Vincent Reviews

I have been reading "The Holy Scriptures" for about a year now, and I find it to be a very good version. What Mr. Vincent has done, is to take the King James and improve on it, taking out obvious inaccuracies, and improving the flow of the language. The advantage of this version over other translations is that many are most familiar with the KJV and because this version is so similar, it is still possible to recognize the text that is familiar. This is an excellent version and I recommend it highly.

I really enjoy reading this version, it is wonderful to have a Bible that is actually enjoyable to read, not hampered either with inaccuracies and interpretations, nor in stilted outdated language. There is a need for this version, and I really appreciate all his work.

This game is fun and entertaining. It took us about 2.5 hours to play. It requires imagination, cleverness and semi-lies. We all had a lot of fun. We had never played it before but caught on to the game within a few minutes. You role-play your part, impart clues and try to figure out the murderer while pretending to be dining in a train car during World War II. It was so much fun we're going to buy one of the other How to Host a Murder games. It's most fun to see how the others in the group dress up.

I read this book tonight. When you feel you are truly as far down as you can possibly go--this book will let you know that you are not alone. The authors have been there, and every word of the book lets you know that. Very inspirational, motivational.

This book is a herbal of herbals, quoting ancient authors like Pliny the Elder, Dioscorides, John Gerard and the ninth century AD Juliana Anicia Herbal. -KVS

What a wonderful book about Van Gogh. The authors take you to the towns were Van Gogh lived and painted. The excerpts from correspondence between Vincent and Theo were a perfect touch. The book is interesting and easy to read. This is the second biography of an artist I have ever read in it's entirety, and as an avid reader of 3-4 books a week, it was great to enjoy learning about someone whose work I have been fascinated with. I was pleased with the pictures of the towns and landscapes where Vincent painted. The book does not dwell on Vincent's illness, but it does not shy away from his behavior and the effect his illness and his strong beliefs had on his life. After reading this book I have a better understanding of the artist's feelings when he painted.

Page after page of pleasure in this slim, sexy volume. The stories are sometimes seductive, sometimes funny, always smart. A wide-ranging anthology of work by Italian women writers--including a story by literary star Rossana Campo. Cutrufelli's essay introduces this as a breakthrough volume--the first anthology of erotica penned by modern Italian women. La bella figura.

Marinaro's sequel to 'A Modern Dry Fly Code' only adds to his flawless reputation as America's most important spring creek angling author.

While it is not the ground-breaking work of his first book, it will, nevertheless, provoke much thought on the part of the contemplative angler.

True, there are points which could be argued (Vince and I never agreed on rod action, for one), but the author makes his points, and back them up with clear sound logic.

This book should be in the library of every spring crrek angler.

In this book, the public choice theorist V. Ostrom examines the intellectual crisis in American public administration that he believes has turned out following the political scandals such as Watergate.

The author dichotomizes the democratic administration and bureaucratic administration. Bureaucratic administration, originated with Weber and Wilson, is associated with a system of "good" administration that is hierarchically ordered in a system of graded ranks subject to political direction by heads of departments at the center of government (p. 24). The bureaucratic administration is assumed to produce efficient results and also makes the government responsible, as opposed to fragmented authority, in that it will be possible to show clearly who is the responsible when failures occurred. Democratic administration, according to Ostrom, is associated with fragmentation of authority and overlapping jurisdictions, and represents the opposite of bureaucratic administration based on unitary command of authority. To Ostrom, democratic administration, indulging fragmented authority and overlapping jurisdictions, is that what founding fathers of the United States deliberately envisioned. Ostrom believes that Wilsonian paradigm of bureaucratic administration has changed the nature of American public administration by leading to numerous reforms that aimed to strengthen the President and by overcoming "fragmented authority and overlapping jurisdictions" with the promise to "make the government more responsible and efficient in solving the problems of the society (i.e., war on poverty). Ostrom explains how the centralization of power in the Executive branch created unfortunate problems that have consumed the trust of citizens in government that divulges itself in the fact that half of the registered voters don't bother to voting any longer.

Ostrom attacks bureaucratic administration excellently in a way that I cannot counter-argue. However, I found his Simon interpretation irrelevant and distorted in that Ostrom shows Simon as if he was the first person who challenged bureaucratic administration-although students of Simon know very well Simon did not challenge bureaucratic administration but asserted that when principles (proverbs) of classical administrative theory contradict each other (for example, efficiency and unity of command principles) we are not given any guidelines for priority ranking, that is, Simon proposed a comprehensive administrative theory. However, it was nice to hear a different interpretation of Simon!

The point made by Ostrom is that centralization or concentration of power does not always produce "efficient" results, "efficiency" changes from one situation to another. Also, Ostrom attacks the false logic of bureaucratic administration, oriented toward efficiency, with the reason that it is interested only in "supply side" at the expense and ignorance of "demand side". The emphasis, he makes, is that each decision structure has advantages and disadvantages and when determining one of the decision structures we must calculate and weigh these advantages and disadvantages.

For Ostrom, concentrating of power in the hand of the Executive branch and dis-empowering the other branches beget what today we call "symbolic politics": "The Executive offices of the President would then become the 'efficient' part of the government; the Congress, the courts, the statehouses, and the other centers of authority would become the 'dignified' parts of government relieved of their other burdens of work so that they can devote themselves largely to the ceremonial functions of government" (p. 126). Ostrom reminds us the self-fulfilling prophecy of Rousseau "One who believes himself the master of others is nonetheless a greater slave than they" (p. 146).

In the final part of the book, Ostrom explains the guidelines (say theoretical framework) that will "help" us determine the appropriate decision structures under specific circumstances.

Overall, this book is great in its challenge to bureaucratic administration, however I don't believe that the alternative to bureaucratic administration is "public choice" under the name of democratic administration. Highly recommended classic.

An unbelievable exploration into the subtleties of the consciousness of couples. Buy this book!

The Jacksonian Era is a splendid little book of concise invaluable history. It addresses the major themes of the Jackson Presidency: slavery, the Bank War, the robbed election, Indian removal, and even dabbles into Jackson past, which is full of grand military victories. What many people fail to grasp is the fact that without Jackson's desisive victory in New Orleans, during the War of 1812, with the British, we may not have a perfect Union, or a Union at all.