seeing some spectacular video along the way) — but will also tell you who these two very different men were, what was their relationship and how they made it work - until it didn’t anymore.

Besides their songs, which will be the soundtrack to this SDG, the core book will be Todd Purdum’s brilliant “Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution,” which explores their fascinating lives and collaboration, show-by-show.

Don’t believe us. Here’s what The New York Times has to say about the book: “Something Wonderful” offers a fresh look at the milieu and circumstances that contributed to the creation of some of the musical theater’s greatest and most enduring treasures.”

Don’t believe the Times? Here’s what The Washington Post has to say: 

“Todd S. Purdum offers a great introduction for newbies and enough fresh insights to engage readers familiar with the story. A veteran political reporter, Purdum goes moonlighting to delightful effect in “Something Wonderful.” His journalistic skills are evident in this affectionate tribute to the team that rewrote the rules for American musical theater. “Something Wonderful” is thoroughly researched and briskly written, seamlessly blending a chronological narrative of the productions with cogent analyses of their effect on American culture.”

So what’s not to like? Great songs, great stories (and some great gossip thrown in) — led by two show tune-loving hosts!!

G-MAN: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

The core book by Yale Professor Beverly Gage is a "masterpiece" and has garnered the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, the Bancroft Prize in American History, the LA Times Book Prize for Biography and many other awards. Gage details a Hoover who was born, raised and educated in Washington D.C. who joined the Justice Department as a young lawyer who went on to create and build the FBI in his own image (white, male, college educated, Christian and socially conservative.) He also brought professionalism to the Bureau and oversaw the huge growth in its responsibilities. Among the issues and personalities that will be examined are: the Palmer Raids, the transformation of the FBI from a resource to crime fighting, espionage, the Red Scare, the Rosenbergs, freedom summer, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, COINTELPRO, organized crime, FDR, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Clyde Tolson, Mark Felt and much more. The book is sure to jump start spirited discussions about the man, his legacy and the America that both created him and that he shaped.

An Immense World: How Animals Senses Reveal The Hidden Realms Around Us

This course is centered around Ed Yong's fascinating book, "An Immense World", which won the New York Times award for the of the best non-fiction book of 2022. We will explore the astonishing world of animal senses. This course wiill take us through the often bizarre ways that animals perceive their surroundings, far beyond the capacities of human senses. 

In each session, we'll examine different senses and the range of animal perception that they enable. We'll explore echolocation in bats and dolphins. the magnetic sense in migratory birds, and the complex chemical communication of insects. We will discover together the diverse, complex and often mystifying sensory abilities that enable animals to interact with and navigate their world.

We will have lively discussions, and critical analysis, and In the process, you'll acquire a profound understanding of the myriad ways animals perceive and respond to their environment.

This course should be an exciting prospect for anyone intrigued by the extraordinary capabilities of the animal kingdom. Join us in unraveling the sensory marvels that define the animal world and extend your understanding of perception beyond the human experience.

The Right - The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism

The Right presents a comprehensive study of 100 years of the intellectual and political history of the American conservative movement. Extensively researched and brilliantly told, it tells the story through the experience of its participants describing how they have interacted with, influenced, and been influenced by institutions including political scientists, politicians, economists (Chicago and Austria), philosophers and religions. The book is less about a litmus test for who is a true conservative or what conservatism “really” is than an analysis and description of how the varieties of conservatism differed from one another, why disagreements arose and their effect on politics.

The author, Matthew Continetti, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an intellectual historian of the right. He has extensively researched the history of conservatism, and his presentation is without polemics. George Will, prominent conservative, touts Continetti as “the foremost contemporary chronicler of American Conservatism’s path to today’s problematic condition.”

The book starts with a description of the Harding and Coolidge administrations and in 14 chapters plus a conclusion continues to the events of January 6. Although he favors the conservative position, he does not hesitate to reject the positions taken by some conservative politicians in their support of or failure to object to George Wallace, Joseph McCarthy, Robert Welch and the John Birch Society, and antisemitism. The book is very readable and will be certain to create a lively and stimulating discussion in this SDG.

Possibilities and Limitations: And There Was Light, Mr. Lincoln

So much has been written about Lincoln. However, a relatively new core book by Meacham sheds a special light on the last two years of the Civil War. It particularly emphasizes the agony Lincoln faced with the issue of slavery. Did Lincoln believe slavery could be abolished? What did he think his Emancipation Proclamation would accomplish? Was the Country in favor of Lincoln's efforts? What would the election of 1864 bring?  

All these pertinent questions and more are addressed in Meacham's book. Meacham believes Lincoln was torn between his love for the nation and how the slavery issue was tearing apart the sinews of society. I was inspired, also, by Spielberg's Lincoln and how the president made sure the Emancipation Proclamation and the proposed 13th amendment reached the full powers of the Congress. All that will be addressed in this S/DG. Lincoln spoke bravely and manipulated courageously as a politician to make sure Blacks have equal rights. I even liked the portrayal by Tommy Lee Jones as one of the courageous congressmen, Thaddeus Stevens. I was amazed by Lincoln's dedication to moral courage by having the bill, the amendment, accept Blacks as equals pass through the Senate.

It must have been trying times to face the South still pursuing the war in 1864-65 with little end in sight. After all, until the battle for First Bull Run, the South's efforts should be soon over. Lincoln had to write so many grieving widows and mothers about their sons dying in battle during those terrible four years, Lincoln pursued difficult policies with reverence for the Bible.  

Meacham drives home the point that America is the last best hope, and it is possible to achieve goodness. To Lincoln, slavery must occur on a path to "ultimate extinction." The saviing of the Union and the emancipation of slaves went hand in hand.  

Come to this S/DG with the admiration for Lincoln and the appreciation this country still has to achieve for the greatness of Lincoln's vision.  

It is important to offer an S/DG that catalogs the agonies of Lincoln as he personally and philosophically confronts the horrors and treatment of slaves and slavery. The question needs to be asked: Does Lincoln's vision run true today? 

Documentaries You Want to Watch

This film SDG is unusual: the films we watch and discuss are documentaries. The documentary movies are very good, many were rated in as the best ever made https://www.timeout.com/film/best-documentaries-of-all-time  .This film SDG is unusual: the films we watch and discuss are documentaries. The documentary movies are very good, many were rated in as the best ever made https://www.timeout.com/film/best-documentaries-of-all-time .

What documentaries are these, you ask? Well, watching the 14 films you will…

• See the lives of a notorious 60's cartoonist and his brothers who Keep on Truckin’, ranked as one of the finest documentaries ever made.

• Watch a 1922 movie about the struggles of an Inuit man, it was the first documentary film to achieve commercial success; over the years its status as a documentary has been questioned, it is ranked as one of the finest documentaries ever made.

• Be taken down, deep underground, to see striking cave paintings that are thousands of years old.

• Follow two boys growing up in Chicago dreaming of basketball, it is ranked as one of the finest documentaries ever made.

• See and hear the best classical violinists of the 20th century, and follow the commentary by Yitzhak Pearlman, Hilary Hahn and others.

• Watch a British war veteran and an American biologist save ocelots in Peru.

All documentaries are available by streaming on Amazon or on YouTube, also available on other platforms some of which (with commercials) are free.

Each discussion will go deep into the film's subject matter using on-line references.

Come, join us, watch and then discuss 14 beautiful and startling documentary films.

2022 and 2023 Scientific Advances and Breakthroughs

If science. like art, is to perform its mission truly and fully, its achievements must enter not only superficially but with their inner meaning into the consciousness of people.

    —Albert Einstein, 1939 World’s Fair Opening Ceremony

Our modern media regularly features advances in Science and Technology which may strongly, or just silently, affect our lives in immediate ways. Some also are quite exciting or inspirational since they involve the renewed pursuit of Space exploration, life-changing medical breakthroughs, better ways to protect the climate and environment, or our understanding of the cosmos. For those reasons, having an understanding of these leading-edge concepts is important to both the science-minded and to well-informed citizens. While some of these advances may seem obscure, even arcane, they usually have well-documented backgrounds and are based on earlier, often more familiar work, by scientists and engineers. The aim of this SDG is look into and discuss selected leading-edge Science and Technology topics and concepts.

Most scientific findings or discoveries are often sedimentary, slowly building on the edifice of understanding. Rare is the idea that marks a fundamental change to a system of thought, forcing the rest of science to bend to its own vision. But, in November 1915 Albert Einstein published his new and deeper understanding of gravity, the General Theory of Relativity, that did just that. Now, we’ll discuss several of the best scientific achievements that 2022 and 2023 had to offer—to explore and gain some understanding of the frontiers of science.

Rather than using a static core book, our SDG draws from leading Science and Technology journals and websites. SDG Science Magazine is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and is one of the world's top scientific journals. The major focus of the journal is publishing important original scientific research and research reviews, but Science also publishes science-related news, opinions on science policy and other matters of interest to scientists, and others who are concerned with the wide implications of science and technology. For almost a century, Science News journalists have covered advances in science, medicine and technology for the general public, including the 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial, the advent of the atomic age in 1945, the space race, and the revolution of genetic engineering from the discovery of DNA to today’s gene-editing technology. Founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1899, MIT Technology Review is a world-renowned, independent media company whose insight, analysis, reviews, interviews and live events explain the newest technologies and their commercial, social and political impacts.

These three magazines annually assess the major scientific advances of the preceding year, and look forward to potential advancements in the coming year. This SDG will explore several of 2022 and 2023's breakthroughs and advances in different scientific disciplines as reported in those magazines and their websites. Our group will discuss the science leading up to the breakthrough, and the potential implications, scientific, economic, legal and ethical, of the recent advances. 

This SDG will be accessible to anyone interested in studying, discussing and appreciating the merits and implications of advances across the frontiers of science. Gaining an understanding of the various concepts, principles and applications is desired. Understanding the related or underlying detailed "equations," and their use is optional.

Innovative Short Stories from the 20th to the 21st Century

Anton Chekhov, Steven Crane, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, James Joyce, among others, contributed to the birth of modern short fiction in the late days of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century. Our focus is on more recent great contributors to the genre. We'll read and discuss the stories by Katherine Anne Porter, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty, Ray Bradbury, Steven Millhauser, and George Saunders.

A leitmotiv of our SDG will be the development of the short story. How has it evolved, thematically as well as stylistically? What new themes have emerged? In what sense do writers challenge and learn from one another?