Though this book was published in 1990, and is itself a reprint of two Pentagon studies, it is still timely, perhaps unfortunately. The Pentagon has commissioned several studies in the past 50 years attempting to buttress their anti-gay policies. Yet each time these studies came to conclusions opposite those favored by the upper echelons, and so were suppressed. Ex congresspersons Gerry Studds and Patricia Schroeder were able to get two of these studies from the Eighties released despite stonewalling from the pentagon. They're reprinted here in their entirety.

The first and longest, is titled "Nonconforming Sexual Orientations and Military Suitability", the second is titled, "Pre service adjustment of Homosexual and Heterosexual Military Accessions: Implications Security Clearance Suitablity"

Both studies fail to support Colin Powells' superstitious beliefs about gays.

This is an excellent addition to the library of anyone interested in this topic. Great ammunition for arguments, because there are likely no Pentagon scientific studies coming to the opposite conclusion, as those would not have been suppressed as these were.

I approached the Generations of Corning with the same trepidation I approach most "business" books, only to be pleasantly surprised by the attention to detail, the historical perspective and the technical accuracy the book offers. A great history of the Houghton family and their beginnings in and around the Chemung Valley (Corning, NY) area and their strengths in the glassmaking / R&D community coupled with detailed business / labor / process information makes this an excellent corporate biography. Particularly the detailed explanation of partnerships that led to Owens-Corning, Dow-Corning, Ciba-Corning and Siecor will be of interest to business builders. Additionally the very detailed technical info on the evolution of manufacturing and marketing of dark fiber (my personal interest when purchasing the book) proves to be just enough without being so technical as to alienate the average reader.

I would recommend this book for those reasons, great business evolution info, just enough history to validate it and enough detail in current technical areas to make it timely to the fiberoptic community.

In Canada and around the world, journalist and military historian, Gwynne Dyer, is one of the most respected commentators of international and military affairs. This book is a prime example of his authoritative knowledge of what is going on the world.

This book reveals in intriguing detail and the chain of events that have lead the United States to fight a war against Iraq even when the original pretext of 9/11 seems have no connection. In doing so, Dyer notes that the standard antiwar perception of being only about oil is simplistic, since even Iran at its most hostile to the US has never hesitated selling as much oil to it as possible.

Rather, Dyer details the combination of US domestic political oppurtunism coupled with the current US administration's obsessions, Israeli diplomatic efforts to maintain US support and US corporate interests that have led to a war most of the world never wanted. Dyer can explain this better than I can and I invite you to explore for yourself.

The only drawback is that he fully admits that this book was finished in early Febuary this year and so he could only speculate as the possible consequences to the Iraq War. However, that itself is still intriguing for the paths current events could have taken, or indeed they still might.

In other words, if you are tired of the murky spin of Bush and the boys or the kowtowing American media, then this book represents a refreshingly sober and insightful alternative view.

Stamp collecting can be very rewarding, and this book covers the ins and outs of the hobby. If you are considering collecting stamps as a hobby, get this book.

The drama of the Dot series continues with Musical Beds in Dot, a tale that continues with the author's insight into small town life and relationships. In this novel you see more of the evils of humans, and what they seem capable of doing to others, the power money and influence have over these people, and finally the triumphs of "good" over evil. The main characters that you have seen in all the Dot novels, the Dollars, have definitely taken a turn for the worse. They have gone from the very likeable couple in the first novel to a pair of money and power grubbing jerks. You do see the stories of two other couples that where introduced in the novel The Preacher's Revenge, and you see their struggles in dealing with the internal mechanisms of relationships that are influenced by money, age, self denial, and the Dollars. You will also see a third couple. This relationship appears to be the darkest of them all, but this might be the most influenced by love and caring for their mate. The self-denial in this relationship shows how, if you are not honest with your self and others, you will not be happy, and will do anything to make you feel happy. This is a great novel in the series. I have gotten used to the author's dark side when it comes to revealing infidelity, and the dark aspects of relationships. I have come to enjoy how he is not afraid to show the inner workings, and problems of relationships, both long term, short term, friendship, and sexual. This was a very good book. The series is an easy recommend, and I am glad to see a new twist and tell on the inner workings of human relationships. I think that if you are looking for something beyond your typical romance novel that shows the dark as well as the light side of relationships, you will find it in this group of books.

This must be a mis-titled or earlier version of "Paris Trance."

Spencer Haywood's story is one that is not uncommon in sports. A brilliant career derailed by drug abuse. What I found especially compelling about this book was Haywood and Ostler's harrowing account of Spencer's crack addiction. After reading this part of the book, I found myself rooting when Spencer beat his problem and went back to try out in the NBA. A great story.

In his new edition of "Stars", Richard Dyer presents its readers with results of his thorough study about stars in/and Hollywood. It is a good read for anyone, who is seriously interested in a "star phenomenon" in particular, and "Hollywood phenomenon" in general. Step by step, Dyer focuses on topics such as "stars as a social phenomenon", "stars as images", and "stars as characters in films". He supports his findings with numeorus examples of many different films and actors, such as Al Pacino, Malylin Monroe, Tipi Hedren, etc. He also mentiones Jane Fonda in depth as an illustration of a specific image construction in Hollywood. One can only hope that in his upcoming edition, Dyer will expand his study to include examples of contemporary stars, since Hollywood dynamics keeps changing drastically every decade or two.

The more my daughter and I read this book, the more we liked it! Jane Dyer's illustrations are beautifully detailed--who would have imagined the bears living in such an ornate little house! Apparently Goldi and the bears have become friends because they share photographs, go to each other's parties, and compare gardens. Children can relate to baby bear's feelings that he is "Too Old for Naps," his fears "In the Night," and his opinion that Daddy's lap makes the best chair at all. This is a wonderful book to read aloud to your child at bedtime--or anytime.

Since the early 1950's, John Berger has authored an almost dizzying number of works on art history, art criticism, fiction and politics, as well as a large body of writing that seems to defy categorization altogether. And that is why one can't help but feel a kind of admiration for Geoff Dyer's courage to take on, for his first full-length book, a difficult critical subject and author in Ways of Telling: The Work of John Berger.

Although Dyer clearly sees Berger and his work as massively influential yet nearly always overlooked by his peers and contemporaries, it is obvious that Ways of Telling is a great deal more than a mere reaffirmation of, or a critical love letter to, an illustrious writer and his sometimes ground-breaking work. In Ways of Telling, Dyer looks carefully at the broad spectrum of Berger's career, from articles on politics and aesthetics during the early 1950's published in Socialist newspapers and magazines, to novels written in the mid-1980's. Perhaps because Dyer intended (one could plausibly surmise) Ways of Telling to be not only an academic critique but a work written for a slightly wider readership, we are invited to take a closer look at several of Berger's more universally known works. These include G, an historical novel influenced by Socialist Realism and according to Dyer, possibly inspired by the Cubist movement as well. We look at A Painter of Our Time, Berger's breakthrough novel about the struggle between the moral imperative of being true to one's creative gifts versus fidelity to one's political beliefs. Scrutiny is also given to the near-canonical Ways of Seeing, both the BBC television series and the widely-read 1972 book of the same name. Dyer is quick to acknowledge that although the polemical, class-based attack on consumer-driven capitalism and "the authority of property" by way of a beautifully written critique of Western Art is often crudely drawn in Ways of Seeing. One might miss the point entirely if one chooses to ignore the manner in which Berger's sharp sense of aesthetics and his critical eye opened the floodgates to what is now the standard method for looking at art for an ever-widening audience.

No doubt it is a tall order for any reader, or writer to separate John Berger's Democratic-Socialist and Humanist value systems from much of his work, Dyer reminds the reader that any attempt to do so is pointless and probably an unnecessary exercise. To quote Dyer " He is a great writer, but the quality of his work is important, finally, not for what it reveals of him but for what it enables us to glimpse of ourselves, of what we might become-and of the culture that might afford him the recognition that it is due."