Kansas Books

"Wild and Scenic Kansas" -- now how can you resist a title like that? I haven't lived in Kansas for 40 some years, but in many respects, it's still "home," and this calendar reminds me of why.

This book is a must for any KSU fan. It's triva stems from the days when KSU was lucky to win a game to the present and KSU's rise on the national stage. This is a perfect gift for any KSU football fan and is perfect for disscussion on those long bowl trips. This is a great book

This is the standard book on the lead and zinc mines of the TriState area, meaning the area where Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma come together. Gibson was a professor at the University of Oklahoma and was originally from the area. I suspect this was his doctoral dissertation, based on the date. It is based both on documents, such as mining reports, and interviews he conducted with miners about 1950.

It has all the factual information about the mines you could ever want. It is so thorough that no one has ever felt the need to go back and redo the overall story of the mines, though there are books about other aspects of the mines, such as the strike of 1935 or the miner's health. Dr. Gibson died about twenty years ago.

When this book was written the mines were still operating, though starting to wind down. Today the U.S. government is still spending millions to clean up this area from the heavy metals left by the milling and smelting process, and the threat to the water left by the underground mining.

Gibson's sympathies are clearly with the miners and the Quapaw Indians whose land the mines are on, but he also viewed the mines as the inevitable progress of the business system in the United States and had great admiration for the skill, strength, and courage of the miners and mining engineers.

I have read several of Dr. Gibson's other books as well, and he writes very well, but readers should be aware that he is not that interested in amusing stories about the miner and the mule and such, or really in individual stories. He is more interested in systems and institutions, so if you want a book of funny stories about miners getting drunk and falling into mines, this is not the book for you.

This book will leave you in awe of how hard people worked to make a basic living as recently as the 1950s.

This novel about an early midwestern American family is a facinating look at life in the 19th century. The author gives the characters such interesting lives that the reader keeps turning the pages to see what happens next. I will definitely look for more books by Wilma Lewis

Philippa Strum's sympathies clearly lie with those who argued for admitting women to the Virginia Military Institute. However, they haven't prevented her from giving us a comprehensive and fairly balanced look at the VMI case from start to ... if not finish, at least to the graduation of the first women to begin the school in the rat line.

One area where Strum's analysis is particularly strong is in tracing the history of anti-discrimination and equal rights law in the United States. She shows the jurisprudential evolution of the idea that, rather than women requiring special protection, all people are entitled to the rights and benefits of equal citizenship, regardless of sex. Indeed, following the trend of relevant Supreme Court cases as the author lays it out for us, it's hard to see how VMI's defenders could have believed the Court would ever do anything *but* order the publicly-funded military academy to admit women on an equal basis.

But believe it they did, and Strum shows how the two sides in the case were arguing fundamentally different points: VMI, that tax-funded single-sex education served a public good, and the Justice Department that, whether single-sex education is good or not, public funding of it (VMI being a government school) is unacceptable under the 14th Amendment. Neither side seemed fully to understand the other, and Strum does a thorough job of showing how the two sides in many ways failed to confront one another's arguments head-on.

Strum frames VMI as a defender of outmoded stereotypes and anachronistic ways of thinking (notably the 'women-as-lady' myth, as she calls it). It's a portrait VMI's defenders no doubt resent, but it's clear that their focus on 'how men learn' versus 'how women learn' was based more on differences between men and women *as groups* than on what kind of system might be best for any given *individual*. After all, as Strum points out, if VMI's adversative system isn't right or attractive for most women, the undeniable fact (based on the number of male high school seniors who apply to VMI relative to their number nationwide, for example) is that it's not right or attractive for most men, either.

This brings us to some areas I wished Strum had developed further. Most interesting was her assertion -- based on circumstantial evidence -- that the Bush Administration (Bush I) must have blocked the Justice Department from arguing that VMI's treasured adversative system was unnecessary for molding the kind of citizen-soldier leaders that VMI exists to produce. Certainly (as Ed Ruggero relates in 'Duty First: West Point and the Making of American Leaders'), the USMA ultimately decided its adversative system was actually counterproductive for that purpose, and so abandoned it. But Justice planted its flag on the (arguably weaker) ground that forcing VMI to admit women would not cause a fundamental change in the VMI system or ethos. The jury is still out about whether that's proven true.

Another question this book raised for me that Strum left entirely unaddressed was the appropriateness of cause-activists pursing their agenda on the bench. Specifically, Strum titles her chapter on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 'The Advocate.' Justice Ginsburg (clearly the hero -- can we still say 'heroine'? -- of this book) spent her pre-Court career promoting a certain understanding of law and pursuing specific social and policy objectives. Once on the bench, judges assume a mantle of impartiality -- in exchange for which they enjoy the 'procedural consensus' Strum defines as the key to translating Court decisions into social change. And yet, Strum makes it clear that Ginsburg's jurisprudence in the VMI case was of a piece with her earlier work. Strum quotes another legal scholar describing the VMI decision as 'the vindication for [Ginsburg's] legal career ... the opinion she hoped the Court would one day arrive at when she first started arguing cases of discrimination in the 1960s' (p. 295). Is it right for judges (of any philosophical persuasion) to continue as advocates once they're on the bench? Public acceptance of that idea would seem to threaten the very 'procedural consensus' the advocates rely upon to achieve their goals.

That question aside, though, I enjoyed reading this comprehensive look at the VMI case. Despite clear indications of where she stands on the question, a few broad ideological brush strokes (conservatives are frequently described as 'angry'), and the occasional off-the-wall comment ('Nothing had been more central to the South than racism' [p. 102].) the author's presentation of both sides of this important case was, on the whole, equitable and balanced. As I said, it's hard to escape the conclusion that VMI's stand was doomed from the start. So long as government runs schools, they will be subject to the political process. And in 1996 as in 1864, VMI couldn't withstand the weight of Uncle Sam, no matter how much its defenders loved it, or how fervently they sacrificed to protect it.

An excellent analysis. He compares the different opinions of notable Word analysts like Moffat, Lightfoot, Wuest, Wycliff and more. He also lets the user know what the original Greek would say. His own opinions are hidden as he lets the Holy Spirit make a judgement of the best translation. When he gives his own opinion, it is good, his commentaries in Romans were outstanding.

Dan Boone is a powerful writer and communicator. This book is a wonderful book that helps make worship on Sunday mornings fluid, narrative and understandable. It serves as a great book for pastors, worship leaders and planning teams.

This is definitely a must read!

Another favorable review of this book appears in Public Budgeting & Finance, Spring 1997, pages 105-106, by John L. Mikesell. Please disregard the rating since this is not a review but for information purposes only

Prize-winning historian Shawn Peters presents The Yoder Case: Religious Freedom, Education, And Parental Rights, a scholarly study of the crucial 1972 Supreme Court ruling in a case when a Wisconsin Amish community claimed that compulsory education past a certain age was in conflict with its religious views and therefore removed its children from public schools. Also available in a hardcover edition, The Yoder Case is a detailed, impartial analysis of events, and a fascinating account recommended for law school students and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the separation of Church and State issues.

Any one who has been involved in youth ministry or even has been involved with students will be able to laugh out loud at these jokes and illustrations. They are so true that I could relate to nearly every situation. Consider two of my favorites: you might be a youth workewr if you've ever convinced the church treasurer that water balloons and bungee cords are minsitry expenses; If someone says "lock-in" but you hear "purgatory", you might be a youth worker. I guarantee that you will love this book and that it will provide countless hours of humor. It is especially good for those days when you really feel ministry taking a toll on you. Enjoy!