Events Books

Many thanks to Dr. Levy and Dr. Orlans for producing an outstanding user-friendly book. This is an essential tool for anyone who is a foster or adoptive parent and for professionals working with children and families involved in the Child Welfare system. The book begins by describing the core concepts of child development and attachment, the three pillars of assessment, attachment patterns, and traits and symptoms of a compromised attachment. The book then goes on to describe how parents can become "healing parents" by getting to know themselves in order to create a healing environment where wounded children can learn to trust. The book provides the basic practices of Corrective Attachment Parenting and how the practical skills and strategies caregivers use can lead to positive change in your child and family. I highly recommend this book to the families I am working with.

This book is pack full of information. I enjoyed it very much. It explains alot of the behaviors and helps to not take anything personally. Overall it is very long but worth the read and to keep for reference. I highly recommend it.

As an adoptive parent, adoption professional, trainer and author, I found Healing Parents to be one of the most practical and insightful books curently available to deal with traumatized children. The book's readability and practical use will benefit both professionals and parents dealing with the hearts and minds of traumatized children. I now recommend it in all my workshops.

Jayne Schooler
International adoption educator

Written by therapists, teachers, consultants and researchers Michael Orlans and Terry M. Levy, Healing Parents: Helping Wounded Children Learn to Trust & Love is a guide written to give parents and caregivers the information, tools, support, and positive outlook they need to help emotionally wounded children heal and improve themselves behaviorally, socially, and morally. Chapters discuss the core phenomena of attachment - the deep connection that children and parents or caregivers establish early in life - the importance of knowing both one's child and oneself, basic principles of corrective attachment parenting, attachment issues in an adoptive or foster care family, and much more. "You cannot change others - not your spouse, children, parents, other family members, friends, coworkers or employer. You can influence others and create opportunities for others to change, via your attitudes, actions, and reactions. By creating a healing environment you can have a positive impact on your child, resulting in learning, growth, and motivation to succeed." Highly recommended especially for parents or caretakers of any type raising a child who has suffered trauma or deprivation.

From the first sentence, introducing Cardinal Justin Kennedy, to the very last sentence, tying the entire plot together with seven little words, one is kept awake, stimulated, and living through the magic of this author's skills. Author's like Dr. Shaffer should be sent to Oslo, and given the highest honors.

And to think by chance I received a free copy of his book.

Henry Anthony Ebarb, Doctoral Student, Prescott, Arizona

The Cross by Gene Shaffer is a well crafted novel of the escalating contempt held for an American Cardinal as his interpretation of a two-thousand-year-old inscription as the missing final verses from the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Mark. As the Cardinal's election and coronation as Pope approaches, his discovery results in a political turmoil. Against the backdrop of the Catholic church, The Cross leads its readers through a story of murder, divisions of loyalty, terrorism, suicide and scandal. An "instant classic" and sure to be timeless tale, The Cross is very highly recommended reading.

The Cross by Gene Shaffer is a well crafted novel of the escalating contempt held for an American Cardinal as his interpretation of a two-thousand-year-old inscription as the missing final verses from the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Mark. As the Cardinal's election and coronation as Pope approaches, his discovery results in a political turmoil. Against the backdrop of the Catholic church, The Cross leads its readers through a story of murder, divisions of loyalty, terrorism, suicide and scandal. An "instant classic" and sure to be timeless tale, The Cross is very highly recommended reading.

The Cross by Gene Shaffer is a well crafted novel of the escalating contempt held for an American Cardinal as his interpretation of a two-thousand-year-old inscription as the missing final verses from the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Mark. As the Cardinal's election and coronation as Pope approaches, his discovery results in a political turmoil. Against the backdrop of the Catholic church, The Cross leads its readers through a story of murder, divisions of loyalty, terrorism, suicide and scandal. An "instant classic" and sure to be timeless tale, The Cross is very highly recommended reading.

The book tells the dark story of how the Catholic church with its liberation theology fought a battle in Latin America defending the poor and oppressed peasants and Indians against landowners, rancheros, paramilitary police, US backed dictatorships and the CIA.

In Honduras the wealthy ranchers did not want to let the bishops fulfill their jobs since it increased agitation amongst the peasants. Hector Gallego was one priest who didn't let himself be silenced. He was killed when he was thrown in the pacific ocean from a helicopter by what believes to be agents from the Panamanian police. Canadian Protestant missionary Gilbet A.Reimer and Father Ivan Betancur where also victims of landowners violence against priests, landowners who called the new testament "a communist book". The CIA was "particularly valuable in providing full information on certain priests-personal data, studies, friends, addresses, writings, contact abroad, etc." Between 1975 and 1978 twelve foreign missionaries had been arrested and father Raymond Herman who worked with helping the Indians in Cochabamba in Bolivia was found strangled with two bullet wounds in the head.

The Banzer plan, named after the Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer, was a plan developed to undermine the churches work in Bolivia. This plan was later adopted by 10 different Latin American countries. Support for anti-Marxist priests was also proposed. Bishop Pronao of Ecuador, who supported the impoverished Indians in that country against the wealthy landowners, said, "I am honored to be called a subversive. I hope that we are permanently subversive in the way that I have described. If we are living within a state or a system that is evidently not in accord with the designs of God, we must oppose it. In a sense Christ, too, was a subversive." The stories of priests who have been killed, disappeared or been tortured are not isolated incidents. A few major American companies made major economic gains by encouraging a political system that bred this kind of militarism, torture and repression against its citizens.

The Catholic Church has been severely denounced in Latin America by the US defense department for criticizing it. But what the Catholic Church was criticizing was really a rebirth of a kind of fascism in Latin America, a "Creole fascism". This was "a model for promoting economic development without changing the existing social conditions". This colonial fascisms marriage to capitalism intensified class differences and made the rich richer and the poor poorer. The United States was directly involved in the creation of military, police and paramilitary agencies responsible for torture and other atrocities in seventeen Latin American countries. Did it ever occur to the Americans that the reason for subversive movements, Marxist guerillas, or other disruptive elements did not have so much to do with a "communist threat" as it had to do with internal influences; like decades of dictatorship and repression. There was no way the US could admit that there may have been legitimate reasons for the subversive activities. Anything that went against the government was automatically labeled as "communist activities".

Between 1968-1969, 1000 marines helped the Guatemalan counterinsurgencies hunt down subversive peasants. Around 8000 peasants in total where killed. These groups where the forerunners of he infamous "white hand", a right wing vigilante group responsible for thousands of deaths. In 1970, 3200, trained Guatemalan policemen killed or had disappear 7000 people. The military intervention in all these Latin American countries made it almost impossible for the regular citizen to have any real involvement in politics. These dictatorships operated under the myth that they created "law and order" when in fact there where narcotic traffickers, black mailers, thieves and assassins for hire operating freely under these Para-military regimes. Many churches opposed these regimes and therefore made it clear that the real message of the gospels was to stand up for human rights. These priests who speak out have been denounced by their governments just like the humanitarian priest who spoke out 400 years ago by the colonialists. Many of these priests and bishops also rightly pointed the finger at the United States government for being involved in training army and police who destroyed Christian communities and murdered priests and nuns. A Brazilian bishop said, " Where it not for the guns, for the torture, and the terror, Brazils military regime could not survive. And were it not for this regime, foreign corporations could not continue to make enormous profits at the expense of the people. The government has all the legal instruments necessary to control the companies, and so has the United States, but the military ignores them."

Most Latin Americans know that US foreign policy is run by corporate interests. Many of the men who approved of CIA activities against democratically elected governments; assassination courses for the police were all "pillars of the US business community". Many of the Latin American coups have meant big payoffs for US corporations. In 1980 the richest man in Latin America earned 550,000 dollars a week while the poorest earned 90 dollars a year, the gap still widening. Bribes are very common even for the biggest American corporations. "Consumer democracy" was to replace political democracy. The Catholic Church objected to this because they thought that this model of development was a mask for privilege. There was only as small procent of the Latin American population that could afford things like refrigerators, cars or TVs. The theologian Jose Comblin says, " the economy is not supposed to produce for the people, but for foreign markets, for the military, and for a few privileged technocrats. This marginalization means that the masses do not work for themselves, or have any hope of advancing themselves through their work." Father Virggilio Rosa Netto from Brazil says: "The amazing thing is that so many of these technocrats have turned their backs on own earlier educations as Christians to adopt the religion of the global corporations."

In the Amazon nuns, bishops and priests are in "open, often violent conflict with the multinationals, local ranchers, the military and the police." This land that at one time relieved the pressure of overpopulation now has caused land-starved peasants to move by the millions into the inner city favelas. This is an "avalanche of human misery" that makes up the backbone of Brazils industrial wealth. In the bible there is a part in the first book of kings, chapter 21 that illustrates this story. The Amazon is about 83% of the size of the United States of America and is incredibly rich in natural resources. The indigenous people living here have no real rights and the basic attitude is that "the Indian cannot stand in the way of progress". Brazils Indian population has declined from 2 million at the beginning of the last century to 200.000 in 1963 and went down to 100,000 in 1978. Both American and European multinational corporations have cleared and taken over land that originally belonged to the Indians. They have also cleared large areas of the Amazon by using the same chemicals they used to clear out jungles in Vietnam.

During the 1960s many American Catholic missionaries where approached by the CIA to gather information about progressive priests in Latin America. Many of them where quite naïve and felt flattered by the attention. The CIA was playing god in Latin America, deciding who should be the next president, which people should be assassinated, even how the people should live. The CIA was using the religious groups in Latin America for their own secret ends. They supported right wing catholic groups and trained police that killed and tortured priests, nuns and bishops some of who where US citizens. The missionaries now started saying that you "cannot defend democracy by destroying it." The TFP group-Tradition, family and property, was a right winged catholic group that existed in several Latin American countries. They were wealthy and belonged to the upper class of the society. They wanted an old school church that saw the rich as having a divine right for owning all that they owned. They supported the CIA economically in staging many of the government coups in Latin America. The CIA in turn encouraged and supported the TFP. Therefore the CIA was accused by many Latin American bishops of "inciting one sector of the church to attack another."

Father Joao Bosco Penido Burnier was a Jesuit missionary who was shot in the head and killed when he tried to top two police men from torturing and raping two peasant women who were related to a man who had opposed himself to the police brutality in the Amazon. Bishop Hipolito was another Brazilian bishop who was kidnapped and beaten because he opposed the dictatorship. Father Tito de Alencar was a 29-year-old Dominican priest who was severely tortured for 40 days in a Brazilian prison. He later committed suicide after being let out of prison. The "institutionalization "of terror was rationalized by the US government and multinational corporations as something that was necessary for development. In Argentine during its dirty war between 1974 and 1976 the repression was even worse. Officially 9000 people went missing but some say the numbers are as big as 30000. The group "mothers of the disappeared" has since been formed consisting of mothers who still want to find out what happened to their sons and daughters under this torturous and brutal regime. The US government funded Argentina's regime and gave them extra money for police training. This police force was corrupt and according to Lernoux involved in drug trafficking. There was also a wave of anti Semitism in Argentina fueled by the hundreds of Nazis that the country had let in after World War 2. Argentina became the world center for the publication of anti-Semitic literature. The progressive Catholic Church was also persecuted. By the end of 1977 seventeen priests and nuns had been killed, thirty where in prison and Argentina's most vocal bishop Enrique Carletti had been killed in a fake auto accident. The situation in Mexico was tense as well with many priests being tortured for working for rights for the poor. There where several assassination attempts on a few of the countries bishops and one priest, father Rodolfo Aguilar, was killed. He was shot while working in an impoverished area trying to improve conditions for the poor there. A few weeks after another priest was killed called Father Rodolfo Escamilla. He had worked for 8 years in the slums trying to help the poor there organize themselves and organize cooperatives.

Poor Latin American Christians therefore view the bible as "a very revolutionary book". A book that from the beginning to the end tells the story of Jahves liberation of his people. The exodus story is the central event, where the people are freed from oppression. The oppression is from a political tyrant who has imposed on them an unjust economic order with unjust social structures. So it's a story about economic and political liberation too. The Old Testament prophets convey the same message. Attacking the corruption within the state of Israel and condemning those within the ruling classes who oppress the poor. Jesus as well stands in the same tradition as these prophets, the core of his message being "freedom to captives" and "liberation to the oppressed." Therefore if god took sides back then god is still doing it now, identifying with the oppressed. Earlier the church mostly has taken the side of the rich oppressor but this was starting to change in Latin America. If the church doesn't speak out against oppressors then they run the risk silently supporting them. Many Latin American peasants first saw the catholic imagery in their own way. God was the wealthy landowner who one had to bow down to and obey. While Jesus was the poor peasant or Indian who had been tortured and killed. They had difficulty viewing the symbolism of the resurrection. This came as a shock to many of the priests who started working more actively with the poor and left their comfortable positions of power. Gradually this view is starting to change with the spread of liberation theology. Here the teachings go against those of the colonial church. Instead of trying to force teachings on the people instead one tries to listen and learn from them. This opened up a more authentic dialogue between the church and the people. Smaller Christian communities started developing throughout Latin America where the principals of liberation theology where applied at a grassroots level. When the new pope came to Latin America in the late 1970s he denounced the situation in the continent speaking closely to Indians and other marginalized groups saying that the church was on their side. After this a new document was drafted by all Latin American bishops that strongly took the side of the poor and the oppressed. On the other hand there was a more conservative vein within the church that opposed these progressive liberation theologians.

The American bishop in El Paso said: "The use of capital and the development of a corporate economy have without doubt produced great benefits for mankind. But it has become increasingly evident that large corporations reaching across national boundaries drain natural resources and labor from poor countries primarily for the benefit of a small proportion of affluent people in the world. Such an ordering of the world economy is immoral and must be rejected and fought by the church. It is not sufficient to weep for the priest who is martyred by the regime in Brazil, without acting to prevent the complicity of the United States of America in that act of murder. The system that we know it holds in bondage, not only those who are exploited to maintain a flow of wealth largely in one direction, but it also holds in the bondage of unslaked thirst for goods and power and sense of superiority those who reap the benefit."

The book tells the dark story of how the Catholic church with its liberation theology fought a battle in Latin America defending the poor and oppressed peasants and Indians against landowners, rancheros, paramilitary police, US backed dictatorships and the CIA.

In Honduras the wealthy ranchers did not want to let the bishops fulfill their jobs since it increased agitation amongst the peasants. Hector Gallego was one priest who didn't let himself be silenced. He was killed when he was thrown in the pacific ocean from a helicopter by what believes to be agents from the Panamanian police. Canadian Protestant missionary Gilbet A.Reimer and Father Ivan Betancur where also victims of landowners violence against priests, landowners who called the new testament "a communist book". The CIA was "particularly valuable in providing full information on certain priests-personal data, studies, friends, addresses, writings, contact abroad, etc." Between 1975 and 1978 twelve foreign missionaries had been arrested and father Raymond Herman who worked with helping the Indians in Cochabamba in Bolivia was found strangled with two bullet wounds in the head.

The Banzer plan, named after the Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer, was a plan developed to undermine the churches work in Bolivia. This plan was later adopted by 10 different Latin American countries. Support for anti-Marxist priests was also proposed. Bishop Pronao of Ecuador, who supported the impoverished Indians in that country against the wealthy landowners, said, "I am honored to be called a subversive. I hope that we are permanently subversive in the way that I have described. If we are living within a state or a system that is evidently not in accord with the designs of God, we must oppose it. In a sense Christ, too, was a subversive." The stories of priests who have been killed, disappeared or been tortured are not isolated incidents. A few major American companies made major economic gains by encouraging a political system that bred this kind of militarism, torture and repression against its citizens.

The Catholic Church has been severely denounced in Latin America by the US defense department for criticizing it. But what the Catholic Church was criticizing was really a rebirth of a kind of fascism in Latin America, a "Creole fascism". This was "a model for promoting economic development without changing the existing social conditions". This colonial fascisms marriage to capitalism intensified class differences and made the rich richer and the poor poorer. The United States was directly involved in the creation of military, police and paramilitary agencies responsible for torture and other atrocities in seventeen Latin American countries. Did it ever occur to the Americans that the reason for subversive movements, Marxist guerillas, or other disruptive elements did not have so much to do with a "communist threat" as it had to do with internal influences; like decades of dictatorship and repression. There was no way the US could admit that there may have been legitimate reasons for the subversive activities. Anything that went against the government was automatically labeled as "communist activities".

Between 1968-1969, 1000 marines helped the Guatemalan counterinsurgencies hunt down subversive peasants. Around 8000 peasants in total where killed. These groups where the forerunners of he infamous "white hand", a right wing vigilante group responsible for thousands of deaths. In 1970, 3200, trained Guatemalan policemen killed or had disappear 7000 people. The military intervention in all these Latin American countries made it almost impossible for the regular citizen to have any real involvement in politics. These dictatorships operated under the myth that they created "law and order" when in fact there where narcotic traffickers, black mailers, thieves and assassins for hire operating freely under these Para-military regimes. Many churches opposed these regimes and therefore made it clear that the real message of the gospels was to stand up for human rights. These priests who speak out have been denounced by their governments just like the humanitarian priest who spoke out 400 years ago by the colonialists. Many of these priests and bishops also rightly pointed the finger at the United States government for being involved in training army and police who destroyed Christian communities and murdered priests and nuns. A Brazilian bishop said, " Where it not for the guns, for the torture, and the terror, Brazils military regime could not survive. And were it not for this regime, foreign corporations could not continue to make enormous profits at the expense of the people. The government has all the legal instruments necessary to control the companies, and so has the United States, but the military ignores them."

Most Latin Americans know that US foreign policy is run by corporate interests. Many of the men who approved of CIA activities against democratically elected governments; assassination courses for the police were all "pillars of the US business community". Many of the Latin American coups have meant big payoffs for US corporations. In 1980 the richest man in Latin America earned 550,000 dollars a week while the poorest earned 90 dollars a year, the gap still widening. Bribes are very common even for the biggest American corporations. "Consumer democracy" was to replace political democracy. The Catholic Church objected to this because they thought that this model of development was a mask for privilege. There was only as small procent of the Latin American population that could afford things like refrigerators, cars or TVs. The theologian Jose Comblin says, " the economy is not supposed to produce for the people, but for foreign markets, for the military, and for a few privileged technocrats. This marginalization means that the masses do not work for themselves, or have any hope of advancing themselves through their work." Father Virggilio Rosa Netto from Brazil says: "The amazing thing is that so many of these technocrats have turned their backs on own earlier educations as Christians to adopt the religion of the global corporations."

In the Amazon nuns, bishops and priests are in "open, often violent conflict with the multinationals, local ranchers, the military and the police." This land that at one time relieved the pressure of overpopulation now has caused land-starved peasants to move by the millions into the inner city favelas. This is an "avalanche of human misery" that makes up the backbone of Brazils industrial wealth. In the bible there is a part in the first book of kings, chapter 21 that illustrates this story. The Amazon is about 83% of the size of the United States of America and is incredibly rich in natural resources. The indigenous people living here have no real rights and the basic attitude is that "the Indian cannot stand in the way of progress". Brazils Indian population has declined from 2 million at the beginning of the last century to 200.000 in 1963 and went down to 100,000 in 1978. Both American and European multinational corporations have cleared and taken over land that originally belonged to the Indians. They have also cleared large areas of the Amazon by using the same chemicals they used to clear out jungles in Vietnam.

During the 1960s many American Catholic missionaries where approached by the CIA to gather information about progressive priests in Latin America. Many of them where quite naïve and felt flattered by the attention. The CIA was playing god in Latin America, deciding who should be the next president, which people should be assassinated, even how the people should live. The CIA was using the religious groups in Latin America for their own secret ends. They supported right wing catholic groups and trained police that killed and tortured priests, nuns and bishops some of who where US citizens. The missionaries now started saying that you "cannot defend democracy by destroying it." The TFP group-Tradition, family and property, was a right winged catholic group that existed in several Latin American countries. They were wealthy and belonged to the upper class of the society. They wanted an old school church that saw the rich as having a divine right for owning all that they owned. They supported the CIA economically in staging many of the government coups in Latin America. The CIA in turn encouraged and supported the TFP. Therefore the CIA was accused by many Latin American bishops of "inciting one sector of the church to attack another."

Father Joao Bosco Penido Burnier was a Jesuit missionary who was shot in the head and killed when he tried to top two police men from torturing and raping two peasant women who were related to a man who had opposed himself to the police brutality in the Amazon. Bishop Hipolito was another Brazilian bishop who was kidnapped and beaten because he opposed the dictatorship. Father Tito de Alencar was a 29-year-old Dominican priest who was severely tortured for 40 days in a Brazilian prison. He later committed suicide after being let out of prison. The "institutionalization "of terror was rationalized by the US government and multinational corporations as something that was necessary for development. In Argentine during its dirty war between 1974 and 1976 the repression was even worse. Officially 9000 people went missing but some say the numbers are as big as 30000. The group "mothers of the disappeared" has since been formed consisting of mothers who still want to find out what happened to their sons and daughters under this torturous and brutal regime. The US government funded Argentina's regime and gave them extra money for police training. This police force was corrupt and according to Lernoux involved in drug trafficking. There was also a wave of anti Semitism in Argentina fueled by the hundreds of Nazis that the country had let in after World War 2. Argentina became the world center for the publication of anti-Semitic literature. The progressive Catholic Church was also persecuted. By the end of 1977 seventeen priests and nuns had been killed, thirty where in prison and Argentina's most vocal bishop Enrique Carletti had been killed in a fake auto accident. The situation in Mexico was tense as well with many priests being tortured for working for rights for the poor. There where several assassination attempts on a few of the countries bishops and one priest, father Rodolfo Aguilar, was killed. He was shot while working in an impoverished area trying to improve conditions for the poor there. A few weeks after another priest was killed called Father Rodolfo Escamilla. He had worked for 8 years in the slums trying to help the poor there organize themselves and organize cooperatives.

Poor Latin American Christians therefore view the bible as "a very revolutionary book". A book that from the beginning to the end tells the story of Jahves liberation of his people. The exodus story is the central event, where the people are freed from oppression. The oppression is from a political tyrant who has imposed on them an unjust economic order with unjust social structures. So it's a story about economic and political liberation too. The Old Testament prophets convey the same message. Attacking the corruption within the state of Israel and condemning those within the ruling classes who oppress the poor. Jesus as well stands in the same tradition as these prophets, the core of his message being "freedom to captives" and "liberation to the oppressed." Therefore if god took sides back then god is still doing it now, identifying with the oppressed. Earlier the church mostly has taken the side of the rich oppressor but this was starting to change in Latin America. If the church doesn't speak out against oppressors then they run the risk silently supporting them. Many Latin American peasants first saw the catholic imagery in their own way. God was the wealthy landowner who one had to bow down to and obey. While Jesus was the poor peasant or Indian who had been tortured and killed. They had difficulty viewing the symbolism of the resurrection. This came as a shock to many of the priests who started working more actively with the poor and left their comfortable positions of power. Gradually this view is starting to change with the spread of liberation theology. Here the teachings go against those of the colonial church. Instead of trying to force teachings on the people instead one tries to listen and learn from them. This opened up a more authentic dialogue between the church and the people. Smaller Christian communities started developing throughout Latin America where the principals of liberation theology where applied at a grassroots level. When the new pope came to Latin America in the late 1970s he denounced the situation in the continent speaking closely to Indians and other marginalized groups saying that the church was on their side. After this a new document was drafted by all Latin American bishops that strongly took the side of the poor and the oppressed. On the other hand there was a more conservative vein within the church that opposed these progressive liberation theologians. Later Ratzinger turned on the liberation theologians and started a new inquisition against them. Read more about this in Penny Lernouxs book "People of god".

The American bishop in El Paso said: "The use of capital and the development of a corporate economy have without doubt produced great benefits for mankind. But it has become increasingly evident that large corporations reaching across national boundaries drain natural resources and labor from poor countries primarily for the benefit of a small proportion of affluent people in the world. Such an ordering of the world economy is immoral and must be rejected and fought by the church. It is not sufficient to weep for the priest who is martyred by the regime in Brazil, without acting to prevent the complicity of the United States of America in that act of murder. The system that we know it holds in bondage, not only those who are exploited to maintain a flow of wealth largely in one direction, but it also holds in the bondage of unslaked thirst for goods and power and sense of superiority those who reap the benefit."

I really think that book is the best book I ever Read!!! I am only 14 . Now I know what's going on on this planet.I really enjoy the book because it happens all the time. I know we can't stop them and how difficult it most be for the family of the victims,just don't make them mad so nothing is gonna happend with you! I write everything like I would write it in 1000 words. Thanks for your attention, Justine (14, Belgium)

I really think that book is the best book I ever Read!!! I am only 14 . Now I know what's going on on this planet.I really enjoy the book because it happens all the time. I know we can't stop them and how difficult it most be for the family of the victims,just don't make them mad so nothing is gonna happend with you! I write everything like I would write it in 1000 words.

Cuba And The Coming American Revolution by author and political activist Jack Barnes, is a provocative and forcefully worded examination of the history and the future of American and Cuban politics. Ranging from the utter disaster that was the Bay of Pigs to predicting a socialist revolution in American policy and a counterrevolution in Cuba, this is an informed and informative account of class struggle. Barnes especially underscores the ways in which the American working class has been steamrolled and the consequent incentives that call for change. Cuba And The Coming American Revolution is a thought-provoking look at where two nations mights well be headed and a very welcome contribution to Cuban History and Socialist Studies academic reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Jack Barnes, the author of this boook, points out: "The greatest obstacle to the line of march of the toilers is the tendency, perpetuated by the exploiting classes, for working people to underestimate ourselves, to underestimate what we can accomplish, to doubt our own worth." This book proves that like the Cubans the working class in the United States has the capacity to win political power. Barnes explains how after a visit to Cuba in 1960 he and other student activists defended Cuba during the Bay of Pigs invasion. They stood up to both campus administrators and right-wing thugs and won the the right not only to speak out but to become the makers of history, like the Cubans. Barnes explains how the Cubans as a people demonstrated remarkable courage and determination in standing up to an imperialist terror campaign, arms in hand, while continueing their revolutionary work, which included a literacy campaign the likes of which has not been seen before or since. IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A BOLD SOCIAL VISION, I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO YOU! While amazon may list this book as not available from time to time, it is always available from the Pathfinder z store listed under "new and used" at the top of the page.

If you think, or rather I should say believe, that the "market" is the best of all possible systems, this the best of all possible countries, in the best of all possible worlds, then this is not the book for you.But if you are serious about doing something effective about meaningful social change in the "new millenium", then you owe it to yourself to buy this book.The author begins with the efforts of a small band of young people at a small Midwestern college to oppose the Yankee empire's efforts to overthrow the Cuban Revolution at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and during the "Missile Crisis" in 1962. He shows you how and why the Cuban people then, and still today, were willing to fight and die to defend their nation and revolution, and how those everyday ordinary working people changed themselves into better humans in the process.He then explains that the only way to rid the earth of war, racism, discrimination against women, enviromental catastrophe,etc., is to do what the Cubans did, here in the "belly of the beast" --make a revolution. The alternative, he affirms, is fascism and a new world war. Finally he points to a concrete program to unify working people here and now,at home and abroad, necessary to fight back against the economic catastrophe looming before us to anyone with eyes to see.

If you are serious about making a human world, buy this book ! And pass it on to others.

While these books may not be directly available from Amazon at times, they are available from the booksfrompathfinder on Amazon that you can find by clicking on the new and used books on this page.

The Cuban revolution and especially the resistance and defeat of the US mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs is the starting point of this book. The author and tbe book's editor Mary Alice Waters were students at Carlton College in Minnesota in the early 1960s. This discuss how the Cuban revolution, and building a student movement to fight for the truth about that revolution radicalize them and other students, and the lessons they learned building a movement to defend Cuba during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Barnes extends this at the end to a discussion of a program for working people in the 21 Century accurately evaluating Bush and Gore as the same poison. He provides real a real program against both liberal and conservative probusiness politics. What I love about this book is the stream of history: the fighters of Cuba, the students and Black activists who defended the revolution, and going forward to fight for socialist in this world in the 21st Century.

While these books may not be directly available from Amazon at times, they are available from the booksfrompathfinder on Amazon that you can find by clicking on the new and used books on this page.

This book deserves its reputation as a classic. Redman's story-telling skills are wonderful, he writes well, and clearly explains everything going on in the sometimes arcane world of legislative procedure. He makes the dullest-seeming motions and committee hearings come alive.

Scholars of the Congress should read this, if for no other reason than to get a basic handle on how the Congress actually works, rather than how they think it works in fancy regression analyses. But more than that, it's the starting point for a whole genre of work such as Showdown at Gucci Culch, Conflict and Compromise, and The Bill (all of which are must-reads as well). Even a casual observer of politics can get excited and interested.

This book is the most informative and best written book I have ever read on politics. It's filled with humor and candid comments about the United States Congress.

This book makes me nostalgic for the days when Members of Congress cooperated & got things accomplished. Great vignettes of Maggie! Very accurate rendition.

The year was 1970, President Nixon was still in office, however, an intern by the name of Eric Redman was on hand in the halls of Congress to witness the fascinating dance of legislation as The National Health Service Corps was attempting to be born. This book provides a personal account of the birth and struggles of the attempt to pass a piece of legislation from within the private confines of who was then the second most powerful United States Senator, Warren Magnuson from the State of Washington. While the names have changed, the struggle for a balance between power, influence, and social consciousness and survival remains the same. This book is as fantastic look behind the scenes of the most influential body of power on earth contains the essential ingredients today as a quarter of a century ago. It is a must read for anyone with an interest in political legislation and stands alone in its own right as a factual story that is as fascinating and compelling as any! fictional novel you will ever read.

Mr. O'Clery puts a lot of background information into something most Americans know little about. There is always a lot going on in the background in any diplomatic activity. This is something that Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore missed out on where they should have publicized it more. Mr. Bush, Cheney and McCain - the "you don't talk to your adversaries who are always evil - clique need to read this especially in light of the success of ending the violence in Ireland.

In Ireland, Ulster and Britain, the book was titled "The Greening of the White House" - a much more apt title. That said, it shows how the Clinton administration is committed to shafting Ulster. No fence-sitting here. The US government under Clinton has underwritten pan-Irish national-chauvinist ambitions.

Conor O'Clery knows how to tell a story. Often politics and foreign policy get bogged down in minutae or are blunted by excessive academic language; this is definitely not the case here. The feel when reading Daring Diplomacy is one of being spirited along in back rooms and pubs to see how deals get done and meet those involved. The telling is personal, insightful, and deftly aware of the entangled connections in Irish policy.
If you are reading this as a student, I heartily recommend it. You will find the backstory gives a well-rounded look into some of the reasons why peace in N. Ireland has been so elusive (namely the British government). If you are just reading it for personal reasons, I think you will be quite happy with your choice. A good companion book after this one is George Mitchell's "Making Peace."

Daring Diplomacy was the perfect title for this wonderfully written book. Throughout the course of this book, Conor O'Clery traces the involvement of the Clinton administration in attaining a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Northern Ireland. What is most refreshing about this book is its wholehearted attempt to be honest and balanced--an honor not bestowed on many books written on the conflict in Northern Ireland. From Clinton's commitment during the 1992 presidential election campaign until immediately following the end of the IRA's ceasefire, this book chronicles the efforts of the Clinton Administration to involve all parties in discussions regarding the future status of Northern Ireland. The U.S., at times seeming to threaten the "special relationship" between itself and Britain contributed much to the current political situation in Northern Ireland--one in which we now have Loyalist and Republican ceasefires and a forum for talks on political representation. Daring Diplomacy gives f

Much of the debate about climate change (global warming) has focused on short-term details about the structure of any international treaty and the near-term rate of change in emissions. Athanasiou and Baer perform a great service by bringing the larger questions of the long-term severity of the climate problem and the potential massively unequal consequences of climate change for people of different wealth levels.

Grounding their argument in the well-accepted science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authors describe in clear language the imperative to dramatically reduce global greenhouse gas emissions over the next 50 years. Importantly, they endorse the current ideas about international emissions trading as a low-cost way to achieve these cuts, but they then lay out an ethically grounded argument for ensuring that this trading is structured in a fair and equitable way--both for people in poorer countries and for people in future generations. Moreover, they are careful to defend the political viability of their proposed solutions.

Written in direct and comprehensible language, Dead Heat is a forceful call for more serious action to address the social and environmental consequences of climate change and climate change policy.

For individuals wanting to learn more about the extremely important and dire problem of global warming but intimidated by books with lots of difficult scientific language, this short, comprehensible book is the perfect introduction for the lay person. Not only does it detail the frightening consequences of climate chaos like hurricanes, drought, and outbreaks of diseases like malaria, it more importantly outlines individual and institutional strategies for stabilizing the planet's temperature. And it does so in a global justice context. If you care about polar bears, coral reefs, poor folks in Bangledesh, Central America, and the Gulf Coast, then read this book. If you care about your future, the future of your children, and the future of this planet, then read this book (and then ride your bike, plant a tree, join a collective household, go solar, and eat organic, locally grown slow cuisine).

...but for those who already know some of the details on global warming and the Kyoto Protocol. I picked up this book for a term paper, hoping this would have all the information I needed. I was thoroughly confused with all the specific terms that were used but not explained. After I read through other resources which started from the beginning, I was able to enjoy this book more.

It's really a great book to read, and I enjoyed it.

This book explains both the science of global warming and the political reasons why governments have not acted to reverse it.

The book arrived in the estimated time and in the condition advertised by this seller.

This book has great facts about weapons of mass destruction throughout the world's countries. Great for research.

This is a comprehensive book in which the authors describe proliferation issues and nonproliferations issues. This is a great reference book to have on nuclear issues as well as biological and chemical threats.

The book is detailed to the extent that one would think that some of the material should be classified, because there is a chapter on Russian nuclear facilities which handle nuclear materials, waste mamnagement sites, Russian stategic submarine fleet sites and nuclear test sites are featured. Also China's aresnals are thorougly presented and many others. Iran N. Korea to name a few.

The authors describe many of the international network of treaties and agreements construted over the past 50 years. Also there's a chapter on nuclear, biological and chemical materials and weapon systems to deliver them.

Overall I enjoyed reading this book, it's a good refernece to have if you want to know about proliferation and non proliferation issues that affect the fragile world we live in.

The latest in the line of Carnegie proliferation surveys, Deadly Arsenals is an essential resource for all concerned with WMD proliferation issues. Students of nonproliferation will appreciate the up-to-date analysis of the regime and its hard cases, including timely information on North Korea, Iran, and the most recent "success" story, Libya. This is one of the few books I keep on my desk--my dog-eared 2002 edition is ready to be shelved.

This book reads like a John Grisham novel, except that all of it really happened. Coll is able to take the largest anti-trust litigation in history, against the largest corporation in the world, and make the subject not only interesting but edge-of-your-seat thrilling.

I first read this 13 years ago when I started in telecom, and am re-reading it now in light of recent events. The book is not only as good as I remembered it, it's better. And the repercussions of the Ma Bell breakup are still very much with us today.

This is the book AT&T never wanted to go to press and when it did AT&T seceretly bought up all the copies they could.Good luck finding someone who will lend you a copy because you can't buy it anywhere, at any price.Not even AMAZON. AT&T will cut their phone lines if they actually made this book available.THE TRUTH- AT&T doesn't want you to know about. FACTUAL ACCOUNT, GREAT READ!

As an MBA student interested in telecom, I found this book to be among the best sources of information about telecom regulation. It provides rich detail but is also very readable and only gets technical when necessary.

Prior to interviewing with a Baby Bell Company, I read The Dealof theCentury. It was not only informative but fascinating. I was able to get a flavor of the personalities involved and internal squabbles that shaped the "deal" involving AT&T. This book is required reading for anybody who wants to understand how we got where we are today in telecommunications. By the way, I got the job.

For a good book from the perspective of death row: "A Checkered Past" by William Van Poyck, on death row in Florida. The book is available at amazon.com.

Jerry Layne Rogers, Sr. -- wrongfully convicted and innocent. From 1989 - 1992, I was his investigator at CCR.

Mr. Rogers' case consisted in 1992 of at least 80 boxes of documents, from court files, prosecutor and law enforcement files, trial and evidentiary hearing transcripts, etc. Mr. Rogers's case was the largest and most complicated that CCR [The Office of Capital Collateral Representative -- a state agency in the judicial branch of Florida government] has ever represented that I am aware of.

The second largest and most complicated was that of Mr. Gerald Stano, whose lead attorney during most of the development of his case was Mark E. Olive.

In 1995, Mr. Rogers began receiving pro bono representation from the Washington, D.C. law firm Covington and Burling. The result was an unanimous Florida Supreme Court (FSC) 26 page opinion ordering a new trial in Mr. Rogers' case due primarily to prosecutorial misconduct, in particular Brady v. Maryland violations.

To read the opinion, go to the FSC website, then at "Public Information", to the recent opinions, to the year 2001, then toward the bottom at February 15, 2001, one will find the FSC opinion.

During the summer of 2002, Mr. Rogers was re-convicted, however sentenced to life upon the jury recommendation. Now twice Mr. Rogers has been wrongfully convicted.

In 2004, the Florida 5th District Court of Appeal denied relief. The FSC declined to accept jurisdiction and thus denied the petition for review.

Mr. Rogers' case is pending Federal review.




For those interested in reading the narrowly decided by four to three vote Florida Supreme Court opinions regarding two more death sentenced persons whose innocence is an authentic issue, please go to the FSC website, then go to the recent opinions, then chose the correct year and scroll down to the following two cases:

Roy Swafford: April 18, 2002

Peter Ventura: May 24, 2001


Additionally, the issue in the below cases is DNA testing that proves that Roy Swafford did not rape Brenda Rucker:

Roy Swafford: March 26, 2004 Case Nos. SC03.931 and SC03.1153

From 1986 - 1992 I was employed as an investigator at the Office of Capital Collateral Representative (CCR) in Tallahassee, Florida, where Scharlette Holdman worked as the supervisor of the investigators from October 1985 - March 1988. Scharlette Holdman is cited in approving comments by Mello in at least two of his books.

I have known Scharlette since the mid-1970s death penalty debates at Florida State University, including the debate between Professor Richard L. Rubenstein (author of "After Auschwitz", "My Brother Paul", "The Cunning of History: Mass Death and the American Future", "The Age of Triage", "Religion and Eros", and other books) vs. Baptist Minister and Philosopher Will Campbell (the debate was circa 1977).

Her office, the Clearinghouse on Criminal Justice, was in the same wing of the Petroleum Building as my office at Common Cause in Florida (where I was a full-time volunteer during the day and worked at the Brown Derby Restaurant at night from 1981 - 1986).

The Petroleum Building was next to the State Capital, the Florida Supreme Court and the State Archives and Library. When it was torn down, the space and the space for the first CCR office became the Mary Brogan Art and Science Museum storm water retaining pond. The Petroleum Building was called by those of us who worked or volunteered there the "Forces of Good" (FOG) Building -- as opposed to FOE -- Forces of Evil, such as Associated Industries, the Chamber and other big business interests in Florida. The FOG building also included (not an exhaustive list) the Clean Water Action Project, the ACLU, NOW, Florida Legal Services, Migrant Farmworker's Organization (directed by Cliff Thaell, who has more recently been a Leon County Commissioner for about ten years or more), Mike Vasilinda's television news service.

About every two years at CCR there was a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist purge due to the pressures and dysfunctions of the work and the people. I survived two such purges. With the third, I was the first to go in the spring and summer of 1992.

When Scharlette had essentially declared war upon CCR in 1987 and thereafter, some of us decided to investigate her background given some things that we had heard. Low and behold, Scharlette's claim of a PhD in anthropology from the University of Hawaii and a Master's Degree from Memphis State (now University of Memphis) don't exist. A claimed undergraduate degree from Memphis State: I no longer recall if this was confirmed by the university.

We used Scharlette's Social Security number, her maiden name and her married name -- with all this information, both universities had no record of Scharlette having received any degrees from these institutions.

As I understand Scharlette, she needed the "degrees" to confer upon her "credentials" that she really never needed as she is indeed then and now a national expert on capital mitigation, litigation, etc. However Scharlette can be deceptive, as her lack of a PhD and Masters so demonstrates. Even today she claims to have the degrees as when she gives presentations regarding capital cases, she is identified as "Dr." A key word search of her name will bring up some of the presentations that she has made in the past several years with the title "Dr." preceding her name.

If she has received any honorary or other degrees since 1990, that would be new information for me. If anyone can assist in this matter, please contact me at paul_d_harvill@yahoo.com or my mailing address: P.O. Box 38458, Tallahassee, FL 32315-8458. Thank you.

Michael Mello, who used to represent death sentenced persons in Florida with the Office of Capital Collateral Representative (CCR) and the Palm Beach County Public Defender's Office in the early to mid-1980s, writes an excellent analysis of eleven Florida capital cases.

Both David Von Drehle and Michael Mello's books are excellent and very well describe what life is like for those on death row and those representing death sentenced persons, particularly at the old CCR [Office of Capital Collateral Representative]. However there is more:

After Mark E. Olive voluntarily resigned from CCR about March 1988, Billy H. Nolas became the next Chief Litigator. It is extremely odd that neither Mello nor Von Drehle even mention Nolas nor the next Chief Litigator Martin or Marty J. McClain. For important reasons they should have.

Billy H. Nolas is an excellent litigator like Olive. Nolas was the Chief Litigator for the last two years of the Gov. Martinez "regime", which was the most difficult time in CCR history [during my employment there] with Martinez signing death warrants as if he was at a Republican Party event signing autographs.

Nolas resigned at the end of 1990, after Martinez had been defeated by former U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles and former U.S. House of Representatives member Buddy MacKay.

Nolas was completely drained from the years he endured and litigated while at CCR, due to the huge case load and the internecine warfare within the agency. McClain and his faction within CCR did their best to cause Nolas to leave -- eventually they were successful -- and THAT is when clients' cases began to suffer.

Martin J. McClain is an excellent litigator, however his strategic decisions in various cases are questionable. When Mello writes on page 245 of the hardcover version of "Dead Wrong" regarding CCR, "Look beneath the surface of CCR's 'success rates', however, and you'll find an artifice typical of hack public defender officers. CCR has in the past farmed out the hardest cases to outside lawyers (by finding that it has a 'conflict of interest')". The period of time that Mello is referring to is when Martin J. McClain was the Chief Litigator and Michael Minerva was the executive director of CCR.

As the premier example of McClain alleging a "conflict of interest" [and I can only assume with the consent of the director of CCR at the time, Michael Minerva] is the client Jerry Layne Rogers, Sr. -- a wrongfully convicted and innocent man -- Mr. Rogers' case in 1992 consisted of at least 80 boxes of documents, from court files, prosecutor and law enforcement files, trial and evidentiary hearing transcripts, etc. Mr. Rogers' case was the largest and most complicated that CCR has ever represented [during my employment there].

The second largest and most complicated was that of Mr. Gerald Stano, whose lead attorney during most of the development of his case was Mark Olive.

McClain simply didn't want to have such a complicated case as a CCR case, so McClain, in my considered insider opinion as Mr. Roger's only investigator from 1989 until my involuntary departure in 1992, alleged in a misrepresentation to the Florida Supreme Court (FSC) that he had a "conflict of interest" with Mr. Rogers -- while Mr. Rogers' case was pending at the FSC.

As a result, Mr. Rogers had no counsel for an extended period of time until the Washington, D.C. law firm Covington and Burling became his pro bono counsel in 1995. The result was an unanimous FSC 26 page opinion ordering a new trial due primarily to prosecutorial misconduct, in particular Brady v. Maryland violations.

To read the opinion, go to the Florida Supreme Court website, to recent opinions, to the year 2001, scroll down to February 15, 2001.

During the summer of 2002, Mr. Rogers was re-convicted, however the jury recommended and Mr. Rogers received a life sentence. Thus for a second time Mr. Rogers has been wrongfully convicted.

Another wrongfully convicted Florida death row inmate, who is now a free man, Juan Melendez, testified about his neighbor on death row, Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers taught him how to speak, read and write in English as well as assisting him in coping skills while on death row.

In 2004, the Florida 5th District Court of Appeal denied relief. The FSC declined to accept jurisdiction and thus denied the petition for review.

Mr. Rogers' case is pending Federal review.