Stone Books

The first of the Harry Potter books takes us on a journey of adventure, mystery, fantasy and magic. It gets the reader hooked from the very beginning and keeps us turning the pages as fast as we can. This is a book not only for young adults but for us oldsters too. This is a story of a young boy being raised by hateful relatives, who's very life is about to change in ways he never imagined. We meet an array of characters from his aunt and uncle who are Muggles, to Hagrid, to Professor Dumbledore, to.... well, most people already know the story. BUT if you don't then pick up the first book and get reading. You're in for the treat of your life.

My husband works at a library, and I find that this book seems to draw pre-teens to read and join book clubs more than anything. I can see why. Rowling really draws in the attention of young people (and adults as well) with her attention to detail. This book allows readers to use their imagination to make Hogwarts into the dreamy place it is...with floating candles, moving pictures, and heroic adventures. If your child does not like to read, I strongly suggest giving them this book, or reading it to them. They will be drawn in! Wonderful writing! Do not listen to the rumors about witchcraft, etc. I feel that Harry Potter is magical, but that Harry is always trying to do good in this book POSITIVELY! Excellent read!

After hearing nothing but "Harry Potter" from my nine-year-old grandson,I decided to read the first book in the series so I would be reasonably informed as to the definition of "Muggles" and "Mudbloods".Thus being able to hold a somewhat intelligent "Harry Potter" related conversation with him. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised that a book so designed for children could be equally entertaining to adults. Ms.Rowling weaves an imaginative tale that virtually comes to life in your mind's eye. Her writing style is smooth and easy to read and the pages seem to turn themselves. Upon reading the series I found many new frontiers to explore with my grandson and found him to be a pleasure in book review discussions. The Harry Potter series is highly recommended and I implore you to turn your imagination loose and see where it takes you!

This book is cool it comes with markers to color it in with.It also show different cool [pictures of Harry Potter and all his friends and enemys.(Snape)

I received this book as a Secret Santa gift, and although I'm slightly out of its targeted age range, I still adore it. The artwork has thick lines so one can color well, and the many pages of pictures insure most characters are depicted. I recommend this book not only to those purchasing a gift for a small child but for any Harry Potter-lover.

This coloring book is very well illustrated. I love the pictures and scenes. Very fun for kids to color, and decorate their room.

This moving saga carries the reader through the changing tapestry of events and emotions that punctuate the daily lives of four-year-old Will Falke and his family. We are part of the most intimate experiences of Will, his parents, his sisters and others he loves, who love him. These are experiences that touch us deeply. We feel the stinging pain of the injured eye, the poignant implications of memories lost, the depth of an anger that resists release. In the family's meadow, in the milk barn with Sister, the library stacks with Miss Jones, the music captures us, the poetry engages us, the honesty speaks to us. William Wallis has penned moments of sadness, fear, joy and the simple but endearing love that bonds the family and captures our hearts.

Unresolved grief, guilt, pain and sadness from family members play a large part in young Will Falkes' life. Considering him a "dreamer" his father, Ray, directs unspeakable rages toward him. Because of her poor health moments with his mother, Ruth, are rare but precious. Will has own pain from a split-second accident to his eye. Many strangers become friends, teachers, and storytellers to the eager Will. A savior to the family is Lennie, Ray's sister. She understands and loves them all and helps to bring a measure of healing. Lennie's relationship with Ruth is biblical like Ruth and Naomi. Recalling the Hawk's graceful soaring Will can escape from strife to a place of peace and quiet.

Louise Martin Brown

The art of Southern storytelling lives in William Wallis' Hawk. With touching memories and haunting scenes, the reader is drawn into the basic courage of young Will's life. Memorable characters such as Alma, a kind and patient nurse who teaches Will to read; Ruth, Will's fragile mother who teaches him a love for classical music and singing; Tyree, his gentle neighbor who pays attention to him; and his complexly cruel father, Ray, shape this narrative as well as our protagonist's life. Throughout the story the image of a wild hawk emerges to carry Will and the reader through to a sense of freedom. Though each of our own memories are personal, shared they become universal. In this homage of a young boy trying to make sense of his life, we all finally appreciate beauty and truth.

Lanna Richards writes from the heart and this touching novel will both jerk tears and make you smile. I felt as if I was peeping over the fence of the Sullivan's Mississippi plantation -- the characters are that real! And, it was easy to fall in love with them, identify with them, grieve with them, and rejoice with them. Heart of Stones will live on in your memory and remind you what's right about people.

Lanna Richards has brought the pre-Civil War town of Scottsville Mississippi to life in her novel, Heart of Stones. She will draw you into the trials and tribulations of the Sullivan family with her descriptive views of the family's turmoil.
Each character is well defined and easy to love individually, combined they are a dynamic mixture of dreams, loves, deception and triumph. The endurance of Abe and Sarah Sullivan's love, keep their family together through the perils of plantation life. Their unique relationship with "the darkies" on their plantation, show a tenderness of humanity, contradicting society's view of slavery. Even a love story so pure can have complications.
The children are clearly defined by different personalities, each with their own flaws and weakness'. This story explores an emotional level of love that so many people don't have the privilege of experiencing.
I loved this novel and look forward to checking out additional work by this author. Way to go Lanna!

Heart of Stones is a powerful story about love and friendship that transcends time and race. Through the lyrical prose of the author, Lanna Richards, this novel will tug at your heartstrings and take you into another world, another time. This is one of those rare books you can't put down, and the emotional story will stay with you long after you've reached the last page.

Lanna Richards is a talented author, who like a true southern lady, has graciously shared her exquisite debut novel for the world to read.

Award-winning poet Myrna Stone presents How Else to Love the World, an anthology of original free-verse poetry in forms ranging from stanzas to stream-of-consciousness near- prose. At times sensual in its celebration of desire, at times burning with ambition and vivacious joy, at times revealing the darker side of yielding to impulses, How Else to Love the World is a most deliciously nuanced offering from cover to cover. "Yes": Flatterer, / little arbiter / of assent / and admission, you cross our lips / with a sycophantic lisp / that Eve heard first / from the mouth / of the trickster, / that maw of tongue / and jaw, of japery / and spleen, into which / she looked just once / perceiving nothing / of consequence.

It is essential for anyone who is literate and human to experience these poems. It is easy to say what these poems are not. They are not "confessional"; this poet does not burden us with the intensity of her own emotions triggered by the common or unusual thrills and horrors of living. Myrna Stone's poems are not obscure; she does not torture her reader with poems whose meaning, if any, is buried beneath fragments or constructions of language that do not communicate.

These poems are rich, brilliant, wise, engrossing, educational, thrilling, deeply satisfying, Every line in every poem is a surprise at the same time that it is absolutely appropriate in its place. Ms. Stone's command of her language is absolute, and absolutely pleasing to see and hear. Her vocabulary is huge, her range of knowledge no less so.

I can't present a favorite poem or favorite line: this is a stanza chosen literally at random:

Here Bruegel offers us
grain as allegory, as a rich
bullion load of light under
a sapphirine, Netherlandish sky,

and the next continues

his clever corruscation
he sets burning on hillsides

and proceeds. Trust me, this level of intensity does not diminish anywhere in the book. The language throughout is this rich, the perceptions this sharp, and their communication. Here are a few more phrases, again chosen at random: "...who is filling up, like these rooms /with music, from the inside out," "a ransom's weight of welted fox," "or unctuously unclothed," and "brains empty as clapperless bells." In the context of their poems, in the context of this book, these lines dazzle a first reading, and after several readings.

The lines from the stanza above come from the third section of the book, which are responses to works of art, ekphrastic poems. The second section relates various aspects of lives' endings, but characteristically in totally original ways. The first section, in which the poet warms up, loosens her muscles as it were, holds meditations on words, for example, "Incarnadine," "Yes," "Maybe," and relates straightforwardly, but characteristically with great originality, thoughts on cows, wild onions, a young man's forthcoming marriage, late love, and, as a surprise, an address "To the Men I Never Slept With," the only poem in the book where "I" appears.

Ms. Stone is a master craftsperson, as I've said. Fans of form will find a triolet clearly labeled, and will easily recognize at least one sonnet, a villanelle, and a pantoum.

Just when you think Myrna Stone can't write poems any better, her new
book HOW ELSE TO LOVE THE WORLD puts that notion to rest.Her keen sense
of form, unlike so many poets of that style who are cold as ice,launches
her poems of wit, intelligence and eroticism--the precision always human
and often beautiful.This book is a must for your Myrna Stone collection.
If you haven't started your collecting, by all means do so, now--it will
be one of your best investments.Let Myrna have the last word:here's her
title poem:

How Else to Love the World


How else to love the world but rise
each morning from the bed of your making

into the addle and dross the hours devise.
How else to love the world but to rise

as though order is the ardor that drives
this life between waking and waking.

How else to love the world but to rise
each morning from the bed of your making.

I always feel for training folks. They do important work that, when done well, truly adds value to the corporation. However, when good things happen, the credit stays closer to those who did the work rather than with those who helped them learn how to do it. Then, when times are tough, the hatchet chops closer to things like training than it does to the place where the ball was actually fumbled.

There are many books that try to help training programs justify their existence and quantify their value to the corporation. Of those I have read, I think this one comes closest to having a workable and solid program for capturing the value training creates.

I also like the sensible approach the authors take to the cost and time such measurement programs take. So, there are programs of short duration and of limited value that require one kind of measurement (maybe just smile sheets) where other, expensive, long, and strategic programs really are intended to produce long term value. You need to measure its effectiveness so you can document the value your training program added to the company.

The authors have a five level process for information. Levels 1 & 2 are the things you collect during training. Levels 3 & 4 are collected (and measured) after training. Level 5 is calculating the return on investment by using the information collected in levels 1-4 plus their monetary values and the collection of cost data.

I like their emphasis on reliable data, conservative estimates, and hard numbers.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI 48103

very practical information. Gave very easy steps to follow and easy to implement. Reinforced that training can be measured.

Jack J. Phillips' has been writing several books on assessing the impact of training and his latest book, co-authored with Ron D. Stone, is among the best ones, it is indeed a very good introductory book on evaluating training.
The more experienced training practitioner, who may have been using Kirkpatricks 4 levels, will also get a lot out of the book. It adds tools to Kirkpatricks levels but it also completes the Kirkpatrick model by adding a fifth lev, a ROI analysis. However, not everything may be measured in $ so the authors also include some ideas on how to present intangible assets in the reports.

A lot of the concepts have been presented in previous books, but here they are taken a step further when the authors give examples from their long experience within the field. Downloadable forms, worksheets, and checklists (at the publishers website!!), that may be adapted to various needs is a definite valuable add-on for practitioners who do not have an urge "to do it all on their own".

The book starts off with taking a look at the need for measurement and evaluation and presents the ROI-process as a framework for 6 types of measures, (Kirkspatricks' 4, the ROI and intangible assets). Then all levels, possible measurements etc are presented throughout the book, finishing off with key implementation steps. It is all wrapped in the ROI-process, a step-by-step "receipe" for planning, building and implementing the evaluation process.

So when the top management want to know if a training program is worth the money . . .
Reading the book may get you on the track. It may help you talk the language of Money a way that senior management understands.
This is in addition to building better programs.

I have read many articles and books on this topic. While most books cover the evauluation levels defined by Kirkpatrick, this book goes one step further by providing lots of practical examples on how to actually evaluate training at each level. Every page contains at least one useful tip!

This is a great book showing how God's forgiveness can cleanse and heal even the deepest wounds. I recommend it to people who are stuck in a "shame spiral" brought on by past sins.

No matter what you are going through or how long the journey has been this little book is packed full of hope and a significant message to women and even men who struggle with regret and shame of any kind.
If there was ever a topic that touches a central nerve in our country, it's abortion and it's not something most people want to address. The fact is, 1 in 4 women have terminated a pregnancy and for many that brings a lifetime of pain and unrest.
Kimberlee Stone was on the precipice of infertility, that chasm that, in her mind, separated her from women who were healthy and whole. After an abortion in college, she never dreamed that when she and husband Regi were ready to start a family there would be problems. In her book, I've Got A Secret Kim shares her thoughts, prayers, hurts and joys taken from her personal journal entries over the course of several years. Kim doesn't share her story from a present tense but from the midst of the pain, from the very center of her struggle. She opens the pages of her life and pours out her emotional and spiritual dependency on God and God alone,taking you down that sometimes crooked road of faith that we walk.
The important message does not lie in the healing from the abortion alone, it is in the message of hope and restoration for anyone who struggles with guilt and shame, regardless of the circumstances. The message that God does hear our cry, that He is a forgiving God and that He does answer our prayers, is what makes this little book so great!

No matter what you are going through or how long the journey has been this little book is packed full of hope and a significant message to women and even men who struggle with regret and shame of any kind.
If there was ever a topic that touches a central nerve in our country, it's abortion and it's not something most people want to address. The fact is, 1 in 4 women have terminated a pregnancy and for many that brings a lifetime of pain and unrest.
Kimberlee Stone was on the precipice of infertility, that chasm that, in her mind, separated her from women who were healthy and whole. After an abortion in college, she never dreamed that when she and husband Regi were ready to start a family there would be problems. In her book, I've Got A Secret Kim shares her thoughts, prayers, hurts and joys taken from her personal journal entries over the course of several years. Kim doesn't share her story from a present tense but from the midst of the pain, from the very center of her struggle. She opens the pages of her life and pours out her emotional and spiritual dependency on God and God alone,taking you down that sometimes crooked road of faith that we walk.
The important message does not lie in the healing from the abortion alone, it is in the message of hope and restoration for anyone who struggles with guilt and shame, regardless of the circumstances. The message that God does hear our cry, that He is a forgiving God and that He does answer our prayers, is what makes this little book so great!

This brief intro to the life of Ilan Ramon is well written, has beautiful, high-quality photos, and is very accessible to kids. Adults will probably learn something, too. (I did not know, for example, that Ramon's last name was originally Wolferman. After he graduated from flight school in Israel, he decided to take a Hebrew last name.)

The book opens with the blast-off of the space shuttle Columbia and the tragic explosion 16 days later. Then it goes back to "In the Beginning" with the story of Ilan Ramon's life, his career as a fighter pilot, how he was chose to be an astronaut, and his training at NASA. There's an explanation of what a space shuttle is and how it works, the jobs the astronauts do, etc. Also included are some of the experiments that kids had designed for the STARS program. As payload specialist, Ramon was in charge of monitoring these science experiments and reporting back to Earth about their progress.

Ilan was not a religious Jew, but he realized that, as the first Israeli astronaut ever, he was representing all kinds of Jews everywhere. He took several Jewish items aboard the shuttle Columbia, including a mezuzzah, a Torah scroll, and a drawing of a moonscape drawn by a 14-year-old boy who died in a Nazi concentration camp. Ramon also ate kosher food aboard the shuttle.

The last chapter, "Fallen Heroes," handles his death very well. The author explains that "Astronauts know the risk they are taking when they journey into space. But that doesn't make losing them any easier when tragedy strikes." (p. 37) The book closes with warm memories of Ilan from family, colleagues and friends, along with photos of his funeral. Altogether, this book presents a very human, personal picture of a hero that children of all backgrounds can look up to.

[Reviewer's P.S. Ramon was the first Israeli astronaut, but he was not the first Jew in space. That honor goes to American astronaut Judith Resnick, who perished aboard the Challenger shuttle in 1986. May they both rest in peace among the righteous souls in the heavenly Garden of Eden.]

This well-written biography is perfect for both children and adults who want to learn more about Ilan Ramon, a space-age hero whose life ended tragically in the recent shuttle disaster. A good choice for kids, parents, and teachers.

This well-written biography of Ilan Ramon is really accessible to kids. It manages to be heartwarming and pay tribute to an extraordinary guy while being accurate like all good nonfiction should. My kids loved it!

This is a book that is so powerful and deeply soulful that it is not forgettable. "In a Dark Time: A Prisoner's (Dwight Harrison) Struggle for Healing and Change" is a good story, extremely well written and profoundly moving, it is difficult to put down as we must know what happens next to Mr. Harrison. This book brings us into a world that is unknown to most of us, but somehow it is not entirely unfamiliar. Though the story focuses on one man, it's beautiful narrative and lack of commentary lead me to hear the story in such way that it was as much about society and our effects on each other as it was about Dwight Harrison. The only disappointing thing about this book is that it ended.

These authors have such an amazing way of conveying emotions and the healing process. It is so powerful and touches such a deep part of the soul. In a Dark Time left me feeling as if I know this man and could feel his pain and then his rediscovery and growth. The story was so gripping that I couldn't shake it; to have pulled oneself back from being so far gone is such a testimony to what the human soul is capable of. The book made me see that being a victim, and victimizing others, is much more complicated than I had thought. It's not always black and white. It is difficult to convey the effect that this book has had on me, but I wholeheartedly recommend it and urge others to read it.

Rich, haunting and vividly evoked, this is a memoir of losing freedom and winning it back -- one agonizing step at a time. From the spare details of a painful North Carolina boyhood emerges a furiously angry man-child, whose fast, reckless scramble for adulthood and safety sends him on a collision course with morality and the law. Barely 21, he commits a terrible crime. Sentence: 28 years.

"In a dark time, the eye begins to see" says the epigraph. Prison is indeed a dark time; the book is unflinching in its honest portrayal of Harrison's initial rage (nicknamed "Rebel" for his Southern accent, he more than lives up to the word's other meaning). Only gradually does he begin to notice, and eventually accept, the helping hands of friends and mentors reaching out in the darkness.

Read this book if you love thoughtful, deeply psychological memoirs, if you're fascinated by the strange details of prison life (the section on how to make your own coffee is priceless), if you want to know how a boy becomes a criminal before he becomes a man. Read this book to witness first the tragedy of a devastating slide downward and then the remarkable, slow, slippery climb back to humanity.

I.F. Stone was a virtual legend among political junkies in the sixties and seventies, as indeed he was for well over a half century in various journalistic capacities from the Depression era until the late 1980s. He published an independent weekly journal for well over twenty years from the early 1950s until the mid-1970s in which he acted as soul reporter, editor, and publisher, and the work was acclaimed for its consistent accuracy, poignancy, and verve. He caught many scoops others were either not clever enough or courageous enough to cover, and his ability to focus on the way the facts of the situation fit together into a political byline made him a `must-read' for anyone interested in understanding how politics actually got done (down and dirty) in Washington, DC.

This particular book, "In A Time Of Torment, 1961-1967", is a superb collection of some of his most memorable articles, thought-pieces and observations taken from both the I.F. Stone Weekly as well as from the pages of `The Nation' and elsewhere during the most outrageous of times indeed, the turbulent and raucous 1960s. Also important in understanding Stone's approach is the book's subtitle, 'A Nonconformist History Of Our Times'; Stone is the most radical of journalists in that he approaches the issues at hand with supreme objectivity and without political blinders, and yet does so informed by a set of values and ethics that one wonders at his ability to `cut to the chase' and render the truth so consistently and so reliably that one often marvels at how simple he makes such erudition seem.

While describing himself as an anachronism, meaning he represented no one but himself, and found himself uncomfortable working within the constraints of a more institutional setting (even though he had done so quite marvelously for extended periods of time), he was that most rare of literary lions, a widely-read and intellectually circumspect truth-seeker. Like H.L Mencken, his prose often inspired one toward imitation, yet he also wrote clearly, unambiguously, and quite memorably. Herein we find a whole rafter of memorable articles, all short, ranging from several paragraphs to three or four pages in length. He covers subjects as distant from each other as JFK and the free press, from LBJ to China, and from Jeffersonian democracy to the racist issues inherent in the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

Indeed, Stone and his opinions were often viewed with alarm by the powers that be, for they understood all too well that he was read by many of the most important opinion makers and policy wonks within the Washington beltway and beyond, and that his weighing in on a specific issue often resulted in unwanted attention and a virtual spotlight being thrown in that general direction. This is a great book to have in your travel-bag; full of little gems you can read en route to almost anywhere, a pleasurable and intelligent companion that you can enjoy and finish in a few minutes and walk away better informed. He offers timeless intelligence, perspective, and some food for thought in almost everything he writes, and he can be taken in homeopathic doses. While most of the subjects he addressed are now dated, what he had to say was truly timeless. This is a great little book, and one I highly recommend. Enjoy!

Several recent reports examine through a variety of media how enslaved our once free now corporate and monopolistic press has grown. For example, Tim Robbins in his play Embedded Live exposes the way our press, unlike for instance under the journalism of Al GOre in the rice fields of Vietnam, are led around on a leash by the military Public Disinformation Office, and never report the thousands we kill each day in our lust for oil.

Similarly, we see in Orwell Rolls in His Grave how and why this occurs on the domestic front as well, with our political front men and spin doctors tightly controlling the corporate owned media to dictate how we the public must frame our thoughts on important issues, and waste much time on insignificant ones.

This modern travesty of our Founding Fathers's legacy of a free press in order to provide our democracy with the necessary well-informed public was deftly delayed by the great IF Stone, whose likes we need now more than ever.

This collection of articles from his weekly, published between 1961 through 1967 (and thus covering the Kennedy and Johnson administrations), illustrate the kind of journalism our people now must hunger for: intelligent, independent and fearless.

In his brilliant introduction, Stone astutely and prophetically foretold our current dismal condition of a tightly controlled press. He explores how disfavored reporters could be locked out of news sources, just as we have seen happen these past few years. He explores how reporters are seduced by their sources, dazzled in the Pentagon, until Stockholm syndrome fully sets in. Writes Stone: "Reporters tend to be absorbed by the bureaucracies they cover; they take on the habits, attitudes, and even accents of the military or the diplomatic corps. Should a reporter resist the pressure, there are ways to get rid of him (p. xviii)." Stone then cites exclusion through innuendoes, of irresponsibility, or radicalism, even then of Marxism. Nowadays it is accusations of less than fervent patriotism.

Stone avoided such lock-outs by being his own boss and beholden to no one. We must therefore read with reliability his monumental and validated work.

He further states in this introduction that "No bureaucracy likes an independent newspaperman. Whether capitalist or communist, democratic or authoritarian, every regime does its best to color and control the flow of news in its favor (p. xx)." I think in bureaucratic we may now read corporate, and seek for that forum of our reliable independent newspaperman. Perhaps the monopolistic media now would simply dismiss Stone as a fringe whacko (they did then), but we may read his record of contemporary events with confidence, and mourn the lack now of such a strong philosohy of journalism in keeping with Thomas Jefferson's vision for our free democracy.

Stone further writes: "I believe that no society is good and can be healthy without freedom for dissent and for creative independence. ( . . .) In the darkest days of McCarthy, when I was often made to feel a pariah, I was heartened by the thought that I was preserving and carrying forward the best in America's traditions, that in my humble way I stood in a line that reached back to Jefferson. These are the origins and the preconceptions, the hopes and the aspirations, from which sprang the pieces which follow (p.xxi)."

Where beside the life work of Mr. Michael Moore (e.g., Sicko, Fahrenheit 9/11/ Bowling for Columbine / Roger and Me (3 Pack), etc.) do we now discover such hopes and aspirations and commitment to independent reporting?

We must console and inspire one another with a rereading of Mr. Stone, who fortunately has been prolifically and inexpensively reprinted. Economically speaking we cannot afford not to read him. Collections include The War Years, 1939-1945 (A Nonconformist History of Our Times), Truman's time, the Korean war, The Haunted Fifties: 1953-1963 (Nonconformist History of Our Times) with the McCarthy era, as well as this present work and a final one Polemics and prophecies, 1967-1970 (A Nonconformist history of our times). Also of interest in these times is his writings regarding The killings at Kent State;: How murder went unpunished, including, for the first time, the full text of the Justice Dept. secret summary of the FBI findings ... document the Ohio authorities ignored, as well as The Trial of Socrates. Please read, in peace.

I. F. Stone seemed to take it personally whenever any part of the globe was under consideration for being sent back to a new Stone Age by modern weaponry. Regarding proposals for more relentless pursuit of American policy in Vietnam on January 20, 1966, he wrote, "But this tough old troglodyte is not through yet. The whole air force drive in Vietnam is to transform a war we can't win to a war we might; from a war for the loyalties of the Vietnamese people into a war to destroy them; this is giving the obsolete B-52 its last murderous gasp over South Vietnam's jungles and rice paddies." (p. 104) That was a long time ago, and Stone can hardly be blamed for failing to see that the situations which could make such activities popular would fail to end in his own time. He had some grasp of history, but hardly could tell that we were all heading for catastrophes in which being unable to relate would be the new norm.

Torment is the key word in the title. The 1960s were years which were my golden age for understanding the geopolitical situation, because I was young enough to appreciate political views without regard for who was making money or controlling the means of production. I. F. Stone was astute enough to make his own economic criticism count in such times, even in the unlikely context of a review of the life of General Curtis LeMay, "after a lifetime of bomber command, as he told it to the writer of his story, MacKinley Kantor." (p. 92):

His nearest approach to an unfriendly remark about the capitalist system is an angry comment in his account of how the Air Corps flew the mails in 1934 under Roosevelt. "The public bought the idea (and still retains it)," he comments sourly, "that scores of Air Corps pilots lost their lives in an heroic but absurd attempt to emulate the superb performance of the commercial airlines." It is only in the bitterness of his feud with McNamara, that he allows himself to reflect by implication on the Business Man. . . .(p. 93).

Much as such disputes might have mattered in the Department of Defense, I. F. Stone was independent enough, in his own paper, to have his own approach: "The military-industrial complex never had an officer more loyally blinkered." (p. 94). These were merely preliminary matters to be gotten out of the way before discussing the forms of torment which were to be most closely associated with General Curtis LeMay in the tasks which he had willingly attempted to accomplish. The point at which I feel that I learned the most from I. F. Stone was in finding an intellectual foundation for this kind of torment in "the doctrine of the Prussian military writers of the nineteenth century." (pp. 96-7). It was an approach adopted by Hindenburg in Poland, early in World War I, on November 20, 1914, when he wrote, "Lotz is starving. That is deplorable, but it ought to be so. The more pitiless the conduct of the war the more humane it is in reality, for it will run its course all the sooner." (p. 97). The statement was only a little more than fifty years old when Stone quoted it. The amazing thing about this book is how Stone always manages to avoid being so pitiless.