"The Man with the White Hat……I saw him daily. Every time. I see him on my way to school or late in the evenings when I am helping my mother sell groceries. The man with the white hat and the firm walking stick…the hat is never off, neither is it tainted nor stained, always pure white. He is a man in his early sixties, trailing the street through and fro, morning till evening. He is either speaking to himself or pointing his firm stick at one real or imaginary situation or another. I wondered if he even had a family. I thought him the ‘’classy mad’’. But, he always wore clean clothes and his hat was ever white. But my perception, misperception, changed on this very day I am about to reveal…" This collection of short stories explores human foible, feelings, and deeper feelings of love, loyalty, betrayal and states of mind of those at the receiving end of social interactions and relationships – work roles, friendships, amorous or not, marriage - and cultural dictates or preferences. Insightfully done and a good read.

During the Cold War, an alliance between American scientists, pharmaceutical companies, and the US military pushed the medical establishment into ethically fraught territory. Doctors and scientists at prestigious institutions were pressured to produce medical advances to compete with the perceived threats coming from the Soviet Union. In Against Their Will, authors Allen Hornblum, Judith Newman, and Gregory Dober reveal the little-known history of unethical and dangerous medical experimentation on children in the United States. Through rare interviews and the personal correspondence of renowned medical investigators, they document how children—both normal and those termed "feebleminded"—from infants to teenagers, became human research subjects in terrifying experiments. They were drafted as "volunteers" to test vaccines, doused with ringworm, subjected to electric shock, and given lobotomies. They were also fed radioactive isotopes and exposed to chemical warfare agents. This groundbreaking book shows how institutional superintendents influenced by eugenics often turned these children over to scientific researchers without a second thought. Based on years of archival work and numerous interviews with both scientific researchers and former test subjects, this is a fascinating and disturbing look at the dark underbelly of American medical history.