DTB Review: No Parachute

Arthur Gould Lee, No Parachute

Product Details

• Hardcover: 233 pages
• Publisher: Time Life Education (June 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809496127
• ISBN-13: 978-0809496129
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews) 
• Price: $48.80 plus shipping

1. Short review:    (Amazon rating: 5 out of 5 stars -- I love it.)

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked:  The contemporaneous account by a flyer in the Great War. Of all the books I have read on air combat in the Great War, No Parachute is the best.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Roller coaster.

2.2. What I did not like: The cover (see above). The cover is god-awful.
     The first edition cover is better but misleading. Here 'tis:

     The airplane in the foreground sporting the roundel on the fuselage and the Lewis gun on the top plane is a Nieuport fighter. This implies that Lee flew Nieuports. He did not. He flew Sopwith Pups and Camels.
     The 1971 mass-market paperback got it right; here 'tis:

The airplane in the foreground is a Sopwith Pup.
(Note the price on the cover: 95¢.)

     The non-scalable font. I have gotten used to e-books. I like to choose the size of the font I read. Not having that ability is an annoyance.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Air combat buffs. History buffs.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  Yes. No worries.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Yes. I plan to order Open Cockpit through Amazon soon. Afterwards, I may order Fly Past.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell:

     There is no plot, but it feels like there is. I could feel the stress tearing down the man. No Parachute is a memoir. Arthur Gould Lee compiled and edited this account years after the war. It was first published in 1968.
     To compile No Parachute, AGL used the letters he wrote to his first wife, Gwyneth Ann, during the Great War. She died before the book was written. The book is dedicated to her. AGL interspersed the letters with entries from his diary. He edited the letters to include places and details that the war censors took out.
     AGL broke a leg during pilot training. This caused him to repeat the course. Thus, he had more flying hours than most when he was posted to France.
     No Parachute begins 18 May 1917 with AGL in the pilots' pool at the aircraft depot at St. Omer. He was eager to join the war. 22 May 1917 he joined 46 Squadron at the Ypres front. Here he began to fly the Sopwith Pup, an airplane that was easy to fly but obsolescent by this stage of the war. He was the most junior pilot in the squadron.
     I shall not spoil the book for you by summarizing the action. But here is the last paragraph of AGL's letter to his wife dated November 24th[, 1917]:

     Now that Charles has gone [WIA], I've been flying longer in the squadron than anyone else.

     In 6 months AGL went from most junior to most senior pilot in the squadron. Think about that.
     In December 1917 AGL wrote his wife that, save for breakfast and tea, he had gone off his meals. For lunch and dinner, he substituted milk with brandy. 
     Both his squadron commander and the wing M.O. spoke to him about standing down. They knew he was cracking up. He replied there was nothing wrong with him that a good drinking binge would not cure. 01 January 1918, they ordered him to the Home Establishment.
     When he left the front, AGL had logged 12 1/2 hours of dual instruction and 386 hours solo. 222 of those solo hours were over the lines. He flew 118 patrols and fought 56 combats with 7 kills (AGL wrote 11 but not all were confirmed).

 2.7. Other:
     This is another classic of the war in the air during the Great War. Shame it is not available as an ebook.
     The book contains 17 illustrations and pictures and one map.
     Why No Parachute was published under the Time-Life Education imprint and Wind in the Wires was published under the Time-Life Reprint imprint, I do not know.
     AGL rose to the rank of RAF Air Vice Marshall before his retirement in 1946.
     The book includes three appendices: Appendix A, The Failure in High Command; Appendix B, Trenchard's Strategy of the Offensive; and Appendix C, Why No Parachutes? 
     The price given above is what I paid. YMMV.


2.8. Links: 

Arthur Gould Lee

Open Cockpit
Fly Past 

2.9. Buy the book:
hardback with ugly cover: No Parachute 
hardback with misleading cover: No Parachute (used) 
paperback with pretty cover: No Parachute (used)

DTB Review: Wind in the Wires

 

Duncan Grinnell-Milne, Wind in the Wires

Product Details

• Hardcover: 223 pages
• Publisher: Time-Life Books; REPRINT Edition edition (1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809496291
• ISBN-13: 978-0809496297
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews) 
• Price: $10.25 plus shipping

1. Short review:    (Amazon rating: 4 out of 5 stars -- I like it.)

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked:  The first-hand account by an early (1915) flyer in the Great War.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Should be both, but it is a walk in the park.

2.2. What I did not like: The cover (see above). The cover is god-awful. The 1957 mass-market paperback cover is also god-awful. The 1970 mass-market paperback is beautiful; here 'tis:

Ain't that pretty?

     The non-scalable font. I have gotten used to e-books. I like to choose the size of the font I read. Not having that ability is an annoyance.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Air combat buffs. History buffs.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  Yes. No worries.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book?  Maybe. Other than The Silent Victory, I am not interested in any other of GM's works.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell:

     There is no plot. Wind in the Wires is a memoir. Duncan Grinnell-Milne wrote it years after the war. It was first published in 1933.
     GM began with his flying school experiences. He learned to fly on a Farman Longhorn, a machine that could barely struggle into the air on a calm day.
     After pilot training, GM joined 16 Squadron and flew the BE2c, aka the Quirk. GM seemed to have liked the Quirk. For the life of me, I cannot think why. The observer sat in front with his downward view obstructed by the bottom plane. His rearward field of fire with the Lewis gun was obstructed by the pilot. Unmaneuverable and slow, the Quirk was a remarkably bad airplane in an era of bad airplanes. Still GM and his observer managed to down one German with it.
     GM did not enjoy his time with 16 Squadron. The Officer Commanding was a stuffed shirt who was more interested in keeping planes in running order than in accomplishing missions. Pilots were graded by the softness of their landings instead of the aggressive accomplishment of their missions.
     Soon after scoring his first kill, GM flew a reconnaissance so deep behind German lines that it required he leave his observer behind. Predictably, his engine packed up, and he was captured.
     GM spent 30 months in captivity and eight of those months were in solitary confinement as punishment for one escape attempt or another. Fabricating escape attempts seems to have been his hobby. He finally succeeded the day before he was to be paroled through Holland.
     GM returned to France to fly the SE5a with 56 Squadron. 56 was the most celebrated RAF fighter squadron of the Great War. GM noted that 16 Squadron made a big man of its one MC recipient. 56 Squadron hung a board in the mess that listed its members' honors: 2 VCs, 6 DSOs, 14 MCs, 8 bars to MCs, and 6 DFCs. The difference is striking.
     56 Squadron gave its pilots more freedom than GM had had at 16 Squadron. He cracked up a few SEs without a word of criticism from his superiors.
     In the last 5 weeks of the war, GM scored 5 kills. He liked to fly in company with John Speaks, an American, and Robert 'Bloody Bob' Caldwell, a Canadian. After the war, he became 56 Squadron's OC until the MoW decommissioned the squadron.

 2.7. Other:
     This is a classic of the war in the air during the Great War. I have wanted to read it for many years. Shame it is not available as an ebook.
     The book contains 16 illustrations and pictures including one illustration of a Farman Shorthorn attacking a German draken (balloon).
     The Time-Life reprint contains a list that I am certain was not included in the original edition. The list is titled 'Principal Officers Identified from Nicknames' and is headed by 'The Starched Shirt -- Major H. C. T. (Stuffy) Dowding, RA (later Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, RAF'.
     The price given above is what I paid. YMMV.

2.8. Links: 

Duncan Grinnell-Milne

2.9. Buy the book:
hardback with ugly cover: Wind in the Wires
paperback with pretty cover: Wind in the Wires (used)

eBook Review: Horses Don't Fly

 

Frederick Libby, Horses Don't Fly

Product Details

• File Size: 3302 KB
• Print Length: 274 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing (January 9, 2002)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004P8IWJY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars (24 customer reviews) 
• Price: $9.99

1. Short review:    (Amazon rating: 4 out of 5 stars -- I like it.)

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked:  The first-hand account by the first American ace in the Great War.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Both.

2.2. What I did not like: The use of present tense vice past tense.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Air combat buffs. History buffs.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  Yes. No worries.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book?  Yes, but there are none.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell:

     There is no plot. Horses Don't Fly is a memoir. Frederick Libby wrote it many years after the war. His memoir covers his life from boyhood to the end of the Great War.
     Libby begins with his boyhood experiences growing up on the plains of eastern Colorado. His mother died when he was young. He was raised by his father and the black woman his father hired to run the house.
     Libby spent some time back east with his father's sister -- a woman who disapproved of the way her brother raised his two sons. Libby spent the time with his aunt trying to persuade his father to bring him back to Colorado. He succeeded.
     As a man, Libby's first jobs were wrangling horses and training them to saddle in Colorado and Arizona. In Arizona, he and a friend together took a notion to hire out as roughnecks in the Alberta oil boom.
     Libby joined the Canadian Army as a transport driver even though he had no experience as a driver. He persuaded a comrade to teach him to drive and was soon driving in France. 
     Libby volunteered to become an RFC observer in 1915. The training at that time was minimal. In fact, the gaining squadron trained him. Flying in the front of an FE2b, his got his first kill on his first sortie over the lines. According to Libby, he was responsible for putting gunstocks on the observer's Lewis gun.
     Libby scored 10 kills as an observer. He then took pilot training and returned to the front to fly Sopwith 1 1/2 strutters and DH4s and scored four more kills from the pilot's seat. He liked the DH4. Libby said it could outrun the German fighters.
     Billy Mitchell persuaded Libby to transfer to the USAS. It was a bad experience for Libby. Because he had sworn allegiance to the king, his American citizenship was forfeit. He had to swear allegiance to the US constitution to regain his citizenship. The US Army was, by presidential order, a teetotaling organization in those days. This did not sit well with Libby who had grown accustomed to toasting the King's health in the mess.     
     Libby spent almost all his time in American service in bad hospitals or good spas recovering his health. He did not enjoy the experience. He had nothing good to say about the USAS.

 2.7. Other:
     The book ends with a summary of Libby's accomplishments after the war.

2.8. Links: 

Frederick Libby

2.9. Buy the book:  Horses Don't Fly

Movie Review: Les Miserables

Les Miserables

1. Short review: 

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: Anne Hathaway's stunning performance of "I Dreamed a Dream." Others have sung it better, but no one has performed it better.

2.2. What I did not like: Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe trying to sing.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Everyone.

2.4. Is the movie appropriate for children to see? Yes. There is death, filth, cruelty, violence, and suicide but no on-screen sex.

2.5. On the basis of viewing this movie, will I pay to see the sequel? I cannot imagine a sequel to Les Miserables.

2.6. Rating and the plot in a nutshell:

2.6.1. How I rate movies:
-- I want my money back.
-- Worth a rental, not more. 
-- Worth first-run theater price once. 
-- I will pay first-run theater price to see it again. <-- Les Miserables

Running time: 158 minutes.

2.6.2. The plot in a nutshell:

     The earliest we could get tickets was the day after Christmas. The theater sold us advance tickets for a matinee show on the 26th. As it happened, I caught the  1998 version starring Liam Neeson on cable Christmas night. There are major differences between that version and this, but I knew the plot going into the theater. Thus, it was easy for me to follow the action, and I could enjoy the music.
     Les Miserables is an opera. It is billed as a musical because Americans consider opera high-brow entertainment and avoid it, but they will pay to see a musical.
     I gave a link to the plot of the novel above (and here again) and here is the plot of the new movie. I have nothing to add. 

2.7. Other:

     Anne Hathaway's portrayal of Fantine is outstanding. Others have sung "I Dreamed a Dream" better -- including Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent -- but no one has performed it better. If this performance does not win Anne Hathaway an Oscar, TANJ.
     Universal gives a taste of the audio in this trailer:

  As strong as the audio is, with the video it is stronger.

     A couple of notes:
     Anne Hathaway campaigned for the role of Fantine. Skinny to start with, she lost 25 pounds to better project herself into the role of Fantine.
     The sequence in which she sings "I Dreamed a Dream" was shot in one take.

2.8. Links:
IMDb review
Rotten Tomatoes review

• Show times for your location 

eBook Review: McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book et alia

William Holmes McGuffey, McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book

Product Details

• File Size: 149 KB
• Print Length: 152 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004TRTFK6
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
• Price: $0.00 (FREE)

1. Short review:    (Amazon rating: 1 out of 5 stars -- I hate it. If I could give it 0 stars, I would.)

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked:  Nothing.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Should be a walk in the park but it is a mugging in an alley.

2.2. What I did not like: The lack of illustrations. The original had illustrations. In place of each is now a barren statement of [Figure].
The terrible formatting. The formatting was so bad that it made the book unreadable.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: For the original, the audience is esoteric historians and homeschoolers. For this version, only masochists need download it.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  No. A thousand times "NO!"

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? No.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell:

     There is no plot. McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book was used as a grammar school textbook in the 19th century in the US.

2.7. Other:
     I also downloaded and perused the following:
McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition;
McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader;
McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader;
McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader;
McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader; and
McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader.
     One and all suffer from the same faults as the Spelling Book: They lack illustrations and the formatting is so bad as to render the book unusable.
     In spite of this, I highly recommend McGuffey's books -- just not the Amazon Kindle versions. Instead, go to the Gutenberg Project and download the PDF versions. Do not waste your time downloading another version. Get the PDF versions.
     I added a bonus book: McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, Revised Edition.

2.8. Links: (All links to the Gutenberg Project.)

McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book
McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition
McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader
McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader
McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader
McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader
McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader
McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, Revised Edition

2.9. Buy the book: I shall not give you a link to McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book on Amazon. You deserve better. Use the Gutenberg Project links above.

Fail

     Still recovering from the disasters of September.
     I installed Ubuntu 9.10 from a CD. As part of the installation, it partitioned my harddrive, left Windows XP in the lower partition, and installed Ubuntu Linux (UbLinux) in the upper partition.
     I immediately upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. I chose not to upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin. (What is a pangolin, anyway? Some kind of anteater? Who is the short-bus genius who came up with that name?)
     Why did I not choose 12.04?
     Because I had chosen it before and did not like it. Let me tell you why.
     The most important thing about any computer program is not what it does. The most important thing about any computer program is the user interface. That is, can you navigate to and use what it does?*

     Here is a screenshot of 10.04:

     It has a task bar at the top. From left to right, the first three positions are drop-down menus. The Sound & Video menu is open.
     Next comes a group of shortcuts to fire off applications like Firefox. You can unlock any of these from the Task Bar and move it to another place on the bar.
     On the far right is the date-time display and the off switch.
     In the bottom bar, displays tell you what is running. At the far right is Trash.
     Simple. Elegant. Intuitive.

     Here is a screenshot for 12.04:

     Note the absence of drop-down menus. Instead 12.04 gives me a side-bar filled with icons. I recognize the Firefox icon but no others. The top task bar is bare of shortcuts. The only things on it that I recognize are the date-time display and the off button.
     12.04 seems to be driven by a tie-in to Ubuntu One, some kind of Linux Cloud. I have heard about Cloud computing. As I understand it, the Cloud lets me store my files off my computer on someone else's drive space. Where the sheriff does not need a warrant to access them.
     No thanks.
     But leaving Ubuntu One to one side -- and I shall -- everything I want to use, everything I want to navigate to is now hidden. 12.04 forces me to play Hide-and-Seek with all the applications, files, and games I want to access. Not gonna do it.
     I come from Texas. We have a saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 10.04 was not broke. 12.04 does not fix it.
     Okay, geeks -- yeah, you guys who designed 12.04. IMO Ubuntu 12.04 is a monstrous

FAIL.

     Go back to the basement. Throw out the 12.04 screen design. Return to the 10.04 screen design. And next time you short-bus geniuses decide to change the Ubuntu interface, ask me for permission first.
__________
* Who am I to make such statements? Well, I am a writer now, but I used to be a computer systems analyst specializing in the man-machine interface. That is, I have some experience with interface design and layout.
     There may be something to 12.04 that I don't get, but if I have to use that verfluchte interface to get to it, it is effectively not there.
     I keep thinking of this, wondering what I missed. I conclude that if I missed anything, it is not my fault. It is the designer's fault for cobbling together an interface that diverged so radically from Ubuntu's historical interface as to render all users' previous experience with the Ubuntu interface obsolete and thus make the interface unusable.
     I stand by my statement. 12.04 is a FAIL. Shoot the designers pour encourager les autres.

Shareaza

     This is the tale of my experience with Shareaza. 
     September was not a good month for computers in my home. My Compaq Presario C500 died. The soup I spilled across the touchpad likely had something to do with that. The replacement SONY VAIO lasted 5 days before its internet connection failed, just enough time for me to order a replacement through eBay.  I bought a refurbed hp 6730 from heyheyca, and I recommend him: 5 stars in all four categories. 
     The 6730 arrived Tuesday morning, and I spent the afternoon connecting to the internet. heyheyca gave me a choice of operating system -- Microsoft's Windows XP or Vista -- and I chose XP. I once had Vista. Can't say enough bad things about it. For the first time in more than a year, I am running a Windows operating system. When I run Windows, I feel anxious. (I plan to install Ubuntu Linux (UbLinux) tomorrow.) 
     Shareaza is an example of why I feel anxious when I run Windows. 
     I spent most of yesterday clearing out my inboxes, but I had one other task that caused me to delay the installation of UbLinux. My wife commanded me to burn a music CD for a neighbor boy. (Guys, when your wife asks you to do something, that's a command.) Just one track. The problem was that I did not have the track. So, to purchase a download, I googled it.
     The first item to come up in my Google search was Shareaza. 'Free!' it said. 'Legal!' it said. I was skeptical of those claims, but I decided to try it. The only way I could try it was to install it. So I did. 
     Big mistake. Huge. 
     I installed Shareaza and searched its listings for the track I wanted. Shareaza had many videos of performances of the song. It seemed to have many audio tracks, too, but I sampled them all and found them all to be the same hip-hop remix. Disappointed, I googled again, linked to another site, and soon had the track I wanted. I burned the CD for the kiddie, tested it, and went back to clearing out my inboxes. 
     I work with both Firefox and Chrome browsers running and switch between the two. The first time I switched to Chrome after I installed Shareaza, I noticed a new tab open: Shareaza. I did not open it. Shareaza did. I closed the tab and switched back to Firefox. There I noticed that Shareaza had changed my default search engine from Google to Shareaza. I had other things to do, so I went back to clearing out my inboxes.
     There I was, minding my own business, when a little window popped up in the lower right-hand corner to tell me that vander1221 was visiting my hard-drive via Shareaza. "Hmmm," sez I. For a few minutes I tried to see what business vander1221 had with my hard-drive. Nothing bad seemed to happen, so I gave it up and returned to clearing my inboxes. 
     Later, the same window popped up with another name in it. Someone else was visiting my hard-drive via Shareaza. "Hmmm," sez I again. I did some research.
     Turns out Shareaza is a peer-to-peer network. When you join, you invite others to share your files. How that makes for legal downloads I don't know, and I earned a law degree. 
     Matters got worse. 
     I switched back to Chrome and found -- wonder of wonders -- that the Shareaza tab had returned. Persistent little devil. I closed both browsers and restarted them.
     Chrome came up with an extra tab: Shareaza. Evidently the little devil had written itself into my 'Tabs at Start' list. Firefox came up without my regular tabs. Instead, there was only one: Shareaza. This devil was out of control. I made a decision: Shareaza delenda est. 
     I looked for an uninstall.exe in the Shareaza folders without success. I turned to Google for 'uninstall Shareaza'. The first site listed was singularly unhelpful. The second site was a forum whereon a frustrated user wrote about his failures trying to uninstall Shareaza via the Control Panel. I gleaned enough from this to have a go at killing Shareaza on my computer. Here it comes:

How I uninstalled Shareaza. (How to uninstall Shareaza.)

1. I closed all applications, and I mean all. 
2. I clicked the START button (aka the WINDOWS key). 
3. From the START menu, I selected 'Control Panel'.
4. In the Control Panel window, I double-clicked the 'Add or Remove Programs' icon. . . . and I waited while 'the list was populated.' 
5. I selected Shareaza and clicked the 'Remove' button in the lower right-hand corner of the 'Add or Remove Programs' window. 
6. A warning popped up to tell me that Shareaza could not be removed because it was running or 'resident in memory'. (Note those last three words.)
7. I got a drink and mulled over the situation. This was the same problem the kid on the forum had. I decided.
8. I hit the START button.
9. I selected 'My Computer' and opened it. 
10. I searched my C drive until I found the Shareaza folder. 
11. I clicked on the Shareaza folder and hit the DELETE key. 
12. When my operating system asked if I really wanted to delete the Shareaza folder and all its contents, I clicked 'YES'.
13. The operating system returned a warning that access was denied. This surprised me, because I was in administrator mode. I had access to everything. 
14. I got a stiffer drink and mulled over the situation anew. I decided. 
15. I hit ctrl-alt-delete keys. This brought up the Windows Task Manager. 
16. In the Windows Task Manager, I clicked the 'Processes' tab.
17. I scrolled down until I found the Shareaza process.
18. I highlighted the Shareaza process. 
19. I clicked the 'End Process' button in the lower right-hand corner of the Windows Task Manager window.
20. I clicked the START button. 
21. From the START menu, I selected 'Control Panel'.
22. In the Control Panel window, I double-clicked the 'Add or Remove Programs' icon. . . . and I waited while 'the list was populated.' 
23. I selected Shareaza and clicked the 'Remove' button in the lower right-hand corner. Success. Shareaza deleta est.

     I hope you learned something from my pain. My father had a saying: Experience is not just the best teacher. It is the only teacher. My corollary: It does not have to be your experience.

     I recommend against Shareaza. I found it to be a greedy devil that gave me nothing worthwhile, gave away files I paid for, threatened to give away work that I created (and thereby debase my copyright), and led a mutiny against me for control of my computer. If you read my tale and decide to install it anyway, good luck with that. At least you know how I killed Shareaza. 

     YMMV. 

eBook Review: Fighting the Flying Circus

Eddie Rickenbacker, Fighting the Flying Circus

Product Details

• File Size: 2858 KB
• Print Length: 382 pages
• Publisher: LeClue22 (February 8, 2008)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0013NXB6S
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews) 
• Price: $2.99

1. Short review:    (Amazon rating: 4 out of 5 stars -- I like it.)

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked:  The pictures. The first-hand account.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Should be a roller coaster but it reads more like a walk in the park.

2.2. What I did not like: Lack of detail for September and October 1918.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Air combat buffs. History buffs.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  Yes. No worries.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book?  Yes.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell:

     There is no plot. Fighting the Flying Circus is an edited memoir. It was pieced together from Rickenbacker's (EVR) war diary and his letters.
     EVR's story mirrors the story of the United States Air Service in WW1. He wrote of flying Nieuport 28s on patrol without guns; then with one gun to a plane because they had not enough to equip every plane with two; of many pilots shredding their top planes in dives.
     EVR spent June, July, and August in the hospital recovering from an ear operation. He returned in September to find that his group had not downed many Boche during his absence and that the Nieuports had been replaced with Spad XIIIs.
     EVR wrote of Frank Luke's comet-like fighting career. He ended with Luke's disappearance. When Fighting the Flying Circus was first printed in 1919, the USAS had not received the story of Luke's last fight nor the location of his grave.
     Fighting the Flying Circus contains details about guns jamming and using incendiary ammunition to ignite German balloons.
     I was pleased with the photos in Fighting the Flying Circus. These included photos of EVR, his squadron mates, observation balloons, and the Hannover CLII that EVR brought down.
     About a quarter way through the book, I said to myself, "I think this was ghostwritten." It was. The ghostwriter of Fighting the Flying Circus was  Laurence La Tourette Driggs. The Aerodrome has a short piece about him. Search for the write-up by Ira Silverman.
     In the appendices at the end of the book, there is a table of Rickenbacker's confirmed kills. The list in Wikipedia echoes this list. I found it better than EVR's list at the Aerodrome. Together, the two lists seem comprehensive.    
     YMMV.

 2.7. Other:
     This is a later edition. It includes appendices that detail EVR's accomplishments after the war, such as the fact that he was presented the CMoH by President Herbert Hoover in 1931.

2.8. Links: 

Wikipedia on Eddie Rickenbacker

2.9. Buy the book:  Fighting the Flying Circus

YouTube

     My wife has discovered YouTube.
     I am sure you think, "Yeah, welcome to the party. You're late." That's true, but it fails to take into account that my wife is a Luddite. That she visits YouTube is akin to finding Amish on Facebook.
     She nagged me about the amount of time I spent on my computer. To distract her, last Christmas I bought her an iPad. About a week before Christmas, I brought it home all gift wrapped and presented it to her.
     "What's this?" she asked.
     "Your Christmas gift. Merry Christmas," I said.
     "Oh, goody!" she squealed and tore into it. She's never been one for that open-your-gifts-on-Christmas-morning tradition.
     Once she got her iPad unwrapped, she turned it over and inspected it from all angles. She looked at me and asked, "What is it?"
     "It's an iPad."
     "Oh." She had heard of iPad. Who hasn't? "What's it do?"
     "Whatever you want."
     "How does it work?"
     "I dunno. It's your machine, not mine. If you need help, read the manual."
     At the mention of 'the manual', she gave me that don't-be-stupid look. Husbands out there know what I mean. So I added, "Or you could go to the Apple store and ask one of their geniuses."
     So she did.
     To all appearances, the genius she talked to was the one who went to school in the short bus. When she came home, all she could do with her iPad was take photos and videos. But that was more than enough.
     From Christmas to Saint Valentine's Day, her all-consuming hobby became using the iPad to make videos.
     She never learned to record programs on TV (told ya she's a Luddite), so at first she tried to use her iPad to record the Doctor Oz Show while she was away at work. God be thanked, this failed.
     Next she became a reality TV cinematographer and drafted me to the role of her subject. Everywhere I went, she followed with her iPad. Me at my computer. Me walking to the store. Me shaving. Me on the toilet. Everything I did, she videoed. She found these videos hilarious. Since she still had not cracked the code on how to use email or Facebook, she shared these videos with others by running around the neighborhood forcing friends to watch. Soon the neighbors grew wise, and she ran out of audience.
     (On the bright side, she lost interest in that demon spawn of Oprah Winfrey, Oz. God be thanked again, Oz dropped out of my life.)
     About this time, I considered buying an iPad to use for writing when away from my computer. I knew the keyboard on the iPad's screen would not suit me, so I got an iKeyboard. When it came, my wife videoed me opening the package. Curious little minx that she is, she asked what it was. Rather than tell her, I wrested her raison d'etre from her fists and attached the iKeyboard. I called up the notepad and demonstrated how it worked with the on-screen keyboard.
     That was the last time I used the iKeyboard.
     The iKeyboard became hers. Definitively hers. I did not have an iPad; she did. Ergo, I had no use for the iKeyboard; she did. Ergo, res ipsa loquitur, the iKeyboard belonged to her.
     The iKeyboard phase lasted a long time. For months she wrote notes on her iPad. I don't mean she wrote a book or even a short story. No, she wrote notes. Shopping lists. To-do lists. Honey-do lists. Other lists that are to this day incomprehensible to me.
     In late June, we ate at Carne do Brasil, the churrascaria owned by my friend, Ibo. I saw Michel Telo on a DVD there and downloaded his performances on YouTube when we got home.
     My wife wanted in on this. I told her she needed to connect to the internet to get these videos on her iPad.
     Her: "How do I do that?"
     Me: "I don't know. It's your machine. Go ask the geniuses at the Apple store."
     I inferred from the look on her face that her last dealing with the Apple geniuses had left her with less than a stellar appreciation of their abilities. Instead, she called my internet provider. Over the phone, my ISP talked her through the set-up and internet connection for her iPad. (Seems we have WiFi in home along with the coax cable that runs to my computer.)
     I came home to find her gleefully playing Ai se eu te pego. The next day she downloaded other YouTube videos. She learned to stream American Idol and Britain's Got Talent and other singing videos. She drove me nuts playing one blues singer over and over and over again.
     Then she found the dog videos on YouTube.
     I'm not talking cute puppy videos. No. I'm talking dog-humps-cat videos. Interspecies sexual encounters. (No, I am not going to link you.) She finds these hilarious. ROTFLHAO hilarious.
     I have told her that this is not a big deal. Dogs will hump anything. When I was a kid, we had a neighbor lady who kept a piss-ant furry lapdog. For the better part of a summer, he mistook my left leg for his long lost love. No matter, my wife still watches Dachshunds abusing Persians.
     So for the nonce, my wife amuses herself with perverted YouTube doggie porn. Well, on the bright side, it ain't Oz.

Addendum: Gangnam Style

     Perverted doggie porn is so yesterday.
     My wife found the video Gangnam Style. ROTFL. No, really. She laughed so hard she could not stand up. Then she watched parodies of Gangnam Style. Then videos of people watching the video of Gangnam Style.
     As I lay in bed clicking through the channels, she played Gangnam Style and insisted that I get up and dance to it. Much to my regret, I did. Her response? ROTFL.

     How do I feel about Gangnam Style? Could be worse. Could be Oz.

eBook Review: The Law

Frederic Bastiat, The Law

Product Details

• File Size: 94 KB
• Print Length: 60 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1419168878
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Misbach Enterprises (June 1, 2008)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001B5VPXY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled 
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars (158 customer reviews) 
• Price: $0.99

1. Short review:    (Amazon rating: 3 out of 5 stars -- It's okay.)

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked:  Quotable remarks.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Neither. It is a polemic. 

2.2. What I did not like: Bastiat, like Marx, throws around theory without empirical basis. I prefer Bastiat to Marx, but I want historical references to back up the claims.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Libertarians.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  Yes. No worries.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book?  Yes.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell:

     There is no plot. The Law is a polemic.
     The gist of Bastiat's argument is 1) gov't's proper scope is limited and 2) the purpose of the law is justice; more precisely, the purpose of the law is the prevention of injustice.
     Bastiat gives these as bald assertions. No matter how much you agree with them, they remain nothing more than hypotheses unsupported by empirical evidence.
     For instance, Bastiat asserts that providing schools and education is not within the purview of gov't. I disagree. States have an interest in the education of children in order to produce loyal citizens. Texas discovered this the hard way during the Korean War: a disproportionate number of soldiers from Texas defected to the Chinese. In response, the Texas legislature mandated that all schools that receive state money -- and in Texas, that includes private schools -- must teach the history at every grade level. This teaching continues through the first four semesters of college. The Texas legislature has been pleased with the results.
     As for the law producing justice, in my experience, even a good law can be perverted to bad ends. The solution is to select good men to govern; that is, to enact and to execute the law. The problems are 1) how do we select good men and 2) who defines 'good'.
     In the end, Bastiat got me to think about my principles, but he gave me no new thoughts.
     YMMV.

 2.7. Other:
     The Law is a long pamphlet. It was published in 1850, the year Bastiat died.
     The PDF download from the Foundation for Economic Education is free.

2.8. Links: 

Wikipedia on Frederic Bastiat
The Law from the Foundation for Economic Education

2.9. Buy the book:  The Law