Theoretical issues are left for a tiny appendix, and not much use of it is made throughout the book. This is comprehensible in a book aimed to be an unified introduction to the subject. The notation that has been introduced in the very first papers by the authors is still used and it does not seem to be appropriate to present more elaborated theoretical developments. But again, this is justified when formality is being traded off by insight development and intuitive treatment. As a last critic, since virtually the whole book is devoted to image watermarking, maybe the next editions (I hope there will be more !) of this book should include the word "image" in the title.
This book will certainly boost your understanding about background concepts and shed more light on the overlapping among different research areas in digital watermarking.

I'm proud of both Vicky Morgan-Keith's and Patrick Keith's accomplishment in the independent comic field.

Well done!
White Pony
(...)

German Jet Aces of World War 2 begins with a short introduction on the early German jet aircraft prototypes in 1939-1942. The most important issue addressed in this section is the torpid pace of the German jet development effort. Despite the facts that the Luftwaffe had flown a jet prototype in August 1939 and the first practical jet fighter (the Me-262) by July 1942, the Germans squandered their technological advantage by not beginning to form operational units until 1944. At that point, Hitler famously interfered with the jet program by demanding that the Me-262 be fielded as a bomber instead of a fighter. Few sources note that Hitler reversed his mistake six months later and ordered the Me-262 deployed as a fighter. Normally, Hitler gets the blame for fatally delaying the Me-262 program, but it seems questionable to assert that Hitler's 6 month delay was more egregious than the nearly 2 year delay imposed by the Luftwaffe hierarchy. Indeed, it is possible that without Hitler's backing none of the jets would have entered service before the end of the war.

The second chapter covers the earliest Me-262 units, such as "Kommando Nowotny" and Ekdo 262. These units were small in size and primarily established as operational test and training units, rather than as combat units. The third chapter deals with JG-7, the largest and most important user of the Me-262 in 1944-1945. The formation of JG7 was plagued by problems and although the unit conducted a few combat sorties in late 1944, it was not capable of large-scale operations until the spring of 1945. In March and April 1945 JG7 was able to employ 20-30 jets at a time instead of the previous scrambles of only 2-4 jets. The authors note that the combination of the fast Me-262 fighter and the new R4M air-to-air rockets posed a serious threat to Allied air formations over Germany. In all, JG7 claimed 500 Allied aircraft in the last two months of the war. However, the German jet units were rapidly whittled down by the relentless attrition of combat and non-combat losses. The American P-51 fighter pilots quickly realized that the jets were vulnerable in their long, slow landing runs and began to ambush them their airfields (15 Me-262s were lost in one such attack). Non-combat losses due to the finicky jet engines were high and the aircraft proved to have a steep learning curve even for experienced pilots.

The fourth chapter deals with several "oddball" jet units like Lieutenant General Galland's pick-up team JV44 and a small night jet fighter unit. Galland had been demoted from chief of the Luftwaffe fighter arm after criticizing Reichsmarchall Goering, and his punishment was to form a small squadron size jet unit. In JV44, Galland scored six "kills" in his jet before being wounded. The final chapter covers the other jet types (Me-163, He-162 and Arado 234), none of which were very successful or produced any aces. The authors include appendices listing all Luftwaffe jet aces, a table of victories claimed by each unit and the order of battle for jet units in May 1945. There are also 33 color plates of jets, all but 6 of which are various Me-262s. Unfortunately, the authors failed to provide either a bibliography or a list of the German sources used.

In sum, the Me-262 jet fighter accounted for about 735 Allied aircraft in the final months of the war. Yet was the Me-262 a potentially war-winning weapon if it had only been deployed sooner? "If only Hitler hadn't interfered," is the argument advanced by modern-day revisionists who assert that the Me-262 might have changed the tide of the air war. Actually, this account makes such claims appear doubtful. While the Me-262 was indeed a revolutionary aircraft with amazing potential, the Luftwaffe made serious mistakes in the training of new jet pilots (only a handful of two-seat trainer versions were built) and the jet engines suffered from severe teething problems. One of the Luftwaffe's top aces, Major Walter Nowotny with 258 kills, was killed by engine malfunction on his first combat sortie. While the Germans might have managed the program better and put more jet fighters into service sooner than occurred, the numerous hurdles would have made any effort problematic.

Lots of great photos and color profiles are included. If you are interested in the Luftwaffe this is not to be missed!

The most interesting is his conviction that no money is untainted. That's interesting because it means the donations and public fundings the environmentalists take in come from no less than the evil polluters themselves, perhaps feeling, which GBS rightly agreed, as the Salvation Army would that they "...will take money from the Devil himself sooner than abandon the work of Salvation." But GBS also wrote in the preface that while he is okay to accept tainted money, "He must either share the world's guilt or go to another planet." From what I can gather from the preface and play, GBS believed money is the key to solve all the problems we have, hence his mentioning of Samuel Butler and his "constant sense of the importance of money," and his low opinion of Ruskin and Kroptokin, for whom, "law is consequence of the tendency of human beings to oppress fellow humans; it is reinforced by violence." Kropotkin also "provides evidence from the animal kingdom to prove that species which practices mutual aid multiply faster than others. Opposing all State power, he advocates the abolition of states, and of private property, and the transforming of humankind into a federation of mutual aid communities. According to him, capitalism cannot achieve full productivity, for it amis at maximum profits instead of production for human needs. All persons, including intellectuals, should practice manual labor. Goods should be distributed according to individual needs." (Guy de Mallac, The Widsom of Humankind by Leo Tolstoy.)

If GBS wasn't joking, then the following should be one of the most controversial ideas he raised in the preface to the play. I quote: "It would be far more sensible to put up with their vices...until they give more trouble than they are worth, at which point we should, with many apologies and expressions of sympathy and some generosity in complying with their last wishes, place them in the lethal chamber and get rid of them." Did he really mean that if you are a rapist once, you can be free and "put up with," but if you keep getting drunk (a vice), or slightly more seriously, stealing, you should be beheaded?

But, I found that "FDR" had significant faults which marred my enjoyment of it somewhat. It purported to be a serious biography and indeed for much of the time, that's how it read, but Morgan had too much of a prediliction for lapsing into anecdotes and folksy stories, thereby sending the book down unnecessary side alleys. In all, there was too much of that and too little serious analysis: it's almost extraordinary that no attempt was made to do an inquest on the New Deal. Space might have been a problem, but surely an evaluation of FDR's Presidency requires this?

At times, Morgan is just clumsy. In 1925, FDR invited helped some fellow polio victims staying at Warm Springs. Morgan summed it up:

"It felt good to be in command of something again, even if was only half a dozen cripples."

Writing with all the subtlety of a train crash. Surely, by that analysis FDR himself was "only a cripple"?

Not a horribly bad piece of work, but could have been far better.

G Rodgers

Which is where this one comes in. I bought it more than 15 years ago, but never really read it until last year. Before then, I was only interested in "proof texting" FDR to basically show what a socialist bad guy he was, a poor comparative reflection of cousin Theodore. In this sense, too-high a view of Theodore dooms FDR to second-best. Then I read Churchill's 6 Vol. history of WW II, and through that lens saw a very compelling FDR, one big enough to "run" Churchill. And Churchill makes it clear in his history why it was utterly impossible for the West to save Eastern and Central Europe from the Russians. Explaining this take on things drops the charges against FDR so long-brought by the John Birchers--that somehow he gave away the world to the communists.

Ted Morgan gets deep into this, but by way of Roosevelt's childhood and familial relations, focusing on Franklin's impossible mother--the root of his famous evasiveness, says Morgan. Then on into minor politics after a little Harvard; a glimpse of some adultery, and then polio. The adultery is interesting, because compared to someone like Bill Clinton, FDR's sounds quite focused, or even traditional--his Lucy Mercer of Pre-Presidency fame stays in the picture, and is in the room with him 4 terms later when he has his stroke after going thru the morning's mail at the resort in Georgia he had purchased (in pale, or maybe non-pale imitation of Teddie's purchase of the badlands ranch--both places of rehabilitation for each Roosevelt).

And although Eleanor may have played house in a cottage behind Franklin's Mom's ancestral property, with a few lesbian friends, she, too is a sympathetic figure, putting up with Franklin, then becoming his functional nurse, and raising their children in the scant time left after working on the ills of the rest of the world. Something like Hillary with more empathy, or substance. How about Hillary minus the switchblade?

Somewhere in all of the polio and then political battle, FDR decided to be great; and this seems to have translated, as the story unfolds through Morgan, into a similar decision to make the United States great, and dominant. Doing this while paralyzed from the waist down, and while taking time to "stick it" to old foes in the New York State government throughout his presidency, induces a kind of involuntary admiration which lets me see how people like Bill Clinton are so drawn to the FDR memory, and how they seek to replay FDR's utter commitment to the moment and the audience. Compared to a Clinton, the multimillionaire Dutchman from upstate New York paradoxically had a lot less to prove, but yet accomplished so much more.

So after a long time admiring Teddy and dumping on Frank, this book makes it clear to me that although an FDR without the preexisting Teddy would not have been possible, FDR very arguably accomplished a great deal more than TR. As recent, more critical biographers of Teddy explain (H.W. Brands, TR: The Last Romantic), Teddy sort of fanatacized-out during his third party phase, maybe paralleling Winston Churchill's father's flame-out--an interesting common point which may have given these two leaders in their wartime phase the ability to compromise and survive, when it would be easier to lecture and purify (and get tossed out).

Thus the connection with the mess of the war, and part of the explanation for us coming out on top (in spite of FDR's child like view of India, and some-said-strange courting of Ibn Saud). If these actions were designed to take adavntage not only of Germany's destruction, but also of England's slide, then FDR succeeded. Maybe Churchill would call him another Marlborough, had he been related, due to this balance of power maneuvering. But maybe FDR didn't intend it that way at all, if he was more a tool of providence mingled in with great effort (kind of an Augustinian view of political success).

In summary, I'm not as hacked off as I used to be when I see FDR's face on our dimes, after reading this book. It's OK with me now if stays right there. He puts a better human face on our money than a stylized Mercury-head yanked from mythology. And that's what this author has also done for me.

One thing I'd like to see a future historian look into: Campobello Island, the family's version of the Kennedy compound, is actually in Canadian territorial water (so I'm told). What relationship did this have to the Roosevelt family import fortune of glass and hardware back in the 1700s and 1800s? Was there a tax avoidance or illegality angle, like the Forbes family, the Bronfmans of Canada (See Peter Newman's book "Bronfman Dynasty" on that), and the Kennedys? That would complete the economic substrate of our knowledge of this family, long since passed, it seems, into fashionable senescense. And sure, all families seem to decline; but few leave behind such great men.

Which gets us back to the pack of FDR authors. They're everywhere, some of their books skinny, some quite fat. But this one really stands out. I highly recommend it.

Yes, it's "introductory" in nature, but it's the most comprehensive introduction I've seen to this complex and emerging field. It would make an excellent reference or textbook.

The 5-star content gets 4 stars because of the book's numerous editorial flaws. For example, several illustrations in the text reference color plate images that simply don't exist. And at least a half-dozen works cited in the text don't appear on the reference list. All-in-all, a rather slipshod editing job.

The only main drawback may be book quality. Only a few color plates in the center make for a visually sparse work, although there are b/w images throughout. Nevertheless, writing makes up for this fact with clear and direct language. Many of us here in the Communication Planning/Information Design grad program like it a lot.

In 1882 Horseshoe, Texas, Linsey Gordon reads the signs that inform her that she has three months to live because she looked into a mirror during Bleet Haggar's wake. Though her luck may be all bad, the superstitious Linsey decides to do one last good deed before she dies. She wants to find a spouse for her sister Addie.

Linsey selects the town's workaholic, its' most eligible bachelor, Dr. Daniel Sharpe, a person who dreads having anything to do with the most superstitious person in all of Texas. Her efforts seem to backfire and places her and Daniel in several predicaments. Still, both of them soon begin to fall in love with each other, but he must convince her that the only real sign is that of love, while she must teach him to relax.

LOVING LINSEY is a humorous western romance with a moral that life is to be lived. The story line is filled with antics that entertain the reader even as the era feels authentic. The good and bad luck charms that prevail would even leave Professor Amos Fortune (Justice League foe) wondering about the future. Like her best seller, WILD CAT CAIT, Rachelle Morgan has scribed another jocular tale with a punch.

Harriet Klausner