Reviews and Comments

It was not particularly well written, Williams is a solider not an author, but the story was great. I had never heard it before, and I think its a story that needs to be told. Someone should really make a movie of they Veteran who returns to his medium sized hometown from an integrated Army to a segregated community. The NAACP had given up on Monroe, there was nothing that could be gained, but Robert voted against dissolution and they make him chair. He also gets a charter from the NRA to teach other blacks how to defend themselves. They fought back against the KKK and got them out of town, but the national papers made no mention though they were all over some Natives doing the same a few weeks later. He opposed the initiation of force, but would insist on self-defense. Often just having a gun was enough to get the cops to actually do something before it went south. Got worse when the Freedom riders came to town, diversity of tactics, but it was an excuse to beat the blacks and their allies. He saved a white family, and then the cops claimed he tried to kill them, and he is forced to leave town.

I first heard of this through libertarian/patriot circles. Now that I've read it, I'm not sure which side they were on, if they were showing an example of why everyone needs gun rights, or if it was a warning against empowering blacks leading to communism. There certainly is leftist undertones, which may upset some readers, but its real, and that's what matters.

I don't remember the last time i fished a book in less than week, and i would have been two days if I had more time. I had to keep turning the page to see what happens next.A brilliant story even better than some of Lucasfilm.returnAfter getting his PhD in France Indy gets his first teaching job in London by the help of Marcus Brody. He teaches an intro class that most kids gloss over but the one egg head is also the deans daughter. Shes smaet young beautiful what every young American dreams a Scottish lass may be, but he's too scared.returnreturnThen crazy men start following him, eventually figuring their employees of this girl's ex..omg. Her term paper makes some pretty bold claims that Merlin was a historical figure, and she can prove it, as her mom just happened to br heading a dig this summer in same local.returnreturnIndy and Deidre head out to Scotland, mom will join later, sex the train, a big party when they get there.returnreturnLocal priest is worried anything connected to metlin will bring pagans and Death and sin upon his town. Are the Catholics tryinh to ruin the dig, or is it the druids?returnreturnAftee many near death experiences the couple ends up in stone Henge with even more secrecy, more like exbf and half brother troubles, and a changed soul. Highly recommended to anyone who likes adventure fiction.

Significantly better than I expected. Like many I first came to know of this book a number of years ago when it was "banned" for having nudity. Like so many "banned" books I feel its often a ploy by the publishing company to sell more books, particularly when they are books like this that have been in publicization for a long time. returnreturnI expected it to need the help because it wasn't that great. However I found it a pleasant read, granted you probably aren't supposed to get a pleasant read out of a holocaust book but I digress. I really appreciated the Vladek character when is so much a character of a miserly Jewish American that even the author notes he isn't sure he should include it because of how stereotypical it is. returnreturnA good look at the insight of a particularly family and there making, and no so making it, through the holocaust.

A very good read. light and fast. I did have to re watch SG-1 S04E10 "Beneth the Surface" to get some of the subtext of the immediate previous mission. returnreturnWhile still recovering from memories of someone else living in their head, SG-1 advances to a new planet in search of the "Shield of the gods" hoping that its a defense mechanism against the Go'ahuld. returnreturnThey find another very clean happy advanced city protected from the sun that would otherwise burn them to death, think climate change 40000 years from now. They all have accepted the same religion, which is lived out through the daytime soap opera of Sunrise teaching the beatitudes of their sun god. returnreturnThey find the daughter of the pastor knows of a whole beyond their ark. They meet people who are barley surviving and have mixed feelings about sun rise. returnreturnThe sun god they worship and fear is not Ra but their sun itself. SG-1 must find forbidden knowledge to save the people, the planet, and maybe someday mankind itself.

I found this book absolutely wonderful. Levi looks a wrestling from a whole new angle. Granted occasionally I felt she was seeing things that weren't there, but that is true of almost any academic work.

Much of the book is based on her experience, as an American Sociological Academic, training to be a luchadora in Mexico City. Its the way she really get to see how training happens gets to actually have real conversations with Luchadores.

I found it incredibly serprising how Lucha Libre had developed quite differently from its American counterpart primarily because it had been banned from being on TV for almost 40 years.

Her take on the class struggle was interesting and how it relates to various characters and takes on this sport. Her emphasis on the sport of lucha, not sport-like, not sports entertainment was also interesting, always while acknowledging the match outcome is pre-determined still argued it was less corrupt than every other sport in Mexico.

The only thing that prevented a 5 star from me was her huge obsession with homosexuality in Mexico and insinuating that ever "straight" man in Mexico City would gladly do another guy in the rear but would never take it. I almost skipped chapter 4 completely because of it, but then it got into gender roles related to luchadoras and it made a lot more sense, would have been better if the chapter took the ladies first and the gays later.

I wanted to add every book in the bibliography to me "queue" but most of them where in Spanish.

This book was written in the sixties, yet, I find its recommendations and requirements for software development are just as helpful, humorous and educational in the 21st century. I still don't understand how they got any work done back then with manually teletypes, printed requirements documents being updated everyday and the like, but they still had the exact same problems we do now. returnreturnThe two things I took away most, "the more people you add to a late project, the later the project is." Along with the title of the mythical man month, is the idea "nine women can't make a baby in a month." The other point, was that whatever your estimate is for development time, you need to consider at least twice as much for validation. This is counter intuitive, you develop it once, you test it once, and that test takes less time than writing code did, but there is so much more. The covers testing for each release, it covers finding regressions later, and any other issue that may be written against that piece of code that wasn't exposed when it was first authored. These good testers make bug fixing much easier.

I liked most of the Heinlein Juveiniles, and this was the last to add to my library. I think I may have liked this the best. It certainly seemed one of the most believalbe of them all. returnreturnRod starts as a dual enrolled High School student in a survival class, like a hard core version of one of my ORLM courses from NMU. Many in class will quit before the final exam, two weeks on a far off planet with no information on where they are going. returnreturnThe "Tunnel in the Sky" that the title references is apparently whatever teh Heinelin Jiveinles universe equivelant of the Stargate. I don't think I realized how many such variants on that duty exist, particularly as this is at lest 40 years before stargate was authored. returnRodturns up on his planet with nothing but a fear of the unkonw Stober he is warned of. He just needs to survive fore 2 weeks, and with 26 hour days he's arleady further along. returnreturnBut after he's taken out by a wild animal he mises reyndavous. Or maybether iw as a super nova that blew up the whole stargate system. Regardless he finds others for survival and after months they realize no one is coming and they just need to make this their own little planet. You keep expecting something and sure enough it happens, but I won't spoil it.