MO

This one is a real dog. The story line doesn't hold up. OK, St. Louis is wrecked. Where is the rest of the country? If S.L. is the only major city devastated why wouldn't it be rebuilt like L.A. after the quake? Don't any of the people in St. Louis have relatives in the rest of the country that they can go live with? Can ALL of the National Guard types be vicious thugs? Steele obviously has some unresolved issues with the military.

Gerry Rosen clearly has more problems than an ordinary joe should have to deal with. There's the wife he's lost, the deceased son's recurring memory, and the boss from hell. I enjoyed the characterizations, which are seen through Gerry's eyes. The images of St. Louis following a cataclysmic earthquake were compelling. And I was captivated by Gerry's palmtop which might well have been as wondrous as "Box" from "Star Cops" (except it didn't do searches quite so impressively). I'm most critical of Steele's choice of the military, first as rescuers, then as treasonous villains. Surely, there would be huge numbers of Paul Revere's out there to wise the public up to the coup about to happen. What's the Internet good for, otherwise?

Steele weaves an imaginative story of government corruption and corporate intrigue with The Jericho Iteration. I wasn't completely satisfied with his characterizations of the AI. It seemed a bit too human in it's reactions, but Steele's style and tightly paced writing delivered the goods in the end.

The design in this book is great and was obviously not really designed by David Carson at ALL.

Oh no David Carson- its really over. The end has come- well, not of print... Leave McLuhan alone. This book is terrible, really terrible. The design is a mess. Reading McLuhan should never be a chore. This one should go straight to the landfill-- Has anyone else seen it? Don't you agree?

"Like Kafka and Freud, McLuhan is a writer who is often referred to or quoted without being understood, resulting in a shorthand for cultural conditions that everyone recognizes but few can articulate. This title provides a refreshing representation of the philosopher's work, artfully arraying his ideas as brief statements in the space of the page and setting them against stunning imagery and design work by David Carson."

Wayman's translation is a noble effort, and has probably been of some use to academics and fearless students of the Lam rim tradition.

However, his approach to the translation of a part of the Lam-rim chen-mo (quite possibly the most important text on spiritual paths ever written) is questionable in approach and methodology; often Wayman uses inappropriate occidental paradigms, and also misses idiomatic phrases, which would have been clarified if he had relied more upon the active interpretations availiable in the Tibetan academic community. Secondly, the grammar and sentential structure of his English text is not particularly clear, and although considerably better than his translations of the concentration and wisdom chapters (ASIN-0231044046), the text remains pretty obfuscatory.

As a rule, I would heartily recommend the new translation as an alternative- ASIN-1559391669.

Or even better, to learn Tibetan and read it in the original.

The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path of Enlightenment is the first of a series of three projected volumes. In this first volume the reader is brought into basic Buddhist teachings as characterized in a Buddhist monastic setting, for people of little or middling capacity in religion to cultivate the awakening of Bodhichitta. The work is being expedited by a committee of exceptional Buddhist scholars and is being translated in a straightforward manner without commentary or cumbersome notes. It is hoped that the next two volumes will quickly follow However there is currently two provisional translations of these sections by Alex Wayman. The second volume describes the path of the Bodhisattva path. This work is available in part in Ethics of Tibet: Bodhisattva Section of Tsong-kha-pa's Lam Rim Chen Mo translated by Alex Wayman (SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies; State University of New York Press). Asanga's Chapter on Ethics With the Commentary of Tsong-kha-pa: The Basic Path to Awakening, the Complete Bodhisattva translated by Mark Tatz (Edwin Mellen Press) also addresses stages of the path and basic Buddhist morality but draws upon another commentary by Tsong-kha-pa. Alex Wayman's Calming the Mind and Discerning the Real (Columbia, 1978) provided a pioneering translation of the third part focuses on the practical integration of quieting techniques with spiritual discernment that leads to wisdom. It is true that Wayman's translations have been held up to censure by the Lama trained cadre of scholars who are now making this new edition. It is also true that some of their reservations are deserved but I still find much of value in the Wayman editions and until the next two volumes of The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path of Enlightenment are available I suggest they be consulted. All told The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path of Enlightenment is one of the masterpieces of world religion, a non parallel introduction to the fundamentals of Buddhist practice in all its subtlety and powerful psychological insight. The work will repay close study for anyone drawn to the salvific motive of religion, anyone who wishes to engage in-depth the nature of life and the way to knowing through meditation. By setting the conditions for practical reason, Tsong-kha-pa opens up the vast possibility of what we can approach and achieve as human beings. Do not pass up this most powerful work.

Not my usual type of book, but my mom thought I'd like it so I borrowed it from her. A new doctor at a psych bospital becomes involved in something dangerous when he discovers forbidden experiments being performed on human patients, and with another doctor (read: love interest) decides to do some investigating of his own. "Kindling" is a method of electrically burning out criminal tendencies in the human brain, but sometimes it has the opposite effect. Two of the patients, one a serial killer and rapist, the other a once relatively harmless pervert, are somehow freed and embark on a killing spree that culminates in a painfully drawn out showdown in the mountains.

I have to admit, the hero's (and apparently, the author's) pro-animal research stance (he calls animal rights activists "nuts") put a bad taste in my mouth early on, but it still doesn't affect my opinion of the book as a whole. It just isn't very well written and the story isn't new or even exciting. It seemed like something Hollywood would spew out into the multiplex with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in the leads. I know I'm not very experienced in the med thriller genre as far as literature goes, but there's got to be better work out there than this.

NOT AT ALL. I found this book to stimulate my brain waves as it proceeded to enlighten me to the possiblity of "brain-tampering" to alter criminal behaviour. Though (I hope) this book is border-line science fiction , I fear that its future possibilty might in fact exist. It is both fast-paced and suspenseful. It is also somehat graphic..if you are "squeamish", I would suggest you forget the book, get a plate of cookies, a glass of milk and retire to bed early. But, as for me, I found it to be time well spent.

This novel, well written for a scholar, is the story of a Black Jewish child who grows up to become a leader of a Muslim Mosque. He is murdered and those closest to him find his last words a mystery. A detective is hired to find their meaning, and the reader is given a glimpse into the life of Benjamin from birth onward. The story starts out slow with long discussions of small details and lengthy paragraphs of confusing desert imagery. While the story of Benjamin's life is interesting and very detailed there are significant facts missing. One who is not well versed on different African American religious traditions could become lost in various discussions and transitions. However, the inclusion of the different traditions is done quite skillfully. The book spends a lot of time on the youth of Benjamin, and little on the adulthood. The adulthood is where many of the pieces became hard to put together for me as a reader. The book builds to a climatic ending, but the author does not give enough weight to the ending. He slowly builds to the ending, but then it seems that he does not give enough to the ending. It becomes very anti-climatic and somewhat confusing. Overall, the book is an interesting and well written account of African American religious traditions. Spencer is able to capture the feelings of a man caught between two worlds in a unique and poignant way. The novel is worthy of a read by anyone interested in the subject.

TWA gone but not forgotten!

This programming book is not quite Structured that is confusing the readers, even to experienced COBOL programmers.

For example, in the first chapter page 19, in the PROCEDURE DIVISION, there should have been only one command statement 'STOP RUN.' in a single line. The author gave 2 extra lines as 'PROGRAM-BEGIN.' and 'PROGRAM-DONE.' as 2 extra modules or Subs (VB) or Functions(C) in other programming languages. Throughout the book, the unstructured programming style carried on since the first program, the 'Hello program' page 15.

Anyhow, the writer says that 'the GO TO approach should be avoided completely' is very good comment for structured programming style. On the contrary the writer uses the EXIT command which usually goes with the GO TO command. In general EXIT style is not structured at all. The same comment should have been applied to the PERFROM THROUGH approach, that is missing in the book.

There is EVALUATE method missing in the book, that is useful to structured programming that is used as 'CASE' in C and VB programming. Without EVALUATE, programmer should use nested IF instead that treats all the cases un-equally and confusingly.

If you want to learn from this book, please, remember to delete the 2 lines 'PROGRAM-BEGIN.' and 'PROGRAM-DONE.' and make sure that the 'STOP RUN' command should be at the end of the first block underneath the line PROCEDURE DIVISION.

I majored in C.S. in the 80's but never took COBOL. While the book doesn't cover any advanced topics, it provides a solid foundation of COBOL knowledge. An experienced programmer with no knowledge of COBOL should be able to make it through this book in about two weeks (there are actually 7 bonus days on top of the 21 primary lessons). If you know who Bjarn Stroustrup is, this book is probably not for you. If you want an introduction to programming, or know some programming and want to learn COBOL fundamentals, this is a pretty good buy. I bought this book last spring ('98) and now work in a COBOL shop.

I've been recommending this book to my clients for over a year now. "COBOL in 21 days" Has provided a solid foundation for both new programmers and those that are transitioning from current languages to legacy systems.

The authors approach is to lay down the fundamental structure of the language, then give you a series of "hands on" excercises that perform most of the functions that you find in a business environment. You become "COBOL competent" very quickly.

One of the great things about the code that you learn is that it adheres to excellent programming standards. The examples are structured and tend to be much better quality then the code that I usually run into at my client sites.

There is a Year 2000 specific section that provides some great "real world" help. I was able to use some of these tips in a Y2K course that I wrote for Learning Tree International.

Not only do I recommend this book for beginner programmers, but it is also a great resource for COBOL pros who can some of the many "canned" routines that are detailed in the book.

a swarthy fitness guru who sexercises with rich suburbanites is poisoned. a weak link in an otherwise praiseworthy rachel gold series. a straightforward who-done-it lacking the usual consideration of weightier legal issues.

For having been written by somebody better known for her travel guides about Branson, this book certainly didn't make me want to jump in the car and go there. And I only live 30 miles away. The characters were broadly painted charicatures of "country music folk," and Buckstaff failed to capture any true sense of place in her descriptions. Even though her protagonist eventually comes to grudging terms with her Ozarks heritage, the reader doesn't get any feel for what makes Branson so uniquely compelling.

Oh yeah, this is a murder mystery, too. In a shallow, jumbled, afterthought kind of way. To be fair, it wasn't simply horrible. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be, at any rate. But the plot was lacking in drive and suspense, with seemingly random curves (none would qualify as twists, in my opinion). And that bit with the violin bow would have been silly had it not been so unnecessary as to be offensive. Actually, this could have been a pretty good read had the author been more in tune with the sensibilities of the traditional mystery reader. As it is, however, it reads like a half-hearted cross-over attempt by somebody who heard that mysteries are selling well.

There are lots of original-language quotations in this book, but they are all translated in the back. This makes available in English many texts that would not be accessible otherwise. Readers who aren't interested in this book's larger issues will appreciate that.