Download or read book Paradise for Sale written by Carl N. McDaniel and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2000-01-28 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The grim history of Nauru Island, a small speck in the Pacific Ocean halfway between Hawaii and Australia, represents a larger story of environmental degradation and economic dysfunction. For more than 2,000 years traditional Nauruans, isolated from the rest of the world, lived in social and ecological stability. But in 1900 the discovery of phosphate, an absolute requirement for agriculture, catapulted Nauru into the world market. Colonial imperialists who occupied Nauru and mined it for its lucrative phosphate resources devastated the island, which forever changed its native people. In 1968 Nauruans regained rule of their island and immediately faced a conundrum: to pursue a sustainable future that would protect their truly valuable natural resources—the biological and physical integrity of their island—or to mine and sell the remaining forty-year supply of phosphate and in the process make most of their home useless. They did the latter. In a captivating and moving style, the authors describe how the island became one of the richest nations in the world and how its citizens acquired all the ills of modern life: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension. At the same time, Nauru became 80 percent mined-out ruins that contain severely impoverished biological communities of little value in supporting human habitation. This sad tale highlights the dire consequences of a free-market economy, a system in direct conflict with sustaining the environment. In presenting evidence for the current mass extinction, the authors argue that we cannot expect to preserve biodiversity or support sustainable habitation, because our economic operating principles are incompatible with these activities.
Download or read book Paradise Plundered written by Steven P. Erie and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-15 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The early 21st century has not been kind to California's reputation for good government. But the Golden State's governance flaws reflect worrisome national trends with origins in the 1970s and 1980s. Growing voter distrust with government, a demand for services but not taxes to pay for them, a sharp decline in enlightened leadership and effective civic watchdogs, and dysfunctional political institutions have all contributed to the current governance malaise. Until recently, San Diego, California—America's 8th largest city—seemed immune to such systematic governance disorders. This sunny beach town entered the 1990s proclaiming to be "America's Finest City," but in a few short years its reputation went from "Futureville" to "Enron-by-the-Sea." In this eye-opening and telling narrative, Steven P. Erie, Vladimir Kogan, and Scott A. MacKenzie mix policy analysis, political theory, and history to explore and explain the unintended but largely predictable failures of governance in San Diego. Using untapped primary sources—interviews with key decision makers and public documents—and benchmarking San Diego with other leading California cities, Paradise Plundered examines critical dimensions of San Diego's governance failure: a multi-billion dollar pension deficit; a chronic budget deficit; inadequate city services and infrastructure; grandiose planning initiatives divorced from dire fiscal realities; an insulated downtown redevelopment program plagued by poorly-crafted public-private partnerships; and, for the metropolitan region, inadequate airport and port facilities, a severe underinvestment in firefighting capacity despite destructive wildfires, and heightened Mexican border security concerns. Far from a sunny story of paradise and prosperity, this account takes stock of an important but understudied city, its failed civic leadership, and poorly performing institutions, policymaking, and planning. Though the extent of these failures may place San Diego in a league of its own, other cities are experiencing similar challenges and political changes. As such, this tale of civic woe offers valuable lessons for urban scholars, practitioners, and general readers concerned about the future of their own cities.
Download or read book Paradise Squandered written by Alex Stefansson and published by . This book was released on 2012-09-09 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insightful, provocative and bold, Paradise Squandered is Alex Stefansson's take-no-prisoners debut novel about a cynical teenager's naive artistic aspirations, and his pining love for a girl he is too afraid to actually talk to. It is a raw, powerful portrait of a disaffected generation in an empty, consumer-culture world. It is the story of Andrew Banks, a recent graduate of Puget Sound Prep and quite possibly the most directionless member of his graduating class. This is a story of what it is like to aimlessly trudge along that strange and uncharted course that is life after high school. Andrew returns home from a long-promised graduation trip to Hawaii and re-enters a bland, suburban landscape of privilege and indifference feeling alone and empty. The house he grew up in doesn't feel like home anymore. His mother seems more interested in desperately clinging to youth than being a mother. His sister only cares about playing the role of dutiful daughter. His brother disappeared years ago. His dad died when he was ten. Talented but uninspired, Andrew knows he wants to pursue his art, but he has no idea how. He resigns himself to going through the motions of his own life, until he overhears the disturbing truth of his father's death. He instantly decides he has to leave his childhood home forever, and a darkly hilarious odyssey ensues. Andrew moves to a new city with his best friend, David, who is going to college in the fall and has big plans for his future. Andrew's plans are less academic. He meets Steven, a highly ambitious artist with questionable motives, and a mysterious and alluring young woman who keeps him coming back to the same coffee shop, day after day. Andrew eventually discovers that some things are actually worth pursuing.
Download or read book Landscapes of Promise written by William G. Robbins and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2009-11-23 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Landscapes of Promise is the first comprehensive environmental history of the early years of a state that has long been associated with environmental protection. Covering the period from early human habitation to the end of World War II, William Robbins shows that the reality of Oregon's environmental history involves far more than a discussion of timber cutting and land-use planning. Robbins demonstrates that ecological change is not only a creation of modern industrial society. Native Americans altered their environment in a number of ways, including the planned annual burning of grasslands and light-burning of understory forest debris. Early Euro-American settlers who thought they were taming a virgin wilderness were merely imposing a new set of alterations on an already modified landscape. Beginning with the first 18th-century traders on the Pacific Coast, alterations to Oregon's landscape were closely linked to the interests of global market forces. Robbins uses period speeches and publications to document the increasing commodification of the landscape and its products. "Environment melts before the man who is in earnest," wrote one Oregon booster in 1905, reflecting prevailing ways of thinking. In an impressive synthesis of primary sources and historical analysis, Robbins traces the transformation of the Oregon landscape and the evolution of our attitudes toward the natural world.
Download or read book The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality written by Arthur Holder and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-04-27 with total page 752 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality is a comprehensive single-volume introduction to Christian spirituality, and represents the most significant recent developments in the field. Offers a thoroughly interdisciplinary, broadly ecumenical, and representative overview of the most significant recent developments in the field Comprises essays combining rigorous academic scholarship with accessible and elegant writing Reflects an understanding of the field as the study of the lived experience of Christian faith and discipleship Provides material on biblical, historical, and theological foundations, along with treatment of contemporary issues
Download or read book Poets Unbound written by Members of Poets Unbound and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2001-07 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone has his or her own idea of what poetry is. In Poets Unbound you have fifteen perspectives. Whether your taste runs to formal rhyming poems, imagistic depictions of feeling, or the no-frills language of the everyday, there is something here for you. There are poems celebrating life, poems of mourning, nature poems, city poems, poems about mythology and popular culture, animals, God, and mankind. This collection is as diverse as its authors, but whatever the differences, the poems are united by the shared value that poetry is not only important but necessary. Every poet in this book has handed copies of his/her poems around a table to half a dozen people with editing pens to ask, "how could this poem be better?" Every poet in this book has left a meeting feeling sorry that he/she asked, and come back the next week to hear more, trusting that a poem important enough to write, is important enough to craft. Poets Unbound contains many styles, subjects, and viewpoints. Most of all, it contains the distinct voices of people who believe poetry a vital way to communicate the individual world.
Download or read book Memories in Serenade written by Kevin M. Isaac and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2010-02 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Memories in Serenade" captures the psychic musing of a purpose-driven poet intent on embracing the world, against a backdrop of unyielding obstacles, woven into a tapestry of pain, sorrow, hope, joy and love. It also captures the poet's fascination with language as much as with life, and takes us on his journey which so often juxtaposes fantasy with reality as if second nature. This collection allows us to accompany the the poet as he takes small steps, though significant steps, along the road to understanding and responding in healthy ways to life's vicissitudes and attaining self-actualization.
Download or read book The Happy Birthday of Death written by Gregory Corso and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 1960 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Sicilian Inheritance written by Jo Piazza and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2024-04-02 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From bestselling author and award-winning journalist Jo Piazza, comes a transporting novel rooted in the author’s own family history about a long-awaited trip to Sicily, a disputed inheritance, and a family secret that some will kill to protect . . . Sara Marsala barely knows who she is anymore after the failure of her business and marriage. On top of that, her beloved great-aunt Rosie passes away, leaving Sara bereft with grief. But Aunt Rosie’s death also opens an escape from her life and a window into the past by way of a plane ticket to Sicily, a deed to a possibly valuable plot of land, and a bombshell family secret. Rosie believes Sara’s great-grandmother Serafina, the family matriarch who was left behind while her husband worked in America, didn’t die of illness as family lore has it . . . she was murdered. Thus begins a twist-filled adventure that takes Sara all over the picturesque Italian countryside as she races to solve a mystery and learn the story of Serafina—a feisty and headstrong young woman in the early 1900s thrust into motherhood in her teens, who fought for a better life not just for herself but for all the women of her small village. Unsurprisingly the more she challenges the status quo, the more she finds herself in danger. As Sara discovers more about Serafina, she also realizes she is coming head-to-head with the same menacing forces that took down her great-grandmother. At once an immersive multigenerational mystery and an ode to the undaunted heroism of everyday women, The Sicilian Inheritance is an atmospheric, page-turning delight.
Download or read book The Katrina Effect written by William M. Taylor and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-08-27 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On August 29th 2005, the headwaters of Hurricane Katrina's storm-surge arrived at New Orleans, the levees broke and the city was inundated. Perhaps no other disaster of the 21st century has so captured the global media's attention and featured in the 'imagination of disaster' like Katrina. The Katrina Effect charts the important ethical territory that underscores thinking about disaster and the built environment globally. Given the unfolding of recent events, disasters are acquiring original and complex meanings. This is partly because of the global expansion and technological interaction of urban societies in which the multiple and varied impacts of disasters are recognized. These meanings pose significant new problems for civil society: what becomes of public accountability, egalitarianism and other democratic ideals in the face of catastrophe? This collection of critical essays assesses the storm's global impact on overlapping urban, social and political imaginaries. Given the coincidence and 'perfect storm' of environmental, geo-political and economic challenges facing liberal democratic societies, communities will come under increasing strain to preserve and restore social fabric while affording all citizens equal opportunity in determining the forms that future cities and communities will take. Today, 21st century economic neo-liberalism, global warming or recent theories of 'urban vulnerability' and resilience provide key new contexts for understanding the meaning and legacy of Katrina.
Download or read book A Persistence of Dreams written by James Qualls and published by James Qualls. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inti Mach'ay and the Royal Feast of the Sun. Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machupicchu District. Above the Sacred Valley. December 21, 1572 The high priest stood waiting for the sun to rise at the Intihuatana stone. The Inca believed the stone captured and held the sun in place along its daily trek across the sky. As a calendar, the stone aligns with the sun's position during the winter solstice. At midday on November 11, and again on January 30, the sun shines directly upon the pillar, casting no shadow at all. The hand-carved base, however, reflects the contour of the Inca Empire. An empire far more significant than anyone knew, an empire currently under assault. The priest retrieved the set of ceremonial daggers made from bismuth bronze from the tomb. The knives, created in the fifteenth century, are the earliest known artifacts containing this alloy. They were said to be a gift from the gente pequeña, the little people. He would not leave them for the hairy conquerors to find. They stank and had no honor. Twenty million MesoAmericans disappeared. Ninety-five percent of the Olmec, Mayan, Aztec, and Inca populations just went on a walkabout one morning and disappeared. It was not war or disease, for there were no bodies. The Compassionist’s Agenda. Three days ago… A week ago, my life changed. A gathering of dreams came home. I was tired, exhausted, and accidentally drugged. I'd been caring for a friend when the illusions crawled from the darkness onto my deck. They woke something from childhood; memories and dreams belonging to someone else. Familiar, somehow, but not mine. Something in them haunted me for a week. But, as it does, life returned to normal; until this morning. Two of the little ones came back; simply popped into existence along the shoreline. The Imaginary Resolution Services® were tracking the dreams that visited. They had disappeared after revealing themselves, with no traces anywhere. The only reason 'Homefry' and 'Pooh' came here was to question my friend, the one who started all this in the first place. It seems Leonardo Garfield is the only Grumpmuffin available now. The IRS was hoping to backtrack our visitors from his signature. It turns out that cats are walkers. Their purrs allow them a sympathetic resonance that vibrates the veils open between realities. The Twelyth Teg use their wings to the same end. The rest of us need to use the ley lines, the bismuth veins that crisscross the planet. Be that as it may, I am going along, too. What I thought was a one-off experience goes much deeper. Children encounter magic because they look for it. It snuck up on me. I did not find the beauty of my childhood again, only to lose it now. If you know anything about me, it should be that I keep a promise. I don't make many, but the ones that I do, get delivered. Homefry and Pooh, along with me and thee, are going to find our friends and bring them home. Despite the odds, I'll do what I usually do and follow my heart. But first, we need to locate a few things lost to time; miracles. We're going to need them.
Download or read book Ascent written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 654 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Paradise Found written by Steve Nicholls and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first Europeans to set foot on North America stood in awe of the natural abundance before them. The skies were filled with birds, seas and rivers teemed with fish, and the forests and grasslands were a hunter’s dream, with populations of game too abundant and diverse to even fathom. It’s no wonder these first settlers thought they had discovered a paradise of sorts. Fortunately for us, they left a legacy of copious records documenting what they saw, and these observations make it possible to craft a far more detailed evocation of North America before its settlement than any other place on the planet. Here Steve Nicholls brings this spectacular environment back to vivid life, demonstrating with both historical narrative and scientific inquiry just what an amazing place North America was and how it looked when the explorers first found it. The story of the continent’s colonization forms a backdrop to its natural history, which Nicholls explores in chapters on the North Atlantic, the East Coast, the Subtropical Caribbean, the West Coast, Baja California, and the Great Plains. Seamlessly blending firsthand accounts from centuries past with the findings of scientists today, Nicholls also introduces us to a myriad cast of characters who have chronicled the changing landscape, from pre–Revolutionary era settlers to researchers whom he has met in the field. A director and writer of Emmy Award–winning wildlife documentaries for the Smithsonian Channel, Animal Planet, National Geographic, and PBS, Nicholls deploys a cinematic flair for capturing nature at its most mesmerizing throughout. But Paradise Found is much more than a celebration of what once was: it is also a reminder of how much we have lost along the way and an urgent call to action so future generations are more responsible stewards of the world around them. The result is popular science of the highest order: a book as remarkable as the landscape it recreates and as inspired as the men and women who discovered it.
Download or read book The Arrogance of Power written by Anthony Summers and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2001-08-01 with total page 668 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The controversial New York Times–bestselling biography of America’s most infamous president written by a master of investigative political reporting. Anthony Summers’s towering biography of Richard Nixon reveals a tormented figure whose criminal behavior did not begin with Watergate. Drawing on more than a thousand interviews and five years of research, Summers traces Nixon’s entire career, revealing a man driven by addiction to power and intrigue. His subversion of democracy during Watergate was the culmination of years of cynical political manipulation. Evidence suggests the former president had problems with alcohol and prescription drugs, was mentally unstable, and was abusive to his wife, Pat. Summers discloses previously unrevealed facts about Nixon’s role in the plots against Fidel Castro and Salvador Allende, his sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks in 1968, and his acceptance of funds from dubious sources. The Arrogance of Power shows how the actions of one tormented man influenced 50 years of American history, in ways still reverberating today. “Summers has done an enormous service. . . . The inescapable conclusion, well body-guarded by meticulous research and footnotes, is that in the Nixon era the United States was in essence a ‘rogue state.’ It had a ruthless, paranoid and unstable leader who did not hesitate to break the laws of his own country.”—Christopher Hitchens, The New York Times Book Review “A superbly researched and documented account—the last word on this dark and devious man.”—Paul Theroux
Download or read book Covenant Theology written by Guy Prentiss Waters and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2020-10-16 with total page 731 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Comprehensive Exploration of the Biblical Covenants This book forms an overview of the biblical teaching on covenant as well as the practical significance of covenant for the Christian life. A host of 26 scholars shows how covenant is not only clearly taught from Scripture, but also that it lays the foundation for other key doctrines of salvation. The contributors, who engage variously in biblical, systematic, and historical theology, present covenant theology not as a theological abstract imposed on the Bible but as a doctrine that is organically presented throughout the biblical narrative. As students, pastors, and church leaders come to see the centrality of covenant to the Christian faith, the more the church will be strengthened with faith in the covenant-keeping God and encouraged in their understanding of the joy of covenant life.
Download or read book Exiled Angel written by Gregory Stephenson and published by Water Row Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first full-length comprehensive study of Beat poet Gregory Corso's work which was central to the movemnet of the Beat Generation (Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and others). -- Amazon.com.
Download or read book Wasted written by Byron Reese and published by Currency. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wasted is a riveting exploration of the complicated, and often surprising, ways that waste occurs in our businesses, our communities, and our lives “A smart, unconventional book that takes readers far beyond what they think they know about a complex subject.”—Kari Byron, former cast member of MythBusters Waste. We spend a great deal of energy trying to avoid it, but once you train your eyes to look for it, you’ll see it all around you—in your home, your business, and your everyday life. In Wasted, futurist Byron Reese and entrepreneur Scott Hoffman take readers on a fascinating journey through this modern world of waste, drawing on science, economics, and human behavior to envision what a world with far less of it—or none of it at all—might look like. Along the way, they explore thought-provoking issues such as • why the United States got a higher proportion of its energy from renewable sources in 1950 than it does today • whether the amount of gold in unused mobile phones can be extracted for profit • how switching to water fountains on a single route from Singapore to Newark could prevent the use of 3,400 plastic bottles—on each flight • whether the amount of money you save buying goods in bulk is offset by the amount you lose when some spoil. Ultimately, the question of reducing waste is scientific, philosophical, and, most of all, complex. According to Reese and Hoffman, the rush toward simple answers has often led to well-meaning efforts that cause more waste than they save. The only way we can hope to make progress is to treat waste as the complicated issue it is. While the authors don’t promise easy answers, in this compelling book they take an important step toward solutions by examining the questions at play, giving actionable steps, and ensuring that you’ll never see the world of waste the same way again.
