Gregory Books

Greg's book is a classic.

Great resource book to read and then give to clients and their advisors to aid them in turning the corner on the paradigm shift that needs to occur if they are to move beyond the 10 yard line of the typical estate plan.

This is an excellent book. Anyone who has ever been politically active in any organization will appreciate this send-up of ideologues. What's shocking is how this book deals with the lesbian community of the early nineties but is still too timely today.

"Bitchy Butch: World's Angriest Dyke," by Roberta Gregory, collects both long and short comic strip stories about the outrageous title character. The book contains pieces published between 1991 and 1998, as well as new material. It opens with a preface (done in comic strip format!) in which author Gregory appears as a comic strip character to directly address the reader; the cartoon Gregory is also confronted by Bitchy Butch herself!

BB is a really over-the-top character. She's a short-tempered, acid-tongued, middle-aged lesbian who directs her frequent angry tirades against many targets: men, straight women, bisexual women, "femmey" lesbians, drag queens, promiscuous gay men, the religious right, and more. But BB does occasionally show her softer side (usually with her two cats). Annoyed at the heterosexist, male-dominated world she's stuck in, she longs for the good old days of emergent 1970's lesbian culture.

In two outrageous stories, BB meets Bitchy Bitch, her heavily-lipsticked hetersexual counterpart; the venom flies when these strong-willed women cross paths! We also see her encounters with the religious right, and flashbacks to her formative high school and college days. Along the way are some surprises.

One of the book's best sections is its conclusion, "Bitchy Butch Has the Last Word," in which the character directly addresses the reader (and takes time to criticize "Ms. Gregory's biased viewpoint"). BB tries to give the reader a little insight into why she is the world's angriest lesbian.

Bitchy Butch is a full-bodied, in-your-face character. Although BB is in one sense a parodic stereotype, Gregory ultimately makes her more than that. The black and white drawings perfectly complement the frequently outrageous dialogue. The art has a crude, sometimes explosive energy. Sometimes surreal, sometimes grotesque, Gregory's visual style is full of satiric bite. I recommend "Bitchy Butch" to fans of lesbian literature, women's studies, graphic novels, and cutting-edge political humor.

From Jack Trombadore Book Reviews New Jersey Polio Network
NEWSLETTER, Fall, 1998.

In this collection of essays, journals, writings and personal recollections spanning almost half a century, Hugh Gallagher courageously reveals himself in a compelling autobiography as both protagonist and antagonist in a drama with countless scenes in three acts. Throughout the first two acts he forces himself to overcome the role of emotional anti-hero until he achieves final freedom from the talons of clinical depression at the beginning of a long, ongoing and productive third act.

Stricken with severe paralytic polio at nineteen, Gallagher never walked again. A freshman at Haverford in the spring of 1952, he was young, beautiful and free; he was in love with a beautiful girl, the novels of Thomas Mann, Italian opera, politics, and with life. He was young, strong and invincible.

Polio, My Account, was written twenty years "after the event" and never previously published. Here, he tells us what it "felt" like to have had a life sentence of disability imposed without hope of pardon or parole. The physiological aspects of his polio were just representative of the inward tragedy of the collapse of a young life. He saw himself watching his own deterioration from outside his body. He saw the horrific progression of the disease the first days: legs, trunk, breathing, arms, hands, neck, double and quadruple vision, the tracheotomy on a body too weak for anesthetics, the rush down corridors in the arms of non-medical personnel to the iron lung, the108 degree fever, last rites.

His body was the battlefield for the doctors and his presence was "accidental." No one disclosed what his ravaged body would be like if they succeeded in keeping him alive. The overwhelming question became: stop or go, yes or no, live or die. He decided to live.

After a year in hospitals, he was admitted to the Warm Springs Foundation in Georgia. He spent nine months there, learning the "functional" tricks of the trade that would enable him again to live in the outside world. He was physically independent, healthy and in a wheelchair. He still is.

He obtained his American B.A. in 1956 from Claremont McKenna College in California. It was the only college of the forty to which he had written that was fully accessible. His first application for a Rhodes Fellowship to Oxford was returned unprocessed; Gallagher was not "fit in mind and body" as required by the will of Cecil Rhodes. His was the first application Oxford had ever received from a disabled person. However, he did attend Oxford with a Marshall Fellow scholarship and studied there for three years at Trinity College, the only one of Oxford's thirty-five individual colleges that was "wheelchair accessible." He was the only person at Oxford in a wheelchair. There he endured unbelievable hardships.

The water closet was a block away, down a ramp and up a ramp, nearly always slippery from the constant rain. The bath facilities were inaccessible and he did not bathe or wash his hair for a year at a time. His legs turned blue from the cold and stayed blue until the late spring. Despite having acquired an outstanding education and lifelong friends, Gallagher now looks with awe and disbelief at the hardships he willingly endured in those three years.

In 1959, as a member of a senatorial staff on Capitol Hill he was once again the only person there in a wheelchair. There was no handicap parking, there were steps everywhere, and the bathrooms were not accessible.

In 1962 Gallagher began his life's work, the search for equal access and equal rights for disabled persons, when he joined the staff of Alaska's powerful, popular and supportive Senator Bob Bartlett (D. Alaska), a member of the Appropriations Committee. The Senator authorized him to work on disability issues and agreed to support this work. Gallagher drafted the Federal Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, the first legislation anywhere to treat equal access of disabled people as a civil right, and the precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

One is thrilled by the account of the political maneuvering, and the political blackmail engineered by Gallagher and the ever-willing Bartlett in the Johnson years to achieve accessibility to the Library of Congress, the National Gallery of Art, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, federally funded hospitals across America, and many more sites.

On Bartlett's death in 1968 Gallagher went to work for British Petroleum, Ltd., where he acted for five years as that Company's chief political officer in London and Washington. The discovery of vast oil reserves by BP on its Alaska holdings made it the holder of the largest crude reserves in America. Gallagher tells us he was playing with the "Big Boys."

On the 4th of July weekend, 1974, Gallagher left his office and never returned. He was in total mental and physical collapse and spent the rest of the decade recovering from his clinical depression. It had begun two years earlier at his 40th birthday party when he realized that "youth was past." He had been frozen with fear as he felt a giant black buzzard flapping its wings high above him. The experience was repeated in a few months. He continued working until he could no longer do so, filled with dread and unable to go out.

"The great black buzzard sat heavy on my shoulder. It would not go away." " ...the pain of acute paralytic polio in no degree equaled the agony and despair, the abject helplessness of depression." This period of Gallagher's life ended after a long and successful course of psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

Gallagher has long since assumed center stage in the Third Act of this heroic human drama, writing (FDR's Splendid Deception), traveling, speaking, and advocating nationally for the rights of the disabled. A must read.

What a wonderful honest account of the struggles of a man, Hugh Gregory Gallagher who at his peak suffered a tremendous loss as a result of polio. Yet in spite of it, and in part because Mr. Gallagher was blessed with a smart mind and strong spirit, overcame the obstacles, making a statement to society about his worth as a human being, as he pursued his dreams, then ultimately made the world a better place for thosewith disabilities. As a polio survivor and one who is facing the challenges of the late effects of post polio, I applaud Mr. Gallagher for his courage and have read and re-read his book to help me gain my strength and courage to face the challenges before me.

St. Gregory the Great (also known as Gregory the Dialogist, because of the Dialogues he wrote) was the first Bishop of Rome to come from a monastic background. Born in 540, he died in 604 after fourteen years as pope.

Born into a wealthy Roman family, he was the great-great-grandson of Pope Felix III. Following his father's death, Gregory converted the family home into a monastery dedicated to the apostle, St. Andrew, which he entered as an ordinary monk. Later, after being ordained deacon by Pope Pelagius II, he was delegated to heal a schism in northern Italy.

In 579, Pelagius chose Gregory as his representative to Constantinople, where Gregory gained attention by opposing a the view advanced by Patriarch Eutychius that the risen bodies of the elect would be "impalpable, more light than air." Gregory argued that the physical actuality of Christ's risen body made clear that the elect were to rise, not only spiritually, but physically.

The controversy was so intense that finally the emperor intervened. After a hearing in which both sides presented their views, the matter was decided in favor of Gregory's position, with the result that Eutychius's book on the subject was burned. Both disputants fell ill due to the strain of their controversy. Gregory recovered, but the patriarch succumbed, recanting his errors on his death bed.

After nearly seven years in Constantinople, Gregory returned to Rome to serve Pelagius as secretary. After Pelagius' death, Gregory was elected to succeed him. It was Gregory who first described the role of the Bishop of Rome as being "servant of the servants of God."

Among his deeds as bishop was arranging for the daily feeding of the poor of Rome. He carried on an extensive correspondence, much of which survives, with Christians in both East and West, and wrote essays on a many topics, including a biography of St. Benedict. He is remembered for compiling the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.

It was Gregory who said, "Non Angli, sed Angeli" (they are not Angles, but angels) when he happened to see blue-eyed, blond-haired Anglo-Saxon boys being sold at a slave market in Rome. This encounter led to his dispatching St. Augustine of Canterbury to England to convert the Anglo-Saxon tribes.

When St. Augustine, having arrived at Canterbury, he wrote Gregory to ask whether to use Roman or Gallican customs in the liturgy in England. In Bede's "Ecclesiastical History," it is recorded that Gregory responded with the advice that it was best to do whatever would best advance the Christian Faith, for "things are not to be loved for the sake of a place, but places are to be loved for the sake of their good things."

George Demacopoulos has chosen to translate St. Gregory's Book of Pastoral Rule, which addresses with wisdom and sobriety a wide range of questions that remain relevant not only to bishops, priests and monks, but are of value to anyone bearing a pastoral responsibility. A significant part of the book provides practical advice to anyone witnessing confessions or providing spiritual guidance.

"The Book of Pastoral Rule" by Saint Gregory the Great is another of those ancient writings that should be absolutely required reading for Orthodox priests and Protestant pastors. Moreover, anyone seriously considering seminary and ordination (i.e. the shepherding of souls) should read this book. Speaking of pastoral burdens, St Gregory says: "I write the present book to express my opinion of the severity of their weight so that he who is free of these burdens might not recklessly pursue them and he who has already attained them might tremble for having done so" (p27).

St Gregory, writing in the 6th century, delivers his practical wisdom on qualifications for the priesthood, preaching, counseling and living for priests of his day; all of which are directly applicable to Orthodox Christian ministry today. Protestant pastors will find a wealth of wisdom on preaching: how, when, gauging the appropriateness of such and such, constant washing of the mind in the scriptures, discerning the spiritual conditions of your flock, etc. For St Gregory, the priest is primarily the spiritual doctor and feeder of his people.

St Gregory's main theme, if I could boil it down, is "balance." The pastor must balance his desire for the spiritual heights with the concerns of his parish/congregation. If he dwells completely within the administration of his parish's day-to-day operation and within their ills, he neglects his own spiritual growth and becomes ineffective. However, if he dwells completely upon the misty heights of spiritual contemplation, he begins to despise the weaknesses of the very people the LORD has given him to shepherd.

Gregory warns the spiritual leader: "No one does more harm in the Church than he who has the title or rank of holiness and acts perversely. This is because no layperson presumes to refute the delinquent. Moreover, because such a sinner is honored by the dignity of his rank, his offenses spread considerably by way of example" (p32).

In part III, the author outlines over 60 different kinds of people and how the pastor might approach them with correction. Much of this I could appreciate as a layman, but really only the experienced pastor, catechist or teacher of 15 years or so would understand it. Even so, the book is relevant and convicting on a number of levels depending on the reader's experience and/or role in the Church.

One of the best comprehensive books on home brewing. This book is not for the lay person interested in starting brewing. I would recommend it to someone who has brewed for awhile or is just starting to brew with whole grains. This is written on a technical level with a lot of science behind the brewing process. It is well written and if you want to explore home brewing in greater depth, then this is the book.

Most homebrewers seem to brew ales, or at least start out by brewing ales. While the title of this book includes the word lager and not ale, the techniques and theories are applicable to both style classes. High on science low on recipes; buy it if you want to understand more about mashing and the steps surrounding the mash .

This is one of the few books that gives you some sort of detailed information about the British paratroopers in WWII. Like some other books the book explaines how the units were raised and which operations they were involved in. But this book goes a little bit further. It explains in detail also the weapons they are using, the uniforms and badges worn and the order of batlle during the several operations. Each subject is supported by numerous photographs maps and drawings. In the range of small compact books on the subject of the British Airborne Troops during WWII, this book is the absolute best.

This is one of the few books that gives you some sort of detailed information about the British paratroopers in WWII. Like some other books the book explaines how the units were raised and which operations they were involved in. But this book goes a little bit further. It explains in detail also the weapons they are using, the uniforms and badges worn and the order of batlle during the several operations. Each subject is supported by numerous photographs maps and drawings. In the range of small compact books on the subject of the British Airborne Troops during WWII, this book is the absolute best.

A brilliant collection of essays. Excellently selected, well edited and full of ideas which demand attention. Perhaps the net effect can best be summed up as scraping away of some old and spreading out smoothly of fresh clean gomaya - the result is a whole new set of answers, questions and provocations. Most of us will have copies of some of the papers, but almost certainly not all and certainly not in such a handy format. This book is an essential item on any buddhologist's bookshelf (come to think of it perhaps Greg can send his niece - see the nice anecdote in his introduction - a copy so she will learn what a good buddhologist does)

This book is every bit as excellent as Schopen's prior publication. He has an incredible knack for taking what you'd think are boring, dusty details and breathing life into them in order to really explore what Buddhism was in India. This guy never assumes anything, and you never come away from his books with the same view of Buddhism as you had before. And he writes with clarity and verve, which is so painfully rare in the scholarly world today.

The content of the book was a great resource for me in developing advanced strategies as a Business Systems Analysis. It provides clear cut details that can be applied effectively and economically.

Time and cost are important factors in each project in order to get beyond the feasibility report, and the outlined process helps in creating this most important document.

If you use the SDLC and TQM methodology in your business practice, then this manual is a priceless asset.

"Business Systems Engineering" is an excellent resource for anyone interested in creating a world class organization. The tools of business systems engineering allows you to transform a company into a learning organization capable of strategic change and excellence. The emphasis on "adult learning theory" and its role in reengineering the work process is particularly refreshing. Because strategic change and leadership begins with learning, the emphasis on the work performed by cross-functional teams of employees is essential to creating a learning organization that can successfully respond to challenges in the marketplace. Case studies emphasize organizational learning and looking outside the box, and demonstrate the use of benchmarking to identify the best business practices and applying them to creating a competetive advantage. Watson's holistic view of business systems as open systems that are capable of improvement, easily promotes the integration of TQM principles and the use of information technology. The result of this synthesis is the business system engineering model. The model allows you to transform your organization without sacrificing your focus on quality or the customer, and is adaptable to any business. It also helps you to realize the value of employee training to support change initiatives for profit. If a change in your organization's culture is the prescription, then Business Systems Engineering is the treatment.

Oil will eventually run out on our planet. It's only a matter of time - but it doesn't have to be the end of the world, no, it can be the way of the future and help readers find an exciting new career in the fields of renewable energy. "Careers in Renewable Energy: Get a Green Energy Job" is a guide to help environmentally conscious readers find a new career that will help them and help advance the concepts of Solar Energy, Geothermal Energy, Hydroelectric energy, Green Building, among other countless jobs available in renewable energy, providing countless references and resources to help readers get started. Any searching for a career in renewable energy and any public or business lending library catering to students or career changers will find specific and important this guide to clean energy opportunities across the country. From extensive lists of training facilities, schools, workshops, and professional organizations and societies to web sites and energy programs, this is the place for job seekers and career changers to begin. Expertly compiled and researched, "Careers in Renewable Energy: Get a Green Energy Job" is highly recommended for environmental studies collections with a crossover to career shelves.

If you are looking for the typical career guide that is a dry list of job titles, job descriptions, and employers that is old news the day it goes to print, this is NOT it. Careers in Renewable Energy is what students and career-changing folks will WANT and NEED and can USE to find validation and inspiration as they embark on a career solving our growing sustainability problems!

I teach an undergraduate Earth Sustainability course that gets students fired up to work toward changes in the ways we produce and consume energy globally. While it's great that they have that motivation, few know where to direct it. I've shared my copy of Careers in Renewable Energy with them, and it seems to go from student to student, never making it back to my bookshelf between!

The author provides backgrounds on each category of renewables (e.g. hydrogen, solar, wind, geothermal, hydro) as well as applications (e.g. building, transportation). From there, he talks about skill sets and courses that provide the best foundation for various areas and job functions. These roadmaps can be used to customize a curriculum that best prepares one to work in a given renewable energy field. And as we know, energy problems don't align neatly with a given university department!

Mr. McNamee presents a carefully assembled set of tools, really, to help one on a journey toward a career in renewable energy. There's information on the green universities, certifications, associations, job sites, and publications. The author takes a very holistic approach to career selection and preparation. It's not about "how can I earn the most money" but more about "how can I find a way to contribute to solving our energy crisis?"

The book is an enjoyable read, succinct yet complete. It is a must-have for anyone considering a new or different career in renewable energy...or anyone advising them! And if you weren't already considering a new career? You might after you read THIS book! Enjoy :-)

It is very interesting to read a this kind of book for us Japanese. However, as far as I know, we don't have a religious prejudice to homosexuality at all, therefore it sounds a little bit strange that in Meiji-era the goverment of Japan made a "Sodomy Law" imitating the western countries ---- of course it was soon repealed. I prefer to read a book on male/male love of pre-Tokugawa period, since in those days, especially in Muromachi-period, male homoeroticism was most flourished and prosperous. And I also want to read about the history of male-love in Korea, Tibet and Southeastern Asia.

Pflugfelder's book, the product of 20 years of research, provides a necessary foundation for students of Japanese history and sexology. What is much more, he resists reinforcing the kinds of master narratives that this kind of history usually inforces. "Homosexual," for instance, becomes not an identity but a term situated in time and space with certain uses by and for certain people. His Foucauldian approach focuses mostly on shifts and resists any notion of progress. I think this book is important to students of History as a model for their own scholarship, not just as a substantial contribution to the more specific field of Japanese Studies.