Review: The Elements of Style

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Every speaker/writer of the English language should read this peerless and seminal work on grammar and usage. I'll forever remember its advice (don't be breezy!) and striking imagery (nouns
"pressed into service" as verbs ala "gifted").

I recently saw this work name-check in [b:The Software Project Manager's Handbook|4943549|The Software Project Manager's Handbook|Dwayne Phillips|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1267044498s/4943549.jpg|3186853], kudos for that [a:Dwayne Phillips|1270209|Dwayne Phillips|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66-251a730d696018971ef4a443cdeaae05.jpg]!



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Review: The Brothers Bulger

The Brothers Bulger by Howie Carr

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



It is really sickening the way James "Whitey" Bulger's role as an FBI informant gave him an implicit U.S. government umbrella of protection to his life of villainous, murderous crime through tip-offs of recording devices, etc. This book covers that sordid tale and brother William Bulger's rise as a corrupt Massachusetts/Boston politico. The context of a weak and disorganized Mafia (La Cosa Nostra; "LCN" here) that allowed Bulger and the Winterhill gang to flourish is interesting. There also cameos by Donnie Brasco, Mitt Romeny, Barney Frank, and Dukakis, as well as a Bush family member. For instance, it was the weakness and disorganization of the mafia that allowed their initiation ceremony to be recorded in Medford, MA as recounted here and published in an unabridged fashion in [b:The Ceremony|2103846|The Ceremony|David Fischer|/assets/nocover/60x80.png|2109229].

While this book is updated with a where-are-they-now epilogue it ends with a septuagenarian Whitey still on the lam.

The tale of gangster and elected official as siblings with their successes, such as selling booze to the FBI for parties and making a boondoggle out of The Hynes Convention Center, is really almost too amazing to believe. Oh yeah, and on top of that, Whitey participated in gov't LSD experiments while in prison. Wow.



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Review: The Software Project Manager's Handbook

The Software Project Manager's Handbook by Dwayne Phillips

My rating: 0 of 5 stars



• "Visibility and communication are more important than [choice of technology]"
• "[Handle] maintenance projects so that no one feels like a second-class citizen"
• One of my favorites: "Choose the best people, keep the team small, minimize distractions, train them, meet together as a team regularly, know them, and set an example"
• Cherry-picked from 1.3.2 Best Practices “a best practices list compiled from the best practices lists of many well-known authors:
o Reviews, inspections, and walkthroughs
o Binary quality decision gates
o Milestones
o Visibility of plans and progress
o Defect tracking
o Testing early and often
o Fewer, better people
o Opposition of featuritis and creeping requirements
o Documentation for everything
o Change management
o Reusable items
o Project tracking
o Users - understanding them
o Buy in and ownership of the project by all participants
o Requirements
• “Avoid having team members work in isolation”
• “Keep…notes of everything you learn”
• “use standards judiciously”
• “You cannot build a more difficult product without increasing capability”




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Review: On the Origin of Species

On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

My rating: 0 of 5 stars



Do youself a favor and review or print out the Divergence of Taxa diagram. to know what Darwin is explaining

This particular narrator of the 2nd (1859) British edition has some unusual pronunciation mannerisms: "pupae" sound like excreta in the eye, "inference" has furry accent on an indentified second syllable, and "protean" is a homonym to "protein". Who knew!



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Review: Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History

Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History by Erik H. Erikson

My rating: 0 of 5 stars



Among the most intriguing material in this book is when the author references his insights gathered from anthorpological assessment of Native Americans, such as:

"It is well to remember that the majority of men have never invented the device of beating children into submission. Some of the American Plains Indian tribes were (as I had an opportunity to relate and to discuss twenty years ago [b:Childhood and Society|763806|Childhood and Society|Erik H. Erikson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1361744736s/763806.jpg|54594]) deeply shocked when they first saw white people beat their children. In their bewilderment they could only explain such behavior as part of an over-all missionary scheme an explanation also supported by the white people's method of letting their babies cry themselves blue in the face. It all must mean, so they thought, a well-calculated wish to impress white children with the idea that this world is not a good place to linger in, and that it is better to look to the other world where perfect happiness is to be had at the price of having sacrificed this world. This is an ideological interpretation, and a shrewd one: it interprets a single typical act not on the basis of its being a possible cause of a limited effect, but as part of a world view. And indeed, we now beat our children less, but we are still harrying them through this imperfect world, not so much to get them to the next one as to make them hurry from one good moment to better ones, to climb, improve, advance, progress."

Along with that, I have been avoiding psychoanalytical biographies considering such things as [b:Moses and Monotheism|97743|Moses and Monotheism|Sigmund Freud|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1355687578s/97743.jpg|2914719] as bordering on hubris. Getting into this work, I had no idea we could know so much in detail about an early 16th Century personage. Luther's annotated writings, early biographies, financial records, first person accounts and other primary sources complete a picture of the life of this important figure largely from his abruptly redirected university career to leading an out of control reactionary reform movement with a fully violent insurgency.

Admittedly, when I came across a phrase like "transfer neurosis" I let my eyes drop down to the next paragraph seeking more details on Luther's life and times. However, with Luther's confessed and documented obsession with diabolical derrieres, his own disordered bowel movements, and a mind or times given to anal metaphors it does appear subjecting his life to Freudian interpretation was bound to happen and I commend the author in his restraint in this direction.



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Review: The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community

The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community by William Hardy McNeill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



In The Outline of History, H. G. Wells observed, "The natural political map of the world insists upon itself. It heaves and frets beneath the artificial political map like some misfitted giant."

McNeill's panoramic view of history is cut from the same cloth: cultural in continuous clash with political and societal priorities often at odds with pressure building up like a tectonic fault. McNeill sees the interactions and tensions of intermixed peoples pouring out of the steppes for centuries and jostling anxiously against each in the inhabitable regions of Europe.

I love McNeill's uses of the word "ecumene" to describe the civilized mass fretting beneath the political map. There are ample plates of pictures and ampler footnotes as McNeill consulted libraries of information and summarizes it all with an obvious love for history and the drama of the human story and he isn't afraid to say when there are things he doesn't understand and seem missing from the published expertise.



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Review: The Brothers Bulger

The Brothers Bulger by Howie Carr

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



It is really sickening the way James "Whitey" Bulger's role as an FBI informant gave him an implicit U.S. government umbrella of protection to his life of villainous, murderous crime through tip-offs of recording devices, etc. This book covers that sordid tale and brother William Bulger's rise as a corrupt Massachusetts/Boston politico. The context of a weak and disorganized Mafia (La Cosa Nostra; "LCN" here) that allowed Bulger and the Winterhill gang to flourish is interesting. There also cameos by Donnie Brasco, Mitt Romeny, Barney Frank, and Dukakis, as well as a Bush family member. For instance, it was the weakness and disorganization of the mafia that allowed their initiation ceremony to be recorded in Medford, MA as recounted here and published in an unabridged fashion in [b:The Ceremony|2103846|The Ceremony|David Fischer|/assets/nocover/60x80.png|2109229].

While this book is updated with a where-are-they-now epilogue it ends with a septuagenarian Whitey still on the lam.

The tale of gangster and elected official as siblings with their successes, such as selling booze to the FBI for parties and making a boondoggle out of The Hynes Convention Center, is really almost too amazing to believe.



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