The Life of a Dangertool

I’m not actually a monster, but it sure feels that way sometimes. Fertility is a funny thing. It’s not generally a topic of polite conversation because it makes people uncomfortable. But sterility has been a topic of wide conversation lately thanks to the latest Marvel mass installation, “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” In the film, Natasha Romanoff, better known as Black Widow, the trained assassin played by Scarlett Johansson, gets both a new love interest in Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner (aka the Hulk) and an expanded back story that delves into how, at a young age, Natasha was broken down and trained to be a killing machine. The process culminated in forced sterilization, an occurrence she still mourns.

HAPPY NATIONAL TEACHER APPRECIATION DAY!

“What goes on in a classroom is up to the student and the teacher. Once you introduce the power of the state—telling you what you can and cannot do—you’ve become involved in propaganda.” ~John Scopes

A Few Facts about the Scopes Monkey Trial

The jury found Scopes guilty within minutes. His conviction was later overturned, but he never taught again.

The trial was a media circus. It was so heavily attended that after 7 days in the courtroom, the judge moved everyone outside under a tent because it was unbearably hot and he feared the weight of the spectators and reporters would cause the floor to cave in.

Clarence Darrow, Scopes’s defending attorney, had been a corporate lawyer but he left that job because he could no longer look at himself in the mirror. He often worked for free to help deserving clients who needed good counsel. 

William Jennings Bryan, the prosecuting attorney, died five days after the trial ended.