I guess I’d better save these customer reviews before Amazon.com deletes them.

First, note the bizarre nature of the “Customers Who Bought This Book Also Bought” page. One could create a Vinn Diagram, 2 over-lapping circles with this one as the shared “connector” book.

5 stars My Pet Goat is a masterpiece of strategic thought., July 17, 2004
Reviewer: oparts (New York, NY United States)
Destined to take their place alongside von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu, Engelmann and Bruner have captured the very essence of strategic thought in a mere 32 large-print pages. In this masterwork, when Smirky the Goat is stung on the nose by Osama the Wasp, he jumps over the fence and butts the living daylights of out Saddam the Swine. Advanced students will see the seeds of the Bush Doctrine in this landmark book.

3 stars My Pet Goat or: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE, July 17, 2004
Reviewer: Frank Newgent (Tomahawk, West Virginia)
REPUBLICANS

It’s a weird story alright. A little goat goes funny in the head and orders his airplanes to attack Russia I think. The Attorney General is in a wheelchair – like Ironside – but must have forgot to watch the show because he never catches anyone. And it turns out there’s some kind of giant self-destructing Star Wars type of thing built somewhere in Texas.

I really couldn’t figure out the part when Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld starts shouting: “I can no longer sit back and allow this hollow-horned, bearded ruminant mammal to infiltrate , indoctrinate, subvert, and conspire to sap and impurify all of our foreign and defense policy principles.” It was like maybe he thought he knew what was coming or something and then just ended up causing it all to happen himself. That’s why I only gave it 3 stars.

Probably my favorite part of the book is when President Bush falls out of that airplane right at the end, waving his cowboy hat.

5 stars Really Got My Goat, July 16, 2004
Reviewer: gefilte (Crawford, TX)
I only read “My Pet Goat” but I found it riveting. I could have read it for hours without letting anything interrupt me. I think the sociological ramifications of the interspecies relationship truly challenge the dominant paradigm of Hominid pair-bonding. Perhaps a legislative approach such as a constitutional amendment is needed to prevent Genus and Phylum exogamy. On the negative side, the author’s theoretical framework is obviously influenced too severely by a Foucaultian post-modernistic approach. I think some books need a pre-modern approach and should be burned, but not this one. I found it intellectually stimulating as well as slightly risible.

Sometimes goats have to die, July 16, 2004
Reviewer: A reader (Greenville, NC United States)
I like goats. It’s like my daddy always said, a goat in the pocket is a goat in the hole. If goats were money, I’d have a million of them (and give some to my friends too!). I remember goats are animals. They are not part of the axis of evil, but because I’m so compassionate, I sometimes still want to kill them.

5 stars A charge to keep, and I’m keeping “My Pet Goat”, July 14, 2004
Reviewer: A reader (Crawford, TX USA)
I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves. My job is to, like, think beyond the immediate. Why don’t you mentor a child how to read? There’s an old saying in Tennessee-I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee-that says, fool me once, shame on-shame on you. Fool me-you can’t get fooled again. If you don’t have any ambitions, the minimum-wage job isn’t going to get you to where you want to get, for example. In other words, what is your ambitions? And oh, by the way, if that is your ambition, here’s what it’s going to take to achieve it. There’s no cave deep enough for America, or dark enough to hide. I’m thrilled to be here in the bread basket of America because it gives me a chance to remind our fellow citizens that we have an advantage here in America-we can feed ourselves. There may be some tough times here in America. But this country has gone through tough times before, and we’re going to do it again. I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn’t here. The public education system in America is one of the most important foundations of our democracy. After all, it is where children from all over America learn to be responsible citizens, and learn to have the skills necessary to take advantage of our fantastic opportunistic society. In conclusion, buy this book today.

5 stars Steady Readership In Times Of Change, July 8, 2004
Reviewer: A reader (Sarasota, Florida)
A riveting story that keeps you glued to the page until the stunning climax. Even a notification from your staff that the nation you lead is under attack can’t keep you from reading the gut-wrenching final words.

5 stars Presidential material, through and through!, July 6, 2004
Reviewer: Lolla Fallujah (Hannah Storm’s house)
After reading the enclosed story “The Pet Goat,” I was stunned by its lyrical beauty and easy cadence. The tempo, the choice of words, and the layout on each page captured my imagination so much that it took me about seven minutes to recover my bearings.

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