Read this boook, and peruse his liberal voting record, and then you will be glad that he's gone.

The name "Paul Simon" comes with it an aura of respect and admiration from both political parties in Illinois. Paul Simon was a principled liberal and a true blue Democrat, working on both sides of the aisle to get things accomplished in congress yet being standing for core Democratic ideals, like workers rights, social programs, and civil rights for all Americans. He was first elected from the Deep South of Illinois, a traditionally conservative area, as a state legislator and then a US Representative after having made a reputation for himself as a fighter of corruption with his work as a newspaper publisher and editor. He was elected to the US Senate during the Reagan landslide of '84, defeating Republican Senator Chuck Percy, a former liberal Republican who had campaigned on "100% support for the Reagan program". Simon didn't shy away from unpopular votes he made in the house, like his vote against the Reagan tax cut and instead defended his position and attacked Percy for being wishy washy himself. Simon gave the image of a principled Democrat who stood for core Democratic ideals and was willing to work hard and independently for what he stood for, and his hard work, strong record, and dedication led him to victory in 1984 when Ronald Reagan carried Illinois by 600,000 votes.

Simon ran for President in 1988, having made a good showing but having lost because of a lack of funds. He would have made a fine president, in my opinion. His speech for his announcement of his candidacy presents a point that has cemented my belief in a Democratic party -

"The tradition of fighting for decent jobs for all Americans and long-term care for seniors, the tradition of leveling with the American people and having pay-as-you-go government, the concern for quality education for everyone, the tradition of standing up for human rights - these are traditions I embrace, not just with this speech but with my whole heart. Those who tell us to abandon these traditions are telling us to abandon our soul and our chance of winning. I'm pleased that there is a Republican Party, but one Republican Party is enough. You can't win an election by standing for nothing."

In reading the account of this great man, I have renewed hope in what my party stands for. It is true that we are going through a tough time right now and that men like Paul Simon in congress are fewer than before, but the mere fact that people like him can exist in our political system is enough to give me hope for the future. We need more men like Paul Simon.

Simon is truthful and covers many political bases in his book, from Presidents to the media. In it, Simon dispels all possible doubt from his reader of his reputation as an even handed and principled politicians. Simon never shied away from unpopular issues if he believed in them, Simon never let himself get overly partisan and never let politics get in the way of serving the people. I can say that my only dissapointment is that this man isn't serving us anymore, becuase now in these troubled times do we need his leadership the most.

I have had the opportunity to deal with Paul Simon in a student/teacher relationship. Let me assure anyone who has read or is interested in reading this book that Paul Simon is as sincere as he sounds. Readers who carry the standard stereotypes of politicians should be made aware of the fact the former senator is indeed as high moraled as anyone could be as a leader of our country. He has battle for what he believed to be right instead of what would get him re-elected. It is absolutely refreshing to see a political figure who genuinely wants to make a difference and improve the nation and the world. When the founding fathers set up the framework for this country they had men like Paul Simon in mind to run the "great experiment." Paul Simon is not just a great politician, but an amazing man.

"Tapped Out" is a good primer for those just beginning to study the issue of water scarcity, but there is little new in the book. Simon has taken quotes from news articles and studies and compiled them into a fairly credible call for action, however most of the information he references in the book dates from the early to mid-90s and is pulled from news sources. He calls for more development of desalinization technologies and more conservation, but his suggestions lack insight into the biggest problem facing the world--too many people seeking the good life where adequate water is taken for granted. In the US, where the problem is related to a growing population, and primarily to the country's addiction to water-wasting recreation and industry, he addresses water restriction almost as an afterthought. "Tapped Out" should be just the beginning of an investigation into the future of a thirsty world.

Wnen it comes to water and environmental issues, the United States looks much more like a third world banana republic than a first-world, top-of-the-heap military and economic superpower. Years ago, former US senator Paul Simon alerted our government to a problem that could be mankind's undoing: the uneven distribution and wasteful consumption of water for agriculture, industry, and urban consumers across the nation and the greater world. His book, Tapped Out not only explains the problems associated with world supply, it also engages the average the person to contribute to the solution.

Water is the only resource for which there is no substitute. The world's water resources are plagued with a great variety of problems, and they typically fall into one of five broad groups- availability, quantity, quality, distribution, and competing agendas. Rich countries are increasingly finding themselves pitted against poor countries for limited water resources. In many instances, large and wasteful consumers are taking needed, precious quantities from others to slake their insatiable demand. Furthermore, more societies are reaching farther and farther to acquire this precious and critical resource.

Tapped Out has a number of favorable attributes. The book introduces the reader to the problem in an easy to understand manner. All technical terms are clearly defined as they are presented, and the book succeeds immensely in achieving its stated goal- eliciting the reader's interest in water issues. Moreover, Mr. Simon goes beyond lamenting the situation, and offers practical solutions to the problem. Finally, Mr. Simon shows the reader how the average person can be part of the solution to the problem. The reader is not left feeling overwhelmed and powerless in the face of the sheer magnitude of the problem. As such, the book is a good call to action overall.

However, there are a few moderate demerits, primarily structural, to the text. First, Mr. Simon cites too many examples in the first half of the text. These examples, while informative, come one after another and at times made the reading rather plodding. Instead, each major point should have been isolated, described in general terms, and then two to three examples which elaborate on each point should have been cited. That way, the reader gets a true sense of the problem while at the same time learning and more importantly retaining the pertinent facts. Second, the book relies too much on text, making the book very monotonous at times. Pictures would have added considerable value to the text. In addition a global map that explicitly displayed the distribution of the world's water resources, as well as the areas where water shortages are a problem, would also have been helpful. Moreover, the inclusion of graphs depicting trends in population, water supply and water consumption would also have been useful. Finally, future editions of the text should include a more balanced discussion of the technical challenges associated with water purification, desalination, and energy requirements and costs.

While I agree in principle with many of the points that Mr. Simon raises in his book, I have very strong reservations about Mr. Simon's solution to the water supply problem. Unfortunately, American bays, coastlines, rivers and lakes have earned the dubious distinction of becoming our nation's 'Great Toilet'. Mr. Simon has very high hopes that one day in the near future, we will desalinate the dirty water from this make-shift natural toilet for the purposes of human consumption and agricultural production.

Given the current state of the art, it may not be possible to use reclaimed water or seawater on any appreciable scale to avert water shortages. Traditionally, wastewater treatment is used to bring microbial and organic loads down to a 'safe' level so that the wastewater can be discharged to natural water systems. These natural systems then do the rest, primarily via dilution, entrapment, and degradation processes. Considering the deplorable state of the nation's waterways and coastlines, a desalination plant on the coast would have to be immediately adjacent to and downstream of a wastewater treatment plant. Moreover, each step in the process would create waste- effluents that would either have to be disposed of or put in some way to use. Finally, the process would also require a dedicated energy source. Desalination schemes currently require large amounts of energy for their operation, and as they are envisioned, will require huge energy input. As such, I am afraid that these schemes will ultimately play into the already strong hand of the energy companies. Solar energy, while a possibility, depends on area, and a given area, usually quite large, is required to satisfy a very limited water demand. Should demand increase, one would have very little maneuvering room when looking to scale up a solar-driven process. Therefore, solar-driven processes may be extremely limited, leaving only fossil fuels and nuclear power to provide the necessary energy. As a result, the cost of desalinated water if deployed on a large scale would inevitably track the cost of energy very closely. Thus, I suspect that energy companies are salivating at the prospect of such large-scale desalination schemes becoming reality.

In conclusion, this book, along with J R McNeil's Something New Under the Sun, has forced me to seriously consider the social, ecological, and environmental consequences associated with the adoption and deployment of any techno-economic process. After reading this book, I am now one more person who is strongly motivated to work towards a practical solution to a problem that affects all of us in the global community.

Some progress in saving water resources is being made by removing dams-up to & including Glen Canyon Dam. Follow Simon's requests--last 3 pages-take action,this forboding crisis will be exacerbated by Y2K....

Anthrax and smallpox get all the public's attention when it comes to biological weapons, but many biologists have warned that the greater threat is against agriculture. Attacks on livestock and crops could have much more profound impacts on a society than could many anti-personnel agents. In this slim volume, Simon Whitby sets out to demonstrate this thesis.

The book has the expected components: a brief outline of plant
pathology, a review of the effects of disease on crop yield and its effects across the world. It also uses declassified US documents to assemble a history of US anticrop warfare research and a large chapter on the planning of a possible attack on China's rice crop.

The overall view is historical and the chapters on the history of the US program are the most interesting and illuminate many interesting points. However, Whitby is a policy wonk and he keeps on charging off the track into thickets of policy that are are not relevant to his thesis. There is a large section on how Vannevar Bush manoeuvered himself into a dominant position in the wartime scientific research establishment. Whether Vannevar Bush or Kate Bush was in charge of scientific research at the time is irrelevant. The person having the greatest effect on vulnerability to anti-crop biological warfare was already in Washington and doesn't get mentioned in the book at all. Other excursions into the policy debate are more interesting, such as
Cuba's efforts to get two thrips included in the list of anticrop agents which highlights the challenges and the highly political nature of the topic. It is a highly political topic, but I do not see policy issues as relevant to an analysis of the nature and effects of anti-crop warfare.

As a policy wonk Whitby does not appear at all comfortable with the science. He spends many pages in lengthy quotes to define terms that he could have covered in a few lines and comes up with strained repetitive writing. Later in the book he pleads shortage of space. He also makes a number of technical errors (Phytophthora was taken out of the fungi half a decade ago; witches' broom isn't caused by a fungus.) Scientific
names are often inaccurate or outdated and the partially translated table of insect pests that Nazi Germany investigated is largely useless. However, there is a good discussion of major crops and their pathogens.

Does he prove his point? Not entirely. Apart from the policy debates, the book centers on declassified, and also very old, research from the United States. The documents show that anti-crop warfare was taken seriously and that target crops had been identified and the technical, logistic, and tactical problems were addressed and that ways to cause great damage were considered. Things have changed. Some of the agents not used in the 1950's may be useful now because of advances in technologies such as microencapsulation and culture methods. New agents have appeared, we have a much greater understanding of the relationship between crops and their pathogens and we have better defenses. The landscape of 2003 is very different from that of 1953, 1963, and even 1993.

More importantly, the book does not look at changes in agriculture and in crop plants in the past 50 years. The person not mentioned by Whitby who may have greatly increased crop plant vulnerability, but who also did so much good for US agriculture was Vice-President Henry Wallace. Wallace was a plant breeder. He greatly increased the yield and improved the agronomic performance of corn (maize) by selective breeding. He did this by bringing corn under control. He established a group of highly inbred lines that could be crossed and recrossed and selected and screened for the sort of performance farmers wanted. The consequence of this was that he also narrowed the genetic variability available to the plant breeder. All the plants in any field of cereals are genetically almost identical, they share the same strengths and the same weaknesses. A pathogen that attacks any one plant of a variety will attack them all. The ability to introduce weaknesses into plants is demonstrated by the accidental introduction of susceptibility to Southern leaf blight by corn breeders in the 1980's. Brief case studies of major crop failures caused by disease would have been helpful.

This book is not without merit. It brings to light a great deal of interesting information and heads largely in the right direction. I have to think that it could have been greatly improved if Whitby had spent a bit less time in the archives, and had left his office at the University of Bradford to spend a few hours talking to farmers in the Vale of York.

This is an excellent historical review of anticrop BW efforts. The author starts with Iraq and UNSCOM, then quickly moves into describing the history of modern anticrop warfare from pre-WWII to the end of the US's BW program.

It covers the early efforts by France and Germany, then US and British efforts. Also described are US weapon systems, and target analysis.

This is a must have book in regards to studing anticrop BW, and understanding its history.

I thought this was a book about Simon and Garfunkel music. What I found was it was the actual sheet music. That would have been fine if I wanted sheet music. The description was not clear.

I had been looking for a Simon and Garfunkel sheat music book, And this one is great. The only prblem I have with it is that it only has the melody, not both their parts.

Stacey Luftig's "The Paul Simon Companion" is rich in information about the singing duo of Simon and Garfunkel. Tons of informative articles, a comprehensive bibliography, filmography, and listing of Simon's records and song titles. This is the book you'll want to read to, "make the morning last." Luftig is a treat!

If you are interested and intrigued by the music of Paul Simon, and have wanted to know the hows and whys behind his music, then this is the book for you. It is a compilation of interviews with and articles about Simon. The only flaw I saw is that there seems to be nothing written by Simon himself. (If my memory serves me). However the selection is fairly complete, but ends just before the Capeman play.I learned a lot about how he writes songs, and got a glimpse into what makes Simon so able to write songs that move so easily from the personal to the universal, and which have such a great mix of intriguing lyrics, and music to get your groove back. If you saw him in concert in the summer of 1999, you have to get this book.

I ordered this book and find out that it is the volume two. Obviously I only got the second half of Paul's songs. I don't understand why they didn't indicate that on the site. I guess probably no one knows anyway. The gentleman that wrote the previous comment didn't mention that as well... what went wrong?? Now I have no idea how to get the first half of the book set... Can someone help??

This songbook covers all the songs from beginning of Paul Simon's work with Art Garfunkel thru Still Crazy After All These Years. Well at least my version which might be an older version. None the less, the music is fairly accurate and the lyrics are situated with the music for the vocalists complete benefit. Paul Simon is indeed a talented song-writer as he writes music in many keys and uses many complex chord progressions.

If you don't feel like reading Simom Schama's 600+ page EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES, or Israel's 1100+ page THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, Simon Zumthor's DAILY LIFE IN REMBRANDT'S HOLLAND may be the book for you. Zumthor's book was written in French, and first published in English the early 1960s. My paperback copy was published in 1994 by Standford University as part of the "Daily Life" series.

If you're not particularly interested in the politics of the 17th Century, or the military action that took place during the various wars (which Schama and Israel cover in more detail), and you want to delve right into the everyday lives of the people, Zumthor's book allows you to do so. Zumthor covers everything from clothing to food to employment to housing to you name it--all those things all of us do that make up our daily lives.

The section on the artistic elements of Dutch society is relatively short, and Rembrandt is really only mentioned in passing, but you do get an impression of what he, and Vermeer, and other painters probably experienced as they went about their business. Rembrandt and the other painters were not seen as "artists" but rather as "painters" and as such were members of guilds--Medieval organizations that were organized by various occupational groups and still thrived in the first part of the 17th Century in the Netherlands. Zumthor spends some time discussing how the guilds worked and how they were regulated by not only their members but the towns and villages.

Zumthor also provides much interesting information about Dutch church life, community life, and home life and the obsession of the people with cleaning -- stoops, linens, clothes, but according to Zumthor, not always bodies. The Dutch in the 17th Century were a complicted folk, and although I have read Schama and Israel, I enjoyed this book. It's great background reading, especially if you wonder how your own ancestors lived. Read it with Poortvliet's illustrated books, however, as it lacks illustrations (my paperback copy did).

From the perspective of a city planner representing a city considering the "opportunity" of legalized gambling, I had searched for a book that comprehensively tackled the subject from both sides of the difficult issue. This is the first such book that effectively meets that goal. Heretofore, much of what I had read had a particularly biased approach that failed to fairly represent the pros and cons of legalized gambling. This book is a good start, but should be complemented with additional readings and up to date statistics and anecdotes.

In an era where one book after the other seems to extoll the story of the globalisation Juggernaut, the reader can all too easily get the impression that all in the economy is now globalizing. Do not borders cease to exist for one enterprise and sector after the other? Although you can argue this is true to some extent for a number of sectors and production processes, at the same time it is not quite the whole story and creates a false or misleading image. The authors argue that enterprises are not only economic but als political actors, and for me as an economist this was an interesting point.

This book then provides a sober antidote to this misperception of transnational corporations as truly borderless production systems that only seek the most efficient way to produce and where nationality does not matter. It provides a convincing overview of how even the largest 'transnational' corporations remain to a large extent 'national', if not in their economics then in their politics. With thorough empirical work it is shown that globalizing activities of transnational enterprises in OECD countries mostly still have a home bias along a number of dimensions. I confess that this was also for me (economist dealing with glabalization) a good sobering read that helped me to keep a perspective and offered a number of novel ideas. Recommended.