I was not familiar with all of the vocabulary but my heart was familiar with the stirred longing to experience the Presence of the Lord that came as I read. The changed lives of people from varied backgrounds who have been drawn by Love to these healing exercises were shared in a candid and moving interchange with the author. Theory and practice of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises required more than one reading. I participated in short Ignatian retreats loving the use of Scripture to guide me to His Healing Presence. After reading Father John's "Mystical Healing" I scheduled the 30 residential retreat. If you love the Lord, this is a book and an experience you cannot ignor. The hope of change and the promise of a strengthened and renewed relationship with God are a cry of the soul that can be met here regardless of your denominational affiliation. This book may have been intended for the priest, minister, spiritual director, the college educated. However, those of us who sometimes need a dictionary to read but hunger for more of God will find this worth the effort. Knowing we can experience the Love and Healing power of Jesus is the gift Father John presents to us.

Power Training for Sport by Al Murray and John Lear is illustrated with photographs and contains detailed instructions for about 50 weight lifting exercises. Some of these exercises are rarely if ever seen in other books, for example the "sprint curl" and the "bench press to 45 degrees." Out of print but worth searching for if you want to add a few new exercises to your routine.

This book brought back memories of family viewing as a child. We were all fascinated by the imposing and commanding Bishop Sheehan. Lynch has written a thorough analysis of the Bishop's programs in great detail, including his anecdotes and jokes. What looked effortless on Sheen's part was in reality a skilled, measured, and effective use of the TV media to inform Americans about a minority religion that was little known to most at that time. An excellent book that's well-written and interesting.

Jack Casazza tells us some details about the rocky road in California's electric power deregulation, but more importantly it's the overall flavor of his history of electric power in this country and his description of the new breed of top brass in the industry that foretells the pitfalls facing this nation in its experiment in a free power market.

It should be obvious from reading "Sham Shame" that there are very few people capable of managing a new for-profit industry who can draw the line between corporate profits and public well-being that will please the customers or the government.

On the one hand the government tells the power companies that it's a bright new world where then can make large profits if they compete well and on the other hand expects that those power companies will forego those profits for public good. Jack makes it clear that the industry is far too complex and has too many opportunities for making profits for the government to oversee. It is also clear that since the government had no idea what would result from deregulation, or at least no ideas it was willing to share with the public beforehand, it is now in the position of having to blame everyone but itself for the claimed unforseen consequences.

The government had the opportunity to look at the predictions of price increases and loss of reliability but chose instead to ignore them and plunge forward with an unrestrained free power market while expecting a trial-and-error philosophy would keep the whole thing from spinning too far out of control.

While Jack's book refrains from naming names and pointing fingers to the maximum extent possible, it is clear from reading between the lines that the profit-seekers who wanted into the market and regulators who wanted them there weren't at all honest the American people about what they knew of the downside of deregulation and what they obviously suspected might be coming.

Jack needs to write a sequel, "They Hear, See and Smell no Evil" about the government's current investigation of the industry for what it knew and what it did that was not in the best public interest. Then he can write another, "Blind Trust," about who should investigate the government for what it knew and what it did not do in the public's interest.

While these aren't the questions Jack Casazza asks, they are the questions that naturally come to mind when intelligent people read "Sham Shame."

While I have read a few more well-written books, I have read none more frank or thought-provoking.

Jack Duckworth, author of "Power to the People - Electric Power Deregulation, an Expose" ISBN 0967911958

Dean Ely has done a good job with this book. It contains, for the most part, a realistic analysis of who has power in foreign affairs, and why. Unfortunately, he overemphasizes the importance of text and cases in what is really a political process. For example, he claims on p. 5 that the president cannot start a war. Well, with a blinkered, textual analysis he's absolutely right. The problem is that presidents have started wars (the Mexican-American War being the first of a not-so-illustrious line of them). So Dean Ely's analysis is smacked in the face by real life.

Other specific problems in Dean Ely's book include: (1) on p. 9 he states "from childhood we Americans are programmed to fall in when the bugle sounds." What? What country is he living in? The country has not been militaristic since 1945, if then. The man has no idea what true militarism is. His comment obviously flows from an anti-military world view. (2) The U.S. was not in a "naval war" with Iran in 1987-1998, as Dean Ely claims on p. 49. Shelling an oil platform and shooting up a couple of speedboats hardly qualifies as a "war." Once again, the reader is left with the sense that Dean Ely's analysis is subject to a preconceived world view. (3) enlisted personnel do not have the "skepticism aboout superiors' orders" drilled out of them during basic training, as Dean Ely claims on p. 57. Having been an officer in the military myself, I can assure the potential reader that's not the case.

The problems noted above all stem from Dean Ely's own prejudices. I would give 5:1 odds that Dean Ely is a liberal democrat, who attended an East-Coast school sometime in the 1960s. His analysis fits that mold perfectly. So read this book, but remember that the author has not risen above his own particular biases.

Time has come and passed, with teams handing the World Series trophy over to the next team the next year. There are no true dynasties anymore. Back in the 20's through the mid 60's, the New York Yankees were the team to beat, every year. And now, once again, the New York Yankees are the epitomy of greatness. Names like Ruth, DiMaggio, Mantle, Maris, and Jeter have all walked through the hallowed corridors of Yankee Stadium, calling it their home. No team in any sport has recorded as many world championships as the Yankees have. Beginning with the trade involving Babe Ruth in 1920, within three years they had won their first World Series, traveling to the beginning of the new era with Jeter, the Yankees have been spectacular. In this book, the essence of the true, pinstriped summer boys is captured in breathtaking photography. I have yet to find a photography book that makes me feel like I'm there, to take the pictures like this one has. If you are a Yankee fan, or even if you're not, this book will change entirely the way you see the boys in pinstripes.

I think some of the low rated reviews of this book are misleading. If you already own Rosemond's top selling books, of course this isn't the book for you. It even says (very plainly) on the cover that this book is an updated and revised issue of his 2 classics. So for those of us who don't own a Rosemond book and want some sound parenting advice, this is the book to search!

I recently went to a John Rosemond speech and was truly impressed. I have always read his advice in our local paper and I found him to be a little harsh, however after hearing him speak I was amazed. He offers sound, sensible advice in this book about parenting. For example, when our toddler won't put something away the scene was always me begging and bribing him to do so (and often I would end up doing it). Rosemond suggests telling the child to do the requested task (ie "Put away the blocks") and walk away. Surprisingly, after a few times of coming back and telling (note: not asking) him to do so, he followed the direction. Rosemond says that while you stand and watch the child he or she has something to resist against thus the reason to walk away.

If you ever have the opportunity to listen to Rosemond speak, do it!! And if you are looking for good advice in bringing up your child read this book!!

I'm intrigued by other reviews here that gripe about the lack of new material in John Rosemond's latest update on "Parent Power!" Remember, folks, the key word here is "update." It makes no claims to be an entirely new book. The other thing to bear in mind is that good, sound, commonsensical advice on parenting is essentially the same today as it was a hundred--or a thousand--years ago. It all boils down to one simple concept: you are in charge; the child is not.

Some people find Rosemond harsh. Those tend to be parents who are willing to fill their time by wheedling, cajoling and bargaining with their children. Others find Rosemond to make perfect sense. Those tend to be parents who understand (and apply!) the fundamental concept that the parents have more experience and more expertise than the children do, and that it is a parental responsibility to take charge and tell the children what the rules are, how the family works, and what the consequences are for disobedience.

Rosemond knows whereof he speaks. Not only is he a parent himself (two grown children--he's now a grandfather), but he has a doctorate in his chosen field. The thing he writes in "Parent Power!" that struck me like a bolt of lightning was that parents who let their kids take the lead and rule the roost are doing the children a disservice. Kids need and crave structure and order. They like knowing what the boundaries are (even if at first it appears that they don't!). When parents set boundaries and then don't keep within them--or lay down rules and then capitulate at the first request from the child--it actually disturbs the child, because it comes across as though the PARENT doesn't really know what the rules are. And to the kid, that translates to the frightening thought, "Well, gosh, if Mom and Dad don't know what the rules are, who DOES know?"

There's so much good stuff here. I urge every parent--frustrated or not--to be open-minded and read this terrific book. It's a treasure trove of useful, usable, sound information.

I became interested in John Rosenmond's teachings after my best friend attended one of his seminars here in town and told me about his no-nonsense common-sense approach to some of the issues we all deal with as parents. As a parent of two young children, and as a Pediatrician who deals with behavioral concerns on a daily basis, I've found John Rosenmond's tips very helpful. ThIs book is easy to read, and is definitely more of a reference book, rather than a page to page read, with plenty of scenarios that we can all relate to. When parents ask me if I know of any good resources that they can turn to in learning how to best deal with their children, this book is definitely at the top of my list!!

After hearing Prof. McW on NPR, I picked up his book, not having read his previous work dealing with "Black" English. Here, while broadening his scope to give a panorama of linguistic change over the world and the millennia, he mixes admittedly for me an overwhelming amount of detail on creoles and pidgins into his wider concerns. You do find that his style is often colloquial and witty, but for those of us non-linguists (in the learned sense), we need such a popularization of scholarly endeavors.

I bogged down in Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" halfway after it started strongly and then seemed to overwhelm me with neurology. Mc W's book, by contrast, explored what I'd always
wondered: why do languages start out so complex and then grow more simplified, rather than vice-versa as in the natural world?
While McW does not exactly solve this mystery so much as admit that languages tend to ornament and filigree given the space and often the initial isolation to do so, his exploration of the topic takes in many pop culture references that appealed to me.

As a college professor myself, you can't get too sniffy about connecting what students (and newcomers like many of us coming to linguistics via such general accounts as McW's) know to what the more educated people think about a particular field. Only 35 or so, McW has an amazing range of examples from his own experiences, cultural and media allusions, and academic invesigations to bring into his ambitious overview.

By the very nature of a popularizing book, any academic or layperson daring to translate jargon and charts into actually disseminated knowledge to a wider audience risks the inevitable run-in with meticulous specialists. Both scholarly camps deserve their place. McW can skip from Chomsky to the quip nimbly. While he must have simplified many debates to make a quick assertion, a look at McW's bibliographic notes show how immersed he is in his studies. But he never loses his common touch with those of us know-nothings. Throughout, his footnotes and asides on such matters as Simpsons and South Park characters, dubbing Married With Children into German, how getting drunk (Germans again) effects dialectal emergence, and why Lloyd Webber musicals pale before BBC comedies all make his more erudite points more digestible and memorable. He must be a great classroom teacher at Berkeley.

Again, his writing style does strike me as rather too casual and some of the book feels rushed out, but his personality and enthusiasm overcome these shortcomings. Yes, a more reserved academic has probably produced a more rigorous work on this on some library's back shelf, but for those of us without a course in linguistics or the luck to be at Berkeley, this book offers a bracing first dive into the swirling eddies of language change.

It leaves me with a question: McW notes that the puzzling assignment of gender in Germanic languages may stem from some now lost idea in folk wisdom or proto-Germanic/Indo-European myth. I wish we knew more about this! Many such fascinating tidbits nestle in these pages, and you'll enjoy finding your own.

The Power of Babel is fresh, direct and entertaining. It asks you to think about language the way we think about life: it's dynamic, always different, and ever-evolving. And while we corral the many different flavors of languages into narrow categories, the better to poke and pry at them, the reality remains: languages gradiate from one to another ' they are not discrete objects like horses in the field, but a continuum like colors in the sky.

Most of the languages you can speak are descended from one language spoken by a Eurasian tribe some 10,000ish years ago. This book walks you through all the ways in which the words of that language have twisted, turned, separated, and merged to become some of the six thousand languages we have today.

For McWhorter, languages are dialects and vice versa. He sees a language as an always bubbling, changing, shifting sort of art. For example, the divisions in English today are as slight as different words: 'truck' and 'lorry', or the way Frasier's Daphne would pronounce Mr. Humphries ' 'Mister 'Oomphries,' or the regional variations 'soda' and 'pop.' Nonetheless, these slight tendrils are the roots, ultimately, for the language splitting into dialects as widely varying as the 'dialects' of Latin called French and Spanish (actually the exported street slang from the Roman capital at the time of each province's conquest).

He has a sharp eye for the social as well as the scientific: 'At a party, even if you don't know what a group of people are talking about, you can almost always ease your way into any conversation by simply interjecting at a suitable pause 'But where do you draw the line?'' A similar knowingness informs this entire book.

With an encyclopedic comprehension and ready ability, he explores languages as we find them in their natural habitat. In the deceased Soviet Union, where the distinction between former provinces is politically important, Russian, Ukranian, and Belorussian are designated separate languages; in China, where 'one Chinese nation' has been the political mantra for 2,200 years, eight fundamentally different languages are deemed to be mere 'dialects' of the mother tongue.

McWhorter's a funny, self-aware guy. Sometimes this gets a little cloying: on switching from one language to another he notes: 'Javanese (note the v; now we're in Java)'. He's doing it to be accessible but sometimes it comes across as over-the-top or, occasionally, patronizing.

McWhorter provided my first encounter with such interesting phenomena as evidential markers, where the suffix changes based on how you know it happened ' you heard it yourself, you saw it, someone else told you, etc.; and the wonderful adverbial prefixes of the Central Pomo language of California in which doing something orally or by slicing or with heat or by biting or by shaking each are indicated with their own adverbial prefix. Deeply enjoyable stuff for a language maven!

McWhorter marches on and on, in widely researched and fascinating detail, through pace of language change and printing's effect on it, pidgin, borrowings, language acquisition, standard dialects and good English, creoles, and so on.

And for those of you with any interest in the concept of a 'Proto-World' language (the thesis that all of the world's languages are descended from a single ancestor), and perhaps even a bit romantically inclined toward believing in it (as I am), McWhorter concisely, conclusively, and devastatingly separates the theory from the evidence in his 17-page Epilogue.

In sum, there is much you don't know about the natural evolution of languages, even if you haunt the linguistics section here on Amazon, and John McWhorter is your pleasant, intelligent, voluble, and entertaining guide. Slightly better editing to remove self-indulgent tics of mannerisms would really be the only critique I could offer.

This book is excellent for the linguistically curious, the word aware, or the language lover. Enjoy!

(p.s. I've just read the other reviews and couldn't disagree more about "nothing new here" -- I've been reading in linguistics for over a decade and I found something "wow!" every other page.)

The Power of Babel is fresh, direct and entertaining. It asks you to think about language the way we think about life: it's dynamic, always different, and ever-evolving. And while we corral the many different flavors of languages into narrow categories, the better to poke and pry at them, the reality remains: languages gradiate from one to another - they are not discrete objects like horses in the field, but a continuum like colors in the sky.

Most of the languages you can speak are descended from one language spoken by a Eurasian tribe some 10,000ish years ago. This book walks you through all the ways in which the words of that language have twisted, turned, separated, and merged to become some of the six thousand languages we have today.

For McWhorter, languages are dialects and vice versa. He sees a language as an always bubbling, changing, shifting sort of art. For example, the divisions in English today are as slight as different words: "truck" and "lorry", or the way Frasier's Daphne would pronounce Mr. Humphries - "Mister 'Oomphries," or the regional variations "soda" and "pop." Nonetheless, these slight tendrils are the roots, ultimately, for the language splitting into dialects as widely varying as the "dialects" of Latin called French and Spanish (actually the exported street slang from the Roman capital at the time of each province's conquest).

He has a sharp eye for the social as well as the scientific: "At a party, even if you don't know what a group of people are talking about, you can almost always ease your way into any conversation by simply interjecting at a suitable pause 'But where do you draw the line?'" A similar knowingness informs this entire book.

With an encyclopedic comprehension and ready ability, he explores languages as we find them in their natural habitat. In the deceased Soviet Union, where the distinction between former provinces is politically important, Russian, Ukranian, and Belorussian are designated separate languages; in China, where "one Chinese nation" has been the political mantra for 2,200 years, eight fundamentally different languages are deemed to be mere "dialects" of the mother tongue.

McWhorter's a funny, self-aware guy. Sometimes this gets a little cloying: on switching from one language to another he notes: "Javanese (note the v; now we're in Java)". He's doing it to be accessible but sometimes it comes across as over-the-top or, occasionally, patronizing.

McWhorter provided my first encounter with such interesting phenomena as evidential markers, where the suffix changes based on how you know it happened - you heard it yourself, you saw it, someone else told you, etc.; and the wonderful adverbial prefixes of the Central Pomo language of California in which doing something orally or by slicing or with heat or by biting or by shaking each are indicated with their own adverbial prefix. Deeply enjoyable stuff for a language maven!

McWhorter marches on and on, in widely researched and fascinating detail, through pace of language change and printing's effect on it, pidgin, borrowings, language acquisition, standard dialects and good English, creoles, and so on.

And for those of you with any interest in the concept of a "Proto-World" language (the thesis that all of the world's languages are descended from a single ancestor), and perhaps even a bit romantically inclined toward believing in it (as I am), McWhorter concisely, conclusively, and devastatingly separates the theory from the evidence in his 17-page Epilogue.

In sum, there is much you don't know about the natural evolution of languages, even if you haunt the linguistics section here on Amazon, and John McWhorter is your pleasant, intelligent, voluble, and entertaining guide. Slightly better editing to remove self-indulgent tics of mannerisms would really be the only critique I could offer.

This book is excellent for the linguistically curious, the word aware, or the language lover. Enjoy!

The tragedy of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics is that it doesn't explain the post 9-11 world very well, at least to me. Mearsheimer's thesis is that states with strong latent economic power can project military power and exert "hegemony" (control) over other nations. The theory doesn't seem to explain how states with meager economic resources such as North Korea, or shadowy terrorist groups (al quaida), with relatively small economic resources and low tech weapons, acting as rogues or proxies for states, can destablize the balance of power. But Mearsheimer writes well and his list of power strategies ("baiting," "pass the buck," etc.) is revealing as to the operational calculus of many events we see on the international level. I recommend the book despite the holes in the theory.

Before any reader digs into Mearsheimer's tome, they should be aware of two things: First, the book is a study of GREAT POWER politics (which is why one should not expect the U.S.-led war against minor power Iraq or the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to be accounted for; nor should they be cite these as examples of what the book lacks). Second, the book is not an international politics primer. Rather it is the most advanced presentation of the theory of offensive realism. Mearsheimer is the theory's leading proponent, and his book is not meant to be a balanced debate between realism and international liberalism, constructivism, etc.

That said, Mearsheimer's book is well-written and essential reading if one wishes to have a balanced view of international relations. The "Tragedy" of great power politics occurs when the power-maximization that nations pursue (which is almost mandated under international anarchy) leads to awesomely destructive hegemonic wars. Mearsheimer shatters the rhetoric surrounding great wars, reducing them to the basic elements of power. His theory is backed up by historical example, making for compelling reading. In addition, Mearsheimer applies history and offensive realism in predicting, as most hegemony theorist do, that China will continue its rise and potentially challenge U.S. power in the near future.

Many will not agree with Mearsheimer's theory (this is the man, after all, who called for the nuclearization of Germany after the Cold War and pronounced NATO dead over a decade ago) but he is the leading Realist mind and strongest Realist voice in the IR community today. Love it or hate it, offensive realism does not get any more lucid than this.

As a former student of Professor Mearsheimer's, I was fairly familiar with many of the arguments he puts forward in this book. However, it is very gratifying to see finally his theory codified into a single volume, a Magnum Opus. Professor Mearsheimer's theory of "Offensive Realism" offers, without a doubt, the most comprehensive explanation for the behavior of Great Powers available to the student of international relations. While it does not explain everything in the world, it is like, in his own words, a powerful flashlight in a dark room, illuminating most of the room, but not every nook and cranny. However, given the profoundly pessimistic conclusions he reaches, many will wish to remain in the dark.

His theory is based on some very simple assumptions that really cannot be contested, such as anarchy, meaning the absence of an international police force that possesses the coercive wherewithal necessary to enforce rules of conduct among states, the desire to survive, and the uncertainty of intentions. From his basic assumptions, Professor Mearsheimer proceeds to discuss their implications for state behavior. His frighteningly rigorous logic leads to the conclusion that states must maximize their power vis-à-vis other states in order to survive. Therefore, the quest for security, which is, in reality, a quest for power, is a zero-sum game where the gains of one are always at the expense of another. States must aggressively seek power and expand whenever possible in order to assure their own survival. States that do not seek to maximize their power fall victim to those that do. Therein lies the "tragedy of great power politics." States must harm each other, not out of malice, but only because of the fear caused by the lack of physical security. This is a system that no one designed or intended. Unfortunately, it is not a system that we can leave or that is likely to be changed. The need for security overcomes any and all other considerations, such as ethics. How states seek to increase their security is also outlined. As much a historian as a political theorist, Professor Mearsheimer trolled through some two hundred years of history to provide ample evidence to support his theories as well as examples of their behaviors. The amount of historical evidence that he has marshaled for his work is staggering. It is this reliance on history that provides his theory with a credibility that one does not find in other works of international relations theory, especially those of the liberal schools. His work is more than a simple academic thought exercise in a vacuum, but rather one solidly grounded in reality.

Unfortunately, I do not believe his work will receive the credence that it deserves, despite the sound assumptions, powerful logic, and vast array of supporting historical evidence. I believe this because of the nature of his work and the method of his delivery. With an efficiency and rationality that borders on the ruthless, Professor Mearsheimer tears apart the halcyon pipedream held by many in the west, and lays bare the world, not as we would like it to be, but as it really is; a world where aggression is rewarded, where power matters, and where, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, force and fraud are the cardinal virtues. These are realities that are hard to accept. Professor Mearsheimer also makes no attempt to sugarcoat or palliate the harsh realities of the modern state system, using terms like "bleed them white" and "bait and bleed" to describe policies and strategies. People are accustomed to a peaceful world, where liberalism dominates and prosperity abounds, and are likely to blanch at the descriptions and especially the policy prescriptions found in this book, where aggressive warfare is a legitimate tool of statecraft and democracy has no special place or value. I imagine it will be difficult for most people to get past the harshness of the world as Professor Mearsheimer describes it, and may believe him to be a violent warmonger himself. This is, of course, completely wrong. His policy prescriptions are designed to improve the prospects of peace in light of the nature of the international system. While Professor Mearsheimer also provides clear explanations for the decades of peace that have been enjoyed in much of the world, most people will wish to reject them because they are based on the distribution of power. In addition to these fears, I have some particular disagreements with Professor Mearsheimer, but they are minute points and not ones that greatly oppose or disturb his overall theoretical framework. For example, I disagree with his use of GNP as the sole indicator of potential power. I would consider it to be an aspect of a composite index with, say energy consumption (which he uses earlier on) and total manufactured goods. I cannot stress enough my belief that this book is the most insightful and useful tool for understanding international politics available today, nor can I recommend this book strongly enough to anyone with an interest in world affairs or foreign policy.

Interesting court case. Not very well explained. Enough to get the crux of the argument but not presented in a very, skillful, well-written manner. A better writer and editor could have produced a much more interesting read.

However, some interesting insights do get raised about how corporations large and small abuse their employees and the courts. Shows some of the clear flaws in the so-called American justice system and how those with enough cash can influence those with high self-interest and low morals.

As for some of the supposed commentary below the comments by the goof who entitles his diatribe the Establishment just show how narrow minded and ignorant some folks are, when commenting about others they disagree with but don't have a solid rationale to critique. Buddy has spent too much time watching what passes for entertainment on television these days or reading The National Enquirer, both which are as credible as his uninformed, snide comments.

I am no Scientologist and I'm no fool, however comments from buddy indicate that he falls into the latter camp, which is a charitable description of someone who thinks they are a wit but is only half right.

Every book you are forced to read tends to give you a negative outlook but all in all I learned a different side to Prozac

The author makes a complicated tale understandable and very very interesting. You couldn't ask for a better introduction to issues like the psychological drug approval process, 'the drug made me do it' thinking, and free will vs. brain chemistry determinism vs. community, company and co-worker responsibility. Very well written and very fair-minded!