This book, seven strong chapters and a brief, personal Preface, ably discusses and deconstructs historic notions of disability ("the missing term in the race, class gender triad")and fully describes the harrowingly destructive - because so socially, culturally, and psychically damaging - concept of 'the norm,' historic uses (and abuse) of the body, and with it: the body politic.

Dr Davis supplies the reader with a bit of context. He grew up as the hearing child of Deaf parents in New York's South Bronx, where his parents, he reports, "were as good as any other person in the South Bronx, which is to say they were pretty badly off."

Chapter Four, "Nationalism and Deafness: The Nineteenth Century" offers historic perspectives on deafness, including the fact that by the beginning of the nineteenth century, sign language had become a transnational language. Anyone fluent in sign language could communicate with any other signer - worldwide. This is no small thing. The Deaf "became a subgroup within each state throughout Europe." Some additional topics are: oralism and sign language, disability, class, nationalism, eugenics, politics, poverty, industrialization, and health. The bigger concepts of inclusion and exclusion are touched upon, too.

"Deafness and Insight" is a challenging and complex chapter in which Davis explores "deafness as a critical modality." A main assertion throughout this book is that the concept of the "normal" body informs cultural assumptions about art, literature, and the totality, in fact, of culture.

Other chapters with much to offer and challenge the reader are "Universalizing Marginality," in which Davis explores the reasons behind the intense cultural and philosophical interest during the European eighteenth century of deafness. Health and 'fitness,' images of the 'normal' and the not-normal body, and the fact that disability is most often an acquired thing (you get hurt or get old - and wind up with a 'disability.') are investigated. Art, literature, and media are cited with success.

This is a book that is thought-provoking, remarkably informative, and completely worth the effort it requires. Dr. Davis'world view is clearly presented and wholly graspable. His methods of analysis are consistently intellectually muscular, Occasionally he ventures into academic methodologies that are a bit out of the range of the common reader. Tough stuff, and worth the effort. Many pages of endnotes, a (long) list of works cited, and a very good index.

As I looked through the library, I noticed there was hardly anything on a Paramedic. In this book it takes Paramedics own experience and delivers it in an interesting and moving way. I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in becoming a Paramedic or enjoys reading.

Real World Photoshop 7 is an ultimate digital dark room technique book for Photoshop 7 users. The largest part of the book is dedicated to dark room techniques, but a good part of the book covers such things as getting the best scans, creating effects, saving for the web, making half-tones, etc.

They cover lots of issues that help me understand WHY I might want to do something a certain way. Such as, the differences between RGB, CMYK and LAB color. When I bring a digital photo into Photoshop, I almost always feel a need to adjust it, fix the levels, etc. Fooling with the levels usually causes a color shift. To avoid that, they explain how to change the mode from RGB to LAB color, and then apply the levels command to the L (luminance) channel, leaving the color untouched. I can change the mode back to RGB afterwards, if I want.

In discussing color correction, they talk about fixing the neutrals so the rest will follow and explain that in Photoshop's RGB mode, it automatically calculates the amount of CMYK to produce neutrals, but in CMYK mode, you have to manually fill in the percentages. The section on color correction is incredible.

They discuss printing from Photoshop 7, the issue of different file formats and which to use when; the Rule of 16; which settings take precedence over others, and much more.

The book is well laid out, with an easy to follow structure. Several light bulbs spontaneously illuminated for me while reading this book. This book is useful to new Photoshop users and for seasoned photographers who have past experience with Photoshop but like to keep a reference of new features.

Then GET THIS BOOK!..
You wanna make cool wacky stuff then go get the WOW! Photoshop book.
If you plan to make some sort of income with Photoshop, you would be NUTZ not to read this book. If only for the chapter of color managment, do it!

A wonderful and thorough job of covering topics such as tonal and color corrections, scans, color management, spot colors and duotones, prepress and the web. I found answers to topics such as spot colors in this book that I haven't found anywhere else. The authors are expert in their field and portray that information in an easy to understand format. They also throw in some humor here and there.

You'll get very comfortable using levels and curves by the time you complete this book, it is very thorough and in-depth. You'll learn how to judge what adjust needs to be made and the best way to do it. Like most full-featured programs these days, there is more than one way to achieve a task. These authors teach you the most expedient way to accomplish a wide range of tasks.

You'll learn how to calibrate your monitor, make tonal corrections, remove color casts and silhouette an image for catalog work and more. This book should be on the shelf of every serious photographer

Davis writes extremely well and the images of his youth are quite powerful. He also does an excellent job conveying the difficulties of relating to his parents.

However, he can never seem to escape from a level of self pity. Though he ascribes this to his parent's deafness, often one wonders if his feelings are not rooted in his own deep classism. Much of what he describes as his youthful dificulties are not uncommon to find in the writtings of other children of working class immigrant jews. The embarassment he feels seems far more driven by this than his parents inability to hear.

I grew a bit tired of his deep self pity, perpetually describing himself as the victim of almost every circumstance.

In one poinient passage, he describes how his mother had once been courted by a wealthy english suitor whom she rejected. He wonders why she chose not marry this "catch." I myself wonder if davis would not have much prefered for this to be the case. It seems he would rather have been the child of the wealthy deaf than of the hearing poor.

While it is worth the read, other worthy texts by children of the deaf are far less self involved.

It was very enlightening to learn of a hearing individual's experience being raised by deaf parents...the author's first awareness of his parents' deafness, his alertness and response to nighttime sounds, his role as interpreter even as a small child, his excitement at attending school surrounded by those who could hear, his need as a young adult to escape his limiting home environment, etc. However, there were times during my reading when I felt the author strayed from what I perceived as the main intent of the writing, that is, to understand or empathize with the difficulties and problems of growing up in a somewhat restricted household (at least, in his mind). These were the parts of his story that were not as interesting, and I wanted to hurry through them to get to the portions where I learned something about the deaf experience. Otherwise, it was a very good book and well done. I did notice that the author at times used sentence structure reminiscent of his descriptions of "deaf speak". I wondered whether this was intentional or just a slip to his past.

This could become a classic. I really felt everything he wrote about. I felt badly for him - his childhood was rather bleak. However, his intelligence and good humor won the day and he has become a successful person, as a writer, in academia and his personal, family life. To me this shows that unique situations often produce unique people, and in this there is hopefulness for those of us who feel we grew up as "outsiders." Frankly, I think everyone fits into that category one way or another, so I recommend this book to...everyone.

The New York Review of Books called this book "a singularly valuable social document."

During World War II the American bomber the "Lovely Lady" crashes in the jungles of Sumatra, which is being held by the Japanese. Captain Jerry Lucas and his crew are stunned when the Royal Air Force Colonel who had been flying with them on the mission strips down to a loin cloth and goes off into the jungle with just a knife. Of course, Colonel John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, is better known to the world as Tarzan of the Apes, which causes confusion with the Americans who do not think he looks anything like Johnny Weismueller in a nice wry little comment from author Edgar Rice Burroughs. Basically, "Tarzan and the Foreign Legion" finds Tarzan going after the Japanese the same way he dealt with the Germans in World War I in "Tarzan the Untamed" (actually he is a lot tamer this time around because in that 1919 novel he thought the invaders had killed Jane and so he was out for mondo blood). The title refers to the motley crew of allies from many lands that Tarzan leads to the coast for a rendevous with an Allied submarine. Along the way they have to take on not only the Japanese, but Sumatran collaborationists, Dutch outlaws, and the tribe of Ourangatan's led by Uglo. Corrie van der Meer is the young daughter of a the family on a rubber plantation who serves as the requisite damsel in distress and Keta is the little monkey that befriends Tarzan. "Tarzan and the Foreign Legion" is a standard Tarzan potboiler from ERB and fits the standard formula that the author pretty much could do in his sleep by this point at the end of his storied career. So this is an old story dressed up with new allies, new villains, and even new apes given it takes place in Asia rather than Africa. But you had to know that Tarzan was going to take part in the war effort, even if it was his second world war.

"Tarzan and the Foreign Legion" was published in 1944 and the novel is interesting more for how it reflects Burroughs' adventures during World War II. ERB was playing tennis in Hawaii on the morning of December 7th when Pearl Harbor was bombed. At the age of 66 he served as the oldest war correspondent in the Pacific theater (his son Hulbert became a war photographer). At one point he went on bombing runs with the 7th Air Force, an experience which clearly served as the basis for the opening sequence of this novel. Burroughs came up with a more dangerous mission for Tarzan in this novel and besides from the great Weismueller joke, it is the characters of the American bomber crew that stand out. Knowing what ERB did during the war explains why this would be the case.