The Leading Journalist of the Jazz AgeWritten by David F. Duncan
Terry Teachout. The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken. New York, Harper-Collins, 2002. H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) is not a name familiar to most Americans today. If they know of him at all, most know him only as model for character of cynical reporter in play and movie Inherit Wind. Nevertheless, there was a time when Mencken was one of Americas most influential news reporters, editorialists, and cultural critics -- "the leading journalist of Jazz Age." He began his professional career as "boy wonder" journalist for Baltimore’s leading newspapers. During nine years, from 1914 to 1923, that he and drama critic George J. Nathan co-edited The Smart Set magazine, he reviewed roughly two thousand novels, most of which he considered work of "100 percent dunderheads." He was justly famous for his harsh reviews -- a selection of which has been reprinted in book Smart Set Criticism. He was also, however, largely responsible for bringing works of Sherwood Anderson, Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Sinclair Lewis to attention of reading public. He was one of first critics to recognze The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as being a great novel and played a major role in establishing its status as being perhaps The great American novel. It was also during this period that he wrote his classic, The American Language (1919). Subsequuently he and Nathan cofounded The American Mercury, which under his editorship from 1923 thru 1933, became one of most widely read and influential publications in America. As a journalist, his coverage of Scopes "monkey trial" helped make it true "trial of Century" long before O.J.. In thirties he was a leading critic of New Deal and an important voice for isolationism and an apologist for Hitler. All this is covered in Terry Teachout's The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken, but in Teachouts own words, "this is a life of Mencken, not life." Rather than trying to present a fully objective and detailed account of a life, this biography is more author's personal take on his subject. Teachout explores reasons for Mencken's successes, his failures, and his ultimate standing in American literary and social history, as well as for controversy that he continues to be able to provoke to present day. He quotes Mencken amply, but not excessively, showing him at both his best as a writer and at his worst as a person. Mencken was born in Nineteenth Century and his mindset never quite made it into Twentieth Century. He spent much of second half of his life defending ideas that history was busy sweeping aside. He railed against growing power of federal government in early years of Roosevelt administration, insisted on an elitist brand of politics that favored "superior man," and generally agitated against progressive domestic causes. He urged, perhaps with ironic intent, that capital punishment should be turned into a public entertainment.
| | 4 Strategies for Protecting Your Online BusinessWritten by Amar Mehta
4 Strategies for Protecting Your Online BusinessI was sure this will happen. After all "There is fun in taking challenge when stakes are high!". You will be wondering what am I talking about, yes, I am talking about Online Info product business which is biggest business online. Information products are selling really hot online for prices ranging from $9-$900 and with this there are attempts to break system and get these product for FREE! Following, I have outlined 4 strategies that you can use to protect your Online Business from theft. 1) Order Page: You will think "Why on earth should I be concerned about order page?". Yes, you are correct to some extent, this is THE page which is very crucial and decision making for your sale and you will try to lure user to order your product, won't you? But, here is main concern area, if you are offering PayPal as Payment option then we have to be careful for order page. PayPal is really great payment option, because it costs no service charge to customer and it is very low charge to you merchant, but only problem is that you have to give return URL i.e. download page location in order form itself. So, anyone who knows how to view source of page will be able to see download page and will go straight their without paying! Don't worry there is solution available for this, there are several HTML Encryptors available for this which will scramble code of your Paypal code, so, those prying eyes will get to see only scrambled characters and will have to work hard (pull their hair!) to decipher path of your download page. I know of one free software which does this, go to: http://www.snazzypromotions.com/software/paypalfree/index.html 2) Download Page: This is THE page where your customers will be directed after they complete purchase process, for downloading product they paid you for. Your download page should never have following names: download.html thankyou.html thanks.html Don't keep .htm by same names either. These page names are too predictable and are first ones to be tried by novice hackers. So, you should give some creative name related to your product which some ordinary hacker can not even think of. e.g. If you are selling ebook related to Online Marketing, consider keeping something like onmkt.html or you may consider adding numbers also to have added security e.g. onmkt03.html etc. Just be creative.
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