I thought this book worths for a Youth Ministry conference, in my expanding ideas about youth ministry, it raised up the greater issues to think in a very complete youth ministry. As this is a compendium, some essayers tried to put their own areas in the first thing to worry in a Youth Ministry as other writers simplified very much their ideas as far as they had not enough space to put all he would tell. This is what we usually find in Youth Ministry conferences isn't it? But after reading it I have a clear vision of what to achieve in short, medium and long terms

There is much positive to say about Nancy Parker McDowell's "Notes from Ramallah". The book is compiled from letters and journals written during the 1938-39 school year, when the author travelled to British Mandate Palestine and taught in a Friends School in Ramallah. The writing has a lively, contemporaneous quality that transports the reader back to that time and place.

The book is well worth reading for McDowell's marvelous portraits of 1939 Arab Palestine -- and many of the people and customs she encountered during her year long stay there. Her affection for her students, for the people of Ramallah and for their culture is obvious. She is also an incidental (and almost casual) witness to the Arab revolt against the British.

McDowell is clearly something of an adventurer. Without bombast or bragging, she nevertheless paints a lively self portrait of a young woman who was somewhat naive, but also strong, confident, and independent-- well before those qualities were truly in fashion among American women.

McDowell's treatment of the Arab-Jewish conflict, on the other hand, is disturbing. McDowell forthrightly acknowledges that, during her entire almost one-year stay, she has virtually no contact with Jewish Palestine. She expresses some passing curiousity about the Jews, yet she blithley and unquestioningly accepts the fact that ANY contact with the Jews would offend her Arab friends and would make her an object of suspicion. Accordingly, she has neither any understanding nor any "feel" whatsoever for the Jewish perspective on Palestine -- and she is remarkably untroubled by this.

McDowell likewise seems virtually oblivious to the obvious dangers already facing Jews in Europe. While she occasionally throws out a single sentence here and there about the need for Jews facing anti-Semitism to have some place to go, she seems to have no real understanding of how brutal the situation already was by 1939. (The Nuremberg Laws, which essentially deprived German Jews of citizenship and the right to earn a living, travel, etc., were enacted in 1935; Kristallnacht took place in 1938). Indeed, she eagerly travels to Nazi Germany just a few months prior to the outbreak of World War II, has no particular problem when her roomate decides to stay in that country and teach there, and congratulates herself for criticizing the Hitler regime in a presumably friendly enough "political debate" with some Nazi soldiers.

Thus the 22 year old McDowell has no real contact with Palestinian Jewry, their views, their claims or their history. She likewise demonstrates almost no feel whatsoever for the oppression facing Jews in Europe. Yet, even as she pays lip service to the notion that the Jews may need somewhere to go, she concludes (with no evidence or real argument) that sparsely populated Palestine is "too small" -- for further Jewish emigration. She thus would join her Arab neighbors and the British in barring the Jews from Palestine while offering them no real alternative -- except to stay where they are. (The European powers and the U.S., had earlier made clear there was no room for Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism.) It is almost as if she accepted the world's "not in my backyard" view of the Jewish problem as the "moral solution".

This sort of naivete might be forgiven in a 23 year old young woman, fresh out of college, on her first trip abroad and exposed to only one side of a multi-faceted and complex problem. But McDowell compounds the problem in her occasional annotations to the original text -- annotations presumably written within the last couple of years.

She notes, seemingly with disapproval, the Jewish rejection of the British 1939 "White Paper" which, on the eve of the Holocaust, bars further Jewish emigration to Palestine -- and consigns Palestinian Jews to permanent minority status (in other words, a replication, in many ways of the permanently vulnerable Jewish condition in Europe). She never acknowledges that the Holocaust, proved the Zionists right, if in no other way, at least in their notion that the Jews needed a place to go to be safe and to govern themselves.

She decries the lack of a Palestinian Arab state, yet she ignores the Arab rejection of the UN's mandated partition a decade later -- which would have created that very state in 1947! And she completely ignores generations of criminally negligent Arab leadership, from the Grand Mufti through today, that has not only suppressed alternate views within the Arab community, but repeatedly refused to take steps that could have led to viable statehood for Arab Palestine.

She decries Israeli occupation of Ramallah and other "territories" captured in the 1967 War, but nowhere acknowledges that it was Arab armies massed on every single Israeli border that provoked that war. She rightly condemns the brutal excesses of the Israeli occupation of those territories, but nowhere analyzes the treatment of area residents during decades of Egyptian and Jordanian rule. She never once discusses the continuing anti-Jewish violence, both organized and spontaneous -- violence that long predates the establishment of Israel itself -- as providing the Israelis with ample reason to be concerned about security.

So this is a book to be read and enjoyed for what it is -- a loving portrait of a largely vanished culture and a fascinating picture of pre-tourist travel -- steamships, old trains, unspoiled sights. I had hoped, as well, for a bit more insight, maybe a glimpse at the roots of a terrible, wasteful, tragic conflict -- but, for that, alas, one must look elsewhere.

Think about the idea known to us as object-oriented programming; instead of rewriting everything from scratch over and over again, as we used to do, instead you have small blocks of code that can be used for many different procedures, thus decreasing the amount of work for the programmer and the amount of hard-drive space that the user needs. Simple and elegant. Makes sense, huh? It's actually an idea as old as language. "Object-oriented" is a good description of any language. While Oriental writing shows this most clearly, in that a relatively small number of syllabic characters are written in various ways to make larger words, it's easily understood in any language when looked at the right way.

This is the basis behind A.-J. Greimas' _Structural Semantics_. However, he extends the argument not only to language, but to thought as well, and gives the reader a new way to think about the critical analysis of what he reads.

Greimas' theory is that humans have a specific and limited number of possible ideas that can be used in various, still limited but much closer to infinite, ways to create sentences, and from there to create stories. Much of the book is spent developing and defending this theory, and only the last two chapters (devoted, respectively, to analysis of the body of Russian folktales and the body of work by French author Bernanos) show how to put the theory into practice. Given this, it should be evident to the reader that this is going to be a tough book to tackle even for experienced literary critics. It doesn't help that Greimas spends much of his time in the stratosphere, and assumes we're spending all that time with him; he drops references without backing them up constantly (the translators of the University of Nebraska Press edition identified and tracked down well over a hundred of these, and endnotes are included), and his language is so far into the abstract that if you attempt to take up this book without a pad and pen, you'll be lost early on.

This all changes, thankfully, as practical application makes itself known. Once we get down to actually applying everything from the book to the symbolism in a given author, it all starts to make sense. One wonders why the beginning part couldn't have been explained in an easier, more concise manner; perhaps Greimas, so involved in the world of literary theory, didn't know how any more.

A fascinating read, albeit a long one; while I found it tremendously enlightening, I have to penalize it heavily for being so obtuse most of the time.

Admittedly Most of Chrisianity like many religions weren't written by "God" or "Jesus" himself. Instead our whole belief system sits on the worlds of "Inspired" men. Micheal Korish was inspired in Waco, Texas! . Bottomline, it leaves the door open to translation, corruption and influence. So, whats wrong with asking questions and seeking whats right about our religion. But what really burns me was Reviewer Violet who finsihes with "If anyone comes to you bearing this book, beware: they're probably less interested in being holy than in being right." I would rather be Right and an outcast than Holy and Wrong! Sounds like she had a logic( ). I agree with the books purpose but thougt it could have been written a lot better.

...McDowell's use of the "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" trilemma is just exhibit A of the snake-oil McDowell sells. This trilemma leaves out obvious alternatives such as:

1. The Gospels were wrong- Jesus didn't say it,

2. Jesus may have been sane, but may have still mistaken himself for being the messiah- and in no way thought of himself, btw, as the bible-god McDowell worships.

3. Other alternatives.

If you want to see warped, dysfunctional thinking, go ahead and read this book....

As a christian I'm ashamed to read the review by "A reader", defending this book against the comments made by previous reviewer "Violet". I find it hard to believe anyone can claim to be a christian and outrightly call someone else 'stupid' and 'worthless' - the bible in fact tells us to do just the opposite - we are to love our neighbours and enemies above ourselves and not to judge others. Even non-believers have a notion that that is what all this "christianity" is about, but it's them at the end of the day who will click in here, read these comments and scoff; Christians bickering and name-calling like kids is hardly an example they'll want to follow. Click out, and a good book is not read.

It's disapointing that this should happen on a account of someone else's carelessness so I'm hoping my recommendation of the book will encourage those with open and inquisitive minds, to read on past these mere reviews and open the book for yourselves, which will enable you to draw your own factual conclusions.

The best of the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy, Tyrant's Test takes us back to the convoluted lives of our heroes. The characterizations of Luke and Leia remain poor, Lando's mission is still annoying but there is a bright spot. Chewie's rescue of Han Solo is one of the few bright points in this trilogy. The daring and insane rescue of a battered and tortured Han Solo by his best friend is truly a memorable scene in an otherwise forgettable book. Chewie becomes much more than just a hairy sidekick, but rather he is more of a brother to Han than Luke is. Luke and the strange woman continue to search for her people and his mother. They finally track down this secretive people, but unknown to Luke (but known to everyone else), his traveling companion lied to him and she was really not a part of the secret society. A slave revolt against the evil Yevetha helps to end the threat to the New Republic and Leia sits triumphant atop the backstabbing political world. The end has Luke and Leia reconciling (froma separation that was totally unnecessary) and Luke returns to his real living family. As for Lando, Luke also took time out of his busy schedule to hop halfway across the galaxy to save his old friend trapped aboard a living ship/seedpod. Sounds kind of Vongish to me. Anyway the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy is one of the worst in the Star Wars universe. All three books filled with annoying convoluted plot and terrible depictions of the main characters. It simply the worst trilogy of the Star Wars universe, which is saying something considering how bad the Jedi Academy Trilogy is. Kube-McDowell should have spent more time writing and editing his book to be much more streamlines than the clunky and poorly written result that Star Wars fans received.

(first of all, this review is for the trilogy, and not just _tyrant's test_) in general this was an average trilogy, nothing spectacular, but not bad. there was one excellent point in this trilogy, Chewbacca's part of the story. After reading this, Chewbacca seems more human, not so much a big...wookie...and just Han's sidekick. It was nice to see someone explore the character of Chewbacca. But there were two parts of the story I had problems with. One was Luke's part of the story, I mean, how much power does this guy need?! The other major problem i had with the trilogy is all the time spent with characters we don't know, don't want to know, and aren't that important. I think the author could have spent more time developing the plot lines of the characters we know (such as Han's capture or how Leia dealt with it, which really wasn't touched on a whole lot). But they (other than Lando) didn't seem to have a huge role in the trilogy. All in all, if you keep up with the star wars universe, this trilogy is worth the time.

I found it a bit difficult to get into the story at the begining, as it was a bit boring, but once I got about a quarter of the way through the first book, I couldnt stop reading. I honestly dont know why people are talking trash about these books ... I liked them. This trilogy is definitely worth reading, especially if you're a fan. They may not be as good as the original Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn, but what really is?

Anyway, the Black Fleet Crisis, and more specifically this final, climatic chapter of the trilogy, are one of the better Star Wars books I've read so far.

I can't believe this rehashed stuff in support of "creation-science". Perhaps if I had not educated myself on both sides of the issue beforehand I would be easily swayed. I find it amazing this man implies he stands for truth, honesty, and integrity but of this is ultimately half-truths. I honestly wonder if these books written by McDowell are written out of scholarly intention or just to prove his ideas right. It's unfortunate McDowell's work feeds quick and easy answers to people who will readily accept anything to make them feel better.

Over half of "Reasons" is a promotion of the so-called "creation science", where MacDowell spews forth a number of arguments to try to discredit evolution. As a scientist, I was appalled to read this section, because he was so wrong on many points! MacDowell has used "evidence" which was completely discredited well before he wrote the book; he has used irrelevant points and misleading arguments; he has attempted to expose "serious problems" with evolution but failed even to acknowledge that there are even more serious problems with "creation science"; he has ridiculed evolution for past errors which have since been fixed yet failed to see that he's using creationists' errors that haven't been fixed. These are unacceptable in any book which claims to show the truth.

MacDowell asks, in the book, why more scientists don't accept creationism. The miserable scholarship in this book is a sample of the real reason why. This, I'm sorry to say, is a book to be avoided.

Those who come to this book not willing to rationally entertain any evidence or idea that contradicts their preconceived notions (that God does not exist, evolution is absolutely true, and Jesus is just a man) will find little value in this work--or any work, for that matter, regardless of its scholarship or reliability.

Yet, the one who comes to this book as a seeker of truth and not one who believes he has absolutely already found it without question will find reasonable and rational evidence in support of the authenticity of Christianity that should be carefully considered as the search for truth continues.

It also contains some great resources on various translations of the Bible that will allow the reader to discuss the legitimacy of each based on knowledge rather than conjecture.

In summary...

Hardened skeptics will disdain its content. Devoted Christians will embrace its content. Seekers of truth will appreciate its content as a good supply of food for thought.

Although I greatly respect the author, I can say that this book doesn't bring anything new to the table. It just outlines what is required and could have been much more complete, he at least should have included a complete business plan and not just the suggestions of what should be in it, it could be so much better than it is, and I also don't like how he says you have to buy his course in order to get more information. I don't mind a person suggesting his products because I do think that his course is well worth considering but you should make the book complete by presenting everything completely, at least I can say in Bill Williams book "New Trading Dimensions" that it was complete and you had the option of taking his course. But again I will say that the course he offers on his web site is worth it since it helps you deal with the complete picture of what it takes to trade but this book which costs a lot of money isn't

This is an incomplete guide. It is more like an outline that was never completed. If this were turned into for a grade in school it would rate an F. It is not focused, does not answer any questions, nor raise any pertinent issues.

Excellent book, cuts to the chase and tells you what you will need to set up your Trading Business.

Like its predecessor, Shield of Lies continues bad characterizations, poor plot and long drawn out writing. The Luke out with a strange woman to learn about his mother story line to just annoying. This female character is simply annoying and Luke does not act all that much like a Jedi Master. Jedi Masters can tell when someone is lying to them! As for Leia the drudgery of political life is draining on her. Eventually stories about the running of a government can get boring and after the first book the Leia and political back-stabbing storyline is old and slow and boring. Han finally gets something to do, but due to the ineptness of the New Republic military (can't imagine how they beat the Empire at all) by the evil, is captured by bigoted Yevetha nazi beings introduced in the first book. Chewie has a subplot involving his son's journey into manhood, while Lando's adventure on the ghost ship is really painful to read. This series could have been so much better but a convoluted plot, poor editing and really awful writing make it among te worst set of books in the Star Wars universe.

This is an interesting story. I hope someday Luke learns who his mother really is.

I don't know what the other reviewers are thinking, this is one of the best trilogies in the entire series. A major complaint seems to be that these books are "all talk and no action," well my little friends, I am sorry that your limited intellect cannot stand plot development and intricate story lines. Unlike a LOT of sci-fi books out there, the Star Wars books actually try to have a story, and a MEANINGFUL, LASTING story at that. Not just blazing light saber/death star/dog fight battles. If you don't have the intellectual capacity to enjoy a good story with good plot lines, that is well written and that explores more than just shooting at people, then I recommend something along the lines of "Pokémon" that would seem to fit with your age group. CHEERS!

If you are looking for some meat about debugging then this is NOT your book. IT's not beyond a debugger documentation.

The book is essentially useless. Claiming to address itself to administrators and developers alike, it manages to satisfy neither.

The book explains on 160 (one hundred and sixty!) pages how to configure NT to produce a crash dump file; how to read a BSOD; how to run dumpexam; how to fire up a debugger; and how to get Windbag to run a debug session. Oh, I forget -- there are a few pages on the Driver verifier, too. The other 140 pages are a summary of Windbag commands (outdated) and a list of bugcheck codes and NTSTATUS values, both badly formatted, outdated versions of the corresponding header files.

This reviewer had expected all of the above to take, oh, 50 pages at the outside, with the rest of the book devoted to common debugging scenarios -- why does my driver go bang with a 0x1E bugcheck? how do I find and eliminate a deadlock? what did I do wrong in my IRP canceling code?

None of that is in there; and what _is_ in the book can be found in the DDK and Windbag docs, better written and more asily digested.

Felix Kasza.

This book does not teach you how to debug. It's essentially what the debugger documentation should have been 2 years ago.

If you have never done any kernel debugging, this is a good starting point that will give you an overall undertanding of the process and the tools. However, now that Microsoft has rewritten all the debugger documentation, most of this information comes with the online documentation.

The most unfortunate thing in my mind is that the most important chapter - remote debugging - has a major mistake in it: Figure 8-2 is wrong and will totally confuse the reader. Figure 8-2 should have the HOST machine located between the REMOTE and the TARGET machine.

This book gives you 130 pages of USB overview (which you probably already know) and 200 pages of useless tables of for instance the Pinout for the VGA-cable. As the "Editorial Revies" notes this book is "written in laymans terms" which I interpret as containing-to-little-specific-info and is much to general to be used for anything but a brief overview.

This book provides a good overview of USB but I was disappointed to find that the appendices began when I was half way through the book. The entire 2nd half of the book is tables of information which has no connection to USB. Tables like Sony's CD ROM header pinout and the NuBus 90. I think the authors ran out of time or material and the publisher made the book look bigger by including all this extra doo-dah. There is nothing in the book's description on-line or on its covers that would let you know that it is 50% USB and 50% filler. I felt a bit ripped off.

This book did exactly what the title implied. I now have enough info on USB to continue more indepth study of it. I only hope I can find a more advanced book written in such a manner as this book was, making studing easy and fun.