Dan Clark calls this show "Mark Twain Dissenting AND the Diogenes of Diamond Towns." Muscatine brags about the months Mark Twain lived here in 1854. We love his praise of our sunsets, but most don't know his anti-war writings. Dan reads from Twain's "The War-Prayer" in belated recognition of Veterans Day. "When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory—must follow it, cannot help but follow it." Read the full text and view a beautifully done video at http://www.thewarprayer.com/. Dan's guest in the second half is Tom Huber, director of Muscatine-based Diamond Towns of America. He explains the DTA community-building model and invites participation. The newspaper called DTA founder Dick Maeglin a philanthropist, but Dan calls him Diogenes. http://www.muscatinejournal.com/articles/2009/11/14/news/doc4afe4bf154dbd953140766.txt and http://www.facebook.com/pages/Muscatine-IA/Diamond-Towns-of-America/97774599536

Dan Clark calls this show "Muscatine Memories of the Berlin Wall and Its Fall." His guests are Kristine Conlon and Ingrid Rowe of Muscatine Sister Cities Association. Kristine is a Muscatine native and German-language teacher who led several school trips to Germany. Ingrid is an East German native who fled to the West with her parents when she was 12, shortly before the border closed. She is now a Muscatine resident and US citizen. Fifteen years after the fall of the wall, on December 2, 2004, Muscatine gained a sister city in the former (East) German Democratic Republic. Ludwigslust is the capital of a district between Berlin and Hamburg. Ingrid and Kristine share memories of Germany and tell about plans for a Sister Cities trip there scheduled for May 2010. NOTE: For some reason, only the last five minutes of the show was recorded.

Dan Clark calls this show "Our Very Own Lincoln-Assassination Story." After killing President Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth eluded federal pursuers and changed his name and lived out more adventures. He ended up in Oklahoma or maybe South America or India. Booth's accomplice Michael O'Laughlen didn't die in prison in 1867 after all, but rather in Muscatine County in 1890, after living where Wild Cat Den State Park is today. Dan says these yarns are part of our local lore, so you'll want to learn about them—and you don't have to believe to enjoy. He reads from the "O'Laughlen" manuscript http://odin.indstate.edu/about/units/rbsc/neff/PDFs/stevenson_olaughlin.pdf and urges listeners to attend a talk by Gladys Mittman who grew up with the story and has been learning more lately. Details at http://muscatinejournal.com/articles/2009/10/31/news/doc4aebcbd126576354383074.txt. More background at http://www.muscatinejournal.com/articles/2007/04/13/news/doc46204bd5585b2975671645.txt.

Dan Clark calls this show "Wedding Destination Muscatine." His guest is Misty Lutz of Hazel Green Bridal and Tux, one of the sponsors of the Wedding Salon Bridal Show that will be at the Muscatine Mall on November 1 http://www.specialelegantevents.com/id83.html. They discuss the bridal show and the wedding business and Muscatine as a place for weddings. Misty says weddings often cost $15,000 to $20,000 these days, but she emphasizes that local businesses work with budgets of all sizes and do their best to help brides make the most of that most special of days. And weddings help pay the trolley bills!

Dan Clark calls this show "Connecting the Dots...to Harpers Ferry and Beyond." He's just back from West Virginia where abolitionist John Brown led raiders into the federal arsenal on October 16, 1859, and helped bring on the Civil War. Dan experienced some of the 150th anniversary observances and took part in an academic symposium at which several sessions were filmed by C-SPAN. At least one program has already been shown, and others may follow http://www.booktv.org/Program/10910/John+Browns+Trial.aspx. News coverage has been vast and is continuing http://www.johnbrownraid.org/pressroom.php. Dan's guest is Kent Sissel, the owner/restorer of the Alexander G. Clark House http://alexanderclark.org. They agree antebellum Muscatine was an abolitionist stronghold and Iowa's main center of African-American population, and they discuss new information about Alexander Clark's family. Urging listeners to learn about Brown's activity in Iowa and Iowans' roles related to Harpers Ferry, Dan recommends "John Brown Among the Quakers" by Irving B. Richmond of Muscatine (1894). Hear last week's Harpers Ferry show at http://muscatinetours.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=537158 and check the TTT archive for other shows on John Brown, Alexander Clark, and the Underground Railroad.

Dan Clark devotes this show to the 150th anniversary of John Brown's raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry (now West Virginia) on October 16, 1859, in an attempt to end slavery. Dan will take part in a conference there this week http://www.johnbrownharpersferry.com/ and visit a friend, a circuit court judge whose work takes him to the courthouse where the 1859 judge pronounced sentence after a fast trial. Brown and several comrades were executed a few blocks away. In his newspaper column this week, the Hon. John C. Yoder writes of the versions of the story he learned growing up in Kansas and going to school in Iowa. "When I moved to Harpers Ferry 25 years ago, however, I began to hear other sides of the story about John Brown," he writes. "Those other perspectives included a belief that his violence and fanaticism may have actually hindered and embarrassed, rather than helped, those who favored the abolition of slavery at the time." John says he supports a proposal to restore the original courtroom where Brown was tried. This could preserve a heritage "and hopefully bring even more tourism to the area." Here in Muscatine County, as elsewhere across Iowa, we are rediscovering remnants of our Civil War and pre-war history, including sites associated with Brown and fellow abolitionists. The June 23 show is also about this topic: http://muscatinetours.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=495069. Dan says, "Maybe I'm crazy to be devoting so much attention to Brown and his followers, especially those recruited from this area and others who trained near here before following Brown to Harpers Ferry. Craziness is, after all, a central theme in this all-American story of direct action by citizens impatient for change. Whoever was crazy and however history judges those abolitionists and the slaughter that followed, it is still a very big story here."