Marc Ellis challenges the tradtional Jewish and Christian position on the State of Israel, and its relation to the Shoah. Pointing out that remembering what happened in Nazi Germany is important, but that the role of victim still being played out by many is unhealthy. The call to "End Auschwitz" is a call to put bitterness and resentfulness in the past, and to look to a new future that offers hope. Ellis presents his concerns over the treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israelis, wondering if the desire for a homeland and the desire never to victims again has lead to near genecidal actions and dehumanization. Marc Ellis is definately on the cutting edge of post-shoah theology and is sure to make many people angry while enlightening others. A must read for anyone interested in a viable interfaith dialogue.

This book forms the third in a trilogy including TOWARD A JEWISH THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION and BEYOND INNOCENCE AND REDEMPTION. This is the most personal of the three. Starting and refering back to a trip he made to Auschwitz as part of a conference of scholars. He gives great personal detail as to his own spiritual journey. His deep if complicated relationship with Richard Rubenstein, the author of the now legendary AFTER AUSCHWITZ, which along with Elie Wiesel's NIGHT, initiated "holocaust theology."

Along the way he ties Auschwitz with 1492 and the multiple genocides of indigenous peoples since. Reflects on the essential continuity between the "Christ of Faith" and the Constantinian transformation. Attempts to reclaim, insight from the cultural/binational Zionism of Ahad Ha'am, Judah L. Magnes, and Hannah Arendt. Tries to visualize an all inclusive vision of Judaism.

Ellis ranges widely, especially considering that the book is only 162 pages long. Needless to say there are omissions and missteps. While focusing on Auschwitz and 1492, Ellis neglects the Crusades as another catastrophic turning point of western history. Not only does the subject bring in Muslim greivance toward Christianity, but the event marked a new outbreak in anti-Semitism that characterized the second millenium, as well as greatly heightened persecution of homosexuals, heretics and "witches." In short, an event at least as great as Constantine.

The connection he draws between "the Christ of Faith" and Constantine is just asserted. True, "reformers" are too glib in trying to separate the Church from "abuses." But Ellis, fails to lay out his version of how a group persecuted by empire, became part of the empire and why it was an inevitable development. As for asserting that 1492 "benefitted" the Church. Is this true? Much of the current growth in Asia and Africa is quite indigenous and pentecostalism is the big phenomenon in Latin America.

In critiquing the "Christ of Faith" he falls back on Crossan's THE HISTORICAL JESUS as though Crossan presents the last word on "the Jesus of History" (as though such a thing were possible). He seems unaware that his reconstruction of "Jesus as a peasant cynic" is widely disputed. Reconstructions are ever subject to revision and in the end as Schweizer showed, seem to tell more about the author than the subject. As for his all inclusive view of Judaism, he tries to affirm the pagan practices by Ancient Israelites condemned by the "establishment" prophets. Strange that the "establishment" prophets were often the subject of persecution (e.g. jeremiah and isaiah). While the "popular" pagan practices seem to follow courtly fashion.

Most troubling is that for a "theology" there is almost nothing said concerning God. (In BEYOND INNOCENCE AND REDEMPTION absolutely nothing is said.) But Ellis's journey is far from over. In just the last few weeks, Ellis has delivered a lecture on "the Prophetic: Hope of God, Hope of Humanity" that embraces and declares the need for "God Talk."

With his mentor Rubenstein I too "find everything Marc Ellis writes to be a 'must read'...especially when I disagree with him."

Taylor's book seeks to establish a postmodernist philosophy by showing it to be the only viable option after the effects of deconstruction. It is in two parts.

The first part is a detailed exploration of the effects of deconstruction on the thinker's concept of God, self, history, and book. His argument is that deconstructive thought removes from the thinker the ability to endorse the being of an objective God, which in turn prevents a conception of self. This step occurrs because self is always defined in relation to an Archimedean point. Once both objective God and self are given up, there is nothing on which to base a concept of time or book (in the sense of a self-contained unified whole).

The first section effectively makes the reader unsatisfied with the consequenses of deconstructive thought. The argument that a person cannot live in this state in convincing.

In the second part, Taylor attempts to reconstruct these four concepts. He argues that the subjective action of the human imagination can re-lig (re-connect) the world and make an inhabitable conceptual universe.

The book is appropriate for a reader with some minimal background in the critical thought of the last two centuries. Taylor does not address the reader who rejects deconstruction on other grounds, and his attempt at reconstruction is unsatisfying. However, the first part of the book is entirely worth reading, and I highly recommend the book on the merits of the first part alone.

Mark Taylor's book, "Erring: A Postmodern A/theology," will challenge it's reader and entice them to enter his web of thought. Personally, I owe much of my own personal "erring" to this book. This read will help to examine as well as deal with the questions many of us can not seem to shake. Is their really a Judeo/Xian God? Understanding the dialectic between man and himself and his world is imperative if western culture is to proceed into a postmodern world of pluralism and omnicentrism. make no mistake, if you posess strong reading ability,this book will open your mind or return you to that experience few of us have attained. Err in this direction and Mark will surely send you erring or wandering in a world never before experienced or forgotten

We'll never know how far Mark Brickell male erotic vision would have gone. Sadly, he left us in February 1994. This second book in the series is a highly erotic and beautiful showcase of male nude photographs. This Canadian photographer had a way with displaying the male nude in a very simply but erotic vision, much like that of Robert Mapplethorpe. His models are draped in cloth, and symbolism, but presented in their stark nudity, displaying their well-endowed eroticism to the best advantage. These black and white images of young men are very bold and stunning in their sharpness & clarity.

This is a wonderful second edition to this series. A must for your collection!

"Mark Brickell's sculpture-like scenery for his photos of young men point to his veneration of Mapplethorpe. The Canadian's highly erotic male photos captivate lastingly." - From the publisher

EXILES brings together six X-Men from different realities and sets them loose on missions to correct time-lines in still other realities. Mission: Impossible with mutants with a twist of "Marvel What-If". A mysterious being known only as the Time-Broker gathers Blink (born in the Age of Apocalypse), Nocturne (daughter of Nightcrawler and the Scarlet Witch), Thunderbird (another incarnation of John Proudstar), Magnus (son of Magneto and Rogue), Mimic (another incarnation of Calvin Rankin), and Morph (who comes with pratfall humor and is an incarnation of a character inspired by the X-Men cartoon series) and reveals their assignments. If they have any hope of returning to their different time-lines and altering the terrible events that took place there, they must straighten out various other time-lines first. Two different time-lines are presented in this graphic novel. In the first, the Exiles take on the most powerful evil mutant in the world: Charles Xavier. And in the second mission, they have to destroy Dark Phoenix instead of helping rescue Jean Grey.

Judd Winick was on MTV's "The Real World" and a good friend of Pedro Zamora, who later died of AIDS complications. Winick took up the lecture circuit regarding AIDS as he'd agreed to do for Zamora, and later did a book about the friendship called PEDRO AND ME. While on the show, Winick also launched a weekly comic strip, NUTS & BOLTS, and a later spin-off, FRUMPY THE CLOWN. He did ROAD TRIP, an Eisner nomination, and THE ADVENTURES OF BARRY WEEN, BOY GENIUS. Working with DC Comics, he has been writing the GREEN LANTERN monthly title, a ten-issue backup in Detective Comics, JOSIE MAC, and has upcoming projects for Vertigo and a Green Lantern/Green Arrow crossover. Mike McKone has worked on several X-Men titles, VEXT with Keith Giffen, SUPERMAN, MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER, HULK, PUNISHER, THOR, SPIDER-MAN, JUSTICE LEAGUE, and many others.

EXILES gathers the first four issues of the monthly comic series into a graphic novel that stands well on its own. The story is familiar to many fans of comics and science fiction, and it's interesting to see the different way worlds and characters could have gone. Winick's handling of Morph, the team funnyman and pratfall king, stays just this side of going over the top. The two worlds revealed in the graphic novel are interesting. Featuring Charles Xavier, the founder of the X-Men, was a given, and the rewriting of the Dark Phoenix saga wasn't too surprising. Where the book really succeeds, though, is in Mike McKone's art, especially with long-time pal and partner Mark McKenna laying in the inks with Cannon and Jimmy Palmiotti. The panels explode off the page in color, vibrancy, and immediacy. Another nice touch is that no one in this series appears to be safe. One of the main characters is killed halfway through the graphic novel, only to be replaced almost instantly with another twisted version of someone near and dear to the X-universe. The potential of the series is great and can bring about the same sense of wonder that powered the WHAT IF series.

Given the overall framework of the comic series, these first two stories lack a little. They're not overly original and despite the premise, there isn't enough real tension or development of character. Of course, Winick is trying to introduce his characters and the concept at the same time, and even kills off one of the major players. There is also a tad bit of long-windedness from time to time that covers over the beautiful artwork.

Regular readers of Marvel's X-books will definitely want to take a look at this spin on their characters and their worlds, and Mike McKone's artwork is absolutely worth collecting for any comics fan.

As a long time X-Men fan, I was excited about the recent relaunches of the X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, and X-Force. While two of those books proved to be really good reads, none matched the total package that Winnick and McCone brought to the table. And if you are like me and missed the first four issues, this handy, cheap package is a brilliant introduction.

For long-time fans of the X-Men this book is a no-brainer. The plot is a mix of Avengers Forever and Quantum Leap. X-Men are plucked from different realities and times and brought together to "fix" different realities that used to only happen in What If? comics. None of the heroes know who has chosen them. They are only guided by a mysterious entity called the Tallus.

The cast list is a fun diverse group of X-Men. Blink, from the Ages of Apocalypse storyline a few years back leads the team. Mimic is very different from the one in the normal Marvel U. Morph is definitely the comic relief probably in his best written appearance since the old cartoon. The daughter of Nightcrawler and the Scarlet Witch, Nocturne, is probably my favorite character. There are many more characters, but telling you all about them will ruin half the fun of discovering them on your own.

If you are a newcomer, don't worry. There is not a lot of back continuity to be concerned about since all of the worlds and characters do not follow normal Marvel continuity. It's kind of fun to see even the characters having a hard time dealing with that.

Overall, I would say buy this book. You will be happy you did.

If you're like me, someone who loves Peruvian food but didn't really learn how to cook Peruvian food and now wants to try, this book will be a great help. True, some of the recipes don't quite hit the mark to what I am used to, but this is a great start.

I especially liked that the recipes list the cities or regions where they were created, and even mentions the fusion in Chinese-Peruvian and Japanese-Peruvian cuisines.

I found the recipes easy to follow.Very close to the way my mother cooks them. Even better when I was able to get the ingredients at a store in bellevue called LA Espanola (425-641-0249). They carry the yellow chile (aji) and red chile (aji) and other ingredients that gives Peruvian cooking its unique flavor.

This book presents a portrait of the Twentieth Century as seen through the images of twenty of its great photographers.

Each photographer is given his or her own chapter and is introduced by Mark Harris' portrait, followed by five photographs and excerpts from the author's interview. Featured photographers include Eve Arnold, Edouard Boubat, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Horace Bristol, Jean-Phillippe Charbonnier, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Elliott Erwitt, Andreas Feininger, Eikoh Hosoe, Annie Leibovitz, Peter Lindbergh, Mary Ellen Mark, Carl Mydans, Helmut Newton, Gordon Parks, Marc Riboud, Herb Ritts, Joe Rosenthal, Sebastiao Salgado and Jeanloup Sieff.

The result is a unique collection of images and words portraying the photographers and the century in which they labored.

Photographic and verbal portraits of 20 master photographerswith rich reproductions of works of their own choice. Thephotographer-author's interviews offer penetrating insights into how such artists as Alfred Eisenstaedt, Manual Alvarez Bravo, Annie Leibovitz, Herb Ritts, Sebastiao Salgado and Andreas Feininger think and work. A fascinating read and a valuable resource.

Faith County was one of the funniest plays I have ever read. The banter between the characters seems like it was dictated from people actually speaking. It's serious because the events are important to the characters and to them what they are saying is not funny; it's just the truth. I highly recommend this book.

This fun comedy is great for anyone looking for a simple, quality show. Very appropriate for high school or community theatre settings, this play would probably especially be a hit in rural or southern communities that might "recognize" some of the characters. It has very simple scenic and costume requirements, putting it within reach of a group on a budget. Give it a read and I'm sure you'll agree that this would be a crowd-pleaser.

For anyone interested in issues at the interface of science and religion, this collection of interviews comes highly recommended. Chief among the merits of this volume is its level of engagement, and it is the people involved in this project who insure that the level of this conversation will be deep and its range wide. The core of the book is a set of interviews of twelve scientists conducted by philosopher Philip Clayton and science writer Gordy Slack. They are taken from the proceedings of a 1997 meeting in Berkeley (facilitated by the Science and the Spiritual Quest program under the auspices of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, a pioneer in the field of science and religion), where an international pool of sixty scientists met to discuss the relationships between their scientific work and their religious and spiritual lives. Interviewers Clayton and Slack set a philosophically sophisticated tone and manage at the same time to invite the scientists to talk at a more personal, intimate level, without letting them descend into grandstanding or evoking defensive apologetic. The nuances of each scientist's perspective surface in the interaction. Clayton and Slack probe; they push and encourage scientists to refine their thinking and their statements.
It is also the caliber of scientists that makes the depth of engagement here possible. Their caliber as scientists is beyond dispute; two of the twelve are Nobel laureates, most of the rest are at the top of their fields. But, clearly, they have also been chosen for inclusion in this volume for their ability to articulate and explore their faith or spiritual quest as it interfaces with their lives as scientists. The twelve come from a range of scientific disciplines and of religious stances and spiritualities, and their level of spiritual-religious maturity or of commitment to a particular tradition varies. There are Islamic scientists who speak more of complementarity between modes of knowing than of conflict between science and religion. Others among the twelve are Jewish, Roman Catholic, Anglican. Spiritual struggle is displayed and addressed; the various approaches and traditions are honored.
Taken together, these interviews constitute profound evidence for faith in science in several senses. They exhibit phenomenological evidence that at least some ranking scientists integrate deep faith and excellent science. In addition, the conversations turn, time and again, to points of personal struggle. There is struggle to find integration between one's life in science and one's religious tradition, to resolve epistemological issues, to reconcile belief in human freedom with evidence of bio-genetic determinism.
The conversation is revelatory, as well, of the faith that science itself entails. There are choices to be made at the confluence of science and religion, to be sure. But the choices cannot be distilled into one between purely rational science and a (supposedly irrational) life of faith. Science relies on doctrines, tenets, rituals, and customs which must be taken on faith, and no one seriously arrogates unto him- or herself absolute objectivity anymore. There is, then, an implicit (and sometimes stated) critique of scientism here, an exposure of the beliefs implicit in reductionistic science.
Scientists and theologians ought especially to find this book provocative and perhaps evocative of further discussion. The interviews could be excellent classroom discussion starters and the book could serve well as a sourcebook for courses in religion, the history of science, and in epistemology. Clayton and Slack have provided models, as well, for how to deepen discussion and help people refine their thinking about the science-religion interface.
In the middle of his talk with physicist Arno Penzias, Slack quotes Wittgenstein: 'We feel that when all scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely unanswered.' To this, Penzias replies: 'The meaning of life is not in science. The meaning of life has little to do with how good our description of the world is. The description of the world we have today is remarkable . . . . [but] with all of this scientific progress we've made, the addition to our understanding of meaning is not all that hot.' But when Slack offers the same Wittgenstein quote to another scientist, a very different response is forthcoming. That is the beauty and the challenge of this book.
If one comes away from the encounter with this array of approaches with any clarity, it is that, at the science-religion interface, humility and modesty are appropriate. It is also clear that these issues are important and that they are not going away ' and that some of our finest minds (meaning persons with fine minds!) and deepest spirits are engaged in working on them. We have so much yet to learn about the universe; our spiritual quests have just begun.

As Pope John Paul II points out in his encyclical, Fides et Ratio "(T)he more human beings know reality and the world, the more they know themselves in their uniqueness,...the question of the meaning of things and of their very existence becomes ever more pressing." The book Faith in Science intends to show, at least anecdotally, that this is indeed the case. Like most of the rest of us (or perhaps even more so than the rest of us), some of the world's leading scientists also wrestle with life's ultimate questions.
This book, published in 2001 compiles transcripts of twelve interviews with top scientists (including two Nobel Prize winners) that discuss how the scientists' personal beliefs and faith effect their understanding of life and their practice of science. I found the majority of the interviews insightful and thought provoking, providing a rare insiders' view of the scientists' struggles to make sense of life's questions in a milieu often regarded as devoid of or hostile to religion and theological inquiry. The interviews are as readable as those in popular newsmagazines and can be appreciated by both the general reader as well as the scientific specialist.
The book is ambitious in terms of its scope. The scientists' religious backgrounds range from more traditional monotheistic faiths (Protestant and Catholic Christianity, Islam and Judaism) to less common belief systems. A few of the scientists interviewed are also trained theologians or philosophers in their own right. These scientists' chosen fields range from biology and ecology to astronomy and cosmology, physics, computer science and psychiatry. With this broad scope, the book quickly reveals a diversity of individual approaches when dealing with the question of faith in science. Some of the interviewees have discovered a comfortable home within established religious communities; others have found their presence within these institutions more tentative or untenable. Some describe their need to pursue a religious tradition other than that of their family of origin in order to make sense of their spiritual journey. All accounts represent individual experiences of confronting life's significant questions.
Using this type of approach, the reader looking for a "faith versus science" confrontation may be disappointed. The point of the book is neither to minimize religion, nor to declare its superiority. Instead, the interviews along with book's title subtly raise an ironic question for this post-modern age. With issues such as those surrounding cloning, high-tech weaponry and bio-engineered organisms already present or on the near horizon, can humanity continue to have "faith in science?" Or will the human race ultimately find that a spiritual component working within science is helpful or even vital? What can science contribute to the understandings of theology or spirituality? While these questions remain open, this book does succeed in showing that faith and science can co-exist, interact, and enhance the lives and thinking of some of the world's leading scientists. Perhaps theology and science as broad fields of study can also ultimately learn and grow from the experience of these exceptional individuals.

Neely gives an excellent and detailed review of how civil liberties suffered during the War Between the States. The right of habeas corpus is Neely's main concern, but trials by military commissons and international law are covered among other topics.

If you're not a Civil War buff, this book may seem pretty dry. For example, a lot of space is devoted to evaluating the various claims of how many military prisoners there were. While this is important historical data, it made my eyes glaze over and prompted me to skim several sections of the book.

Given the post-9/11 discussions of military tribunals and other curtailments of the Bill of Rights, this book is more relevant than ever.

This book gives an excellent look into the policies of the Lincoln administration and the effects of these policies on civil liberties in the United States. A common misconception regarding this subject is that the majority of those arrested as a result of the suspension of habeas corpus were political enemies of Lincoln. This book, however, demonstrates how many of the arrests were not based upon politics, but upon how the crimes committed affected the war effort. Most attention in the past has focused on a few famous cases such as Clement Vallandingham, but this book shows that this case was an exception to the rule.

A must-read for anyone interested in the Civil War or Abraham Lincoln. Neely also writes in a clear prose that clearly explains his points and allows the reader to understand what he is talking about even without having an extensive knowledge of Lincoln or the Civil War.

This is a very well made CD. It is not boring or dry like books and the examples the demonstrator uses are very clear. I just search the topic I want and there it is shown step by step. You just cannot beat the price and the quality of the product.

My office changed its' database over to Filemaker about three months ago. It was done because we have some PC's and some Macs on a single server, and Filemaker accomodates both platforms. I was a bit panicked because I had never even heard of Filemaker, much less used it. I found this CD and decided to buy it. It has something like 12 hours of training on it! I would come home from work, and use the CD for about an hour a night. It wasn't long before I was the person at work everybody else was coming to for help on the new database. Knowledge IS power!