Burroughs Books

This book is wonderfully laid out and the way that Jean Burroughs writes is wonderfull and i very much recomend this to any one who enjoys reading about history.

This is another "hard to find" early DAW book. A hint about the story is that Bunduki is Tarzan's adopted son. Also included is the adopted granddaughter of Tarzan. Continuing the saga of Tarzen which was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

-- where no Earthman has swaggered before.

The story gets off to an odd start, with a vignette that doesn't really do much for the remainder of the book. In it, Carson and his woman (Burroughs's phrase, not mine) encounter a savage band of Amazons. As you might expect from stories so thoroughly sex-typed as these, the warrior women are portrayed as belching butch brigands who terrorize their sissified men-folk, who have names like Lula. The good guys escape nicely, everything about this interlude sinks quietly out of sight, and the real story begins.

It pretty well fits the checklist of Burroughs swashbucklers, with good guys practically tripping over their senses of honor, skulking traitors, and romance found, foiled, and fixed in the end. Carson drops pretty much out of nowhere into a civil war, and makes it his own. Once he's picked a side, we then see the opponents as stupid, brutal tyrants, their down-trodden populace cowering under constant threat of arrest by the imperial storm-grunters, for any reason or none at all. This story came from the late 1930s, during the run-up to the Cold War, so it's pretty easy to assign real-world meaning to the two sides in Burroughs's description.

If this were a movie, it would demand a rainy Saturday and a bucket of popcorn. Instead, it presents a great bit of adventure with plenty of chaste romance and bloodless violence, a holdover from the age before irony. If you're looking for some escapist reading, it's a great place to escape to.

-- wiredweird

Just like Jack London, who took the theme of his classic "Call of the Wild" and reversed it in "White Fang," Edgar Rice Burroughs did the same thing off of his legendary literary creation "Tarzan of the Apes" in "The Cave Girl." Whereas Tarzan was raised from infancy with the Great Apes and had to learn to be civilized, the hero of this story is Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones, your basic bookworm from Boston who ends up having to fend for his life in the jungle. This particular novel was actually written relatively early in ERB's publishing career, ending up as his seventh novel. The first part was published in three installments in "The All-Story" magazine (where "Tarzan" first appeared) in 1913, with the second part appearing in the same magazine in 1917.

ERB really stacks the deck against poor Waldo, who is in bad health and terrified of shadows in the night. By the end of the first chapter he is a total wreck, convinced he is being stalked and on the verge of madness. Attacked by a group of savages, Waldo is aided by the titular character, a half-naked young woman, in saving their skins. In their own secluded "Little Eden," Waldo learns the language of the young woman, whose name is Nadara, and some other things that would not be deemed proper back in Boston. However, as is usually the case in one of ERB's pulp fiction adventures, Nadara has some unwanted suitors and believes that Waldo, whom she has named "Thandar" the Brave One, will defend her honor and fight for her. However, Waldo is not absolutely sure about that, especially once he sees Flatfoot.

Basically the story has two halves. The original story of "The Cave Girl" has Waldo turning into Thandar, claiming his mate by the law of the jungle, and walking away from the rescue party that has arrived to save him (now that he does not want to be saved, you understand). The second half, "The Cave Man," has Thandar and Nadara returning to live with her people. King Big Fist is wary of the new strong man and out in the jungle the red-haired Thurg is seeking his revenge. Meanwhile, Nadara is trying to understand why Thandar insists on asking her parents to be allowed to mate with her instead of just sticking to cave man rules. More importantly, it seems that Nadara was not born into the tribe, but was adopted as a baby after her parents were found dead in a strange floating boat. But the question of Nadara's true parentage and real name will have to wait, because the Smith-Joneses are launching another rescue to find their lost boy Waldo.

As a "Tarzan-in-reverse" story "The Cave Girl" still manages to fit the standard ERB yarn from this early part of his career. As with John Carter, David Innes and other ERB heroes, there is the attempt to learn the language and ways of a strange new culture. Obviously the biggest difference is that Waldo is not a burly he-man. But living in the jungle and having to fend for himself forces him to strip away the veneer of civilization and turn him into a cave man, albeit one with Boston bred sensibilities. "The Cave Girl" ends up being an average Burroughs yarn, where "The Cave Man" sequel ends up taking away some of the power of the original story.

Climate Revealed

William J Burroughs, 1999, CambridgeUniversity Press, 192 pages.

The impact of volcanoes, proxy records,El Nino, the Sahel drought, weather modification, sea-level rise,tornadoes, the cost of climate change, the ozone hole - this is traditionally stuff of coffee-room discussions of the meteorologist. No longer! In brilliant color and in an extremely well written text, Dr Burroughs has produced a book that is not just another book on climate and the environment. In this photographic guide to the world's climate, he demystifies these terms.

According to the book jacket: "From the catastrophic impact of drought and avalanches to concerns about the effects of El Nino and La Nina, this book raises topical questions, yet creates a sense of wonder as it reveals the magical intricacy of the Earth's climate. The Climate Revealed explores and explains this complex story through specially commissioned, dynamic illustrations, illuminating photographs and accessible text from an expert author".

The book is divided into separate chapters that may be read independently - only one to two pages with a number of chapters grouped together under a central theme. The grouped chapters include Climate in Motion, Climate Records, Polar Regions, Desert Regions, Mountain Regions, Mediterranean Regions, The Prairies, The Tropics, Desert Regions, Temperate Regions, Polar Regions and Tundra and Taiga.

With a good balance of photographs, graphics, and text, each chapter consists of non-technical text that can be read independently of every other chapter. This makes it a book that will sit on my coffee table for visitors and myself. He does not confine himself to discussing just meteorology but rather the important aspects of meteorology that impact directly on all of us. He has taken material from many scientific disciplines and presented this important information for us all to read and understand. In my opinion, he has the balance between simplicity and the science of it all exactly right. There is also the very interesting occasional brief historical sketch of scientists such as Edward Lorentz, Sir Gilbert Walker, Edmond Halley, etc.

There are many books on weather and climate with a similar title but I believe that Climate Revealed by Dr Burroughs stands out in the crowd. Would I fork out my hard-earned dollars for this one? Without hesitation. It is a color spectacular that I would recommend to anyone interested in climate, the biosphere, and the impact of climate on our environment and us. I would even recommend it for the expert. Its price too is reasonable.

Dr Burroughs challenges the scientific community by emphasizing where the gaps of research knowledge exist. Also, he keeps to the facts and presents what appears to be a non-emotional summary of past, present and possible future climate and climatic impact events. In his final chapter, he sparked my interest - he hints that climate change issues should be addressed through issues that touch on welfare, education and health and not be a knee-jerk reaction when there are new extremes.

My main reservation, and there are precious few, is that the font used is too thin for my eyes - I can comfortably handle only a couple of chapters at a time. This is not too much of a problem since I would normally use the book as a reference work. There is a glossary and an index, which enabled me to narrow my searches very quickly. I did not spot any mention in the introductory sections about a glossary - two pages of terms used in the text. Occasionally, there was an abrupt end to the chapter - this did not detract significantly and I could not spot material, graphics or photographs that could be excluded so as to include more material to offset the abruptness. In a few cases, the order of the chapters grouped together could have been different but this is perhaps a personal preference.

Given the sheer volume of material, the work is surprisingly scientifically accurate and technically correct. My suggestions for change would be for additional material, not the removal of material - for example, including a time series on the historical record of the concentration of carbon dioxide would have made the book longer.

In summary: would I purchase this book? As previously mentioned, yes...the amount of material it presents is cross-referenced well and I would judge it to be technically correct - lots of glorious color graphics and photographs to boot. I can now unveil climate to my friends without having to haul out my slide projector!

Counterproductive Work Behavior: Investigations of Actors and Targets by Suzy Fox, Paul E. Spector, Lynne M. Andersson, Karl Aquino, Julian Barling, Robert A. Baron, Rebecca J. Bennett, Robert J. Bies, Susan M. Burroughs, Stale Einarsen, Robert Folger (American Psychological Association, APA) Counterproductive work behavior encompasses a spectrum of actions that harm employees or organizations. These behaviors include bullying, emotional abuse, revenge, retaliation, mobbing, and aggression. They can range from severe, systematic, abusive bullying to milder, ambiguous episodes of workplace incivility. This volume examines the conditions and events in modem organizations that contribute to counterproductive work behavior, as well as the steps organizations might take to combat it. Authors from both North America and Europe analyze the interplay between the environmental factors of the workplace and the personal characteristics of the individual actors and targets of counterproductive work behavior. While these researchers study various aspects of this topic, the book deftly highlights the connections and distinctions in each of the authors' work. The result is an integrative and comprehensive resource that will help stimulate future research in the field.
Excerpt: Since the mid-1990s, there has been an explosion of research interest in behaviors at work that harm employees and organizations. Much of this interest has been stimulated by media attention given to workplace violence, especially that perpetrated by coworkers-for example, shootings within the U.S. Postal Service. Although such violence is quite rare, harmful behavior of lesser severity is commonplace. Research on milder forms has been featured in the national media, where it is often called "desk rage." As editors of this volume, we will call the domain of research counterproductive work behavior (CWB), although not all contributors will agree with this umbrella label.
There recently has been interest among researchers, managers, consultants, and the general public in the widely reported experiences people have of being recipients of harmful behavior at the hands of supervisors, coworkers, and others. These experiences can range from systematic, openly abusive bullying to milder, ambiguous episodes of incivility.
Research concerning counterproductive behavior at work has considered two major classes of factors-individual employee characteristics and characteristics of the workplace. A variety of personality variables, such as conscientiousness, locus of control, narcissism, trait anger and anxiety, and Type A impatience-irritability are among a few of the variables linked to these behaviors. Some researchers have focused on characteristics of the perpetrator, others on the victims, and still others stress the dynamic inter-play between the two. Research has shown that factors related to job stress, including lack of control, excessive workloads, poor relations with coworkers and supervisors, and both intrarole and extrarole (e.g., work-family) conflicts have been linked to harmful behaviors. In addition, fair treatment and workplace justice are important factors.
As the domain matures, more emphasis is being placed on the ramifications for individuals and organizations of these kinds of harmful behaviors, as well as approaches to solving the problems they create. This may prove to be the most controversial aspect of counterproductive work behavior research, because opinions vary widely regarding the locus of accountability (e.g., selection approaches versus organizational change) and the gamut of options available and hurdles facing victims of bullying. Our own work has suggested that a focus on employee perceptions of control and emotions can lead to job design and human resource practices that reduce harmful behavior.
The relative recency of most CWB research has undoubtedly contributed to a rather disjointed literature, with different camps developing different terminology and looking at somewhat different sides of an overlapping set of behaviors. These phenomena have been variously labeled as aggression, antisocial behavior, deviance, delinquency, revenge, retaliation, and our preference, counterproductive work behavior (from the actor perspective), and abuse, bullying, incivility, and mobbing (from the target perspective). The earliest empirical studies in the area of workplace aggression were published in the mid-1970s (Inkson & Simpson, 1975; Spector, 1975). Other early studies included Hollinger and Clark's (1982) paper on organizational deviance; Matthiesen, Raknes, and Rokkum's (1989) study of workplace bullying; Leymann's (1990) seminal work on mobbing; and Morrill and Thomas's (1992) paper on retaliation at work. Most papers in the area have been published since 2000.
The rapid and recent development in parallel of different perspectives has not left sufficient time for integrative work. This issue was noted as one of the most important for the field at an interactive paper session at the 2001 Academy of Management conference in Washington, DC. The session participants found that they were studying overlapping sets of behaviors from somewhat different theoretical perspectives, and tended to focus on distinctions and what is unique in each contribution rather than on connections. A need was felt for substantial integrative work to better tie the work together. Several of the contributors to this book participated in that discussion, which inspired this volume.
The chapters in this book have been written by scholars who have adopted different perspectives, perhaps different vocabularies or labels, and who have studied somewhat different sets of possible causes, consequences, or solutions. We have emphasized the desirability of relating, where feasible, each contributor's work to work done from other perspectives. The goal of this volume is to offer an integrative perspective that highlights connections and distinctions among different people's work, as well as a discussion of how conditions-events in modern organizations contribute to CWB and on things organizations might do to combat it.
As noted earlier, we have chosen the global term of CWB because it seems to encompass the critical features of the domain without excluding the distinct contributions of the various conceptualizations. It is not the intent of this book to force everyone into taking the same perspective or using the same terminology. Rather, its purpose is to build bridges among the different perspectives, showing where they overlap and where they are different. One of the strengths of CWB research is that there are so many different ideas that are contributing to an understanding of the underlying causes and consequences of the various behaviors that we study. Each perspective adds something important to our overall understanding.
This volume is divided into two sections, based on whether the central object of study is the actor or the target of the behavior in question. Section I looks at counterproductive work behavior from the actor perspective. Seven chapters discuss CWB from a variety of theoretical vantage points, focusing often on different precursors and consequences.

Self-discipline is essential to success in all areas of life. Making the conscious choice to do what you ought to do, however, often takes a great deal of strength. The source of this strength is God. Having learned the hard way that discipline requires training, Dr. Kelley suggests a system of checks and balances for self-control. Noting her personal journey toward spiritual discipline, the author offers this thought-provoking and truly inspirational guide to self-motivation and control to encourage the reader to reap the rewards of leading a disciplined life. After years of unsuccessfully battling her weight and other negative aspects of her life, Kelley concluded that she had the motivation to change but not a sincere desire for gaining self-control. Her belief in God's power to bring control to some of life's most uncontrolled situations helped change her life. More than just a self-help book, Divine Discipline offers specific guidelines for making positive lifestyle changes toward personal growth. Kelley provides valuable guidelines for nutrition, fitness, time management, and goal planning that will help the reader realize the importance of one's internal resources by employing those inner strengths.

Burroughs found a winning formula and stuck to it. This is another example of his pulp fiction at its adventurous best. It follows our hero, Hadron of Hastor, across a Martian desert thick with lost cities, mad scientists, evil warlords, and flesh-eating whatevers. Lost princesses practically darken the dead sea floors with their numbers.

And everywhere he goes, Hadron meets men like himself: bold, chivalrous, scantily clad, willing to fight to the death at the drop of a plot mechanism, and utterly clueless about womankind and their own feelings toward same. The chaste romance builds conspicuously across the length and breadth of Mars, through pitched battles and covert rescues, obvious to everyone around except the oblivious guy in the middle of it.

If you like the swords'n'zapgun class of fantastic silliness, Burroughs's Barsoom is as good as it gets. Enjoy!

-- wiredweird

This is a comparison of two books with different points of view, one from the heart and one from the head. Tom Wicker's thesis in "Tragic Failure" subtitle "Racial Integration in America" is that racial integration simply has not worked. He would support the William O. Douglas / Thurgood Marshall line of thought that the job of integration will only be complete when most neighborhoods and schools are visibly multi-racial and all races enjoy substantially equal prestige and incomes. He would argue that government, especially the courts, have much more work to do.

Wicker's apologia for persistent educational and economic underperformance he roots in two centuries of slavery and another of Jim Crow. He sees a vicious cycle of undereducation, low self esteem, illegitimacy and drug dependency that will apparently perpetuate itself until it is broken by the acceptance of minorities as equal citizens, that to be achieved by force of law.

Both authors observe that the courts went from one extreme, the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy vs. Ferguson. to a middle ground with "Brown vs. Board of Education," to the highly interventionist phase of forced busing in the 1970s, to return to a rather muddled middle ground in the 1990's, with mandatory busing being phased out and increased tolerance of de facto segregation resulting from residential patterns.

David J. Armor served as an expert witness in many school desegregation cases, including those involving forced busing. "Forced Justice" offers the legal history of school desegregation, an analysis of the "harm and benefits" theory behind integration, an assessment of the extent to which desegregation yielded the expected benefits, and a snapshot of the status quo as of his writing in 1995, forty some years after Brown vs. Board of Education.

Though court decisions drove the most divisive aspects of school desegregation, The Supreme Court chose to accept only a fraction of the cases presented for review and rendered opinions that were vague enough that lower courts were able to interpret them in many different ways. In some cases, such as Mecklenburg, North Carolina and Pasadena, California the courts came close to running the schools. Fear of extensive judicial involvement led many districts to institute some form of voluntary desegregation using devices such as magnet schools.

Armor is at pains to point out that human affairs are far too complex to permit controlled experimentation with ideas such as desegregation. The races are segregated by neighborhood. Is that a matter of race, class, or simple preference? Does it cause or result from school segregation? To what extent can school boards be held accountable for it?

Measurement is also difficult. What can be measured is that the schools' racial mixture changed rapidly and radically in many school districts undergoing desegregation. Student performance is also measured, though only by broad categories. It is difficult to know how to distinguish among the numerous factors that can student performance, among them the trauma of desegregation, racial prejudice and self esteem issues, the stress of being bused, socioeconomic status and native ability.

Regression analysis is the statistician's tool for mathematically isolating the many variables in a complex set of data. Armor's before-and-after analyses of student performance in districts that desegregated yield two recurrent results: "No measurable different" and "We don't know." In particular:

Black self esteem appears to be if anything higher than whites,' and it is highest in majority black schools, worst in those that are more evenly mixed, and better in schools in which blacks are a distinct minority.

Both black and white academic performance are worst in predominantly black schools. However, adjusting for socioeconomic status, blacks seem to do as well in urban schools as the suburban schools to which they are frequently bused.

Each race's estimation of the other is lowest in those situations in which they have a maximum of contact. In other words, less mixing actually led to better mutual relations.

White academic performance appears to be largely unaffected by the addition of a substantial minority of black students. The fears driving white flight appear unfounded. White academic achievement has been static over the forty year period under study. Black academic achievement has risen, though it still remains a significant fraction of a standard deviation below that of whites.

Armor's bottom line is that desegregation was an immensely costly effort. The out-of-pocket expense involved in legal proceedings, busing, construction and other remedies could only have been justified by significant, measurable benefits. The actual benefits are at best mixed. One clear benefit is more intense focus on equalizing levels of spending on education, though there too, the correspondence between spending and results is hard to discern.

Wicker's bottom line is that African Americans have received pretty much as much help as they can expect from the political system. He advocates that "African-Americans themselves must take the lead, state the goal (economic advance and social leveling), and move boldly towards it." Armor would advocate something similar. Blacks need to decide what structure is best suited to provide them with "equity" and work within existing systems to achieve it. One despairs that judicial solutions are too much to hope for, the other that they have been tried and have not worked. Both agree that the onus for improvement of the lot of African-Americans falls primarily on them. Close to ten year later that is exactly what is happening through charter schools and vouchers programs.

At the end of "A Princess of Mars," the first in the Martian series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter got the factory that produced oxygen for Barsoom (the Martian name for Mars) working again, but had collapsed. When he revived he found himself back on Earth, separated from his beloved Dejah Thoris, the Princess of Helium. Originally published in 1913 as a serial in "All-Story Magazine," this story finds John Carter returning to Mars and setting off to find his woman. Knowing that it was originally published as a serial is useful because Burroughs loads on the cliffhangers throughout the novel.

When John Carter returns to Barsoom a decade has passed and he finds himself in that part of the planet that the natives consider to be "heaven," which proves to be a more ironic idea indeed. Carter first reunites with his friend the fierce green warrior Tars Tarkas, fights with the great white apes of Barsoom and plant men, violates some significant religious taboos, survives the affections of an evil goddess, helps with a slave revolt, fight in an arena, and stills manages to save Dejah Thoris in the middle of a giant air battle between the red, green, black and white people of Barsoom.

"The Gods of Mars" is an early Burroughs novel, which means it is high on action and low on details. ERB would set his adventures in strange worlds such as Barsoom, Venus, Pellucidar, etc., but beyond the basic idea of it being a strange world he was content for such places to be the settings for this stories. The writing is a bit stilted and ERB likes to mix cliches and ponderous phrases that make the narrative seem dated, but "The Gods of Mars" meets his basic criteria of providing a ripping pulp fiction yarn for his readers. The best thing you can say about this novel is that the action never stops from start to finish.

The worst thing you can say about it is that Burroughs puts off reuniting our hero with his beloved, but if you have read many of ERB's novels, Tarzan or otherwise, you know that once his happy couple is back together the story is pretty much over. However, even at the end there is another cliffhanger that will make you track down "The Warlord of Mars," the next installment in what is clearly the best Burroughs series. ERB milked the Tarzan character dry and still produced another dozen novels in that series, while the Mars books (sorry, the Barsoom series) remained relatively fresh. With the long awaited "John Carter of Mars" movie finally in production it looks like ERB's hero will finally make it to the big screen before we get to the centennial for "A Princess of Mars," at which point this series should enjoy a well deserved revival.