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The Noble Edge: Reclaiming an Ethical World One Choice at a Time
by Christopher GilbertThe award-winning guide to developing ethics, trust, and authenticity in business and life—and achieving results that matter. Being trusted is the foundation of our greatest personal freedoms. In a time of deepening divisions and &“alternative facts,&” trust and authenticity grow more precious by the hour. The Noble Edge: Reclaiming an Ethical World One Choice at a Time provides an inspirational conversation spiced with personal stories, humorous anecdotes, and invaluable guidance about making consistently good choices. Based on three research-proven steps and nine principles for leading an ethically driven life, The Noble Edge brings a fresh approach to personal growth and inspires real change to empower a brighter future. As useful in the boardroom as the family room, this easy-to-follow book contains a powerful model that sharpens the ethical lens and empowers readers to examine their own standards and values and resist pressures to ignore what is right in favor of what passes for &“success.&” For those who want truth in their decisions, authenticity in their relationships, and solid ground for making tough choices in business and in life, this is an encouraging guide to achieving moral progress individually and collectively, and bringing better ethics into organizations, families, communities, and the world. Winner of the Paris Book Festival Award, NABE Pinnacle Book Achievement Award, International Impact Book Award, Literary Titan Book Award, Firebird Book Awards in three categories, NYC Big Book Award, Canadian Book Club Award and Hollywood Book Festival Runner-up &“Offers the wisdom of the ages in a style that is deep yet easy to understand.&” —Trip Barthel, author of Transforming Conflict into Consensus
The Nominee: A Political and Spiritual Journey (Willie Morris Books in Memoir and Biography)
by Leslie H. SouthwickPresident George W. Bush nominated Leslie H. Southwick in 2007 to the federal appeals court, Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans. Initially, Southwick seemed a consensus nominee. Just days before his hearing, though, a progressive advocacy group distributed the results of research it had conducted on opinions of the state court on which he had served for twelve years. Two opinions Southwick had signed off on but not written became the center of the debate over the next five months. One dealt with a racial slur by a state worker, the other with a child custody battle between a father and a bisexual mother. Apparent bipartisan agreement for a quick confirmation turned into a long set of battles in the Judiciary Committee, on the floor of the Senate, and in the media.In early August, Senator Dianne Feinstein completely surprised her committee colleagues by supporting Southwick. Hers was the one Democratic vote needed to move the nomination to the full Senate. Then in late October, by a two-vote margin, he received the votes needed to end a filibuster. Confirmation followed.Southwick recounts the four years he spent at the Department of Justice, the twelve years on a state court, and his military service in Iraq while deployed with a Mississippi National Guard Brigade. During the nomination inferno Southwick maintained a diary of the many events, the conversations and emails, the joys and despairs, and quite often, the prayers and sense of peace his faith gave him--his memoir bears significant spiritual content. Throughout the struggle, Southwick learned that perspective and growth are important to all of us when making decisions, and he grew to accept his critics, regardless of outcome. In The Nominee there is no rancor, and instead the book expresses the understanding that the difficult road to success was the most helpful one for him, both as a man and as a judge.
The Nomos of the Earth: in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum
by Carl SchmittThe Nomos of the Earth is Schmitt's most historical and geopolitical book. It describes the origin of the Eurocentric global order, which Schmitt dates from the discovery of the New World, discusses its specific character and its contribution to civilization, analyzes the reasons for its decline at the end of the 19th century, and concludes with prospects for a new world order. It is a reasoned, yet passionate argument in defense of the European achievement - not only in creating the first truly global order of international law, but also in limiting war to conflicts among sovereign states, which, in effect, civilized war. In Schmitt's view, the European sovereign state was the greatest achievement of Occidental rationalism; in becoming the principal agency of secularization, the European state created the modern age. Since the problematic of a new nomos of the earth has become still more critical with the onset of the post-modern age and post-modern war, Schmitt's text is even more timely and challenging. <p><p> Remarkable in Schmitt's discussion of the European epoch of world history is the role played by the New World, which ultimately replaced the Old World as the center of the earth and became the arbiter in European and world politics. According to Schmitt, the United States' internal conflicts between economic presence and political absence, between isolationism and interventionism, are global problems, which today continue to hamper the creation of a new world order. But however critical Schmitt is of American actions at the turn of the 20th century and after World War I, he considered the United States to be the only political entity capable of resolving the crisis of global order.
The Non-Identity Problem and the Ethics of Future People
by David BooninDavid Boonin presents a new account of the non-identity problem: a puzzle about our obligations to people who do not yet exist. Our actions sometimes have an effect not only on the quality of life that people will enjoy in the future, but on which particular people will exist in the future toenjoy it. In cases where this is so, the combination of certain assumptions that most people seem to accept can yield conclusions that most people seem to reject. The non-identity problem has important implications both for ethical theory and for a number of topics in applied ethics, includingcontroversial issues in bioethics, environmental ethics and disability ethics. It has been the subject of a great deal of discussion for nearly four decades, but this is the first book-length study devoted exclusively to its examination. Boonin begins by explaining what the problem is, why the problem matters, and what criteria a solution to the problem must satisfy in order to count as a successful one. He then provides a critical survey of the solutions to the problem that have thus far been proposed in the sizeable literaturethat the problem has generated and concludes by developing and defending an unorthodox alternative solution, one that differs fundamentally from virtually every other available approach.
The Non-Sovereign Self, Responsibility, and Otherness: Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, and Stanley Cavell on Moral Philosophy and Political Agency (International Political Theory)
by Rosine KelzDrawing on Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler and Stanley Cavell, this book addresses contemporary theoretical and political debates in a broader comparative perspective and rearticulates the relationship between ethics and politics by highlighting those who are currently excluded from our notions of political community.
The Nonsense Factory: The Making and Breaking of the American Legal System
by Bruce Cannon GibneyA withering and witty examination of how the American legal system, burdened by complexity and untrammeled growth, fails Americans and threatens the rule of law itself, by the acclaimed author of A Generation of Sociopaths.Our trial courts conduct hardly any trials, our correctional systems do not correct, and the rise of mandated arbitration has ushered in a shadowy system of privatized "justice." Meanwhile, our legislators can't even follow their own rules for making rules, while the rule of law mutates into a perpetual state of emergency. The legal system is becoming an incomprehensible farce. How did this happen?In The Nonsense Factory, Bruce Cannon Gibney shows that over the past seventy years, the legal system has dangerously confused quantity with quality and might with legitimacy. As the law bloats into chaos, it staggers on only by excusing itself from the very commands it insists that we obey, leaving Americans at the mercy of arbitrary power. By examining the system as a whole, Gibney shows that the tragedies often portrayed as isolated mistakes or the work of bad actors -- police misconduct, prosecutorial overreach, and the outrages of imperial presidencies -- are really the inevitable consequences of law's descent into lawlessness.The first book to deliver a lucid, comprehensive overview of the entire legal system, from the grandeur of Constitutional theory to the squalid workings of Congress, The Nonsense Factory provides a deeply researched and witty examination of America's state of legal absurdity, concluding with sensible options for reform.
The Nonviolent God
by J. Denny WeaverThis bold new statement on the nonviolence of God challenges long-standing assumptions of divine violence in theology, the violent God pictured in the Old Testament, and the supposed violence of God in Revelation. In The Nonviolent God J. Denny Weaver argues that since God is revealed in Jesus, the nonviolence of Jesus most truly reflects the character of God.According to Weaver, the way Christians live -- Christian ethics -- is an ongoing expression of theology. Consequently, he suggests positive images of the reign of God made visible in the narrative of Jesus -- nonviolent practice, forgiveness and restorative justice, issues of racism and sexism, and more -- in order that Christians might live more peacefully.
The Normative Force of the Factual: Legal Philosophy Between Is and Ought (Law and Philosophy Library #130)
by Frederick Schauer Christoph Bezemek Nicoletta Bersier LadavacThis book explores the interrelation of facts and norms. How does law originate in the first place? What lies at the roots of this phenomenon? How is it preserved? And how does it come to an end? Questions like these led Georg Jellinek to speak of the “normative force of the factual” in the early 20th century, emphasizing the human tendency to infer rules from recurring events, and to perceive a certain practice not only as a fact but as a norm; a norm which not only allows us to distinguish regularity from irregularity, but at the same time, to treat deviances as transgressions. Today, Jellinek’s concept still provides astonishing insights on the dichotomy of “is” and “ought to be”, the emergence of the normative, the efficacy and the defeasibility of (legal) norms, and the distinct character of what legal theorists refer to as “normativity”. It leads us back to early legal history, it connects anthropology and legal theory, and it demonstrates the interdependence of law and the social sciences. In short: it invites us to fundamentally reassess the interrelation of facts and norms from various perspectives. The contributing authors to this volume have accepted that invitation.
The Noticer Returns: Sometimes You Find Perspective, And Sometimes Perspective Finds You
by Andy AndrewsFrom New York Times bestselling author Andy Andrews comes the sequel to The Noticer! In the quiet coastal town of Fairhope, Alabama, a mysterious old man named Jones has set up shop to do the one thing he knows best—&“noticing&” the little things that make a big difference in people&’s lives. Perspective is a powerful thing.Through a chance encounter at a local bookstore, Andy Andrews is reunited with the man who changed everything for him— Jones, also known as &“The Noticer.&”Jones uses his unique talent of noticing the little things that make a big difference. And these little things grant the people of Fairhope, Alabama, a life-changing gift—perspective.Through the lens of a parenting class at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Jones guides a seemingly random group to ask specific questions inspired by his curious advice: &“You can&’t believe everything you think.&” The questions lead to answers for which people have been searching for centuries:How do we begin to change the culture in which we live?What is the key to creating a life of success and value?What if what we think is the end…is only the beginning?Along the way families are united and financial opportunities created, leaving the residents with powerfully simple solutions to the everyday problems we all face. What starts as a story of one person's everyday reality unfolds into the extraordinary principles available to anyone seeking to change their life.Jones&’ adventures continue in book three of The Noticer series: Just Jones.
The Novel and the Multispecies Soundscape (Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature)
by Ben De BruynThe contemporary novel is not as silent as we tend to believe, nor does it only attend to human plots and characters. As this book shows, writers in a range of subgenres have devoted considerable attention to the voices of nonhuman animals, and to the histories and technologies of listening that shape twenty-first-century cultures and environments. In doing so, their multispecies novels illuminate the cultural meanings we attach to creatures like dogs, frogs, whales, chimpanzees, and Tasmanian tigers – not to mention various bird species and even plants. At the same time, these stories explore the attitudes of distinct communities of human listeners, ranging from vets and musicians to chimp caretakers and sonar technicians. In highlighting animal sounds and their cultural meanings, these novels by authors including Amitav Ghosh, Julia Leigh, Richard Powers, Karen Joy Fowler, Cormac McCarthy, and Han Kang also enrich pressing debates about species extinction, sound pollution, nonhuman communication, and human-animal relations. As we are violently reshaping the planet, they invite us to reimagine our own humanity and animality – and to rethink how we tell stories about multispecies contact zones and their complex soundscapes.
The Novel and the New Ethics (Post*45)
by Dorothy J. HaleFor a generation of contemporary Anglo-American novelists, the question "Why write?" has been answered with a renewed will to believe in the ethical value of literature. Dissatisfied with postmodernist parody and pastiche, a broad array of novelist-critics—including J.M. Coetzee, Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith, Gish Jen, Ian McEwan, and Jonathan Franzen—champion the novel as the literary genre most qualified to illuminate individual ethical action and decision-making within complex and diverse social worlds. Key to this contemporary vision of the novel's ethical power is the task of knowing and being responsible to people different from oneself, and so thoroughly have contemporary novelists devoted themselves to the ethics of otherness, that this ethics frequently sets the terms for plot, characterization, and theme. In The Novel and the New Ethics, literary critic Dorothy J. Hale investigates how the contemporary emphasis on literature's social relevance sparks a new ethical description of the novel's social value that is in fact rooted in the modernist notion of narrative form. This "new" ethics of the contemporary moment has its origin in the "new" idea of novelistic form that Henry James inaugurated and which was consolidated through the modernist narrative experiments and was developed over the course of the twentieth century. In Hale's reading, the art of the novel becomes defined with increasing explicitness as an aesthetics of alterity made visible as a formalist ethics. In fact, it is this commitment to otherness as a narrative act which has conferred on the genre an artistic intensity and richness that extends to the novel's every word.
The Nurses Are Innocent: The Digoxin Poisoning Fallacy
by Dr Gavin HamiltonGavin Hamilton’s research shows that a toxin found in natural rubber might well have been the culprit in the 43 babies’ deaths at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children in 1980–81. In 1980-81, 43 babies died at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children from a supposed digoxin overdose. Serial murder was suspected, leading to the arrest of nurse Susan Nelles. In order to clear Nelles’s name, an investigation was launched to find an alternate explanation. No one on the Grange Royal Commission of Inquiry had expertise in diagnosis. The post-mortem diagnosis of digoxin poisoning was based on a single biochemical test without knowledge of the normal values. Gavin Hamilton’s extensive research shows that a toxin found in natural rubber, a digoxin-like substance, might well have been the culprit in the babies’ deaths. He clearly demonstrates that explanations other than serial murder account for the cluster of infant deaths at HSC. What can be learned from this black stain on Canada’s judicial system? One lesson certainly stands out: we can’t ever again allow a group of unqualified amateur diagnosticians make life-and-death decisions about such important matters as potential serial murders.
The OECD Convention on Bribery
by Mark Pieth Lucinda A. Low Nicola Bonucci Kathrin Betz Mark Pieth Lucinda A. Low Nicola BonucciThe OECD Convention on Bribery and various national implementation laws mean that companies and managers risk tough sanctions at home for bribing foreign officials. The second edition of this, the only commentary on the OECD Convention on Bribery, gives law practitioners and company lawyers all the necessary information.
The OKRs Field Book: A Step-by-Step Guide for Objectives and Key Results Coaches
by Ben LamorteTake your OKRs coaching skills to the next level with this practical handbook. In The OKRs Field Book: A Step-by-Step Guide for Objectives and Key Results Coaches, Ben Lamorte, a seasoned coach and management science expert, provides a structured approach for implementing objectives and key results. This book provides tips and tools that enable you to coach your OKRs clients with confidence. Lamorte analyzes foundational questions that must be answered prior to deploying OKRs and the roles required to sustain an OKRs program. Packed with excerpts from actual OKRs coaching sessions, this step-by-step guide shines a light on the OKRs coaching process. You learn how to help your client refine key results that look like tasks into key results that reflect measurable outcomes. In addition to sample training workshop agendas and coaching emails, Lamorte introduces the first comprehensive list of OKRs coaching questions. The field book covers how to: Structure an OKRs coaching engagement using a three-phased approach. Avoid common pitfalls such as cascading OKRs based on the org chart. Ensure your client asks the right questions at each step of the OKRs cycle. Perfect for external coaches and business mentors looking for a repeatable structure to help their clients succeed with OKRs, The OKRs Field Book is also an indispensable resource for internal coaches looking to support their organization’s OKRs program.
The Oath and the Office: A Guide To The Constitution For Future Presidents
by Corey BrettschneiderAn essential guide to the presidential powers and limits of the Constitution, for anyone voting—or running—for our highest office. Can the president launch a nuclear attack without congressional approval? Is it ever a crime to criticize the president? Can states legally resist a president’s executive order? In today’s fraught political climate, it often seems as if we must become constitutional law scholars just to understand the news from Washington, let alone make a responsible decision at the polls. The Oath and the Office is the book we need, right now and into the future, whether we are voting for or running to become president of the United States. Constitutional law scholar and political science professor Corey Brettschneider guides us through the Constitution and explains the powers—and limits—that it places on the presidency. From the document itself and from American history’s most famous court cases, we learn why certain powers were granted to the presidency, how the Bill of Rights limits those powers, and what “we the people” can do to influence the nation’s highest public office—including, if need be, removing the person in it. In these brief yet deeply researched chapters, we meet founding fathers such as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, as well as key figures from historic cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Korematsu v. United States. Brettschneider breathes new life into the articles and amendments that we once read about in high school civics class, but that have real impact on our lives today. The Oath and the Office offers a compact, comprehensive tour of the Constitution, and empowers all readers, voters, and future presidents with the knowledge and confidence to read and understand one of our nation’s most important founding documents.
The Oath: A page-turning medical crime thriller (Dismas Hardy)
by John LescroartThe death of his boss sparks a worried Dr Eric Kensing to enlist the help of lawyer Dismas Hardy. He is right to be worried... Hardy defends yet another questionable client in The Oath, the eighth fantastic crime thriller in John Lescroart's Dismas Hardy series. Perfect for fans of Michael Connelly and Lee Child.'Gripping, timely and extremely satisfying... a stellar novel that has broad appeal' - BooklistDoctor Eric Kensing is living in fear that he is about to be indicted for the death of a patient. That patient was his boss, Tim Markham. But Kensing and Markham aren't just connected by work - Kensing's wife is one of Markham's many lovers. It's not looking good for Kensing, so he enlists the help of lawyer Dismas Hardy. Some say Kensing is not worth saving, although others say that Kensing is a special doctor, prepared to do anything to save a patient's life, even defying proper medical procedure. Despite all the damning evidence, Hardy becomes increasingly sure that Kensing is innocent. Against mounting pressure for an arrest, Hardy knows that the only way to save Kensing is to find the real murderer. And like Kensing, he seems to be working within a system that is set up to thwart him and any attempt at real justice...What readers are saying about The Oath:'Lescroart keeps the reader guessing until the last page''I don't like to put it down and can't wait to pick it up and read at night''The Oath stands far ahead of the rest for its twisting plot, fleshed out characters, lightning fast pace and surprises along the way'
The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court
by Jeffrey ToobinFrom the prizewinning author of The Nine, a gripping insider's account of the momentous ideological war between the John Roberts Supreme Court and the Obama administration. From the moment John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States, blundered through the Oath of Office at Barack Obama's inauguration, the relationship between the Supreme Court and the White House has been confrontational. Both men are young, brilliant, charismatic, charming, determined to change the course of the nation--and completely at odds on almost every major constitutional issue. One is radical; one essentially conservative. The surprise is that Obama is the conservative--a believer in incremental change, compromise, and pragmatism over ideology. Roberts--and his allies on the Court--seek to overturn decades of precedent: in short, to undo the ultimate victory FDR achieved in the New Deal. This ideological war will crescendo during the 2011-2012 term, in which several landmark cases are on the Court's docket--most crucially, a challenge to Obama's controversial health-care legislation. With four new justices joining the Court in just five years, including Obama's appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, this is a dramatically--and historically--different Supreme Court, playing for the highest of stakes. No one is better positioned to chronicle this dramatic tale than Jeffrey Toobin, whose prize-winning bestseller The Nine laid bare the inner workings and conflicts of the Court in meticulous and entertaining detail. As the nation prepares to vote for President in 2012, the future of the Supreme Court will also be on the ballot.
The Obama White House and the Supreme Court: from The Oath
by Jeffrey ToobinA Vintage Shorts SelectionThe bestselling and prizewinning author of The Nine and American Heiress tells the dramatic and gripping insider's story of the momentous ideological war fought between the Obama White House and the Supreme Court.President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts could not be more different. Obama, a legal conservative grappling with the second amendment among other issues, believes in the close interpretation of the Constitution, incremental change, and pragmatism over ideology. But, for Roberts the law is all about winning. And, from the moment he botched Obama's oath of office in 2009, the relationship between the Court and the White House has been fraught.This is essential history that unravels the forces that have shaped the Roberts Court over the last eight years. The nation is preparing to vote for its next president, and it bears remembering that the future of the Supreme Court will also be on the ballot.An ebook short.
The Object of Copyright: A Conceptual History of Originals and Copies in Literature, Art and Design (Routledge Research in Intellectual Property)
by Stina Teilmann-LockRecent years have seen a number of pressing developments in copyright law: there has been an enormous increase in the range and type of work accorded protection; the concept of the ‘original work’ has entered into national copyright acts; and intangible entities are now entitled to protection by copyright. All these are consequences of legislative and technological developments that can be traced back over two centuries and more. the result. This book presents an interdisciplinary study of the growth of copyright law, largely based on archival research and on archival materials only recently made available online. The new history here articulated helps to explain why print is no longer today the sole or even the chief object of copyright protection. Taking its key examples from British, French and Danish copyright law, the book begins by exploring how the earliest copyright laws emerged out of the technological understanding of a printed ‘copy,’ and out of the philosophical notions of originals and copies, tangibles and intangibles. Dr Teilmann-Lockgoes on to examine the concept of the ‘work’ as it develops both conceptually and legally, as the object of protection, and then explains how, in a curious consequence, 'the work' turns the ‘copy’ into the 'mere' material instantiation of the intangible 'original'. The book concludes by addressing the considerable and complicated problems now emerging in copyright law following the inclusion of design within the scope of its protection. In this field Danish law, striving to protect Danish design, has been setting the trend for over a hundred years. In its examination of terminological exchanges between the diverse legal traditions and philosophical discourse, and in its thorough investigation of particular terms central to copyright legislation, this interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to scholars and students of copyright and intellectual property law; it also makes an important contribution to literary studies, legal history and cultural theory.
The Object of Morality
by G.J. WarnockThe central issue is that of identifying and understanding the fundamental principles of morality but the book also discusses the place of rules in moral thought, the nature of obligation, the relation between morality and religion and that of being moral and rational.
The Objects That Remain (Dimyonot)
by Laura LevittOn a November evening in 1989, Laura Levitt was raped in her own bed. Her landlord heard the assault taking place and called 911, but the police arrived too late to apprehend Laura’s attacker. When they left, investigators took items with them—a pair of sweatpants, the bedclothes—and a rape exam was performed at the hospital. However, this evidence was never processed.Decades later, Laura returns to these objects, viewing them not as clues that will lead to the identification of her assailant but rather as a means of engaging traumatic legacies writ large. The Objects That Remain is equal parts personal memoir and fascinating examination of the ways in which the material remains of violent crimes inform our experience of, and thinking about, trauma and loss. Considering artifacts in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and evidence in police storage facilities across the country, Laura’s story moves between intimate trauma, the story of an unsolved rape, and genocide. Throughout, she asks what it might mean to do justice to these violent pasts outside the juridical system or through historical empiricism, which are the dominant ways in which we think about evidence from violent crimes and other highly traumatic events.Over the course of her investigation, the author reveals how these objects that remain and the stories that surround them enable forms of intimacy. In this way, she models for us a different kind of reckoning, where justice is an animating process of telling and holding.
The Objects That Remain (Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination #11)
by Laura LevittOn a November evening in 1989, Laura Levitt was raped in her own bed. Her landlord heard the assault taking place and called 911, but the police arrived too late to apprehend Laura’s attacker. When they left, investigators took items with them—a pair of sweatpants, the bedclothes—and a rape exam was performed at the hospital. However, this evidence was never processed.Decades later, Laura returns to these objects, viewing them not as clues that will lead to the identification of her assailant but rather as a means of engaging traumatic legacies writ large. The Objects That Remain is equal parts personal memoir and fascinating examination of the ways in which the material remains of violent crimes inform our experience of, and thinking about, trauma and loss. Considering artifacts in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and evidence in police storage facilities across the country, Laura’s story moves between intimate trauma, the story of an unsolved rape, and genocide. Throughout, she asks what it might mean to do justice to these violent pasts outside the juridical system or through historical empiricism, which are the dominant ways in which we think about evidence from violent crimes and other highly traumatic events.Over the course of her investigation, the author reveals how these objects that remain and the stories that surround them enable forms of intimacy. In this way, she models for us a different kind of reckoning, where justice is an animating process of telling and holding.
The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No
by Carl ElliottShocking cases of abusive medical research and the whistleblowers who spoke out against them, sometimes at the expense of their careers. The Occasional Human Sacrifice is an intellectual inquiry into the moral struggle that whistleblowers face, and why it is not the kind of struggle that most people imagine. Carl Elliott is a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota who was trained in medicine as well as philosophy. For many years he fought for an external inquiry into a psychiatric research study at his own university in which an especially vulnerable patient lost his life. Elliott’s efforts alienated friends and colleagues. The university stonewalled him and denied wrongdoing until a state investigation finally vindicated his claims. His experience frames the six stories in this book of medical research in which patients were deceived into participating in experimental programs they did not understand, many of which had astonishing and well-concealed mortality rates. Beginning with the public health worker who exposed the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and ending with the four physicians who in 2016 blew the whistle on lethal synthetic trachea transplants at the Karolinska Institute, Elliott tells the extraordinary stories of insiders who spoke out against such abuses, and often paid a terrible price for doing the right thing.
The Odd Clauses
by Jay WexlerIf the United States Constitution were a zoo, and the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth amendments were a lion, a giraffe, and a panda bear, respectively, thenThe Odd Clauseswould be a special exhibit of shrews, wombats, and bat-eared foxes. Past the ever-popular monkey house and lion cages, Boston University law professor Jay Wexler leads us on a tour of the lesser-known clauses of the Constitution, the clauses that, like the yeti crab or platypus, rarely draw the big audiences but are worth a closer look. Just as ecologists remind us that even a weird little creature like a shrew can make all the difference between a healthy environment and an unhealthy one, understanding the odd clauses offers readers a healthier appreciation for our constitutional system. With Wexler as your expert guide through this jurisprudence jungle, you’ll see the Constitution like you’ve never seen it before. Including its twenty-seven amendments, the Constitution contains about eight thousand words, but the well-known parts make up only a tiny percentage of the entire document. The rest is a hodgepodge of provisions, clauses, and rules, including some historically anachronistic, some absurdly detailed, and some crucially important but too subtle or complex to get popular attention. This book is about constitutional provisions like Section 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment, the letters of marque and reprisal clause, and the titles of nobility clauses-those that promote key democratic functions in very specific, and therefore seemingly quite odd, ways. Each of the book’s ten chapters shines a much-deserved light on one of the Constitution’s odd clauses-its history, its stories, its controversies, its possible future. The Odd Clausesputs these intriguing beasts on display and allows them to exhibit their relevance to our lives, our government’s structure, and the integrity of our democracy.
The Offensive Internet: Speech, Privacy, and Reputation
by Martha Craven NussbaumThe Internet has been romanticized as a zone of freedom. The alluring combination of sophisticated technology with low barriers to entry and instantaneous outreach to millions of users has mesmerized libertarians and communitarians alike. Lawmakers have joined the celebration, passing the Communications Decency Act, which enables Internet Service Providers to allow unregulated discourse without danger of liability, all in the name of enhancing freedom of speech. But an unregulated Internet is a breeding ground for offensive conduct. At last we have a book that begins to focus on abuses made possible by anonymity, freedom from liability, and lack of oversight. The distinguished scholars assembled in this volume, drawn from law and philosophy, connect the absence of legal oversight with harassment and discrimination. Questioning the simplistic notion that abusive speech and mobocracy are the inevitable outcomes of new technology, they argue that current misuse is the outgrowth of social, technological, and legal choices. Seeing this clearly will help us to be better informed about our options. In a field still dominated by a frontier perspective, this book has the potential to be a real game changer. Armed with example after example of harassment in Internet chat rooms and forums, the authors detail some of the vile and hateful speech that the current combination of law and technology has bred. The facts are then treated to analysis and policy prescriptions. Read this book and you will never again see the Internet through rose-colored glasses.