The three horror stories included in this collection by Jason Winn will take you on a journey of horror that takes you out of your comfort zone and thrusts you into the cauldron of terror! These three disturbing stories of unrelenting horror will plague your mind with nightmares. The Wages of Sin Special Agent Lydia Bryant, along with an elite team of law enforcement personnel, must transport the deadliest serial killer in the United States to his execution. In the process, she discovers the true mission lurking within this demonic killers mind. Now, she must race against time to prevent it from coming to fruition. Love Thine Enemy At forty, Laurel Baxter feels that life is passing her by. As a vampire hunter for the Harker/Van Helsing Institute, she endures lonely nights and constantly limited horizons. Her only hope of gaining the life she so desperately craves rests in the hands of the worlds most lethal vampire. An Eye for an Eye Oliver Ocean is the head of Miamis top modeling agency. Knowing that his models contracts are soon to expire, Ocean plans a final photo shoot with them in the Caribbean. The voyage becomes a bloodbath, though, when Oceans crew is ambushed by unstoppable zombies.
An insider’s look at baseball’s unwritten rules, explained with examples from the game’s most fascinating characters and wildest historical moments. Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. All aspects of baseball—hitting, pitching, and baserunning—are affected by the Code, a set of unwritten rules that governs the Major League game. Some of these rules are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), while others are known only to a minority of players (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box). In The Baseball Codes, old-timers and all-time greats share their insights into the game’s most hallowed—and least known—traditions. For the learned and the casual baseball fan alike, the result is illuminating and thoroughly entertaining. At the heart of this book are incredible and often hilarious stories involving national heroes (like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays) and notorious headhunters (like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale) in a century-long series of confrontations over respect, honor, and the soul of the game. With The Baseball Codes, we see for the first time the game as it’s actually played, through the eyes of the players on the field. With rollicking stories from the past and new perspectives on baseball’s informal rulebook, The Baseball Codes is a must for every fan.
Rebel Bulldog tells the story of Preston Davidson, a Northerner who fought for the Confederacy, and his family who lived in Indiana and Virginia. It is a story that examines antebellum religion, education, reform, and politics, and how they affected the identity of not just one young man, but of a nation caught up in a civil war. Furthermore, it discusses how a native-born Hoosier reached the decision to fight for the South, while detailing a unique war experience and the postwar life of a proud Rebel who returned to the North after the guns fell silent and tried to remake his life in a very different state and nation than the ones he had left in 1860. Using the lives of Preston and his family as a lens to help us glimpse the past, Rebel Bulldog delves into the human experience on multiple levels, asks us to reconsider what we think we know of the Civil War, and complicates, while it complements the existing literature. It is a story that perhaps could only have happened in Indiana.
This book focuses on the interplay of gender, race, and their representation in American science fiction, from the nineteenth-century through to the twenty-first, and across a number of forms including literature and film. Haslam explores the reasons why SF provides such a rich medium for both the preservation of and challenges to dominant mythologies of gender and race. Defining SF linguistically and culturally, the study argues that this mode is not only able to illuminate the cultural and social histories of gender and race, but so too can it intervene in those histories, and highlight the ruptures present within them. The volume moves between material history and the linguistic nature of SF fantasies, from the specifics of race and gender at different points in American history to larger analyses of the socio-cultural functions of such identity categories. SF has already become central to discussions of humanity in the global capitalist age, and is increasingly the focus of feminist and critical race studies; in combining these earlier approaches, this book goes further, to demonstrate why SF must become central to our discussions of identity writ large, of the possibilities and failings of the human —past, present, and future. Focusing on the interplay of whiteness and its various 'others' in relation to competing gender constructs, chapters analyze works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary E. Bradley Lane, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Philip Francis Nowlan, George S. Schuyler and the Wachowskis, Frank Herbert, William Gibson, and Octavia Butler. Academics and students interested in the study of Science Fiction, American literature and culture, and Whiteness Studies, as well as those engaged in critical gender and race studies, will find this volume invaluable.
A stunning book about how America’s biggest cities are being destroyed by progressive policies and woke Democrats. Many Americans have no idea how badly our largest, Democrat-run cities have deteriorated. We've been complacent for far too long, assuming that the craziest elements of the radical Left would stay confined to the East and West coasts. But crime, drug addiction, homelessness, left-wing school indoctrination, so-called inclusive housing policies, and outrageous taxes don’t stay within the big city limits of places like Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco. The effects of ideologically driven left-wing policies always spread, which should alarm Americans regardless of their political leanings. Jason Rantz is a prominent radio host, a trusted journalist, and a frequent Fox News guest unafraid to go directly into the action. He’s grown a national following by breaking news the mainstream media won’t, covering the consequences of destructive leftist policies wherever they occur. He was right there for the chaos in his hometown of Seattle when liberal anarchists declared an autonomous, police-free “CHOP Zone.” He infiltrates the Antifa marches and knows firsthand how those radicals operate. This is the shocking story of what he’s learned. Employing on-the-ground reporting and fact-based analysis, Rantz zooms out to conduct a fascinating detailed, data-driven study of how these liberal policies result in chaos, misery, and (too often) bloodshed. He skillfully recounts the tragic events with a narrative reporter's eye for detail to tell the true story of what's happening in America's cities.
Fifth title in Titan Books' Marvel fiction reissue program, featuring the classic Ant-Man story: Natural Enemy. SCOTT LANG'S CRIMINAL PAST COMES BACK TO HAUNT HIM! Scott Lang -- the Astonishing Ant-Man -- has a new life in New York City with his daughter, Cassie. Scott's determined to make it work: Cassie's in a good school, he's got a steady job, and he's finally ready to explore that wide, safe, non-spandexed dating world. But despite his best intentions, Scott just can't stay out of the spotlight -- or magnifying glass -- and it doesn't take long for his new life to fall apart. When an old partner-in-crime goes to trial, Scott and Cassie are stuck with federal bodyguards. Scott is convinced the protection is unnecessary, but he hasn't calculated the teenager factor! When trouble finds Cassie, Scott throws caution to the wind and dons the suit. But what is the villain really after? Award-winning crime writer Jason Starr (Twisted City, Wolverine MAX) spins a thrilling tale of desperation, secrets, and microscopic adventure.
Evil Yakusa gangsters, lethal martial arts, and awesome fighting robots - Jackson Farley is back in the latest techno blockbuster in the hugely popular Dot Robot techno-thriller series. Set against the glittering neon backdrop of Tokyo and in the dark and eerie forests of the Sea of Trees, digital genius Jackson and robotics expert Brooke English are hot on the trail of their missing friends, Japan's most famous professional gamers, the Kojima Twins. The twins have joined hundreds of kidnapped gamers as part of a secret Gold Farming ring, forced to play for virtual items such as spells and weapons, sold for huge profits. Jackson and Brooke must find their friends and fast. But when the world they've been kidnapped into isn't real, where do they even begin?
This book offers the only examination of the television writing of David Milch and David Simon as significant contributions to American culture, literature, and social realism. David Milch and David Simon are two of the most prolific and successful television drama writers in the last 30 years. These talented writers have combined real-world knowledge with wild imaginations and understandings of the human psyche to create riveting shows with realistic environments and storylines. Minch and Simon's writing have resulted in television series that have earned both critical acclaim and millions of viewers. The Wire, Deadwood, Homicide, and NYPD Blue: Violence is Power is the most comprehensive text yet written about Milch and Simon, and documents how television dramas of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s mirrored American culture with unprecedented sociological accuracy. The author explains how both individuals are not only capable dramatists, but also insightful cultural critics. This book also examines the full range of Milch's and Simon's authorial careers, including Milch's books True Blue: The Real Stories behind NYPD Blue and Deadwood: Tales of the Black Hills and Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood.
Denver, known locally as "Denver of the East," is an unincorporated area in eastern Lincoln County, North Carolina, that was originally named "Dry Pond" after a small pond at the intersection of Highway 16 and Campground Road that always dried up during the hottest summer months. Prof D. Matt Thompson, principal at Rock Spring Seminary, led the effort to rename the area after the booming Colorado capital to attract railroad planners whose lines could provide an economic boost to trading and commerce. The area was officially renamed in January 1875. Around Denver are communities such as Triangle, Lowesville, Machpelah, Catawba Springs, Iron Station, and Pumpkin Center, whose names are as significant as the industries and sons and daughters that they birthed and raised.
With 100 essential Ravens facts, trivia tidbits, and even activities, this book is perfect for any fan looking to relive the moments of the team’s past while looking forward to the future of the franchise. Recalling the organization’s important moments, milestones, and achievements, it describes the historic 1996 and 2008 drafts, the 2012 championship season, and the conclusion of Ray Lewis’ career. It identifies the highs and lows that naturally come with being a Ravens fan, from two Super Bowl titles to the 2007 regular season that ultimately led to former coach Brian Billick’s dismissal. Detailing the Ravens’ short but memorable history, this treasury of information invites longtime Ravens fans to reminisce about their beloved team and allows new fans to catch up on what they have missed.
Edison Bestwell and Benjamin Baldridge have been best friends since the third grade. Life in the small backwoods town of Cripple Creek, Kentucky, usually doesn't move faster than a snail, and the boys enjoy plenty of freedom to explore and get into a bit of innocent mischief. But during the summer between fifth and sixth grade, Benjamin's sister, Lilly, goes missing, sending the town and the friends into turmoil. Lilly is never found, and seven years later on a peculiar autumn night, a tragic incident thrusts Edison and Benjamin back into the enigma surrounding her disappearance. What they find causes them to question everything they know about what is possible and what is real. Unfortunately, they're soon caught between the law and the pursuit of truth as once again Cripple Creek becomes embroiled in mystery. With federal agent Tucker Davidson and local sheriff Harlen Jenkins hot on their trail, the two friends race across the ridges and through the hollows of backwoods Kentucky with a discovery that could settle the case once and for all. There's just one problem: Who in their right mind will believe them? Written in the tradition of Southern fiction, The Ballad of Edison Bestwell simmers with suspense, charm, and a healthy dose of wry humor.
What are the skills necessary for effective leadership? How can we learn to lead toward a better tomorrow? For six decades, the captains of Star Trek have demonstrated the potential for leaders to leverage reason and compassion in the service of others. Grounded in science yet focused on practical application, this book uses case studies from more than 40 episodes and films to explore how Captains Archer, Burnham, Pike, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and Janeway relied upon the basic leadership skills of communication, patience, and relationship to navigate the most challenging of events. This work lays out how leaders can leverage reason and compassion to create organizational cultures in which everyone has a place at the table. Whether you are a professional or a student of business, academics, schools, or government, Star Trek is more relevant than ever to the leaders of today to boldly go.
THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO LOSE IT ALL AT THE TRACK A New York bar bouncer with dreams of being more, Tommy Russo jumps at the chance to join a horse-owning syndicate. But to do so he’ll have to pony up $10,000 – and that’s money he hasn’t got. So what’s an ambitious young man to do? Anything he has to…
How did Americans imagine the Civil War before it happened? The most anticipated event of the nineteenth century appeared in novels, prophecies, dreams, diaries, speeches, and newspapers decades before the first shots at Fort Sumter. People forecasted a frontier filibuster, an economic clash between free and slave labor, a race war, a revolution, a war for liberation, and Armageddon. Reading their premonitions reveals how several factors, including race, religion, age, gender, region, and class, shaped what people thought about the future and how they imagined it. Some Americans pictured the future as an open, contested era that they progressed toward and molded with their thoughts and actions. Others saw the future as a closed, predetermined world that approached them and sealed their fate. When the war began, these opposing temporalities informed how Americans grasped and waged the conflict. In this creative history, Jason Phillips explains how the expectations of a host of characters-generals, politicians, radicals, citizens, and slaves-affected how people understood the unfolding drama and acted when the future became present. He reconsiders the war's origins without looking at sources using hindsight, that is, without considering what caused the cataclysm and whether it was inevitable. As a result, Phillips dispels a popular myth that all Americans thought the Civil War would be short and glorious at the outset, a ninety-day affair full of fun and adventure. Much more than rational power games played by elites, the war was shaped by uncertainties and emotions and darkened horizons that changed over time. Looming Civil War highlights how individuals approached an ominous future with feelings, thoughts, and perspectives different from our sensibilities and unconnected to our view of their world. Civil War Americans had their own prospects to ponder and forge as they discovered who they were and where life would lead them. The Civil War changed more than America's future; it transformed how Americans imagined the future and how Americans have thought about the future ever since.
In Electric Meters: Victorian Physiological Poetics Jason R. Rudy connects formal poetic innovations to developments in the electrical and physiological sciences, arguing that the electrical sciences and bodily poetics cannot be separated, and that they came together with special force in the years between the 1830s, which witnessed the invention of the electric telegraph, and the 1870s, when James Clerk Maxwell's electric field theory transformed the study of electrodynamics. Combining formal poetic analysis with cultural history, Jason Rudy traces the development of Victorian physiological poetics from the Romantic poetess tradition through to the works of Alfred Tennyson, the "Spasmodic" poets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Algernon Swinburne, among others.
In this novel a NASA meteorologist challenges his family to a year-long search for the truth if Global Warming is both real and caused by mankind leading to extinction. Forty percent of Americans believe it’s a hoax and a tool to control society for Socialist goals. The Murray family covers the globe with family members serving as Electric Vehicle salesman, solar panel lobbyist, National Park ranger, and archeologists digging for proof. A small satellite was even lunched to monitor the thermafrost in Alaska. They uncover the total folly of the windmills on hilltops and seacoasts. A research trip to an electric vehicle factory uncovers the hidden costs of the vehicles, including battery disposal. Even the falsehoods of the “Great Reset” about climate are exposed. Three of the family members take a research cruise to Antarctica where they learn about ocean warming, ice bergs, and the fate of animals, particularly the polar bears. They discover how China uses climate as a weapon to transform America into a Communist state. In the end, the family celebrates Thanksgiving at the Phantom Ranch on the bottom of the Grand Canyon. After dessert, each family member reveals his or her findings about the topic. The story ends with Dr. Murray summarizing the year-long findings of seven people into one sentence.
Do you have a plan, a real plan, for raising your sons to be men of God? You can bet pop culture has a plan for them, and it won’t be anything that honors God. In the Thick of It lays out a proven model to help you raise your sons to be men of unyielding conviction in a culture of confusion. Each chapter will challenge and encourage you to be intentional about raising boys with a healthy mindset and faith framework in a spiritually hostile world. Jason Cruise, minister to men and father to two boys, covers timeless topics that are essential in the successful parenting of sons--including Divided Loyalties, The Judgment Day of Popular Opinion, Redefining the Goal, What My Sons Deserve from Me, Sowing Manhood, and An Unexpected Witness. No matter what stage of fatherhood you're currently in, you'll be encouraged and equipped to train a new generation as you discover this must-have blueprint for raising your boys to become godly men.
Whether you know it or not...You're A WANTED MAN. Satan is obsessed with bringing you to ruin--your marriage, your family, your career, your finances. . .nothing is off limits. He wants to take it all. The Bible says in John 10:10: "The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy". . .and just when you let down your guard and are at your weakest point, Satan will attack. In A Wanted Man, Jason Cruise—author, speaker, and producer—explains what life looks like from behind enemy lines, what Satan has on his mind at all times, what you can do to win the war against your soul, and how you can win again if you have already failed. A must-read for every man who is a follower of Christ. Includes links to Jason's dedicated YouTube channel will help you make a more personal connection on topics like Life Behind Enemy Lines The Power of Obsession The Stakes of the Game and more...
God can do a lot to a man in just a minute. "I cannot attempt to explain why The Man Minute fell into your world. . .but it has no doubt landed on the path of your journey. I cannot tell you what’s going to happen. . .other than to tell you that life won’t be the same. . . . "God doesn’t take part in the coincidental, and He doesn’t offer random. His paths are sure and battle-tested. His words are worth slowing down long enough to encounter."(from the Introduction) Jason Cruise—author, speaker, and producer—has taken the flat, paved, predictable road of men’s devotionals and made a hard right turn down a dirt road of insights that are raw, unfiltered, and unpredictable. Every “Man Minute” is designed to be read in sixty seconds, yet you'll carry the insights you glean into a lifelong journey of spiritual manhood. This book offers a high-caliber tandem of biblical insights and encouragement that will draw you closer to God, who has called you to a life that transcends complacent, run-of-the-mill manhood.
“An Epic.”—THE GUARDIAN We rejoin The Expedition for its third and final instalment with Jason, now seasoned adventurer, and April, American schoolteacher at sea for the first time, battling to keep their pedal-powered boat Moksha from being dashed against Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Crossing the infamous Coral Sea, they’ve endured gale force winds, rogue waves, and powerful currents pushing them off course for days at a time. On her thirtieth consecutive day of seasickness and now haemorrhaging blood, April is in urgent need of medical treatment. But in the uncharted waters north of Cape Flattery, far from coastguard assistance, there is little if any hope of rescue. Even if they survive, Jason faces untold hazards to complete the first circumnavigation of the planet using only human power: waterless deserts, towering mountain ranges, seaborne pirates, and extremist hotspots. And there is still the overarching question he posed at the beginning, the one driving him forward that will take him to the brink for an answer. “A mind-boggling odyssey beyond the stretch of the average imagination.”—ASSOCIATED PRESS “Lewis writes with gritty realism and unexpected humour, and the result is both horrifying and enormously inspiring.”—NEW TIMES “We see a man who is – as Mowgli put it in The Jungle Book – prepared to pull the whiskers of death.”—LONDON TIMES “Arguably, the most remarkable adventurer in the world today. Many people would certainly go insane if they weren’t killed first.”—THE DAILY MAIL “I believe it is important in our era of cars, trains and aeroplanes that we are reminded what human beings can achieve using their own strength and resources.”—HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance meets Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. A thoroughly entertaining and insightful read.”—CHARLIE BOORMAN, Long Way Down “An extraordinary adventure.”—THE INDEPENDENT “An enthralling read.”—OUTDOOR PHOTOGRAPHY
Published in partnership with the Toronto Maple Leafs and officially licensed by the NHL, this is the one and only official Toronto Maple Leafs Centennial publication! The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of the most storied franchises in all of sport and without question -- the most recognized team in all of hockey. Through this journey of a hundred years of Maple Leaf hockey, fans will read of ups and downs, triumphs and tears, laughter and laments. This publication tells the Leafs' complete history and introduces fans to coaches, as well as such legends as: Apps and Armstrong, Kennedy and Keon, Broda and Bower, Salming and Sundin, but also players who wore the Blue and White and left far more modest legacies. It takes fans to Toronto's first game, the construction of Maple Leaf Gardens and subsequent move to the Air Canada Centre. It celebrates Toronto's Stanley Cups and Hall of Fame players and demonstrates that through each exciting season, the Toronto Maple Leafs have forever remained our team and enjoyed the incredibly loyal support of a nation of fans. Published in complete partnership with the Toronto Maple Leafs and scheduled to release as the Leafs enter their 100th season, this official centennial publication includes contributions from many of the biggest names in Leaf history. Author Kevin Shea gained unprecedented access to players -- past and present -- as well as team executives to offer this book the most compelling, informed, and accurate portrayal of Toronto's historic hockey team and their important place in both the world of hockey and the culture of Canada. Combined with incredible archival photographs and a truly incredible design, this is the definitive and must have book for fans of the Blue and White.
This comprehensive resource reviews structural equation modeling (SEM) strategies for longitudinal data to help readers see which modeling options are available for which hypotheses. The author demonstrates how SEM is related to other longitudinal data techniques throughout. By exploring connections between models, readers gain a better understanding of when to choose one analysis over another. The book explores basic models to sophisticated ones including the statistical and conceptual underpinnings that are the building blocks of the analyses. Accessibly written, research examples from the behavioral and social sciences and results interpretations are provided throughout. The emphasis is on concepts and practical guidance for applied research rather than on mathematical proofs. New terms are highlighted and defined in the glossary. Figures are included for every model along with detailed discussions of model specification and implementation issues. Each chapter also includes examples of each model type, comment sections that provide practical guidance, model extensions, and recommended readings. Highlights include: Covers the major SEM approaches to longitudinal analysis in one resource. Explores connections between longitudinal SEM models to enhance integration. Numerous examples that help readers match research questions to appropriate analyses and interpret results. Reviews practical issues related to model specification and estimation to reinforce connections. Analyzes continuous and discrete (binary and ordinal) variables throughout for breadth not found in other sources. Reviews key SEM concepts for those who need a refresher (Ch. 1). Emphasizes how to apply and interpret each model through realistic data examples. Provides the book’s data sets at www.longitudinalsem.com along with the Mplus and R-lavaan syntax used to generate the results. Introduces the LISREL notation system used throughout (Appendix A). The chapters can be read out of order but it is best to read chapters 1 – 4 first because most of the later chapters refer back to them. The book opens with a review of latent variables and analysis of binary and ordinal variables. Chapter 2 applies this information to assessing longitudinal measurement invariance. SEM tests of dependent means and proportions over time points are explored in Chapter 3, and stability and change, difference scores, and lagged regression are covered in Chapter 4. The remaining chapters are each devoted to one major type of longitudinal SEM -- repeated measures analysis models, full cross-lagged panel models and simplex models, modeling stability with state-trait models, linear and nonlinear growth curve models, latent difference score models, latent transition analysis, time series analysis, survival analysis, and attrition. Missing data is discussed in the context of many of the preceding models in Chapter 13. Ideal for graduate courses on longitudinal (data) analysis, advanced SEM, longitudinal SEM, and/or advanced data (quantitative) analysis taught in the behavioral, social, and health sciences, this text also appeals to researchers in these fields. Intended for those without an extensive math background, prerequisites include familiarity with basic SEM. Matrix algebra is avoided in all but a few places.
Workplace injuries happen every day and can profoundly affect workers, their families, and the communities in which they live. This textbook is for workers and students looking for an introduction to injury prevention on the job. Foster and Barnetson bring the field into the twenty-first century by including discussions of how precarious employment, gender, and ill-health can be better handled in Canadian OHS.
Beware of what lurks in the corn. Fairies don’t exist. At least that’s what Thomas Cavanaugh’s parents say. But the events of that one night, when he follows a fairy into the cornfield on his parents’ farm, prove them wrong. What seems like a destructive explosion was, Thomas knows, an encounter with Dauðr, a force that threatens to destroy the fairy’s world and his sanity. Years later, after a troubled childhood and a series of dead-end jobs, he is still haunted by what he saw that night. One day he crosses paths with a beautiful young woman and a troubled young man, soon realizing that he first met them as a kid while under psychiatric care after his encounters in the cornfield. Has fate brought them together? Are they meant to join forces to save the fairy’s world and their own? Or is one of them not who they claim to be?
The dramatic events of 2020—the presidential election, the COVID-19 pandemic, protests for racial justice—affected every corner of American life. What did these events mean for the residents of small towns and cities that are often overlooked by national newspapers? How do local stories change when they are told by journalists with roots in these communities? And what is lost as this kind of coverage disappears? American Deadline brings together dispatches from four longtime local journalists in different parts of the United States that tell the story of 2020 anew. It shares reporting from Bowling Green, Virginia; Macon, Georgia; McKeesport, Pennsylvania; and McAllen, Texas—two towns that lost their local newspapers and two where they are barely hanging on. The authors consider what makes each town distinctive and how these local perspectives tell a part of a broader American story. This book reports on how residents of these towns grapple with and talk about issues relating to race, schooling, health, immigration, deindustrialization, as well as local and national politics amid a changing and increasingly precarious information ecosystem. A distinct and intimate look at a calamitous year, American Deadline is an important book for all readers interested in the possibilities and future of local journalism.
The intelligence community's flawed assessment of Iraq's weapons systems—and the Bush administration's decision to go to war in part based on those assessments—illustrates the political and policy challenges of combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In this comprehensive assessment, defense policy specialists Jason Ellis and Geoffrey Kiefer find disturbing trends in both the collection and analysis of intelligence and in its use in the development and implementation of security policy. Analyzing a broad range of recent case studies—Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons, North Korea's defiance of U.N. watchdogs, Russia's transfer of nuclear and missile technology to Iran and China's to Pakistan, the Soviet biological warfare program, weapons inspections in Iraq, and others—the authors find that intelligence collection and analysis relating to WMD proliferation are becoming more difficult, that policy toward rogue states and regional allies requires difficult tradeoffs, and that using military action to fight nuclear proliferation presents intractable operational challenges. Ellis and Kiefer reveal that decisions to use—or overlook—intelligence are often made for starkly political reasons. They document the Bush administration's policy shift from nonproliferation, which emphasizes diplomatic tools such as sanctions and demarches, to counterproliferation, which at times employs interventionist and preemptive actions. They conclude with cogent recommendations for intelligence services and policy makers.
This poignant Y/A collection of Twilight Zone-inspired short stories is a stunning assortment of modern-day twists on classic fables and science fiction standards, featuring a diverse array of children (including a girl who can live in yesterday, a boy who can see through mountains, and a closet monster hunter) who don't have much but make the most of what they have. Their victories may be small, but they are their own—whether it's winning a go-cart race, righting wrongs, or learning that perseverance is a victory in and of itself.
Six months after its American introduction in 1985, the Yugo was a punch line; within a year, it was a staple of late-night comedy. By 2000, NPR's Car Talk declared it "the worst car of the millennium." And for most Americans that's where the story begins and ends. Hardly. The short, unhappy life of the car, the men who built it, the men who imported it, and the decade that embraced and discarded it is rollicking and astounding, and one of the greatest untold business-cum-morality tales of the 1980s. Mix one rabid entrepreneur, several thousand "good" communists, a willing U.S. State Department, the shortsighted Detroit auto industry, and improvident bankers, shake vigorously, and you've got The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History. Brilliantly re-creating the amazing confluence of events that produced the Yugo, Yugoslav expert Jason Vuic uproariously tells the story of the car that became an international joke: The American CEO who happens upon a Yugo right when his company needs to find a new import or go under. A State Department eager to aid Yugoslavia's nonaligned communist government. Zastava Automobiles, which overhauls its factory to produce an American-ready Yugo in six months. And a hole left by Detroit in the cheap subcompact market that creates a race to the bottom that leaves the Yugo . . . at the bottom.
Now in paperback. An award-winning investigative journalist's horrifying true crime story of America's deadliest drug contamination outbreak and the greed and deception that fueled it. Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. The weapon: the fungus Exserohilum rostratum. The death count: 100 and rising. Kill Shot is the story of their hubris and fraud, discovered by a team of medical detectives who raced against the clock to hunt the killers and the fungal meningitis they'd unleashed. "Bloodthirsty" is how doctors described the fungal microbe that contaminated thousands of drug vials produced by the New England Compounding Center (NECC). Though NECC chief Barry Cadden called his company the "Ferrari of Compounders," it was a slapdash operation of unqualified staff, mold-ridden lab surfaces, and hastily made medications that were injected into approximately 14,000 people. Once inside some of its human hosts, the fungus traveled through the tough tissue around the spine and wormed upward to the "deep brain," our control center for balance, breath, and the vital motor functions of life. Now, investigative journalist Jason Dearen turns a spotlight on this tragedy--the victims, the heroes, and the perpetrators--and the legal loopholes that allowed it to occur. Kill Shot forces a powerful but unchecked industry out of the shadows.
Society played a part in the death of my baby brother. The demand for perfection and what was deemed acceptable by our everyday standards helped mold a fragile frame in a young man's mind. The security and resolution I needed was never to be found within the realms of the everyday working world. I learned to reconcile with what you may unfairly call the "ills of society". I found not only resolve, but also harmony within the world, a world that all members of our populace are exposed to in their lives and is part of a culture, even if you chose to ignore it, is one we all live in. I'm not only lucky enough, but also privileged to have been welcomed and accepted in this world, and here their stories will show that this syndicate are of the same making of us all. For me and my brothers none of our heroes wore capes.
A New York Times bestseller! “Lively and absorbing. . ." — The New York Times Book Review "Engrossing." —Wall Street Journal “Entertaining and well-researched . . . ” —Houston Chronicle Three noted Texan writers combine forces to tell the real story of the Alamo, dispelling the myths, exploring why they had their day for so long, and explaining why the ugly fight about its meaning is now coming to a head. Every nation needs its creation myth, and since Texas was a nation before it was a state, it's no surprise that its myths bite deep. There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of the Alamo, when Davy Crockett and a band of rebels went down in a blaze of glory fighting for independence from Mexico, losing the battle but setting Texas up to win the war. However, that version of events, as Forget the Alamo definitively shows, owes more to fantasy than reality. Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades, its story was forgotten and twisted over time, with the contributions of Tejanos--Texans of Mexican origin, who fought alongside the Anglo rebels--scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict over Mexico's push to abolish slavery papered over. Forget the Alamo provocatively explains the true story of the battle against the backdrop of Texas's struggle for independence, then shows how the sausage of myth got made in the Jim Crow South of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As uncomfortable as it may be to hear for some, celebrating the Alamo has long had an echo of celebrating whiteness. In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. But we are not living in one of those times; the fight over the Alamo's meaning has become more pitched than ever in the past few years, even violent, as Texas's future begins to look more and more different from its past. It's the perfect time for a wise and generous-spirited book that shines the bright light of the truth into a place that's gotten awfully dark.
The Hard Sell of Paradise examines how mid-twentieth-century Hollywood, negotiating the rhetoric of the tourism industry, offered a complex and contradictory vision of "Hawai'i" for its audiences. From the classic studio system and elite tourism of the 1930s to a postwar era of mass travel, TV, and new leisure markets, the book explores how an eclectic group of populist media reflected the language of tourism not only through its narratives of leisure, but also through its complex engagement with larger cultural and historical questions, such as colonialism, world war, and statehood. Drawing on rare archival research, The Hard Sell of Paradise also explores the valuable role that tourism partners such as United Airlines, Matson Cruise Lines, and the Hawaii Tourist Bureau played in directly and indirectly influencing such films and television shows as Waikiki Wedding, Diamond Head, Blue Hawaii, The Endless Summer, and Hawaii Five-O.
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