Review of
Bonanza: The Spanish Grant,
DVD version
Five out of five stars
The theme of
this episode is what happens when two rights collide. Many families have
homesteaded on their land next to the Ponderosa, doing precisely what the law
required and building functional farms with their sweat and blood. However,
that area was taken over by the Spanish centuries earlier and the Spanish king
had given subjects land grants in perpetuity. An heir of the person given the
land by the earlier Spanish king has appeared and is claiming the land. A man
claiming to be her uncle is with her and he has hired a group of gunmen to
enforce her claim and evict the settlers. She is a beautiful woman with a royal
bearing. When a settler tries to fight back, he is gunned down in front of his
pregnant wife.
While the claim
only involves a few hundred acres of the Ponderosa, the Cartwrights become
involved, for the people to be evicted are their neighbors. They pursue their
counterclaims through legal means until the other side resorts to force. As
would be expected, there is a sudden twist in the plot whereby there are
questions as to the claimant’s legitimacy. The ending is quite unexpected.
What is most
interesting about this episode is that it involves the historical fact that the
American Southwest was once Spanish territory ruled by the King of Spain before
it was part of Mexico. The timeframe of the Bonanza series is right after the
American Civil war, only twenty years after Mexico ceded the territory to the
United States and after centuries of Spanish claims to the land.
Review of
Bonanza: The Gunmen,
DVD version
Two out of five stars
This episode is
intended to be humorous, but it largely fails at the task. It opens with two
brutal killers that look a great deal like Hoss and Little Joe Cartwright shooting
up a bar, killing several of the patrons before taking the money they were
playing poker with. Shortly after this, Hoss and Little Joe arrive in that area
of Texas, they are there to purchase some Texas Longhorn breeding stock.
Since no one
knows them, they are mistaken for the killers and nearly everyone is terrified
of them. The only exceptions are the local women that are determined to keep
the town as clean as possible. Their actions are very much exaggerated. The two
of them are thrust into the midst of a shooting feud between two local clans, one
side sent for the killers in order to finally win the battle.
The dialog of
the humor is weak, and the acting does not play it well. Bonanza was an excellent
action series with strong themes of law and order, here is descends to the
level of absurdity. This is one of the worst episodes of the series.
Review of
Operations of the Geometric and Military
Compass, by Galileo Galilei
Five out of five stars
Galileo is of
course a hero to people that respect the process of scientific inquiry and
evaluation. It was a great triumph of the human race when superstition and the
blind following of imposed dogma was replaced by the organized gathering of facts
and the reaching of logical conclusions. This change made possible the great
scientific and technical achievements that created the modern world. Despite
his great achievements, Galileo was forced to recant his findings and placed
under a mild form of house arrest by the Catholic Church.
When Galileo’s
achievements are taught, his inventions are rarely mentioned due to the giant
shadow of the Catholic Church forcing him to recant. This book is a description
of his invention of a geometric and military compass that allowed for rapid and
accurate computations of proportions, trigonometry and mathematical
computations such as cube roots. While used for many things, the two primary
ones were in surveying and military gunnery.
The first section
is a description of how the compass works in general and the second section is
a series of short papers describing specific uses that were written by Galileo.
The book is interesting, for it describes the device very well and gives the
reader several insights into the thought processes of Galileo. He was an incredibly
talented man that did so much to turn society from superstition to mathematical
rigor.
Review of
Macbeth: A Shakespeare Story,
by Andrew Matthews and Tony Ross, ISBN 9781626866904
Four out of five stars
The tragedy of
Macbeth is one where once ruthless ambition starts it feeds on itself until the
perpetrators are themselves destroyed. After a very successful battle, the
leader of the forces of King Duncan (Macbeth) and his best friend Banquo are
returning to camp when they encounter three witches that make predictions that
astound them. As a consequence of his victory, Macbeth begins thinking about
his becoming king, which would of course require the death of Duncan.
Spurred on by Lady
Macbeth and with help from some nebulous spirit forces, Macbeth kills Duncan
and is proclaimed king. However, the thoughts of what he did haunt him and make
him uncertain and fearful. His course of action is then to have Banquo and his
son murdered. In the manner of tyrants throughout history, Macbeth’s only
recourse is to become even more tyrannical, leading to opposition in his
kingdom and the death of both Lady Macbeth and him.
Starting with
the three witches, this Shakespearean tale features a great deal of
supernatural events. This book is an excellent, modern, abbreviated version of
this story, serving as a primer for young readers. Since this Shakespearean story
is about a ruthless rise to the top and that has been a consistent feature of
human existence, this is very much a universal and timeless tale.
Review of
Off The Rim,
by Fred Bowen ISBN 9781561455096
Five out of five stars
As a lifelong
resident of Iowa, I was pleased to read the references to the old-style 6-on-6
girls high school basketball format. For years, the girls state tournament in
Iowa was more popular than the boys, the girls tournament games were broadcast
on radio and television across the state. One very unusual item of sports
trivia is mentioned in the appendix. Denise Long was a star player for
Union-Whitten high school in Iowa in the late sixties and was even drafted by
the San Francisco Warriors of the NBA, although she never played for them.
The star of
this book is a boy named Chris and when the basketball season opens, he is riding
the bench and his place is on the very end, one of the last to be put in the
game. Greta is the star of the girls team and while she tries to help Chris
perfect his shot, it seems clear that he will never be a top shooter. Greta’s
mom played in the 6-on-6 leagues, where there were three that played offense
only and three that stayed on defense. Her mom was a defensive player and a
good one, so she starts giving Chris lessons on how to play quality defense.
Chris proves to
be a good student and it is not long before the coach realizes that Chris is
the best defender on the team and relies on him to stop the other teams best
offensive player. The team improves dramatically and is challenging a team with
a top offensive player.
What makes this
a very good book is the lesson that not all players are going to be big
scorers, there will always be a need for good defensive players and rebounders.
Bowen also takes a different approach in his stories; he doesn’t find it
necessary for his principal characters to make the last-second play(s) that win
the game.
Review of
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle,
DVD version
Two out of five stars
This movie
features some of the most outrageous “stunts” that completely violate the laws
of physics. This becomes clear in an early scene when the three angels dive off
a dam, beside a helicopter. Before the machine hits the ground, they manage to
board it, start it up, get the rotors to speed and then fly away. The tallest
dam in the world is 1,000 feet high and the time it takes to fall that distance
is ten seconds.
There are also
many attempts at humor, these are also poorly done. The fight scenes involve
jumping and twisting actions that not even Simone Biles could perform. There is
also a scene where a man seems to be impervious to fire. The dialog was weak
and often predictable. While I enjoyed once again hearing the voice of John
Forsyth as “Charlie,” this movie was boring throughout.
Review of
Tapenum’s Day: A Wampanoag Indian Boy in Pilgrim
Times, by Kate Waters ISBN 0590202383
Five out of five stars
The Wampanoag
tribes were the Native Americans that lived in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode
Island when the pilgrims landed. When spring arrived, they moved to their
summer residence where they hunted, fished and raised crops such as corn. After
the harvest when the frosts came, they took their harvest and moved inland
among the forest where they would be shielded from some of the harshest weather.
At the time when
this story was to have taken place, there was tension between the settlers and
the Wampanoag, although there was no overt hostilities. Generally, the two groups
went their separate ways and had minimal interaction. There are hints that the
settlers were growing corn by this time, although there is no explicit
statement regarding to how long they have been there.
The story is
told via a combination of photographs of modern Wampanoag and text, the main
character is a Wampanoag boy named Tapenum and he is depicted in the native
dress of an animal skin loincloth. The other boy and the adults are also dressed
in animal cloth. Tapenum is disappointed because he was not selected for the initiation
to become a warrior. He plans on working harder to develop his body and to be a
better hunter.
Many words from
the Wampanoag language are used in the text, making it a bit of a language
lesson to go along with the history. This is an excellent book for elementary
school study of the other side of the story of the pilgrims.
Review of
Hopes and Screams,
written by Heather Nuhfer ISBN 9780316254335
Four out of five stars
The premise of
this graphic novel is a high school that is aptly named, Monster High. The
students are all creatures from the horror movie genre. There is a male Medusa
with snakes for hair, vampires and other human/animals with fangs and zombies.
All act as you would expect high school teens to act, even though they do not
have human bodies, they possess the emotions.
The stories are
an exercise in puns and wordplay. There is the casketball team, Home Ick class,
Draculaura, “it looks fangtastic,” and the school paper “Gory Gazette.” I found
myself spending as much time in identifying the puns as I did in following the
story, which is fairly shallow anyway.
This is a story
targeted at the early teen reader and it lands precisely in that zone. Nothing
heavy, all light and (h)airy.
Review of
Ben and Me,
by Robert Lawson ISBN 0316517305
Five out of five stars
Benjamin Franklin was a first rate scientist,
inventor, statesman, diplomat, author and an editor among other things. The
premise of this novel is a unique one, namely that many of his ideas were
actually those of Amos, an intelligent and literate mouse that resided in Franklin’s
fur hat. The story is presented as being narrated by Amos and while he is
clearly very fond of Franklin and Franklin of him, their relationship is not
without stress and occasional conflict.
It is an
amusing story and steps through many of the actual events in Franklin’s life.
There is also the undercurrent of the social stratification of vermin, from those
associated with French royalty to those that reside on John Paul Jones’
warship. This book is a good way to be introduced to the achievements of the great
American Benjamin Franklin.
Review of
The Genius and the Goddess,
by Aldous Huxley
Four out of five stars
The genius in
this novel is Henry Maartens, a physics professor whose very words can modify
thought around the world. Yet, he has one weakness, he grows deathly ill when
his wife Katy (the goddess) is away for long periods. The main character is
John Rivers, a man that was very sheltered by his widowed mother and
inexperienced about the world. Shortly after he receives his doctorate, Rivers
takes a job as a lab assistant under Henry and since he is to start immediately
and has no place to live, he is invited to live with the Maartens’.
Both the adults
and their teenage daughter grow fond of Rivers and his position becomes that of
a de facto member of the family. Both of the women develop feelings for him,
which leads to some awkward situations. Rivers is torn between his own sexual
desires and the reality of the ways in which he could gratify them. He
eventually does get some release, but he faces the repercussions of major
guilt. There is an extremely sad event near the end, yet Henry and Rivers come
out of it fairly well and Henry lives to an old age.
The temporal
context of this book is the early 1950’s, a time of significant sexual repression.
Huxley is very good at including a great deal of analogies expressing his personal
views on religion, intelligence, morality and social forces. While he never
gets sexually explicit, the allusions to sex are very common. This is one of
the most unusual tales of a love triangle ever published.
Review of
Throwing Heat,
by Fred Bowen, ISBN 9781561455409
Five out of five stars
Jack has a very
lively arm; he throws the fastest pitches in his middle school league. However,
he lacks control, while he strikes out a lot of hitters, he also walks almost
as many. Since his coach enforces a fairly strict pitch count, he is generally removed
from the game long before it has ended. Furthermore, since he tends to lose his
control for extended periods, he often walks several batters in an inning,
leading to significant rallies by the other teams.
When his sister
brings her boyfriend Finn home, after the initial conversation among the family,
the subject turns to baseball. Finn is a former college player, not a star by
any means, and is now a coach. Finn immediately understands the issue with Jack
and tries to teach him how to throw a changeup as well as letting up a bit on
the velocity of his fastball, trading speed for better control. Jack resists at
first, but after some lackluster performances and learning a valuable lesson in
another sport, he agrees to be coached.
As most star
players in middle school and little league discover, success at those levels
generally does not follow them into the upper levels. To continue to be
successful, players must adapt and learn, constantly improving their game and
never relying on only one aspect. That is the major lesson of this book and it
is well presented and written.
Review of
You Must Remember 1968,
by Mary Pradt ISBN 0446910457
Five out of five stars
The year 1968
was likely the most tumultuous one in the last half of the twentieth century.
The American involvement in the Vietnam War was going at full speed and the
anti-war movement in the United States quickly reached a high velocity. Two
major political and social figures were assassinated and there were race riots
across the United States. Some people even began to question whether the
country would hold together or fragment. In the rest of the world, Soviet and other
Warsaw pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia.
This book
provides a set of short snippets about some of the major events of the year, of
which there were many. The basics are covered, although in such a year with so
much news, only a tiny fraction can be highlighted. Nevertheless, this is a
good book to whet an appetite about the history of the late sixties.
Review of
Quarterback Season,
by Fred Bowen ISBN 9781561455942
Four out of five stars
Matt is going
into the upcoming middle school football season fully expecting to be the
starting quarterback. He is in the eighth and last grade in the school, so this
is his last chance. He is a very talented quarterback, but lacks the skills
needed to excel at other positions.
Devro is a
seventh grader and an extremely fast and shifty runner, it only takes a few
practices before it is clear to all that he is the superior athlete. This
raises concerns in Matt about Devro taking over his position, even though when Devro
plays quarterback he clearly lacks the precision in his passing to play the
position full time.
The main theme
of this book is managing the fears of a member of the starting unit that they
will be replaced in the lineup. It is a common problem and creates the conflict
of personal desires versus the success of the team. Since this is an issue that
is universal in competitive sports, there is an important lesson here.
The common formula
for adolescent sports fiction is to experience adversity, make it to the big
game at the end and then dramatically win it. That is not the case in the Fred
Bowen series, and he is to be commended for that trait. After all, in a 26 team
league with a championship game at the end, only one team can win their last
game. As the legendary football coach Paul Brown said, "You can learn a
line from a win and a book from a defeat."
Review of
You Must Remember This: 1966,
by Mary A. Pradt ISBN 0446910430
Four out of five stars
This is a short
book designed to be gifted to another after the to, from and message entries on
the first page are filled in. It contains a series of short blurbs about major
events in 1966, one image appears on each page. At times, there is no explicit
clue as to which event on the page is linked to the image. While people that know
the history of that year will generally be able to infer the reference, it
should always be explicit.
Other than
that, this is a book that is well suited as a birthday gift so that the
recipient will know some of the things that happened in the year of their
birth.
Review of
Taiwan: Yesterday and Today
Five out of five stars
The articles in
this collection were written shortly after American President Carter decided to
recognize the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the
official government of the country. For approximately 30 years, the United
States officially considered the government of the island of Taiwan as the
government of China. While it was the logical conclusion of the surprise Nixon
trip to China in 1972, the recognition had significant repercussions throughout
Asia and the world. These articles describe various consequences of the event.
The governments
of the PRC and Taiwan were hostile towards each other, the official position of
each was that they would eventually (re)conquer the other. Yet, as is explained
very well in this collection, the consequences of the recognition were rather
minor. Both sides adopted a set of positions where each looked the other way so
that economic ties between the two “nations” could expand and that other
countries could continue to do business with them both.
Some of the
actions border on the ludicrous, yet they did work, and the peace has remained
for decades. This collection is an excellent look back to the time of change
and where the seeds of the dramatic rise of the P. R. C. to the level of economic
superpower were planted.
Review of
Hamlet: A Shakespeare Story,
by Andrew Matthews and Tony Ross, ISBN 9781626866850
Four out of five stars
If there were a
poll to learn the most famous line from the Shakespearean plays, it would most
likely be, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” a line from Hamlet. It
is the first line in what is arguably the best description of the human
condition ever put on paper and read aloud. Hamlet is one of the most performed
Shakespearean plays as well as the one most often made into a movie. The base plot
has been reused many times and in many forms.
This book is
designed to be a primer of the plot, it uses no actual dialogue from the play
to explain it. While purists can argue that much of the tone of the story is
lost, it does explain the fundamentals of the play very well. It is a good book
for school children that will introduce them to what is a really good story
imbedded in a classic Elizabethan play.
Review of
Hundred-Dollar Baby,
by Robert B. Parker ISBN 9780399153761
Five out of five stars
In the previous
Spenser novel called “Ceremony,” with Spenser’s help teenager April Kyle was able
to escape the life of a street sex worker. This was where she ended up after
fleeing a terrible home life. Spenser did the best that he could do in the
circumstances, he managed to place April in a high-class bordello where she was
shielded from the most brutal of circumstances. April also fell into a
situation where she needed Spenser’s assistance in “Taming a Sea Horse.”
This story opens
when a woman Spenser describes as a knockout walks into his office with no
appointment. Until she identifies herself, Spenser does not recognize April.
She is now running her own house, apparently doing quite well both financially
and personally. However, she is now being shaken down by some low-level thugs
and needs Spenser’s help once again.
At first it
makes no sense, Spenser checks with Tony Marcus, the man in thorough control of
the local sex trade and it is not his doing. With Hawk’s aid, they easily deal
with the part-time thugs that arrive to harass April and her girls. There being
no usual suspects to follow, Spenser must rely on the good will of people in
April’s past to search out anyone that may be behind the harassment.
The story is a
good one with the usual Parker dialog between Spenser and the other supporting
characters Hawk, Susan, some of the regular villains and police officers Quirk
and Belson. There is not much action in the area of fisticuffs or gunplay and there
is an unexpected ending. Throughout, Spenser laments what he did for April and
asks if he could have done more. Although Susan assures him that he made her
situation the best that it could be, it shows the human side of Spenser, the
professional tough guy and occasional killer.
Review of
Bitcoin Heist,
DVD version
Four out of five stars
This movie was
made in Vietnam, a place that one would not consider to be where quality films
are made. The story is along the lines of “Ocean 11,” where a group of unlikely
partners get together in order to execute a very complex robbery. In this case,
rather than stealing valuables that are physical, the target is assets
expressed in cyber form, namely bitcoins. Not only do the perpetrators have to
break into a secure vault, they must access a computer and transfer the
bitcoins using a security device embedded in the target’s ring, which he wears
at all times. As in keeping with such movies, there are many special effects
with the camera shot bouncing from location to location and person to person.
The movement
from action shot to action shot is not as crisp as viewers of Hollywood movies
have come to expect. Yet, they are not bad. What makes the movie distinct from
the others in the genre is that the ending is not formulaic. In other movies,
the group of thieves successfully carries out the heist and then laughs their
way to and sometimes into the credits. That is not the case here, the last part
of the movie contains some very unexpected twists.
One of the
strongest features of the movie is the fact that the target assets are digital
in form. Given that most monetary transfers in the world today are electronic,
this is a new area of the big crime genre that must be explored in cinema.
Review of
Arms in the Indian Ocean: Interests and
Challenges, by Dale R. Tahtinen ISBN 0844732427
Five out of five stars
In 2020, the
island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is a major U. S. military base,
containing major airstrips as well as facilities to support all types of naval
ships. Yet, there was a time when there was an intense debate in the United
States congress as to whether the U. S. should have a major base in the area.
This book was written in 1977, when the debate over whether the U. S. should militarize
the Indian Ocean was heating up.
The author
covers what is considered to be the most likely conflicts to arise in the area
of southern Asia. One of the primary issues is the conflict between Somalia and
the other nations that contain ethnic Somalis. When the colonial powers carved
up East Africa, ethnic boundaries were irrelevant. Other potential areas of conflict
are between Iran and other Islamic nations, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India and
between the nations on the Arabian peninsula. It closes with an appendix that
lists the major military hardware assets of the countries.
This book is a
great look back at how an expert thought of the state of the region of the
world that bordered the Indian Ocean. Much has happened since then, most of it
bad. Many of the conflicts that the author considers in this book have come
about and some are still active.
Review of
Playoff Dreams,
by Fred Bowen ISBN 9781561455072
Five out of five stars
The standard mold
of the classic book of adolescent sports fiction is that the main character is
a player on a team that struggles early, rights itself and then plays and wins
the big game at the end. Furthermore, girls other than mothers are at best an
afterthought in the plot, contributing little to nothing to the power of the
story.
That is not the
case in the books by Fred Bowen, in this one about baseball, there are female
players on the team, and they are good hitters and fielders. Furthermore, there
is no winning of the big game at the end, pointing out that in any sports
league with a championship, only one team can win its last game. Everyone else
must walk away as a member of a losing team.
Brendan is a
very good player, one of the best in the league. He is a great hitter and a
superb fielder in center field. Yet, his team is not doing well, and he feels
that he must “take over,” even though that is impossible in baseball. With the
help of his uncle and Cubs fan Jack, Brendan learns that it is often the case
that great players never get to be a member of a championship team.
I really enjoyed
the references to Cub great Ernie Banks, an all-time figurative champion to all
people that know baseball. His joy at being able to play baseball is an inspiration
to all who play games for fun or money.
Review of
Teng Hsiao-P’ing Comes to Washington: The
Man and His Mission, by Richard C. Bush
Five out of five stars
There have been
two transformative political figures in China during the last two-thirds of the
twentieth century. The first was Mao Zedong, the man who led the Communists to
victory in the Chinese civil war and then launched purges and powerful social
movements in the country that by the best estimates led to the deaths of 20-46
million people. The second was Deng Xiaoping, he was twice purged by Mao and
barely avoided death, yet he implemented the policies that led to China rising
in less than thirty years to the level of a global economic superpower.
Deng emerged as
the de facto leader of China in 1977 and so was relatively new to the position
when he made his famous trip to Washington D. C. in January 1979 that is
described here. While the trip was known to be historic at the time, no one
truly understood the significance of Deng in the path of history.
This book is a
good, albeit brief summary of Deng’s policies and how the improvement of
relations between the United States and China was one of the first initial
steps in the rise of China to great power status. It is a great look back to
the beginning of what we see now.
Review of
Othello: A Shakespeare Story,
by Andrew Matthews and Tony Ross ISBN 9781626866959
Five out of five stars
An English professor
once told me that Othello was her favorite Shakespeare story, with the villain
Iago one of the most memorable characters in all of his plays. The main premise
is one unusual for plays and stories of the seventeenth century, it is an
unforced interracial marriage. Less commonly emphasized is the rags to riches
aspect of the play. Othello, a black man that escaped slavery and then through
bravery in battle rose to the rank of general, is the main character.
He then meets
and falls in love with Desdemona, the daughter of a Venetian nobleman and she
reciprocates the feelings. They are secretly married and are initially very
happy when Othello is sent to command a garrison on the island of Cyprus. When
they arrive, the despicable Iago engages in an underhanded campaign to create
dissension in the garrison and between Othello and Desdemona until there is a
great tragedy. It is a story about jealousy, hatred and the all-too-common
actions of people that only know how to destroy.
This book
captures the essence of the story, which is in many ways more of a tragedy than
Romeo and Juliet, for in this case one of the lovers is killed by the other. In
many ways the English professor was right, the relationships are more socially
complex, and the story is one that is easier for modern readers to relate to. I
strongly recommend this book as an introduction to a great play.
Review of
Vietnam: Free-Fire Zone,
Chris Lynch ISBN 9780545494274
Five out of five stars
When Rudi joins
the military during the height of the Vietnam War, he appears to be in deep
trouble. He is one of those kids that were heavily picked on in school until he
acquired his buddies Beck, Morris and especially Ivan. They faced down his
tormentors and kept him safe, but starting at Marine boot camp, he is alone. Life
as a soldier is hard at first, Rudi is laughed at, with a common statement
referring to his actions is, “Is he for real?”
Once Rudi is in
Vietnam and assigned to a combat unit, he begins to adjust and even thrive in
the very rigid environment of doing what you are told. Over time and with a
little help, he becomes a killing machine, a man that shoots when and where he
is told to. Rudi begins volunteering for dangerous actions and when he has a
phone conversation with Morris, Rudi tells him that he is in Vietnam for the
duration. Morris recognizes the difference in Rudi and tells him to lighten up
and remember what he was before he took on the life of a soldier.
This book is
about how combat action changes young men to the point where their best friends
before they became a soldier find their attitude unnerving. Such transformations
are common, an elderly woman I work for told me that her grandson went to fight
in Iraq and now she is unnerved by his attitude and approach to life. It is an
old, sad story but one that humans seem destined to repeat ad infinitum.
Review of
The Kid Coach,
by Fred Bowen, ISBN 9781561455065
Five out of five stars
When this story
opens, the Tigers baseball team that Scott plays on has a problem. Coach Skelly
has taken on new job responsibilities and can no longer coach the team, he
quits before their first game. When a call goes out for any other adult to take
the position, there are no takers. Scott is a natural leader of the group of players
(there are girls on the team) and so in a last-ditch effort to have a season, Scott
offers to become the coach, citing the history of player-managers in major
league baseball. With no other alternatives, he takes the position.
At first, the
team loses, but then Scott has a conversation with Benny the Brain, one of the
players on the team. As his nickname suggests, Benny is very good at math (not
so much at baseball) and he informs Scott of the data he has collected about
the team, in essence he is a sabermetrician. Using this data, Scott makes major
changes in positioning and tactics and the team starts winning. When it is over,
they managed to have a winning season.
This is a great
story because it is plausible in the sense that sabermetrics is a very real
area of data collection, analysis and application and it can be applied even at
the youth level. Most major league teams now collect such data and before
handhelds, it was a common sight to see a manager flipping through the pages of
a three-ring binder when a decision needed to be made.
Review of
The Antique Radio Boys and the Garrulous
Grebe, by Stan Dryer ISBN 1882452003
Five out of five stars
I have read a
large number of Hardy Boys books, from the originals published in the 1920’s to
some of the more recent. There has been a distinct evolution in the style over
the decades. I have also read a few of the other adolescent mystery books
featuring other main characters.
While this book
was published in 1992, the temporal context is decades earlier. This is clear
from the clothing, technology and the bicycles. Yet, the writing style is that
of adolescent adventure stories of the thirties and forties. The author does an
excellent job in that area and also interjects many technical references to the
earliest of radios. You don’t have to be knowledgeable in the area of antique
radios to appreciate and understand the descriptions.
It can be very
hard for a modern person to mimic the writing style of decades ago. In this
case, the adventure is base to the genre and the author nails the tone.
Review of
Taiwan’s Mainland Policy and the
Reunification of China, by Maria Hsia Chang
Five out of five stars
Written in 1990
before the People’s Republic of China (PRC) became an economic superpower and
arguably the largest economy in the world, this book is a look back to when the
transformation was in the early stages. Although the government of Taiwan and that
of the PRC were still at stiff odds, there was a thaw in the movements of
people, goods and money between the two entities. In order to tone down the
differences, both sides were content to label the interactions “unofficial.”
With the
hindsight of thirty years of elapsed time, one can look at what was stated in
this book and see the embryonic development of what has become a major
implementation of realpolitik, where both sides want the same goal of
unification, just on different terms. In the meantime, both have decided to
exchange currency rather than weaponry. In 2018, trade between the two was $150
billion and travelers from the PRC made 1.66 million visits to Taiwan.
Review of
Post Cards of LaPorte City,
collected by Junior L. McBride
Five out of five stars
La Porte City
is a town in Eastern Iowa with a population slightly over 2,000, first reaching
the level of 1,000 at the 1880 census. It is typical of most small towns in the
midwestern United States, until recently the economy was based primarily on
agriculture.
The post card
images in this collection are from the last years of the nineteenth century and
the first decades of the twentieth. Most of them feature the prominent landmarks
of the city, of specific interest is the railroad depot. It was rather large,
very attractive and served local and interstate train traffic. One image shows
the campaign train of William Howard Taft when he was running for president in
1908. It is a reminder that back then, candidates for high office campaigned in
the towns served by the railroads.
The explanatory
text in minimal, just enough to identify the main object(s) or event that was
captured on film. There is no major underlying theme other than how the city
appeared as the first two digits of the calendar transferred from 19 to 20.
Review of
African Probings: Reflections on Political
Theory in the Context of French African Development,
by W Hardy Wickwar
Four out of five stars
The French holdings
in Africa were extensive at the height of the Empire. While there were
differences in how the French took and maintained control in what became different
countries, certain basic tactics were used. Those tactics are covered in this
book.
While there were
some strong central governments in African history, before the French arrived
the basic social and political structure in the areas were the local village
and tribe. Those features were suppressed and replaced by a central government with
the French in firm control with a hierarchical structure with the percentage of
native members getting higher as the village level was approached.
It was a class
of cultures with significantly different beliefs in how societies are managed. The
author does a good job in explaining the fundamentals of the differences and
how the imposition of French control changed the African societies and the
reality of adaptation to living with a superior military power.
Even though the
French west African nations have been independent for sixty years, there is
still a residual legacy of the colonial period. This short book will help the
reader understand why that situation still exists.
Review of
National Security Challenges to Saudi
Arabia, by Dale R. Tahtinen ISBN 08447320966
Five out of five stars
This short
pamphlet is an excellent retrospective look back at how the position of Saudi
Arabia relative to the other nations in the area was perceived in the late 1970’s.
At the time, the nation was militarily very weak, there were two Yemens, Iran
under the Shah had a very powerful military and Iraq had a relatively strong
military. Iraq also openly stated that Kuwait was historically part of the
Iraqi nation. Finally, there were strong verbal hostilities between Saudi
Arabia and Israel.
Some of what is
discussed as potential difficulties in this pamphlet has come to pass. Iraq did
in fact make a military attempt to take control of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia became
involved in a war in Yemen and there is a major military and political rivalry between
Saudi Arabia and Iran.
What is not
mentioned is the repressive social conditions that existed in Saudi Arabia in
1978 and continues to this day. It can be strongly argued that those conditions
pose the greatest threat to the political and social stability of the nation.
Despite that omission, this is a book that will prime your historical pump
about the current issues in the region.
Review of
Dancing Drum: A Cherokee Lesson,
by Terri Cohlene ISBN 0816723621
Five out of five stars
This retelling
and modification of a legend of the Cherokee tribe is interesting on several
levels. First and foremost, it gives an insight into the Cherokee beliefs
regarding death and the structure of the spirit world. Secondly, when it opens,
it was possible for spirits of the dead to travel back to the land of the
living and it explains how that was changed. Finally, one of the fundamental
premises is that the energy output of the sun is not constant over time. The
last premise is known to be true; the sun’s output does vary slightly over time
with occasional massive bursts of radiation capable of frying modern electronics
and damaging satellites.
When Grandmother
Sun begins burning up the land, a young man named Dancing Drum is tasked with
traveling to the residence of the sun’s daughter so that he can perhaps alter
the situation. Wrapped in the skin of a snake, Dancing Drum accidently kills
the sun’s daughter.
This mistake
must be fixed, so Dancing Drum and a band of the six fastest stickball players
set off on an expedition to recover the sun’s daughter from the spirit world
and return her to the living. It is a difficult task and they almost are able
to be completely successful.
The Cherokee
were one of the “Seven Civilized Tribes” in what were the original American
colonies. They were farmers and quickly adapted to the ways of the European
settlers and many were educated. These features did them no good when they were
forcibly removed from their native lands and force marched to the alien environment
of Oklahoma in what is now known as “The Trail of Tears.” This book is an
excellent retelling of one of their important legends and gives insight into
their culture.
Review of
NATO: Task of Adaptation,
by Robert Strausz-Hupe
Four out of five stars
Published in
1978, this short book opens with the sentence. “NATO is a surprisingly
long-lived institution, having survived longer than most institutions of its kind
known to history.” This was fifty years ago and there have been enormous changes
in the geopolitical landscape. China has risen to the level of a global
economic superpower and the Soviet Union has been in the dustbin of history for
thirty years.
Yet, there is
much that the modern scholar can glean from the writings of Professor
Strausz-Hupe. Especially when one transfers his writings about Soviet aims to
the Russia of Vladimir Putin. There is no passage more relevant to what Russian
President Putin is trying to do than what appears on page 10. “On the record,
it seems that the Soviet Union has succeeded in converting military power into
political influence in various places on the globe and has done so without
firing one authentic Soviet shot.” Replace Soviet by Russian in that sentence
and we have the current geopolitical situation.
Review of
The Atlantic Alliance and the Warsaw Pact:
A Comparative Study
Four out of five stars
A figurative
ocean of water has gone under the geopolitical bridge since this book was
relevant. It was published in 1976. After a few pages of comparison of the
command and control structures of NATO and the Warsaw Pact treaties, the public
text of both treaties is given. The Soviet Union has dissolved along with the
Warsaw Pact, so this book is a glimpse back into what was.
This makes it
an interesting historical document, made especially true given the current
environment where major political figures are questioning the relevance of NATO
in the modern world. To answer those questions, it is necessary to understand
the role NATO had years ago and this book is a good primer on the quest for
that knowledge.
Review of
The Taming of the Shrew: A Shakespeare Story,
by Andrew Matthews and Tony Ross ISBN 9781626866997
Four out of five stars
This is one of
the Shakespearean plays that will likely run afoul of the modern self-declared PC
police. It depicts a woman (Katherina) that is foul tempered and cannot get
along with anyone. Her reputation for nastiness is so great that no man in the
area has any interest in being her husband. Her younger sister Bianca has a
temperament that is completely opposite, so she is considered prime bride
material by many of the local men.
Knowing how
difficult it will be to marry Katherina off, their father Baptista proclaims that
desirable Bianca will not be wed before Katherina is. This leads to a group of
men entering into a pact of deception, if it is successful the man that loves
Bianca will be able to marry her. A man named Petruchio comes into town and
serves as the man that courts Katherina in a very odd way. Like Katherina’s
traits, his are also exaggerated.
This book
captures the essence of the story, although it does not have a single line of
dialog from the Shakespearean play. It is meant to be a comedy of the times of
Shakespeare and it loses a great deal of the humorous features when placed in
the modern context. Despite her faults, when the play opens Katherina is a
strong, independent woman and by the end she is totally submissive to her
husband.
Review of
Full Court Fever,
by Fred Bowen, ISBN 9781561455089
Four out of five stars
This book is a
combination of a story about a seventh grade basketball team and a lesson in
the history of basketball. Michael Mancino is in seventh grade and the
basketball season is about to start. The team will play a full season and then
after that the seventh grade team will play the eighth grade team.
Michael’s team is small and quick and when the season
starts, they find themselves incapable of handling teams with taller players
and lose. When he gets a gift certificate, Michael finds some old copies of “Sports
Illustrated” magazine that describe the UCLA Bruins basketball team in the
early sixties. The team had no tall players so Coach John Wooden installed a
constant and relentless full-court press and they won their first NCAA
championship under Wooden. From the magazines, Michael learns how to execute
the press and his teammates install it as a full-game strategy and their team
fortunes change.
The story flows
very well with little in the way of material other than that related to
basketball. There are girls, but their role is primarily to staff the girls’
team of the school. The big game at the end is when they play the annual game
where the seventh graders go up against the eighth graders. A very nice touch
is the inclusion of a tall transfer student from Nigeria. Although his game is
soccer and he knows almost nothing about basketball, the new boy becomes part
of the team.
This is an easy
read, one to get into late at night when you are slowly putting your mind to
bed.
Review of
The Superlative Horse,
by Jean Merrill
Four out of five stars
The basic
premise of this story was a tale in the “Book of Lieh Tzu,” which was published
in China around 350 B. C. While it is an old tale, it is also timeless. For it
deals with the selection of the highest quality horses and how people under the
ruler can be disingenuous in pursuit of their aims.
Duke Mu is the most
powerful ruler in the Five Provinces and the horses in his stables were known
as the best in the land. His Chief Groom is Po Lo and he is the person
responsible for the greatness. Po Lo has been the one to go out into the land
in search of the best horses, but he is getting old, so a replacement is being
sought.
Quite
logically, Duke Mu consults Po Lo regarding his replacement and is astonished
when he is told that the best person for the role is Han Kan, the son of a fuel
hawker. Not quite convinced, Duke Mu sends Han Kan and his Chief Minister Wang
Ho out into the land in a search for the best of all horses. This story
describes their journey and Wang Ho’s efforts to discredit Han Kan. It is a
fairly standard tale of the efforts of an unheralded and unlikely person to
rise to a position of fame and fortune.
The story is
interesting, as are all ancient tales from other lands. In many ways it
demonstrates a commonality among ancient cultures where the horse was the prime
means of transportation and powerful labor. The common theme of competition
between employees is also a human universal.
Review of
The Merchant of Venice: A Shakespeare Story,
by Andrew Matthews and Tony Ross ISBN 9781626866980
Four out of five stars
This play by
Shakespeare is a combination of love story, comedy and fable, with a Jewish
moneylender included. The love story involves Bassanio, a man of noble rank in
Venetia and Portia of Belmont. They met once and it was love at first sight.
However, the terms of her father’s will force her to submit each suitor to a
test and so far, all the men have failed. Bassanio’s friend Antonio loans him
the money he needs to impress Portia, but he is forced to borrow the money from
the Jewish moneylender Shylock.
Antonio has been
cruel to Shylock, so in an act of revenge, Shylock writes the clause in the
contract that if Antonio defaults, Shylock will be able to literally extract a
pound of flesh from Antonio’s body. When Antonio does default, there is a
climactic court scene where the paired Bassanio and the disguised Portia come
to Antonio’s defense and solve the problem with a significant act of mercy
towards Shylock.
While this book
does not use quotes from the play itself, it does a good job of presenting the
love story, the parable topics of being careful regarding the choices you make
and that if it is possible, one should take pity on people that you may not
think deserve it. However, there is no mention of Shylock’s forced conversion
to Christianity. Shylock is drawn as a shift-eyed evil man.
Review of
Meet the Dullards,
by Sara Pennypacker and Daniel Salmieri ISBN 9780062991607
Five out of five stars
This book is
amusing and something that all children can relate to. For at some point in
their lives, children consider their parents dull, yet object to most actions
that make them seem cool and unique. The Dullards are a family of five where
the parents enforce the very dull. Their clothes are blackish-grey, and the
parents are so focused on the dull that they consider medium grey and beige to
be too stimulating colors for paint. Of course, the children try to find
exciting things in their lives and eventually they manage to succeed, doing wild
and crazy things that many children dream about doing.
Unlike the
premise, this is a fun book to read, for it captures the thoughts of nearly all
children. The children think that their parents hold them back from having fun,
when in fact it is generally a reasonable attempt to protect them. The fantasy
of running off and having fun like the Dullard children do is one that all
children can relate to.
Review of
The Boy Who Grew Flowers,
by Jen Wojtowicz ISBN 9781841486864
Five out of five stars
A good lesson for people of all ages
This book is
about the kids that are significantly different and attending elementary school.
Rink Bowagon is a boy that lives so far out in the country that there is no
road, only a footpath to his house. Furthermore, the nearest road is dirt, and
his family is the only one that lives on Lonesome Mountain. All members of the
family have unusual talents, Rink’s is that he sprouts flowers all over his
body during a full moon.
The other
children in school avoid Rink until a new girl arrives. Her name is Angelina and
she has one leg an inch shorter that the other. Angelina befriends Rink and
after some interaction, they discover that they share an unusual trait. From that
point on they are friends for life.
It is a great
story, for it demonstrates that even the people that come across as unusual are
worth befriending, for you never know how you may benefit from that friendship.
This is a good lesson for people of all ages.
Review of
100 Most Feared Creatures,
by Scholastic Inc. ISBN 9780545563420
Five out of five stars
This book containing
short descriptions of animals that pose a danger to humans is at times very
scary. Although it is admitted that dangerous contacts with such animals are rare,
phrases like, “Geographer cone venom is so powerful that just one snail is capable
of killing 700 people,” are truly scary.
The creatures
in this book are dangerous in many ways, from injecting poison to slicing and
dicing to simply trampling you. Children are especially vulnerable, for they
grow up seeing human-like animals in cartoons and movies. While most creatures
will go out of their way to avoid humans, there are some that will attack with
no provocation and all will attack if their young are threatened.
The tiger is
unique among cats, for there are known instances where a tiger has deliberately
hunted humans for food. Most frightening are the parasites, only a few of which
are mentioned in this book. I took a college course in parasitology and it is
unnerving to read the accounts and see the pictures of some of the infected
people.
This is a book
that children can read in order to get a fright, and unlike what appears in
movies, the “bad guys” in this book are real and can be encountered.
Review of
Debt of Honor,
by Tom Clancy ISBN 0399139540
Five out of five stars
This book has
been claimed to be prescient in that two major plot elements are a severe
financial and securities meltdown and a commercial airliner being used as a
political weapon of terror. The initial premise is that the leaders of Japan,
China and India enter into a conspiracy to dramatically alter the territorial
alignment of Asia. The leader of Japan is not the prime minister, but one of
the leading figures of the Keiretsu, the business consortium that essentially
ran Japan.
When there are
horrific accidents due to poorly constructed fuel tanks on Japanese-made
automobiles, the reaction in the United States is to enact punitive legislation
against Japan and Japanese products. They are so severe that there is the
danger that the Japanese economy will collapse. Somewhat reminiscent of the
situation between the U. S. and Japan in the years before the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor. There have been years of military reductions in the United
States, so Japan thinks that they can invade Saipan and annex it with impunity.
The Japanese leader also pays off an American programmer to execute a logic
bomb that will collapse the American and European financial systems.
Jack Ryan is
the National Security advisor to the American President, so he is entrusted with
planning the American response. It is also a time when the U. S. and Russia
have destroyed their last nuclear weapons and in contravention to treaty, Japan
has acquired nuclear weapons.
Like all Clancy
novels, it takes a great deal of time and ink to set up all of the premises
needed to trigger the story. Many of the other regular characters of the Clancy
stories are supporting characters, although some of them have risen in rank and
stature. It is a great story with one of the most surprising endings of all
action novels. It puts the reader in the position of begging for a sequel.
The only
downside is that all American technology and plans work to near perfection,
which is contrary to the real world. That is a fairly easy leap of faith, so the
result is an adventure story you get attached to.
Review of
Henry V: A Shakespeare Story,
by Andrew Matthews and Tony Ross ISBN 9781626866928
Five out of five stars
This book is
both an introduction to one of Shakespeare’s best plays as well as a history
lesson of the political relationship between England and France during the time
he held the English throne. Since Henry V is considered one of the best
military leaders of medieval Europe, he took control of a large part of
continental France, Henry V was also a popular, patriotic play.
The level of
the text is that of the late elementary school student and is profusely and
simply illustrated. There are no quotes from the play. It could serve as the
lead-in to a section on the history of Europe and how there was a chance that Britain
and France would become a single country. Had Henry not died at an early age, that
is very possible. Given the destruction of the wars between Britain and France,
this would have had enormous consequences for European history.
I enjoyed this
book and consider it a superb introduction to a significant Shakespearean play.
