On a distant island, reality show contestants battle for bragging rights and a slot on next week's episode. They've perfected their dramatic roles and are prepared to do whatever it takes to win. There's the take–no–prisoners Marine sergeant, the gay hairdresser, the ruthless lawyer, the brainy poet. But one player refuses to compete—Gloria Hamm, a sullen dental hygienist, voted least likely to win by the show's crew. The higher–ups are desperate for ratings and sensational twists to trump the plots of seasons past. But the producer—haunted by personal tragedies all too real—is losing control of the show and its crew. While he obsesses about Gloria, the crew plots mutiny, a contestant dances with insanity, and disease threatens to halt the show completely. When real catastrophes strike, the producer finds it harder and harder to navigate his surreal landscape, where boundaries of the real, imagined, and orchestrated have blurred beyond recognition. Deus Ex Machina deconstructs our notions of narrative, revealing how tricky it is for any auteur to disappear from his creation. In an age when people will seemingly do anything to be on television, it asks what is the true nature of "reality," and what is its cost?
In this sprawling debut novel, Calliope Bird Morath is the daughter of legendary punk-rock star Brandt Morath, whose horrific suicide devastates the world.
Critics Choice . . . Shocking, inspiring, unforgettable." --People magazine "Andrew Bridge has written an affecting, moving memoir which in the end is a poignant cry for rethinking our foster care system. Hope's Boy will stay with you long after you've put it down." --Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here and The Other Side of the River From the moment he was born, Andrew Bridge and his mother, Hope, shared a love so deep that it felt like nothing else mattered. Trapped in desperate poverty and confronted with unthinkable tragedies, all Andrew ever wanted was to be with his mom. But as her mental health steadily declined, and with no one else left to care for him, authorities arrived and tore Andrew from his screaming mother's arms. In that moment, the life he knew came crashing down around him. He was only seven years old. Hope was institutionalized, and Andrew was placed in what would be his devastating reality for the next eleven years--foster care. After surviving one of our country's most notorious children's facilities, Andrew was thrust into a savagely loveless foster family that refused to accept him as one of their own. Deprived of the nurturing he needed, Andrew clung to academics and the kindness of teachers. All the while, he refused to surrender the love he held for his mother in his heart. Ultimately, Andrew earned a scholarship to Wesleyan, went on to Harvard Law School, and became a Fulbright Scholar. Andrew has dedicated his life's work to helping children living in poverty and in the foster care system. He defied the staggering odds set against him, and here in this heart-wrenching, brutally honest, and inspirational memoir, he reveals who Hope's boy really is.
Marriage is a work in progress. The real work begins when the wedding day is over. In So, You Say You Want to Get Married? Now What? author and ordained Minister Andrew L. Foster, III. provides a thorough discussion of the theology of marriage and family to help all couples maintain a healthy marriage beyond the wedding day. A process and not an event, marriage is a partnership that exists for the betterment of both husband and wife. So, You Say You Want to Get Married? Now What? helps couples understand what can and will take place after the ceremony. It discusses: The character of humanity (relational dynamics) Human development Personality of the family (relational ethics) Invisible loyalties The nature of marriage (intentionality) Complementarity Pre-marital counseling Parenthood Divorce and its consequences Using scripture as a guide, So, You Say You Want to Get Married? Now What? presents a thoughtful and inspirational message of how to build and maintain a healthy and well-functioning marriage and family long after the I do.
The national debate over the nature, purpose and delivery of public services continues in the light of the government's modernization agenda. This pamphlet represents a contribution to the search for an effective and efficient system of public service provision. Andrew Foster argues that this can be achieved only by making public services truly focused on people, their needs and interests.
Jane Hall Fitz-Gibbon and Andrew Fitz-Gibbon have cared for more than 100 children in a foster care career spanning more than three decades. They developed a method, “loving nonviolent re-parenting,” to best care for foster children. “Re-parenting” represents the complex task of caring for children who have been parented already, often inadequately, and mostly involving physical, emotional, and/or systemic violence. Welcoming Strangers analyzes the violence foster children suffer and raises ethical questions—why violence is morally problematic, what philosophers have said about human nature and violence, and what moral good should be pursued in childcare. Drawing on an ancient form of ethics, sometimes known as “virtue ethics,” this book focuses on the traits required to become a loving, nonviolent re-parent. The Fitz-Gibbons tell of their journey in the foster care system with candor, humor, and grace. Covering subjects as diverse as teens, sex, discipline, and the carer’s own well-being, they describe the difficulties of foster care and the sometimes impossible task of restoring dignity and joy to young lives deeply damaged by violence. This book will be of immense help to foster carers, adopters, caseworkers, case managers, policymakers, and any parent who wants to integrate nonviolent practices into the way they care for children.
At the mention of the words 'retirement planning' and 'superannuation', many of us immediately pop such thoughts in the too-hard, think-about-it later basket. But the fact is, whether you are old or young, rich or poor, if you start planning now, you will be in a much better position to work less and play more! WORK LESS, PLAY MORE strips the fear and confusion from the financial maze of retirement planning and shows you how to implement a strategic financial plan both to secure your future and enjoy today. With the touches of humour and personable style, Bennetts and Foster explain: The importance of superannuation, how it effects your tax and creates a retirement income The top 50 rules of investing and how to love and live with investment risk Dealing with that dirty word 'debt' Phasing out work, phasing in pensions and pursuing personal goals Leaving something for the kids -- or charity This step-by-step, easy-to-follow guide is packed with practical advice and insights that will set you on the path to a better work/life balance and a future free of financial worries.
This book analyses new software tools and social media data that can be used to explore the attitudes of people in urban places. It reports on the findings of several research projects that have have experimented with using microblogging data in conjunction with diverse quantitative and qualitative methods, including content analysis and advanced multivariate statistics. Applied researchers, planners and policy makers have only recently begun to explore the potential of Big Data to help understand social attitudes and to potentially inform local policy and development decisions. This book provides an original analysis into how Twitter can be used to describe the urban experience and people's perception of place, as well as offering significant implications for public policy. It will be of great interest to researchers in human geography, social media, cultural studies and public policy.
Andrew grew up in the 1970s with his funny, loving but deeply unstable mother. Life with her was totally chaotic. She left him alone in motel rooms at night and took him with her when she went house burgling. But Andrew's mother wasn't bad, she was just lost herself and one thing she did was always tell him she loved him. Gradually, though, the bad times got worse. One day Andrew, aged seven, found his mother in the bathroom in the middle of a breakdown, the walls covered in her pleas for help all written in the blood from the cuts she'd inflicted on herself. He was taken into care and put with a foster family who treated him with loneliness and neglect at best and cruel indifference as standard. This is a groundbreaking story of a childhood destroyed by mental illness. It is also a heartbreaking love story about a mother's legacy of love.
While there has been sustained interest in Gandhi’s methods and continued academic inquiry, Gandhi's Global Legacy: Moral Methods and Modern Challenges is unique in bringing together an interdisciplinary group of scholars who analyze Gandhi’s tactics, moral methods, and philosophical principles, not just in the fields of social and political activism, but in the areas of philosophy, religion, literature, economics, health, international relations, and interpersonal communication. Bringing this wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, the contributors provide fresh perspectives on Gandhi’s thought and practice as well as critical analyses of his work and its contemporary relevance. Edited by Veena R. Howard, this book reveals the need for reconstructing Gandhi’s ideas and moral methods in today’s context through a broad spectrum of crucial issues, including pacifism, health, communal living, gender dynamics, the role of anger, and peacebuilding. Gandhi’s methods have been refined and reimagined to fit different situations, but there remains a need to consider his concept of Sarvodaya (uplift of all), the importance of economic, gender, and racial equity, as well as the value of dialogue and dissenting voices in building a just society. The book points to new directions for the study of Gandhi in the globalized world.
In The Freedom to Fail, veteran educator Andrew K. Miller explains the many benefits of intentionally designing opportunities for students to "fail forward" in the classroom. He provides a raft of strategies for ensuring that students experience small, constructive failures as a means to greater achievement, and offers practical suggestions for ensuring that constructive failure doesn't detrimentally affect students' summative assessments. He also describes how teachers, too, can benefit from failure. Establishing a culture that embraces the freedom to fail helps students to adopt a growth mindset, take risks in the service of greater learning, and develop realistic expectations of what it takes to succeed in the world at large. If we deliberately let our students fail in small ways today, we can help to ensure that they'll triumph in a big way tomorrow.
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