Articles Books

Thought this would be something similar to PostSecret, as that was what came recommended, Boy was I wrong.

Not a book for those seeking to be entertained on late nights and rainy days.

Very Interesting. Could not keep my eyes out of the book until the last page.

Found II is a great find for anyone. Full of stories and lives of strangers, it will give you a look inside of the world around you. With items ranging from old photographs to letter to Santa, you will be sure to find something you like.

Found II is a great book! I absolutely love it. There are plenty of letters, notes, photos, lists, papers and other oddities that people have left behind. I like how they set the book up, too. They group a few things together that have the same idea/theme. The only thing I thought would make this book SOOOO much better, is if it was in color. But aside from that, I LOVE IT. I will be buying FOUND 1, as well. Highly reccommend it to anyone looking for some insight into the human mind... well, kind of. Still a good read, nonetheless.

Although I can see why this book holds such fascination for many adult American readers, those of us who would rather not be reminded of the depths of depravity of the human mind would not enjoy it at all. I bought this book as a gift for my deep-thinking teen-aged daughter, thinking it would be a novelty for her to read, but as I skimmed through it before wrapping it, I realized what a bad choice I had made. Though there are some funny and inspiring tidbits throughout it, much of it was crude and offensive. No, I didn't read the whole thing, but what I read was enough to turn me off completely...and sadden me that our society has stooped to this level. My only comfort is that many of the sick things I read were meant to be kept private in the first place. I just wish they had been.

I purchased this book for a class, but would recommend it to anyone who would like to improve their written memories of trips - whether family vacations or exotic. This will help you hone in on what is important and how to make your stories memorable and interesting to those who read them.

If you've ever thought about becoming a travel writer this is a must have additional to your arsenal. But don't expect to sit back and just read. This book contains lots of exercises to motivate you to write.

The book itself is a marvelous example of good writing and contains many examples of what good writing is all about. It spurs you on to develop your own style and pace providing ample motivation to get you going.

The book covers all the basics although it's a little short on query letters. There are other books devoted to this subject so don't let that be a deterrent. One of O'neil's specialties is her presentation of The Travel Journal. This along with sections on Structure and Pace plus Style and Tone can help you with any type of writing you might be engaged in.

In order to learn most anything we need to take classes or lessons. I think of this book as a wonderful class in becoming a first rate Travel Writer with the lessons included. If you're a seasoned veteran you might find this book doesn't suit your needs, but for those of us who are just starting out you won't be disappointed.

Travel Writing by Peat O'Neil


An excellent book for the beginning travel writer. Ms. O'Neil includes a host of exercises contrived to sharpen the writer's senses and help to construct narrative. She also covers such things as how to plan your travel wardrobe and what to take along, building relationships with editors, side-line income and such.
She does give a short overview of guidebook writing (7 pages) but the bulk of the book is about writing articles--whether for magazines, newspapers or online markets. There is also a chapter on photographs. Although I have the newest edition, things change so fast that information on digital photography, taking notes (laptop? pda?) will always be a little behind the times.
Where O'Neil is best is in getting a grounding for travel writing. With every Tom, Dick and Mary writing up their voyages on the internet, it takes a lot to create a colorful, interesting article that is about a trip without being an ego trip. The author goes over the different types of articles, how to research an assignment, how to get an assignment. As many would-be authors are amazed to discover, travel writing requires work. This is a good starting point.Crafting the Travel Guidebook: How to Write, Publish & Sell Your Travel Book

Great, useful resource and advice for the aspiring travel writer - giving inspiration to reach for travel literature, rather than what I refer to as 'travel fluff,' with some practical wisdom thrown in. A fun read, too.

I bought this book because it was required for my Irish Literature class and a Travel Writing class before we left for Ireland. I only read a chapter or two, but it seemed alright. I just stuck to my own style of writing rather than follow any advice here.

A must read for senior managers wanting to justify the long term commitment of moving towards business process oriented architectures.

Also a great source of inspiration for the ones that, like me, need to constantly educate customers on the benefits of BPM and Business-Process-oriented information platforms.

The core of the book is about the rebuttal of an article argued that IT was not longer a key differentiator. Through the book, they introduce BPM and are able to prove their cases. More than ever, IT is a source of strategic competitiveness to the organization.

Concepts discussed in this book:

*Time is moving responsibilities from IT to Business Analyst. The same happened with the Spreadsheet and now it will happen with the Business Process.
*Enterprise will have portfolios of business processes constantly analyzed for performance from different angles
*BPM is not automation since human interaction can not be automated.
*Processes cast in stone (CRM, ERP, etc) can be as much of a liability as an asset.
*BPM is to IT what CAD/CAM is for manufacturing
*IT shouldn't be the owner of the business process.
*BPM is digitizing the process as data was in the 90s
*IT will become a provisionary of Business Processes

As anyone who is responsible for strategic IT planning can tell you, it's a new dawn in IT these days - especially as IT spending relates to improved business efficiencies and the bottom line. While Carr's HBR article is a simplistic and flawed interpretation of where IT is heading, Smith and Fingar present a well thought and presented, point by point analysis of, not only what is wrong with Carr's misguided vision, but also solutions offered by new directions in IT of paramount importance to strategic corporate management. A significant element of my company's competitive edge came from developing advanced business processes, so we are already up to speed on the directions towards business process management espoused by Smith and Fingar. I do, however, know of many examples of companies and organizations that might be looking for excuses to minimize their IT expenditures due to problems with previous flawed IT strategies and execution. For those companies, Carr's article might provide the perfect justification to retrench. This book, on the other hand, is for forward thinking strategists who are looking to optimize and innovate to maintain and improve their efficiency and competitive edge.

Smith and Fingar present an interesting monograph on the current state, and future possibilities, of IT.

Their premise is that IT, as we know it is over, Business Process Management (BPM) represents the next wave of corporate computing. They do a good job of defining IT but never do they adequately define BPM. We are told what it isn't; it's not data, it's not hardware or software, and it's not Web services. But what is it? It is loosely defined, first, as a value-chain that encompasses suppliers and then as the white space between the boxes on an organization chart (referencing Rummler's terrific book on managing process).

Regardless, I believe they make a valid argument. It's not how many servers you have, it's about how you're using the data and applications to make money and trounce the competition.

But Carr also makes valid arguments, after all, who screws things up like IT? Who would think that in this day and age we still have runaway IT projects and projects that lack business value? There is a dearth of business sense among IT managers and there are too many business managers who find computers a mystery and abdicate business decisions to IT managers.

At times the book becomes strident and takes on the spirit of a manifesto. The section on IT investments, and how they're going to soar again, references a science fiction writer and talk show host as sources. Later on, Smith and Fingar lament that Carr's article will destroy economic growth by giving CEOs justification for withholding IT investment. Perhaps the silver lining here is that vendors will offer products and services that add business value and IT and business managers will have to make solid business arguments to justify purchases.

What is implicit but not explicitly stated in this book or Carr's article is the importance of governance: businesses must articulate strategy and align IT with that strategy. Organizations must select and manage IT projects as business projects managed by capable and IT savvy business leaders and business savvy IT managers. This will distinguish those firms that can effectively utilize IT resources from those that cannot.

The examples and solutions within Fingar and Smith's book clearly illustrate that the future of business process exists within a framework that reaches beyond the box that now defines IT.

For any one that wants a glimpse into the bright future of e-commerce and the marriage of IT & Business, this is a must read.

Having browsed through both sides of the story, i have to say that Howard Smith and Peter Fingar do an excellent job bringing the importance of business processes to the forefront. In the systems of tomorrow, business processes will play an important role but that role has to be supported and realized by a sound architecture. IT in this context will be important but will perhaps assume a slightly different flavour.

Dears

I am grateful buy book in Amazon. My order arrive in the predict day , in state perfect. All the information I need for choice the book was available before in the site. Good work, Amazon person.

Óthon Pereira
from Brazil
Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article: Second Edition (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)

This was the best $10 I've ever invested. The book is wonderful; clear and concise. It's made a big difference with my papers through understanding that writing is a process that mostly begins with angst, that there are a few quick tricks that can make any paper much better and that big words in scientific papers don't make the paper scientific (or readable). BUY THE BOOK!!!

I bought the first edition of this book about 20 years ago and found it very helpful. I long ago misplaced my copy and so was happy to order the new second edition. On reading the book again, I found Becker's advice to be as good as I remembered, but I was disappointed that he had made so few changes in the "second edition." Essentially, the first edition has been reprinted verbatim--even typos weren't corrected--with a relatively few pages of additional material added to the last two chapters. Chapter 9 now contains Becker's general thoughts on recent software that he considers useful to writers. This discussion would have been more helpful if he had been willing to mention specific programs. I guess he decided not to either to avoid giving free advertising or to avoid dating the discussion. The last chapter gives some interesting, if brief, observations on the place of writing in modern academic life.

In short, if you already have the first edition, there's not much point in buying the second edition. If, on the other hand, you haven't encountered this book before and you would like some useful tips on academic writing, it's well worth the price.

The author provided a guide to assist the social scientist in writing clear, concise articles, books, etc. Tips for revising/editing were helpful, as were the suggestions for overcoming procrastination, and finding critical colleagues to assist in the process. The tips, I think, were helpful; however, as the author points out, many scientific journals are not interested in articles that are clear and concise.

I actually purchased the book for the person I share an office with. He is currently working on his dissertation and kind of at a stand still on page 5. After reading the book, within two weeks he was on page 50 and continues to progress ahead. He really liked the book and has recommended it to several other people. The book helped him focus less on making sure everything he was writing was perfect and more on trying to get a first draft done. While the book assisted him with this, it will probably not be helpful once the draft is done.

The big dirty little secret about law journals is that the articles in most of them -- including the most prestigious law journals -- are not peer-reviewed or faculty-reviewed but are merely student-reviewed! And the law journals with only student review of the articles are not just educational exercises for the students -- the Harvard Law Review alone was cited 4410 times (!) by federal courts alone in the decade 1970-79 alone (though the frequency of law journal citation by the courts has declined sharply). More details are in this article in my blog:

http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2008/05/judge-jones-hypocritical-about-peer.html

No amount of advice on legal writing can compensate for the lack of "peer" review of articles in law journals. By "peer," I mean any expert on the subject of the paper -- the expert does not even have to be a legal professional. IMO the term should be "expert review" instead of "peer review."

I made up this limerick about Judge Jones and his Kitzmiller v. Dover decision, which was not "peer-reviewed" because it was not appealed:

Judge Jones once said that peer review
is needed to show that something's true.
But that's OK,
he didn't say,
his Dover ruling was peer-reviewed too.

I am giving this book a big fat single star because it apparently does not recognize the lack of peer (expert) review as a serious shortcoming of typical law journals.

Former clerk to the Supreme Court and Professor at UCLA Eugene Volokh has given a remarkable gift to the legal community that would be a bargain at twice the price. It delivers pragmatic and thoughtful advice in a remarkably clear and lucid style. Moreover, it is not simply clear for law books--frankly, a low bar to pass--Volokh writes for the ordinary public daily on his eponymous blog (where you can read the first chapter of this book), and the skills required for that task manifest themselves in this work.

Academic Legal Writing is also extremely systematic. Every aspect of the paper is taken into consideration, from the approach to research, to avoiding off-putting humor or politically charged language, time tables for submissions, and so on, even including how to draft letters to professors and law reviews asking them to look over your work and to consider it for publication.

Academic Legal Writing is really in a class by itself. That said, perhaps I can indicate its greatness by invoking a few other names. Academic Legal Writing is a perfect companion volume to Bryan Gardner's The Elements of Legal Style. It is as clear and concise and accessible as Marvin Chirelstein's Concepts and Case Analysis in the Law of Contracts, and it deserves to be as ubiquitous and is certainly as valuable, thoughtful, and comprehensive as Joseph Glannon's E&E Civil Procedure and Erwin Chemerinsky's Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies. If you know these books, you should be going "wow." If you don't, and you are going to law school, I advise reading all of them. (Also Getting to Maybe, which I never found compelling, but am in the distinct minority view on.)

I read Elizabeth Fajans and Mary R. Falk's Scholarly Writing for Law Students, which is also good and which Volokh recommends. Academic Legal Writing appears to be a very conscious next step beyond that book. In a perfect world, buying and reading both would be advisable. In the real world, I read Scholarly Writing once, Academic Legal Writing many, many times. Academic Legal Writing is your desert island pick.

Please do yourself a favor and read this book. If you don't, you will simply be doing all of your competitors a likely unrequited kindness.

One final note: Professor Volokh is a conservative of the thoughtful and sober variety. I am a liberal of the sort who avidly studies the Endangered Species List to see if "Thoughtful Conservatives" have been listed yet. This is not an issue: Professor Volokh's political beliefs are discernible in this book only by the most careful parsing: in some of his examples, he points out the misleading use of statistics in gun violence, an academic preoccupation of his. You could then do the math and figure out that he has at least one conservative leaning. Otherwise, his politics would be utterly inscrutable. And, frankly, this book would be on my bookshelf even if Professor Volokh had say, written a memo arguing that the Geneva Conventions were outdated and pointless. John Yoo, your path to redemption is clear.

Just like the title, this book is a great guide to "Academic Legal Writing." Step by step, the author takes you through the process of writing a publishable legal article. Every aspect is covered: from how to form a thesis to how to publicize and publish your finished product. Every law review student should read this book while writing his or her student Note.

Former clerk to the Supreme Court and Professor at UCLA Eugene Volokh has given a remarkable gift to the legal community that would be a bargain at twice the price. It delivers pragmatic and thoughtful advice in a remarkably clear and lucid style. Moreover, it is not simply clear for law books--frankly, a low bar to pass--Volokh writes for the ordinary public daily on his eponymous blog (where you can read the first chapter of this book), and the skills required for that task manifest themselves in this work.

Academic Legal Writing is also extremely systematic. Every aspect of the paper is taken into consideration, from the approach to research, to avoiding off-putting humor or politically charged language, time tables for submissions, and so on, even including how to draft letters to professors and law reviews asking them to look over your work and to consider it for publication.

Academic Legal Writing is really in a class by itself. That said, perhaps I can indicate its greatness by invoking a few other names. Academic Legal Writing is a perfect companion volume to Bryan Gardner's The Elements of Legal Style. It is as clear and concise and accessible as Marvin Chirelstein's Concepts and Case Analysis in the Law of Contracts, and it deserves to be as ubiquitous and is certainly as valuable, thoughtful, and comprehensive as Joseph Glannon's E&E Civil Procedure and Erwin Chemerinsky's Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies. If you know these books, you should be going "wow." If you don't, and you are going to law school, I advise reading all of them. (Also Getting to Maybe, which I never found compelling, but am in the distinct minority view on.)

I read Elizabeth Fajans and Mary R. Falk's Scholarly Writing for Law Students, which is also good and which Volokh recommends. Academic Legal Writing appears to be a very conscious next step beyond that book. In a perfect world, buying and reading both would be advisable. In the real world, I read Scholarly Writing once, Academic Legal Writing many, many times. Academic Legal Writing is your desert island pick.

Please do yourself a favor and read this book. If you don't, you will simply be doing all of your competitors a likely unrequited kindness.

One final note: Professor Volokh is a conservative of the thoughtful and sober variety. I am a liberal of the sort who avidly studies the Endangered Species List to see if "Thoughtful Conservatives" have been listed yet. This is not an issue: Professor Volokh's political beliefs are discernible in this book only by the most careful parsing: in some of his examples, he points out the misleading use of statistics in gun violence, an academic preoccupation of his. You could then do the math and figure out that he has at least one conservative leaning. Otherwise, his politics would be utterly inscrutable. And, frankly, this book would be on my bookshelf even if Professor Volokh had say, written a memo arguing that the Geneva Conventions were outdated and pointless. John Yoo, your path to redemption is clear.

Succinct, straightforward, info not available elsewhere (as easily), time-tested advice. Clearly worth having.

An excellent book that will be very helpful to women entrepeneurs and small business owners. It illustrates the courage, perserverance and hard work needed by women all over the world to succeed in the business world. It is a timely publication!

Dr.Jalbert's unique experiences, knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject, as well as her dedication to accuracy makes this a very valuable book.

I have read this book on one breath.It is written in colours and contains a mass of useful information.Besides,I think Susanne is interesting person.Her beleif and affairs give stimulus to move forward.The language of the book is very simple what is important for not native english-speakers.

This is not a book that should used as a adjunct text in any context. My colleague gave it to me to read, and I was shocked - it is rife with misspellings, poorly written passages, and questionable linkages between the women in the book and the author's activities.

This book reads like the senior theses turned in by my undergraduate students, except my students know to edit their writing, and utilize spell check, before turning their papers into me.

More should be written about women in the former Soviet Union. I hope they will find a more coherent voice than this one.

Women in transitioning and developing countries encounter many obstacles, cultural, political, or economic, in creating successful business enterprises. This book's essays are an excellent illustration of these issues and how such women have succeeded. The book would be a helpful adjunct text for business courses.

You Are Our Voice is one of the best introductions to the courage, perseverence, intelligence and ingenuity of women succeeding in spite of great odds. It serves to introduce us to worlds which we can hardly imagine. And yet I feel that we all share significant common vision and heart, at every level.
I have bought 12 copies of the book, so far. Everyone should know of Suzanne's work and of the spirit of these women.

A GREAT read! It has specific movies and historical realizations I had never thought of!

When you're both a student of history and a movie buff, as I am, it can be difficult to sit and watch a film that presumes to have an accurate historical context without fighting the urge to evaluate it and pick holes in it. And I'm not the only one. This is a collection of analytical essays, most of high quality, by experts (not all of them historians) analyzing and critiquing individual films: Stephen Jay Gould on _Jurassic Park,_ Antonia Fraser on _Anne of the Thousand Days,_ Thomas Fleming on _1776,_ Dee Brown on _Fort Apache,_ William Manchester on _Young Winston,_ and numerous others. Sticking to those films about which I have some knowledge of the historical events they claim to portray, most are right on the money. James McPherson, commenting on _Glory,_ points out that while the context and general atmosphere are very well done, and the costuming and so on are exact, there are still deliberate historical errors for the sake of drama; none of the soldiers in Col. Shaw's 54th Massachusetts were ex-slaves, for instance, all of them having been recruited from among the state's free black population. And Catherine Clinton does an excellent job taking the wind out of _Gone with the Wind_'s mythical sails. There's a great deal of good information and criticism here and it's a compliment to say that nearly any of these essays will start an argument.

This book is just too damn interesting not to go into a revised edition that would, welcomingly, include a few more recent examples of the movies portending to convey history. It is cleverly organized, with an actual historical "timeline" that is matched with a selected movie that attempted to portray events for that period or year. It starts all the way back in the Jurrasic period, with "Jurrasic Park," of course. Each movie critique is written by a different film expert or historian, so you get a lot of diversity of perspective as well as writing style. There is a very intelligent interview of director John Sayles ("Eight Men Out" "Metowan") in the preface, which may be reason enough for film buffs to purchase this book.

One can either browse through the book and focus on "favorite" or "hated" films of the past, or read it straight through. Each essay offers at least one very good insight on the nature of history and how elusive the "accurate" accounting of an era or event can be.

The overall impression this book leaves is that movies, for all their ostensible efforts to "recreate" historical realities, will NEVER get it quite right. That's because they are products of their own times, and cannot ever fully escape the sensibilities of their own historical eras. Given this approach, the reader cannot help but gain a deeper appreciation for the exacting work of historians -- even if he or she is first attracted to the book out of interest in film. Films (and histories) explored here include "Spartacus," "Aguirre, Wrath of God," "Houdini" "Anne of a Thousand Days," "Henry V" (both Oliver and Branagh)"They Died With their Boots On", as well as many more. Since this book's publication, there have been more films that have either come close to, or completely mangled historical reality, so a revised edition would be most welomed. So to Mark Carnes, et al. -- PLEASE???

This book is commendable for its conception but is flawed in its premise and execution. The problem is there are too many fingers in the pie. I would have liked to read about one historian's perspective on all the films reviewed. Instead, each film was addressed and compared to historical recollections by a different author. There is no uniformity of thought or perspective. For instance, I am sure that if Stephen Ambrose had reviewed TORA! TORA! TORA! he may have seen that film in a much more favorable light than did Akira Iriye. One can speculate to infinitum. It is possible to find and read countless books on a given historical topic. The point I am making is that each author has the ability to bring different perspectives or interpretations of historical record that may result in different conclusions of events or more importantly ideas. If you were to ask an auditorium full of historians what was the most important factor contributing to the start of the Civil War I am sure you may get at least five good answers. Perhaps the idea that a film conveys is more important than the accuracy of each step that led to that idea. I think that SPARTACUS is an important film not as a representation of a historical record but for the idea that the inherent rights of human beings to live free is a notion worth dying for. Kirk Douglas as SPARTACUS stated something to the effect that he would never stand by and see two men battle and die just for the amusement of other men. There is something very noble about that statement and to the visuals on the screen that precipitated that assertion. To touch a chord of emotion from the audience is really the magic of the cinema. I never once ever thought that the purpose of the cinema was to teach history. For the audience the main purpose of the cinema is to be entertained and if you take it a few more steps perhaps come away with an idea or spark of imagination. That's the beauty of the cinema.

This is a very interesting and useful book but I don't exactly like the overall point of view that it takes on motion pictures. It takes many historically based films and critiques them by comparing what is on the screen to actual historical events. Each chapter is devoted to one film (in most instances) and is critiqued by a different authority. The one constant that I see running throughout this book is that history does not make for good motion pictures if you are gazing through the eyes of the historian. That disturbs me. Motion pictures are a business as well a legitimate art form. If a historically based movie gets your interest as well as entertains you then perhaps that movie has fulfilled its purpose. The movie is the catalyst. It is up to you to dig up the history book and see what was recorded. And if you dig up a second history book it is very possible that those same events may be recorded slightly different. I liked the critique by Sean Wilentz on "THE BUCCANEER: Two Films" where he states that they stand somewhere in between fact and fiction. Akira Iriye is too critical of TORA! TORA! TORA! When you recall that particular motion picture, that's the one that stands out as a film that tried to get all the facts correct. Americans and Japanese respective of their home countries directed it. Iriye's criticism is almost ludicrous trying to state that inflections in the voices of some of the actors actually distorted the true meaning of their words. In light of PEARL HARBOR (2001) Akira Iriye is way off mark. Marshall De Bruhl's words about THE ALAMO are redundant and superficial. THE ALAMO was John Wayne's screen fulfillment of the legend. THE ALAMO is a great American film and it perpetuates that legend till this day. I liked what Stephen E. Ambrose had to say about THE LONGEST DAY. Ambrose recognizes that half the duality of filmmaking is a business. His approach and comments are very insightful and well written. As seen by James H. McPerson GLORY comes off best. It deserves it. "PAST IMPERFECT" is a good book but I just wish there were more input from the filmmakers.

Jennifer Rosen is a true expert on wines of all types. She displays many innovative and fun ways to share her knowledge. A great read for wine lovers at all levels.

Rosen's writing is creative and appealing without seeming forced, which is rare. This book will entertain even those who don't feel compelled to read everything ever written about the world of wine. Give this book to someone who's never read a wine book and they'll laugh their way through it before realizing how much they've learned.

Rosen is one of the food and wine writers I turn to when I want a little bit o' fun inserted into my day. She reminds me of what attracted me to the wine business in the first place. I can't read Rosen without smiling.

Dave Chambers, Wine Merchant

I really enjoyed Jennifer's book. She has a great way with the American language. The book holds your attention while teaching aspects of wine that are not normally covered by the "Wine Snobs". I actually preferred her second book, but this was worth my time. I now use both books as hostess gifts when visiting my wine drinking friends.
She's also a Hottie!

Pick this book up if you want to have a laugh about the world's oldest cupa. Jennifer Rosen examines people's relationships with wine and the many facets of wine's own personality. You'll laugh, you'll learn, you'll toast this natural, relaxed approach to such an enamored and intimidating subject. So pour some good bag-in-box cabernet into your favorite Happy Birthday mug, kick back and enjoy.

Waiter, There's a Horse In My Wine is a chuckle-inducing collection of writings by internationally-acclaimed wine writer and educator Jennifer Rosen. Written with especial tongue-in-cheek humor, Waiter, There's a Horse in my Wine shows the reader how to deal with wine snobs, impress friends, and give enemies pause! Cartoonish black-and-white illustrations add a charming touch to this delightful guide; regardless of whether one is a connoisseur of wine or hardly ever drinks it, Waiter, There's a Horse In My Wine is just plain fun to read.

Great if you love Madonna, as I do. Also, good if you are just interested in reading about her. She is fascinating....always has been, always will be. Madonna is a living legend! Also recommend, Encyclopedia Madonnica.....Madonna is absolutely fabulous!

Being a Madonnaologists in my own write, I enjoyed this history. I also found the Madonna stuff in POSTMODERNISM FOR BEGINNERS, intriguing.

Madonna is the ultimate emperor in new clothes (all pomp, no circumstance), but these Rolling Stone Files collections are well organized, easy to follow, and fascinating in their ability to let us follow a career via some of the best writing in the business. Madonna is a fascinating anomaly because of her almost freakish ambition combined with an appalling lack of real talent. That makes this a very readable collection, even if I never listen to the music or see the godawful movies.

Rolling Stone and Madonna?Why not.Her being in the cover on all reincartions deserves a compilation.Essential to all Madonnaics,here we could trace her humble begginings,rise to fame,the endless critical scrutiny...it's all here and more.Missing though are the tongue in cheek covers,picture,and one liners.(Perhaps,one need to buy RS coffee table book Covers,to totally enjoy the moment).Concise,right on track and enjoyable!!!

1. This one (Rolling Stone Files) 2. Encyclopedia Madonnica (Matthew Rettenmund) 3. Madonna Unauthorized (Christopher Anderson)

With these 3 books you will learn more about Madonna then she even knows about herself.

Mandatory for any fanatic who wants to know more about this show-biz lady, other then what they see and hear on radio, TV, onstage, and onscreen.

Viva Ciccone!

Clark Kent Ervin was a member of the Texas entourage that President George W Bush brought to Washington D.C. with him in 2001. As a Bush loyalist, he obtained a political appointment as Inspector General for Collin Powell's State Department. Before he could properly enter into this job, he was asked to become the Inspector General for the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that came into being following the tragedy of 9/11. Although nominated to the job by the President, his conformation was put on hold by the U.S. Senate for reasons not made clear in this book and he ended up with a recess appointment. Now the position of Inspector General (IG) in any government agency is a very important one because it is the IG office that ensures the agency is doing the job it was charted to do and obeying the regulations and procedures it created as guidelines for doing that job. Although an unconfirmed political appointee, Ervin clearly took a conscientious and proactive approach as DHS IG.

This book chronicles what he found wrong at DHS and explains why this means that the U.S. is vulnerable not only to terrorist attacks, but to other manmade or natural disasters as well. Of course this book is self serving, as are most Washington D.C. memoirs, but on the whole it appears an accurate appraisal of the ineptitude and incompetence that has plagued DHS since its creation. As such it makes alarming reading.

Much of the problem as Ervin points out is that creating a new government organization to solve what is seen as a problem is an easy, but not necessarily a good solution. President Bush, to his credit, did not want to create a cabinet level organization at all and, to his discredit, did nothing to provide the leadership needed to get DHS up and running after he was forced to create it. Tom Ridge, the first DHS Secretary he appointed, clearly shared the President's views and did little to make DHS a viable organization. Michael Chertoff who succeeded Ridge as DHS Secretary appears to be a competent administrator, but an incompetent manager. And most of the problems that Ervin identifies in this book as DHS potholes apparently remain unfilled.

Assuming this book to be accurate, the senior management at DHS appears remarkably passive in their execution of their responsibilities and, in many cases, ignorant of and indifferent to those responsibilities. Ervin did his best to move DHS in a more positive direction, but he himself was scarcely an expert on national security issues and structural efficiency. As is often the case in Washington, an inability or unwillingness on the part of DHS senior leadership to dirty their hands with the details of day-to-day operations or to reflect on the concepts they were charged with implementing doomed DHS from the start.

THE INFO IS VALUABLE, BUT HALF AS MUCH WOULD HAVE BEEN TWICE AS VALUABLE

I actually like the "Tedious and Flawed" review even though I do not fully agree with that characterization of this book. That review is useful as a counter-balance to blind acceptance of the author's assertions as well as my own praise of this book.

However, as a 30 year veteran of the U.S. Government, and as the lead Amazon reviewer on national security matters, I have to give this book five stars and opine that on balance, this author is closer to the truth than the U.S. Government might wish us to believe.

The key assertion in the book, which most reviewers fail to note, is that stove-piping and a failure to share information is the key threat to our Nation. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) appears to understand this assertion, and the ONLY thing about the DNI that impresses me is the focus on information sharing standards and processes being devised by the DNI CIO. The author gives this information sharing blockage more weight when he discusses the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ten different intelligence units out of the 22 agencies it manages, yet the Secretary of DHS (then Tom Ridge) refused to do what Congress asked him to do, which was to be the lead for coordinating and consolidating intelligence about threats to the homeland. Little wonder that years after 9-11 we still do not have a consolidated watchlist of suspected terrorists.

The author says on page 175 that DHS suffers from a clear failure to take intelligence matters as seriously as they should be, and he cites testimony to the effect that DHS gets a grade of 5-6 on a scale of 10. A memorable quote on page 11 sets the stage for the book: "Instead of connecting the dots, the Secretary of Homeland Security was passing the buck." Exactly right, and Hurricane Katrina, which the author does discuss, proves the point. DHS is a charade, line the DNI, the Secretary of DHS is simply a figure-head, a placebo for public.

EDIT of 28 June 2007: I reread this book by accident while at the beach, having forgotten I went over it earlier, and this time one additional observation jumped out at me: the author, in the chapter on intelligence failure, documents how the lawyers working for the original Secretary of DHS refused to allow DHS to execute its mandate to be the sole authority in bringing together all the terrorist watchlists. The national counter-terrorism center is in my view unnecessary, counter-productive, overly obsessed with terrorism, and oh, by the way, five years later, they have a gift shop but they still do not have a consolidated terrorist watch list.

I happen to sympathize with the author, and there are no doubt many that will consider this book to be self-serving, but when the author says on page 15 that "doing your job can ruin your career," he is speaking for many. Today the Washington Post tells us that the Supreme Court has ruled against government employees being entitled to freedom of speech, even when they are attempting to report criminal actions by their organizations or leaders. The U.S. Government has, in my view, become corrupt with respect to the integrity of the information and the transparency and accountability of all the Cabinet departments. Fraud, waste, and abuse are the rule, not the exception, and we are long overdue for a massive housecleaning. I have seen too many good people driven out of government through "fitness of duty physicals," transfers to dark corners, and other punitive measures that should be illegal and punishable by prison or at least impeachment. The U.S. Governments shoots the messenger and plays politics with the truth, and that is a fact.

In that regard, the authors slams Senator Joe "never met a Republican I cannot love" Lieberman, and Senator Collins, for not being serious about their oversight roles, for being too intent with "going along" with what according to this author, the Inspector General charged with knowing such things, were not only fraud, waste, and abuse, but MISSION FAILURE.

I was impressed that the author established a separate IG unit to focus on information technology, and distressed that like the rest of the US Government, he does not seem to recognize the extraordinary value that the Government Accountability Office (GAO, an investigative arm of Congress) can offer as a partner in rooting out fraud, waste, abuse, and plain incompetence.

In the intelligence arena, my primary area of int3rest and my main reason for reading this book, the author has real credibility with me when he states that the U.S. Intelligence Community has NOT been fixed (as of 2006, five years after 9-11), and that DHS is a minor and abysmally incompetent player in the US IC--the "last to know" anything relevant to defending homeland security.

The book has excellent notes and an extremely poor index. I would normally reduce the score of this book to four stars for such a poor index, but the importance of this topic, and the authenticity of the author's experience and shared knowledge, cause me to leave it at five stars. I recommend the book be read with Stephen Flynn's America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism, which I have also reviewed, some time ago, very favorably.

I admire the courage of this author and thank him. He has clearly informed his readers of the dangers that US citizens still face after 911. This very important information needs to become action and this book explains how.

This book has a 206/24 combination: The first 206 pages is like an undercover sting operation where we learn, in detail, exactly what the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Government is doing to `make us safe' from various terrorist threats and how they are doing it. The last 24 pages lays out exactly what the DHS and the Government SHOULD be doing to combat domestic terrorism.

I must forewarn you, reading this book will make you angry, sad, appalled, dumbfounded, and scrambling to your favorite vice for relief. But it is time for us to really know what terrorists already know: American has a long way to protecting its people the best we can.

I highly recommend this disturbing and illuminating book.

PS I had the brilliant idea of sending a copy of "Open Target" to every Senator and Congressman to ensure they `get the message'. If I just knew they would (or could) all read it.