Today in Labor History July 1, 1766: François-Jean de la Barre, a young French nobleman, was tortured, beheaded and burnt on a pyre for reading Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique and, more importantly, for not saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession in Abbeville, France. The articles in Voltaire’s work included critiques of the Catholic Church, as well as Judaism and Islam. The general public loved the book, which sold out quickly after its first, anonymous, printing. The religious authorities hated it and censored it in France and Switzerland. Charles Dickens reference the torture and murder of la Barre in his novel, Tale of Two Cities. Voltaire tried, unsuccessfully, to defend la Barre. His writings immediately after the arrest did help several other young Frenchman get acquitted for the same offenses.
“I was in love with the book. In pure, ignorant defiance of the decree of the Iowa Writing School that controls almost all modern fiction, Galt tells without showing.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin discusses John Galt’s ANNALS OF THE PARISH
The Dawn of a Mindful Universe A Manifesto for Humanity's Future by Marcelo Gleiser, 2023
An award-winning astronomer and physicist's spellbinding and urgent call for a new Enlightenment and the recognition of the preciousness of life using reason and curiosity—the foundations of science—to study, nurture, and ultimately preserve humanity as we face the existential crisis of climate change.
"Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Tom Parker was downright gleeful.
He quoted Genesis in his sermon — I’m sorry, his concurring opinion — in the Alabama ruling that turned in vitro fertilization on its head by defining frozen embryos as children.
He quoted 17th century Dutch theologian Petrus Van Mastricht."