Contingency

A superbly practical and comprehensive guide - cogent and succinct but thorough. Having just gone through an office disaster similar to worked examples and real life situations presented in the book, incurring tens of thousands of dollars of damages and subsequent insurance claims, I can highly recommend this book as a must read for prevention purposes and a user-friendly guide for when it happens to you. I never thought I would need it, and was so grateful to have a copy on hand to reassure my decision-making in working through all the clean-up afterwards. It is an excellent resource not only for small businesses, but also for any office situation - non-profits, community groups, churches, synagogues etc.

The days of expecting to keep one's job for 50 years or more are over. Fallback Position: Preparing A Contingency Plan For The Worst Case Scenario is a solid and practical guide to preparing the reader in the event of being fired, downzied, right-sized, outsourced, or otherwise cut loose from his or her job. In today's volatile marketplace and work force, Fallback Position is an absolute "must-read" for negotiating the best career deal when possible and keeping doors open in case the worst happens. A solid, and practical guide of the highest possible recommendation, Fallback Position should be readily available in the Jobs/Careers section of every community library collection in the country!

This study of gambling and everyday life in Chania, Crete, is an outstanding example of how anthropological ethnography can contribute to larger debates in the social sciences while remaining accessible and engaging to the casual reader. The author's intellectual objective is to shed light on reigning theories of risk and indeterminacy by exploring in finely grained detail how risk is operative and is experienced, interpreted and strategized against/upon by social actors in real life. The setting of the study is ideal for this purpose, as social life in this town is organized for many around the playing, practice and performance of gambling. A range of useful and non-jargony conceptual tools for capturing the experience of uncertainty are introduced (performative indeterminacy, instrumental nonchalance, e.g.), which heighten the feeling that true insight is occurring here. In fact, it is one of the impressive achievements of this book, that it manages to engage the serious scholar in ongoing disciplinary debates (about risk theory, social poetics, modernity and the state) while remaining a perfectly charming read for the nonspecialist.

Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), the founder of the Gelukpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, is often regarded as the most important Tibetan philosopher. He is known for systematically reinterpreting, synthesizing, and clarifying the significant Buddhist teachings in fourteenth-century Tibet. With the publication of The Splendor of an Autumn Moon: The Devotional Verse of Tsongkhapa, another dimension of this scholar-saint is open to English readers: Tsongkhapa as devotional poet. In these exquisite poems, expressions of heartfelt reverence to buddhas, bodhisattvas, and to his teachers, Tsongkhapa reveals an intimate faith for the teachings and a profound compassion.

Gavin Kilty, with three decades of translation work behind him, has done a superb job articulating the literal meaning of these poems, while maintaining Tsongkhapa's poetic spirit. Thus, for those interested in the relationship of devotional poetry to philosophy in Buddhist traditions, and in Tibet specifically, this translation demonstrates how dharma can be taught and expressed with compelling affectivity as well as reason. These verses will also be a great resource for anyone who is herself or himself a Buddhist practitioner, for they are indeed inspiring, and move the reader to a sacred space of receptivity to the dharma, and gratitude for the teachers. These verses invite the reader to participate in the experience of profound compassion and devotion. The historian of Buddhist studies will also find much that is fascinating here, for example in Tsongkhapa's use of metaphor, his treatment of particular Buddhist themes, and indeed the very decision of which themes to treat poetically. Students of Tibetan language will also appreciate Kilty's work, for it provides both the Tibetan text and the translation on opposite pages, making it easy to follow along.

Vallicella's book stands out as thorough and resolutely focused on the topic of the nature of existence. It is mandatory reading for anyone intending to work on it, or indeed in metaphysics generally.

Rule-governed Behavior is an excellent introduction to one of the most under-appreciated areas of Applied Behavior Analysis. Ironically, RGB is one of the topic areas that best addresses the critics of ABA, and yet many within the field do not properly appreciate its importance. Some of the research conclusions have been updated recently, but this is an excellent place to begin getting grounded in RGB

The U.S. Army Command & General Staff College issues Birtle's text to all students (rank of major) in the Command & General Staff Officer's Course. The author works as a historian for the U.S. Army Center for Military History in Washington D.C. His research and thoughts about contingency operations during the interwar periods provide invaluable guidance to current leaders in the Army. The author clearly writes about the issues that affect the use of the military during times of relative peace. He outlines cavalry duty in the American West, as well as nation building and counterinsurgency operations in Cuba, the Philippines, and Panama. Throughout the book Birtle provides insightful commentary on issues that are just as relevant today as they were in the 19th century.
- contingency operations tend to be fought at the small unit level by Captains, Lieutenants and NCO's
- many times for the participants the conflict seems more like a battle against nature than against an enemy
- Army institutional training ignores counterinsurgency/ contingency operations, instead focusing on training leaders to strive to win the "big" battles
- leaders need to understand economics, culture and politics since the military instrument may not be the dominant factor in foreign policy
- and many more

The author cites many other factors which affect military capabilities during these operations. Peacekeeping and enforcement missions in Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, and even Afghanistan exhibit similar characteristics to the types of conflicts outlined in Birtle's book. Leaders at all levels in the Army (and Marines) today would be well served to read and study the pages of U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1860-1941. This book substantiates the age old maxim that those unfamiliar with the harsh lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

Highly recommended for the military professional.

The authors pull concepts and recommendations from three Y2k disciplines: program management, business management, and technology management. This is possibly the first time all three disciplines have been presented in a manner such that a company president can understand the real business threat due to lack of Y2k readiness.

Y2K risk management and contingency planning is the hottest Y2K topic right now. Readers need to know about this book, and fast! For example, agencies of the federal government have until April 30 to submit their year 2000 contingency plans in the event of system failures. Why isn't _Y2K Risk Management_ part of the Amazon Millennium Store? According to all the reviewers, this is THE book to read for anyone who needs to mitigate Y2K business and legal risks, and develop a sound contingency plan.

In my presentations on the impact of Year 2000 in healthcare I am often asked to recommend resources. There are only two recommendations I will give and one of them is "Y2K Risk Management" by Steve Goldberg, Steven Davis and Andrew Pegalis. I equate this book to "just in time information." It is precise and right on the money in terms of the final preparations for January 1, 2000. I use it, our Risk Manager uses it and it is appropriate reading for all involved in Y2K preparedness. If I had only one choice, with the time remaining, this book would be it.

This book was imaginative, clever, keeps your attention as the story twists and unfolds. It has a nice touch of romance. Written with insight and power.

The Contingency of Power is a must-read for lovers of great romance novels. It is a very creative love story with an abundance of action and mystery. The author has created just the right blend of steamy love scenes and drama to form a winning combination. From the first page to the last, I can guarantee that readers will keep turning the pages to read the exciting ending. I found that I could not put it down!! This well written novel will captivate readers that enjoy many different genres.

Although this is Ms Sutterer's first novel, I am certain that we will be hearing more intriguing stories from her in the future. I highly recommend this one.

Tracy Kiewel Sutterer's first book has something to appeal to everyone, regardless of what genre a reader might prefer. It's an action thriller, with a mysterious and suspenseful story line, a touch of the supernatural, PLUS an erotic undercurrent to give it extra zing.

Meghan Mahafy is a book store owner whose life is tame and not all that fulfilling. Attempts by friends to set her up with the ideal man come up empty because the man that Meghan wants exists only in her mind. And then, by chance, Kincade Lewis happens upon her bookstore in search of books to occupy his mind. Kincade is a DEA agent whose life is going nowhere. Subtle dissatisfaction with the world and disillusionment with life in general has robbed him of his once sharp edge. That chance meeting in a quiet bookstore brings unexpected results for both Meghan and Kincade.

Meghan's quiet life is explosively transformed by Kincade's power.
Fueled by sexual attraction too potent to ignore, they soon become what Kincade calls "immersed". Immersion is not what you are thinking. What starts out as simple male-female attraction, soon transforms itself into clairvoyance of the highest order. Kincade can read Meghan's thoughts, and she his. That skill is sharpened and empowered through meditation at first, and later by lovemaking that transcends the natural world they live in.

Kincade sets out to free Meghan of the nightmares she has had since the night her parents died. They end up working as a team, two bodies and essentially one mind, unraveling past and present mysteries that tie their lives together unexpectedly.

This book should appeal to both men and women. It has action and adventure for the thriller fans, and the love that blossoms between Kincade and Meghan is more than sufficient to fuel romantic fantasies. I'm betting Ms. Sutterer can make a career out of writing books like this one.

In this book, Rorty presents one of the most informative and understandable formulations of several concepts that often are not presented so clearly, such as historicism, pragmatism, and a non-correspondence theory of language. However, it might be that Rorty makes these ideas so accessable because he fails to explain why exactly we should accept these concepts. Although Rorty's idea of a "libeal utopia" is attractive, he never demonstrates why we should all be "sufficiently historicist and nominalist" in order for such a society to exist, and furthmore makes a perhaps unacceptable assumption that the private can be distinguished from the public. After all, "strong poets" traditionally havent been the nicest people. Although Rorty provides interesting interpretations of writers such as Freud, Derrida, Nietzsche and Heidegger, he is unfortunately terribly inconsistent in his respective treatments of these writers. For example, while critisizing Nietzsche and Heidegger for falling back into the old metaphysical need to "theorize" via the will to power and Being, he claims that Freud has allowed for us to see ourselves a "historical contingencies", never mentioning the fact that just as Nietzsche worshipped power and Heidegger worshipped Being, Freud worshipped Oedipus. Overall, an informative, extremely readable work with a lot of interesting ideas despite the inconsistencies in Rorty's thought.

This is a very useful book.

To equate Rorty's pragmatism with subjectism is to fall precisely into the trap that Rorty saves us from, and to completely miss the point of this book.

"We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that the truth is out there. To say the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states. To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations."

And again later...
"... the fact that Newton's vocabulary lets us predict the world more easily than Aristotle's does not mean that the world speaks Newtonian. The world does not speak. Only we do."

Go read this book!

There are certain elements of tendentiousness that one
should always carry within one. This is known in
Rortian discourse as the Widow Twanky conundrum - ie
how do we know how many cows Farmer A has got when
Farmer B abuses his poultry? Should we in fact object
to the abuse? Does it supersede that other little
matter, the regularisation of bit maps? And will the
village pond expand when it rains or merely deepen?
These may seem small Ealbeit pressing issues. Yet
according to Rorty we must not allow them to stutter
to fail or to falter. We have to resort to them at all
costs. This book tells us how.