Kennedy Books

One of TV's greatest phenomenon's and longest running show's, The Eurovision Song Contest reaches it's 50th edition in 2005 and (ironically for a BBC show) Carlton Books are publishing this remarkable book to mark the occasion, in conjunction with the European Broadcasting Union.

Author John Kennedy O'Connor has wonderfully captured the spirit of this annual tele-visual kitsch fest in a lavishly illustrated book spanning the entire history of this much maligned show that started as a one off event in a small Swiss theatre in 1956, with just seven competing nations, and is now a two-day event featuring upwards of forty countries, some from well beyond Europe's borders.

Covering all the highs and lows of the competition and including intriguing and little-known backstage gossip and anecdotes, O'Connor's style is wonderfully entertaining and provides a genuinely interesting and slightly ironic tribute to the contest and the stars and songs that have featured in it over the years. The book is divided into two distinct sections. The monochrome era of the show from 1956-1967 is covered in double page chapters; whereas the colour broadcasts from 1968 all get four pages each. The entries and results for every year are included alongside numerous and very rare colour and black and white photographs of the artists as well as artwork for all the winning singles, together with their international chart history. Most fun of all, O'Connor has compiled a fascinating "Eurofacts" section that covers all of the trivial statistics that fans crave and that intrigue the general viewers. If you want to know what colour scheme is best to wear if you want to win - you'll find it here! Most people know which nation won the most contests, but which country finished 16th most frequently? Which nation is best at choosing the winner, or worst for that matter? Who conducted the most number of entries and for the most number of nations? It's all here and a lot more.

I really enjoyed the style and wit of this author. He has successfully managed to produce an in depth look at the contest without taking it all too seriously and yet write a genuinely enthusiastic and fascinating history of the competition that everyone loves to hate. His flair with words is wonderful and makes for a very entertaining read. Here's to another 50 years of fun!

Professor Scott makes exemplary scholarship look easy. Having just finished William Freehling's "Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854", a brilliant exposition of the sociopolitical history of the U.S. antebellum South, I wanted to see how another nineteenth-century New World society, also heavily invested in slavery, ended the institution. I was gratified to find one of the most carefully written modern histories I have ever read. Using clear, direct prose, Scott effortlessly renders nineteenth-century Cuba's variegated social geography, its tortuous legal gymnastics, and the complicated social and racial tensions that determined the course of emancipation. In the process, she disassembles previous explanations of why Cuban slavery devolved as it did: for instance, she demonstrates that slavery was not antithetical to technological advancement or intensified capitalist organization of sugar production. Her detailed treatment of the role and nature of Chinese indentured labor--its relationship to slavery; the economic, ethnic and social dimensions of the opportunities it offered plantation owners and managers--comprises a breathtaking glimpse into the grim polyethnic logic of plantation profits in the New World, even as it demolishes theories that the presence of Chinese laborers reveals the fatal weaknesses of slave labor in Cuba. Indeed, one of the enduring themes of the period is the bewilderingly hybrid nature of Cuban plantation labor during the transition away from slavery. At any given sugar mill, one might encounter slaves (both African and Afro-Cuban), Chinese indentured laborers, autonomous gangs of Chinese contractors, prisoners, free wage-earners, tenant farmers and Spanish soldiers all breaking their backs to harvest and process the cane. One is also left with a clear picture of the dramatic geographic differences--the huge and technically advanced mills of Matanzas in the west, Havana's distinctly urban dynamic, the east's rebellious and racially mixed smallholders. Add to this the turbulent military and colonial contests that shaped, and were shaped by, the process of emancipation, and Professor Scott's achievement becomes even more astonishing. Throughout all this, she smoothly incorporates illuminating quantitative analysis (in the form of dozens of tables), and poignant personal dramas as slaves persistently participated in the processes that would determine their freedom.

I write the sunday school lessons for our church and have found this book to be a very helpful resource. All of the activities use everyday items that most households have. They are easy to do (10 min. or less) and WORK!!! Kids get bored with crafts every week and these activities break up the monotony (boys especially love them). The pages are reproducible with a bible passage, and a scientific explanation of how and why the experiment works. Which is nice to send home with kids to create discussion at home. I have several sunday school craft and activity books, and this one trumps them all.

I believe that the book 'Getting to Yes' is the best book on the 'philosophy/strategy' of negotiation. When it comes down to negotiation a deal with practical examples, there is NO other book that EVERYTHING IS NEGOTIABLE. If you can put a dollar value on what's to be negotiated, this is the book you wanna read and study.

Personally, i found the following topics the most valuable;

- on accepting the first offer
- goodwill concessions and its effectiveness
- tough vs. soft opening
- toughness in negotiation
- negotiators most useful word (no, it's not no)

I strongly believe that there's no more practical book on negotiation than this one.

I consider "Getting to Yes" as the best book on negotiation ever written. It's philosophy of approaching negotiation is unmatched. But once you have the big picture/philosophy you need more tools to digg deep into the negotiation strategies and tactics. That's when "Everything is Negotiable" comes into play. This book is a blast. With 26 chapters and tuns of "real life" examples, the author explores a wide range of negotiation situation. Very thought stimulating are also all the self-assesments to each chapter. I strongly believe that this books can help the novice as wells as the advanced negotiator in honing their skills in negotiation. If there is one weakness, than it's the rather "simple" cases of negotiation examples, in particular on prices. The book highly focuses on negotiating prices while it neglects to a certain degree complicated neogiations that involve less quantifiable outcomes. Nevertheless, if negotiation on price is your first aim, than that's the book for you. Five stars for such an alloborate work on an almost every day topice.

Televisions rocky development is captured in this wonderful book. It covers the start of TV and the types of shows that were on. It comes in just after the game show scandals and focuses on the more violent programs that Newt Minow the head of the FCC tried to regulate. IT looks at children programming development and the idea of news. You get a sense of the presidential debates and how they brought TV in as a popular medium but the touching tribute comes at the end. When Kennedy is killed the major networks stop programming and realize their responsibilities to the country. This book is wonderfully written and is a great addition to any post world war 2 historiography.

This book guides the reader through the process of children learning to paint with incredible insight into the child's thought process. Nancy was a mentor of mine at Boston University over twenty years ago, and I have used her ideas in every classroom I have taught in. Her insight into children and the painting process will surely answer many questions about the hows and whys of children's painting. I highly recommend this book to parents and educators, from preschool on up, who paint with children.

This book is clear and well-written and contains a wealth of useful information about relevant research studies and their clinical implications. The information is well-integrated and the perspectives are new and exciting. I would definitely recommend it for clinicians, students, researchers, and other interested readers. It makes a contribution to this important area of study.

This an informative mosaic of thorougly researched and interesting biographies of some of history's most courageous and resourceful women. This book neither limits its focus to women of the Occident, nor meerly to "famous" females. Rather it pays homage to women from all over the globe many whose stories might have otherwise remained in obscurity. It would make a useful text for world history courses.

A man by the name of Howard Leslie Brennan was an important figure in American history. Mr. Brennan, who passed away in 1984, wasn't famous for being a politician, or an inventor, or a top-flight athlete, or a movie star. He was, instead, an ordinary 44-year-old man in the fall of 1963. He had a wife, two children, one grandson, and a very ordinary job as a steamfitter for a construction company in the city of Dallas, Texas, USA.

Howard Brennan became famous when he, by pure chance, witnessed one of the most shocking events of the 20th century -- the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963.

Mr. Brennan watched as a gunman took aim at JFK from a sixth-floor window of an old building (the Texas School Book Depository) across the street from where Brennan had positioned himself to watch President Kennedy's motorcade as it slowly zig-zagged its way through Dealey Plaza.

Brennan would later identify the gunman he saw in the window as 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, a minimum-wage warehouse worker who was employed by the Book Depository Company.

And while it's true that Brennan did not immediately identify Oswald in a police line-up on 11/22/63, it is also true that Mr. Brennan's initial description of the assassin that he gave to the police (and in his November 22nd sworn affidavit as well) was certainly a general description that would not have EXCLUDED Lee Oswald......

"He was a white man in his early 30s, slender, nice looking, slender and would weigh about 165 to 175 pounds." -- Howard L. Brennan; November 22, 1963

And when Brennan testified in front of the Warren Commission in 1964, he added a height estimate......

"To my best description, a man in his early thirties, fair complexion, slender but neat, neat slender, possibly 5-foot-10, from 160 to 170 pounds." -- Howard L. Brennan; 1964

Sure, Brennan's first description of the assassin was not a perfect description of Oswald. But it was also an eyewitness picture that does not exonerate Oswald either. It's a description that "fits" Oswald in a general sense -- a slender, fairly-young white man.

In fact, given the relatively-brief glimpse that Brennan had of the gunman, his description actually matches Oswald fairly well in most crucial respects. Because.....

1.) Oswald was a "white man".
2.) Oswald had a "fair complexion".
3.) Oswald was "slender".
4.) Oswald was 5'9" tall (so Brennan was off by just 1 inch here).
5.) Oswald was 24 years old (but, IMO, he looked older than 24).
6.) Oswald weighed an "estimated 150 pounds" (per his 11/24/63 autopsy report). So, either one of Brennan's weight estimates wasn't too far off either.

And when Brennan's initial description of the assassin is coupled with his later positive identification of Lee Oswald as the gunman -- and then is added to the very large batch of additional physical and circumstantial evidence which shows Oswald to be guilty of killing President Kennedy (and policeman J.D. Tippit too) -- it becomes quite clear that the man who owned that rifle found on the Depository's 6th Floor (a Mr. Lee H. Oswald) was the same man who was shooting at President Kennedy on 11/22/63.

Given all the evidence in the case that corroborates Brennan's being RIGHT when he identified Oswald as the TSBD sniper, the odds that Brennan actually saw someone OTHER than Lee Harvey Oswald in that window are extremely remote....to virtually non-existent.

And to the conspiracy theorists who think Brennan was lying when he positively fingered Oswald after initially not being willing to do that, I'd like to now submit a courtroom-like imitation of author and former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who is a man who said this in 1986 when speaking of the JFK assassination:

"Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy. The evidence is absolutely overwhelming that he carried out the tragic shooting all by himself. In fact, you could throw 80% of the evidence against him out the window and there would still be more than enough left to convince any reasonable person of his sole role in the crime." -- Vincent T. Bugliosi

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[Vince Bugliosi "Mock Final Summation" courtroom imitation turned on]....

"Why didn't Howard L. Brennan positively identify Lee Harvey Oswald on the day of the assassination, you ask? The reason for that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is a reason that Mr. Brennan forthrightly gave in his Warren Commission testimony and in a separate sworn affidavit, dated May the 7th of 1964, wherein Mr. Brennan said, and I quote, "I felt that my family could be in danger, and I, myself, might {be} in danger". Unquote.

Howard Brennan, therefore, did not provide a positive I.D. of Lee Oswald on November the 22nd, 1963, NOT because he didn't recognize Oswald as the sniper in the Depository window....but, instead, because he feared for his life, ladies and gentlemen of the jury! That's why!

And who among the twelve men and women seated in this jury box today could honestly say that you, yourself, wouldn't have reacted the exact same way as Mr. Brennan with respect to witnessing the murder of the President? And fearing you might be the ONLY witness who was able to say with a good deal of certainty that this man sitting at that defense table, Lee Harvey Oswald, was the killer of our nation's President, you clam up...but not out of indecisiveness...but, instead, out of fear and concern for yourself and your family.

Because, ladies and gentlemen, if it HAD been out of indecisiveness on Mr. Brennan's part as to whether he could or could not have identified the defendant, Lee Harvey Oswald, as the President's assassin -- then WHY did Mr. Brennan swear before Almighty God during his Warren Commission testimony that he COULD positively identify this defendant as the President's assassin?! Why would Mr. Brennan put himself through that ordeal if it were not the TRUTH?!

In other words, why didn't Howard Brennan just simply take the easy way out? He could have done so...very easily. He could have just kept his mouth shut and refused to positively identify the defendant as the person he saw firing a rifle from that sixth-floor window.

But he did NOT do that, ladies and gentlemen! And the reason he did not do that is because he's an honest man, with integrity. And he KNEW he had to come forward with this ultra-important information regarding the murderer of President Kennedy -- even though he KNEW he would probably be hounded by the critics for the rest of his life!

He still felt it important enough to come forward and tell the truth about who he saw point that gun at the President on November the twenty-second, 1963. And he felt it was important enough to swear out a second official affidavit in May of 1964, wherein he repeated his reasons for why he had not initially positively identified the defendant as the President's assassin.

Did he HAVE to do those things, ladies and gentlemen?! The answer to that question is an unequivocal 'No'! He didn't have a gun to his own head, being FORCED to positively identify Lee Oswald as JFK's murderer. And this defense team is 100% wrong when they attempt to spoon-feed you the ridiculously-absurd lie that Mr. Brennan WAS somehow being FORCED to twist his story into a convenient "Oswald's Guilty" tale of deception.

And this unscrupulous defense team sitting at that counsel table across this courtroom is also 100% wrong when they also assert the alternative notion that Mr. Brennan deliberately lied when he told the Warren Commission on March 24th, 1964, that he HAD, in fact, been able to identify Lee Oswald as the man in the Sniper's window!

And this defense team has absolutely no proof to back up the despicable allegation that Mr. Brennan would have done such a vile, rotten thing as to intentionally give known-to-be-false information regarding the investigation into the murder of the President of the United States!

These defense attorneys should be ashamed of themselves for even suggesting such a thing to you folks here in open court! Because there is not a shred of verifiable proof to back up the idea that Mr. Brennan is anything but what he appeared to be on that witness stand -- and that is an honest citizen of these United States, who came forth with THE TRUTH concerning the man he saw shoot the President .... even when he didn't have to come forth and tell that truth.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen."

....[/V.B. mode off]

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A large percentage of the American population firmly believes that a vast conspiracy of some sort was afoot in Dealey Plaza in November 1963 when JFK was murdered. And most of these people also believe that multiple guns were used to assassinate America's 35th President.

Those conspiracy believers have "faith" in their belief that a conspiracy took place in Dallas in '63. But there's one not-so-little thing they do not have, and never did -- and that's the raw PHYSICAL EVIDENCE to back up the conspiracy theories that they place their faith in.

All of the ballistics evidence in the John F. Kennedy murder case spells "Lee Oswald Was A Presidential Assassin", because every scrap of "bullet" evidence in the case can either be conclusively traced to Oswald's very own Mannlicher-Carcano rifle (#C2766), or is bullet evidence that is consistent with coming from Oswald's rifle.

I'd then ask any "CTer" this question -- What are the odds of the above occurring if President Kennedy had, in fact, actually been struck by bullets from one or more additional guns on 11/22/63?

The odds must be virtually nil (in such a multi-gun scenario) of having all of the bullet trace evidence leading back to only Lee Harvey Oswald's one weapon, or even being generally "consistent" with having come from Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano, instead of from other types of guns.

And from the conspiracy theorists I've encountered over the years, a goodly number of them do believe that other types of weapons (such as a "Mauser" rifle, or a "Fireball" pistol, or other kinds of guns, even low-powered weapons) were, indeed, being utilized in Dealey Plaza during JFK's assassination by any number of assorted (always-unidentified) "professional assassins".

And yet (per the CTers who buy into such nonsense), somehow, some way, ALL of the trace evidence from those other non-Oswald guns simply disappeared off the face of the Earth, without any definitively-identifiable non-C2766 bullets or fragments entering the official record of the JFK murder case. Mighty convenient for the "conspirators", huh?

And to think that all of those potential non-LHO bullets and fragments were picked up and disposed of by evil "plotters" after the assassination is a theory that belongs in a fairy-tale book. (Especially when you consider how many ordinary doctors and nurses could have easily seen and handled many of those "unwanted" bullets and fragments at Parkland Hospital within just minutes of the shooting itself.)

In a nutshell -- If things didn't boil down to that "Lone Assassin" conclusion that the Warren Commission arrived at in 1964, we would certainly have a lot more verifiable, usable stuff on the "Conspiracy" table after 40-plus years of conspiracists trying day-in and day-out to prove that a multi-gunmen "plot" ended the life of John F. Kennedy in 1963.