George W. Bush called it "the best job in the world," yet many would argue that the Texas governorship is a weak office. Given few enumerated powers by the Texas Constitution, the governor must build a successful relationship with the state legislature—sometimes led by a powerful lieutenant governor or speaker of the opposing party—to advance his or her policy agenda. Yet despite the limitations on the office and the power of the legislative branch, many governors have had a significant impact on major aspects of Texas's public life—government, economic development, education, and insurance reform among them. How do Texas governors gain the power to govern effectively? The Power of the Texas Governor takes a fresh look at the state's chief executives, from John Connally to George W. Bush, to discover how various governors have overcome the institutional limitations of the office. Delving into the governors' election campaigns and successes and failures in office, Brian McCall makes a convincing case that the strength of a governor's personality—in particular, his or her highly developed social skills—can translate into real political power. He shows, for example, how governors such as Ann Richards and George W. Bush forged personal relationships with individual legislators to achieve their policy goals. Filled with revealing insights and anecdotes from key players in each administration, The Power of the Texas Governor offers new perspectives on leadership and valuable lessons on the use of power.
For Brian G. Phipps, the daily liturgy of parenthood, aging, and sport yields a grounded faith, not a flashy one, a conversation with the triune God that deepens as it questions Him. As a late convert to hockey, Brian trusts in a game that "engages muscles you were unaware / you had." He plays when he doesn't feel like it, plays when it hurts, and plays when it's boring. I'm not much of an athlete, but Brian's use of hockey as a metaphor for spiritual practice makes sense to me as one who writes, plays music, or works in the garden every day. These practices can either pass with the hours, or they can become their own forms of prayer, repentance, and confession. And what is more mundane than doubt? Or as this poet challenges us to consider, what can be more holy? Brian engages and flexes his doubting muscles as well, writing in "The Sayings of Saint Thomas" that "After I stopped doubting and believed, Lord / and God, my believing led me toward more doubt." This is the doubt that purifies, that draws us closer to the truth even when we aren't so sure we want it. "I am still / no more than halfway," Brian writes in "Without Faith," "and less than earnest, afraid / to seek what I might find." In his earnest lack of earnestness, he finds so much and guides us to our own discoveries as well. I find great comfort and encouragement in the intimate honesty of Brian's poems, the way they illuminate and redeem daily life as a broken and beautiful precursor to "One Day," when heaven will appear as a never-ending sheet of ice ready to receive our "wholly embodied" souls. It's a heaven I want to visit, for I know even I will be welcome there in my clumsy, ill-fitting skates. -Tania Runyan
There’s the office: President of the United States. And then there’s the man in the office—prone to temptation and looking to unwind after a long day running the country. Celebrating the decidedly less distinguished side of the nation’s leaders, humor writer Brian Abrams offers a compelling, hilarious, and true American history on the rocks—a Washington-to-Obama, vice-by-vice chronicle of how the presidents like to party. From explicit love letters to slurred speeches to nude swims at Bing Crosby’s house, reputations are ruined and secrets bared. George Washington brokered the end of the? American Revolution over glasses of Madeira. Ulysses S. Grant rarely drew a sober breath when he was leading the North to victory. And it wasn’t all liquor. Some presidents preferred their drugs—Nixon was a pill-popper. And others chased women instead—both ?the professorial Woodrow Wilson (who signed his love letters “Tiger”) and the good ol’ boy Bill Clinton, though neither could hold a candle to Kennedy, who also received the infamous Dr. Feelgood’s “vitamin” injections of pure amphetamine. Illustrated throughout with infographics (James Garfield’s attempts at circumnavigating the temperance movement), comic strips (George Bush Sr.’s infamous televised vomiting incident), caricatures, and fake archival documents, the book has the smart, funny feel of Mad magazine meets The Colbert Report. Plus, it includes recipes for 44 cocktails inspired by each chapter’s partier-in-chief.
This book focuses exclusively on specific education policy instead of general military recruiting in high schools. "When the George W. Bush administration passed its landmark education legislation in 2001, dubbed the No Child Left Behind Act, legislators included a small section containing strict military recruiting mandates for public high schools. The law had two main provisions. First, a data sharing provision requires high schools to distribute the personal directory information of every student to all local armed forces recruiting stations on an annual basis. Second, the equal access provision requires high schools to provide military recruiters access to school grounds equal to university recruiters or career recruiters. For accountability, if these provisions are not fulfilled, the school will lose all federal education funds. Students or parents may “opt out” of the data collection through a bureaucratic process, but no such opt-out option exists for the soldiers visiting schools. When President Barack Obama renewed the omnibus education law in 2015, the name changed to the Every Student Succeeds Act, but the military mandates remained – the provisions were strengthened by including a passage prohibiting any local school board from instituting an “opt-in” bureaucratic structure for parents and students. This book focuses on how the two provisions have been met by parents, school staff, soldiers, and other individuals influenced by high school education policy and military recruiting. The central question is: do military recruiting methods utilized in public high schools work to promote the best interests of the students, or should policy makers rethink the freedom adult soldiers have when interacting with children within schools?
A quintessential Australian bushman, Brian Taylor has spent most of his life on the land. Working as a drover, a stockman, a fencer, a shearer and a saddler, he has gathered a swag of stories over the years as he travelled way out past the Barcoo, along the dusty plains and beside the dry creek beds under the endless southern sky. In A SWAG OF MEMORIES Brian Taylor shares with us these stories, of the people he has met, the places he has been and the moments, long-gone, that define the traditions of the Australian bush. Like those bush poets and storytellers of days past, Taylor brings to life the characters and the creatures of the bush: men like Dangerous Dan Smith, a hard, self-reliant man who had a gentler talent; Father Peter, a parish priest and occasional hero; Charlie Gibson, an Aboriginal stockman who knew the land better than anyone; and Banjo, the ever-alert dingo watchdog. These colourful and evocative bush tales delightfully capture a slight of Australian life that many of us will never get to see. Luckily, with this collection, you can sit back with a billy of tea and read all about it.
It is 1962. Imagine leaving behind all that is familiar and comfortable in Norfolk, to travel to an uncharted posting in Tanganyika, with three small children and all your worldly goods, whilst your friends and relations predict doom and disaster in the 'Dark Continent'. This is the adventure that Brian Dawtrey and his family embarked upon, armed with a black rolled umbrella with a gold band to fight off primitive savages, and a brand new Hoover washing machine. From the moment that they leave England's shores, you are swept along by their enthusiasm and lust for all that may face them - from recalcitrant hippopotami, charging elephants and a life-saving leopard, to welcoming tribesfolk and the glorious unspoilt African bush. Unfazed by minor setbacks such as the lack of electricity to drive the Hoover, and confrontations with unwelcoming snakes, the Dawtrey family revel in their new surroundings and the challenges of their new life under the Nyerere regime of Uhuru (Freedom). Witty, evocative and awe-inspiring, this charming book is a testament to the pioneering spirit of those who chose to embrace Africa at a time of great change, and to help its people to capitalise on their natural skills and resources.
This guide answers often-asked questions such as: What does a frog dropping or lizard burrow look like? How do you read a snake track? What do you do when you find a snake in your garden? What is the correct way of handling a frog or photographing a reptile? It contains species, scientific and common names, and much more.
In the words of one reader, Brian W. Fairbanks has a real talent for extracting the essence of a given subject and articulating it in a meaningful way. In WRITINGS, the author collects some of his finest essays and criticism spanning the years 1991-2005 and covering four subjects: FILM LITERATURE MUSIC SOCIETY Whether offering an insightful analysis of film noir, examining Benjamin Franklin's impact on American society, taking a clear-eyed, non-partisan look at democrats, republicans, the 2004 presidential campaign, George W. Bush, and the war on terror, or lambasting the corruption of television news, Brian W. Fairbanks is ingenious with a sophisticated yet effortlessly readable style. Also available in two hardcover editions.
This book aspires to be a comprehensive summary of current biofuels issues and thereby contribute to the understanding of this important topic. Readers will find themes including biofuels development efforts, their implications for the food industry, current and future biofuels crops, the successful Brazilian ethanol program, insights of the first, second, third and fourth biofuel generations, advanced biofuel production techniques, related waste treatment, emissions and environmental impacts, water consumption, produced allergens and toxins. Additionally, the biofuel policy discussion is expected to be continuing in the foreseeable future and the reading of the biofuels features dealt with in this book, are recommended for anyone interested in understanding this diverse and developing theme.
This comprehensive, easy-to-use guide includes superb colour photographs and many drawing to aid identification. Ideal for nature-lovers, garderners, bush-walkers and students to read at leisure or to identify that slithering, splashing or croaking critter in the garden or bush."--Back cover.
The book offers a comprehensive analysis of public opinion toward presidential candidate spouses over the course of three decades, drawing on multiple theoretical frameworks including the concept of “new traditionalism” and a plethora of empirical data to explore why some spouses engender greater support than others—and what these reactions reveal about the American public and the gendered nature of the American presidency. Recognizing that presidential candidate spouses are important but understudied political actors, this book provides extensive analysis of public evaluations of Bill Clinton and Melania Trump during the 2016 presidential election as well as the presidential candidate spouses in the 1992 and 2012 elections and places public reaction to these individuals in historical context. The book considers important trends in U.S. elections including party polarization from the distinctive vantage points of candidate spouses and explores the symbolic importance of historic firsts including the first African American candidate spouse and the first male candidate spouse. No other work provides a systematic exploration of public opinion towards candidate spouses as distinct political entities across the modern political era.
American Conservatism: History, Theory, and Practice from Brian R. Farmer is a history of conservatism in the United States that illuminates the odyssey of American conservatism beginning with the Pilgrims and Puritans of the early colonial period and proceeding through the Revolutionary era, the Antebellum period, the Age of Laissez-Faire, Post-Depression Conservatism, the Reagan Era, and concluding with the ideologies and policies of the George W. Bush Administration, arguably the most ideologically driven conservative administration in American history. Conservatism in general and the multiple facets of conservatism are defined, and the political socialization process that produces and perpetuates political ideologies in general and conservatism in particular are presented, to lay the groundwork for the rich history of American people, policies, and events that have surrounded those conservative ideologies that follows. Farmer provides a tool for those interested in American Politics in general and American conservatism in particular with a tool that helps explain the historical development of American ideological conservatism, both in a theoretical sense, and in a policy sense, and thus draws a connection between the American past and what must be considered an exceptional conservative American administration, even by American standards, under George W. Bush. Farmer illustrates that the basic ideological underpinnings that have driven the Bush administration that have generally been viewed by Europeans as exceptional, have been present in American politics since its earliest colonial beginnings with the Puritans and been carried forward by the ideological descendants of the Puritans from that time through the present. In essence, the form of American conservative exceptionalism exhibited during the Bush administration was present in American politics from the very beginning and has continued through the present, albeit in a more extreme form since the traditional ideological conservatives currently dominate all three branches of the American government and the terror attacks of 9/11 allowed them to garner popular support for their exceptional programs.
Not One More Death examines the record of US and UK troops in Iraq, questions Bush and Blair's position under international law, and considers the responsibilities of artists, writers and the wider public in a time of war and occupation. Published in collaboration with the Stop the War Coalition (www.stopwar.org.uk).
In the Pilbara there is a rich array of 46 species of snakes, on land and sea, with no fewer than eight of these being endemic to the region. This comprehensive, easy-to-use guide includes superb colour photographs and many drawings to aid identification. An ideal gift for nature-lovers, bush-walkers and students, and an essential companion for travellers and workers in the Pilbara. Includes detailed information on dangerous snakes and the treatment of snakebites.
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