Ward Books

This volume is the basic text on interpreting natural and induced fractures in core. It is essential reading for any geologist engaged in core description. The book includes careful discussions of how to distinguish natural fractures from induced fractures, how to describe fractures and why this is important, and how to record your observations. It is well illustrated with photos and drawings.
Two of the authors (Kulander and Dean) were authors of the 1979 U.S. DOE publication "The application of fractography to core and outcrop fracture investigations" which marked the beginning of geological fractography. Unfortunately, Reagan-era budget cutting resulted in destruction of the original printed copies of this seminal volume. That work is still available via microfilm, but the excellent photos that are the heart of the work are unreadable black blobs in the microfilm reproductions.
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This audio rated better than the DVD because although it has the same stories in the DVD (the book has different ones, pity they don't record them also), you get what you pay for which is just the fairytales and not any extra non related promotional hype. Close you eyes and you can "see" the characters come to life with the voice overs, this is just like the cartoons without the pictures. Terrific for the car, as a bedtime story, or for people like me who won't fully grow up, it is great to play whilst I am doing other creative activities and need some background nonsense to bring back the memories.

Richard J. Ward has written a sensitive and inspiring memoir of the love of his life, his late wife Cecilia. Going through her personal items after her death, he discovers how very precious a lady she truly was. Always the caring wife and mother, she always placed her family's well-being and triumphs before her own-not as a martyr but as a cheerful companion on the journey of their life. Accomplished as a radio broadcaster and as a hostess, she took pride in her husband and children's achievements. Even in the face of difficulties such as moving to Jordan with four small children and later in life, dealing with her blindness, she remained a gracious lady rising above all life's trials with gallantry and Herculean strength. Richard Ward's tender memories have given the reader a view of a truly remarkable woman much-loved in life and dearly-missed after her death.

Anyone who reads this book will become --- if they are not already --- an admirer of the author's parents, Frank (Sheed) and Maisie (Ward); and will be moved to laughter and to tears in tracing the fortunes of this exceptionally talented, quirky, and rollicking Catholic family.

It is odd, and it can provoke a bit of hand-wringing in some readers, that although Wilfrid remembers his mother tenderly and clearly idolizes his father --- and who wouldn't be smitten by Frank's goodness? --- he has rejected in his own life the very core of his parents' character, their strong, sound Catholic Faith. It makes some of Wilfrid's narrative, though affectionate, sound just a tad patronizing: the agnostic son "explaining" his parent's religious fervor to a supercilious and secular world.

But I decided to give Frank & Maisie 5 stars anyway; partly to bring up their overall average (permit me to do this!) and partly because I appreciate the fact that Son Wilfrid NEVER falls into the all-too-common all-warts, my-parents-done-me-wrong genre. Far from it. He has gifted the world with a fundamentally positive and loving re-telling of the family epic, full of wit and drollery but serious for all that.

Through this book I actually met Frank & Maisie: met them, appreciated them, loved them. For this I owe Wilfrid many heartfelt thanks. And five stars for gratitude.

The story of Frank Kingdon Ward and his exploration of this remote unexplored part of Tibet is marvelous. His writing flows, he takes hardship and danger placidly, and his descriptions are wonderful. The photos and maps make you feel as if you are there with him, knowing his porters, the village people and friends. This is a great book to add to your collection of favorites.

In a world where almost everywhere has been explored, it is exciting to read about the world's deepest ravine, almost inaccessible, full of vigin forest, strange plants, and animals, and still not fully explored either by Chinese or Westerners. Frank Kingdon Ward explored it in the 1920s, in what was then Tibet, leaving a stretch of several miles unknown to all but the local tribes. His original book is reproduced as the core of the present one (with some editing of his words to remove comments that would today be viewed as unacceptably racist). There are also accounts of earlier explorations of the region, including the wild borderlands of India to the south, choked by subtropical forests and then populated with violent tribes (this border region is still disputed by China and India). Kingdon Ward was a botanist, focusing on the plant life of the gorge, whereas the new book gives accounts by modern explorers and covers additional aspects, such as Tibetan religion. There are some fascinating photographs: black and white ones by Kingdon Ward and modern color ones. Two I particularly like are the same view of mountains and old-growth forest taken from a cave where Kingdon Ward camped in the 1920s. One is Kingdon Ward's photograph, and the other is taken some 75 years later, with individual trees grown larger, a large glacier melted away, and the treeline higher up the mountains. Recent, separate expeditions by Western and Chinese teams in the 1990s have shrunk the unexplored stretch of the gorge to about three miles. The discoveries of the Westerners are described and illustrated in the book, including a "new" waterfall. Unfortunately, though, politics make an unwelcome intrusion at the end of the story.

Mary Shelley was the daughter of the famous feminist and author, Mary Wollstonecraft, who is best known for her work The Vindication of the Rights of Women. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a young university student, Victor Frankenstein, obsesses with wanting to know the secret to life. He studies chemistry and natural philosophy with the goal of being able to create a human out of spare body parts. After months of constant work in his laboratory, Frankenstein attains his goal and brings his creation to life. Frankenstein is immediately overwrought by fear and remorse at the sight of his creation, a "monster." The next morning, he decides to destroy his creation but finds that the monster has escaped. The monster, unlike other humans, has no social preparation or education; thus, it is unequipped to take care of itself either physically or emotionally. The monster lives in the forest like an animal without knowledge of "self" or understanding of its surroundings. The monster happens upon a hut inhabited by a poor family and is able to find shelter in a shed adjacent to the hut. For several months, the monster starts to gain knowledge of human life by observing the daily life of the hut's inhabitants through a crack in the wall. The monster's education of language and letters begins when he listens to one of them learning the French language. During this period, the monster also learns of human society and comes to the realization that he is grotesque and alone in the world. Armed with his newfound ability to read, he reads three books that he found in a leather satchel in the woods. Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, Milton's Paradise Lost, and a volume of Plutarch's Lives. The monster, not knowing any better, read these books thinking them to be facts about human history. From Plutarch's works, he learns of humankind's virtues. However, it is Paradise Lost that has a most interesting effect on the monster's understanding of self. The monster at first identifies with Adam, "I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence." The monster, armed only with his limited education, thought that he would introduce himself to the cottagers and depend on their virtue and benevolence; traits he believed from his readings that all humans possessed. However, soon after his first encounter with the cottagers, he is beaten and chased off because his ugliness frightens people. The monster is overwrought by a feeling of perplexity by this reaction, since he thought he would gain their trust and love, which he observed them generously give to each other on so many occasions. He receives further confirmation of how his ugliness repels people when, sometime later, he saves a young girl from drowning and the girl's father shoots at him because he is frightful to look at. The monster quickly realizes that the books really lied to him. He found no benevolence or virtue among humans, even from his creator. At every turn in his life, humans are judging him solely based on his looks. The monster soon realizes that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he is most alike. Instead, he comes to realize that he most represents Satan. The monster is jealous of the happiness he sees humans enjoy that he has never attained for himself. The monster tells Frankenstein that he found his lab journal in his coat pocket and read it with increasing hate and despair as he came to understand what Frankenstein's intent was in creating him. The monster curses Frankenstein for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust.

Shelley's intent here is plain to see. "The fate of the monster suggests that proficiency in `the art of language' as he calls it, may not ensure one's position as a member of the `human kingdom." In a sense, she is showing that both her parents were mistaken when they advocated greater education reform for people. They thought education would make people better, which in turn would improve society for all. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein contradicts this belief.

Starting with the full title of Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus one can instantly see that mythology was integral to her book. Lord Byron, poet and friend of the Shelley's was writing a poem entitled Prometheus, and Mary was reading the Prometheus legend in Aeschylus' works when she had a dream, which was the impetus for her book. The Greek god Prometheus, is known for two important tasks that he performed, he created man from clay, and he stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. The stealing of fire really angered Zeus because the giving of fire began an era of enlightenment for humankind. Zeus punished Prometheus by having him carried to a mountain, where an eagle would pick at his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again.

The presence of fire and light in this gothic story helps to point to the similarities to Prometheus and Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, in Shelley's book. The book uses light as a symbol of discovery, knowledge, and enlightenment. The natural world is full of hidden passages, and dark unknown scientific secrets; Victor's goal as a scientist is to grasp towards the light. Light is a by-product of fire that the monster learned quickly when he is living on his own. The monster experienced fires' duality when he first encountered it in an unattended fire in the woods. He is mesmerized by the fact that fire produces light in the darkness in the woods, but is shocked at the sensation of pain it gives him when he touches it. Victor is defiant of god in the same way that Prometheus was defiant of Zeus. Victor steals the secret of life from god and creates a human out of spare body parts. He does this out of an altruistic wish to spare humankind from the pain and suffering of death. Thus, Victor Frankenstein embodies both aspects of the Promethean myth creation and fire. Victor in a sense has the same experience with the fire of enlightenment similar to his monster; he is "burned" by the fire of enlightenment. Victor also suffers from the classic Greek tragic condition of hubris for his transgression against god and nature.

The book also adopts two other great mythic legends. One is Adam from the Bible. Victor Frankenstein bears striking resemblance to Adam and his fall from grace for eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. The other is Satan, a mythic figure that Shelley admired from her readings in Milton's book Paradise Lost. In an interesting juxtaposition of booth myths, she expands on the motif of the fall from grace in her book when she portrays the monster comparing himself to Adam; after he read, Milton's book Paradise Lost. The monster tells Victor, that he at first identifies with Adam God's first creation. "I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence." However, after several incidents of mistreatment that he suffered from the humans he encountered in his travels; the monster soon realized that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he was most alike. Instead, he came to realize that he most represented Satan. The monster's feelings of hatred and despair stem from the fact that humans found him grotesque to look at and would not accept him as a member of human society. The monster cursed Victor for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust. Thus, it is obvious for all to see that Shelley's Frankenstein is replete with mythological references and they are central to the plot.

This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities. Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy, and literature.

This brief but expansive treatise on Free Speech in the Catholic Church bears the Church's official approbation indicated by the Imprimatur issued in 1959 by then Vicar General of Westminister, the Rev. E Morrogh Bernard, and the Nihil Obstat issued by the Censor Deputatis, Adrianus Van Vleit, Doctor of Theology, and is thus found to be free of any doctrinal and moral error which would obstruct its publication as a work of Catholic theology.

You may take a while to grow accustomed to the dialectic rhetoric of Father Rahner, one of the most important and influential Catholic theologians of that crucial era, as he appears to advance in steps, placing one leg before the other. And yet his message grows clear, and a prophetic clarion cry for our current often oppressive ecclesiology.

Father Rahner draws his theme from a public pronouncement by Pope Pius XII published in the official newspaper of the Vatican, Osservatore Romano, in February 18, 1950: "Finally, I should like to add a word about public opinion within the fold of the Church ( . . .) Only people who know little or nothing about the Catholic Church will be surprised to hear this. For she too is a living body, and there would be something missing from her life if there were no public opinion within her, a defect for which pastors as well as the faithful would be responsible. . . . (pp. 14-15)"

Father Rahner then defines this for-then new concept of public opinion, how it is manipulated, how it is truly discerned, and what role it has ever played within the Catholic Church. Father Rahner develops the Papal statement that we would have a defect in not hearing public opinion truly, for which the pastors themselves would be responsible.

Father Rahner interprets one part of this Papal declaration thusly: "The existence of a public opinion is justified by the fact that the Church is a society of human beings and that human societies essentially involve public opinion. Any attempt to stifle it would be a mistake, for which both clergy and faithful would be held responsible."

Interestingly he finds one means of hearing public opinion is listening to the reactions of the public to various extraordinary statements by theologians. He therefore declares theologians not to be condemned for proposing new ideas and redefinitions, as through this process of dialogue and conversation we may hear truth. He also has some very wise and kind words for those theologians who dare propose new ways of expressing the eternal truths, to the inevitable condemnation of some uncomprehending fellow believers.

Father Rahner, writing in the late fifties and fully conscious of the horrors of totalitarian states, continues: "In an age of totalitarian states, when individuality is suppressed and 'ideology' supplied, the Church has to delimit her position more clearly, to prevent her own character and nature from being confused with those of a totalitarian state. ( . . .) the Church is not a totalitarian religious state no matter what so many people outside the Church may think and say to the contrary. (p. 17)"

Father Rahner continues, ever under the auspices of the Nihil Obstat, concluding, " . . .men's thoughts and feelings should not be prescribed for them (p. 21)," expressing in these words a strong sense of true and traditional ecclesiology we need to recall now in this brave new era of oaths of fidelity which a priori dictate a false and unholy obedience of judgment and of thought, which smell more of totalitarianism and not of the freely flowing Holy Spirit.

Indeed, Father Rahner finds: "Catholics must be allowed ( . . .) to talk their heads off (p. 25)" and to be heard. He further states: "It is well for us to bear in mind the fact that, in the sphere in which public opinion has a part to play, Church authorities have no gift of infallibility ( . . .) they are not infrequently in danger, for the same reasons, of knowing only a limited, merely 'clerical' and traditionally sheltered segment of real life and the real position. If they do not allow the people to speak their minds, do not, in more dignified language, encourage or even tolerate, with courage and forbearance and even a certain optimism free from anxiety, the growth of a public opinion within the Church, they run the risk of directing her from a soundproof ivory tower, instead of straining their ears to catch the voice of God, which can also be audible within the clamour of the times. (p. 26)"

But certainly I tax your patience with merely a glimpse at less than a quarter of this amazing and eye-opening and essential examination of our ecclesiology and our role within our Church, this theological treatise so accessible to us now a half century later and which bears the official and ancient Imprimatur permitting its publication as a Catholic text, and the Nihil Obstat granted by an official Church censor having evaluated it by the Church's objective, moral and doctrinal criteria. Please read this rather brief yet profound book with confidence and with Faith, and speak freely within Our Church, with the charity and the humility which has ever been our hallmark.

In 1983, TSR published the 2nd edition of the rules. It filled out the thinly-written 1st edition, with "expanded mutation, equipment and NPC descriptions, rewritten and reorganized basic rules and a full set of previously unpublished campaign rules." Also filled with Larry Elmore art; nearly all of the animal/monster/NPC encounters has a sketch. One of my favorite editions of Gamma World, maintaining the spirit of the 1st edition, yet much more playable.
INCLUDES:
* 64-page Basic Rules Booklet.
* 32-page Adventure Booklet.
* Double-sided color mapsheet with post-apocalypse America on one side and the ruined city of Pitz Burke on the other.

Wayne Gralian
Wayne's World of Books

Tim Newbury's talent and expertise in landscape design make this a gem of a book - I wanted to walk right into the gardens he illustrates with! He presents designs for a variety of plot shapes, including how to transform awkward shapes into visually appealing areas. He offers low cost starter gardens, low maintenance gardens, formal gardens, plant lover's gardens and family gardens in a wealth of clearly described detail. The book is well indexed and makes an effective reference tool. Do get this one - it's excellent!