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I'm reading several books at the moment....
Berlin - the downfall by Anthony Beevor. If you've read Stalingrad then this is more of the same.
9/11 by Noam Chomsky. A selection of interviews with Chomsky on the subject of 9/11 and its implications and background.
The Queen of Whale Cay by some one who's name escapes me. It both amazed me and freaked me.
The sorcerer's apprentice by John Richardson. One should always read a book written by a namesake! It's about Picasso's one-time companion, the author, and his relationship with the master.
My name escapes me by Sir Alec Guinness. A wildly witty diary by the octogenarian actor.
I have several other books I'd like to read but I have far more pressing reading in the form of technical manuals. Mmmmmm.....
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
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re: Western NC...
TEd Remington: anywhere near Mars Hill?
Bookwise, I continue to be fruitless in my search for Elliot Chaze's out-of-print mystery "Black Wings Has My Angel."
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that the German leadership was a nasty lot, none of whom could remotely be included in the set of people comprised of "men of good will.What about Rommel? I don't think any one could say he was a nasty lot, and I'm a pacifist! This website gives a reasonably comprehensive overview in just one page, check it out http://www.achtungpanzer.com/gen1.htm
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veteran
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Indeed. However, the phrase "German leadership" is ambiguous.
I did not mean "all high-ranking, government functionaries." I was referring to the primary policy-makers and enforcers Hitler, Goebbels, Ribbentrop, and Goering.
I'm sure there were many noble "people of good will" in positions which lacked decisive influence at the level of foreign policy.
k
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old hand
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Check your PMs, Alex ~ and call me Santa's Little Helper!  BTW, I'm about a third of the way into Elephantoms by Lyall Watson, and it's totally rocking my world... *fascinating* stories of an unusual boyhood in South Africa, among other things. It's difficult to describe without giving too much away, but it spans many disciplines, and it ain't just about elephants.
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old hand
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What am I reading? Gee! I'm so glad you asked.
People rarely ask me questions. In school I was always the first one to raise my hand, but the teachers always looked past me and always let some goofball in the back row answer the question. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You. I want the world to know that I read much more than others, and therefore I am a much better person than others and their families.
THE ART OF SPELLING the madness and the method
~ Marilyn Vos Savant
You remember Vos Savant, the Guiness Book record holder for the highest measured I.Q. on the planet (228). That is until we learned that, Politically Correctly speaking, everyone's I.Q. on this planet was exactly the same. Well Marilyn's book is well done. Her Madness part is better than her Methods, but they help and I'm going to write this entire review without a spell check.
Rating______________***
HOW I GOT THIS WAY
~ Patrick F. McManus
As always a happy time awaits the reader of McManus.
O Henry without the pathos.
Rating___________****
DAVE BARRY IS FROM MARS AND VENUS
~ Dave Barry
Usual Dave Barry fare. Some dumb. Some Good.
Some brilliant.
Rating___________***
PET PEEVES-or- whatever happened to doctor rawff?
~ George Plimpton
A series of letters written by pet owners to an advice columnist veterinarian who has, so to speak, flown the coop.
Mildly amusing but bordering on mildly silly.
Rating___________**
A MATTER OF DEGREES what temperature reveals about the past and future of our species, planet and universe
~ Gino Segre`
Great. New stuff about temperature is generously sprinkled with the old. Why do we run high temperatures when sick? Oh yeah? Then why do cold blooded creatures seek out warmth when they are sick? What about bugs?
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THE BEST OF THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 1988 - 1997
~ Editor--> Harold Bloom
Maybe I chose bad times to read these poems. With that in mind I give this collection a...
Rating___________*
BEYOND THE DEEP the deadly descent into the world's most treacherous cave
~ William Stone and Barbara amEnde with Monte Paulsen
(Review upon request)
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BUDDHA'S CHILD my fight to save vietnam
~ Nguyen CaoKy, former Prime Minister of South Vietnam
Interesting and revealing. Once Nguyen's nephew asked John Wayne for a autographed picture to give to his uncle who was then prime minister. The duke refused, saying, " Your Uncle Nguyen don't need no picture, all he has to do is ask, and he gets me."
Rating___________***
PAINTING AMERICAN the rise of american artists
paris 1867 - new york 1948
~ Annie Cohen-Solal
A well though-out, well-executed, selected history of the transition of american painting from the 19th century of largely french influences to the mostly american forms that took shape in the 20th.
Rating__________****
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Vos Savant, the Guiness Book record holder for the highest measured I.Q. on the planet (228)
Will have to let my IQ=232 friend that he's not as smart as he thought he was...
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Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
I just picked up a copy of Empire, by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.
Here's a sample paragraph:
We should point out here that we accord special attention to the juridical figures of the constitution of Empire at the beginning of our study not out of any specialized disciplinary interest--as if right or law in itself, as an agency of regulations, were capable of representing the social world in its totality--but rather because they provide a good index of the processes of imperial construction. New juridical figures reveal a first view of the tendency toward the centralized and unitary regulation of both the world market and global power relations, with all the difficulties presented by such a project. Juridical transformations effectively point toward changes in the material constitution of world power and order. The transition we are witnessing today from traditional international law, which was defined by contracts and treaties, to the definition and constitution of a new soveriegn, supranational world power (and thus to an imperial notion of right), however incomplete, gives us a framework in which to read the totalizing social processes of Empire. In effect, the juridical transformation functions as a sumptom of the modifications of the material biopolitical consistution of our societies. These changes regard not only international law and international relations but also the internal power relations of each country. While studying and critquing the new forms of international and supranational law, then, we will at the same time be pushed to the heart of the political theory of Empire, where the problem of supranational sovereignty, its source of legitimacy, and its exercise bring into focus political, cultural, and finally ontological problems.
The rest of this book is filled with similar bullshit. It turns out that Hardt is an associate professor of Italian literature at Duke University, and Negri "is an independent researcher and writer and an inmate of Rebibbia Prison, Rome. He has been a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Paris and a Professor of Political Science at the University of Padua."
What the blurb does not state is that Negri is in prison as a result of being convicted of involvement in the assassination of Aldo Moro, a former prime minister of Italy, back 1977.
So, if any of you are thinking of buying this book, please don't. Send me an IM or email with our address and I will ship this pile of crap off to you.
TEd, who is really pissed that some of his money ended up in an inmate's hands this way
TEd
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Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Good grief, Ted. Personal lives of the authors notwithstanding, how can anybody READ something like that? My attention was gone before I got to the end of the first line. Sheesh--reminds me of some of my university textbooks. I had to put out the concentration it took to wade through them then, but I'm sure not about to now. Yuck. [flicking something unsavory off fingertips e]
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