Park Books

Experts in the field Donald R. Snyder, Anne Rothschadl, and Marcy Marchello present Inclusive Outdoor Recreation for Persons with Disabilities: Protocols and Activities, a guide for outdoor recreation staff, therapeutic recreation specialists, rehabilitation counselors, special education instructors, students, teachers, and anyone else seeking to adapt outdoor recreation programs to serve individuals with a variety of disabilities. Chapters cover general guidelines and protocols, suggestions for tailoring programs to individuals, common disabling conditions to take into account, basic disability etiquette ("Introduce yourself by name to people who are visually impaired and use their name when speaking directly to them. Let them know when you are ending a conversation or moving away from them.") and much more. An easy-to-use, all-around solid handboook to selecting and hosting activities that build self-esteem and positive expectations.

The ideas are so well organized that this will be an invaluable text for anyone who is interested in sharing the great outdoors with friends or family that may have a disability. The innovative solutions for access and particiation should generate other creative ideas from readers once they start thinking about overcoming the barriers that exsist in public areas.

I have read the draft of this book, and it is undoubtedly one of the most revealing, enlightening and entertaining writings on modern gay life in Israel. A must not only for readers interested in gay culture, but for anyone who wants to know more about young people - gay or straight - in modern Israel. The book comprises of a tapestry of interviews, whose translation artfully captures all layers of spoken Hebrew. These are complemented by the authors comments and shrewd observations, making it an accurate and up-to-date survey of modern Israel. Enthusiastically recommended!

This book presents a series of interviews conducted in the early 1990's with twelve self-identified gay Israeli men. These men are from a variety of backgrounds, social classes, and ethnicities. They are purported by Fink and Press to represent a broad selection of gay men in Israel. In fact, the majority of them are in their early to mid-twenties, Ashkenazi, single and non-religious. Two are immigrants. Two are married to women. One is a Christian Arab. Most of them are closeted.

The book has twelve chapters; each based upon an interview with an individual man. Chapters begin with a brief vignette about how the authors encountered the subjects. These introductions provide an almost poetic description of the settings in which the interviews occurred. For example, one especially closeted man selected to meet at "Mt. Herzl, the official Israeli military cemetery and the serene, wooded burial site of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement"(p.50). One interview of a Jewish-Russian immigrant took place in his mother's apartment. She greeted the interviewers with refreshments, making them uneasy because she and her mother remained within earshot throughout. This particular interviewee was not out to his mother and grandmother. He promptly soothed the authors' anxiety, though, with the reassuring information that his family did not understand enough Hebrew to comprehend the nature of the discussion. While generally less ironic, there is always a sensitive description of the ambience and elaborate explanations of the events leading up to each interview. Other, more banal, meeting places included a kibbutz and some Tel Aviv apartments.

Chapters seem to follow a similar structure. They all begin with childhood experiences, move on to periods of military service, discuss relationship and family issues, and conclude with the interviewees making declarations about their position on Zionism and contemporary politics. The final version presented in the book reads as a series of free-flowing monologues. Fink and Press note "we were continually amazed at the willingness of these men to share their secrets with us" (p. XVII). Indeed, these confessions derive much of their gripping charm from the genuine earnestness in which these men bare their souls. The only exception, "Dan," who immigrated to Israel from the United States as a teenager, "has reviewed the text of his interview with a censor's pen. `I expect that my kids will read this,' he explains" (p. 165). As a result, his sanitized account lacks the characteristically Israeli raw sincerity seen in the other accounts.

The interviews were recorded in Hebrew and translated into English. "We have done our best to keep the vibrant spoken Hebrew of these men from becoming homogenized into a stagnant literary English" (p. XVIII). They succeed in communicating complete and differentiated personalities. These translations are a literary feat in their own right.

A provocative introduction prefaces the entire book. It starts with a news item from an Israeli daily titled "Four Soldiers in Basic Training Had Oral Sex Party" (p. 1), which describes the Israeli army's mind-boggling tolerance and sensitivity in handling gay issues in the military. The authors conclude this amazing item with the comment, "The lives of gay men in Israel are not what you would think" (p. 4). They proceed to describe dramatic positive developments in Israeli politics regarding gay issues, manifesting in a "mad rash" (p. 9) of bills passed by the Knesset and court rulings granting various forms of equal rights to gays. They also describe a very positive public attitude to these developments. These glowing appraisals of the political scene in Israel regarding gay issues created an expectation that the lives of the men described in the text would be equally positive. Specifically, one expected that they would have succeeded in integrating their sexual identities with the rest of their personalities in some kind of holistic manner.

Sadly, this expectation remained unmet. Reading this book, I felt that the upbeat promise of the introduction contrasted sharply with the picture of gay life in Israel described in the body of the work. The young authors, who state that they were in love with each other at the time, seem oblivious to the fact that these men were recounting dismal existences. Practically all of the men described continuing struggles with coming-out issues. Seven of them refused to give their real names for the book and, instead, chose to use aliases. They all articulated a longing to reach out to a gay community that seemed hardly present. All of them expressed a sense of marginalization in Israeli society and a fear, be it real or imagined, of rejection by loved ones. It seems that these men manage to cope by mobilizing significant denial and various forms of compartmentalization of their lives. Only one, Rafi Niv, provides a lucid assessment of the closeted nature of gay life in Israel. He is presented as an extremist by the authors. Yet his disillusioned views seem echoed in all of the other chapters. This gloomy vision I interpret from the text may simply result from the relative youth of the respondents, and possibly as well as that of the authors. Confusion about sexual identity, fear of the consequences of separation from family, and anxiety about the possibility of significant romantic relationships are all stage-appropriate concerns for young adults. The authors' uncritical acceptance of this pessimism startles. Either they do not recognize the problem, or it is one that is so pervasive in Israeli culture that they see no alternative. The older and more experienced interviewees seem to support the later view. They, like the younger men, do not envision the expectation of leading an integrated life in an accepting and respecting milieu with a committed, long-term partner.

The authors allude to the political subtext of gay existence in a Zionist state. Linking the struggle for gay sexual identity with the struggle of the Jewish people to create Israel, they read the nascent gay movement as a similar kind of liberation. Independence Park in Tel Aviv is the best-known meeting place for gay men in Israel. Its name celebrates Jewish national independence. However, Fink and Press fail to perceive how individual struggles clash with the collective one in these histories. The authors define Zionism as "a form of Jewish politics developed in nineteenth-century Europe which argues that the Jewish people properly constitutes a nation and that its condition of geographic dispersal is an anomaly in need of correction in the form of political autonomy in the ancient Jewish homeland" (p. 6). A consequence of this is that Israeli society is based on the premise of similarity and conformity, rather than diversity. There is a constant tension that is felt in these accounts between living as a sexual minority in a society defined by its desire to emancipate itself from its minority status. The title of the book is very apt in a way unintended by the authors. Independence Park, rather than being a place associated with anything to do with independence, is infamous in Israel for furtive anonymous sex and bias attacks. It is a symbol of shame rather than of hope.

We put this book to the best test.....we bought it for our Brazilian sister-in-law! For under $10, we found Barbara Attell's pocket guide to be INVALUABLE! The information Barbara shares is timeless. You can tell that this author has invested both her heart and her full energy in writting this guide. Unlike the typical mechanical format of "Unofficial Guide to...books", this publication was obviously written on both a deeply personal and objective level. It's more like reading a letter from your sister, who wants to make sure you have a swell time! It's easy reading, informative, and if you, like us, have special needs when you visit Disneyland, you'll want to get this pocket guide before leaving your home. Thank you Barbara!

This is a must-have for everyone who visits Disneyland, or like me, a big fan of the place. I have learned so much more from this book than I have from the others. I recommend this book to everyone.

This book is based on more than a decade of practical experience in R&D and innovative projects conducted by the Urban and Regional Innovation Research Unit (URENIO) in Thessalonica and supported by the European Commission. It pays particular attention to concrete examples of innovative projects in less favoured regions and offers a well balanced analysis of policy models and theoretical issues.

The essay is about the contribution of the environment of innovation to the creation of new knowledge. The analysis is articulated around two dimensions: the first focuses on the areas of technological innovation, i.e. cities and regions whose development relies on research and technology; the second concerns the newest development in areas of technological innovation where the information society offers new avenues to handle knowledge and increase the `intelligence' of cities and regions.

The originality of this book is that it combines two complementary strands of analysis which are usually not researched together: theories and planning models for innovative regions on the one hand, and virtual cities and digital applications for the dissemination of innovation on the other hand. By doing this, the author pushes the debate on innovation and regional development a step forward. His central reasoning is that innovative regions evolve from relatively simple structures (such as industrial districts and science parks), to more complex ones where institutional arrangements and digital (non-material) procedures of learning and knowledge diffusion take over. The author's novel contribution is to extend the debate on innovative environments to the next paradigm of technological innovation, based on the de-materialization of basic processes and their digital transcription.

This important book in the field of regional policy should be required reading for policy-makers, and students of regional policy, interested in the creation or development effective support networks for stimulating innovation in enterprises. The book provides a comprehensive overview of recent trends in regional innovation and technology policy. It illustrates the link between theory and practice through a number of case study projects which Nicos Komninos and his team have implemented in Greece; as well as at EU level through innovation networks with partners in other European regions.

Drawing on this experience, the author sets outs some ground rules for building such virtual innovation management systems at regional level. The argument that is developed is that policy implementation must increasingly focus on diffusing knowledge and learning through virtual support environments.

The book explains how the move from 'real' infrastructure driven innovation and technology enviroments (science parks, innovation centres, industrial districts) has developed towards the need for knowledge diffusion techniques in all sectors of the regional innovation system. It does so through case studies and examples but a final chapter drawing together the conclusions of all these experiences in a summary critique would have been perhaps a useful addition to this otherwise excellent book.

For the range of information covered and the practical information on both policy development for regional innovation strategies and specific techniques such as innovation management tools and regional technology, the book is recommended reading, notably for policy makers and stakeholders in the candidate countries to the European Union faced by the need to 'catch-up' in policy terms.

"Into the Den" put me through the whole range of emotions: from great sadness to bust a-gut laughter. This book is for everyone, young and old. The young will identify with the modern day trials and tribulations of crossing from adolescence into being a young adult. The older and more mature readers will reflect back to their youth and will enjoy the generational bonds and virtues passed between the three generations of characters in this book.

Jesse Mattson, although very young, is a brilliant writer. His precocious writing and perceptive views on life show a maturity way beyond his age; some people attribute this kind of wisdom to an old soul.

Every once in awhile there comes along a book that captures a time and a generation. Into the Den is such a book. Like a Separate Peace or Lord of the Flies, this book is filled with characters that grab hold of you and pop into your mind long after you have put the book down. Sam Conway the voice of the book has much to tell and you feel like you know him well by the end of the story, which leaves you wanting to know what happens to Sam next.

A friend of mine gave me this book, and I will be eternally gratefull to her. It was one of the most beautifully worded books I've ever read. I've read it at least 20 times. I bought 5 more copies of it to let friends read. I chose to believe this as a God given vision. I have loved ones in heaven and as I read this book I envisioned them there in her description of what she believes is heaven. One day I will view all of this myself, and I'm sure earthly words can't describe what it will be like. I think Mrs Springer did a wonderful job describing her venture. This book is at the top of my list of books to read. One comes away filled with joy and wonder at her description of the revelation that God gave to her.

Jim Mou... from Somerset, Ky. "Immanuels Book and Gifts" , January 30, 1999 Comforting, to say the least This little book was given to me by my Pastor, when I confided in him concerning my ultimate fear, 'death'. I was both comforted, and given hope for eternity via this book. Every Christian should read it, own it, and keep extras on hand to give to others who are wrestling with lifes ultimate fear, and/or grieving the loss of a loved one. Wonderful reading!

Siegel progresses through the families of drugs one by one, showing how the effects of plants, herbs, and chemicals are all similar even between different species - yet all of them find an urge to partake in some of them. A multitude of personal and third-party research adorns the book to back up his assertations. This book is an excellent reminder that drug policy must take into account that many animals (humans included) are hard-wired to seek highs of one sort or another, and that simply banning a substance will not solve the "problem."

Ronald K. Siegel, Ph.D, a psychopharmacologist at the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA School of Medicine, has written a truly mind-boggling (quite literally) book about what he believes to be the fourth strongest drive in the human animal: that of intoxication. What? The struggle for intoxication is a drive, just like hunger, thirst, and sex? You bet, and Siegel has the research to prove it. Which probably make no difference to people that still connect "drugs" with strung-out heroin junkies who do just as much damage to themselves as to their friends and family.

Well, such stubborn people need to do some serious rethinking. Because what good is science unless it questions and investigates? But to make Spiegel even more controversial; he also experiments on animals when investigating why animals (and remember, the human being is an animal, too) choose to become intoxicated by various means. And also when they choose not to. These experiments clearly show how all animals use narcotics. So in other words, man is not alone in this struggle for a changed state of mind.

So what does this all mean? Well, it shows that the so-called War on Drugs is as futile as it is pointless, since there will always be and always has been people who choose to subject their bodies and minds to different drugs that the state or ruling class has decided should be illegal, and it also shows that it's indeed possible use narcotics and still be a very functioning member of society. Not all drug users end up as pathetic heroin junkies. The politics of drugs are extremely complicated, but arguing strictly from emotional points of views while refusing to accept new and mind-blowing ideas is, to put it simple, quite stupid.

Of course Siegel doesn't imply that everyone should do as much drugs as possible all the time whenever they feel like it. But what he does indeed do is giving all those millions of users of legal drugs - prescribed medication, coffee, cigarettes, and so on - something to think about, and he also clearly shows how all those Just Say No and other anti-drugs campaigns do more harm than good. After all, it's a human drive to become intoxicated, so why should some campaign manage to erase this drive? It's not going to happen, and people need to understand that.

Our culture encourages and even romanticizes the use of alcohol and cigarettes - two of the most deadly drugs man has ever come up with - and large corporations make billions of dollars from prescription drugs that are often a whole lot more harmful than the strongest your local dealer can provide you with. This is hypocrisy to such an extent that it's almost impossible to even comprehend, and Spiegel and his team of researchers therefore deserve all the credit they can get for trying to enlighten people they way they do. But just like any other type of fundamentalism, the anti-drug people will probably ignore Mr. Spiegel and all his knowledge, and this will in the long run do more harm to the human race than all the drugs in the world could ever do.

This brilliant book, or encyclopedia, will be a handy reference guide and a great read for anyone interested in the intricacies of human belief and wishing to culture themselves. It includes all the obscure movements such as the Chartists and Futurists and describes many of the better known ones from Cubism to Structuralism. Many unknown, and barely believable `isms' are also included such as Mugwumpism. Some appear to be slightly made up. Nevertheless the sheer scale of the number of isms and ologies and ideologies included is so vast that this book is a must read. Organized by theme such as religion or art or politics and then alphabetically it is a handy and wonderful reference and an enlightening read with roughly a page or two devoted to each movement, with concise and yet whitty introductions and histories of each.

Seth J. Frantzman

This is a must-have reference book for all parents and general readers who have ever been stumped by their kids' questions or just a plain lapse in memory about subjects they thought they knew--such as the meaning of existentialism, Jeffersonianism, and my favorite, Taoism.

Most books of this sought are dry and dull, but the author writes about complex topics with clarity, grace, and quite a bit of wit.

I use this book all the time--more than I thought I would. It's a very handy tool and occupies a prominent place in my library.

If you are thinking about or are planning a trip to Glacier National Park, I highly recommend buying this book. It is full of gold nuggets of historical trivia related to the park. I found some of the stories fun and entertaining and others very informative. None of the stories are very long so you can read individual stories as you drive around the park in your car as it pertains to the area you are in.

Having worked in Glacier Park and lived there for some time, I thought I knew it all -- but this book surprised me with many interesting true tales I have never heard before. The stories were compelling and well written and the book was highly entertaining. I especially enjoyed the bits of trivia at the end. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the lore and the lure of Glacier National Park.

Dr Neal Schultz makes the ultimate house call in the form of his new book that gently takes the reader by the hand and leads her down the path to skin care enlightenment. Get out your highlighter pen, relax and curl up with what may well become the consummate reference book for savvy skin care consumers. Dr. Schultz has a devoted clientele that has been benefiting from his expertise for over twenty-five years. His calm, reassuring approach to skin care science creates a comfort level for those who may be overwhelmed with having to make decisions about which new product or treatment to try. Make an appointment with "It's Not Just About Wrinkles" and you won't have to spend time in the waiting room to see results!

If you want to have perfect skin, this is the book for you. I bought this book and already feel my skin is softer and younger looking than it was two weeks ago. Dr. Schultz finally explains how important it is to know your skin type so you can use the right products for your skin and ailments. Goodbye dull looking, tired looking, brown and blotchy skin. Hello gorgeous!