Richards Books

I read this book many years ago and agree with the reviewers who said it was one of the most gripping true crime stories ever. The sad thing about this story is that with all the turmoral in the Olive family Jim and Marlene truly loved each other. What a terrible thing to go through life knowing you have killed someone who loved. and the frustrating thing is that it the various principals in the story had behaved with more common sense,so much tragedy could have been avoided. It makes you want to ask why? Why couldn't Jim Olive see that his family needed consling? and why was he buing his wife liquior? And if Chuck Riley wanted to be with Marlene,why didn't he make a drug deal and get an apartment somewhere. That would have been the common sense thing to do. But alas, common sense was in short supply in this story.

Wow. This book blew me away. This is an amazing account of how two aimless young people took their teen angst too far. The drugs and the culture added to it, but in my opinion, it was Marlene Olive's manipulation that finally led to her parents' murder. From the way Levine describes her, she seems to have what I call a "missing gene" - no feeling outside her own wants and needs and an inability to see how her actions not only affect others, but create the situation she found herself in. She had no remorse over her mother's brutal slaying, and my belief is that she, not Chuck, killed Naomi. I'm sickened by how she was able to get on with her life without any real prison time, but true to her nature, she threw opportunities away. Rather than using her second chance at being a respectable citizen, she chose not to grow out of her self-destructive and manipulative ways and is still getting into trouble. Maybe it's divine intervention that she didn't continue her education and make something of herself. Part of me is glad that she's indirectly paying for those senseless deaths by living a hard life and living on the wrong side of the law. I do feel sympathy toward Chuck and his family, although Chuck seems to have made the best of his situation and grown up. This is one of the best true crime books I've read and I wish that Levine had written more.

In BAD BLOOD, Richard Levine has fashioned a true crime masterpiece, a combination of the story of a Marin County, CA., murder and of the social conditions which created the climate in which the murders could take place. Marlene Olive was a sheltered young lady who had spent most of her life living with her American parents in Latin America when the family returned to the states. Marlene was 14 at the time and her life changed dramatically as she was quickly transformed from a naive young lady to a full out and over the top devotee of sex, drugs, and rock and roll...and sex and drugs.
Marlene's adoptive parents were Jim, who dearly loved Marlene, who returned Jim's love, and Naomi, an alcoholic and severely mentally ill woman with whom Marlene shared a mutual hatred.
Enter Chuck Riley, a basically nice 20 year old man who was massively overweight and, while he was immeresed in the rock and roll and drug scene - he was a heavy and indiscrimiate user who became a dealer - he was also a virgin. Chuck fell completely in love with Marlene. Marlene used Chuck's neediness to manipulate him, basically getting him to do whatever she wanted, including shoplifting and recruiting other teenagers, both male and female, for three-way sex. But what Marlene really wanted was for Naomi to be dead, and she played on Chuck's spaced-out devotion to have him kill her. There is actually some doubt expresed in the book about who really killed Naomi, Chuck or Marlene, but it was Chuck who killed Jim, which was not supposed to happen.
The book then presents Marlene's and Chuck's individual dealings with the police, the courts, and the prisons.

You will not read a better true crime book. BAD BLOOD is a nearly flawless example of how good this genre can be. The writing is superbly reportorial. The is no melodrama. There are no copies of trial or police interrogation transcripts or of newspaper articles. There is no filler of any kind. The book is fast paced, intelligent, professional, and beautifully researched. And, as noted, it is not simply a true crime story, but a study of social conditions of tenagers in the 70s in middle class suburban California. This aspect is not separated out into individual chapters, but is woven threadlike throughout the narrative, giving the book a sense power and immediacy.

BAD BLOOD is so good that I think it would appeal even to those who are not especially interested in the genre, and it is a must read for those who are. It is the opinion of a writer friend of mine that the Golden Age of true crime writing was from 1980 to 1995. Levine's BAD BLOOD was published in 1982 and provides validation for my friend's opinion.

I think my opinion is better informed than all the other Amazon reviews on this book. How? I grew up in Lucas Valley (3 miles away), knew of Chuck Riley-same High School-class 74, knew Mr. Royce (Boy Scout Leader) have cousins who live literally a stone's throw from the murder site and know the people & area better than these folks who sensationalize the drugs & sex. This book doesn't need any sensationalism, it completely "wows" you start to finish. Maybe within Chuck's small clique of friends, drugs consumed that much of their lives. Until Marlene, sex was unknown to Chuck, picture the power she controlled over him. Chuck was fat & ugly, invisible to most; a wall flower, never excelled at anything. We saw Chuck late at night in the telephone booth wrapped in a sleeping bag on the road to China Camp, no doubt talking to his Marlene. We all laughed thinking what could possibly make a guy do that. Chuck was transformed-manipulated by her. Knowing the before & after of Chuck makes the book a true five star rated. I can still picture "C.Riley" stenciled on his reversible PE shirt, without it nameless-invisible as in life. Know that all of his friends are basically the same: go with the flow, low key persons, low achievement. You would never suspect what would happen to Chuck a couple of years later. The book is accurate on the no concern of the popping sounds of a "22" mistaken for fire crackers, like nothing happens here: Five stars on the research. When you really know the area & insights on Chuck, the book really hits home and how scarey this all came about. With just a few changes, you could be Chuck in the room with a "22" looking like you did it and facing the husband, needing to defend your life. Book shows what sex & drugs can manipulate an everyday average person. Faced with the murder, what people do to cover it up. How lame fire fighters & police can be to think deer skeletons & human remains could be mistaken for the other. Think of back then versus the more informed "CSI" educated public. Just imagine if Chuck & Marlene were smart enough to fool law enforcement, we wouldn't have heard about. What is more bizzare, another death ~200 yards down the street years later. Like the street is cursed! Maybe Marlene put the whammy on Hibiscus.

I first read this book shortly after it was published in 1982 at about the time I moved to this very strange place in California called Marin County. I was from L.A., so this was a culture-shock move for me. As I was coming to understand this counter-cultural county--certainly nothing I had ever known existed in California, a friend recommended Levine's book to better acclimate myself with the permissive, drug-infested, free-sex, spouse-swapping lifestyle for which Marin was renown. Additionally, I was told I was living within one mile of the Hibiscus house and Chuck Riley's family. Moreover, I was within three miles of the "BBQ pit," China Camp. I could personally scout out the scenes of the crimes seven years after the murders--and I did out of curiosity. Suffice it to say I could never bring myself to visit China Camp again without being reminded of the Olives' horrible fate, nor could I pass Hibiscus Way in Terra Linda without hurridly accelerating past. The house is still there, albeit extensively remodeled. The Riley house is long gone, replaced by expensive tract homes. Terra Linda remains upper-middle class, now supported by an older, retired population, no doubt those very parents from the 1960s and 1970s written about in Levine's book.

This book was supposed to bide my time; 23 years later, re-reading it, I realize little has changed and children of the affluent in Marin continue their lives of decadence. I think it will only be a matter of time before we hear about another murder of this type in Marin County.

Levine's book details only too well, the life of a Marinite in the 1970s. Generationally speaking, those offspring of 1960s and 1970s parents are now parents and grandparents themselves--with nary a stop to the permissive, drug/drink-infested, sex-charged culture that continues to make Marin, well, Marin.

This book will scare you, captivating you nonetheless. It's well researched and extremely well written, without the sensational tendencies that creep into most "True Crime" books written today. The fact that Levine manages to write such a descriptive manuscript without engaging in sloppy research techniques or sensationalist descriptions is highly commendable and laudable.

I had this book in my wishlist for over two years. I kept off buying it basically because it looked like many other "past catastrophes that will happen again unless we repent and stop buying SUVs" type of book.
However during that same period many reviews indicated that this was a different book, and frankly it is the best book on the subject of ancient catastrophes that I've ever bought.
It gives a scientific support to other author's wild claims of ancient cultures and technologies that are very badly proposed in many other books.
Finally a book shows that it's feasible that many ancient cultures were decimated by the events related in this book, even though they make no such claims.
This will be a great addition to your collection.

In brief, the authors' thesis is this: 41,000 years ago, a Supernova (Geminga) exploded, in the cosmic vicinity of Earth. On at least three separate occasions, this event had significiant influence on the lives of creatures on this planet. 1.) The radiation from the Supernova killed or mutate species in Australia and southeast Asia. 2.) About 7,000 years later, the shockwave material began to arrive in our Solar System. 3.) A low density object (comet, or supernova material) impacted the norther hemisphere, wiping out megafauna (large animals - mammoths, mastodon, horses, rhinoceroses, etc.) and the paleoamerican Clovis culture, in North America.

The book, divided into three parts - Solving the Mystery, Describing The Event Sequence, and Presenting the Evidence - does a fantastic job of entertaining and educating the reader. We become (vicariously) an investigator, an eye-witness, and a multi-disciplinary scientist. In the process, the authors succeed in convincing us (most thoughtful, objective readers) of the validity of their theory's main points.

I like this book for a number of reasons. The first part, solving the mystery of the black mat, allows us to peer inside the recognizably human world of a scientific researcher. We get to share his travels and curiosity, sympathize with his hunches, and envy his luck. We also learn of his low tech pragmatism - using a shotgun to blast iron grains at a mammoth tusk, or tossing small objects into a cakepan filled with flour to see what kind of craters they make.

The second part provides a chilling account of the three times when there was Hell on Earth. No disaster movie yet made comes close to the intensity and devastation that this Event probably caused.

And while the third part - The Evidence - takes up most of the book, it too can be fascinating in its own right. Not only are we given the data gathered to support the authors' claim, but we are shown the reasoning which rules out previous, conventional explanations, and supports this theory as the correct one.

More importantly for me personally, and perhaps for anyone with an interest in cultural, spiritual and religious mythology, the authors take care to present a diverse sampling of ancient legends and stories which apparently attempt to convey what survivors of that time actually may have experienced or observed, albeit with symbolic embellishments being added along the way.

All told, this book/theory may explain a great deal about our world today. It implies that the event and our reaction to it, caused the prevalence of global disaster and flood myths around the world. Quite often we note that the gods or heavens were the source of our ancestors doom, and the blame is often laid upon the evil or wickedness of those who perished during the cleansing. Some say that it was because our ancestors forgot their creator, that he wanted to remind them/us that he was still important in their lives.

More specifically, the research tends to dispell the more recent myth that early Americans overhunted the mammoths, resulting in their extinction. And the timing with the disappearance of Atlantis, according to Plato, is too close for coincidence. What is not clear is whether this particular event is also responsible for the Biblical story of Noah and the Flood. Other sources cite a meteor impact closer to 5,000 years ago. Of course, the authors may have avoided this suggestion, for fear of alienating the religious fundamentalist who take exception with anything that appears to conflict with their understanding of scripture.

Finally, the authors issue an explicit warning that the consequences of this supernova event are not over yet. Mankind owes much of his current success, and overpopulation, due to the supernova events wiping out competing predators. They remark that after all extinction events, some species proliferate and overpopulate, but eventually succumb to limited resources, and suffer a massive depopulation eventually. Humans are still at the overpopulation stage, but may yet be on the brink of depopulation. In any event, the bombardment of the Earth by meteors and comets (due to the supernova) is far from over, and we are experiencing a rate of about 75% of the all-time high, about three times what it was a billion years ago.

None of this is to say that the book is without some faults. The wording is not as clear as I would like it (in places), and some of the statements are just plain wrong. For instance, Gemini is said to have only a few weeks every year when it rises in the northeast (as seen from a particular location.) The reality is, that at that latitude, Gemini always rises in the northeast, each and every day, whether it can be seen or not.

Yet on the whole, this is perhaps the most important book I have ever had the pleasure to read, because the theory answers so many questions I have long pondered, and it does so with the weight of scientific thought and evidence behind it.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the title of this book is not completely accurate as it doesn't explore much in the way of cycles of catastrophe's such as comet strikes and Im not sure why the authors would title it in such a way because the essence of this book if marketed well is interesting enough to attract many serious readers. Unlike other `pseudo science books' this one tackles head on a number of key findings relating to an `event' that supposedly happened 13,000 years ago in a way that iw generally well backed up and emphasizes what is theory, what is unproven and what is likely to be true. As a result I enjoyed this book emmensely because it does away with the Graham Hancock style of rhetoric and gives us some clear evidence in the form of pictures, scenarios and diagrams.

It could be said that the authors have not tied together all the loose ends and considering what their focus of investigation was I don't think this detracts from what the book implies. If one is to research a number of other books on similar topics a picture starts emerging about our past that not only sounds very logical but is incredibly fascinating.

Mass extinctions are nothing new. One of the most common geological process in the solar system is meteor and comet impacts. This book specifically explores the role of an exploding supernova's influence on earth. Other scientists have documented supernova explosions and dynamics before including the potential for it causing a major event 13,000 years ago. This is highly significant because it happened at the end of our last ice age and happened towards the beginning of wat we have recorded as history. Its also very significant because many ancient cultures have deeply embedded stories of such an event.

I enjoyed the evidence presented relating to micro meteorites imbedded in mammoth tusks and clovis stone tools and the photos showing clear meteor or comet strikes on earth. There should be nothing controversial about debris impacting with earth...anyone who's spent a little time looking at the night sky will have seen a shooting star. The book made me ponder the scenarios presented and try and tie them in with other theories such as earth displacement and catastrophes evident elsewhere in the solar system. The idea that the earths crust could have shifted, or other geological processes happened, in a short space of time is a valid theory and especially so when applied to an event as covered in this book. I thought the authors could have at least speculated some of the more unknown areas or discussed how one could investigate any link between a comet strike on earth and crust displacement. It's not a giant leap of imagination to contemplate a large enough strike on earth as causing some disbalance to our plate tectonics or geological processes. Tis would tie into other theoretical books that propose geological processes may happen much faster and not as uniformly as believed.

The same goes even for adventurers seeking remnants of Atlantis or highly civilized ancient people. Its seems highly likely that if there was an Atlantis that is was somewere in the america's - it matches Plato's description and seems logical as a trading location given its proximitry to Africa and Europe. Its enjoyable to speculate that what happened in north America 13,000 years ago wiped out much of this civilization and that indeed humans may have almost been wiped out many times before. Graham Hancock will go to length to talk about how earthquakes shook the world and so the pyramids were this built for sophisticated astronomical purposes. But astronomy is not volcanism. It seems much more likely that the ancients wanted desperately to understand the mechanics of the universe because they had been severely affected by it. It makes sense that a culture battered by a process such as described in this book would then strive to understand natural processes and build monuments of stone that also act as astronomical computers.

What would have been nice in this book is a more in depth comparison with the theory of our solar system having a companion star. It is suggested that every 26,000 years we orbit a binary star that could also explain comet strikes due to the disruption such an orbit would induce. This theory is well put together in the dvd `the great year' and points to a range of cultures that perhaps understood this process. The timing of such an event caused by such a binary orbit could also be calculated to around 13,000 years. Day and night have a profound impact on us, the moon cycles have a profound affect on us, the sun a profound affect on us...why not a binary star?

One of the most interesting aspects of this book was in its discussion of how human populations increased after this event and how this could have been due to greater access to the land or even due to mutations from the supernova/comet radiation. Mutations might sound like science fiction but no-one still has a clear idea of how one species evolves into another. This was Darwins dilemma. Perhaps it is in fact catastrophic events like this that push evolutionary mutations along. Like war - long periods of nothing and then short shapr periods of change. I just can't buy this old school view of the world as being so uniform and rigid. It doesn't make sense. The idea that legitimate scientists would overlook these sorts of issues of how we view geological time, our antiquity and our solar system geology is not suprising but a shame more scientists are not actively researching these fields. Instead they are researching global warming and other areas, that likely lead to better paychecks.

Now Im going to go read `when life nearly died' and see what light it sheds.

Fascinating book and well worth the read. The many pictures, questions and answers and scholarly authorship makes this one a true contemplator in the hit and miss alternative theory market. Its just a shame they didnt elaborate on other 'cycles of cosmic catastrophes'.

I'll make this short - everyone should read it!!!
The slightly lengthier version is -
The authors put a case for a cataclysmic planetary impact event of circa 13000 - 16000 BP having been preceded by the shock wave and the initial light / radiation blast of a nearby supernova around 41000BP but with the major focus being on the impact event(s).
Unlike others that have written on similar themes, these authors supply a myriad of evidence to back up their claims and the real strength of their work is the breadth of various unrelated scientific studies undertaken which seem to support the proposition. A tremendous amount of work has gone into this book.
It provides the supporting scientific evidence in an easy to read way - I eagerly await the next work they produce on this subject.

I agree with one other reviewer here who said "horrible cover but great book"...the cover and the title of the book are way over the top. I half expected the book to start with chapters of little green men who caused the extinction of mammoths. Despite the goofy title and cover, this is an easy to read, easy to follow theory of what caused the great extinctions of 13,000 years ago in North America, killing off the mammoths, mastodons and evidently much of the human population (clovis culture) along about that time. Firestone's theory of the comet hitting an area near Lake Michigan, which was covered in ice two miles thick at the time, takes a little getting used to, and opening the mind a bit to grasp the entire theory. He examines everything from the mysterious "black mat" at the Murray Springs Arizona Clovis site to the micro meteorites embedded in Mammoth tusks, to the "Carolina Bays" that were supposedly created by large chunks of glacial ice, blown out of the Michigan glacier by this comet. He explains the comet was supposedly made of "dirty ice" a cosmic dustball, and the size of the comet was what caused the depression which later became Lake Michigan. A very entertaining read, and a theory worth considering.

This book is the BIBLE for understanding and building your telescope. An absolute must read.

Even though I ended up making a solid tube, I bought this from Mr. Kreige with the expectation that I would end up with a truss setup for my 16". The book is well laid out and the instructions are clear. However, they are also not very simple and it's not just a matter of throwing a bunch of stuff together to get a truss setup.

In my case, I had the deck stacked against me for several reasons. My 16" mirror is f6.4 which would require a little more than a 9' tube. This presents several balancing and wobble challenges. Then there are the complex angles that must be cut for the trusses to line up properly and consistently. However, the real clincher for me was the cost of the materials. To make a really on-spec Dobsonian as described in the book would take a lot more money than I had available. So I ended up using plywood and Sonotube. Thing was built like a Russian tank, but wasn't exactly light and as portable as a truss design.

All in all, this is an outstanding book and should be a mandatory addition to any telescope makers library. Highly recommended.

I am a beginning amateur astronomer, and this book has helped me immensely in understanding how telescopes work and what goes into building a quality telescope. Though I won't be able to afford the optics for my dream telescope for some time, this book is excellent for either the aspiring telescope maker or an amateur like me who wants to understand what makes telescopes "great" vs. "so-so".

The book is well-written and is a very easy read, even though it goes through some fairly complicated stuff at times. I highly recommend it!

One of the hardest things a beginner faces when jumping into amateur astronomy is "Where do I start?". That question has been answered in great depth by this book. Considered by almost everyone to be "the bible" of amateur telescope making, if this book doesn't inspire you to start cutting wood, then you need to find yourself another hobby!

One of the authors is responsible for the "Obsession" line of high-end Dobsonian telescopes. This book is almost a step-by-step guide on how you can build your own large Dobsonian, with optics and performance nearly as good as an Obsession. Yes, you probably won't save much money over a purchased 'scope, but the pride of being able to say "I built this myself!" more than makes up for that. Plus, you will know (and understand) every single square inch of your telescope, so modifications and changes won't be as frightening to you as they would if you had to cut into a $3000 commercial telescope.

If you think you're going to use this book and build an 18" 'scope for $500, you're going to be in for quite a shock. The authors in this book both stress the importance of premium optics, and these do not come cheap. Expect to spend roughly $1500, or more, for a good quality 12.5" primary mirror alone. Quality doesn't come cheap, and with the only commercial Pyrex production line in the US shut down for the next several years, expect mirror prices to rise, drastically.

For those who can afford it, a scope like this can last for a lifetime. But if you can't afford such a huge investment, this book also covers construction of an 8", closed-tube Dobsonian (The larger sizes in the book are all truss tube models), which can be assembled for roughly $600.

Right now, several of my friends and I are starting to plan our dream scope, using nothing but this book as a reference guide. We're going to build slowly, completing one major piece at a time. This both insures that the finished unit is as high a quality as we are capable of producing, plus helps to defer construction costs over a longer period of time.

Even if you have no intention of every getting a Dobsonian, you will find many things of value in this book.

Why are you still reading this? Go and order a copy for yourself. Experience firsthand just how well written and useful it really is, and I'll bet you also start dreaming of cutting wood and aligning optics.

If you are interested in building a Dobsonian with professional results, this is the book for you. It even excercises pragmmatic guidance on what aperture should one choose by describing a series of scenarios one would not contemplate before building, but would clearly regret in the after.This is specially useful for those suffering from "aperture fever".

The author wisely leaves aside the craft of making your own optics. He reduces it to one chapter. The reason: if you you want to build a serious and large aperture telescope; buy the optics. This, with time and experience, comes as the best option.

Nothing is left aside on what building a Dobsonian may concern. I honestly didn't look for anything else after this book. (The only thing I surfed the internet for was for more images on Dob designs).

This is a rare book, for it accomplishes to fill virtually every doubt you may have on the subject.

I can write pages about how good this book is, but why when I can summarize it in one word. Excellent!

Peter's The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook is a must have for everybody who has read the original The Fifth Discipline or are in anyways interested on building learning organization.

In short, the book itself contains useful real life examples and tips & tricks on building learning organization. It really opens new point of views to see and solve problems. It has helped me at work and at personal life, it is 'more than asked I for'.

I recommend this book for anybody.

It seems to me that The Fifth Discipline (the previous publication of the series) is more attacting to me. The second book can be more precise and concise in content. Generally speaking I still like these two books as a foreign reader.

This book is a collection of theoretical summaries, reports, analyses, and strategies all quite useful to anyone interested in generating some thinking and action around change. The team of five writers (Peter Senge, Richard Ross, Bryan Smith, Charlotte Roberts, and Art Kleiner) provide some original work, but also serve as editors to a vast quantity of material drawn from practitioners, theorists, and writers in the field of organizational improvement. According to Senge, "great teams are learning organizations - groups of people who, over time, enhance their capacity to create what they truly desire to create." (p.18) This book is really about creating and building great teams. The learning organization develops its ability to reflect on, discuss, question, and change its current and past practices. To do this, people and groups in the organization need to meaningfully pursue the study and practice of the five disciplines - personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking.

The learning organization - Senge's vision for the productive, competitive, and efficient institutions of the future - is in a continuous state of change. Four fundamental questions continuously serve to check and guide a group's learning and improvement (see page 49): (1) Do you continuously test your experiences? ("Are you willing to examine and challenge your sacred cows - not just during crises, but in good times?") (2) Are you producing knowledge? ("Knowledge, in this case, means the capacity for effective action.") (3) Is knowledge shared? ("Is it accessible to all of the organization's members?") (4) Is the learning relevant? ("Is this learning aimed at the organization's core purpose?") If these questions represent the organization's compass, the five disciplines are its map.

Each of the five disciplines is explained, and elaborated in its own lengthy section of the book. In the section on "Systems Thinking" (a set of practices and perspectives, which views all aspects of life as inter-related and playing a role in some larger system), the authors build on the idea of feedback loops (reinforcing and balancing) and introduce five systems archetypes. They are: "fixes that backfire", "limits to growth", "shifting the burden", "tragedy of the commons", and "accidental adversaries". In the section on "Personal Mastery", the authors argue that learning starts with each person. For organizations to learn and improve, people within the organization (perhaps starting with its core leadership) must learn to reflect on and become aware of their own core beliefs and visions. In "Mental Models", the authors argue that learning organizations need to explore the assumptions and attitudes, which guide their institutional directions, practices, and strategies. Articles on scenario planning, the ladder of inference, the left-hand column, and balancing inquiry and advocacy offer practical strategies to investigate our personal mental models as well as those of others in the organization. In "Shared Vision", the authors make the case for the stakeholders of an organization to continually adapt their vision ("an image of a desired future"), values ("how we get to travel to where we want to go"), purpose ("what the organization is here to do"), and goals ("milestones we expect to reach before too long"). The section offers many strategies and perspectives on how to move an organization toward continuous reflection. In "Team Learning", the authors rely mostly on the work of William Isaacs and others, and make a case for educating organization members in the processes and skills of dialogue and skillful discussion.

This book is enlightening and informative. It has already found a place on my shelf for essential reference books.

Peter M Serge, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook

To quote the first few paragraphs at beginning of book:

Among the tribes of northen Natal in South Africa, the most common greeting, equivalent to "hello" in English, is the expression: Sawu bona. It literally means, "I see you." If you are a member of the tribe, you might reply by saying Sikhona, "I am here." The order of the exchange is important: until you see me, I do not exist. It's as if, when you see me bring me into existence.

This meaning, implicit in the language, is part of the spirit of ubuntu, a frame of mind prevalent among native people in Africa below the Sahara. The word ubuntu stems from the folk saying Umuntu ngumuntu nagabantu, which from Zulu, literally translates as: "A person is a person because of other people."


"I bow in honor and reverence that place within you where to the Universe resides, when you are in that place within you, and I am in that place within me, there is One." ~namaste


The five disciplines are at the CORE of a Learning Organization

1) Personal Mastery: expand your personal capacity and ability

2) Mental Models: see how our internal pictures of the world shape action and decision

3) Shared Vision: group commitment

4) Team Learning: group ability is greater than the sum of individual talents

5) System Thinking:


"When we try to bring about change in our societies, we are treated first with indifference, then with ridicule, then with abuse and then with oppression. And finally, the greatest challenge is thrown at us: We are treated with respect. This is the most dangerous stage." --A. T. Ariyaratne (Speech made at International Community Leadership Summit, Winrock, Arkansas, March 1983. This quote paraphrases and expands upon a well-known statement made by Mahatma Gandhi in his book Satyagraha in South Africa, 1982, 1979, Canon, Me.: Greenleaf books)


"An [organization] is not a machine but a living organism." --Ikujiro Nonaka /****
Fundamentals of epistemology: what is knowledge, the nature of knowledge, and what constitutes learning.
understanding is achieved after internalization.
Without experience, we cannot truly understand.
Internalization: transformation from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge, habits and culture that we do not recognize in ourselves.
Innovation is a process to capture, create, leverage, and retain knowledge.
What is your belief? A belief about images of the world - you may call it a mental model - is a very subjective thing

information is the flow of a message, while knowledge is created by accumulating information. Thus, information is a necessary medium or material for eliciting and constructing knowledge.

The second difference is that information is something passive. When we switch on a TV set, information comes regardless of my commitment. But knowledge comes from my belief, so it's more proactive.

And the organizational knowledge or intellectual infrastructure of an organization encourages its individual members to develop new knowledge through new experiences.

This dynamic process is the key to organizational knowledge creation - that is, socialization (from individual tacit knowledge to group tacit knowledge), externalization (from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge), combination (from separate explicit knowledge to systemic explicit knowledge), and internalization (from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge) [...].

[...]

Three Guiding Ideas

1) The Whole. When you are pointing a finger at the problems, notice how many fingers are pointing back at you. If you fixed the symptoms and ignore the root causes, the problems have not gone away. Another way to look at this is treat the person, not the disease. Of course treat the disease if the patient is dying, but know that the patient will get sick again because the "root causes" are stil there.

2) Community. The self is "a point of view." "The essence of being a person is being in a relationship [with] other people." You will not believe this, but each person before you is there for a reason. The reason this person is there at this moment is for you to learn something about yourself. If you ignore the person, do not ignore or forget the lesson.

3) Language. The map is not the territory. We cannot contain every bit of information that comes to us in the world, so we have to create a "map of the territory" and then refer to the map for our information. By changing a person's map, we change their reality. Language is the map, not the reality.

This book was awesome! It was purchased as a gift for my 13-year-old son who loved it. It was full of interesting pictures, facts, and stories about the great white shark. He considers it one of the best books in his "shark library".

This is an excellent work about the most feared creature in the ocean. I've always had an interest in marine biology, and sharks in particular, and this book embodies both biological and cultural information about one of my favorite animals. McCosker and Ellis give the great white a fair shake, and while they acknowledge "Jaws" as an excellent film, they also debunk the fallacies of it (i.e. great whites are not 30 feet long, and only very rarely do they attack humans). I appreciated the considerable section of the book that discusses "Jaws"; I feel as though it was necessary to include this information in a book about great whites since that film is the only source of information about sharks that some individuals have been exposed to. Great book, great read...and well worth the price!

A wonderful, excellent, magnificent look at the natural history of the Great White. Written from a scientific perspective but easily accessible to everyone, this book covers biology, feeding, fishing, filming, attacks, and the exploitation of great whites. Nearly every page has superb photos and/or illustrations, and the authors do an excellent job of making the sharks an animal to be respected but neither irrationally feared nor glorified. The text covers all aspects of the shark's natural history, but never gets so in-depth as to be boring. Highly recommended.

I'm not sure why, but I'm a bit of a shark freak. I got this book for Christmas, and I read it all the way through without putting it down. Granted, a lot of this information wasn't new, but it was presented very nicely. The pictures are fantastic, and I enjoyed the extras about other sharks.

I think children as well as adults would enjoy this book. I wound up getting other people (who don't much care for the subject) interested in the pictures and short articles in this book.

Subjects treated include biology, geography, behavior, history, and interaction with man.

The book is great with its info. I could not believe the horror of the picture of the beautiful woman Shirley Anne Durdin and when they describe her being eaten alive...what it must have felt like. The people who watched the shark swim away from their boat said they could see tattered wads of her once-beautiful flesh dangling from its teeth and her arm sticking out. Worse than any scene in "Jaws."

Human All Too Human and Daybreak can be considered as volumes one and two of the same work. As Nietzsche said in Ecce Homo, a careful reading predicates a full understanding of his later polemics. Here, the bombast is not yet as evident but the seismic rumblings of the will to power, the eternal return, the death of god, the over and last-men all are all foreshadowed in Nietzsche's grand, classical deftness and precision of thought. Nietzsche's largest printed work, HAtH has perhaps the broadest and best sustained discussions of nearly every topic of importance to thoughtful and reflective thinkers. This, together with Dawn is a great place to begin reading Nietzsche.

If you like aphorisms and philosophy, this book will become one of your bibles. If nothing else, it's just plain fun to read for his incredible wit. Of course you have to put his ideas in the context of the period in which he wrote and understand that he has his own odd prejudices, but the brilliance of his understanding of the human condition really shines through. The biggest mistake any reader could make is to think Nietzsche was an anti-semite---far from it. He was anti-neanderthal. In this book especially the reader sees his low tolerance for received wisdom. This book is nothing less than part of the origin of Western psychology as practiced today. It also represents the demolition of science and philosophy polluted by the received Western theological framework. Some of the best parts are when he skewers religion. You have to love his style even if you do not agree with his pessimistic disgust for piety. This is the kind of philosophy book you need not fret over, unless you harbor wishful thinking about a supremely benevolent deity. Instead of making an elaborate argument about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, as preceeding systematic philosophers did literally and figuratively, Nietzsche bends the pin and throws it in the trash. I wish I had read this before his Genealogy of Morals, as knowing his thoughts here would have made that book far more interetsing and understandable. I highly recommend philosophy students first approaching Nietzsche pick up Human, All Too Human to start their study. And if you are religious and want to bolster your faith, well, you should stay far away from this book.

In response to some of the prattlings below-only those who do not know the first thing about Nietzsche think that he was at all anti-Semitic. He wrote clearly, very clearly, against that and against nationalism. In one of his books he stated that Germany should not admit any more Jews inside of her borders. Why? Because he felt that the German people lacked an identity, and knew that Jewish people had a very strong identity. He did not think that Germany, weak and unrealized as it was, could stand an influx of a people that he repeatedly characterized as remarkable.

I am somewhat obsessed with Nietzsche, and this book started it all. Do not dive into his later, more well known masterpieces (Beyond Good and Evil, the Genealogy of Morals, The Gay Science) without acquainting yourself with this book. It is an introduction to his style, and there is no better example of his mastery of psychological observations. In this book he comments on all elements of social reality ("no one thinks to thank the clever man for restraining his wit when in the company of those who cannot practice wit" for example), going into love, friendship, the tenor of social gatherings, absolutely everything that is psychologically investigatable. He brings this method to his later books, in which he tackles larger issues, like the history of religion, philosophy, morality, and other things. But it all starts here-his later critiques of Christianity and everything else are far more understandable after a thorough acquaintance with his psychological method, first and best presented here. If you are at all sensitive and introspective, this book will move you to tears more than a few times.

O.k. So I have a minor in philosophy and Nietzsche was one of my inspirations to pursue this as a degree in college. Nietzsche deals with androgony. In more modern terms, men and women are crossing over the line of androgeny with their jock image. They are getting more and more androgynous you can't distunguish between even basic differences between the sexes anymore. While my philosophy professor and classmates dismissed Nietzsche as "not being a first rate philosopher," he does have his points about god and androgeny. This is part of our changing world and in philosophy class I did make my points.

if you want to have your moral foundations knocked out from under you, read this book - and then build upon the ruins - Nietzsche's, in my opinion, most accessible work, as his aphoristic style floats over many different topics - don't stop here however, i recommend Kauffman's "Nietzsche, Philosopher, Psychologist, AntiChrist" as a starter if you find the complexity and diversity of Nietzsche's thought to be overwhelming or incomprehensible - he's frequently ambiguous and contradictory but it's more a positive trademark of his works and shouldn't dissuade one from further readings.

I've been "lowcarbing" since January 2006 and was given The New Diet Revolution by Atkins. I had success, however, I JUST found out that some medication I was placed on two months after starting LC was a culprit in not only stalling my weight, but gaining 6 pounds. My situation had no bearing on the Atkins plan as I still follow it.

I stumbled upon this book about 4 months ago in a drug store--way before reading any reviews. The writer is credible, the writing style is not over the top on medical terminology. Once you start reading it, it is hard to put down.

Ms. Richard states the facts concerning each plan.

Anyone who is even considering a low carb lifestyle (this is not a "diet") should really read this book BEFORE they start any plan. Although I started lowcarbing before knowing about this book, I believe it would help even a current lowcarber in the event that they may need to make adjustments with whatever method they are using.

The book is very inexpensive and worth much more than it's price. It is a very good, down-to-earth, factual, non-overwhelming read.

I highly recommend this book as your first choice, OR your first read if you own other books.

Ms. Richard made it so much easier for me in this round of low-carb dieting. She compares and contrasts all the low-carb plans knowledgeably and usefully. She helped me see how I could approach my low-carb diet plan in a way that is tailored to me alone without feeling that I had fallen off the low-carb wagon. She helped me to re-establish my priorities and I can now offer good advice to my dieting friends, thanks to her. Wish I could sell my copy since it's not available, but I'm afraid I'll be sharing it with my friends for months (if not years) to come. Well worth the price.

I have been low carbing for about 2 months and I was having mixed results before I read this book. The first chapter that compares all the different plans helped me select a plan that was much better for me than the one I was on originally. This book also helped me discover 2 important things that I was doing that slowed my weight loss. The combination of choosing another plan and tossing out my stallers, my weight loss sped up a great deal. Absolutely worth the $7.00 I paid for it.

So many people have written such nice things about this book that I feel compelled to write a negative review. But I can't. This book was very useful. If you are thinking of starting a low carb diet but are not sure which one, start by reading this book. It compares the various diets in an unbiased, down-to-Earth way. For me, the most important part of this book was the chapter which discussed the various factors which can cause the low carb diet to suddenly stop working for no clear reason. Many of the causes of slowing weight loss are not obvious. This book will likely help you find the cause of your slowed weight loss and help you get back on track. And on top of that, the book is so cheap. You are hurting yourself if you don't add this book to your low carb arsenal.

If you are a lo-carb convert and are looking for a way to make this way of eating a lifestyle, I highly recommend you read this book. It is particularly helpful in diagnosing stalls in weight loss, many of which are subtle but can pose a barrier to success. Before reading this book I had the big picture. Now I have the find points and can see that Lo-carb is not just about losing weight but gaining health.

This book seems to cover many great hiking areas in Sedona. It is quite explicit re: directions and information about the hiking trails. Great book for a person new to the area or even people who have been around awhile. Very informative!

I used this book for planning a 2 day visit to Sedona. I was extremely happy with the format. It has 2 pages per hike, with a high quality photo of what to expect for views, driving/hiking distance/time, as well as selections of their favorites. We didn't visit long enough to do a lot of the hikes, but we truly felt that we were able to select 3 hikes that were perfectly suited to our tastes and with nice variety. Overall, I don't think you could go wrong in Sedona, but I felt like this guide was well worth the price and only wish I could find similar guides for other locations. The Magnum's have done a great job, deserving of 5 stars.

The only shortcoming you may find is that their maps are very general and mostly help you find the trailhead (which was flawless). But, I prefer to have a quality map as well and I purchased the Emmitt Barks Cartography - Sedona Trails Map (not sure if it was on Amazon), and was very happy with it. Personally, I don't think you can create a detailed map inside the book for each hike, so I don't consider this a flaw to the book - just a bit of advice if you are planning a trip.

This book was very helpful in deciding which hikes to do. We were not dissappointed by any of the hikes. It was good that we knew about the pink jeaps ahead of time.

I have read five books about the Sedona hikes, all written approximately across the same time period, and this is why Iknow what I am talking about.I have also been to Sedona twice and know about it in a general sence. Short and sweet...this is the best all around Sedona hiking book filled with lots of bits about popular and unheard of hikes. This book is good because it is created by a Husband and Wife writer and photographer team who have lived in the area for years. The book includes maps of how to get to the trail heads and where the trails go from there. Also, descriptions of weather related to time of year and level of exertion required to do the hikes. The hikes that include VORTEXES are clearly marked. The photography is great. The five other books are best described by one or several of the following phrases: sickening and homespun; the writer as spiritual guru who is grandiose; might as well not bother; information repeated elsewhere ad nauseum. GET THIS BOOK

This book is good you want to look up a specific trail by name. I am more interested in researching trails in a specific area and found the layout of this book VERY frustrating. This book NEEDS a trail map overview where one can see where a specific trail is in relationship to the other trails. If you purchase this book make sure to purchase a Sedona Trail Map as well.

..for tone enthusiasts. Great photos, great amps & great stories. Don't miss it, it'a a real very very sounding book!

I've been playing for 37 years. Great tone has always been a never ending quest. Some gear sounds thin, some tinny, or boomy, too fuzzy, or brittle, even dull. But some appliances produce sounds that are awesome. This book is about several of those savage appliances--vintage Fender amps. This book and its 2 accompanying CDs are wonderful; I've learned so much and I've been very entertained.

Great read.

If you are a fan of the Fender sound, and curious about the origins of Leo Fender, the Fender company and the legendary Fender guitar amplifiers then this book is for you. Its the first coffee table sized book I've ever had that is more than wonderful photos. Its a book I enjoy reading a great deal. There is a lot of detail, enough to keep a amplifier technician, or someone who doesn't care about the details of how they get the sound happy. There are lots of delicious quotes and images about those that prefer to use the Fender amp in their performances. Examples are Dick Dale, Buddy Guy, B. B. King, to Keith Richards. If those names aren't familiar to you, well it might not be a book for you. This is a book about influences and origins. Its not afraid to expose the mystery behind the curtain, but also to expose the inconsistencies of the Fender company.

Then there is the disc that provide you with the ability to hear and compare the sound of a wide variety of amplifiers under very similar conditions. This provides those seeking to develop a tone all their own through a Fender guitar amplifier. It doesn't denigrate other vendors, and has comments and interviews by many of the other legends and current boutique makers in the guitar amplification arena.

If you want to know about Fender amplification, this might be the only book you ever need.

Buy this book - treasure it - read it thoroughly over and over again - you will learn so much.
Listen to the CD by Greg Koch - amazing!
If you love Fender - and their history, you CANNOT do better than buy this beautifully produced book.
Tom Wheeler is an authority - along with Richard R. Smith, they are the world leaders when it comes to anything Fender.
This is a book for life - fantastic illustrations - and a wonderful companion to The Stratocaster Chronicles.
Obviously written with intelligence and insight - this is THE reference on the subject - and what a subject!
Fender made/makes the finest sounding guitar amplifiers in the world.
I've got 3 different models here in my study that range from 45 to 50 years old - and still going strong as ever, being played in the bedroom - or pubs and clubs....they sound fabulous.
Tom Wheeler knows what he's talking about - a writer of the very highest integrity. I highly recommend this wonderful book.
Bob Hewitt UK [...]

I think that Amazon needs to stop bothering me to write these reviews. Even though they know that my knowledge in this field is considered by many to be the final word in all things amplified. And even though the last review that they finally got me to write was disputed by the latest Russian experts, absurdly claiming that my "thoughts on atom/electron sequencing can only be pulled out of a wizard's sleeve". Enough said. This claim is not only false but void of any reliable rebuilding process. Finally, the review...

I didn't start with Fender amps. I learned the hard way, which is why I know what I'm talking about. So thanks and praise to Leo for coming up with great ideas -- so good that all people even Russians can do now is to try and copy it. That's how good it is. I've experimented a lot, tried all sorts of amps, but I don't change there things 'round no more. I found what I'm looking for.

Rick Singer has outdone himself! If you thought his first book, "Your Daily Walk with the Great Minds of the Past and Present," was wonderful, you haven't read anything yet. Singer has taken the word "mindfulness" to a new level and shows us how to apply it to every moment of our lives. A Japanese Proverb says, "Beginning is easy, continuing is hard." However, they obviously hadn't read Singer's new book, " Eastern Wisdom for Your Soul: 111 Meditations for Everyday Enlightenment" -- Rick has made it easy to begin and continue. -- Sue Vogan, author/radio show host

Richard A Singer, Jr. has found a way to guide everyone fortunate enough to read his book YOUR DAILY WALKS WITH THE GREAT MINDS to a life of contemplation and enrichment, not by seeking out seminars throughout the world, but instead by relying on time alone with his secure companionship of selected words and accompaniments. He quietly and gently supports our capacity to improve our physical and spiritual lives while at the same time sharing words on a daily basis from famous thinkers that expand our survey of history and appreciation for the human spirit.

Singer draws brief but significant single sentence quotes from a wide range of people - from famous physicians such as William Osler and Freud, to news commentators like Dan Rather, to painters like Van Gogh and Picasso, scientists like Einstein, philosophers like William James and Nietzsche, composers such as Beethoven, writers like Henry James, poets like Emerson, Whitman and Frost, and the many inspirational voices of the past like Gandhi, MLK, JFK, and Mother Theresa. Opening each day's 'walk' with such a thought, Singer then offers a related meditational though, follows that with instruction to enter our responses in a journal, and then extracts a pledge from this exercise to make a difference in our own lives and in the global community.

Self-help books are many: some are trendy and some are timeless. This little portable volume is one that will last far beyond the year that it is chronicled to accompany. Once again Richard Singer extends a firm and wise hand to increase our awareness of the past, our place in the present, and our choices for a future, richer because of the time we have spent with his generous spirit. Grady Harp, July 08

Richard Singer's book "Your Daily Walk with the Great Minds of the Past and Present" will definitely change the way you look at life and become the person you were sent down here to be.
What can you look forward to when you get this book? The book is broken down into daily assignments...you read a quote from one of the great minds, then a short paragraph to guide you on your day along with a mind searching question which you answer. This short daily time enables you to gradually change your mindset and I have found that I think about my daily question and answer all day. I have a small notebook I take along with me and have all my short daily thoughts written down...which helps me keep the concepts I have learned so far fresh in my mind.
Another good thing is that Richard gives you a monthly reading assignment...a book written by a great mind, past and present. Having the whole month to read the assignment enables you to absorb the information.
I am gradually changing the way I look at my life and people around me have started noticing a change...more positive, more hopeful, more grateful to the abundance that I do have in my life...even if right now it's not the monetary abundance...but I am now hopeful and positive that that too will change very soon.
Thank you Richard...you have written a book that everyone can handle gradually...so even those who say "I have no time to read" can do this and will gradually want to read more.

Reviewed by Lisa Kisner for Reader Views (11/06)

If you have every wondered how to start finding peace within yourself, look no further than this book. Mr. Singer's book gives you the tools to change your life and be inspired to live each day to its' fullest. Day by day this book expands on wisdom imparted by a surprisingly diverse group of people, from well known spiritual leaders such as Gandhi to Jackie Collins, popular author. Mr. Singer provides you with a daily meditation based on the thought of the day. Questions for thought and personal journaling, as well as affirmations to carry through out the day, round off each day's mediations and help you find answers to your life questions. Also provided each month is a suggested reading that enhances the daily enlightenment exercises.

Mr. Singer walks the reader through his strategies for transformation. These include:

Modeling - gaining insight from the quotes and the people who said them,
Bibiotherapy - reading to gain knowledge and insight,
Mindfulness - applying the daily guidance throughout the day,
Journaling - express your thoughts and feelings in a personal notebook,
Visualizations- visualizing your transformation each day will help you achieve the results you want, and
Affirmations - internalizing and applying these truths throughout the day.

I found this book very easy to read. Every day's meditation can be completed in a few minutes. Subject and author indexes are provided should you have need for a specific topic of meditation on any given day. The suggested monthly readings fit well with the meditations and feature some of my favorite inspirational books. Each day's meditations, journaling exercise and affirmations related to some aspect of my life and challenged me to look inside myself and find my purpose. Every message was inspirational and left me wanting more. I found it impossible to read only one day at a time, even on my busiest days. I read the entire book in less than a week. Now, I look forward to each morning's message and journaling. Already I can say that I am further down the road to inner peace than before picking up this wonderful book, "Your Daily Walk with the Great Minds."

If you are a seeker of truth and knowledge, "Your Daily Walk with the Great Minds of the Past and Present" is a must read. The author created a masterpiece juxtaposition of both classical and contemporary thinkers most thought provoking works presented in a wonderful format which encourages the reader to record their own thoughts brought out by the myriad of masterminds presented so artfully in this work. The author definitely did his homework. An enthralling, mesmerising book, that no one's library is complete without. Do yourself a big favor; buy this book!