News and Media Books

I was easily able to find any plant, and found the descriptions comprehensive, and comprehensible.

Excellent descriptions great pictures great therapies

Loved this book. The layouts of the poison plants are easy to understand. Gives you a clear color picture closeup and distance shots of the plants. A a US map for the habitat -- great description of its actual locations i.e. "moist conditions preferring the edges of receding reservoirs and ponds." Describes the toxins involved then gives you clinical signs diagnosis and treatment for the animal. You need this book in your barn!

I have found this text interested and informative. It opens a person's mind to a new way of reading and hearing the text from the New Testament.
Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation

Advances have been made in NT interpretation in recent years and Green covers them all.

This book, a compilation of essays by many great scholars, needs to be on your shelf if you call yourself a New Testment exegete! All of the chapters are helpful, particularly the one on discourse analysis and the one on linguistics.

Be sure to get this one!

This little book is a great way to spend your time in a world where there are so many things that are not. I carry it in the car so when I have to go in to a business where I know I will have to wait, I can take it along. The positive thoughts and quiet acts of God's eyes, hands and feet in the world will warm your heart.

I was so proud to have a part in this book, I read the first one last year and little did I know I would have a story in the next book. The first one was wonderful, all the stories were about real people and appealed to my sense of morality. the last one I feel was just as good, and perhaps even better with such inspirational stories, I could have read another thirty of them easily. Thank you all you Heartwarmers Gems for making such a wonderful book and thank you, all you wonderful people who allowed me to be a small part of this one, it was such fun and I hope to do it again.

Gee, I wish I knew why stories about "kindness" and "love" always touch me way down deep. "Heartwarmers of love" will take you on a journey of "feel-goods" and "smiles". What a wonderful way to spend and evening.Author, Roger Dean Kiser, "Orphan, A true story of Abandonment, Abuse and Redemption."

Once again, this terrific series had me on the edge of my seat. I feel completely in love with this story. Geralad is his usual "realist" self. Helga is the obsessive, yet genuinely in love with Arnold, gal that she is and we love her for. Arnold is his ususal optimistic self. It's LAUGH OUT LOUD funny and Helga will make you say WOOOOOOOOAH (you'll know when, and I loved the scene). I personally didn't quite understand the ending with Helga and Arnold, if you did, please post your reply in a posting. don't e-mail me, I won't read it. Love Hey Arnold! Helga rocks!

A very colorful display of action, adventure, and romance. It has playful characters and great effects, with an ever-twisting plot and fun dialogue.

I got it and I COULD NOT put it down! I thought it was really good. Except it was missing a few parts. Like in the commercials, there were parts shown that weren't in the book. Despite that though, it was really good and interesting. Before I read it, i couldn't understand why it was rated PG but now, after reading it, I did. Why they put that stuff in a ... movie is something that I have no clue of but I can't controll what they do over there. Anyway, if your thinking about buying it, I think you should.

Amusement runs rampant in this book. Limericks abound about that indelicate function of the human body-it isn't a private function as some expulsion of wastes are, but it usually isn't a part of "polite" company. In addition there is an A to Z compendium of different classifications of farts. Interspersed are the ribald tales of the gaseous emissions and anecdotes of famous people and their flatulence. According to the author, Martin Luther could punctuate his sermons with ripping farts. Good thing he was preaching, because if he was in the congregation then Confucius words would apply: "He who fart in church sits in own pew." (Unfortunately, the author fails to provide any bibliography so that I can find where he got his information.)

Is it ironic that the author's last name rhymes with the subject of the book? Hmmm, how's this for a limerick in the spirit of the book:

There once was a doctor named Bart
Who wrote a ripping book on the fart
So studious he came
To flatulent fame
The book you don't stop once you start

This is, to be sure, a rather small book, a collection of assorted limericks, facts, and blurbs on breaking wind. Graphic illustrations and cartoons are interspersed. And laughs are assured for all.

My Mother passed this book to me after she had vented its fare on her afternoon club. It is divided into six chapters, each spouting limericks and anecdotes concerning various aspects of crepitation. I found that I had a "whiff of a memory" of several of the dozens of limericks, a poetic form particularly suited to the subject of flatulence. There are airy songs, putrid prose and smudgy cartoons throughout the book. The final chapter, "The A-Z of Farting," expounds on preponderant and pathetic forms of flatulence, which have been so prevalent among man (and woman) for as long as the wind has blown.

If you are looking for a good laugh and enjoy nature in its rudest form, this all to brief, passing wisp of wit will tickle and inspire you. Put in your "bubba teeth," grab a beer and read this on your next airline flight. FFRRRRRRRRRRRUPUPUPUP! Excuse Me.

The world owes much to Dr. Benjamin Bart. How did we survive before he put together this profound historical work? Has anybody nominated Dr. Bart for a Nobel prize? He deserves at least a Pulitzer. There are rumors that the good doctor earnestly began his inquiries into the art and possible health benefits of farting sometime during the early years of his childhood. Some claim that little Benjamin was nicknamed "Bart the Fart." I think there was something about this in the "National Enquirer," but unfortunately I forgot the exact date of that most important issue.

Dr. Bart believes that there is right way and a wrong way to fart. He tells us how the smart people perform this most human of tasks. I bet the reader was unaware that the famous philosopher Rene Descartes supposedly asked "Since I think--I exist, but what does it mean when I fart?" Ah, the education one can obtain outside the walls of a university. Did your philosophy professor have a clue concerning the more esoteric aspects of Descartes' philosophical insights? There are many other flatulent examples that should broaden your intellectual horizons.

"The History of Farting" even has some pictures to help one's illiterate cohorts. This book thankfully has little to do with either thee or me. We would rarely, if ever, do anything like farting. Should we, however, embarrass our buddies by presenting them with a gift copy of this perspicaciously brilliant expose of their less than polite habits? Of course we should. After all, what are friends for?

Wow when I got done reading this book, whom was donated to me from a chrisitian radio station, I was like Thank you God for giving me this book. Excellent insight from the author. Very easy to read. It was so nice to know that other christian military wives have been through what I have. I wish I had read this before my husband went on deployment but its never too late to get help. This would be a great gift to someone you know that is a military wife!

My son recently joined the Army so I purchased this book for his wife. It is well written with practical applications for military families. I think any military family, whether newly enlisted or experienced, would benefit by reading this book.

Marshele gives such insight and hope with this book. She has been there and it shows. I had so many "yep, that's exactly right" moments while reading. There are so few books for military wives written from a Christian perspective that it is refreshing. Our life group for military spouses at our church is reading it now. I would highly recommend it and the Bible study also. You won't be disappointed!

I have several books designed about creativity and this is the best one that I've read. It is filled with solid information, not gimmicks.

HOT-WIRING YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS: STRATEGIES FOR PRINT AND NEW MEDIA DESIGNERS tells how to recognize and believe in creativity, using inspiration past and present to evaluate work, develop new experimental applications for standard tasks, and more. Any designer who would streamline creativity and develop more efficient work habits will find HOT-WIRING YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS comes packed with tips on how to put into practice an array of creative techniques.

Being creative is very difficult for me. The movie actor and singer Judy Garland was called "one take Judy" because she could act a scene or record a song perfectly in one take. Creativity doesn't come that easily for me. Sometimes it becomes so difficult that I want to give up, close up Photoshop and just write computer programs for a living. Programming is comforting. There are rules to follow and as long as you don't break them, your program will work. But eventually, I find myself back into Photoshop trying again to be creative. If you want to be a professional artist, you need to be creative "on demand" and, to make things even more difficult, the project concept is usually not yours. So what do you do? I am always in search of that "secret" which will help me become and, even more importantly, stay creative. One thing that can help, until you find that magic pill, is to study how other artists are creative.

This book, by Curt Cloninger, has some very useful ideas for increasing your creativity. He uses quotes, tidbits and interviews to share his and other artists' creative process. He begins by breaking down the creative process into four steps; predesign, design, development and implementation. He discusses how each step is influenced by the needs of the artist and client. He then shows several ways to stay creative from brainstorming to using a set of cards by Peter Schmidt called Oblique Strategies: Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas.

Another source of creativity is what has been done before. Cloninger discusses how to recognize good design and ideas from history and how they might be applied to your current project. He then moves on to software and grids. He tells you not to be afraid to use these tools to free you to be more creative especially when you use the software in ways it was not originally designed for.

Next, he discusses five realms of design; media constraints, audience needs, client needs, professional ethics and aesthetics. Finally, he tells you it is OK to fail. According to Cloninger, failure is what leads to successful creativity.

Curt Cloninger is a successful artist, designer, author and instructor in Multimedia Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. His previous books include Fresh Styles for Web Designers: Eye Candy from the Underground. His artwork has been featured in popular publications such as How Design and FILE.

Powers is the real deal--he's been in the news business forever--and he also knows how to explain and to look behind and beyond the obvious. Great read, and truly informative. You won't watch TV the same way again.

Truly eye-opening and fascinating. I read the first edition quite a few years back and eagerly read the newly revised edition that addresses the web and how it further affects the devolving quality of America's television news programming. It's astounding how little we truly know about something that is such an integral part of our everyday lives. The world of news can be overwhelming, and as a medium can't always be trusted. This book illuminates its inner workings in an easy and interesting way. You will never "watch" news the same way again after reading this book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who tunes into TV news to stay "in the know." This book truly enlightened me! Written by two award winning veterans in the field of journalism, I was pleased with the vast wealth of information and insight provided in this book. Packed with industry facts and shrewd perceptions, the book made me seriously ponder "what exactly is TV news and just what have I been watching all these years?" This book is also very timely, as it delves into how the Internet has further altered the reality and integrity of the news. It's a must read for anyone who wants to fully understand TV news and how it can manipulate our world view.

An amazing account of the medical work of Dr. Fritz: a German surgeon from WWI who has incarnated in human form five times to demonstrate miraculous healing abilities in ordinary people, most recently a computer engineer named Rubens. Maki originally went to Brazil in the hopes of debunking Dr. Fritz but became completely convinced that the phenomena is real: over one million people have been treated by Fritz, including cancer patients had been previously deemed terminally ill. The book attests to the reality of the hidden realms of energy and spirit that constitute and interact with our physical bodies. The epidsodes documented in the book also confirm our ability to use life-energy creatively and constructively. The Dr. Fritz phenoenon defies reason and that is why it so important for us to come to terms with it.

It's true, it worked, it changed my life. Rubens is the real deal and has a gift that is a blessing to our world. He did back surgery on me with no drugs/anesthesia before, during or after, I had no bleeding/bruising or other complications. I was awake, laughing and telling stories during the entire procedure.

I went from having back pain 95% of the time, to virtually no pain at all. I have before and after x-rays showing the change in the alignment of my spine. Doubt if you must, but for me and thousands of others, THIS IS TRUTH.

I just watched a video done by this author, Masao Maki. It is only in Japanese and not currently available on Amazon, but the ISBN is 4-89976-025-6. The video shows surgeries and has an interview with Dr. Fritz. It is about 60 mintues long.

Other books about Dr. Fritz:

Arigio, Surgeon of the rusty knife ASIN: 0690005121 and Dr. Fritz the Phenomenon of the Millenium: The Author's True Story Between the Spiritual and Material Worlds ISBN: 0595206581.

Seeing, reading about and especially experiencing this really changed the way I look at the world. I encourage you to explore this material.

A while back there was a program on TV called The Human Experience. It would weekly study and report on aspects of being human and living. One of the episodes was on alternative medicine and psychic healing. One of the subjects reported on was Dr. Fritz(Rubens Faria) of Brazil. To say I was stunned by what I saw would not describe what I observed. I watched as he did a bloodless surgery on a man to remove a bullet from close to his spine. There was no anesthesia given, no apparent pain, only a pair of sissors for tools. The patient was fully alert, sitting upright in a packed waiting room thru the whole operation. Amazingly, Dr, Fritz got the bullet and stitched up the man in about 1 minute total time. The patient got up,answered a few questions from the American film crew and left. There were several US doctors who had come with the TV crew to oberve Dr. Fritz and they appeared to be as stunned as I was.What they and I saw was inexplainable. Dr. Fritz continued to see more than 1000 patients that day(one thousand that's right).Several needed and received these bloodless/painless speed surgeries.It's easy to be skeptical of Dr. Fritz and it's easy to be captivated by his psychic medical powers. But it's not easy to explain or understand this phenomenon. To see such an operation done in a filthy Brazilian warehouse with a pair of sissors and no anesthesia, no pain,no blood and the patient appears cured, what can be said. But there is a grim side to Dr. Fritz...anyone who undertakes these powers( the most noted currently is Rubens Faria) knows he will die a violent death.Curious. You would think that there would be more information on Dr. Fritz but such is not the case. That defunct TV show, this book, and Faria's own book is about it. This book is not written with a strong academic search for truth. But enough first hand information is presented to make this book a worthwhile read.

Taking *The Journey* is like stepping out of a Time Machine as a northern Indiana Amish child is transported into the 21st century in Chicago. The team of Sarah Stewart and David Small produced this winner in 2001 and it's my opinion that only *The Friend* (see mcHAIKU's review dated October 3, 2004) has it 'bested'.

As Hannah becomes a time-traveler between two very different cultures, her level of excitement rises to test her well-schooled mannerliness. She is awe-struck and makes her discoveries seem new to us as we read over her shoulder the words written in her diary: "going down the street is like making a journey across the whole world. I feel like happiness has rushed up and grabbed me ..... "

There are only two small disappointments for me: I wish there were a situation in which Hannah was juxtaposed with a young city girl - - perhaps in that not-to-be-missed Chicago River boat ride - - somehow sharing an adventure which might suggest kinship despite their obvious differences. And, having recently written a review of *Berghoff's* ("The Berghoff Restaurant" of Chicago) I wish Hannah & her mother & friend had walked to that 100+ year old establishment to have a German meal - - where another comparison could be drawn. For me, the small black & white sketches of Hannah have a special appeal. Her facial expressions declare that she is a story-teller herself, and David Small makes obvious why he was selected by Caldecott judges.

This book is a delight to share, and can be a conversation-starter among children raised so differently from those of the Amish faith - - they may question how Hannah could be so eager to return home to the chores she has escaped for a week, and to a culture with gender-segregated religious services, and outhouses, and riding in an oh-so-slow buggy. When picture-book-age children aren't close by I reach out to adults or eleven-year olds & share the sweetness and strength of these words quietly enhanced by the dark blues of early morning and the jubilant sunrise. I will look for my favorite Monet-like haystacks the next time we travel north, too!

REVIEWER mcHAIKU is content that "the simple life" makes room for a love of books and hopes that Sarah Stewart & David Small continue their story-telling for many years.

Hannah has traveled with her mother and her mother's friend Maggie to the city. For an Amish girl from a small community, the city is big and full of strange and wonderful things. They go to the top of hig buildings, to marvelous stores, to big parks, the aquarium, the atr museum,on a boat ride and into a grand church. While Hannah is enchanted and enthralled by all the new sites, each new site reminds her of things at home she loves. Written as diary entries by Hannah during her adventures, this book manages to capture the wonder of a young girl in a new enviroment, and her thankfulness for the simple ways at home. Once again Sarah Stewart has crafted a wonderful storyline and David Small has turned what is in the mind's eye into enchanting illustrations. A wonderful book to read aloud, and to be enjoyed by all ages.

"Dear Diary, The luckiest girl on this good earth is writing to you tonight..." So begins The Journey, Sarah Stewart's lovely story of Hannah, an Amish girl on her first trip to Chicago. Each night, before she falls asleep, Hannah writes about her day and marvels at all the wonders of the big city, the fancy department store with it's frilly dresses, the aquarium and public library, the enormous cathedral with its loud choir, the cars and hundreds of people rushing here and there... And each makes her remember and appreciate something from her simple life at home, trying on a homespun dress, fishing in the pond, praying silently in the small wooden church, quilting with the ladies from other farms... David Small's expressive and detailed artwork take readers from the busy, brightly colored streets of Chicago, to the quiet, softer and subdued life of Hannah's Amish farm. Together, this award winning duo of Stewart and Small have authored a gentle, understated picture book, perfect for youngsters 6-10, that is sure to become a treasured classic in the years ahead.