Book Description
Wendy Ewald asked children a compelling question-What is the best part of you?The resulting book captures children's thoughts about their bodies in striking photographs and disarmingly honest words.Sometimes funny, sometimes moving, always provocative, The Best Part of Me is a distinguished, deeply personal book that is sure to be welcomed by teachers and parents looking for creative ways to discuss body image, self-esteem, and diversity and children.
Customer Reviews:
Inspiring Idea.......2006-11-06
I shared this book with my third grade class in the beginning of the year. Each double page spread has a child's writing (best self-edited) and a black and white photo. Since the writers were close to their ages, they could model their own writing after the writing in the book. Each child chose their "best part" to write about and then posed for a picture of their hair, feet, etc. I used a digital camera to take black and white photos. The lack of color really emphasized their work. These are now mounted on their lockers for all to see and I have never had as many comments on student writing. This book could inspire writers of many ages.
Interaction at its Best.......2006-09-17
Great book. What an easy way to get children involved with writing associated with literature. Not only does The Best Part of Me expose children to engaging prose, which they can relate to, it also gets them thinking about what they might say about their own bodies. This is an easy and instant writing project for any classroom, K-12, and the end project creates a terrific bulletin board. The book is worth every cent.
Photos that touch your heart.......2002-05-29
My wife, Marilyn, did a Best Part of Me project with one of the classrooms she consults with. The children who wrote and the shildren and adults who saw the photos and the writing about them were engaged.
Wendy Ewald is an amazing person who uses a camera as a way to learn.
knees & elbows & necks, oh my!.......2002-03-08
Immediate, poetic & bright this big book brings you up close & personal with children's feet, hands, eyes, backs, hair, elbows in award-winning Wendy Ewald's magical photos.
The poems penned by these 15 youngsters are funny & eloquent, touching & proud. As is usual with children, it's more about what they don't say as much as it is about what they do.
Bound to get kids thinking about what they like about their bodies, might even get them writing little ditties about it too! A must in a classroom or school library!
The poems & black & white photos in THE BEST PART OF ME are drawn from Literacy Through Photography, a program Wendy Ewald originated in the public schools of Durham, North Carolina.
Book Description
For more than 25 years the Peabody Museum has been publishing The Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions under the editorial and artistic direction of Mayanist Ian Graham. The goal of this unique series of folio volumes is to document in photographs and detailed line drawings all known Maya inscriptions and their associated figurative art. When complete, the Corpus will have published the inscriptions from over 200 sites and 2,000 monuments. The series has been instrumental in the remarkable success of the ongoing process of deciphering Maya writing, making available hundreds of texts to epigraphers working around the world.
Each volume in the series consists of three fascicles, which examine an individual site or group of neighboring sites and include maps of site location and plans indicating the placement monuments within each site. Each inscription is reproduced in its entirety in both photographs and line drawings. The text of each volume presents descriptive information about the sites and monuments and their associated artifacts.
Average customer rating:
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Adam Bede - Part 1 (The Writings of George Eliot - Volume 3)
George Eliot
Manufacturer: Classic Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
 Eliot, George
| Classics
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Classics
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Eliot, George
| ( E )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1582010706 |
Book Description
Daniel Defoe's faith-filled The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe finds Crusoe bored with his prosperity and consumed by an irresistible longing to return to the island he left many years before. Along with his trusty servant and companion, Friday, he embarks on a harrowing high-seas adventure that takes them to China, over the Russian steppes, and into Siberia. Readers will find themselves captivated by this sequel, which is every bit as engaging as the original.
Customer Reviews:
Who would have thought.......2003-02-07
That Crusoe would have so matured and improved with age having been stuck on an island for most of his life? Life begins at sixty for Robinson Crusoe. Friday is dead in Robinson Crusoe though, so the blurb is wrong.
Book Description
"One of the first great events in Christian history was the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, convened to organize Christian sects and beliefs into a unified doctrine. The great Christian clergymen who wrote before this famous event are referred to as the Ante-Nicenes and the Apostolic Fathers, and their writings are collected here in a ten-volume set. The Ante-Nicenes lived so close to the time of Christ that their interpretations of the New Testament are considered more authentic than modern voices. But they are also real and flawed men, who are more like their fellow Christians than they are like the Apostles, making their words echo in the ears of spiritual seekers. In Volume III of the 10-volume collected works of the Ante-Nicenes first published between 1885 and 1896, readers will find three of Tertullian¿s most famous writings. In Apologetic, Tertullian addresses the powers that be in Rome, demanding that Christians be accepted and tolerated by Roman law. In Anti-Marcion, Tertullian attacks and discusses heretics. And in Ethical he discusses a variety of moral questions."
Product Description
Black cloth Library Bound 1974 reprint of the original publication, with gilt lettering on the spine.
Average customer rating:
- Very touching
- Touching story for anyone who has lost a loved one
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Sean: The Story of a Child's Life and Death
Julie Maude Miller
Manufacturer: Dry Bones Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Special Needs
| Specific Groups
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Memoirs
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Cancer
| Disorders & Diseases
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1883938392 |
Book Description
Many families have lost a child to cancer, including Miller whose 14-year-old son died of the disease. This year-long journal offers a unique insight into a parent's grief.
Customer Reviews:
Very touching.......2001-07-31
I recomend this book to anyone that has lost a loved one,it touch my heart and i will never forget Sean,and I hope anyone thinking of buying just do it and read from any page because every page shas something to offer by itself.
Touching story for anyone who has lost a loved one.......2000-10-25
SEAN touched me in many ways. First, it was scary to pick up the book and begin reading. I'm the mother of an only child who just suffered through a car accident, and I wasn't sure I could read about a child who dies. But instead, once I started this very personal journal and journey through Sean's life and then death, I found out that strength and courage are the attributes of the very special few. And Sean as well as his mother and author, Julie, are two of those rare individuals. Julie's honesty as she faced one of life's most demanding tests is brutal especially when writing about herself and her feelings. This is an important book for anyone who has suffered a loss and hasn't quite figured out how to get through it. Julie, in her directness, shows us that we are only human when we feel ourselves still mourning when everyone else has determined it is time to get over it. This book deals with the agony but also the joys of having loved and having learned to have faith in those things we cannot see or touch.
Average customer rating:
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Gillo Pontecorvo: From Resistance to Terrorism
Carlo Celli
Manufacturer: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Direction & Production
| Movies
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Movies
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
History & Criticism
| Movies
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Performing Arts
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0810854406 |
Average customer rating:
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Refashioning Pop Music in Asia: Cosmopolitan Flows, Political Tempos, and Aesthetic Industries (Consumasian Book Series (Richmond, England).)
B. Shoesmith
Manufacturer: RoutledgeCurzon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Music
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Popular
| Musical Genres
| Music
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Rock
| Musical Genres
| Music
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Music
| Pop Culture
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Asia
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
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Ethnic Studies
| Special Groups
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
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Culture
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0700714014 |
Book Description
Examining the cultural, political, economic, technological and institutional aspects of popular music throughout Asia, this book is the first comprehensive analysis of Asian popular music and its cultural industries. Concentrating on the development of popular culture in its local socio-political context, the volume highlights how local appropriations of the pop music genre play an active rather than reactive role in manipulating global cultural and capital flows.
Unlike many studies on globalization which highlight functional disjunctures of 'cultural imperialism', Refashioning Pop Music in Asia stresses that it is the local context which imbues specific meanings for different audiences, in turn allowing a creative synthesis that makes pop music a unique channel through which cultural identity, political resistance, social expression and personal desire can be experienced. Popular musical expression in Asia-its meaning and its practice-cannot be reduced to the State, market, tradition or to a simple appropriation of Western forms, rather, it is at the juncture of the local and global that an aesthetic refashioning of traditional and pop music genres emerge.
Broad in geographical sweep and rich in contemporary examples, this work will appeal to those interested in Asian popular culture from a variety of perspectives including, political economy, anthropology, communication studies, media studies and ethnomusicology.
Average customer rating:
- interested reader
- This Book is a Jump-Start to Winning VP
- A First-Rate Concise VP Education
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Video Poker Made Easier (Winning Strategies for Serious Players)
Gayle Mitchell
Manufacturer: Webster Research/Info Services Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Poker
| Card Games
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Video Poker
| Gambling
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0965611841 |
Book Description
Video Poker is the most popular casino game and ideal machine bet. All the versions and corresponding strategies are here. Jacks+, Deuces/Jokers Wild, Bonus VP tactics, strategy charts and illustrated pay schedules presented. Newest VP versions are rated by the author. Full-pay Nevada casinos, best payouts in U.S. Canada and worldwide listing; tournaments too. Everything you always wanted to know about winning VP! Intelligent gambling for serious players starts here.
Customer Reviews:
interested reader.......2002-03-17
the price alone speaks not even close of rating doesn't deserve a star either
This Book is a Jump-Start to Winning VP.......2001-10-17
I was a Slots Player only, until I went searching for some VP advice. I found Video Poker Made Easier to be a step-by-step guide you can use as a jump-start to winning VP.
Now, I play Bonus and Deuces Wild correctly and come home from the casinos with more money. I have not completely given up on slots and will continue to follow the great tips and strategies from Ms. Mitchell and her All Slots Made Easier books.
A First-Rate Concise VP Education.......2001-09-20
If you want just the facts with easy-to-understand strategies for all the versions of Video Poker, this book certainly makes Video Poker Easier. 'Mathematical percentage overload' that turns off most readers are minimized here and replaced with useful facts, VP pay schedules and tips. This results in a first-rate concise VP education presented by author, Gayle Mitchell.
Amazon.com
Prospective entrepreneurs may think they know everything there is to know about starting a business in Silicon Valley. They can draw up business plans, have meetings with venture capitalists, maybe even get funded and actually launch a start-up. However, in The Monk and the Riddle, Silicon Valley sage Randy Komisar reasons that's only half the equation for success. And it may not be the important half. Komisar has worked with a number of companies--Apple, LucasArts Entertainment (the gaming division of George Lucas's empire), and WebTV among them--and has come to a rather startling conclusion: if you can't see yourself doing this business for the rest of your life, don't start it. In other words, he wants to see passion and purpose in business, not just spreadsheets and a by-the-numbers business model.
To illustrate, Komisar takes the reader through a hypothetical Silicon Valley start-up, with an eager entrepreneur named Lenny trying to get funding for an online casket-selling business. As Komisar helps Lenny find the real purpose of the business, the passion behind the revenue projections, he reflects back on his life as an entrepreneur. Komisar emerges as a master storyteller, the kind of guy you'd feel honored to share a bottle of wine with. And you believe his conclusion: "When all is said and done, the journey is the reward." It's great if you've made billions on the journey, but the important thing is that you do something you can truly throw yourself into. --Lou Schuler
Book Description
How one Silicon Valley insider has blazed a path of professional--and personal--success playing the game by his own rules.
Silicon Valley is filled with garage-to-riches stories and hot young entrepreneurs with big ideas. Yet even in this place where the exceptional is common, Randy Komisar is a breed apart. Currently a "Virtual CEO" who provides "leadership on demand" for several renowned companies, Komisar was recently described by the Washington Post as a "combined professional mentor, minister without portfolio, in-your-face investor, trouble-shooter and door opener." But even more interesting than what he does is how--and why--he does it. Komisar has found a way to turn an ambitious and challenging work life into his life's work.
The Monk and the Riddle is unlike any other business book you've read. Transcending the typical "leadership book" model of lists and frameworks on how to succeed in business,
The Monk and the Riddle is instead a lively and humorous narrative about the education of a unique Valley insider. It unfolds over the course of an ongoing dialogue between Komisar and would-be entrepreneurs, "Lenny and Allison," and is at once a portal into the inner workings of Silicon Valley--from how startups get launched to how venture capitalists do their deals to how plans get prepared and pitched--and a deeply personal account of how one mover and shaker found fulfillment, not in work's rewards but in work itself.
As the narrative follows Komisar through meetings with venture capitalists and eager entrepreneurs, and as his conversations with Lenny evolve toward a resolution,
The Monk and the Riddle imparts invaluable lessons about the differences between leadership and management and passion and drive, and about the meaning of professional and personal success. "When all is said and done," writes Komisar, "the journey is the reward."
Download Description
Transcending the typical leadership book model of lists and frameworks on how to succeed in business, The Monk and the Riddle is a lively and humorous narrative about the education of a unique Silicon Valley insider. Currently a virtual CEO who provides leadership on-demand to several renowned companies, Komisar's unique role was recently described as a combined professional mentor, minister without portfolio, in-your-face investor, troubleshooter, and door opener. But even more interesting than what he does is how and why he does it. Komisar has found a way to turn an ambitious and challenging worklife into his life's work. The book is at once a portal into the inner workings of Silicon Valley--from how startups get launched, to how venture capitalists do their deals, to how head-hunters make their matches--and a deeply personal account of how one mover and shaker found a payoff bigger than money. The Monk and the Riddle imparts valuable lessons about the differences between leadership and management, passion and commitment, and the meaning of professional and personal success. When all is said and done, writes Komisar, the journey is the reward.
Customer Reviews:
Very painless, fun read.......2007-09-27
I definitely got what I had wanted from this book. Randy Komisar's book not only introduces us readers to the world of VC's, but also colorfully illustrates the advice we're always given as kids: Do what you've wanted to do all your life, now.
Komisar proves, through the world of Silicon Valley, in the better faster cheaper business, that people are still forgetting to do what they want, and instead, switch tracks to the Deferred Life Plan. Bad idea. Luckily, in the midst of this entire crash and burn of multitudes of aspiring yet bound-to-fail businesses, Komisar proposes a simply put solution to this entire mindset! Find your passions, find your life goals, and ask yourself one simple question (which I won't put down here, for the sake of minimizing the spoilers some of which I may've already spilt). READ THE BOOK!
Recommended to me.......2007-05-14
This book was recommended to me while reading another book. It is very useful if you like business. I tell others who have great business ideas to read it first then get back to me.
Great advice for young adults.......2007-04-03
I have never read a book that gave better advice to someone entering the workforce. I read it then sent a copy to my brother, who just graduated from college. It helps you find the right path for your life.
Entertaining and Educational.......2006-10-29
Randy Komisar is one of Silicon Valley's superstars and very much the real deal. The Monk and the Riddle is a light read that is both entertaining and educational. For anybody interested in the valley, start-ups or just good writing, I strongly recommend picking up a copy.
Very readable.......2006-01-05
This book is ideal for reading inside a plane for a medium trip. It is a book that can be finished in a day. It is not stuffy and dry as some business books would be. The Monk & The Riddle is basically the introduction to the content of the book and towards the ending, we would get the gist of what the author meant to convey to us. The message is plain simple, do what you feel is right rather than what you think is right. Follow your passion rather than follow what is perceived to be a good money maker because if the love ain't there, it ain't going to work. It is simple, succinct and relevant but still, there are many people who yearn to get lucky in the Silicon Valley. I guess that the bust at NASDAQ few years back gives the people a reality check that fundamentals are still the backbone and foundation of the economy. An enjoyable to read and a book that affirms us all that simplicity is good!
Customer Reviews:
A must have for all outdoors and Alaska fans.......2007-08-26
A phenomenal book for all outdoors people and Alaska fans. The text flows very naturally. There is a lot of information on Alaskan nature and history.
An Alaskan Hero.......2007-08-09
Frank Glaser's story is a real, first hand look at Alaska in the early days. If you love Alaska and the wilderness, this is the book for you. Frank goes into the back-country and his adventures never cease as he traps, hunts, builds, explores and generally just checks things out. It amazes me that he is always so at ease, even in the most difficult of situations. He is the kind of guy you would just love to tag along with (if you could keep up with him!) His stories and accounts bring Alaska to life at a time when few tourists ventured into the back country. Jim Rearden has done a great job in compiling Frank's stories and amazing life. This book has given me a much greater appreciation of a great state...Wonderful Alaska! I doubt if anyone has ever experienced it like Frank Glaser.
Alaska's Wolf Man.......2007-08-08
Excellent read ! I read mostly African based books, but put onto this from a friend now living in Juneau; thanks Scott! This is the "Capstick" adventures for Alaska !
If There Were 6 Stars - This Would Be It !.......2007-05-22
I read these type books on a regular basis & this one is head & shoulders above the rest. Captivating, interesting, & very informative. Well written & a true treasure. This should be included in the required reading for wolf relocation advocates & "Naturalists". Glasser has no axe to grind, simply tells of his adventures & experiences. I assure you, it is time & money well spent !
Alaska !!!.......2007-03-08
Adventure at its' best. Jim Rearden puts you right in all the action.
Book Description
Fought on what to Westerners was a remote peninsula in northeast Asia, the Korean War was a defining moment of the Cold War. It militarized a conflict that previously had been largely political and economic. And it solidified a series of divisions--of Korea into North and South, of Germany and Europe into East and West, and of China into the mainland and Taiwan--which were to persist for at least two generations. Two of these divisions continue to the present, marking two of the most dangerous political hotspots in the post-Cold War world. The Korean War grew out of the Cold War, it exacerbated the Cold War, and its impact transcended the Cold War.
William Stueck presents a fresh analysis of the Korean War's major diplomatic and strategic issues. Drawing on a cache of newly available information from archives in the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union, he provides an interpretive synthesis for scholars and general readers alike. Beginning with the decision to divide Korea in 1945, he analyzes first the origins and then the course of the conflict. He takes into account the balance between the international and internal factors that led to the war and examines the difficulty in containing and eventually ending the fighting. This discussion covers the progression toward Chinese intervention as well as factors that both prolonged the war and prevented it from expanding beyond Korea. Stueck goes on to address the impact of the war on Korean-American relations and evaluates the performance and durability of an American political culture confronting a challenge from authoritarianism abroad.
Stueck's crisp yet in-depth analysis combines insightful treatment of past events with a suggestive appraisal of their significance for present and future.
Book Description
They are coddled and well-groomed. They chase after the latest scandal and then run around in crazy circles, using the TV studio as their show ring and wee-wee pad. There is no controversy they can't trivialize, no issue they can't vulgarize. They obey their political masters and betray the trust of the audience with every bark. They're the attack poodles-a new breed of celebrity pundit. Wisecracking and impassioned, Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants laces into an all-star cast of blowhard egotists who pound our eardrums and insult our intelligence: Bill O'Reilly, Joe Scarborough, Peggy Noonan, Dennis Miller, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson. But it also delves below the surface squall of infotainment to show how attack poodles function as pets of the Republican party, guard dogs for George Bush, and tail-waggers for war. In the iconoclastic spirit of Michael Moore's Stupid White Men, Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, and Molly Ivins' Bushwhacked, Attack Poodles makes serious fun of the pack mentality that has taken over politics and the press in this country and urges us to rip off our blindfolds before it's too late.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent fun at the expense of the dark side.......2005-10-18
If you just read the description of this book you will almost immediately know if you will like it. It's not a scholarly, thoughtful meditation on media bias. It's a glorious lambasting of the forces of propaganda and mediocrity. Walcott is mad and more than willing to let that show. He's not pretending to want people to get along, he's hollering that the emperor has no clothes.
Reading it I would the style light and blog-like. But without the laziness that blogs usually entail. Walcott has taken a light idea and sculpted it marvellously. His turns of phrase are a joy and never felt overdone. And his targets are passionately deserving of their pummelling.
Simply put, if you think you might like this book, you will. If you don't, you won't.
What Happened, James?.......2005-08-11
I remember James Wolcott as the wonderful television critic for the "Village Voice" in the early 1980's who first alerted me to the glory that was "SCTV." Back in those days he had a genuinely exciting, hilarious wit and a contagious enthusiasm for the stuff he liked and wanted to share with you, the reader. He was also something of an iconoclast at the "Voice"; he would occasionally say a kind word about Reagan. For these sins his column was cut down from weekly to once a month, so he had to share the space with more politically orthodox writers. We need more diverse voices about TV, he was told. "I thought I was the diversity", he said, and left the paper.
He cut a swath through big-time New York journalism; "the New Republic", "the New Yorker", "Vanity Fair." He could even publish book reviews in "The New Criterion", the neo-conservative arts journal. He published a semi-autobiographical novel, "The Catsitters", about a hick from the sticks who tries to make it in the big city. At this point he still seemed like was going in a good direction and knew what he was doing. And then came the massive shock of 9/11, and Wolcott was never the same. He quickly became the single most shrill leftist voice in the media and soon, the blogs.
"Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants" shows the new Wolcott at his most depressing. The wit has been replaced with crude character assassination. The red states, from which Wolcott himself once sprang, are mirthlessly ridiculed with relentless Vanity Fair snobbery. Shades of gray don't exist for him; the only true wisdom resides in the frothing mobs of Moveon.org and Daily Kos. I hope I am not alone in mourning the demise of a once great talent; a brilliant journalist who has decided to turn himself into the left-wing version of Westbrook Pegler.
Why Terrorists are winning the supposed "War on Terror".......2005-07-14
Wolcott offers a hilarious but sad look at how our media has become nothing more than one sided propaganda. Just under 4 years ago, Bush made an empty promise to capture Bin laden dead or alive and it hasn't happened and even after the recent bombings in London, he made the same empty promise. The Iraq war mess is no better as the media is doing all they can to defend Bush's Iraq war despite the glaring evidence that it wasn't worth it. My only complaint is that the author does not make known the fact that us average Joe and Mary six-pack voters are still resigned to these leaders and the media despite all their flaws. It's not that the voters are informed about the truth but that they are purposely misinformed about the truth. Why would the media go on a wild goose chase covering the Chandra Levy missing case throughout the summer of 2001 while at the same time ignoring the glaring dangers of potential terrorists who ended up destroying the two towers in Manhatten and part of the Pentagon in D.C. ? Or for that matter, why else would the same media that ignores the ever increasing dangers and failures presented by Bush's Iraq War choose to give more air time to Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson? I would have appreciated it if the author had talked about why the voters and the Democrats are not standing up to the corrupt kon-servative media and government and holding them accountable. Other than that, I think this book is a beginning step to correctly informing the misinformed.
into the paranoid fantasy land..........2005-06-18
More of the same from that crowd whose volume and omnipresence belie their actual numbers. Yet another example of how dissent is being stifled by the evil Karl Rove and his minions! The amazing thing is that the only yappers Wolcott finds so contemptible are the ones with a conservative viewpoint. These are the only know-it-all pundits that have no business yapping, apparently. No mention of Chris Matthews, Air America, or Dan Rather--these are all crusading truthseekers i suppose. In any event, for all of you who are into this type of self-congratulatory, exclusive knowledge of how the United States has become a dictatorship by electing people that all these writers, singers, journalists, and otherwise pampered elites with bully pulpits don't like, I'd like to ask one question: Does this paranoid fantasy land that you and your faction have carved out for yourselves enrich your lives on any level whatsoever? To just blindly believe in cut-and-paste conspiracy theories so you can sleep easily knowing that the evil empire isn't fooling you? Man, you people should relax. Find a new obsession, because this one's irrelevant and just a shameful waste. History will ultimately tell us the full truth, but in the meantime, for a bunch of moral relativists you sure have gotten apocolyptic on us. Sheesh.
Good read.......2005-05-20
It shouldn't be such a surprise to anyone: news organizations play nice with the powers that be or they lose access. While this isn't new to the Bush administration it's gotten a lot worse since 2000. Actually there are two and only two sources of liberal news right now: Air America Radio and Pacifica Radio. Everyone else is in a big hurry to appease and cajole the GOP. The result: we get skewed news and are encouraged to stick our heads in the proverbial political sand. And while we do that terrorists with eyes wide open plot to attack us. So long as Bush and his attack poodles come out looking good, it's all right by them.
Book Description
North America's fastest mammal, the pronghorn can accelerate explosively from a standing start to a top speed of 60 miles per hour--but it can also cruise at 45 miles per hour for many miles. What accounts for the speed of this extraordinary animal, a denizen of the American outback, and what can be observed of this creature's way of life? And what is it like to be a field biologist dedicating twenty years to studying this species? In Built for Speed, John A. Byers answers these questions as he draws an intimate portrait of the most charismatic resident of the American Great Plains.
The National Bison Range in western Montana, established in 1908 to snatch bison from the brink of extinction, also inadvertently rescued the largest known remnant of Palouse Prairie. It is within this grassland habitat--home to meadowlarks, rattlesnakes, bighorn sheep, coyotes, elk, snipe, and a panoply of wildflowers--that Byers observes the pronghorn's life from birth to death (a life often as brief as four days, sometimes as long as fifteen years) and from season to season. Readers will also experience the vicarious pleasures of a biologist who is eager to race a pronghorn in his truck, scrutinize bison dung through binoculars, and peer through the gathering dusk of a rainy evening to count the display dives of snipe.
A vivid and memorable tale of a first-rate scientist's twenty-year encounter with a magnificent animal, the story of the pronghorn is also a reminder of the crucial role we can play in preserving the fleeting life of the native American grassland.
Customer Reviews:
Deer and antelope don't only play.......2006-08-09
On a thirty square mile reserve in western Montana, John A. Byers studied pronghorn antelope in their natural habitat over many years. He accumulated a lot of knowledge and in addition to publishing a scientific work, he also wrote this beautiful, almost lyrical `ode' to the life of antelope. In addition to antelope birth, fawn life, pecking order, survival rates, enemies, abilities, reproductive rituals, and diet, Byers writes very ably about the natural beauty of the area and many of the myriad other creatures that inhabit it along with the pronghorns, creatures such as bison, elk, bighorn sheep, coyotes, meadowlarks, snipe, and grasshoppers. His own experiences over the years, doing the study, also form an enjoyable part of text. Many black and white photos and a sense of humor grace the pages of this slim book. Readers with general interests can easily absorb the scientific explanations of plant/animal ratios or biomass. A theme that has not been emphasized, but is very interesting nonetheless, is that many inherited characteristics of pronghorn antelope stem from a not-so-distant (in evolutionary terms) era when speedy, large predators roamed the North American grasslands. After a mass extinction some 10,000 years ago, antelopes no longer needed the 60 mph speed, urge to be in groups, embryo disposability and aggressive `displacement behavior' they still exhibit. Modern coyotes cannot catch an antelope any more than Wyl E. Coyote can ever catch Road Runner. Antelope harems, hawk kettles, bison ruts, beautiful sunsets---BUILT FOR SPEED is one of those books of which you will be sorry to reach the end.
Excellent read and excellent science.......2005-09-28
Byers has written an unusual book here, appropriate for a very wide audience and yet full of science. More importantly, his book shows how scientists think, in wonderful, almost lyrical, prose. The layperson can catch a glimpse of how science works, and the beauty that scientists can see in the natural world. The book gives a unique portrayal of how and why science actually gets done which is quite different from the way scientists and their work are often portrayed elsewhere. A wonderful addition to any bookshelf, library, or classroom. His more technical book, still very readable, is jammed with all sorts of research about pronghorn. It is titled American Pronghorn: Social Adaptations and the Ghosts of Predators Past.
Built with brilliance.......2003-09-02
Byers is a first class scientist and he writes really well. It is rare to see a naturalist book written with so much verve. A good read that begs the reader to think at least as much of the human condition as the pronghorn condition. Send this one to all your naturalist buddies.
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