A patchwork quilt of Bloomberg dispatches, slightly less biased than USAToday's coverage of the situation. Examine the heavy predominance of trial attorney and AG sources in the "Notes" section, compare the lack of industry source material (aside from public pronouncements). Nearly 20% of the book is a simple re-print of the settlement agreement itself.

I bought this book hoping that our two college professors would give Brownsville a bed of rich and accurate description and at least some analytical scrubbing. I thought this because before I bought the book I examined sections in it that were written by Professor Knopp. His are the enjoyable chapters that focus primarily on Brownsville's culture and people and give us some insight into what Brownsville is about -- how it works on a structural level, how its people interact with each other, and so on. The sections written by Professor Adams, however, are awful. Why? Many reasons: they are written in a dry and dull prose with an unneccessary focus on things like boats and machinery; they are replete with subjective references to politics that should have been left out; and they lack the sophistication and insight that Knopp's chapters possess. Adams's writing is so poor in comparison to Knopp's, in fact, that it reads like a juvenile's -- there are places, for instance, where Adams glosses over big topics like Brownsville's shipping industry (instead giving us only facts and figures) and where he strays into politcal territory when he should have stayed out (at several points he reveals his dislike of such things as the welfare system, political liberals, and segments of our Mexican immigrant population). The result is that the book as a whole reads like a tourist guidebook or a manual for political upstarts who need a Cliff Notes of Brownsville. Very poor effort. If it weren't for Knopp's chapters (and I wish he had written the majority of the book), the book would have been a complete waste of my time.

it's okay except too much boring stuff that will really bothered me. it almost put me to sleep no other book i've ever read could be full of boreness

Adam starts out with a very difficult to support thesis, that bogs down in incredable academic leaps of faith. Not only does he not provide adequately provide support for the theme of his book; he almost abandons trying to half way through. The chapter focusing on Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues" was refreshing and eye opening, but the rest of the book does not sway one to ackowledge the validity of his point. The constant use of "Blues Literature" to support his theory of real worl dblue falls short by nature, being that the blues authors quoted wrote fiction where is by its essence prone to exagerationa nd romanticism and can not convincingly back up his point about white oppression and violence being the backbone of almost all blues music and acting as a coded message universally gotten by the black blues audience. The academic nature of this book loses touch with the reality of things.

This certainly is not the best Cessationist argument out there. You many want to pick up Gaffin's book "Perspectives on Pentecost". Or Merril F. Unger's book on the subject.

It was for school so I kinda had like absolutely no choice BUT 2 read it

When I first got this I thought the kids that I work with would love it, but they couldn't really get into it. It only engaged them for about 5 minutes and then they asked what the point was. Perhaps if it was used as part of a broader curriculum rather than in an individual tutoring session it might have been more affective.

Although the narrator is anonymous throughout the novel, we do know that he has a sister, a mentally disturbed mother and is from a wealthy family. The author's use of language, descriptiveness is very good, however, confusing and difficult to follow. Half way through this book, I still found it difficult to really care about the narrator's challenges, because he struck me as person of great apathy. The narrator doesn't seem to have any spirit or will to live, even when supplied or having a foundation of wealth, and promise. No family loyalty, warmth or love is apparent, and the conditions described go beyond family disfunctionality. So many questions go unanswered. Why did he choose to live on the family farm that was overrun by thugs? Why didn't he or his sister help out their mother? Why did her marry a disturbed woman that he displayed no love for and stay with for 4 1/2 years? In addition, the author introduces characters with no apparent significance, to the narrator or to the book. I wish he would of focused his literary descriptions to answer some of the questions I have relayed. ... It's a shame because the author does have the gift of describing scenes.

I bought this book on the recommendation of a 1st year pharmacology professor who must be getting a kickback from the authors. I did not like the layout which is not user friendly. Also I could not always find drugs I was looking for in the index. Plumb and the Allen book are far more useful - and CHEAPER!

This book has a cook-book style. The concepts taught are highly inadequate. Many of the explanations are just explanations of the source code, which occupies half the book. So, in the end, you would probably gained nothing much in terms of concepts learnt.

But if you just want the source code that works to paste into your program, then this is a good book to get....