Bean Books

Come on, "I believe". You gotta be kidding. Does this guy truly believe the ghost of Babe Ruth has visited him and sent him on a devine mission to break the curse?

Sure dude, Babe has made you the chosen one. I think we have been growing something a bit stronger than beans in the old back yard.

~ I Believe!! Buy your Cubs World Series Tickets now. I will admit the inital premise of a die-hard Cubs fan being called into service to help "The Babe" break the Red Sox curse appeared to be a bit farfetched. But after reading Babe's Beans--the dreams of our author jump off the page. Great Illustrations. The author is able to make Babe's Beans come to life highlighting some of the lovable quirks we have come to learn about Babe Ruth's life. All in all...it is enjoyable, is amusing and when the Cubs fans decend on Wrigleyville in late October, 2005...all I will have to say is "I told you so".



Andy Gannon ~ WIRF









Phil Pash's Up & Down The Rock ~ The Rock River Times:



by Phil Pash

Babe's Beans Enjoyable: With the sold-out Cubs Caravan in Rockford tonight (Jan. 19) at Giovanni's, and the sold-out 20th annual Cubs Convention coming up this weekend (Jan. 21-23) at the Hilton Chicago, this may be the perfect time to talk about Babe's Beans, a locally-produced, pamphlet-sized book.

"Babe Ruth loved his first team, the Boston Red Sox. His ghost hated that his name was attached to the `Curse of the Bambino' and decided to do something about it. Taking a wrong turn on his way to Boston, the Babe's ghost ended up in Illinois, where he used ancient Chinese magic to enchant the red beans in the garden of a diehard Cubs fan.

"Immediately after the Red Sox captured the American League pennant, the specter paid a late-night visit to the fan and enlisted his help distributing the beans to the Red Sox Nation. With the beans safely in the hands of the faithful, the Sox stormed to the world championship for the first time since 1918.

"After the final out of the series, the Babe visited the Cub fan again and promised that the progeny of those beans would help the Cubs end the `Billy Goat Curse' in 2005."

That tells you a little about `Babe's Beans.' There is more.

It was written by P.J. Sullivan of Rockford, illustrated by Bruce Lewis of Rockford (you remember Mr. Mustache, don't you?) and published by Sultan Press of Rockford ($4.95). It has its own Web site of www.babesbeans.com, is available at Barnes & Noble book stores and already has gained some notice by being sold on eBay.

The original eBay listing was posted Oct. 23, 2004, after the Red Sox won the World Series.

To refresh (if you need any), the Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908, and have not played in one since 1945. With Boston winning in 2004, the Cubs now are all alone as the longest suffering team in baseball. Even the White Sox have done better-playing in a World Series in 1959 and winning one in 1917, two years before the Black Sox scandal.

Sullivan, who graduated from West High School in 1974, admits to being a life long diehard Cubs fans (poor guy). He says he's "not closely related" to Rockford's theatrical Sullivans (J. R. and James).

He says his senior year at West drew attention. He was sacked by principal Ivan Linnaberry as editor of The West High Owl (the student newspaper) "explicitly because of editorial cartoons lampooning President Richard Nixon. Principal Linnaberry was a staunch Republican who considered an attack on the president inappropriate subject matter for a high school publication, by his own admission. P.J. felt vindicated two months after graduating when President Nixon resigned abruptly in August of 1974."

Stan Buckles, retired columnist for the local daily, wrote several columns about the controversy, said Sullivan, who now has what he calls his first published work in Babe's Beans. It's enjoyable.

By the way, if you have missed the work of Mr. Mustache, Lewis has a Web site of www.mustachefunnystuff.com. He was on local TV from 1967 to 1981, and legions of kids grew up watching him.

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I have the original UK book from the '70's and have used it so much it's falling apart. It has some wonderful recipes that have become family favorites. I was prepared to throw it away for the newer version. But when I got it and started looking through it, I was disappointed. It's got nicer font than the old one but I thought in a newer version there would be color photos. Nope. And they have trimmed some of the content! I was kind of upset! So it really isn't the same book I thought I was getting. So for now I keep using the old book in the boring font with no photos but with the 20 or so pages included that they didn't see fit to print in the new version. And I'll just keep taping in those pesky pages that keep falling out...

I was looking for a book to cook dry beans and thought this would be it. The picture suggests that. It is full of recipes using canned beans.

The auther does provide some nice examples of Java Beans - just about half of the book consists of program listings.

Unfortunately, he has absolutely no concept whatsoever concerning just WHAT he wants to tell the reader, or HOW he wants to make himself clear.

After having read the first fifty pages (called "introduction" by the author), you may well ask yourself one question: "Excuse me? What was this all about?"

Do yourself a favor, and read J.Feghhi's grossly mistitled book "Web Developer's Guide to Java Beans" instead - an excellent introduction to beans programming, and a terrific comparison between Beans, DCOM, and CORBA.

This book gives an in-depth overview of the theory of critical literacy. However, it offers very few practical strategies that teachers can use to develop students' critical literacy skills.

Powells Books indicates that the title designated by this ISBN is read by Kimberly Schraf and that its "Media Run Time" is 120 (presumably minutes).

I read the third book in this series, "Hell on the Border", first and gave it a very positive review. Having read the other two books, I am now disappointed. The bulk of the historical detail in the book is accurate, although Leo, using a Baby Lemat, would have been killed rather quickly. The Baby Lemat was made in a smaller calibers than the regular Lemats and would not have been a reliable weapon for stoppin an opponent. The series also refers to his regular LeMat as being a .44, which is inaccurate (although the modern replicas are .44). The series also has serious continuity problems. In Ghost Riders, Judge Isaac Parker and his deputy Heck Thomas receive a telegram about Leo LeMat and Thomas comments that he knows about LeMat and his background. In the third book, Hell on the Border, when Leo goes to meet Heck Thomas and Judge Parker, they appear to know nothing about LeMat. There are also some problems as to how Leo and Jacque met for the first time. It would cost very little for the authors to have someone read the manuscripts for continuity -unfortunately they didn't and the whole series seems to be populated with people who have amnesia.

From the title, I expected an in-depth discussion of a relatively small number of vegetables. What I found was a very low-level introduction to an odd assortment of plants. I still can't figure out what constitutes 'shoots' in this context. There was no discussion at all of the wide variation in growing habits, climate requirements, and disease susceptibility of the different species and genera that are lumped together as 'beans'.
I ended up giving the book to a youngster just getting interested in gardening.

The cover says that this is a book for advanced users. How come they spend 21 pages on installing the software. Do you know an advanced user who needs 21 pages to install a piece of software?

In the section about modifing templates they fail to mention that there is hidden text at the beginning of the document that if deleted will cause you document not to be added to your history tab.

This is a beginners book.

A Boston Globe reporter tells the story of the female psychiatrist accused of having sex with her male client. The client later ended up committing suicide. This story was splashed across the Boston headlines in the early 90's. The topic is interesting; but the book not very well written. The book is mostly concatenations of excerpts from legal documents, interviews, and process notes (the therapist's notes during her sessions with the patient.) Those process notes are fascinating., but this makes for choppy readings. The author considers the process notes to see whether they can reveal the true nature of the relationship between doctor and patient. The author argues -- fairly reasonably -- that there was no sexual relationship -- only fantasies. He also makes a convincing argument that the patient was suicidal long before he went into treatment with this psychiatrist. Unfortunately as the author defends the psychiatrist, he tends to be harshly critical of the patient and his family. The author's criticism borders on racist.