From Our House is the luminous and uniquely American memoir of Lee Martin, born into a farming family the same year his father unexpectedly lost both hands. Lee?s father, once known for ?doing a good turn for his neighbors,? changed that afternoon in the cornfields, becoming an embittered, hardened man. ?All our lives have private truths,? Martin writes, ?and the truth about my father was that after his accident he brought a deep and abiding rage into our home. I knew his hooks as intimately as I ever knew anything about my father.? ?How easily our bodies become us, our souls bound to the material, to the joy or grief or pain we feel through our skin,? Martin muses. Ultimately it is his mother?s quiet compassion that accounts for the grace that Lee and his father finally discover both within themselves and within their small family. Learning to live by the seasons and to fall asleep to the rumble of his father?s tractor, braving snowstorms to sell hogs or to visit an ailing grandmother, playing basketball, listening to baseball games, and stealing records, Lee endures the anger and shame that haunt his family?yet grows up to tell his tale with rare beauty and remarkable forbearance.
Count your blessings," his mother told him, "Think of everything good in your life." Pulitzer Prize finalist Lee Martin has done it again. Building from his acclaimed first memoir, From Our House, which recounts the farming accident that cost his father both his hands, Gone the Hard Road is the story of Beulah Martin's endurance and sacrifice as a mother, and the gift of imagination she offered her son. Martin unfolds the world she created for him within their unsettled family life, from the first time she read to him in a doctor's office waiting room, to enrolling him in a children's book club, to the books she bought him in high school. Gone the Hard Road portrays Beulah's selflessness as the family moved around the Midwest, sometimes in the face of her husband's opposition, to show her son a different way of being. Rather than concentrate on the life his father threatened to destroy, as Martin's previous memoirs do, Gone the Hard Road offers the counternarrative of a loving mother and the creative life she made possible, in spite of the eventual cost to herself. A poignant, honest, and moving read, Gone the Hard Road will stay with anyone who has ever struggled to find their place in the world.
A prolific and award-winning writer, Lee Martin has put pen to paper to offer his wisdom, honed during thirty years of teaching the oh-so-elusive art of writing. Telling Stories is intended for anyone interested in thinking more about the elements of storytelling in short stories, novels, and memoirs. Martin clearly delineates helpful and practical techniques for demystifying the writing process and providestools for perfecting the art of the scene, characterization, detail, point of view, language, and revision--in short, the art of writing. His discussion of the craft in his own life draws from experiences, memories, and stories to provide a more personal perspective on the elements of writing. Martin provides encouragement by sharing what he's learned from his journey through frustrations, challenges, and successes. Most important, Telling Stories emphasizes that you are not alone on this journey and that writers must remain focused on what they love: the process of moving words on the page. By focusing on that purpose, Martin contends, the journey will always take you where you're meant to go."--
Deb Ralston faces her most personally harrowing case when she is assigned to the Fort Worth Sex Crimes Unit and finds herself recalling her own childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her father.
Using scant historical and personal records as a starting place, the author recreates the lives of his great-grandparents-farmers who traveled West to settle in Illinois-reconstructing six generations of family history in the process. (Biography)
Is tai chi a stretching exercise, deep-breathing program, martial art, dance or prayer? Yes, it's all those and more.Tai chi, like many ancient Eastern practices, does not fit strict Western categories. Tai chi, together with the extraordinary self-healing method developed by Dr Lee, offers relief for stress, breathing disorders, muscular ailments, chronic headaches, and a variety of modern office- and sports-related complaints, as well as for deep emotional distress.Few today are as well positioned to explain the healing powers of tai chi as Dr. Martin Lee, a renowned engineering physicist and tai chi master. He and his wife, Emily, also a tai chi master, are the only Americans to have studied with Yu Pen-Shih, one of China's foremost ch'i kung masters. Dr. Lee has developed a groundbreaking practical program that combines Eastern and Western approaches to wellness, which he calls 'physical philosophy.' Its goal is to help people become 'one with nature,' a Buddhist term for the natural restoration of true health.The rewards of one-with-nature tai chi are inner happiness, self-control, self-realization, and self-healing. Each one of these benefits receives individual attention, complete with the 64 tai chi forms, thoroughly illustrated with photographs and diagrams. The central focus is on the flow of energy — the chi, or 'inner breath' — that tai chi evokes through Lee's four basic instructions: Relax. Breathe. Feel the earth. Do nothing extra. Here is a valuable health, exercise, and meditation program that combines ancient spiritual insights with advanced scientific knowledge and important original discoveries.
Effective introduction to cyber threat intelligence, supplemented with detailed case studies and after action reports of intelligence on real attacks Cyber Threat Intelligence introduces the history, terminology, and techniques to be applied within cyber security, offering an overview of the current state of cyberattacks and stimulating readers to consider their own issues from a threat intelligence point of view. The highly qualified author takes a systematic, system-agnostic, and holistic view to generating, collecting, and applying threat intelligence. The text covers the threat environment, malicious attacks, collecting, generating, and applying intelligence and attribution, as well as legal and ethical considerations. It ensures readers know what to look out for when looking for a potential cyber attack and imparts how to prevent attacks early on, explaining how threat actors can exploit a system’s vulnerabilities. It also includes analysis of large scale attacks such as WannaCry, NotPetya, Solar Winds, VPNFilter, and the Target breach, looking at the real intelligence that was available before and after the attack. Sample topics covered in Cyber Threat Intelligence include: The constant change of the threat environment as capabilities, intent, opportunities, and defenses change and evolve. Different business models of threat actors, and how these dictate the choice of victims and the nature of their attacks. Planning and executing a threat intelligence programme to improve an organisation’s cyber security posture. Techniques for attributing attacks and holding perpetrators to account for their actions. Cyber Threat Intelligence describes the intelligence techniques and models used in cyber threat intelligence. It provides a survey of ideas, views and concepts, rather than offering a hands-on practical guide. It is intended for anyone who wishes to learn more about the domain, particularly if they wish to develop a career in intelligence, and as a reference for those already working in the area.
Who is Jake Dumas? Intelligent, well-read and articulate, New Hope High School's custodian is an enigmatic man of mystery. Often scorned or ignored by students and faculty alike, he is, however, befriended by two people: the lovely and feisty school librarian, Rosie Green, who seems to have developed a romantic interest in him, and the previous year's All-State, high school All-American quarterback, Blaise Honeycutt, who after finding himself in academic trouble turns to Jake of all people to help him bring up his grades. Jake then finds that it is not all about grades. His protégé is hiding a loathsome secret. But then again, so is Jake. It will be a dismal, even chaotic year for New Hope High. As Blaise and two of his all-star buddies were suspended by the former, hated principal, Horatio Sharpe, for a senseless prank, last year's State Football Champs will experience their first losing season. Adding insult to injury, Cecil Meadows, a Negro, is appointed the new principal of the school during a hot bed of racial tension in 1963 Alabama. And then the Town of New Hope learns that its beloved high school will close at the end of the school year because a new school is being built in the next county. But as all that should be enough to shake up the town, it seems that somebody has been found murdered at the school. And it is Jake who discovers the body. In this compelling story of murder, romance, unimaginable heartache and unfailing encouragement, two valiant men, one older and one younger, struggle with life's disappointments, tragedies and secret haunts in their fight to overcome adversity.
River Current is a story set in the 1950s small town of Westfall, Missouri. Ray, Lydia, Shane, and Sam-seemingly inseparable friends-share the joys and pains of growing up in an idyllic setting along the powerful and mysterious Current River. But all is not as it seems in the small town, as secret undercurrents run dark. Ray suffers at the hands of his abusive alcoholic father; they all suffer at the hands of The self-important, mean-spirited and bigoted deputy sheriff, Westley Culpepper; and they eventually despair as friendships and love crumble from betrayal, lies, and suspicions. One after another they all leave the town and each other behind, going their separate ways, vowing never to return. But eighteen years later, the town on the clear cold Current River that was the scene of some of their happiest childhood memories draws them back home. Some who return bring happiness, others bring the weight of the past that bears trouble for all. Lydia alone, with her luminous soul and forgiving heart, is strong enough to bring the friends to grips with their shared past and set the stage for the healing that must take place. The story is surprising, gratifying, and very memorable. Written in lyrical prose with irony and gentle humor, M. Lee Martin gives us a story of passion, hate, love and regret set against a beautifully described 1950s America.
To celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Harry and Deb Ralston go out to dinner at the Bird Cage, a restaurant in downtown Fort Worth. Its fancy dinners are complemented by a floor show featuring a young woman on a flying trapeze, reminding Deb nostalgically of the three-ring circus she and her family visited when she was a girl. The romance of the evening is ruined, however, when the performer plummets to her death - an "accident" caused by deliberate cuts in the ropes suspending her in midair forty feet above the tables. Once again, Deb Ralston - Detective Deb Ralston - must put her personal life on hold because duty calls. Well, sort of on hold: Another murder only means this working mother must juggle taking care of the baby, the teenager, and the pit bull (not to mention the husband and the recently divorced partner, who confesses he's developed a crush on Deb) with her increasingly time-consuming and dangerous job.
On a night no one will ever forget, Della Black and three of her seven children are killed in a horrific fire in their trailer. As the surviving children are caught in the middle of a custody battle between their well-intentioned neighbor and their father and his pregnant mistress, new truths about what really happened the night of the fire come to light. When the fire marshal determines the cause - arson - rumors quickly circulate as the townspeople search for answers. Ronnie Black is the kind of man who can leave his wife and children for a younger woman, but is he capable of something more sinister? Ronnie and his girlfriend, Brandi Tate, maintain his innocence - he's a loving, caring father who wants to do everything he can to protect his family. But as the gossip continues, Ronnie feels his children (and, eventually, Brandi) pulling away from him. Soon enough, he finds himself at a crossroads - should he allow gossipmongers to seal his fate, or should he fight to prove that he's not the monster people paint him to be? In Late One Night, Lee Martin examines the devastating effect of rumors and the resilience of one family in the face of the ultimate tragedy.
In the eleventh case of the series, Fort Worth detective Deb Ralston deals with danger and domestic chaos when a young trapeze artist mysteriously falls to her death--and it is definitely murder--but no one has a motive.
Disaffected teenager Laney has no one in the world but the older Delilah. When the police start asking Laney questions, she finds herself reconstructing a story of suspense, deceit, and revenge... a story that links her to the sadder-but-wiser Miss Baby,seven hundred miles away in Texas.
In this book the author, an investigative journalist, traces the social history of marijuana from its origins to its emergence in the 1960s as a defining force in an ongoing culture war. He describes how the illicit marijuana subculture overcame government opposition and morphed into a multibillion-dollar industry. In 1996, Californians voted to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes. Similar laws have followed in several other states, but not without antagonistic responses from federal, state, and local law enforcement. The author draws attention to underreported scientific breakthroughs that are reshaping the therapeutic landscape: medical researchers have developed promising treatments for cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes, chronic pain, and many other conditions that are beyond the reach of conventional cures. This book is an examination of the medical, recreational, scientific, and economic dimensions of the world's most controversial plant.
A fresh approach to bridging research design with statistical analysis While good social science requires both research design and statistical analysis, most books treat these two areas separately. Understanding and Applying Research Design introduces an accessible approach to integrating design and statistics, focusing on the processes of posing, testing, and interpreting research questions in the social sciences. The authors analyze real-world data using SPSS software, guiding readers on the overall process of science, focusing on premises, procedures, and designs of social scientific research. Three clearly organized sections move seamlessly from theoretical topics to statistical techniques at the heart of research procedures, and finally, to practical application of research design: Premises of Research introduces the research process and the capabilities of SPSS, with coverage of ethics, Empirical Generalization, and Chi Square and Contingency Table Analysis Procedures of Research explores key quantitative methods in research design including measurement, correlation, regression, and causation Designs of Research outlines various design frameworks, with discussion of survey research, aggregate research, and experiments Throughout the book, SPSS software is used to showcase the discussed techniques, and detailed appendices provide guidance on key statistical procedures and tips for data management. Numerous exercises allow readers to test their comprehension of the presented material, and a related website features additional data sets and SPSS code. Understanding and Applying Research Design is an excellent book for social sciences and education courses on research methods at the upper-undergraduate level. The book is also an insightful reference for professionals who would like to learn how to pose, test, and interpret research questions with confidence.
Table of Contents Acknowledgments vii Chapter 1: Introduction to Public Policy 1 Chapter 2: Origins and Actors 13 Chapter 3: Foundations of the Policy Process 35 Chapter 4: Problem Identification and Agenda Setting 53 Chapter 5: Policy Design and Formulation 80 Chapter 6: Policy Implementation 104 Chapter 7: Policy Analysis and Evaluation 124
International terrorist Asahif al-Massoud, AKA The Viper, will soon arrive on U.S. soil to carry out the most heinous and murderous terrorist plot since 9-11. By engaging an American-based Jamaat ul-Fuqra element, his plan is to simultaneously detonate explosive devices in a number of American cities, including Washington, D.C. and New York's Manhattan, that will kill thousands and destroy the cities' infrastructure. Bruce McGowan would do almost anything to protect the citizens of the United States. But would this former counter-terrorist operative actually agree to come out of his retirement to take on yet another mission for the Government, and in doing so, break a promise to his wife, the lovely Adriana, proprietress of Wolf Laurel? And who is the mysterious hit man, Atticus Steed that McGowan has been tasked to locate...this cold and calculating killer still on America's Most Wanted list? Is the Government really serious about Bruce engaging an executioner like Steed to take down the Viper in exchange for a full Presidential pardon? In this latest installment of The McGowan Chronicles, much to his chagrin, Bruce will reluctantly and with immense skepticism establish an alliance with hit man Steed and set him up to kill the Viper. Based on the latest Intel, al-Massoud will enter one of the thirty-five American al-Qaeda training compounds in early September. McGowan must now devise a tactical plan that will place him and Steed inside that camp to set up for the kill. Will McGowan's clandestine plan be successful? Will the number one sniper in the world get his crack at the most dangerous terrorist in the world? No matter what...the Viper must die. About the Author: Lee Martin, a native of West Virginia lives in the Atlanta, Georgia area. Retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of Colonel, he was awarded the Bronze Star and Vietnamese Gallantry Cross for his service in Vietnam. He has a Doctorate in Counseling and is an adjunct professor teaching courses
T'ai Chi Ch'uan is an “inner martial art,” a set of beautifully slow, continuous movements based on ancient Chinese philosophy and medicine. Here is a practical guide to the twelve most basic T'ai Chi exercises, a program for relaxation and surprising physical rejuvenation through greater mind-body awareness, which can also bring improvement in conditions ranging from ulcers to arthritis to high blood pressure.
Overworked and underappreciated, Deb Ralston finds her troubles multiplied when a grisly axe murderer begins plying his trade in her precinct, and she must risk her life to end his reign of terror. By the author of The Mensa Murders.
Although he has now chosen to only work part-time for the Department of State, counter-terrorist operative Bruce McGowan continues to debate himself whether it is time to abandon the action life he has lived for over thirty years and finally settle down with his new bride, the beautiful Adrianna Wolf, or continue in his quest to protect Americas people. But suddenly an early morning phone call from his preceptor boss, Lionel Byrd, summons him for what could be one final, but very significant mission. This time it will be different. This time he will go solo on the job without partnering with his Zulu teammates. The most powerful figure in the world needs Americas best operative to investigate the thirty year old massacre of a Montagnard (Degar) village by an American infantry unit during the Vietnam War. Chosen for the mission not only for his investigative and special ops skills, McGowan is historically familiar with the ethnic group, having lived with the Degars in the early 1970s while training their soldiers. With a Vietnamese counter-part named Thanh, McGowan travels into the Central Highlands of Vietnam to seek out the only survivor of the village massacre to secure the statement that would bring down the former American commander, who is not only a man of prominence and wealth, but someone of personal interest to the White House. What follows is a whirlwind that tragically catches up the very people closest to McGowan, setting him off on a path of fury and vengeance unequalled to anything the reader has seen to this point in the anterior novels, Wolf Laurel and Provocation.
Nautilus Award Silver Medal Winner, Ecology & Environment In search of a new story for our place on earth Being Salmon, Being Human examines Western culture’s tragic alienation from nature by focusing on the relationship between people and salmon—weaving together key narratives about the Norwegian salmon industry as well as wild salmon in indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest. Mueller uses this lens to articulate a comprehensive critique of human exceptionalism, directly challenging the four-hundred-year-old notion that other animals are nothing but complicated machines without rich inner lives and that Earth is a passive backdrop to human experience. Being fully human, he argues, means experiencing the intersection of our horizon of understanding with that of other animals. Salmon are the test case for this. Mueller experiments, in evocative narrative passages, with imagining the world as a salmon might see it, and considering how this enriches our understanding of humanity in the process. Being Salmon, Being Human is both a philosophical and a narrative work, rewarding readers with insightful interpretations of major philosophers—Descartes, Heidegger, Abram, and many more—and reflections on the human–Earth relationship. It stands alongside Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous and Becoming Animal, as well as Andreas Weber’s The Biology of Wonder and Matter and Desire—heralding a new “Copernican revolution” in the fields of biology, ecology, and philosophy.
O-H-Oh-No! Fourteen storytellers reveal a gritty side to C-Bus in this collection of crime tales. Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. With stories by: Lee Martin, Robin Yocum, Kristen Lepionka, Craig McDonald, Chris Bournea, Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Tom Barlow, Mercedes King, Daniel Best, Laura Bickle, Yolonda Tonette Sanders, Julia Keller, Khalid Moalim, and Nancy Zafris. Praise for Columbus Noir “Moments of humanity shine through in many of the tales in this collection, and epic takes on pride and greed make many of the stories in this collection go beyond small miseries into the realm of Shakespearian tragedy. Urgent, beautiful, and not to be missed.” —CrimeReads, included in CrimeReads’ Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2020 “This superior Akashic noir anthology gathers 14 dark snapshots of Ohio’s capital, a very dangerous place indeed, with heavy drug use and murder touching down everywhere, from the German Village neighborhood to the statehouse. One highlight is Craig McDonald’s “Curb Appeal,” one of several invoking the homicidal search for housing. In the editor’s effective “Going Places,” a security man who covers up affairs for the governor gets pulled into a murder plot . . . . Noir fans should be well satisfied.” —Publishers Weekly
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