When did you last have a very strong feeling of the present moment, and a simultaneous, visceral understanding of how that moment fits into the context of life? Writing or reading Haiku poetry has a way of stimulating that feeling. The form is so condensed that it can feel sharp and sudden, like the sound of a balloon popping. This little book is a wonderful introduction to Haiku and also inspires the reader to experience the powerful effect of creating Haiku; after all, the folks who wrote the Haiku's collected here are ordinary Joe's like you or me who all decided to just start writing one Haiku each day.

The Haiku Year is much more than a delightful collection of interesting poems. It's also a very interesting window into the lives of seven friends. It's a bit like seven personal photo albums all mixed together, which gives it an enticing, voyeuristic feel for the reader. It's also a bit like a puzzle; did the person who wrote the Haiku about the cold pain of an ending relationship also write the one about the exhiliration of new love found?

I highly recommend this book as a gift to yourself. Do you know someone who would be very surprised to receive from you a fresh, red rose? Give them this book instead (or along with).

One of the hardest things to do - as a writer - is to keep things succinct. It is so amazing that the group of writers who had 'a haiku year' all manage to beautifully express moments of their lives in a few lines.

Though the poems vary in perspective and subject, they convey equally strong emotions. This book is enough to make you want to gather your own circle. And it's small size makes it easy to bring with you wherever you may travel - whenever you are in need of 18 words of affirmation, frustration or love. It's one of the few books I make sure is near my desk at all times.

sometimes i think of my father as an aging hippie- a rusty van plastered with bumper stickers, a very liberal viewpoint, and long hair.

the haiku year doesn't conform to haiku norms, but it isn't about aging hippies. it's a simple approach to the lives they lead.

i have much respect for my dad, and this book is everything about him and and his friends that i love.

I agree with much that has been written by other reviewers at Amazon and do not want to rehearse those points here. Yes, much evidence that pointed to Simpson's guilt never made it into the courtroom and never reached the jurors. Judge Ito's rulings, prosecutorial misconduct, and LAPD's ineptitude all played a role. And yes, Simpson participated in the murders beyond any doubt.

Yet jurors entertained reasonable doubts precisely because of some of Vannatter's testimony and mishandling of evidence. This puzzle points to some paradoxes at the heart of this book.

Vannatter claimed that when the four detectives -- the usual complement for notifying a man who is not longer next of kin that his ex is dead -- invaded Simpson's estate, Simpson was not a suspect. This is paradox one. If Simpson were not a suspect by the time the four got to his place, then the four were incompetent detectives. If Simpson was a suspect, then the four precipitated a search as illegal as the one they conducted after Vannatter lied to get a search warrant. So which is it? Liar or incompetent?

In addition, Vannatter drove about LA with Simpson's blood for no good reason that he even he can conjure. You do not have to be Jackie Chiles or Johnnie Cochran to find that inexplicable road trip to be explicable in a way that helps Simpson. The second paradox to be highlighted, then, is that Vannatter dismissed himself!

In sum, this book poses a third paradox. If the reader is credulous enough to believe these Keystone Kops, the reader is credulous enough to believe Simpson's lawyers. Hmmmmmmmmm!

While there is lots of self-serving, cover-our-ass, if-anybody screwed-up-it-wasn't-us stuff in this book, it is still a must read for anyone interested in the trial of the century. Learn how big a hurry Marcia Clark was to get the case only to ignore some of the most telling evidence. No doubt Clark's book will lay the blame at someone elses perverbial briefcase...I will never know. This is the last of the genre for me. Read it for the cops view and American Tragedy for the Defense angle...then read something worthwhile.

This book isn't hard to stomach because of bad writing style or anything in that vein. It is hard to stomach because it describes, in detail, all the extremely incriminating evidence WHICH POINTED TO NO ONE BUT SIMPSON that was found by the detectives in this case and the Los Angeles Police Department which, inexplicably, was not raised by the prosecutors EVEN ONCE during the trial. This book proves Simpson's guilt beyond ALL doubt, showing that had ALL this evidence been displayed before the jury in the criminal joke (it's an insult to courtrooms and the hallways of justice throughout this world to call it a trial) then Simpson would have undoubtedly been convicted. But most of all, "Evidence Dismissed," like Vincent Bugliosi's "Outrage" proves once and for all that the TRUE blame for the loss of this case can be laid at the feet of the prosecution.

One of the most complete general works on African Art and well worth purchasing for detailed information on the variation in art form, tribe, country and art style in Africa. Almost full tribal location information and regionalised art details makes this book a must for the serious collector and student on the subject. From early Egyptian to more recent times, it is a book you have to read several times to understand that no one can ever know the true depth and complexity within the African Art world. A good all round reference book on a much missunderstood and underated art form.

Mark Farley

Tom Phillips lives in London and has done so for many years. He is a prolific artist, but what is most impressive about his oevre is the mix of styles and mediums he uses in his art. Probably the most consistent quality is his acute sense of form - not in the artistic sense, but in a more technical sense, a bit like a structuralist, but with more artistic soul. His classic piece is the book the Humument comprising of the adapted pages of an old Victorian novel, wherein each painted page tells its own original story independent of the original words, and yet somehow works to create together a part of a new whole. Phillips has illustrated Dante's Inferno, writes music, creates sculptures - such as the miami beach piece, which playfully creates a new word game from art. His latest work is an illustrated guide to the 20th century through the picture postcard. All in all, a marvellous man and deservedly celebrated in this book. And as an artistic structuralist, a man after my own heart.

This provides good reading for both the postcard collector and the "history buff". I WAS a bit disappointed that about 85% of the cards are from the UK, but hey, so is the writer. It's just that I find the "Brits" a bit reserved in their letter-writing (the written message on the cards is presented). It's a great book for a long winter's read (I'm only up to 1938).

100 years of postcards (although they are older than that).

Thousands of postcard images help illuminate the history of the postcard over the past hundred years. The book is broken out into decades to make the history a little easier.

This is an excellent resource book for postcard fans and collectors. All aspects of postcards seem to be covered. One of the best such books in my collection (and certainly the biggest).

In essence this book is a year by year photographic history of the postcard that completely spans the 20th century.When I first picked it up I had personal resevations about it, purely because my postcard interest is solely about cards no more recent than the 1950`s and therefore expected almost a half of the book to be of no relevance.To my surprise the book proved thoroughly interesting right throughout to 1999.
Each year is displayed with many fine examples shown along with a historical and objective commentary that traces both the developement of the postcard and also a fascinating social commentary centred around comments written on the back by the senders themselves.
In conclusion this book I am sure would appeal to all with any degree of interest in postcards and even anyone with an interest in the history of the 20th century.This was borne out by my fascination even with the post 1950`s pages.For the first time I could see why some people only collect modern postcards.Unless one is looking for a priceguide/valuation aspect [not touched on]I would recommended unconditionally...

. . . and the No. 1 censored story of 2000 is that liberal ideologues got suckered into believing Mumia Abu Jamal is innocent!

August 1, 2002

These "Censored News" books are a quick, easy way
to figure out some of the "big picture" stuff real
easy, but it doesn't make for reassuring reading.
Some crimes are so huge they can hardly be taken in
from street level. Like trying to figure out what
a skyscraper looks like with your nose pressed
against the foundation stone.

Also valuable are the resources and links listed
within the book.

Beware though: follow too many links on the Internet
and you'll end up on sites run by people who think
the next hundred years have already been scripted by
a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping corporate mages.

The truth is more disturbing. Bread and circuses
simply sell better.

I've read several of these annual Project Censored books, and each time I have become more and more disillusioned with the weaknesses of the mainstream news media. The ever-growing corporate control of the network/cable news and newspapers has encouraged several reviewers of this book to cite conspiracy theories and yell out cheesy, predictable slogans like "take the power back!" and assume it's the end of the world. I won't go that far, but the fact that a shrinking number of corporations control a large percentage of the mainstream media, as amply illustrated in this book, is indeed a disturbing trend. I now believe very little of what I see on the TV news, without taking it with a very large grain of salt. The fact that many of the top 25 "censored" stories in this book are based on coverups of corporate lawbreaking or unethical behavior is very telling. The mainstream news has become a vehicle for corporate profits, and any journalistic scoops that could possibly threaten these profits are impossible to find on the TV news.

Some good features of this book are the intros by Walter Cronkite and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the use of one of my favorite comic strips, "This Modern World" by Tom Tomorrow. Some of the essays by various media watchdogs and analysts are fascinating as well. But this book does have some drawbacks though, including a repetitive condemnation of the mainstream news organizations (you can say it a few times, but a million times is tedious), and there's an annoyingly long write-up of a corporate-backed police crackdown on an independent radio station in Pacifica, California. The Project Censored series overall would benefit from some more focus and less proselytizing. But it's not too hard to avoid those weaknesses and focus on the censored stories, which are mostly worth worrying about. And it's not just a leftist rant, either.

In the past five years I must have read 50 books on aliens, abductions, crop circles, etc. While not an expert, I do feel that my in-depth reading has given me the ability to separate the good from the bad, and this I would have to say is bad. I agree with the reviewer above regarding birth rates, and furthermore think that the whole book is undercut even more by the last section which states that this alien race has found the exact location of Heaven in space! If they are that advanced, why do they need this big orchestrated arrival plan? Why not just zap us all into a better more spiritual consciousness? And why now? Why not before W.W.II or Vietnam? Why not before the pandemic of AIDS? (This particularly since they are supposed to be a sexually liberated species). The fact that Krapf claims to have had total recall for the telling of this book makes me think they must not have said much if this is all he could remember to write.

Krapf's book is a fascinating story of the introduction of the author to a race of extraterrestrials who have been observing us, and are now ready to make contact. I found the story engrossing; I read it in one sitting. If true, all our lives are soon to be changed in a dramatic way. However, I must note one serious "red flag" in this book that casts some doubt on its believability; one detail that makes no sense and just cannot be true. One "fact" about this race, mentioned clearly multiple times by Krapf in his book, is that each female is genetically engineered to bear only one child during her 20,000 year lifespan. This is supposedly to control population. The problem is simply that this cannot be! Basic demographics tells us that one child per female is only HALF the replacement rate (given equal numbers of males and females). Any race reproducing at this rate would quickly become extinct, much less spread all across the known universe, as the book claims. So something is wrong here. Either Krapf does not have his facts straight, or he has been misled. Neither possibility helps the credibility of the message, which needs as much credibility as possible given its amazing nature.

Dear Reader,

I enjoyed reading this book and highly recommend it. I believe there are different extraterrestrial species out there besides the Verdants and they all have a different agenda. No one knows who is telling the truth these days so read this book with an open mind and remember it. This is one human among many who was contacted by extraterrestrials to prepare humankind for contact. If what he says is true ---and we will all know in 2002--- IT WILL BE ONE OF THE GREATEST EVENTS FOR HUMANKIND. Since the publication of his book, Phillip Krapf has written a 53,000-word document titled "The Verdant Agenda: An Update" that I also highly recommend.

Peace,

Tom

I was IMMENSELY disappointed with this book, as I was expecting more versatile information. ALL the scholarships in this book are exclusively limited to schools. But what about the national scholarships that seem to appear throughout the country no matter what school you go to? This book ignores those, and truth be told, you could save yourself the money and just ask the schools that you find in your search what scholarships they offer yourself. I would recommend this book as a good buy.

The problem with this book is that the scholarships listed are based on the SCHOOL/COLLEGE that gives the scholarships. In other words it will list (in alphabetical order) for example: Juilliard. and then tell you the scholarships that JUILLIARD offers. It doesn't have much of a listing of national scholarships that can be used at any school. It makes this book pretty useless, because once you choose what school you're going to, all you need to do is ask the SCHOOL what scholarships they offer. About 95% of this book is useless because 99% of the schools in there were schools I was not going to even APPLY to, so I didn't even need to know their scholarships.

don't get the book, call the school you're going to and ask them. OR search for scholarships on the internet.

The sad fact is that not all schools offer scholarships for students in the arts. On the other hand, almost all schools offer scholarships for athletics. This is one of the few books that brings attention to schools that appreciates those of us in the performing arts. I would choose my school based on this book alone, just because someone in my field is getting money. It's nice to be appreciated. You could simply contact the schools directly, but this is easier and worth the price.