My advice is not to merely read, but experience what you read, and by all means - share with your family and friends - invite them to the banquet.
Max Rondoni
Menlo Park, California
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Additionally the opening section of the volume answers a series of fundamental questions (e.g., What is the "Silver Age"?) and tells you want to pay attention to if you are new to collecting (cover variants, issue condition, etc.). There is also a Photo Grading Guide and Guide to Defects that will help you grade your comics, along with a system for maintaining an inventory of your collection. Each two page spread includes one small comic book cover in the upper right hand corner of the right page, which give you glimpses of both classic issues of Batman and forgotten titles like "Gold Key Spotlight" featuring Tom, Dick and Harriet. Consequently this is a solid volume that can be used to keep track of what you have and what you need to track down: already I have been using it to make a list of issues I need to pick up because stories begin in comic books I am collecting but then get continued in some title I pass on. At 800 pages this might be a bit much to tote around to Comic Book shows and conventions, but the alternative is copying all this information into some other format.
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On a strategic media approach it's very interesting and clever.
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W&H cover all the important topics in meteorology and atmospheric science. Each chapter is very well written, easy to understand, and has good graphics and thought-provoking (often difficult!) questions at the end of each chapter. Each chapter ends with a series of mathematical questions--some of which require a good bit of thinking to arrive at the right equation to use; and also a series of "explain or interpret these statements." This is where you find out how much you really know!
Why do I like this book? Each chapter can, to some extent, stand on its own. Even though the material is dated (Chapter 5, on clouds and storms, would need significant additions in a course taught today), fundamental principles were the same then and are explained well. The historical notes about famous scientists also add character to the text.
My suggestion for a new reader: Chapters 1, 2, 8, 3, and 5 in that order. Then add Chapters 9, 4, 6, and 7. This way, you get the fundamental theory and then get to apply all you know to actual weather systems (in 3 and 5). The remaining four are almost like special topics and can be read at any time. If anyone has better suggestions, let me know!
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Molly, the girlfriend of the young sorcerer and "opener" Tim Hunter, has come to the forefront as a major character. Cursed by a jealous Queen Titania, Molly has declared war on Faerie. This is not a story about Timothy Hunter; it's a story about Faerie and its all-too-human inhabitants. Tim does show up, but he's not the most important thing going on here. Along the way we meet: Huon the Small, the faceless "leveller"; Yarrow, the fairy with more strength than she suspects; and the mysterious Selwyn, Titania's closest companion. Some old friends show up too: Zatanna, the backwards-speaking magician whom Tim hopes will be his mentor; and Tala, the cat-eyed queen of evil from the first "Book of Magic".
As always, beautifully written and drawn. Once you've visited Faerie, you won't ever want to leave.
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John Gerassi writes an editorial history of a series of politically motivated arrests and harrassments of those in the homosexual community in Boise, Idaho in 1955. Gerassi writes from a mid-1960s perspective in the midst of the sexual revolution looking back on a different perspective when homosexuality was even less accepted than it was in the 1960s.
The book explores several issues as they impacted a prosecution of a given portion of the homosexual population: community politics, the input and influence of a religous community (in Boise - the LDS), the role of the popular local press, a grab for power by those outside the main community power structure, the role of law enforcement and the courts.
Why is this book a must read for understanding issues facing those living alternative lifestyles today? The events covered could happen in any community today - to those who are exploring poly relationships, BDSM, and Gor - as well as to those who continue to simply live within the Gay community. There are laws on our books in each state and locale that could be discriminatively enforced to bring problems to individuals or groups - in violation of protections they believe they have under the Bill of Rights.
The only possible negative in the book - and for some it is not a negative - is the amount of space devoted to reproducing the entirety of court dialogs and certain other primary sources. While I personally enjoyed having the sources there - other historians would prefer they be relegated to either appendices or simply referenced and summarized. It should be noted that when Gerassi wrote this book - he was a reporter/editor for a news periodical rather than a university professor.
The book definitely belongs in the library of scholars devoted to Urban studies, gay studies, the sociology of alternative lifestyles and the like.
A must-read for anyone interested in GLBT history, and also a classic piece of investigative journalism, Gerassi's book is an astonishing piece of work. (Neil Miller covers a similar scandal in Sioux City, IA, with the somewhat inferior _Sex Crime Panic_.)
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One might question why you might purchase a book such as this. Well the answer is quite simple. Logic. Now when I say logic I don't mean the logic of the words themselves rather the logic that you might read such an impressive work.
Einstien was a genius in his time, a genius yet to be surpassed (in the authority of Science that is). His works are timeless, classic examples of the scientific process and this particular is a well-balanced example.
Written during the years of the 1910s this volume's works depict a dedication to science even through the war in Europe.
A Must Read!
Justin Smith
Peterson writes: 'This gathering of articles and essays, poems and conversations, is a kind of kitchen midden of my noticings of the obvious in the course of living out the Christian life in the vocational context of pastor, writer, and professor. The randomness and repetitions and false starts are rough edges that I am leaving as is in the interests of honesty. Spirituality is not, by and large, smooth.'
We have a particular meaning attached to the word subversive, which is generally a sociological and political one. While this is certain akin to the meaning utilised here, it has a different slant and context. All spirituality, in a sense, is subversive, in the sense that it seeks not that which the material world (and usually that means the political world) holds to be important, but seeks a transformation. Most major religious figures have been subversive -- they have tried to change in small and major ways the prevailing framework of life. Religion is sometimes described as the institutionalisation of a revolution; when the institution overpowers the revolution, what is needed to get back on track is a subversion.
Peterson divides the book into five broad sections: Spirituality, Biblical Studies, Poetry, Pastoral Readings, and Conversations. In discussing scripture, seminary experiences, pastoral encounters and relationships, innovative ideas and creative imaginings, Peterson presents, as it were, the raw, unrefined nuggets of spiritual expression he has encountered, in his own life and in the experiences of those close by him, as well as those lessons he has gleaned from the studies of others.
'Spirituality is always in danger of self-absorption, of becoming so intrigued with matters of soul that God is treated as a mere accessory to my experience. This requires much vigilance. Spiritual theology is, among other things, the exercise of this vigilance.'
Spirituality is a subversive practise, when done properly. As Peterson states in one of his conversations, Christians in the West believe they are living in a culture which is Christian, and are often truly amazed to discover that they have more in common with the idol worshippers warned against in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures than with anything Jesus would have really wanted.
As one currently in seminary, I found his discussion of spiritual formation in context of the seminary to be intriguing and enlightening.
'They commonly enter seminary motivated by a commitment to God and a desire to serve their Lord in some form of ministry, and find that they are being either distracted or deflected from that intention at every turn. They find themselves immersed in Chalcedonian controversies, they find themselves staying up late at night memorising Greek paradigms, they wake in the morning, rubbing their eyes, puzzled over hairsplitting distinctions between homoousios and homoiousios. This is not what they had bargained on.... Seminaries were regarded as the graveyard of spirituality. Seminaries were where men and women lost their faith.'
I am fortunate that my seminary experience has, thus far, maintained a balance of spiritual encouragement as well as academic enlightenment.
This is a first class book, borne of a lifetime of searching, reflecting, and acting, and can give much food for thought. Regardless of the denomination of the reader, there is material here for the deepening of one's own spirituality, and for putting into life's practise a greater amount of living in accord with the spirit.