Joe McGinniss joined the Nixon campaign as an observer, and wrote this book of connected stories. Nixon's team had a number of advertising and TV professionals. The book lacks and index and a table of contents. The cover shows Nixon's face on a pack of cigarettes - an apt metaphor. They are heavily advertised, and bad for you in the short and long run. People know this, but they buy them anyway!

Chapter 1 shows Nixon taping commercials for varied markets. "I pledge an all-out war against organized crime in this country." But investigations into organized crime was later halted. Chapter 2 tells us that politics, like advertising, is a con game! Both promise more than they deliver. McGinniss says Nixon lost in 1960 because the camera portrayed him clearly (p.32). I think the TV audience judge he was lying, the radio audience took him at his word. By 1968 Nixon learned how to act sincere. He would appear mellow, not intense; respected, if not loved (p.34). Page 36 explains how this works: saturated TV advertising showing the candidate and giving the desired impression, followed by public appearances where he doesn't say anything. TV would be controlled to transmit the best images (p.38). Chapter 3 tells about Harry Treleaven, who worked on the 1966 campaign for George Bush; he was elected because he was likeable, and none knew his stand on the issues. More people vote for emotional than logical reasons (p.45). Chapter 4 explains the power of TV. "The press doesn't matter anymore: (p.59). Painting Nixon as mellow was their way to overcome the old Nixon. Chapter 5 tells how the TV shows were staged for each region. Page 64 explains the politics for a panel of questioners. The selected audience applauded every answer. Chapter 6 says that if Nixon could not act warmer they would produce commercials that made him so!

Chapter 7 tells how a commercial would "create a Nixon image that was entirely independent of the words" (p.85). "The secret is in the juxtaposition" (p.88). (Was this parodied in that scene in "The Parallax View"?) Once complaint was of a picture of a soldier who had scrawled "LOVE" on his helmet; a new picture was found with a plain helmet. Later they received a letter from that soldier's mother - Mrs William Love (p.92)! Page 99 tells why you never saw a farmer on this show. Or a psychiatrist (p.100)! Chapter 9 gives an insider's view to the commercial images and what they meant. Chapter 10 tells of seeking Wallace voters with a ballad. Another trick was to be seen as a friend of Billy Graham. Chapter 11 tells of Nixon's shrinking lead. How could a slick production lose to a rough-edged show? Chapter 12 rates a Humphrey commercial as "contrived and tasteless" (p.138), but also "most effective" since it showed HHH as a real person in open air, not being kept in a TV studio. Chapter 13 explains how a TV show worked. People would call in with questions; these would be passed to the staff. They would be scrapped, and prepared questions and their answers used (p.149).

The Appendix contains various memos from the campaign; relevant extracts from "Understanding Media" and its analysis. Page 187 notes the good appeal of "reagan". Reagan's personal charisma is noted on plage 189. Pages 218-220 explain the benefits of print advertising over TV. Page 233 mentions the strategy of a challenger: the candidate stands for change (you assume what that means). These memos concern Nixon's run, but are applicable to other candidates today. How much has changed since 1968?

The book is an excellent resource for the emergence of Texas art and artists. The history is accurate and detailed and color plates of selected art pieces is excellent. One drawback is that the book focuses too much on one individual and not enough on the individual artists. The book's strongest attribute is how it places the "Davis Competitions" or "Wildflower Competitions" in historical context with regard to Texas art in the early 20th century.

This is a fantastic and superb account of Joe DiMaggio's baseball career and a sad account of his life after baseball. DiMaggio the player was without parallel. DiMaggio the man apparently fell way short of the mark.and is very sad to realize what a sad, lonely man he really was.Cramer has written a masterful biography of a very complex and complicated man.

This biography is Joe DiMaggio's worst nightmare come true. Richard Ben Cramer, a Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist, has stripped the layers of myth from an image DiMaggio spent 65 years creating. Joe did a spectacular job -- who else could have inspired major works by both Ernest Hemingway and Paul Simon? -- but the truth is now out.

Cramer depicts DiMaggio's air of Olympian detachment as the product of shyness coupled with an iron determination never to be humiliated or ridiculed. Nobody worked so hard to make baseball look so easy, and, regrettably, few have followed Joe D.'s example of retiring as soon as he couldn't be "Joe DiMaggio" any more. Cramer's especially effective describing the worlds in which DiMaggio moved, from a poor Italian community in the Bay Area through the Yankees, a show business community from which he tried to rescue Marilyn Monroe, and finally to lucrative decades as a Living Icon marketed to all comers by the loathesome Morris Engelberg.

Many of the unflattering characterizations were first aired in Gay Talese's "The Silent Season of a Hero," which David Halberstam has called "the best magazine piece I have ever read." Cramer has fleshed out the story with exhaustive research that proves, once again, that our heroes are flesh and blood like the rest of us. Unfortunately he fails to provide source notes or other documentation, which ultimately drags the book down below five-star status.

Nonetheless, this is a well-written biography which will give any reader more insight into DiMaggio -- more insight, in fact, than many hard-core DiMaggio fans will want.

Back in 1992, when I turned the last page and finished reading What It Takes, Richard Ben Cramer's first book, I wondered how long I would have to wait before I would get to settle into my favorite chair with his next work. It's been a long time -- the chair has been reupholstered twice -- but it's been worth every minute waiting for Joe Dimaggio: The Hero's Life. This book is so much more than the biography of a baseball player, even the most famous player to ever grace a diamond. It's a meticulously researched and deliciously written story of Joe Dimaggio's life, telling much more than so many previous biographies of the Yankee Clipper, yes, but it's also an insightful study of America's demands on its heroes, the country's collective desire for man as myth. When you sit down to read this book, make sure the baby's diaper is fresh, the dog is walked and the oven is turned off: You're not going to want to get up for anything before you reach the last page.

I first read this book when it was originally published, more years ago than I like to admit. I recently found it in a buck a book bin on Cape Cod and thought it just might be worth it. And it was. I'm not sure if the book recreated that time and place in American sports history or if it simply helped bring it back to my memory. Either way, whether you loved him or hated him, it does capture the vintage Namath and a feel for the changes happening in football at that time. Easily worth twice what I paid for it.

Anyone used to reading the celebrity/athlete written books that clog up the best seller lists today cannot appreciate the stir that Joe Namath's book creathed when it was first published. Joe Namath was a sports figure like no other, flamboyant, handsome, quick with a comeback, a girl on each arm, loved by women of all ages, admired by men, and quick to give credit to those who helped him to fame...coaches, his mother and family, men of the church. Joe never took life too seriously, but was not one to treat those things in life that were important and good with disdain or contempt. This book may seem dated to those who have been weaned on the tell all style of Dennis Rodman or anyone from the WWF. It is a true rags to riches story of a young man who is encouraged to develop his athletic talent and is mentored by some of the greatest talents in football. It features the all time greatest Super Bowl victory of all time, Super Bowl III with the pregame boast of a youthful quaterback. The excesses of the time, which were going to destroy football, seem so tame, compared with the wretched excesses of today. I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow is my all time favorite sports biography because it captures the rolicking personality of its writer and the time . I only wish I stil had my collection of Joe Namath posters.

Normally, I wouldn't have considered buying a WildCATS book, but since this particular one advertised that it had art by Travis Charest, I couldn't resist. The guy it talented!

Of course, it turns out only two and a half out of five (or is it six?) of the stories in the book are drawn by 'ol Travis, the rest being done by fill in artists who have no where nears the same level of talent.

That, and if you actually bother to read the stories you'll find that the compilation seems pointless as nothing is resolved.

Travis Charest's Run on WildCats. Awesome art.

I haven't read this calculus text, but based on the quality of the last review (and in consideration of who the reviewer claims to be), I've got two words for ya: "STAY AWAY!"

We are currently using this text in a graduate course in Mathematics & Modeling. We are completing the first chapter in Modeling Change. Some of the definitions are vague. The examples are good; although, I would like to have seen more. Exercises are good--prehaps add more "warm-up" exercises. The sidebar items relating to the corresponding use of the TI-89 is good, but the cooresponding variables between this and the text is confusing to some degree.

This is a new calculus text that incorporates: - computer algebra (TI-89/92/92+), - cooperative learning, - group work, - reading mathematics, (I'm one of the author's so I'm biased.)

Often, when one fails to understand the content of something, it is easiest to *blame the content*. "Weird Business" readers will have to do some thinkin' work along with the free shocks -- but the pleasures and terrors are worth it. This eclectic collection, boasting gems like "Hellbound Train," and -- yes -- "Gorilla Gunslinger," covers a range of tones and styles. Where else can you go from Poe to alternate histories, to the wish-it-would- happen trenchant fairytale of bovine revolution, "Till the Cows Come Home?" Where else will you find dinosaurs and Marilyn Monroe's brain in the same story?

Get it while you can, pardners, for tomorrow may bring nothin' but comic collections of over-licensed, over-marketed, corporate-owned characters, and hey: Here's some proof that once upon a time, *some* publishing companies were actually *independent.*

Not only does this book contain a bevy of stories by authors you've actually heard of, like Joe Lansdale, E.A. Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Nancy Collins, and Robert Bloch, but Weird Business manages to showcase some brilliant artwork by known professionals and a few up-and-coming artists. If you are a fan of the old-school horror stories, without all of the overly-pretentious hoo ha that goes with it, then grab this book now. Just make sure you lock the doors before you sit down to read it...

Hell fire & brimstone if this ain't the s***. WEIRD BUSINESS suceeds on so many levels that it's nearly imponderable.

It's one of the worst things I've ever read or seen. I used to be a fan of Top Cow trade paperbacks but this thing is unforgiveably bad. Try some other comics like Sin City, you'd be better off.

i have ta give this one the five star rating, simply cause the witchblade and darkness comics are the greatest comics to ever exist, well, ok, maybe not the greatest, but they're sure as hell my favorite. GO CHECK EM OUT! IF YA DONT LUV IT, uh......um......well.....thats ur opinion.

A lot has transpired since Richard Rovere died in 1979 that makes his book outdated and irrelevant: Venona and the disintergration of the Soviet Union, for example. Both have put paid to such questions as "if there were Communists in the State Department." Arthur Herman's book "Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator" --using the revelations and documents from the former Soviet Union-- clarified these issues once and for all. McCarthy may have been an eccentric demogogue and an alcoholic (so what makes him different from many other politicians?) but history shows that he got it essentially right. Diehard communists, progressive communist sympathizers and all those misguided souls that believed and still believe that it was a "noble" cause-- will never forgive him for getting it right.

Richard Rovere should consider himself a comedian. The book has so many flaws about Senator McCarthy that I can't believe Mr. Rovere can be classified as a legitimate historian.

Declassified Soviet documents are proving that Senator Joe McCarthy was right. Biased historians like Rovere should be academically scorned for thier years of lies and distortions.

No one will be offended by Rovere's much-racking depiction of Joseph McCarthy. Seriously, how many people are there left in America, or anywhere around the world, still willing to stand up and smugly look you in the eye and say Joseph McCarthy was a necessary man fighting for American freedom in a time when Communists were hiding in every shadow? But the book, written in 1959, just isn't all that up-to-date. Of course much of the information we now know was suppressed at that time and J. Edgar Hoover--viciously complict in the development of all the Red Scare and blacklisting craziness--was still in power at the time of publication. Nobody would want to make an enemy of Hoover, so anything dealing with McCarthy and Hoover's contact is treaded over very lightly. This, unfortunately, makes the book somewhat inaccurate, which is a shame because so many dark secrets and shameful public deeds are recorded with a passion and an obvious intense desire to destroy the image of the drunken old demogogue. In 1959, just three years after McCarthy's death, and five years after his disgrace, this was an important book because so many people were still unsure of their opinions towards Tailgunner Joe. I imagine that this book made quite a difference as even Hoover himself took the opportunity to smear the late Senator, drawing comparisons to Krushchev's posthumous denunciation of Stalin. The book is certainly worthwhile for anyone interested in a recreation of the terror of the 1950s, written from the perspective of the 1950s, but there are several more contemporary biographies of Joseph McCarthy and, regardless of the fact that this one is likely written with more beautific prose, in a case study like this, information beats out pretty words every time.--Lance Polin

Although the photos of the old snapper fishery are good, there just isn't enough info to fill a book. The author seems too torn between his tales of massive amounts of fish landed by he and his fellow fishermen and releaseing them all. There is limited info on fishing tech"s and most of what he has presented is known info. The book is not worth the price.