Download or read book Welcome to Dumbfuckistan written by Ian Gurvitz and published by . This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A lot of what I believe, Ian Gurvitz has silver-tongued into a most readable, cathartic and funny book - congratulations, Ian Gurvitz, whoever you are!" Bill Maher Welcome to Dumbfuckisan is an unapologetic liberal screed about the deteriorating state of our national dialogue, which is dragging down our culture, our politics, and our lives. It contains strong opinions, snarky comments, and gratuitous insults directed at people and ideas I disagree with, disrespect and, in some cases, despise. Although the Western philosophical tradition may be grounded in a Socratic search for truth, American political life has devolved into a mosh pit of willful ignorance, talking points, disinformation, and lies, while the culture has descended into a celebration of the dumbest common denominator. Burning Man for the brain dead. While there has always been an element of stupidity in America, only now it's become a valid intellectual stance. Fact has been relegated to "just another opinion." Voices that, at one time in our history, would have been laughed off the national stage have now been afforded mainstream legitimacy. Idiotic remarks that would have been walked back when the speaker sobered up are now backed up with even more bluster than when they were uttered. Even racist and sexist taunts proudly ride in under the banner of flouting political correctness. And it's all been spearheaded by Rupert Murdoch taking a giant shit in the mouth of the American conversation with Fox News. We assume Orwell's 1984 dystopian nightmare can't happen here, yet we've been narcotized into a more ominous Orwellian somnambulism. We're inebriated on our own mythology, priapic at our military supremacy, and malleable via our ionic imagery, whether it's Jesus or the flag. Jacked up on Adderall, Red Bull and patriotism, we only unite in war, tragedy and the Super Bowl. We've become style over substance, image over reality, propaganda over truth, and symbol over meaning. We claim to value education, yet mistrust intelligence. Immune to facts, frightened of change, we think magically. Magic potions that will heal us, magic diets that will shrink us, and magic beliefs that will save us. And we think all this behavior has been blessed by a big daddy in the sky who lovingly placed us here for profit, guns, and heterosexual marriage. Perhaps evolution is a myth, in that we seem to be devolving. The Roman Empire collapsed due to war, overexpansion and rampant corruption. The British Empire dissolved due to cultural arrogance and imperialistic hubris. Sadly, as we devolve from Democracy to Idiocracy, America may become the first world power to crumble under the weight of its own stupidity.
Download or read book Billionaires Ballot Bandits written by Greg Palast and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A close presidential election in November could well come down to contested states or even districts--an election decided by vote theft? It could happen this year. Based on Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s investigative reporting for Rolling Stone and BBC television, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps might be the most important book published this year--one that could save the election. Billionaires & Ballot Bandits names the filthy-rich sugar-daddies who are super-funding the Super-PACs of both parties--billionaires with nicknames like "The Ice Man," "The Vulture" and, of course, The Brothers Koch. Told with Palast's no-holds-barred, reporter-on-the-beat style, the facts as he lays them out are staggering. What emerges in Billionaires & Ballot Bandits is the never-before-told-story of the epic battle being fought behind the scenes between the old money banking sector that still supports Obama, and the new hedge fund billionaires like Paul Singer who not only support Romney but also are among his key economic advisors. Although it has not been reported, Obama has shown some backbone in standing up to the financial excesses of the men behind Romney. Billionaires & Ballot Bandits exposes the previously unreported details on how operatives plan to use the hundreds of millions in Super-PAC money pouring into this election. We know the money is pouring in, but Palast shows us the convoluted ways the money will be used to suppress your vote. The story of the billionaires and why they want to buy an election is matched with the nine ways they can steal the election. His story of the sophisticated new trickery will pick up on Palast's giant New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
Download or read book The Disunited States of America written by Harry Turtledove and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2013-10-02 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Justin's having the worst trip ever. He and his mother are Time Traders, traveling undercover to different alternate realities of Earth so they can take valuable resources back to their own timeline. In some of these worlds, Germany won World War I or the world has been destroyed by nuclear warfare. Justin and his mother are in an America that never became the United States: each state is like a country, and many of them are at war with one another. Their mission takes them to Virginia, which is on the verge of bloody violence with Ohio. Beckie is from California and, like the rest of her world, is unaware that Time Traders exist. The only reason she's in small-town Virginia is because her grandmother dragged her there to visit old relatives. Beckie is just as horrified by the violence and racism of the alternate Virginia as Justin is, and the two are drawn to each other. But when full-fledged war breaks out between Ohio and Virginia, including a biologically designed plague, will either of them manage to get back home? Forget about home: will they make it out alive?
Download or read book Hello Lied the Agent written by Ian Gurvitz and published by Phoenix Books. This book was released on 2006-10-01 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As prevalent as TV is in our lives, most of us have no concept of what goes into creating a show, getting it on the air, and keeping it on. Perhaps we assume that the people in charge simply decide what amuses them at the moment, make those shows, stick them on, and wait to see if the public responds. Or maybe they just throw darts at a board. The truth, as with most things, is more complicated. In “Hello,” Lied the Agent, Ian Gurvitz has produced a corrosively funny insider’s look at what being a television writer is really all about. In his personal journal he details two years in the life of a Hollywood television writer—the dizzying ups and downs, the rewrites, the pitch meetings, the table readings, the studios and networks and execs in a riveting expose of the business. “It occurred to me that keeping a journal while I was going through the development process might illuminate a side of the business few people get to see, and give them a behind-the-scenes (God, I hate that overused ET phrase) look at the day-to-day experience of being a writer in Hollywood. OK, that’s partly bullshit. I’m not that altruistic. The truth is, after twenty years in the trenches, I found myself bitching about many aspects of the business and needed an outlet, which left either writing a book, doing standup, seeing my shrink more often or suffering in silence; but since I don’t have the balls to try stand-up, there’s no reason to waste a shrink visit bitching about the business when I’ve got more seriously fucked-up issues to deal with, and there’s no money in suffering in silence—that left book. Here it is...” Think you’ve got a great idea for a TV show? Read this book—your view of your favorite television show will never be the same.
Download or read book New York written by and published by . This book was released on 2004-11 with total page 1434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The New New Deal written by Michael Grunwald and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-08-14 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting story about change in the Obama era--and an essential handbook forvoters who want the truth about the president, his record, and his enemies by"TIME" senior correspondent Grunwald.
Download or read book Deconstructing God written by Ian Gurvitz and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2010-06-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER 2011 NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARDS -- RELIGIOUS NON-FICTION Deconstructing God makes a case for an understanding of religion that transcends the conventional categories in which one is either a believer, an atheist, or agnostic, by focusing on mysticism as the experiential core of religion. The book makes the case that this paradigm we've inherited in western culture has left us stuck in a series of false arguments about the subject of religion: Whether there is or isn't "a God"; the religion vs. science debate, the faith vs. reason debate. We bat these discussions back and forth under the illusion that we're engaged in a meaningful dialogue about religion, when all the while there is a more subtle understanding of the phenomenon, in the form of a very human, earthly psychological experience that, while generally referred to as "mystical" is really only a mystery in the sense that it has been obscured by our false understanding. Per Meister Eckhart: "God is at home, it's we who have gone out for a walk." "Although I don't agree 100% with Ian Gurvitz's analysis of religion -- who does on this subject? -- I loved reading this insightful, funny, and illuminating book. And we both think Pat Robertson is a douchebag." Bill Maher
Download or read book Bowies Big Knives And The Best Of Battle Blades written by Bill Bagwell and published by Paladin Press. This book was released on 2000-11-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book binds the timeless observations and invaluable advice of master bladesmith and blade combat expert Bill Bagwell under one cover for the first time. As the outspoken author of Soldier of Fortune's "Battle Blades" column from 1984 to 1988, Bagwell was considered both outrageous and revolutionary in his advocacy of carrying fighting knives as long as 10 inches and his firm belief that the Bowie knife was the most effective and efficient fighting knife ever developed. His assignment as a contributing editor to SOF was to test and evaluate contemporary knives from all over the world, and he soon earned a reputation for cutting to the chase. Candid and frank almost to a fault, he told it like it was - and he could always back it up. Sixteen years after his first column made its debut, Bagwell's convictions on knife design and blade technique have gained validity in the industry, and he has earned the respect of even some of his most vocal critics. This book provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the design and use of Bowies and other big knives and learn which blade designs and combat techniques stand up to both the rigors of battle and the test of time.
Download or read book The Swamp written by Michael Grunwald and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-03-27 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prize-winning r"Washington Post" reporter tells the story of the Florida Everglades, from its beginnings as 4,500 off-putting square miles of natural liquid wasteland to the ecological mess it has become. Photos.
Download or read book Whatever You Say I Am written by Anthony Bozza and published by Crown Archetype. This book was released on 2010-08-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: does eminem matter? On assignment for his first cover story for Rolling Stone, the very first national cover story on Eminem, Anthony Bozza met a young blond kid, a rapper who would soon take the country by storm. But back in 1999, Eminem was just beginning to make waves among suburban white teenagers as his first single, “My Name Is,” went into heavy rotation on MTV. Who could have predicted that in a mere two years, Eminem would become the most reviled and controversial hip-hop figure ever? Or that twelve months after that, Eminem would sit firmly at the pinnacle of American celebrity, a Grammy winner many times over and the recipient of an Oscar. did eminem change or did america finally figure him out? Whatever You Say I Am attempts to answer this question and many more. Since their first meeting, Bozza has been given a level of access to Eminem that no other journalist has enjoyed. In Whatever You Say I Am, original, never-before-published text from Bozza’s interviews with Eminem are combined with the insight of numerous hip-hop figures, music critics, journalists, and members of the Eminem camp to look behind the mask of this enigmatic celebrity. With an eye toward Eminem’s place in American popular culture, Bozza creates a thoughtful portrait of one of the most successful artists of our time. This is so much more than a biography of a thoroughly well-documented life. It is a close-up look at a conflicted figure who has somehow spoken to the heart of America.
Download or read book Congress and the Legislative Branch written by Bryon Giddens-White and published by Capstone Classroom. This book was released on 2005-09-05 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the origins of the legislative branch, the powers and day-to-day responsibilities of congressmen, and how the legislative branch has shaped the direction of our country.
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 Voltaire s Bastards written by John Ralston Saul and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-25 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a new Introduction by the author, this “erudite and brilliantly readable book” (The Observer, London) expertly dissects the political, economic, and social origins of Western civilization to reveal a culture cripplingly enslaved to crude notions of rationality and expertise. With a new introduction by the author, this “erudite and brilliantly readable book” (The Observer, London) astutely dissects the political, economic and social origins of Western civilization to reveal a culture cripplingly enslaved to crude notions of rationality and expertise. The Western world is full of paradoxes. We talk endlessly of individual freedom, yet we’ve never been under more pressure to conform. Our business leaders describe themselves as capitalists, yet most are corporate employees and financial speculators. We call our governments democracies, yet few of us participate in politics. We complain about invasive government, yet our legal, educational, financial, social, cultural and legislative systems are deteriorating. All these problems, John Ralston Saul argues, are largely the result of our blind faith in the value of reason. Over the past 400 years, our “rational elites” have turned the modern West into a vast, incomprehensible, directionless machine, run by process-minded experts—“Voltaire’s bastards”—whose cult of scientific management is empty of both sense and morality. Whether in politics, art, business, the military, entertainment, science, finance, academia or journalism, these experts share the same outlook and methods. The result, Saul maintains, is a civilization of immense technological power whose ordinary citizens are increasingly excluded from the decision-making process. In this wide-ranging anatomy of modern society and its origins—whose “pages explode with insight, style and intellectual rigor” (Camille Paglia, The Washington Post)—Saul presents a shattering critique of the political, economic and cultural establishments of the West.
Download or read book The Unconscious Civilization written by John Ralston Saul and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Voltaire's Bastards comes a philosophical examination of how corporatism has become so deeply ingrained into our society, how it's destroying democracy, and how we can fight against it. In this intellectual tour de force John Ralston Saul argues that our society is only superficially based on the individual and democracy, and the West now toils unconsciously in the grip of a stifling “corporatist” structure that serves the needs of business managers and technocrats as it promotes the segmentation of society into competing interest groups and ethnic blocks.
Download or read book Talking Heads written by Ian Gurvitz and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-11-22 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 52 unique color, and black and white drawings. This is not art in the sense that these drawings are the result of a unique creative vision. They are accidental flights of fantasy - spontaneous, right brain meanderings with a mind of their own. I started drawing in TV writers' rooms. During rewrites I would doodle on my script pages, either to keep my mind alive or to keep my head from exploding. Anyone who's been in a room at midnight, staring at a sea of blank faces all searching for the same insight, knows this experience. Most of the drawings were tossed out at the end of the night, along with stacks of cold pizza but, occasionally, one would take on a distinct character, or style, or evoke a mood or emotion. Those were interesting enough to keep, and eventually enough of an incentive to buy sketch pads and pens, and pursue it outside of work. I'm not an artist. Having read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and taken some art classes, I knew the trick was to draw without trying to draw -- to let go of any desire for a specific result and just let it happen. The "not-do- ing" of it became an interesting exercise. If I let go, it occasionally went somewhere interesting. If I got too deliberate, the results were forced. Sometimes, when I felt stuck in a familiar pattern, I'd try to break out of my head by taking a different color pen, and attacking the page randomly. Once in a while, I got in the zone. Though, as with all attempts at mindlessness, once you become aware of it, it's gone. Of all the drawings I've done to date, these faces seemed to express a unique attitude or emotion. I then added captions in an attempt to capture or enhance the mood. Whether there's anything Freudian going on in the darker images, I have no idea.
Download or read book A Modern Way to Eat Over 200 Satisfying Everyday Vegetarian Recipes that Will Make You Feel Amazing written by Anna Jones and published by Fourth Estate. This book was released on 2019-06-17 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A modern vegetarian cookbook packed with quick, healthy and fresh recipes, that fits perfectly with how we want to eat now. How we want to eat is changing. More and more people want to cook without meat a couple of nights a week, or are looking for interesting ideas for dishes for their vegetarian friends (whilst pushing their own vegetarian repertoire beyond a red onion and goat's cheese tart or a mushroom risotto). At the same time we want to eat food that is a little lighter, a little healthier, a little easier on our pockets, but that won't have us chopping mountains of veg or slaving over the stove for hours.
Download or read book Domestic Extremism written by Eamon Doyle and published by Greenhaven Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2021-12-15 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States seems to be more ideologically divided than ever, with political polarization at an all-time high in recent history. Political differences can be positive, as when they drive an increase in political engagement or push both sides to come to better conclusions. But taken to an extreme, they can be dangerous. The viewpoints in this volume examine extremists on both the right and the left, how domestic extremism has evolved since the advent of the internet and social media, and how law enforcement at various levels should address it, particularly in the prevention of extremist attacks.
