My 2 year old son loves Hot Rod Harry and he can recite it out of memory because I have read it to him so often. He has started recognising the words in the book if I write them on a piece of paper. It is fantastic!

This is a brilliant book if you work under a person (or people) who make you feel that you can't do anything right. If you have worked for many years with very isolated or no problems at all and the bosses change, turning your working environment upside-down, using moral blackmail to ram you into a corner, read this and then decide if it is really YOU who's metamorphosized or if it's merely some 'special breed' of ego-trip boss who will eventually, with a bit of luck, make himself so unpopular he's sent off to a remote spot in Patagonia, at which point you can return to business as usual and feel like a normal person again.

This is possibly the best down-home earthy style book I've read about the Vietnam Conflict. It is heartwrenching and true, and something you'll not soon forget. I'm sorry that it has fallen out of print, because it deals with an issue no one wants to talk about: the war we lost, and the stashing of our veterans out of public view.

Dr. Menchik's provacative writing keep me on the edge of my seat from page one till the heart-wrenching end! The saga of his economic theory combined with the tension of the bitter supply/demand battle provides excitement for everyone from the beginning student in Econ 101 to the tenured professor of economics. I strongly recommend this thrilling tale for anyone interested in a good cost benefit analysis or other great economic theories! I can't wait for the sequels!

This book answers many questions children have concerning flight. It is written in a simple matter and is wonderfully illustrated. The book not only explains how airplanes fly, but also gives a brief history of flight, and introduces new vocabulary words chidren may not have heard before. I used this book as the foundation of a science unit I taught my preschoolers about airplanes.

This is a good book because the birds are pretty. I liked the arctic terns in the book.

You don't have to buy this book, you can get it in a library in the Journal of Human Resources 1999.

Its a pretty good paper with interesting findings.

Is Diesing's book an instance of "undiscipline?" He states that those socialized into a research community carry on its canon, (his term is "the main texts") and those "unsocialized translators" (referring to himself) write texts "in their own language by filling in their own tacit assumptions, problems, and ways of drawing implications" (p. 122). He sees his role as a writer as an "emancipatory" one, and he seems to call into question the role of authority or the "status quo of the discipline. He describes scholars who begin their works by using "the proper language" the positivists esteem, only to abandon the substance that language is supposed to represent later in the work (p. 84). It is true that Diesing is not directly advocating this tactic, but he does later make the statement that those who read his descriptions can act however they wish upon them, leaving acceptance of the tactic as an option open. Could the preferred action be the "trickery and deception" (p. 52) of the kind Feyerabend admired-noting that Diesing has dedicated his book to Feyerabend?

In his chapter on pragmatism, Diesing explains the process by which research is conducted by having one's results critiqued by an adversary to help establish validity. He states here that "the clinical supervisor will need sensitivity and much patience to watch the field worker produce data" (p. 101). The words chosen convey a different image to the reader than the sentence intends. That which is clinical is sterile and not sensitive (to use Freudian word-association here). Additionally, one does not see a supervisor/worker relationship emphasizing patience, but efficient, rapid production achieved by a hard-driving supervisor whose presence reminds the worker does not lapse into complacency by reminding him of the possibility of no raise, bad reviews, dismissal from the job, and so on. Diesing takes another veiled swipe at pragmatism by describing the fact that John Dewey's union, the American Federation of Teachers, is a rather right-wing group when Dewey himself had advocated socialism, yet the AFT officially and publicly still recalls Dewey's founding membership with pride (p. 81). Pointing out an awkward situation in his adversary's camp must be "delicious," to use the term Diesing chose very early in his text (p. 9).

Diesing had said he was unaware he was practicing hermeneutics in his early career (p. 144). This statement in itself is telling, as it indicates the inseparability of the scientist from the things studied, as well as from the methods deployed in those studies. Logical empiricism had attempted to erase that fundamentally human fact, as did later antitheses to positivism including Popper, who had tried to play off his pessimistic conception of human nature to achieve vertical progress (to borrow a term from Dryzek) in the sciences. Diesing responds to the Popperian modifications by employing more psychoanalysis. Diesing states that Popper's method of relying on falsification for testing a hypothesis rather than looking for confirmation takes advantage of two human tendencies-"dogmatism and the critical attitude," to make progress in scientific theory-building (p. 32). When Diesing begins to critique Popper, it seems he calls attention to yet another human tendency-hypocrisy, by stating that Popper never followed his own methods of falsification upon his own theories (p. 38)? Diesing never uses the word hypocrisy; he only describes it.

Diesing discusses Milton Friedman's imposition of the quantity theory of money in economics on the facts, conceiving of no other alternative (p. 112). This seems similar to the issue that Shapiro brought up in his article "Public Law and Judicial Politics" in Finifter's edition-Friedman's method is a case of "working backward" to make their conclusions match their desires (p. 374). Many view this type of activity as a way of biasing one's results, especially in reference to judges who use this method in deciding cases ("legislating from the bench"). Because of the way in which Diesing writes (or the way I read), it is difficult to tell whether negative connotations are being attached to Friedman (a probable ideological adversary), or to the method itself. It would be easier to believe Diesing if the criticism were attached to Friedman and not the method he describes, since Diesing should recognize yet another human tendency to make the "facts" come out in a way that is desired in advance. After all, Diesing can be easily (and deliberately) "misread" here, Diesing himself says that a major hermeneutic maxim is "no knowledge without foreknowledge" (p. 108).

Diesing admits that these schools survive by having external "political and social support" (p. 103). He adds, "the National Science Foundation is not likely to...fund research in voodoo, witchcraft, rain dancing, and demonology (p. 103). Maybe not, but the Nobel Prize has just been awarded to Robert Mundell of Columbia University, an architect of supply-side economics, famously referred to by then-presidential candidate George Bush in 1980 as "voodoo economics." Many observers say the award was given to Mundell for his work on the EU currency, the Euro, in order to boost confidence in the new regime. This indicates the discipline is itself political (even in other social science disciplines including economics). Philosophers of science, according to Diesing, are the "rule makers and judges" (p. 83). Diesing's disdain for this political authority can be seen in his description of positivists as having used their methods and influence to "colonize" the discipline (p. 84). Taken together, these assumptions make politics, power, and scholarly research inseparable.

In receipt of "how electrons whirl our wheels" and I liked it very much. My reasons for liking it may be incorrect, but let me state them. It doesn't tell you anything. That is, there IS some real information in it--like Tesla's dates and the information about his mother and a "general sense" of his experimenting and inventing. Several years ago I became convinced that information overload was quite real and, I suppose, except for that hardcore information which is life or death (such as medical info.), one way of organizing and presenting information is as good as another. 20 pages of broad-brushed suggestive information is as effective as 20 volumes and, quite frankly, from what I know of Tesla--and more particularly--from the mystique surrounding Tesla, your little booklet captures that. It is an invitation to know more and once you've learned more, there is still your little booklet to return to which becomes richer not less richer and more suggestive of Tesla's "genius."

I also enjoy the use of old images/illustrations to describe high-tech and "modern" things, seen first in What Color is Your Parachute and then in many computer, computer language books.

Eight-year-old Boris is sent to visit his grandmother for some months in turn-of-the-century Russia. Lonely and desperate for playmates, he has to make do with the kindly old lady and his own imagination. He is intrigued by a realistic replica of a sailing ship which is stored high on a shelf in her kitchen. This is the only ojbect in her humble cottage which she will refuses to let him play with, so naturally it acquires additional charm--the attraction of the Forbidden.

But the young boy has a mind of his own, capable of reasoning like an adult. Convinced that the ship actually is housing tiny, living beings, he becomes a master of deception and cunning as he plots how to catch them. He lies to granny and sneaks the tantalizing ship down in her absence. Proving the existence of the little fellows (and capturing one alive for public display) become his obsession. Which leads to inevitable disaster. So, are they real or merely the result of an over-active imagination?

This is an excellent short book to read aloud; be sure to take a vote on this burning question, before revealing the climax. Although I was dissatisfied with the ending, I was spellbound throughout--I only regret that I can read it for the first time but once! I believe this book was based on some incident in the author's childhood and that the manuscript was found by accident. Wonderful pen and ink sketches by Paul O. Zelinsky make this gem a literary conspiracy of Russian Z's! Excellent Fantasy--or Reality...!