Fox Books

Most lab manuals are big, boring, tombs that instantly set the student on guard. Professor Fox's offering is quite the contrary. Besides being concise and up to date (also see the updated 2000 edition), the book includes a series of educational diversions that help the student master subject content both within the lab and in the lecture hall. For example, she has included a section on DNA fingerprinting that encourages the student to construct an "origami DNA" to illustrate nucleotide synthesis. In summary, a great introduction to cell structure and function in the laboratory.

This book has a lot of nice patterns and designs. It gives examples of a variety of woods and finishes. I would have liked more celtic knots, but I can't be disappointed with the number of patterns, detailed photographs, and tips.

This is a great book very detailed and it shows step by step how to carve a eagle.

Too often, discussion about the viability of change sprouting from the electoral system is shrunk to fit bumperstickers. Even harder to find is nuanced analysis when the politics of protest--direct action, and mob action become the issue of the day. Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America by Francis Fox Piven offers readers a history lesson of the ways in which progressive change has in the past, actually happened--a complex dance between disruptive populist forces and the formal electoral system.

Piven is one of the Left's preeminent Political Scientists. Others in academia have done their best to delete the role of protest in social change; she has made a career of writing the common person back into the history. Best known for the groundbreaking Poor People's Movements: How they Succeed and Why the Fail she asserted over twenty years ago that reform moves best when the action remains direct. Challenging Authority expands on this theme.

The book asserts that disruptive politics have always forced electoral/representative; as well as regional coalitions splinter and realign, making reform possible. This is in stark contrast to the dominant model of party building--unite a large enough mass around a platform common enough to hold--a culprit commonly referred to as the Lowest Common Denominator. For Piven, it is dissensus, not the consensus that is the engine of progressive reform.

The mass direct action of the Civil Rights movement plied pro-segregation Dixiecrats to split from the Democratic Party making it possible for a portion of movement demands to be satisfied. Spot-on is the understanding that one day's movement victory might become tommorow's liability. Piven explains:

Moreover, the movement wins what it wins because it threatens to create and widen divisions in electoral coalitions, because it makes enemies and activates allies. The threat of dissensus has inevitable limits, however. On the one side, the mere fact of concessions, even limited concessions, tends to rob the movement of its erstwhile allies. After all, grievances have been answered, so what more do these people want?...The party may succeed in regrouping as a dominant party no longer vulnerable to the threat of dissensus, as the Republican Party did after the Civil War, and as the Democratic Party did after the 1930s. Or it may survive, albeit in a weakened state, as the Democratic Party did after the civil rights movement cost it the support of the South.

While dissensus has its limits, the consensus carries its' own costs. It is hard to imagine a New Deal without the disruptive actions of the Unemployed Workers Movements willing to physically confront evictors and relief bureaucrats. Roosevelt, wouldn't have likely come up with the idea on his own. Eminently pragmatic, he responded to a strong mass movement in cold, calculating terms and ended up backing the creation of a social safety net.

Piven applies this logic to the Abolitionist movement as well, noting that even simple oral agitation polarized the pro-slavery coalitions that stretched beyond North-South borders. Piven also credits the insurrections and escapes of slaves as a major catalyst in the end of slavery; a simple truth deleted from many historical accounts. Both Lincoln and Roosevelt were far from natural allies of reform. Lincoln attempted to accommodate slavery and avoided emancipation. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, beginning the internment of Japanese Americans.

One of the most challenging concepts in the book is the concept of interdependent power as a key to movement gains. Piven believes that even within domination, the underdog's power lies in the fact that the elite really needs her or him. The Boss needs workers to profit, the landlord needs the rent of the tenant, and disruption tends to be bad for business if sustained. True enough, however it doesn't leave much to work with if one's movement's vision lies in transforming this dynamic altogether.

While the world is a much different place that the thirties, the sixties or the 1860s Challenging Authority's basic premise is directly relevant to today's activists. Presidential elections on the horizon, progressive forces would do well not to abandon independent disruptive dissent; just as ignoring electoral formations altogether is equally counter-productive. When it comes to the basics of economics and empire, Democrats and Republicans often stand on common ground, differing only on how to manage similar agendas.

Piven's gift to the reader lies beyond her sharp analysis, eloquent prose, and nuanced understanding of history--she reminds us that the days inbetween the elections, and not just the one's in preparation for them, count for something. That understanding may be the only thing that can ever elevate American politics from the gutter of soundbites, scapegoating and false promises.

My organization is presently utilizing the unique approach of Drs. Norton and Fox. Having my postgraduate training in both clinical and organizational psychology, I can truly say that their background in clinical psychology is invaluable as applied to organizational diversity initiatives.True organizational change in the area of diversity cannot be sustained without first changing the culture of the organization (a la Schein). Other approaches attempt to cause change by "awareness training" which is an attempt to treat the symptoms, not the causes. If you want the cutting edge approach to what is an unavoidable direction of organizational direction, this is it

I couldn't put this book down; and neither could anyone else to whom I've recommended it. Steward led a most unusual and broad life, having been a professor of English, an extremely popular underground author of homosexual erotic and pornographic stories, a professional tattoo artist, a co-worker of Kinsey's, and a fanatic admirer of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, to whom he became a devoted friend. The book is superbly written, and one only regrets that it is so short, and that Steward (who died a few years ago [not of AIDS]) did not live to expand it into a longer, more detailed account of his extraordinary life. Fascinating and very engagingly written; but one must caution the more prudish reader that he DOES speak frankly of his romantic and sexual involvements, though by no means in a coarse manner.

Dr. Fox accomplishes many things in his treatment of Esther and brings along a few negatives. First of all, it would be foolish to not see this commentary and character analysis as one of the most creative, novel treatments of Esther to come to the Esther studies in English in some time. The utilization of the "close-reading" style of narrative criticism to get at the author's utilization of themes and characterization will enable most (if not all) to read this narrative in a fresh light.

Fox's honesty when dealing with the "heroine (?)" Esther is a must read for all traditionalists and those who read the story with gilded pages. The methodology on the whole is thorough, though there were a few areas that had me (and my seminar group along with me) scratching my head concerning certain inconsistencies in weighing data for conclusions. In certain areas said conclusions could be more prominent, with Fox sometimes settling to present the case for multiple options and not definitively defending a certain point of view. One may also find fault that Fox does not deal with any issues at length in Greek Esther(s) (eg Alpha text, LXX, etc) which may have helped inform certain aspects of his character portrait (eg, What does the Greek prayer of Mordecai addition (?) add to the earliest perceptions of him as character?), but this is his prerogative.

Despite little percieved problems, on the whole the book is excellent, and along with the JPS commentary by Adele Berlin and the monograph by JD Levenson I believe this book composes one third of the best and most recent mainstream Jewish scholarship on the Hebrew text.

After finishing this book, it is hard to imagine there can be anything left to say about Charles James Fox. The familiar picture emerges of a politician who didn't have the skills or temperament of Pitt the Younger and hence was in opposition for most of his career. Yet Mitchell also makes two very interesting observations. First, Fox often preferred his private social life to politics. Did he, in fact, spend more time at the race track and at his London club than at the House of Commons? Secondly, Fox was less of a radical than most of his contemporaries thought. He was not, for instance, especially keen on far-reaching parliamentary reform. A big thumbs-up for this biography, not least for quoting verbatim from the strong language of certain original sources!

This is a book that was read to me as a child more times than I can count. It's about a scruffy cat called Charlie who decides that his old empty alley is no place for him...so he sets off to find the "country". He dreams of eating vanilla ice cream and playing "Tiger In The Grass". After a few misadventures, he discovers a courtyard with a pond and trees and tall, cool grass. The children who live there want to adopt him but he must prove himself first! There's a happy ending and a dream come true - a rags to riches "tail"! This book has been out of print for a while and is very hard to find, especially in good condition. You won't be disappointed if you add it to your collection!

"Homestretch" is a wonderful collection of essays on the meaning of "home" to a wide spectrum of "American" lesbians. Their reflections are intelligent and thoughtful, and are empowering to read. I highly recommend this book.