In the book's foreword, Tom Bradley, then mayor of Los Angeles in March 1987, calls the Watts towers "a symbol of Rodia's talent and tenacity." An Italian immigrant, Sabato (Sam) Rodia, came to central California in 1926 with a vision which culminated in a "miniature walled city" -- folk art which grew in what was then a rural community, crisscrossed by railroad tracks, on the fringe of Los Angeles. The author Whiteson describes it as a "sleepy urban village edged with onion fields and swamplands." There Rodia built his dream: towers which reached 99.5 feet high at the peak, with spires, gazebos and fountains, embellished with green Seven Up and blue Milk of Magnesia bottles, and endless bits of crockery -- all with no financial assistance from anyone.

Until 1987 he worked with steel rods & concrete, giving this gift of identity to the community. In 1954 Rodia deeded the property to a neighbor and left, never to return. From the helpful TIME LINE we learn that the city engineers conducted structural tests in 1959 and the towers were allowed to stand. The Watts riots followed in August of 1965; in 1975 the long-neglected masterpiece was donated to the city. In 1985 a Conservation Conference was held to draw up an extensive repair program which is still being implemented. The story is fascinating; the reality even more so.

A nonfiction book of this sort is the most difficult to review because there are so many factors to consider. About the writing style: I felt it was quite good (thus four stars), but I would have liked the story to move along faster. Much of the book could have been condensed, leaving room for all of the things that were left out (and I'm convinced a whole bunch of stuff was).

The author seemed determined to show how it was rational for him to haved joined this group, but he failed. I kept reading between the lines thinking, WHAT WAS HE THINKING? This is not an objective report. This does not tell you what really happened at Waco. But perhaps that is not the author's fault. I doubt any book on the subject CAN be objective. What those of us who weren't involved must do is read everything we can on the subject and draw our own, hopefully rational conclusions. A lot of people made mistakes in Waco. David Thibodeau is no exception.

I am always interested in why people do the things they do, and this book answers the question of why someone like David Thibodeau became part of the Mount Carmel community. I think the author tries very hard to be unbiased. I didn't understand everything Koresh taught, but I think it's important to read about all sides of the Waco story. I think the author accomplishes his stated purpose of trying to make the world understand that this was not about a bunch of wackos, but about real people with real spiritual needs under the leadership of a flawed man.

David Thibodeau's mother was the leader of what they called the hostage families during the Waco siege and it is one of the fortunate things that happened that her son siurvived the fire. This book apparently goes into what life was really like at Waco, just how bad and just how good.

Although not mentioned by Kirkus or the author for some reason, perhaps a fear of controversy I think this book would have to talk about the fire and the events that ended the compound at Waco, and probably deal with some of the not so little lies said during and after the siege, like the claim that it was called Ranch Apocalypse.

David Thibodeau has said it is not true that any shots were fired from inside the compound on April 19. He was interviewed a few times during the Congressional hearings. I don't know how much of what he knows got into this book, but it is something I am going to get.

(The story of the events of the siege has been made very complicated, of course, so to really deal with it, rebuttig all the things said that are wrong and rebutting the attempted rebuttals of the rebutalls would be very long.)

By way of background, explaining where I am coming from:

I have a personal opinion about the fire, which is that is was done to protect J. William Buford head of the bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Fire- arms in Little Rock who had murdered three agents under his command. they were not former Clinton boodyguard, Bill Clinton himself was responsible for starting that story by claiming in a speech to Treasury department employees in March 1993 that they had been assigned to his security something most likely untrue and if true very incidental. His motive may have been to disguise the reason for their murder. Clinton sent Roger Altman to personally speak to Buford after the raid - this was ovrheard by a Wall Street journal reporter present in the White House to do a story about a week in the President's life. (the story was in the March 9, 1993 Wall Street Journal - and it is the only place this connection was mentioned in all the news coverage about Waco. It is mentioned in Carol Moore's book, because I wrote her and told her about it.

After the fire the place of the death of the three agents, originally placed in a room on the second floor (see March 17, 1993 newsweek diagram) was moved outside, and Buford himself was moved into the room into which he shot. This would probably

not have been posisble without the destruction of the building and the deaths of so many of the people in it and their deaths also disguised how the shooting began on Feb. 28.

I think the reason for Buford machine-gunning three of the men under his command was that he knew the warrant, which he had helped prepare, was not good and the intention from the start was to have a shootout. In order to make that shootout look justified or necessary Buford arranged to kill three men under his command and blame their deaths on koresh (prior approval by Clinton is possible too - or it may be the McArthur murder in 1982 (see the book Widow's Web) that may have been reason Clinton arranged tp protect him. The timing of the planning of the raid followed Clinton's eelection prospects: starting in earnest in June 1992, right after he won the Californoa primarty, slowing down in July, starting again right after the November election - and on january 1 and 3 1993 Buford got personally involved, putting the sex allegations into the warrant, although they were legally irrelevant to the matter at hand, which was guns.

In any case, the plan to kill three agents and have their deaths blamed on Koresh, relying on the confusion to hide the true cause, fell apart because Koresh had access to a cellular phone and a second phone billed to a law firm in Waco also still worked and also maybe because the shooting got videotaped by TV station KWTX-TV , Channel 10 in Waco. There was a BIG problem for Buford now.

It took seven weeks for Clinton to finally save Buford's skin.

On April 19 there was a plan on paper with a loophole authorizing the real plan to be implemented.

It was vital it include tear gas and that was why FBOI Director Sessions's plan for water cannon had to be argued down so hard. The fire was caused by the injection of CS tear gas near 12 P.M. Before that they used other tear gas.

There ought to be things in this book to bear out or dispute many theories about Waco, and the more you know the more you will be able to use this.

The book talked about young architects that were influenced &/or taught by Frank Gehry & is better known as the Gehry's Kids. Gehry commented in his essay that some of the talented ones ought to be given opportunity to leave their marks in LA but sadly enough, the young architects are only given the chance to explore in the residential market rather than in the public market. Even though Gehry was recognised internationally, he was still regarded as a loose cannon, quite unbecoming for a metropolis that seemed liberal & thrived on changes. Only after reading further, things were not what they seem in actuality. LA wasn't receptive towards avantgarde public buildings at all as fund providers were conservative in their outlook towards such architecture. It's only after Frank Gehry's success with his Guggenheim in Spain that his earlier winning proposition of the Disney Music Hall was given the green light. The book also explained that Anglo population in LA now is a minority whilst people from not less than 80 ethnic background keep flocking to the resource strapped metropolis for its Utopia image; good suburbs like Santa Monica, Brentwood & popular destinations such as Venice are located on the verge of ghettos, & therefore it's hard to find some sort of order or sanity from this place. Where cities such as Chicago, New York are easily identifiable via their skylines, posters & scaffoldings are what differentiate LA from other cities in the States & formed part of the landscape. Even pollution gives LA its distintive character by glowing the city with its golden red hue. Young architects love working in this City as it's devoid of historical inclincation & that any architectural styles are not dictated by any form of constraints but then again, due to the fast paced nature of LA, the avantgarde experimentation carried out by the architects soon enough become their own victims as they simply become news of the past. Then, there were discussions about the mild temperature, City's vulnerability towards earthquake that caused the architects to explore materials & method of constructions that are deemed appropriate for LA. Whilst some architects tried to create forms that are reactive towards the chaos, some are creating orderly forms that tried to make sense of their environment. LA seemed to be running out of land, & the number of people living in garage is phenomenally high & young architects were working on how to add upon the existing properties rather than building from ground up. LA was indeed an interesting place to be & the essays compiled in this book were enjoyable to read. But majority of the book comprised of works by young architects endorsed by Frank Gehry & other contributors such as Aaron Betsky, John Chase, Leon Whiteson with elevation plans, pictures (quality could be better though) to boot. Good effort, indeed.

This is easily the worst novelization I have ever read, second only to the "Nightmare on Elm Street" novelizations. Like those books, this "Scanners" novelization is less "novel" than screenplay rewritten in novel format. We barely get into the heads of the characters, and the author offers absolutely nothing new in the way of perspective or insight. The only interesting thing about it is the slightly different order of events (most notably the conference, which leads to the exploding head scene, opens the story) which represents the original order of the shooting script before the movie was re-cut after a test screening. If you want to "read" a Cronenberg, my advice is to seek out "Videodrome" by Jack Martin (the pen-named for Dennis Etchison). Either that, or get the script in Cronenberg's own words. Or just sit down and watch the movie again.