An Unlikely Revolutionary: Matsuo Takabuki and the Making of Modern Hawai'I (Extraordinary Lives)

Book Description

A confidant of Governor John Burns, a member of the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of Honolulu, a business associate of developer and financier Chinn Ho, a trustee of the Bishop Estate - Matsuo Takabuki has been at the heart of many of the sweeping social, financial, and political changes that have fundamentally altered Hawai`i in the last half century. An Unlikely Revolutionary is Takabuki's own story, told in his characteristically straightforward manner, of his life and work as one of the "movers and shakers" behind Hawaii's transformation from an isolated, agriculture-based territory to a highly diverse, competitive modern community. In September, An Unlikely Revolutionary was featured on the front page of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Average customer rating:

Read the book for research, now an admirer of the man

A true testament to Joe Jackson the Man!

Growing Up With Shoeless Joe

If you only read one book about Joe, this is the one to read

Growing Up With "Shoeless Joe": The Greatest Natural Player in Baseball History
Edward J. Thompson
Manufacturer: Jti Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0966253116

Book Description

Perfect-bind paperback, 8.5X11" second printing, complete and unabridged, collector's edition, updated.

Customer Reviews:

Read the book for research, now an admirer of the man.......2001-06-25

Last September I painted a mural of "Shoeless " Joe Jackson in his home town---Greenville, South Carolina. His name meant nothing to me until I went to the library to do research for the painting. There I discovered I might be the only person in the world who was unaware of "Shoeless."

Never interested in sports, I thought I was reading about the legendary hero only to acquaint myself with the visual particulars of the man and the game of baseball in the early 1900's. Before I finished the first book I was hooked----not by the sport, but by the deeply moving life story of Joe himself.

Further research led me to read Joe Thompson's GROWING UP WITH "SHOELESS" JOE JACKSON, The Greatest Natural Player In Baseball History. Here was an account, written in the personal first person that makes one feel the intimacy of a hometown boy's acquaintance, and love for the subject. There was no turning back then. I became an ardent fan of "Shoeless" Joe.

Thompson has written in the voice of the South Carolina native he is. Unpretentiously he tells, not only the history of Jackson's baseball career, but of the man as a child of impoverished mill worker parents. He speaks of a small boy who was never sent to school, and who was sweeping the floors of Brandon Mill when only seven years old. He makes you hear the taunts "Shoeless" endured because he never learned to read or write. He makes you proud of the little mill kid who, in spite of everything, made it to the major leagues. And he makes you weep for the wretched debacle which cost an innocent "Shoeless" his brilliant career.

In 1996 the Brandon Mill Baseball Field in West Greenville was finally named for "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. Thompson's vivid fury that publicity and general media coverage was as lackluster as the bitterly cold day of the dedication, fairly sizzles on the pages of his book.

Thompson's infectious outrage that "Shoeless" has been slighted by his own hometown has persuaded me to become involved in the renewal of the once thriving business district of the mill village. Many more murals depicting "Shoeless'" career, and the textile history of the area, are on the drawing boards.

Buddy Hunt, who commissioned the original mural, is opening a coffee shop, Cuppa Joe, so fans will have a place to stop and chat when visiting. Hunt owns a number of large empty buildings across the street from where "Shoeless" Joe owned a liquor store. His hope is to attract investors, restaurateurs and shop keepers---all with sports, or related themes---to the long neglected area.

I have met the author of GROWING UP WITH "SHOELESS" JOE JACKSON, and am proud that he not only approves of the renewal project, but is helping to bring it about.

Whether or not you are a sports fan, this book will tug at your heartstrings, for it is a rich and poignant history written by a hometown boy who tells it like it is.

Polly Hunt Neal

A true testament to Joe Jackson the Man!.......2000-03-30

In baseball there are some memorable moments, Carlton Fisk hitting the game winning home run in the 1975 World Series for example. In baseball there are also some darker moments, The Black Sox Scandal is probably the most notable of these.

In the book Growing Up with Shoeless Joe, author Joe Thompson takes you inside baseball's past and gives you a first rate look at the Greatest Natural Hitter baseball has ever seen. Thompson's book is the first I have ever read that is more than the typical slander on Joe Jackson.

Thompson takes a look into the man, more than the ball player, and allows you to see a side of Jackson never before revealed. What Thompson gives the reader is by far the best accounting of a true hero in the game of baseball.

This book is so much more than a story about a World Series in 1919; it's so much more than a story about baseball. This book is about the man Joe Jackson and the side of him most of us have never seen. I am extremely proud to be allowed to review this book

Growing Up With Shoeless Joe.......2000-01-22

This book is very unusual. When I received it and began reading it, I felt as though I'd been duped. The font is abnormally large making it look initially like a book meant for young adults or children. As I read I was completely shocked to see many misspelled words, subject verb disagreements, problems with modifiers, incomplete sentences, you name it. I considered sending it back, but I'm a serious fan of Shoeless Joe, so I kept on reading and discovered something very interesting. This book isn't the product of a huge publishing conglomerate, in fact, it's a truly home-spun effort. I examined the credits and realized the author published it himself much the same way an underground band would market it's own music. Members of his family provided the photos. It looks like he may have had friends proofread and edit it. It seems to have been printed locally as well. The upside is that it has a "down home" charm that a true fan of Joe Jackson can appreciate. I'm sure Joe would considerate it a literary masterpiece. I'm currently writing a one-man-play about Joe, and I've found things in this book that I haven't read before. After allowing myself to digest its differences, and accept what it really is, I can honestly say I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Thanks very much Mr Thompson.

If you only read one book about Joe, this is the one to read.......1999-02-15

As web master of the Shoeless Joe Jackson Virtual Hall of Fame (http://www.blackbetsy.com/), the Official web site of the Shoeless Joe Jackson Society, I highly recommend this book. I have been to every town and city that Joe played ball in and have read most, if not all newspaper accounts of the day and every book on Joe Jackson. Unlike the other books on Joe Jackson, this one is written by someone that actually knew Joe and it shows in this great work. Joe Thompson grew up in the forties in the Brandon Mill community where Joe Jackson ran a liquor store. Jackson would take Joe and his friends to the school yard and teach them how to play baseball. Jackson also taught them lessons about life of which Joe Thompson speaks about in this book. This book is more than just about Joe Jackson the ballplayer, it about Joe Jackson the man. This book will give you insight into the man, to let you know that he held no grudge against baseball. It will show you that he would go out of his way to help his fellow man and he gave of himself to help young kids grow up and lead a productive life. This is a must read for Jackson fans, as well as baseball fans in general.......get the real story about Joe Jackson!!!!!

Book Description

Contrary to popular belief, Pedro Calderón de la Barca had a sense of humour. This book examines the integral and often essential use of humour in his works, looking beyond his persistent reputation as a dour and dogmatic representative of the Spanish canon. Calderón's teatro breve (featuring mojigangas, entremeses and jácaras) thrives on comic techniques and situations that poke fun at everything and everybody, from aspiring nobility to people facing execution; and he parodies and satirizes genres and themes such as the auto sacramental or the infamous 'honour code'. His irreverence and desire for the audience's laughter are not just expressed in his teatro breve: the very same humorous techniques and situations, and even entire small works themselves, are found in his comedias, blurring and often eliminating the distinction between 'major' and 'minor' genres. Calderón proves that the 'complementary' teatro breve need not live a separate existence, and that its presence within the comedia itself offers untold opportunities for novelty, diversion and criticism. By turning jokes into a dramatic art form and vice versa, Calderón has much to teach us about the presence, role and functioning of humour in all of Spanish Golden Age theatre. TED L.L. BERGMAN is Professor of Spanish Language and Culture, Soka University of America. Al contrario de lo que generalmente se cree, Pedro Calderón de la Barca tenía un sentido de humor. Esta monografía analiza el papel integral y muchas veces esencial desempeñado por el humor en las obras de Calderón. Su teatro breve, por ejemplo, se deleita en técnicas humorísticas y situaciones cómicas en las que se burla de todos y de todo, desde los pordioseros hasta los condenados a muerte. Incluso satiriza y parodia géneros tales como el auto sacramental y temas como el código de honor. Pero la irreverencia de Calderón y su deseo de hacerle reír al público no se limita a su teatro breve; en efecto las mismas técnicas y situaciones cómicas - y hasta la totalidad de una obra breve - se incluyen también en las comedias. La destreza demostrada por Calderón al convertir los chistes en una obra de arte nos obliga a considerar de nuevo el uso del humor en el teatro del Siglo de Oro.

Book Description

In the last decade, F. W. J. von Schelling has emerged as one of the key philosophers of German Idealism, the one who, for the first time, undermined Kant's philosophical revolution and in so doing opened up the way for a viable critique of Hegel. In noted philosopher Slavoj Zizek's view, the main orientations of the post-Hegelian thought, from Kierkegaard and Marx, to Heidegger and today's deconstructionism, were prefigured in Schelling's analysis of Hegel's idealism, and in his affirmation that the contingency of existence cannot be reduced to notional self-mediation. In The Abyss of Freedom, Zizek attempts to advance Schelling's stature even further, with a commentary of the second draft of Schelling's work The Ages of the World, written in 1813.

Zizek argues that Schelling's most profound thoughts are found in the series of three consecutive attempts he made to formulate the "ages of the world/Weltalter," the stages of the self-development of the Absolute. Of the three versions, claims Zizek, it is the second that is the most eloquent and definitive encompassing of Schelling's lyrical thought. It centers on the problem of how the Absolute (God) himself, in order to become actual, to exist effectively, has to accomplish a radically contingent move of acquiring material, bodily existence. Never before available in English, this version finally renders accessible one of the key texts of modern philosophy, a text that is widely debated in philosophical circles today.

The Abyss of Freedom is Zizek's own reading of Schelling based upon Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. It focuses on the notion that Lacan's theory--which claims that the symbolic universe emerged from presymbolic drives--is prefigured in Schelling's idea of logos as given birth to from the vortex of primordial drives, or from what "in God is not yet God." For Zizek, this connection is monumental, showing that Schelling's ideas forcefully presage the post-modern "deconstruction" of logocentrism.

Slavoj Zizek is not a philosopher who stoops to conquer objects but a radical voice who believes that philosophy is nothing if it is not embodied, nothing if it is only abstract. For him, true philosophy always speaks of something rather than nothing. Those interested in the genesis of contemporary thought and the fate of reason in our "age of anxiety" will find this coupling of texts not only philosophically relevant, but vitally important.

Slavoj Zizek is the author of The Sublime Object of Ideology, Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel and the Critique of Ideology, and most recently, The Indivisible Remainder: An Essay on Schelling and Related Matters. Currently he is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana. Judith Norman is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Customer Reviews:

A compelling and confusing abyss.......2000-11-13

This book is an odd creature to say the least. A great but under-appreciated text of German idealism is re-published in a new translation, along with an interpretive essay that evaluates it from the standpoint of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Personally, I found Schelling's portrait of the world as moving continuously towards full consciousness of itself to be utterly fascinating. I'm still not sure what to make of Zizek's essay - I have always been utterly baffled by Lacan - but if you're into that kind of thing, you might enjoy it.

Customer Reviews:

A useful introduction strong on slavery .......2007-02-21

I read this book chiefly as an aid to my study of Black traditional folk music, especially about the banjo and the fiddle. This book has outstanding information about fiddling and banjo playing by Africans in the Americas in the colonial periods. I've read specialized books and research papers on that topic, but I have never seen some of the reports that appear in the early part of Emery's book of banjo playing on slave ships, banjo playing in Cuba, and early Black dancing to these instruments.

Emery's discussion of dance under slavery is quite interesting, particularly her account of how similar dances existed among Africans who were enslaved in the West Indies and Latin America as were danced by Africans in the United States. Some of the African dances shared across the Americas, particularly La Bomba and the Kalinda, remain known by people familiar with Mexican and Mexican American music or Creole and Zydeco music from Louisiana.

I was pleased to find a balanced acount of dance in minstrelsy. She speculates that many of the dances that were done in minstrelsy by whites and the few African Americans involved were not reproductions of Black dances, but African-Americanized versions of white folk dancing. This offsets what I consider an overemphasis on minstrelsy's transmission of African American music and dance and a correct estimation of how much European-American content was involved.

After minstrelsy, she turns her attention to dancing by African Americans in the public entertainment industry, and loses any focus on the Black Southern rural masses who were a majority of the Black population until the 1960s.

Her discussion of Black show dancing and the onset of Black art dance in the 1920s and 1930s was interesting, but it seemed thinner than her earlier discussion. By the time she hits the 1940s or 1950s, she is going along very quickly and not providing as much analysis and information she does earlier.

I enjoyed Emery's fighting antiracist approach. The oppression and discrimination Black folk have received since we arrived in this country are never absent from her discussion of Black Dance.

Book Description

Time is a precious commodity, especially if you're a system administrator. No other job pulls people in so many directions at once. Users interrupt you constantly with requests, preventing you from getting anything done. Your managers want you to get long-term projects done but flood you with requests for quick-fixes that prevent you from ever getting to those long-term projects. But the pressure is on you to produce and it only increases with time. What do you do?

The answer is time management. And not just any time management theory--you want Time Management for System Administrators, to be exact. With keen insights into the challenges you face as a sys admin, bestselling author Thomas Limoncelli has put together a collection of tips and techniques that will help you cultivate the time management skills you need to flourish as a system administrator.

Time Management for System Administrators understands that an Sys Admin often has competing goals: the concurrent responsibilities of working on large projects and taking care of a user's needs. That's why it focuses on strategies that help you work through daily tasks, yet still allow you to handle critical situations that inevitably arise.

Among other skills, you'll learn how to:

Manage interruptions
Eliminate timewasters
Keep an effective calendar
Develop routines for things that occur regularly
Use your brain only for what you're currently working on
Prioritize based on customer expectations
Document and automate processes for faster execution

What's more, the book doesn't confine itself to just the work environment, either. It also offers tips on how to apply these time management tools to your social life. It's the first step to a more productive, happier you.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent book.......2007-10-03

Time Management for System Administrators is a book not only aimed at system administrators but also other task and interrupt driven employees early in their career. It presents a core concept of use to anyone struggling with a "never ending TODO list of doom" both for business and personal tasks. Some of the information is of a very basic nature such as "do short tasks and important tasks first". Part of this, however, could be Thomas Limoncelli's writing style which is detailed almost to a fault. It is, however, a very easy book to read and I found myself going through quite a few pages in one sitting.

On the negative side the analogies the author uses to try and explain time management in computer terms get a bit thick at times in the first few chapters but soon they run out and are no longer in the way of the points being made. Two other somewhat awkward chapters are the Stress Management and Automation chapters. Is it worth the time to write (or read) a chapter to basically tell us to occasionally take a vacation and to get a massage? It seems like filler to pad out the book. Similarly, the important take-away point of the automation chapter is to, well, automate things! However the chapter contains an overly specific set of shell programming tricks the author has learned over the years. These are of course presented as examples of how to automate, but the amount of time spent on details and anecdotes makes this chapter also feels like pad. The time spent in these chapters could have been better spent on the core points of the book.

What is the most valuable information in this book? The core technique is what the author calls The Cycle System. This is a way to manage your TODO list so at the end of each day every item assigned to that day has been addressed, if not necessarily completed. It's a very useful technique for learning to plan, to ensure you follow through with completing tasks and to improve your sense of accomplishment that you are managing your workload. Interestingly the author has always used a paper-based TODO list and calendar, so each technique of The Cycle System is explained both for paper and digital (PDA) methods. The Cycle System can help by providing a framework for managing tasks other than continuing to add them to an ever growing list, however it still requires a lot of discipline to properly schedule tasks in the future to avoid them all piling up on the task list for the current day. After several weeks of using the system it is certainly a workable method as long as you are honest with yourself on the amount of real work you can accomplish in a single day and you dedicate a good bit of time on a regular basis to future planning and scheduling of tasks that aren't high priority or due immediately. Unfortunately, the author doesn't go into a lot of detail on techniques to handle the issue of building up a backlog of low priority tasks other than to suggest daily, weekly and monthly planning times to reprioritize and reschedule tasks. The issues of email management, interruptions, unexpected tasks, request tracking software and even life goals are addressed. This portion of the book is where the true value lies and it provides a good amount of information.

If you currently have no structured task management system this is a great resource to start with. You'll certainly come away with a wealth of information on getting a system in place to start to manage things. If you forget to complete tasks or tell someone you'll do something only to forget it when the next person you run into starts you on a new problem, then this book will be very useful to you in how to manage interruptions and always follow through. If you are fresh out of school and you're in an IT job where tasks are starting to pile up, this book will be of even more benefit to you with its stories and broad IT specific topics. As such I would recommend this book to anyone in a task and interruption oriented job as a basic primer on how you should be expected to manage yourself. If you are in a computer job, so much the better, but regardless of your line of work you can still learn a great deal.

Ranked at four stars due to the issues discussed above, but still very highly recommended!

Fantastic Book!.......2007-07-24

I've just finished reading it, and i can tell you it was very helpful. After reading some tips found in the book, i was able to work better and priorize my stuff. Recommended!

Fantastic, Very Informative.......2007-07-10

I am a sr. systems/network admin with a lot of priority 1 tasks. I was recently promoted to IT manager, which was great, but doubled my workload. This book has helped me organize and prioritize and give me the ability to perform both managerial and systems/network tasks very efficiently.

The book also stresses the importance of family time and vacations and provides a means to maximize this time while meeting deadlines at work.

I can't say enough about this book! It's a must have for systems administrators.

Must Have!.......2007-05-28

If you're a system administrator you need this book. If you're just starting out and frequently frustrated with how the constant interruptions of customers and "fires" keeps you from accomplishing your longer-term projects, you need to go sit down and read this book. If you're an experienced sysadmin who doesn't have that problem, then this is a great book to hand to a more junior sysadmin. If you're a manager of sysadmins, make sure your subordinates have access to this book.

This book does not cover anything about what a system administrator should be doing (Go read The Practice of System and Network Administration for that); this book doesn't cover how (numerous books and it depends on what systems, but UNIX System Administration Handbook (3rd Edition) covers the basics pretty well); what this book covers is how to manage your time effectively so that you can do those things.

Really, the time management techniques discussed in this book should work well for anybody in a job with a mix of long-term projects (need time to concentrate) and frequent interruptions (drop everything and fix this right now), but there's a definitely parts that only make sense for system administrators.

Tom explains WHY, and leads you towards HOW!.......2007-05-27

I attended an eponymous presentation given by the author. Tom is a good presenter and a good writer and the sort of smart-but-easy-going guy you would want to work with. The whole idea of "time management" is especially important for systems administrators, who tend to juggle a lot of things at once while also handling user interruptions, and reporting to diffuse layers of management.

Tom does an excellent job of describing the problems of getting things done and managing customer expectations effectively, and explains various processes that one can adopt to improve on that. He emphasizes that it is a long-term, bit-by-bit process where you give different self-management methodologies a shot, and then as you find things that work, you expand the domain of your self-time-management to be more effective not merely in the field of Systems Administration, but life-in-general.

I myself am still experimenting with various daily regimens and have yet to find a system that works really well for me . . . but if Tom hadn't gotten into my head the importance of time management, I would still be spinning my wheels in ignorance as to how one might go about being more effective.

I dug this book so much that I gave it as a "starting day" gift when we hired our second SysAdmin. Tom was gracious enough to sign that copy--thanks, Tom!

-danny

SolarisTM Solutions for System Administrators: Time-Saving Tips, Techniques, and Workarounds

Average customer rating:

Not wath Iwas expecting
Great book for New or Old System Administrators
Uh wow: Written by an true experienced solaris admin
Good book, but needs errata on wiley site.
Great Book for Solaris Beginners

SolarisTM Solutions for System Administrators: Time-Saving Tips, Techniques, and Workarounds
Sandra Henry-Stocker , and Evan R. Marks
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Solaris | Operating Systems | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Operating Systems | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0471348104

Book Description

Make the most of your Solaris environment with these proven strategies, tips and techniques

Unix is the champion among operating systems for enterprise computing, and hundreds of thousands of companies depend on its most popular version--Solaris. But this big, complicated OS has its share of imperfections and vagaries, and even seasoned Solaris systems administrators need pointers on how to work around them. Written by two long time Sun sysadmins, this book shows you how to tackle the tough day-to-day system administration problems and keep your systems running smoothly.

The authors expose the trade-offs of using Solaris in a mixed OS environment and provide you with practical solutions to overcome problems. You'll be taken step by step through the process of setting up your Solaris infrastructure, including building file systems, planning backups and restores, configuring run states, and setting up name services. You'll find tools and techniques to help manage your systems, keep your site secure, and eliminate single points of failure. This book will also provide you with critical information on how to maintain your Sun hardware, configure peripherals, and support Sun's latest creations, including the Starfire.

Solaris experts Henry-Stocker and Marks show you how to:
* Install, configure, and patch Solaris
* Monitor systems to detect problems and avoid interruptions
* Automate the daily routine of administering systems
* Provide system security
* Run an Internet site using Solaris
* Manage Solaris along with NT and other systems

Customer Reviews:

Not wath Iwas expecting.......2007-02-06

It's like an old book. I was waiting for more on Solaris 10.

Great book for New or Old System Administrators.......2006-06-08

The breadth and depth of knowledge in this book is amazing.
I've been a unix admin for 12 years and bought the first edition
quite some time ago. It still sits within reach and I often
carry it back and forth to work as it's that useful. I highly
recommend this book for those who like a practical hands-on
approach. If you are looking at if for one thing you're
interested in (jumpstart for example), buy it. The other
topics in there are so well written that they will perk your
interest. If you really want to get into the nuts and bolts
of say, jumpstart, just download the free pdf's from sun's
site (sun has several pdf's of 300-700 pages on jumpstart alone).

Uh wow: Written by an true experienced solaris admin.......2005-10-19

This book is amazing as its not a rehash of points you need to know about to pass the Solaris Certified Sys Admin exam. Instead this is a true to life list of common issues/solutions a REAL sys admin would face in day to day work. The basics of hardware is fantastic and I wish I had this info at the start of my career. Webflash/jumpstart.. fantastic and now part of my server environment. NIS ... fantastic...... DYnAMIC RECONFIGURATION! VOLUME MANAGEMENT!!! This is a True System Adminstrator's Book. Note this won't help you pass to SCSA as if you need to read up on the format of the /etc/passwd file then this book is not for you.

If you are interviewing for a Solaris admin job... get this book!!! Forget any of the exam cram or study guides for the SCSA as its all BS.

A+!!!!

Good book, but needs errata on wiley site........2005-08-20

I think the second edition of the book is fine, except for a couple of errors in the script examples. Although the errors seem trivial there should be an errata published on Wiley's website showing the corrections.

Great Book for Solaris Beginners.......2005-08-01

This is a very good book for people who know other flavors of Unix and is just starting to work on Solaris. The authors give good examples and real applications and time saving tips so you don't have to waste your time since they already went through that experience !!!

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