Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism

Book Description

A refreshing, insightful look into the political and economic dynamics driving globalization today
Globalization: it's earlier than you think. That's the provocative message of Against the Dead Hand, which traces the rise and fall of the century-long dream of central planning and top-down control and its impact on globalization-revealing the extent to which the "dead hand" of the old collectivist dream still shapes the contours of today's world economy. Mixing historical narrative, thought-provoking arguments, and on-the-scene reporting and interviews, Brink Lindsey shows how the economy has grown up amidst the wreckage of the old regime-detailing how that wreckage constrains the present and obscures the future. He conveys a clearer picture of globalization's current state than the current conventional wisdom, providing a framework for anticipating the future direction of the world economy.

Customer Reviews:

what you never learned in Poli Sci 101.......2005-10-11

I bought this book to help in my research on a masters thesis...I think it is excellent. The book moves between (overly) scholarly erudition at times to almost poetic prose at others. You will defiantly feel where the action picks up and where it drops off...but it is understandable when you are trying to build a scholarly case on this subject.

Essentially he argues that liberalism (free markets, limited government, and individual rights) lost the battle in the 20th century, but had been on a decline since the late 1800s in some areas. The result was a century of warfare, massacres, and sustained poverty.

The scholarly work and assumptions made in this book are not the work of childish or child like intelligence. It is quite the opposite. Have you ever heard a free market advocate arguing "Look even a child understands it, it must be true!" Never, such are the arguments of communists and socialists. The real childish assumptions come overwhelmingly from the global left. The belief that poverty can be solved simply be re-distributing wealth shows painful ignorance of the economics involved. (though Lindsey is not hostile to "saftey nets"...I don't believe in the free market long run saftey nets will be needed at all...politically I recognize they would be necessary to get anything accomplished, but only if they are made more effecient like a negative tax proposed by Milton Friedman) Further ignorance is demonstrated through their assumptions that free markets exploit. Free markets are based on voluntary transactions, and as a voluntary transaction IT CANNOT BE EXPLOITIVE.

I agree with Lindsey that the leftist assumptions are the results of years of fallacious reasoning...intentionally or unintentionally; they are wrong on almost all accounts. I however find their love for their fellow human and desire to increase the welfare of society to be admirable, their solutions however are the causes to the problems they address. They don't understand history, politics, or economics. And they always blame the market for problems that the market often did not cause by conveniently forgetting or ignoring the government involvement in the creation of said problem (example, the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s...always blamed on free market capitalism when in fact fixed exchange rates, policies of the government not free trade, were a major cause of the crisis).

Current empirical evidence suggests, as Lindsey agrees, that economic freedom is strongly connected to civil and political freedom. That is, the more economically free a country is the more civil and political freedom the citizens enjoy...what we now call democracy is realized.

It is no coincidence that the forces who tried the hardest to suppress economic freedom also killed off vast portions of their populations...these are the Fascist and Communist governments that the Left have confused as polar opposites...they are not, both hate economic freedom and as a result both hate civil and political freedom.

Lindsey goes through great detail to list the conditions in the rise of liberalism and its decline. With the help of Hayek and Friedman he shows how government intervention and anti liberal policies helped bring about WWI, the great depression and WWII. The results of all of these were a belief that markets don't work and governments do. In the end, we live in a world that still fears globalization and free markets...a world that conflates free markets with mercantilism and continues to argue that free markets don't work in fact its their very own policy preferences that continue to cause global problems.

Example: protectionism (tariffs and quotas) protect the wealth of the first world capital owners at the expense of the first world consumers (who pay higher prices) and third world laborers (who have more difficulty finding employment) and third world capital owners (who find difficulty in creating and maintaining an export industry). PROTECTIONISM IS A WEALTH TRANSFER FROM POOR TO RICH, that ironically most leftists seem to accept ignorantly unaware that in no way are workers actually protected. Free trade is the opposite of this. Barriers are removed, jobs are created between both first and third world countries, trade ensues, both sides are lifted up through increasing prosperity and wealth creation.

Free markets are not the end all for the debate in this book. Lindsey recognizes that the forces that destroyed liberalism once before are still at work. Their arguments, assumptions, and ignorance still lives and has the potential to again mobilize a mass movement against liberalism...and ironically for totalitarianism. That being said, the summary of his book is that globalization and free markets are not inevitable nor invinsible.

No hard core leftist will read this book and suddenly be converted. They will likely throw confused fits of frustration and show little ability to counter the arguments found inside. Classic Liberals and those more favorable to the free market will find themselves with a highly compelling argument in this book that will strengthen their own understanding of globalization. Those who find themselves in the center will find a book that challenges many of the major assumptions that most of society accepts...it may leave you wondering exactly how you went through your entire education and were never presented with any of these arguments or facts.

But the sad state of public education is another book altogether... :P

Economics & history that is plainspoken and factual.......2003-12-04

I'm not surprised that preceding customer reviews are love-or-hate. Lindsey is a free-market advocate, trying to zap anything that remotely resembles marxist, top-down central planning. He clearly advocates a strong and responsible role for government, for important duties such as: protecting individual rights (including orderly transfers of property), centralized functions that cannot compete with market driven processes (e.g. defense), and providing economically sustainable safety nets for those who need help and care and have no resources.

It might be hard to see if Lindsey's heart is a youthful 16 or 20--he definitely doesn't come across as a socialist. But his principles have anecdotal, qualitative and quantitative truths from more than a century of history, so his brain is certainly working just fine. For example, Lindsey presents a compelling case on protectionism leading to trade wars and world war. His equating pay-as-you-go entitlement systems (legislated by leaders such as Bismarck, chiefly concerned with opiating the masses) with Ponzi or pyramid schemes (deemed illegal by the same governments) is unassailable.

If you care about shaping the socioeconomic world that our children and grandchildren will be inheriting, and if you are concerned about what fiction will be taught to them in most universities (e.g. liberally spun Keynesian economics, without contrasting neoclassical or monetarist economics, or even historical resultants of collectivist policies), this is a great book.

If you want to revisit the Dark Ages, then disparage this book and its commendable author.

Painfully ignorant and simplistic--an embarrasment to Cato.......2003-11-29

Brink Lindsey is a fundamentalist. He believes that "free trade" will cure every problem in the world. And he believes that a lack of "free trade" is to blame for wars, poverty, and all other ills of humankind. Unfortunately, Lindsey seems to possess a childish understanding of "free trade," of world history, and of economics.

To take just one flaw, in a book filled with flaws... Rather than carefully examine the wholesale gutting of Russia, when free trade fanatics took over (in the early 1990s), and when the Russian economic nearly collapsed, industrial output plunged, corruption and crime roared, prostitution exploded, AIDS and drug epidemics devoured the nation, poverty is up exponentially--and Lindsey can only say that they didn't go far enough!

Three billion humans live on less than a dollar a day--and while 45 million human beings face death from AIDS, Lindsey offers them only the market. Most of them will die, while free marketeers talk of future salvation.

One need only read Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz's Globalization and its Discontents for a far more intelligent overview of capitalism today. Stiglitz, who is an ardent fan of capitalism, carefully disects the ways in which "free trade" is often anything but.

The problem with free market lunatics like Lindsey is that they fail to see the ways in which powerful nations and corporations bully the marketplace, control politics, and stack the deck in their favor. Just look at the cartels which control oil, fruit, cocoa, diamonds, automobiles, etc. They control prices, laws, wages, and politics around the globe. They profit from wars and from child labor. It takes either a fool or a free market fantasy to miss these basic problems with unregulated "free trade." Like all fundamentalists, Lindsey needs less faith and fervor and more critical analysis.

Wide-ranging but one-eyed........2003-10-05

Lindsey is a neo-conservative and this book represents a wide-ranging but finally unsatisfactory addition to the non-debate about globalisation. It divides the world into two groups - the free marketers, who are good, and the collectivists, who are anti-modern and the cause of most if not all the failings of the current highly imperfect free markets. Anyone who can lump George Soros' concept of the Open Society with collectivism, really has a bad dose of the current tendency to declare 'if you are not with us, you are against us'.

Read the book for a sometimes fascinating excursion into history, politics, the informal economy, the failings of collectivism and state control (but not the failings of the market), but do not expect to have much light cast on the underlying issues of wealth and poverty, sustainability and the proper place of money in judging the progress of society. Equally, do not expect to see useful engagement with the issue of the role of great international economic agencies (WTO, IMF, World Bank) and the processes by which nations, corporates and the common people influence their decisions.

A Fresh and Well-Argued Discussion of Globalization.......2003-09-04

Challenging the new consensus on globalization in this book, Brink Lindsey "portrays globalization as a kind of wholesome vacuum filler, the vacuum having been created by the loss of credibility and authority of statism and collectivism, the regnant economic and political doctrines in the world for most of the twentieth century. Near-universal statism, he maintains, choked off the naturally expansive impulses of capital, the precedent for which was the explosion of the world economy in the half-century or so before World War I. He claims that blame for the interwar implosion of the world economy lies with statism and collectivism. He sees the future as a struggle between forces of globalization -- a liberal world order, that is -- and the remnants of statism, giving the nod to liberalism in this contest because of its successful record in promoting economic welfare, in contrast to the proven failure of statism and collectivism."

"This book is a qualified success because of its fresh and carefully argued perspective on economic globalization," yet "certain aspects of Lindsey's economic history may not stand up to scrutiny."

"A methodological point of considerable significance is Lindsey's use of qualitative evidence to show that statism refuses to die and is defended everywhere by vested interests and laws that are difficult to change, making the struggle between the dead hand and the invisible one a momentous issue of our time. Although Lindsey is correct to assert that the dead hand remains with us, it is nonetheless difficult to form a clear picture of the extent, strength, or influence of the past from his discussion."

Thus, it would be helpful if Lindsey showed "more carefully than he does that free-market forces have the stronger hand to play. His argument in one brief -- indeed, cursory -- chapter is merely that no viable alternative to markets exists as a macroeconomic organizing principle, so that the triumph of liberalism sooner or later must arrive despite stubborn and effective resistance from the forces of the dead hand. This conclusion assumes a certain degree of rationality and pragmatism on the part of the world body politic that some...might not yet be willing to grant."

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Independent Review, published by Independent Institute on March 22, 2003. The length of the article is 1500 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Against the Dead Hand: the Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism.(Book Review)
Author: John, R., II. Hanson
Publication: Independent Review (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2003
Publisher: Independent Institute
Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Page: 617(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Finalist for the George Terry Award sponsored by the Academy of Management "This lovely and important book is the clearest, most complete, and interesting statement of sensemaking in organizations available. . . . It will have an impact on both new and experienced scholars." --Bob Sutton, Stanford University "Weick is artful. He masterfully constructs the sensemaking theoretical framework so that it can be better understood by the general scholar and in the process provides the reader with the sensemaking experience." --Kathleen Sutcliffe, University of Minnesota The teaching of organization theory and the conduct of organizational research have been dominated by a focus on decision making and the conception of strategic rationality. The rational model, however, ignores the inherent complexity and ambiguity of real-world organizations and their environments. Karl E. Weick's new landmark volume, Sensemaking in Organizations, highlights how the "sensemaking" process--the creation of reality as an ongoing accomplishment that takes form when people make retrospective sense of the situations in which they find themselves--shapes organizational structure and behavior. Some of the topics Weick thoroughly covers are the concept, uniqueness, historical roots, varieties and occasions, general properties, and the future of sensemaking research and practice. Expertly written, Sensemaking in Organizations is the volume that students, scholars, and professors of organization and management studies must have.

Customer Reviews:

Sensemaking fails to translate theory into practice.......2001-06-25

Weick's book is thoroughly researched, drawing its insights from psychological and organisational studies.

It offers new views on how organisations operate, and how they generate meaning. It points out that reality is not something outside the organisation, but something that is constructed by people within the organisation - an empowering insight. Weick also extensively discusses where and how this 'making of sense' happens.

But the book fails largely in linking this theory to practice. After making sense of 'Sensemaking', (which requires some mental acrobatics!), I still don't know how a leader can influence the sensemaking process to the benefit of the organisation. I'm still left with the basic question: So what?

Powerful insight into how people work together.......1997-08-20

This book has a very academic tone but it has some powerful implications for anyone in business. The book makes a number of points that are not intuitive but that are very powerful. For example, he talks about the advantages of speed, confidence, and plausibility in problem solving and why they may be more important than accuracy

Book Description

Students in animal science, industry personnel involved in the feeding of animals, and professionals working for feed-mixing companies will all benefit from this current, comprehensive package - a text on the economic and nutritional aspects of feed formulations that optimize nutritional content while minimizing costs.
Animal Feed Formulation applies a well-tested, easy-to-use computer program called UFFDA that illustrates the principles of least-cost food formulation. Developed in a cooperative effort by the Departments of Poultry Science and Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Georgia, UFFDA is menu-driven software that has the editing capabilities of a spreadsheet program for altering the ingredient and nutrient matrix.
The book begins by solving a simple ration-balancing problem, providing step-by-step instructions with the computer program that any user - even one without computer training - can readily follow. It then discusses specific feed formulation techniques in terms of their practical applications and economic implications. Included are such techniques as sensitivity analysis, parametric cost and nutrient ranging, optimum-density formulation, multi-blending, and risk analysis, among others. Applying these and other techniques using the special features of UFFDA, users can select the proper ingredients, adjust proportions among nutrients, determine which feeds might require scarce ingredients, consider the risks involved in dealing with ingredients with below-average compositions, and ultimately determine the costs and nutritional content of various feed formulations. The program can be applied to determining feed formulations for any animal, including sheep, beef and dairy cattle, swine, turkeys, broilers, catfish, and horses.
Practitioners who are growing animals will be able to maximize the nutritional content of their feed while keeping costs down. Professionals working in feed-mixing companies will be able to maximize profits by offering products composed of low-cost ingredients that are also of good nutritional value. Students will gain a firm background in nutritional and economic concepts, insight into how to apply them to practical problems, and an understanding of the way good nutrition and good value can be achieved by applying the latest computer technology.

Average customer rating:

Hey Yo 6th Circuit!

One of My All-Time Favorite Books!

This is a more technical description on the Eight Neural Circuit model

Don't dodge the "exo-" of the original

Worth the read in any case

Info-Psychology: A Revision of Exo-Psychology (Future History Series) (Furure History Series)
Timothy Leary
Manufacturer: New Falcon Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Dr. Leary explores the real issues of our time. Space Migration, Intelligence Increase and Life Extension in this "Manual on the Use of the Human Nervous System According to the Instructions of the Manufacturers."

"The Info-Worlds our species will discover, create, explore and inhabit in the immediate future will not be reached from launch pads alone, but also through our personal computer screens."

Customer Reviews:

Hey Yo 6th Circuit!.......2007-07-15

If you really want to know what Tim was thinking this is it. (Though The Game Of Life is good too!) By the way, he wrote something while in Harvard before the 60s thing took off. It had something to do with the way we react to others depending on the angle one is approached--very interesting. If he would have continued with that and hooked it with exo-psychology he would have had something interesting. I think the best way to incorporate exo-psychology is revaluate the second and fourth circuits to Swiss army knife evolutionary psychology--try Dunbar or perhaps Mithen.

One of My All-Time Favorite Books!.......2007-05-15

This was one of the most influential books that I read while i was in college. It helped me to understand my psychedelic experiences and to shape my ideas about the evolution of consciousness more than almost any other book. I think that Leary's 8-Circuit model of the brain, and his theory of neural imprinting and psychedelic reimprinting, is one of the important contributions to 20th Century psychology. Leary was a brilliant philosopher, an uncannily creative psychologist, and his extraterrestrial vantage point in this book can be hilarious at times. This is one of my all-time favorite books.

This is a more technical description on the Eight Neural Circuit model.......2006-12-01

This book is a more thorough and technical analysis of the Eight Neural Circuit Model of human consciousness. The diligent magical reader may more easily compare personal magical development to the circuits understood as general stages of consciousness evolution.

Don't dodge the "exo-" of the original.......2006-01-29

This book originally was published as "Exo-Psychology" and the title referred to Dr. Leary's interest in space colonization. Dr. Leary got caught up in the personal computer windstorm of the 1990s and (the Challenger explosion didn't help) turned his sights from outer space to cyberspace. But his original insight that psychedelic states presage those of extraterrestrial minds remains prescient. This book delineates a model of developmental psychology that spans prehistory to posthistory, and deserves a new reading by a new, postpsychedelic, generation. The book sprung from a philosophical context that Dr. Leary called Interstellar Neurogenetics. The term never caught on, but its spirit lives at www.starlarvae.org.

Worth the read in any case.......2005-06-23

If you are already of the opinion that Timothy Leary was just some fanatical cult organizer under the influence of every illegal substance known to man, you have nothing to lose by reading one of his books. You can at least hope to obtain some first-hand evidence of his alleged insanity.

On the other hand, you would have a hard time convincing me that this book was written under any influence other than a joyful wonder and awe concerning knowledge and the world, and perhaps a mild resentment toward the system that imprisoned him for far greater a period of time than is typical for possession of marijuana.

By all means, InfoPsychology presents an unconventional model of reality, the human mind, and evolution. "Crazy" seems at times to be the best description for some of the ideas presented here. But as Leary himself points out, until the next evolutionary plateau is reached, concepts associated with that plateau will seem alien and threatening to the status quo (as well they should). But that is no excuse to dismiss these ideas as crazy. Subversive, contraversial, beyond the reach of our collective understanding and acceptance, perhaps. Certainly not crazy.

And if only for the time it takes to read the book we accept Leary's logical progression, we'll see that his book must necessarily be considered "crazy." He is dealing with evolutions that have not yet occurred. We cannot expect to fully understand and appreciate the complexities of an evolved form of humanity any more than neanderthals could've been expected to understand us. And in order to be able to reprogram ourselves, we must first recognize, or be made aware of how programmed we are to begin with.

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Info Psychology a Revision of Exo
Timothy Leary
Manufacturer: FALCON PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000Q03SE4

Book Description

Through the pioneering efforts of ecologist B. W. Wells (1884-1978), thousands of North Carolinians learned to appreciate and protect the state's diverse plant life long before ecology and conservation became popular causes.

A keen observer of the natural landscape, Wells provided the first scientific descriptions in modern terms of the forces that shaped coastal communities, bogs and savannahs, the Carolina bays, pine forests, old fields, and mountain grassy balds. But the broader impact of his life lay in his championship and popularization of nature. Outside academic circles, he shared his knowledge through public lectures, articles, and lobbying efforts, and by teaching anyone who would listen. In 1932 he produced for his Tar Heel audience a revolutionary work on the plant ecology of the state, The Natural Gardens of North Carolina. Organized by habitat, this volume is still entertaining and instructive.

Wells received his Ph.D. in botany from the University of Chicago in 1917 and served as chair of the North Carolina State College botany department for thirty years. He was a memorable teacher and a significant force in the development of his academic institution.

Average customer rating:

Humor, History, Controversy (orginally posted, Jan 1 2004)

Great book - loved it

Fantastic Book

Don't Believe Everything You Read

Blades of Glory-The True Story of a Young Team Bred to Win

Blades of Glory: The True Story of a Young Team Bred to Win
John Rosengren
Manufacturer: Sourcebooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

This brutally honest, moving and insightful book about high school sports evokes the tradition of Friday Night Lights, Buzz Bissinger's classic book.

John Rosengren was given unlimited season-long access to the Bloomington Jefferson Jaguars, a Minnesota championship team where hockey is religion and failing to win is a mortal sin. Under the watchful eye of pro scouts and the weight of massive expectations, the Jaguars rank number one in the country.

This is a story of high drama and emotion; intense and poignant, it is dramatic narrative at its best. Dealing with the classic issues of what happens to boys under enormous pressure to win, Blades of Glory draws into sharp focus the challenges of divorce, teen suicide and performance-enhancing drugs.

Blades of Glory follows five of these young men and their coach, showing a rare look inside an elite high school program. It is both an insightful story for parents and a thrilling read for sports fans everywhere.

Customer Reviews:

Humor, History, Controversy (orginally posted, Jan 1 2004) .......2007-10-13

Humor, history and controversy: Blades of Glory has it all. More important, Rosengren taps into truth from a variety of perspectives, including those parents, players, coaches--and scouts whose livelihoods depend upon not just upon a prospect's potential but also his circumstances.

But these aren't the reasons I selected the book in the first place. No, I picked up Blades of Glory because I'm a hockey fan (of all levels) and a hockey player; I selected the book because I have lived in Minnesota and have coached hockey (and other sports). I didn't know I'd learn so much about things I thought I knew about, and I didn't realize I'd get more than just a fleeting glimpse of the big hockey picture.

There is a wide variety of hockey books sitting on the virtual shelves at Amazon.com: NHL autobiographies, training manuals and minor league misadventures. I have read many of these books. I'll continue to read them--and will enjoy them for what they are. But these other books won't likely be laced with the same doses of humanity and history as Blades of Glory.

Great book - loved it.......2007-08-15

The story of Bloomington Jefferson Jaguar hockey in 2001 could easily have been written about my high school 15 years prior. I grew up one 'burb over and attended Tom Saterdalen's hockey schools as an early teen. It was held at the Bloomington Ice Garden in "prestigious West Bloomington" - the storied venue chronicled in the book.

High school hockey in the Lake Conference is a very big deal. I knew as much from the time I was a Mite and my dad took me to watch our community's team play. Yes it is competitive. Yes there is a win-at-all-cost mentality that draws fire from many - including some of those that have reviewed the book for this site. You can be the judge of whether that is good, bad, or neither.

We (and I'm including pretty much every male hockey player in my community) all wanted to suit up for Varsity very badly. We wouldn't have wanted it so much if it weren't as competitive, as important. Like professional sports, successes are a great source of civic pride.

Blades of Glory takes you inside this world for one sometimes glorious, sometimes frustrating season. Indiana basketball, Texas football, Minnesota hockey. This isn't participatory high school athletics in obscure sports at some random school. Rosengren does a very good job of capturing the emotions. He also weaves in enough tales to make stabs at social commentary without coming across as preachy.

My only knock against the book is that he opts for an effect that takes things out of their chronological sequence in order to emphasize certain emotions and certain points. (Example - wait until you read about the Jefferson Jaguars GIRLS hockey team late in the book. We hear about how some of the boy players are dating girls that play on the team throughout the book... their successful season is covered late, almost as an afterthought. Another example - much is written about a parent's critical letter to the community paper in the early 90s about Saterdalen's overzealous competitive drive. Context on the source is provided at the very end. I'm not sure why that was held back as some sort of finale.)

Anyone that thinks they'd like this book will. A great work.

Fantastic Book.......2006-03-11

I am not from Bloomington, but my mother is from the area, and my brother lives in Bloomington now. I had always heard about the State Tournament, how great it was, and when I found out about this book, I had to read it. When I was back in Minneapolis for Christmas, I picked up a copy, and I could not put it down. I finished it on my 16-hour car drive about three days later. All I did was read this book, for three days. "Blades of Glory" was fantastic, funny, and the way it was written was very good. I myself have always fantasized about living there, and playing high school hockey (but obviously for the girl's teams), and reading this made me feel like I was there, like I was a member of the team. They had their hearts broken, and mine broke right along with them. This is one of the best books I've ever read, and I've read a ton of books. I've actually reread it, it's just that great of a book. If you liked "Friday Night Lights", you will love this book. I wish they would make a movie out of it, I think it would be great!

Don't Believe Everything You Read .......2005-08-17

A former UM-Duluth goaltender loaned me this book. I enjoyed parts of it, but Rosengren's factual errors call into question the whole narrative that the author asks us to believe.

Among Rosengren's goofs:

1) Larry "Pops" Ross never coached at UW-River Falls, as Rosengren claims.

2) Scott Stevens never went head-hunting for Eric Lindros, which led to Lindros' sixth concussion. I watched that game, and Stevens hit Lindros with a legal shoulder check delivered at chest level. Lindros came across the blue line with his head down and he paid for it. There was no malicious intent on Stevens' part, as Rosengren implied.

3) The United States Hockey League (USHL) is not a "beer league" filled with goonery as some of the Jefferson players in the narrative state. Rosengren later slips in subjective evidence to reinforce the notion that the USHL is a thug-filled, bottom-end league. He's way off: The USHL is a top-tier Junior A league with many talented players that end up playing collegiate hockey and beyond.

Here's proof: Blake Wheeler, who played with the USHL's Green Bay Gamblers in 2004-05, was taken fifth overall by the Phoenix Coyotes in the 2004 NHL draft. A bloke named Gretzky runs that outfit. In the NHL's 2005 draft, 26 USHL players were selected by NHL teams.

Must be some beer league. I don't know of any beer leagues that have teams that draw more than 100,000 paying fans a season.

Moving on, I had trouble keeping Rosengren's five hockey-playing characters straight. Perhaps that's on me.

Give Rosengren credit for exposing the drug use among the Bloomington Jefferson players and head coach Saterdalen's erie obliviousness to drug use by his players. I liked the way Rosengren neatly worked in Minnesota hockey history, assuming the new history I read was accurate.

As for Minnesota hockey parents, he nailed the worst ones dead one. I coached youth puck in Minnesota for two decades. While most hockey parents in Minnesota are wonderful people who put the game in perspective, there are the toxic few who only see their investment (child) and nothing else. Some of the Jefferson parents demonstrate what psychologists call "achievement by proxy." It's grossly unfair to any young player.

I sometime suspect that we hockey fans are so glad to have anything in print about our sport that we become giddy with joy reading it. This is an average hockey book that fires some of its factual content wide of the net.

Blades of Glory-The True Story of a Young Team Bred to Win.......2005-06-01

Blades of Glory-The True Story of a Young Team Bred to Win, by John Rosengren
Copyright 2003, Sourcebooks, Inc., 339 pages, ISBN- 1-4022-0046-3
Reviewer: Ryan Kesti 9th grade, Red Wing High School, Red Wing, Minnesota

"Jaguar Hockey 200-2001 November-Commitment, December-Teamwork, January-Endurance, February-Success, March-Xcel, read the sign hanging above the bench in the Bloomington Jefferson hockey team's locker room. The book Blades of Glory tells about the things that are expected when you are one of the best hockey teams in the state.
The book is a great look into the highs and lows of a hockey season with the Jefferson Jaguars. In this book you learn what kids will do and have done to play for one of the most premier hockey teams in the state of Minnesota. You learn about kids who will cheat and take steroids or do whatever it takes to become the best. You will also learn about kids who have worked hard at hockey since the age they could walk to get their shot to play at the Xcel Energy Center for a chance at the state title.
This is one book I would recommend to anyone interested in any high school sport, not only for those who love the game of hockey, but for everyone. I am not a person who will read many books but this is one book that everyone should read. There are a few adult moments but this book can be read by anyone from middle school age on up.

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Hit and miss ideas for frugal living

Outdated living on a shoestring

You only need a few good ideas - I have more money in my pocket

Just so-so

Common sense or no sense

Yankee Magazine's Living Well on a Shoestring: 1,501 Ingenious Ways to Spend Less for What You Need and Have More for What You Want

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Saving on a Shoestring: How to Cut Expenses, Reduce Debt, and Stash More Cash

Living Well on Practically Nothing: Revised and Updated Edition

The Best of Living Cheap News: Practical Advice on Saving Money and Living Well

Frugal Living for Dummies

ASIN: 0899093809

Book Description

In Living Well on a Shoestring, you'll find more than 1,500 practical money-saving techniques for every aspect of your life, from getting out of debt and finding money for retirement to decorating on a budget and cutting pet-care costs. The penny-pinching editors of Yankee magazine know firsthand that you can learn to live well while staying well within your means. And now they're on a campaign to show you how it can be done! Inside these covers, you'll discover the four essential keys to spending wisely and stretching your income: knowing budget basics, getting out of and avoiding debt, increasing your savings, and living within your income. You'll also get all the information you need to build a solid financial foundation for living the good life, including tax-trimming ideas and a list of easy ways to increase your earnings. Once you've mastered the four basic elements that will help you transform your spending style without settling for less, you're ready for the nitty-gritty, penny-pinching, day-to-day details of consistent and mindful saving. Check out the scores of ingenious ideas jam-packed into chapters like Frugal Lawn and Garden Care, Thrifty Ways to Dress Well, Spending Less for Quality Health Care, Saving on Electronics and Small Appliances, and Cutting Transportation Costs. This book offers hundreds of tried-and-true tips for leading a thrifty lifestyle. Need supplies for your home office? Keep your eyes peeled for businesses that are closing or relocating. Want to lower your auto insurance rate? Ask about hidden discounts that your insurance company may not be revealing up front. In the market for a new bicycle? Shop in late September or early October, just after the industry's largest trade show-- and don't be afraid to barter. Sprinkled throughout these pages are entertaining real-life "It Worked for Me" success stories and top-notch recommendations from "The Yankee Miser." Perfect for skimming or reading cover to cover-- you may have trouble putting it down-- Living Well on a Shoestring is a comprehensive, information-packed volume that guarantees you'll have more money in your pocket at the end of each and every day. More than two million devoted readers agree that the editors of Yankee0 magazine are the most trusted authorities on the art of living well on a shoestring-- after all, it's a Yankee tradition!

Customer Reviews:

Hit and miss ideas for frugal living.......2007-08-31

This book suffers from trying to cram too many ideas into a small space. Each chapter is divided into small sections which are then further divided into very brief tips. Amidst all that are margin notes and quotes from readers with frugal suggestions, and it makes for a very cluttered read.

The ideas given in the book range from common sense to handy new ideas to the downright silly and unfeasible.

Here's a few examples: One suggestion for creating a savings is that book lovers borrow books from the library instead of buying them, and then putting the price of the book in the savings account. Another tip is to pay attention to the cash register receipt immediately after making a purchase and deal with overcharges right there. Those are good ideas.

Then there's common sense ideas such as making your own coffee/food or doing your own repairs. But does anyone really need to be told that it's cheaper to do it on your own? What if certain repairs are beyond your capabilities?

One so-called helpful hint suggests saving the change that falls out of pockets in the laundry: "When you save enough change, you can buy more laundry detergent." If I was to wait until I got enough stray change to buy detergent, I'd never have any soap. It's a silly idea, not practical in the least.

Too much weight is placed on the cleverness of some ideas. One suggestion is to trim your hedges around your home instead of buying alarms or locks. While it's a good idea to reduce the hiding places around your home, one shouldn't rely solely on a neat yard for theft protection.

However, there are some good ideas in the book, and if you're serious about learning new ways to be frugal, it's worthwhile to check this book out. It's a quick read and occasionally entertaining.

Outdated living on a shoestring.......2007-03-26

As you may have been reading in the other reviews, this book is very different. Most of the suggestions are wacky, and really could only save you pennies to say the least. Once in awhile, the suggestions are okay, if you own a home (which I don't because I don't have money) but if you followed every suggestion in the book you would be the laughing stock of your community. There are much better books on the market for the purpose this book is supposed to serve. If only they would update it, it wouldn't be half bad. I mean, they talk about going to the library to use internet when almost everyone has internet on their phones nowadays and other wierd "hints" that just don't make sense. They spend a whole section on just organizing your bills and putting them in places like a shoe organizer or an empty cereal box because this will help you save money.

Real frugal people would just save their money and skip the book to read something that will actually help you.

You only need a few good ideas - I have more money in my pocket.......2007-01-27

I have not even read close to 1/2 of the book. So far, I have found a lot of info that is not useful to me. My advise is to just not spend any time on those parts. I did find, so far, 2 good ideas and the day after finding them, I implemented them. The result is cold, hard cash and an ubelievably better use of some cash I already had.

I expect the rest of the book will be the same way. I will skip the parts that do not apply to me or interest me. I will however, find more good ideas. Heck, the 2 ideas I have already found paid for the book and my future will be "richer."

I also plan to provide the reviews of this book to my smoking cessation classes. Until they quit, they need to be frugal. Once they do quit, they need ideas for all that extra money.

Just so-so.......2005-08-18

If you think you'd like to decorate your home with cardboard tubes, construction paper, and glitter, this is the book for you. Otherwise, you might not find it very useful.

The book does have some hints that I found helpful, especially in the section on home remedies (the things you can do with vinegar!). Also, some hints on saving money were sensible, if obvious (if you don't read a magazine, quit your subscription -- sounds obvious, right? If only I could follow that advice...)

But for the most part, I didn't find much I could use. For example, instead of simply saying "have a garage sale and advertise for it" as an idea to make some cash, they give five or six ideas for advertising for a garage sale, some of which are just absurd (eg, painting footprints on the sidewalk leading to your house).

Some advice just seemed ill-advised to me, such as using your 401(k) as a savings vehicle for college or a first-time home. Sure, you're allowed to tap it for those purposes, but you shouldn't plan it that way!

And a lot of the advice just seemed to lead you down the road to a more cluttered life, for example, the tip to fill a 5-gallon bucket with sand and motor oil to clean off the metal parts of your gardening tools. How are you supposed to dispose of that properly? Who's got space for a bucket of oily sand? Ugh.

If all the examples I've cited really excite you, then by all means, buy this book. Otherwise, just check it out of the library. Or just check it off your to-read list altogether.

Common sense or no sense.......2004-12-31

The tips offered in this book fall into two categories:

1. Things you already know if you have a bit of common sense (Example: Fix the toilet if it leaks, or else the water will cost you money)

2. Things that do not make sense (Example: Disassemble you flashlight so you have a place to keep pens in the flashlight cylinder and don't need to buy a pen holder. Keep the flashlight parts somewhere, so you can put it back together in a power outage)

I admit, I am not an expert in frugal living. If you are, perhaps you will find the second category useful. With this book, we were looking to find some advice on how to save money. Out of the "1501 ingenious ways", there were two or three I found I could use. I will donate my copy to the local library. If you are interested in this book, I recommend you follow the advice of another reviewer and check it out from your library first.

Book Description

Former Secretary of Transportation, former Secretary of Labor, President of the American Red Cross, wife of co-campaigner Republican presidential nominee and icon Bob Dole, co-campaigner presidential candidate in her own right, and now a Senator from North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole has led a remarkably accomplished life in her climb to being one of the two most influential women in American politics. Her reputation as an effective and inspiring public speaker is not incidental to those accomplishments. In Hearts Touched By Fire, Dole recounts her inexperienced beginnings while running for student office at Duke University, and how understanding the importance of being able to communicate what she had to say ultimately helped to take her and others on her journey. In addition to her own development as a speaker, related with candor and insight, Dole presents 500 of the most time-honored, beloved, and, ultimately inspiring quotations—some of which were said to her personally—that she uses in her role as a leader, legislator and orator. Hearts Touched By Fire is a wonderful collection not only for those interested in public speaking but for anyone who is simply in need of empowering and uplifting words of wisdom.

Customer Reviews:

Making a Point, That's Already Been Made..........2005-11-05

How often do you want to use just the right words to get a point across? Using a well-placed quote from a famous name often does just that. Why re-invent the wheel - when you can just borrow a well crafted phrase from a Forefather or two?

And I agree with the previous review... this book is for everyone!

Inspiring Quotations from Historical People.......2005-02-28

Great reading! I first took it home from the library. Then, after reading most of it, I felt I wanted my own copy. A nice book for the side of your bed or for reference in making a speech. There are 19 topics from Faith to Business, Family to Leadership, Character to Courage. No partisanship or politics here (I'm a liberal) . Easy to read. These are uplifting words of wisdom.

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