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Remember, this is not a book about parrots in captivity, its information about birds in the wild. If you don't own a parrot and are thinking about one, this book is a definite help in learning about all the different species that are out there. The more knowledge you have the better it will be when you do decide to pick out that perfect companion parrot for yourself & family. Owning a companion parrot is a lifetime commitment that shouldn't be taken lightly. I know I researched many months before I found the perfect parrot for us. The love you receive in return from your parrot will amaze you. I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars. Highly recommended!
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But now, upon my return, I have found "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" by Henry David Thoreau to be a very invigorating book...one to be savored and not read too quickly. Taken at a good pace, it has been a joy.
While transcendentalism still strikes me as a rather facile and egotistical philosophy, I have really come to see and appreciate the mystical quality in Thoreau's works. Like most mystical authors, Thoreau is not always engrossing--he is actually rather tedious in points, but his work is punctuated by passages of sheer brilliance.
Seeing nature through Henry's eyes has been a wake up call to me personally. This book breathes excitement and lust for life upon the reader. Even his long winded discussions of different kinds of fish serve to alert me to my own lack of wonder. This world, even in its current subjection to futility , is still a wonderful creation. Nature (and Thoreau's picture of these rivers especially) echo the declaration of the Psalmist: "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands" (Psalm 19:1).
I highly recommend this wonderful book.
Read _Walden_ first. And if you find you enjoy Henry's take on nature and civilization and life and living, pick up _A Week_. There are a few gems lurking in here that you might connect with.
"Musketaquid"]
I will take the definite role of the
Nay-Sayer in the long line of aficianados
and idolators who insist that *Walden* is
Henry David Thoreau's masterpiece...
I will simply state that this work and
"Life Without Principle" are his great
contributions to literature, thought, and
value...
Take this quote from "Life Without Principle"
(before I get to 'A Week...'):
"To speak impartially, the best men that
I know are not serene, a world in themselves.
For the most part, they dwell in forms, and
flatter and study effect only more finely
than the rest. We select granite for the
underpinning of our houses and barns; we
build fences of stone; but we do not ourselves
rest on an underpinning of granite.
we do not teach one another the lessons of
honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or
of steadiness and solidity that the rocks
do. The fault is commonly mutual, however;
for we do not habitually demand any more of
each other."
If that is not "preaching," but in the
sense of a prophet, not a mere sermonizer,
then there hasn't been any in a long time.
But Father Mapple's sermon in 'Moby-Dick' is
right up there with it.
If I had only known of Thoreau [and I had
not read much of him (and little then)except
at the University] and had to believe that
Thoreau was just what he seems to be in
'Walden,' then I would have given the man
short shrift...because there is not enough
of any sort of heart or soul in that work
to believe that he is even human. But
fortunately, a Thoreau worshipper (or rather,
*Walden* worshipper) forced me, by his own
imperious egotism, to try to understand this
man Thoreau and his views. It is fortunate
that I did, for I discovered 'A Week....'
This Penguin Classics edition is excellent
in a number of ways -- the two most important
being the notes in the back which explain the
allusions, and ancient Latin and Greek sources
and excerpts(for those who might not know them)
which Thoreau quotes and sometimes translates;
and the incredible "Introduction" by the editor,
H. Daniel Peck.
He can say his wondrous words himself:
"There is good reason for 'A Week's open
acknowledgment of the attritions of time
and loss. Conceived initially as a travel
book, 'A Week' was immeasurably deepened into
an elegiac account of experience by a tragic
event that occurrred in Thoreau's life in
the period following the 1839 voyage. In
1842, Thoreau's companion on that voyage,
his brother John, died suddenly, and in
agonizing pain, from lockjaw.
Without question this was the greatest loss
that Thoreau ever was to suffer. (He seems
to have undergone, in the aftermath of his
brother's death, a sympathetic case of the
illness that caused John's death, and the few
entries that appear in his journal in this
period are desperately mournful.) Interestingly,
though the pronoun 'we' characterizes the
narrator often in the book, the brother's
name is never mentioned -- an indication perhaps
of Thoreau's enduring need to distance himself
from this loss. there is nothing in 'A Week'
that directly refers to the death of John Thoreau.
Instead, his memory is evoked through various
symbolic strategies. For example, the long
digression on friendship in the chaper
'Wednesday' surely is intended to reflect the
intimacy Thoreau shared with his brother. Even
the ubiquitious 'we' of the narrator's voice
speaks to this intimacy. So intertwined are
the two brothers' identities in this pronoun
that it is often difficult to tell whether a
given action has been taken by Henry or John,
or both at once."
"To emphasize the elegiac aspects of 'A Week'
is to remind ourselves that throughout Western
history, rivers -- and voyages upon them --
have served as metaphors of transience and
mortality. Yet, as I indicated earlier,
'A Week' is not solely a mournful book. Its
rivers also support a spiritual buoyancy, and
provide the setting for exploration and adventure.
Most important, however, the book's larger
structure enables it to 'transcend and redeem'
the individual losses that it recounts."
[wonderful writing here!]
"In general, the outward-bound voyage of 'A Week'
dramatizes the writer's encounter with time and
its losses; on that voyage, he pays close
attention to the shore -- which, in its discreet
scenes of spoliation and historical change,
symbolizes the passage of time. The homeward
voyage, on the other hand, suggests assimilation,
resolution, and renewal. If the primary mode of
perception on the outward voyage had been
observation (of the shore), then the primary
mode of the return voyage is contemplation.
Now we are involved in an inward exploration,
and, symbolically, our vision leaves the shore
and returns to the river and the flow of
consciousness that it represents."
-- H. Daniel Peck; "Introduction."
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the structure of the book is based naturally on the biography, but still, the story is a little shapeless. there are characters and incidents introduced that are never taken up and resolved. paul's brother arthur, for example, makes short appearances from time to time, but he doesn't figure in the story at all. you can argue this is like real life, and maybe this is what lawrence was trying to achieve, but by the standards of a traditional novel, it is sloppy.
i also never really got into the book. usually, i race to the end to find out what happened, but with 'sons and lovers', i coasted. at first, i thought this was because of the book's shapelessness, but there's no reason a biographical work of fiction can't be well structured. i realized the reason is that paul morel is just not your typical 'hero' of a biographical book. in fact, he's no hero at all. he has too many worts and he doesn't try to cover them up - i think this unlikeableness or aloofness of the main character makes the book itself unlikeable and hard to get into.
nevertheless, lawrence does write nicely and the novel has some very interesting moments. worth a read.
3 1/2 stars
"She [Miriam] believed that his chief need in life was herself. If she could prove it, both to herself and to him, the rest might go; she could simply trust to the future" (236).
Like his collier father, Paul succumbs to the recursive hole that has imprisoned his father. Quandaries can be resolved, but Paul has no lexicon (figuratively speaking) of his own. With the death of his mother, he is left spiritually unclad, depraved, and in dire need of the love that he once relished from his mother. When Paul walks away in the end, there was an oddly lackadaisical inflection to his disposition, and the void was apparent. Here's a final quote from the book that speaks for itself.
"There's always a kind of intensity. When you laugh I could always cry; it seems as if it shows up your suffering. Oh, you make me knit the brows of my very soul and cogitate" (195).
Note: The page number reference "Everyman's Library" Hardcopy edition. I couldn't find this edition in Amazon.
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The opening introduction and background section is totally inadequate. While the author takes time to mention Hawaii's historical background, he makes less effort to paint the immediate causes of the attack. There is no mention of either the Chinese invasion of China in 1937 that led to the deterioration of US-Japanese relations or the Russo-Japanese border fighting in 1939-40 that shaped Japanese strategic conceptions away from further Eurasian entanglements. The statement that the "US Pacific Fleet was a deterrent" is misleading; that was how FDR viewed it, not the Japanese, who saw it as a threat to their expansionist ambitions in the Pacific. Even Admiral Kimmel, who commanded the Pacific Fleet, felt wholesale transfers of men and vessels to the Atlantic undermined its deterrence value.
The section on opposing commanders is more than a bit rambling and has odd choices of individuals, some of whom were not military commanders involved directly in the campaign. The US section has Kimmel, Short, Stark, Marshall, Hull and FDR. The Japanese section has Yamamoto, Fuchida, Genda, Nagumo and Nomura. Certainly politicians and diplomats such as FDR, Hull and Nomura do not belong here. Noticeably absent are the US air commanders in Hawaii, Bloch and Martin, who certainly bore some responsibility for the defeat. The entry for Nagumo is misleading, implying that he committed suicide at Saigon in 1944 "when the inevitable result of the war became clear." Instead, Nagumo was commander of the naval base on Saipan and committed suicide when US troops overran the island. The entry for Yamamoto that claims he was, "a man who fought but wanted peace" is nauseating. Just what did he ever do for peace? The chronology section, although detailed, is also marked with misleading or erroneous entries, further complicated by the fact that the author does not specify what time zone he is using. For example, he states that the Japanese fleet sailed on 25 November, but local time was actually 26 November. The crucial 27 November "war warning" is falsely delivered as advising Kimmel and Short that negotiations had failed and to "be prepared for any eventuality." It said no such thing.
Although there is a section on the Japanese attack plan, there is no section on US defensive plans or the Rainbow War Plan. The author should have mentioned the Martin-Bellinger studied which addressed the vulnerability of Oahu to air attack. In the Japanese section, there is no mention of the vociferous opposition to the raid and how Yamamoto had to threaten resigning in order to get the operation approved. The whole approach to Japan's strategy is euphemistic: "Japan expanded into Asia..."and the US "thwarted every Japanese attempt to extend Asian influence," instead of, the US sought to contain Japanese aggression. There are many other errors in this section, some so mundane, like claiming that the Japanese task force sailed from "Tankan Bay" instead of Hittokappu bay, that it is a wonder that the author even bothered to peruse secondary sources.
Amazingly, the sections on the actual attack are quite good. To be fair, they are better than Gordon Prange provides in his long-winded At Dawn We Slept. Smith provides excellent maps and graphics for the attacks on each air base and the naval facilities, as well as a decent textual summary. Three-D maps are provided for the first and second wave attacks, as well as the attack on Hickam Field. There is even a map depicting US naval movements in Pearl during the attack, which is most unusual. Several excellent illustrations and many photos complement the text. Overall, these 36 pages that cover the attack (one more page than Prange) are excellent.
Unfortunately, in the aftermath section the author reverts to his misleading tendencies. He claims "all eight [US] battleships [were] sunk or heavily damaged," which is totally wrong. The USS Maryland and Pennsylvania were only slightly damaged and soon available for service, USS Tennessee was moderately damaged. His follow-up conclusions are overly generalized and ignore the immediate affects of the raid.
Overall, this a handy, colorful summary volume, but it should not be used as a substitute for serious history. Unfortunately, the author has taken far too many liberties with the historical record for this to be considered a reliable summary.
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I found this document an interesting read, as this short concise book simply explains the "theory" of one economic system. It should be noted the democracy prevalent at the time of this books introduction closely resembled an oligarchy, in which the rich and powerful ruled the weak. The impact of socialist ideology on this situation was great: labor movements were created, egalitarianism became a greater part of democracy ideology and the lower classes became more significant to the political system than they had ever been before.
The greatest weakness one can note of Marx's argument, is his failure to predict the significance of the middle class in the nations. Marx's view was that the middle class would either be absorbed into the working class or proprietors. The success of the middle class in present times accounts for the failure of Marx's theory.
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a high level that the 'trees in the forest' are hidden
by the surrounding fog. If you're taking the 300 or 400-series
lab courses at OSU, just stick with what's in the
handouts...that's what I did, and I got A's on about 90%
of the reports. Even if the profs tell you to read S-G-N,
don't waste too much time on it. As a research or reference book, S-G-N is fine and probably very useful (today I'm
an industry chemist, not a researcher). But if you're
an undergrad student taking labs at OSU or any school,
put S-G-N back on the shelf for a rainy day or
return it and get a refund.
AS AN EXAMPLE LET'S TAKE SPECTROSCOPY AS A TOPIC...STUDENTS COME INTO MY COURSE LARGELY QUITE CONFUSED ABOUT HOW ALL THE PARTS IN THIS BROAD, BUT VITAL AREA FIT TOGETHER. OUR STUDENTS TAKE THIS COURSE AS JUNIORS AND LESS OFTEN AS SENIORS (ENGINEEERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE SENIORS) AND MOST WILL NOT HAVE HAD DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS.
WHAT S-G-N REALLY LACKS ARE SIMPLE CLEAR EXPLANATIONS OF BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SPECTROSCOPY (OR KINETICS ETC.)INCLUDED IN THE TEXT. NOT ALL THE DETAILS, BUT THE BIG PICTURE E.G. RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY... THIS IS THE FIRST MULTI-PHOTON EXPERIMENT MOST UNDERGRADS HAVE HAD AND, SADLY, THE LECTURE TEXTS OFTEN DO A POOR JOB (HERE I AM NOT COUNTING THE NUMEROUS CONCEPTUAL ERRORS THAT HAVE CREPT INTO SOME OF OUR LARGEST SELLING TEXTS) GIVING A SIMPLE EXPLANATION. TWO PHOTONS STRIKE A MOLECULE (SAY THEY ARE GREEN) AND A BLUE ONE AND A YELLOW ONE ARE EMITTED IN SUCH A WAY THAT ENERGY IS CONSERVED. IF POSSIBLE EACH EXPERIMENT NEED THIS.
P-CHEM LAB TEXTS GENERALLY DON'T GIVE A SIMPLE PICTURE OF THE CONCEPT (WHAT IT IS AND WHY ARE WE DOING THIS EXPERIMENT, HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO IT) IN SIMPLE BROAD TERMS FIRST BEFORE WE GET TO THE DETAILS. S-G-N, AS WELL AS OTHER P-CHEM LAB TEXTS NEED THAT.
YES, THERE ARE REFERENCES, BUT IT IS WISHFUL THINKING THAT STUDENTS WILL GO TO THEM WITH THE FOUR OTHER ADVANCED UNDERGRAD COURSES THAT THEY ARE TAKING. IT STILL IS THE BEST AROUND, BUT AS AN UNDERGRAD REVIEW NOTED HANDOUTS ARE OFTEN CRITICAL BECAUSE OF THESE KINDS OF PROBLEMS. I LECTURE FOR HALF THE SEMESTER TO OVERCOME THESE AND OTHE PROBLEMS; SHOULD THAT HAVE TO HAPPEN?
Experiments are groups into topics like Gases, Transport Properties of Gases, Solutions, Electrochemistry, Kinetics, and Spectroscopy, etc. The text also devotes incredible amount of pages on electronic devices, vacuum techniques, instruments and lab procedures for reference. Many lab texts are published, yet SGN might be the best for students.