Associations Books

Joseph Tartaro, President of the Second Amendement Foundation, reviewed Patrick's "National Rifle Association and the Media" in Gun Week. Says Tartaro:

"Having read many of the books which have delved into the long public debate over guns and gun regulation, I can say that Patrick's book plows really new ground, and deserves careful reading by any activist engaged in that debate. The National Rifle Association and the Media offers an original approach that is backed up by careful research and analysis....This is not just a book on the NRA: it is about the role of the media in an age of enhanced public reliance on communication media."

This is an amazingly good book. I learned of it from a review in "Women and Guns" magazine that also praised the book highly. I not only second this evaluation, but also have a few things to add:

1. This is by far the most intelligent and credible analysis of the NRA and gun culture that I have ever encountered. Professor Patrick sets out to explain NRA's seemingly miraculous political effectiveness in an environment of hostile elite and media opinion. He does this convincingly, by marshalling an impressive body of hard evidence. Unlike many quite-popular books on NRA, media and gun issues, Patrick's evidence transcends the merely anecdotal. He is a social scientist and his approach utilizes systematic media content analysis, interviews and other data that cover a ten-year period. I believe the reason that major media have not reviewed Professor Patrick's book is because they are ashamed-he presents a case to which they cannot reply except by hanging their heads in shame.
2. Although the book is erudite and employs sophisticated research methods as well, it neither talks down to readers, nor does it skate above the understanding of readers who have not received graduate training in social science. Research methods and findings are lucidly and interestingly explained. The book is both amusing and educational-and the reader learns a great deal about how social scientists quantify and measure propaganda and media coverage.
3. The main conclusion is pleasantly and surprisingly counterintuitive: NRA benefits from negative media coverage. Professor Patrick believes that if it were not for negative media coverage, which has acted as a goad to mobilization, NRA and gun culture would not be in the position of relative strength and solidarity it enjoys today. Professional women like myself would not be able to legally carry concealed weapons to protect themselves in most states.
4. The book also has much to say on the role of media in modern mass democracy. Patrick points out that mass media news professionals have become increasingly important in this mass society, an exaggerated social role that he compares to the power of the clergy in Pre-Reformation Europe. Media are the interpreters of reality, the priesthood of modern times. It is a great analogy. Then, of course, the Reformation solved the problem of the widespread abuse of this power. Patrick recommends a healthy pluralistic system of voluntary associations (interest groups) that act as alternative sources of information-and he recommends that universities start training rather than ordaining journalists, i.e. filling them (and us) with a self-serving mythos of the holy journalism and turning them loose on society.

This is a professor under whom I would like to study some day.

Five stars!

We use this at our weekly Scrabble Club night. It has all the official Scrabble words, including the swear words/"not for TV words"

This is most up to date, also. I love it!

Offering this book for about $50 is a ripoff! It is not available to the general public. Members of the National Scrabble Association can buy it for about $15!

see abov

Provides an overview of the remarkable Point Reyes National Seashore Park with a thorough discussion of geologic processes, weather, oceanic cycles, birds and other flora and fauna. Maps, drawings, and bibliography complement the text. Complete species lists provided in Appendix.

This is possibly the most definitive college football statistical book ever written. It just gets better every year. Has more stuff than you can imagine and, if you are a football fan, it is nirvana. The research is top-rate and the gathering of material must be a full-time job for someone. I thought this might be a coffee-table picture book when my wife got it for me, but was I surprised with the detail presented. I am really happy with this book.

This is possibly the most definitive college football statistical book ever written. It just gets better every year. Has more stuff than you can imagine and, if you are a football fan, it is nirvana. The research is top-rate and the gathering of material must be a full-time job for someone. I thought this might be a coffee-table picture book when my wife got it for me, but was I surprised with the detail presented. I am really happy with this book.

If you hang around with fellow homeowners, there's a lot of water cooler conversation about various things, including the electrical code. This book just nails everything you ever wondered about, everything you haven't yet wondered about, and a few thousand things that you'll never need to know. Want to install a subpanel? Want to figure what gauge of cable to use to supply it? Want to know how to calculate the in^3 fill of a box? How deep to bury an underground cable? How to use raceways? That information totals about 1/4 of 1% of the contents of this book.

I am desk jockey who does electrical design work. I have little in-the-field electrical experience. I use the NEC codes frequently to make sure what I design is code-compliant. I have a copy of the standard 1999 NEC book and found many parts of it difficult to interpret. This new "handbook" version has answered all of the questions and uncertainties I had about the code. It has an illustration and explanation for just about every question I could think of. Even when I don't need a certain thing, I have found myself leafing through the book just to learn more.

I would recommend this to anyone, but especially engineer types or those who are inexperienced. I feel much more confident about my job and I don't have to ask electricans those questions that make you feel stupid anymore. Even master electricians will appreciate the explanations of code changes from the 1999 version. Overall, I can't recommend this book more, well worth the $50 or so more than the standard NEC book.

To begin, one of the most striking elements of this book is the disregard of inappropriate parsimony in developmental psychology, an area of research that has traditionally involved an attempt to "boil down" the pertinent influences that affect human development. Wachs, on the other hand, serves his readers a delectable plate full of relevant research findings that point to a much more sophisticated web of relations between a myriad of variables shown to be related to some component of human development. Although such an approach to explaining human development seems a bit overwhelming at first, in addition to the over seventy pages of references he has reviewed to author this book, Wachs' exhaustive review of single and multiple developmental influences is both informative and thought provoking. Wachs divides the book into chapters that each outline a specific area believed to have an impact on development. For example, in chapter two Wachs discusses the influences of both evolution and ecology. Much of the reviewed research suggests that evolutionary influences, such as our own selection processes, may serve as "blueprints" which can be "actualized" by more immediate influences (p. 27). In addition, Wachs outlines the affects of ecological influences on human development and finds such results as the correlation between children living in cold climates, where parents may tightly wrap them in warm clothing, and the restriction of their motor activity and influences on their personality development. In chapter three he acknowledges the necessary influence of genetic, neural, and hormonal factors through a review of a great amount of relevant research. He explains that although genes code for particular characteristics and functions, they have only an indirect impact on human development, as they are associated with the conditions of external factors, such as the proximal and distal environmental influences summarized in chapters six and seven. In these chapters Wachs reviews the influence of external conditions, namely proximal and distal factors, on human development. Some proximal factors having an indirect impact on human development are caregiver beliefs, parental rearing styles, and environmental chaos, which is a comprised of many environmental conditions, such as high levels of noise, lack of both temporal and physical structure in the home, and unpredictability in the child's environment. In comparison, distal influences are associated with more long-standing factors, such as characteristics of culture, social class, and parental work situation. An important point to address here, a point about which Wachs continually warns the reader, is that although such evolutionary, ecological, proximal, and distal factors are necessary influences on human development, none, in and of themselves, sufficiently explain the individual variability in human development. In other interesting chapters Wachs outlines many more factors related to human development. For example, in chapter four he explains the impact of nutritional supplementation on the development of malnourished children. Perhaps even more impressive than the exhaustive reviews of the multiple influential factors associated with human development is Wachs' systematic approach to explaining how these factors actually related to and affect one another in regard to the developing human. These linkages are depicted in chapter eight, and Wachs uses the term "midlevel processes" to refer to those processes common to the developmental influences outlined in chapters two through seven. For instance, multiple influential factors can be functionally related, which refers to the impact on development by the combination of independent influences. Functional linkages can produce developmental variability in different ways, such as through "additive coaction," influence of summed independent factors, or through "interaction," differential reaction of people with differing attributes to similar factors (p. 186). In addition to functional linkages, Wachs explains the impact of structural linkages, which hold that developmental influences "neither act nor occur in isolation" (p. 191). These types of linkages explain occurrences such as the covariance among the multiple developmental influences, for which it is important to account when studying the relationships between developmental processes. For instance, research has shown that there is covariance between "child oppositional behavior at school, greater peer rejection, less on-task classroom behavior, and poorer learning" (p. 196). Through this example it is evident that the influences vary with one another to produce the developmental outcomes under study and that it is not simply the influence of a single factor that produces a certain developmental outcome. Essentially, Wachs attempts to persuade his readers to endorse this systematic approach when studying the influences of the factors related to human development, requiring the acknowledgement of covariates, summations, differential reactivities, and more. More specifically, in a three-level model Wachs outlines how a person functions within an intricate system throughout the course of their lives, and he denotes several properties of the individual that are similar to properties of general systems. For example, he explains that individuals grow and differentiate over time, much like systems. He adds that people, like systems, have an organized way of functioning that is due to influences of both the external environment and the person's own self-regulating strategies. Although more similarities are illustrated, Wachs incorporates an even more engaging component of the systematic approach to explaining the developmental processes of a human. This component is related to the stabilizing affects of particular influences as dominant themes within a person's life begin to develop. Wachs calls these dominant characteristics in a person's life "stabilized central attractors," which are "densely linked to other multiple elements or influences characterizing an individual and toward which the individual's developmental trajectory converges" (p. 290). Even through this complicated systematic explanation it is clear that many factors are necessarily related to human development, but are not sufficient influences in and of themselves. In summation, in reading this book I found that it is this complexity that is most interesting and gives the systematic approach to understanding the multiple influences on human development an interesting edge in the arena of human development as studied in the field of developmental psychology.

I was amazed by Theodore Wachs' knowledge base and scholarship. He surveys a vast and complex landscape to explain just about everything we know about what makes people turn out the way they do. Psychologists such as myself are often called upon to explain why a person ended up in a particular situation, and Wachs' book helps me to answer this question within the limits of today's scientific knowledge while avoiding the temptation to oversimplify by attributing outcome to one or two obvious causes. Wachs explores influences on development ranging from evolutionary and genetic to environmental (both proximal and distal). Even more difficult, he provides a model for integrating multiple influences on human outcome. An amazing and well thought out treatise!

This is a collection of wonderful short reads. Quirky stories by a proper Bostonian in the best sense of the term. Written by a believer whose observations connect, magnify and radiate.

This book is a collection of Carl Scovel's radio sermons, and it is wonderful. Each essay is roughly 2 to 3 pages, and each is a treasure. I have carried the book in my briefcase on the train for the past month and read a few sermons every day. It is a truly great book.

I guess the greatest testimony is that I bought an additional five copies and gave them as Christmas presents. One essay describes a Christmas service in England that is both funny and thought provoking-I read it to my family on Christmas Eve.

Reviewed by Lori Pascoe for TravelSite.com

If great dishes from the four corners of the world follow some form of cyclical calendar or schedule of popularity, one has to admit that Asian cooking is now the "in" cuisine. Not only does it bring new and exotic stimulation to our taste buds but health and fitness experts also recognize it as a healthy alternative to western diets.

New Asian Cuisine is not simply a collection of recipes but is a compilation of dishes focusing on health and nutrition - from Asia. In fact, the reader is provided with an education on what to eat and how it is to be eaten.

Studies of Asian diets demonstrate that a variety of chronic health conditions found in the West such as heart disease, diabetes and obesity, to name a few, are remarkably less common in Asia. The traditional Asian diet replaces the high fat and caloric content of western diets with high fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and low saturated fat. With the world emphasis on health, there is no wonder world famous chefs are gravitating to Asian cooking for inspiration in the preparation of new offerings. After all, who can discourage a cuisine that provides adventure in taste while inspiring healthier eating?

New Asian Cuisine contains the contributions of many famous and celebrated chefs. And, their dishes range from meat and poultry to fish and seafood as well as salads, rice and noodles, vegetables and, not to be omitted, Asian cocktails.

The true value to the reader of New Asian Cuisine is that here is a genuine reference book that is the product of extensive research into the serious art of Asian cooking by dedicated world famous chefs and not simply a guide to Americanizing oriental sounding dishes.

As a culinary student it's often hard to find a cookbook or resource that I agree with. After opening New Asian Cuisine, I could tell that it would be a valuable resource to have. All of the different dishes have some type of unique characteristic, and in the celebrity chef's preparation, the detailed explanation is amazing. This book is not only great for recipes, but an excellent guide to the flavors of asian cuisine. A Must Have!

"The New Mystery" is a must-have for mystery fans and those who enjoy great stories. This anthology contains some of the best tales written by authors who are skilled in that genre, both well-known authors, such as Lawrence Block and James Ellroy, as well as international authors, whom aren't as recognizable, but add an exotic and ethnic flavor to this collection. Kudos to Mr. Jerome Charyn for editing an amazing anthology!

THE NEW MYSTERY: THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CRIME WRITERS ESSENTIAL CRIME WRITING OF THE LATE 20TH CENTURY, edited by Jerome Charyn, is one of the finest short story anthologies I have read. It seems like everybody's here. If you don't like Joyce Carol Oates's novels, here's something short: "How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again". It's about a spoiled white girl who goes slumming, gets beat up and sold into servitude. Just the idea makes me tingle all over. Raymond's Carver's "Cathedral" is also here. The man's a technician. He doesn't tell you anything you don't need to know. If you couldn't plow your way through L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, James Ellroy offers "Gravy Train". Definitely not politically correct. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is also included with his one-sentence, surreal story "The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship."
I have to say, though, that the real reason I recommend the anthology is because I first discovered Lawrence Block and Stuart Kaminsky in these riveting pages. Read Kaminsky's "The Man Who Hated Books" and eventually you'll find his Porfiry Rostnikov novels, the best serial going. The man knows more about modern Russia than Putin does. Block's "The Merciful Angel of Death" will lead you to his Matt Scudder novels. Matt's an ex-alcoholic, detective (without a license) in love with a high-class prostitute.

Library media consultants Ruth Toor and Hilda K. Weisburg present New on the Job: A School Library Media Specialist's Guide to Success, a compendium of tips, tricks, and techniques drawn from experience, gathered and presented for school librarians in general and school library media specialists in particular. Chapters cover how to secure a job, connecting with students and teachers, dealing with advances in technology, career ethics and standards, and much more. Written in plain terms, with numerous "write your answer in the blank" questions for personal insight (such as, "What is the procedure for opening blocked websites? Who has the authority to do so?" with a blank underneath so one can learn the answer and write it down for quick reference later). A "Key Ideas" summary reinforces the lessons of each chapter, in this enthusiastically recommended supplementary resource for library media specialists, sure to prove useful to veterans in addition to its target audience of career beginners.

I actually refer all new media specialists to this book. It is easy to read and you will catch yourself agreeing with much of what the author has to say. I found it very helpful during my first year as a media specialist and recommend it to everyone I know!