Download or read book If Mayors Ruled the World written by Benjamin R. Barber and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the face of the most perilous challenges of our time--climate change, terrorism, poverty, and trafficking of drugs, guns, and people--the nations of the world seem paralyzed. The problems are too big for governments to deal with. Benjamin Barber contends that cities, and the mayors who run them, can do and are doing a better job than nations. He cites the unique qualities cities worldwide share: pragmatism, civic trust, participation, indifference to borders and sovereignty, and a democratic penchant for networking, creativity, innovation, and cooperation. He demonstrates how city mayors, singly and jointly, are responding to transnational problems more effectively than nation-states mired in ideological infighting and sovereign rivalries. The book features profiles of a dozen mayors around the world, making a persuasive case that the city is democracy's best hope in a globalizing world, and that great mayors are already proving that this is so"--

Download or read book God Guns Grits and Gravy written by Mike Huckabee and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-01-20 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller from a presidential candidate for the 2016 election! In God, Guns, Grits and Gravy, Mike Huckabee asks, "Have I been taken to a different planet than the one on which I grew up?" The New York Times bestselling author explores today's fractious American culture, where divisions of class, race, politics, religion, gender, age, and other fault lines make polite conversation dicey, if not downright dangerous. As Huckabee notes, the differences of opinion between the "Bubble-villes" of the big power centers and the "Bubba-villes" where most people live are profound, provocative, and sometimes pretty funny. Where else but in Washington, D.C. could two presidential golf outings cost the American taxpayers $2.9 million in travel expenses? Government bailouts, politician pig-outs, and popular culture provocations from Jay-Z and Beyoncé to Honey Boo-Boo to the Duck Dynasty's Robertson family. Gun rights, gay marriage, the decline of patriotism, and the mainstream media's contempt for those who cherish a faith-based life. The trouble with Democrats, the even bigger trouble with Republicans, our national security complex, and how our Constitution is eroding under our noses. Reflections on our way of life as it once was, as it is, and as it might become...these subjects and many more are covered with Mike Huckabee's signature wit, insight, and honesty.

Download or read book 299 Days The Preparation written by Glen Tate and published by Prepper Press. This book was released on 2012-07-31 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Book 9 in the 299 Days Series

Download or read book Swamp Story written by Dave Barry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-05-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times bestselling author—and actual Florida Man—Dave Barry returns with a “hilariously funny” (Steve Martin) caper full of oddballs and more twists and turns than a snake slithering away from a gator. Jesse Braddock is trapped in a tiny cabin deep in the Everglades with her infant daughter and her ex-boyfriend, a wannabe reality TV star who turned out to be a lot prettier on the outside than on the inside. Broke and desperate for a way out, Jesse stumbles across a long-lost treasure, which could solve all her problems—if she can figure out how to keep it. The problem is some very bad men are also looking for the treasure, and they know Jesse has it. Meanwhile, Ken Bortle of Bortle Brothers Bait and Beer has hatched a scheme to lure tourists to his failing store by making viral videos of the “Everglades Melon Monster.” The Monster is, in fact, an unemployed alcoholic newspaperman named Phil wearing a Dora the Explorer costume head. Incredibly, this plan actually works, inspiring a horde of TikTokers to swarm into the swamp in search of the Monster at the same time villains are on the hunt for Jesse’s treasure. Amid this mayhem, a presidential hopeful arrives in the Everglades to start his campaign. Needless to say, it does not go as planned. In fact, nothing in this story goes as planned. This is, after all, Florida.

Download or read book Know Your Place written by Justin R. Phillips and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-05-03 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: White evangelicals have struggled to understand or enter into modern conversations on race and racism, because their inherited and imagined world has not prepared them for this moment. American Southerners, in particular, carry additional obstacles to such conversations, because their regional identity is woven together with the values and histories of white evangelicalism. In Know Your Place, Justin Phillips examines the three community loyalties (white, southern, and evangelical) that shaped his racial imagination. Phillips examines how each community creates blind spots that overlap with the others, insulating the individual from alternative narratives, making it difficult to conceive of a world different than the dominant white evangelical world of the South. When their world is challenged or rejected outright, it can feel like nothing short of the end of the world. Blending together personal experiences with ethics and pastoral sensibilities, Phillips traces for white, southern evangelicals a line running from the past through the present, to help his beloved communities see how their loyalties—their stories, histories, and beliefs—have harmed their neighbors. In order to truly love, repair, and reconcile brokenness, you first have to know your place.

Download or read book Ecopiety written by Sarah McFarland Taylor and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tackles a human problem we all share―the fate of the earth and our role in its future Confident that your personal good deeds of environmental virtue will save the earth? The stories we encounter about the environment in popular culture too often promote an imagined moral economy, assuring us that tiny acts of voluntary personal piety, such as recycling a coffee cup, or purchasing green consumer items, can offset our destructive habits. No need to make any fundamental structural changes. The trick is simply for the consumer to buy the right things and shop our way to a greener future. It’s time for a reality check. Ecopiety offers an absorbing examination of the intersections of environmental sensibilities, contemporary expressions of piety and devotion, and American popular culture. Ranging from portrayals of environmental sin and virtue such as the eco-pious depiction of Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey, to the green capitalism found in the world of mobile-device “carbon sin-tracking” software applications, to the socially conscious vegetarian vampires in True Blood, the volume illuminates the work pop culture performs as both a mirror and an engine for the greening of American spiritual and ethical commitments. Taylor makes the case that it is not through a framework of grim duty or obligation, but through one of play and delight, that we may move environmental ideals into substantive action.

Download or read book Return of the Native written by Dean Stanley Odom and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2010-02 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collected articles of the author reflecting his life and times growing up in Perry/Taylor County and then his tour of duty in the Navy.

Download or read book Hillbilly Highway written by Max Fraser and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-26 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The largely untold story of the great migration of white southerners to the industrial Midwest and its profound and enduring political and social consequences Over the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, as many as eight million whites left the economically depressed southern countryside and migrated to the booming factory towns and cities of the industrial Midwest in search of work. The "hillbilly highway" was one of the largest internal relocations of poor and working people in American history, yet it has largely escaped close study by historians. In Hillbilly Highway, Max Fraser recovers the long-overlooked story of this massive demographic event and reveals how it has profoundly influenced American history and culture—from the modern industrial labor movement and the postwar urban crisis to the rise of today’s white working-class conservatives. The book draws on a diverse range of sources—from government reports, industry archives, and union records to novels, memoirs, oral histories, and country music—to narrate the distinctive class experience that unfolded across the Transappalachian migration during these critical decades. As the migration became a terrain of both social advancement and marginalization, it knit together white working-class communities across the Upper South and the Midwest—bringing into being a new cultural region that remains a contested battleground in American politics to the present. The compelling story of an important and neglected chapter in American history, Hillbilly Highway upends conventional wisdom about the enduring political and cultural consequences of the great migration of white southerners in the twentieth century.

Download or read book All Music Guide to Country written by Michael Erlewine and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 1997 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reviews and rates the best recordings of country artists and groups, provides biographies of the artists, and charts the evolution of country music

Download or read book Rednecks Bluenecks written by Chris Willman and published by Rednecks & Bluenecks. This book was released on 2005 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Willman looks at the way country music's increasing popularity and conservative drift parallel the transformation of the Democratic South into the heart of the Republican mainstream.

Download or read book In Search of Ulster Scots Land written by Barry Vann and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social and religious historians have conducted much research on Scottish colonial migrations to Ulster; however, there remains historical debate as to whether the Irish Sea in the seventeenth century was an intervening obstacle or a transportation artery. Vann presents a geographical perspective on the topic, showing that most population flows involving southwest Scotland during the first half of the seventeenth century were directed across the Irish Sea via centuries-old sea routes that had allowed for the formation of evolving cultural areas. As political or religious motivational factors presented themselves in the last half of that century, Vann holds, the established social and familial links stretched along those sea routes facilitated chain migration that led to the birth of a Protestant Ulster-Scots community. Vann also shows how this community constituted itself along religious and institutional rubrics of dissent from the Church of England, Church of Scotland, and Church of Ireland.

Download or read book The Next To Last American President written by Shawn O'Reilly and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2011-02-21 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The downfall of the United States of America has been expedited by the recent election of Barack Hussein Obama. The country may not survive his regime, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, author Shawn OReilly describes him as The Next-to-Last American President. OReilly, a proud conservative who is deeply worried about Americas survival, describes a future date when the country no longer exists in this political satire that is only half joking around. He details the downfall, aftermath, and most importantly, the rebirth of the American people. Its still possible for the country to recover from the economic, social, and moral decay being promoted by Obama and his band of liberals. The new government, however, must resemble what the founding fathers envisioneda land that has few regulations and taxes and no violations of personal freedoms. The end is approaching, and its time to prepare if you want to survive. Take every step necessary to ensure the well being of you and your family with The Next-to-Last American President.

Download or read book Killing Tradition written by Simon J. Bronner and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2008-11-21 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the country and around the world, people avidly engage in the cultural practice of hunting. Children are taken on rite-of-passage hunting trips, where relationships are cemented and legacies are passed on from one generation to another. Meals are prepared from hunted game, often consisting of regionally specific dishes that reflect a community's heritage and character. Deer antlers and bear skins are hung on living room walls, decorations and relics of a hunter's most impressive kills. Only 5 percent of Americans are hunters, but that group has a substantial presence in the cultural consciousness. Hunting has spurred controversy in recent years, inciting protest from animal rights activists and lobbying from anti-cruelty demonstrators who denounce the custom. But hunters have responded to such criticisms and the resulting legislative censures with a significant argument in their defense -- the claim that their practices are inextricably connected to a cultural tradition. Further, they counter that they, as representatives of the rural lifestyle, pioneer heritage, and traditional American values, are the ones being victimized. Simon J. Bronner investigates this debate in Killing Tradition: Inside Hunting and Animal Rights Controversies. Through extensive research and fieldwork, Bronner takes on the many questions raised by this problematic subject: Does hunting promote violence toward humans as well as animals? Is it an outdated activity, unnecessary in modern times? Is the heritage of hunting worth preserving? Killing Tradition looks at three case studies that are at the heart of today's hunting debate. Bronner first examines the allegedly barbaric rituals that take place at deer camps every late November in rural America. He then analyzes the annual Labor Day pigeon shoot of Hegins, Pennsylvania, which brings animal rights protests to a fever pitch. Noting that these aren't simply American concerns (and that the animal rights movement in America is linked to British animal welfare protests), Bronner examines the rancor surrounding the passage of Great Britain's Hunting Act of 2004 -- the most comprehensive and divisive anti-hunting legislation ever enacted. The practice of hunting is sure to remain controversial, as it continues to be touted and defended by its supporters and condemned and opposed by its detractors. With Killing Tradition, Bronner reflects on the social, psychological, and anthropological issues of the debate, reevaluating notions of violence, cruelty, abuse, and tradition as they have been constructed and contested in the twenty-first century.

Download or read book American Political Thought written by Ken Kersch and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do Americans think about foundational political questions? Covering the full span of U.S. history, American Political Thought: An Invitation offers a lively yet sophisticated overview of the nature and dynamics of American Political Thought for students and general readers alike. Award-winning scholar Ken Kersch’s engaging introduction situates the key debates in their historical, political and cultural context. He introduces the touchstone frameworks and ideas that are both deeply ingrained and yet have been actively re-made in a country that has spent 250 years of shifting circumstances battling over their real-world implications. Covering thinkers ranging from Jefferson to Rawls, Du Bois to Audre Lorde, he examines the ambiguities of the purportedly ‘consensus’ American principles of liberty, equality, and democracy as well as addressing questions ranging from ‘What are the foundations of a legitimate political order?’ and ‘What is the appropriate role of government?’ to ‘What are the appropriate terms of full civic membership ?’ - and beyond. Politically balanced and inclusive, American Political Thought introduces the contested terrain concerning these core political questions as they were raised over the course of the USA’s often dramatic history.

Download or read book Family Tradition Three Generations of Hank Williams written by Susan Masino and published by Backbeat Books. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Book). Covering three generations of Hank Williams, Family Tradition is both unique and vast in scope. Beginning in the present day with Hank III who gave the author unprecedented access and time-traveling across the years, this examines just what kind of rebel mojo inspired this crazed family of country music, from Hank Sr. often regarded as one of the most influential of American musicians to Hank Jr., to this year's model, Hank III, who has somehow found a way to reconcile his legacy's deep-rooted twang and high-lonesome sound with particularly searing strains of punk and heavy metal, launching an all-out war with traditional Nashville in the process.

Download or read book Lizard Tales written by Ron Shirley and published by Crown. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The star of TruTV's hit show, Lizard Lick Towing, shares stories of life as a small-town repo man, as well as the "Ron-isms" and "Ron-osophy" he is known for. Crazier than a sack of rabid weasels? Country as cornflakes? Gooder than grits? You bet he is! Week after week, millions of viewers tune in to Lizard Lick Towing to watch Ron Shirley outsmart the fist-swinging, gun-toting folks whose vehicles he’s been hired to repossess. Staring danger in the face, Ron disarms them not with his size or his strength but with his wit—and especially with his trademark funny sayings that have come to be known as “Ronisms.” In Lizard Tales, Ron takes readers on a side-splitting trip through his wacky, colorful life. Growing up and raising heck in the Carolina countryside—where sushi is still called “bait”—young Ronnie was known to gig frogs, mooch moonshine from his pops, hunt, and cruise the strip in Myrtle Beach. He continues to get himself into hilarious scrapes and jams as an adult by tarring a roof during a lightning storm, inviting an angry deer onto his cousin’s brand-new boat, drinking (and fist-fighting) with a priest, matching wits with his wife, Amy, and running repo with his sidekicks at the towing company. So kick back, help yourself to some ’shine (if you got it), let Ron tell you some stories, and prepare yourself to get licked!

Download or read book Rural Humor Slice of Americana Life of A Tractor Salesman written by Kevin Schmidt and published by CCB Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: