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The Wasted Generation: Memoirs Of The Romanian Journey From Capitalism To Socialism And Back
by Silviu BrucanMy generation in Eastern Europe was caught in the middle of two revolutions (1944 and 1989), which instead of moving history ahead pushed it backward. We thus at first made a U-turn-a tortuous one, to be sure-from underdeveloped capitalism to underdeveloped socialism, but because socialism and underdevelopment are strange bedfellows,we have since discovered we were on the wrong path and are trying now to return to where we started. The drama of that generation is what this book is about.
Wasted Wombs: Navigating Reproductive Interruptions in Cameroon
by Erica van der SijptCentral to this book are Gbigbil women's experiences with different "reproductive interruptions": miscarriages, stillbirths, child deaths, induced abortions, and infertility. Rather than consider these events as inherently dissimilar as women do in Western countries, the Gbigbil women of eastern Cameroon see them all as instances of "wasted wombs" that leave their reproductive trajectories hanging in the balance. The women must navigate this uncertainty while negotiating their social positions, aspirations for the future, and the current workings of their bodies.Providing an intimate look into these processes, Wasted Wombs shows how Gbigbil women constantly shift their interpretations of when a pregnancy starts, what it contains, and what is lost in case of a reproductive interruption, in contrast to Western conceptions of fertility and loss. Depending on the context and on their life aspirations—be it marriage and motherhood, or an educational trajectory and employment, or profitable sexual affairs with so-called "big fish"—women negotiate and manipulate the meanings and effects of reproductive interruptions. Paradoxically, they often do so while portraying themselves as powerless. Wasted Wombs carefully analyzes such tactics in relation to the various social predicaments that emerge around reproductive interruptions, as well as the capricious workings of women's physical bodies.
Wasted Wombs: Navigating Reproductive Interruptions in Cameroon
by Erica van der SijptCentral to this book are Gbigbil women's experiences with different "reproductive interruptions": miscarriages, stillbirths, child deaths, induced abortions, and infertility. Rather than consider these events as inherently dissimilar as women do in Western countries, the Gbigbil women of eastern Cameroon see them all as instances of "wasted wombs" that leave their reproductive trajectories hanging in the balance. The women must navigate this uncertainty while negotiating their social positions, aspirations for the future, and the current workings of their bodies. Providing an intimate look into these processes, Wasted Wombs shows how Gbigbil women constantly shift their interpretations of when a pregnancy starts, what it contains, and what is lost in case of a reproductive interruption, in contrast to Western conceptions of fertility and loss. Depending on the context and on their life aspirations--be it marriage and motherhood, or an educational trajectory and employment, or profitable sexual affairs with so-called "big fish"--women negotiate and manipulate the meanings and effects of reproductive interruptions. Paradoxically, they often do so while portraying themselves as powerless. Wasted Wombs carefully analyzes such tactics in relation to the various social predicaments that emerge around reproductive interruptions, as well as the capricious workings of women's physical bodies.
Wasted World: How Our Consumption Challenges the Planet
by Rob HengeveldThis biologist&’s &“monumental cri de Coeur&” for our planet offers a holistic view of our species, the waste we produce, and a path toward sustainability (Nature). In Wasted World, Rob Hengeveld traces the entwined histories of population growth and resource consumption to reveal how our global waste crises came about. As Hengeveld explains, human life depends on energy, which we first obtained through food. Later, we supplemented this with energy from water, wind, animals, and finally fossil fuels, as one source after another fell short of our ever-growing needs. Greater energy consumption has created greater waste, including the atmospheric waste that is driving climate change. As we face a web of interconnected problems, addressing them individually will not work. Instead, Hengeveld argues, we need to tackle their common cause: our staggering population growth. A practical look at the sustainability of our planet from a biologist and expert in the abundances and distributions of species, Wasted World examines the whole process of using, wasting, and exhausting energy and material resources. And by elucidating the complexity of the causes of our current global state, Hengeveld offers us a way forward.
Wasted Years, Wasted Lives Volume 1: The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975–77 (Wasted Years, Wasted Lives Volume 1 Ser. #1)
by Ken WhartonOver the past several years, Ken Wharton, himself a former soldier, has been prolific in his coverage of the Troubles, which spread their tentacles far from the streets, and fields of Northern Ireland. Over 4,000 people died in or as a consequence of them and it cost the lives of over 1,300 British soldiers - a fact which is unacknowledged by the MOD - and the lives of over 300 policemen and women. This is Ken's sixth book about the period and he draws on meticulous and detailed research, first-hand testimony of the soldiers who trod the same streets as himself, and an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the near 30-year period of murder, violence and civil war. The first-hand accounts help us to understand and examine the fears of the young soldiers who patrolled the dangerous streets of the Ardoyne and New Lodge, of Andersonstown, Turf Lodge and Ballymurphy and of the Creggan in Londonderry and the Derrybeg in Newry. He looks at the Loyalist paramilitaries and treats their sectarianism and mindless murder with the same contempt with which he treats the Republicans. He does not mince words about the Irish-Americans and their political stooges in the US Government, judicial system and the ordinary '7th generation Irishmen of the American East Coast.' This is a book not just for soldiers, but for anyone who wishes to look back and try to understand the madness inflicted upon several generations of innocent Irish and British people. In years to come, historians - both social and military - will reflect on this period of insanity with a greater knowledge than hitherto. If you wish to know how it felt to be an innocent sectarian victim, or an off-duty soldier or policeman or a young lad from Leeds, Liverpool or London hard targeting through the Lower Falls, then this book is a must read.
Wasted Years, Wasted Lives, Volume 2: The British Army in Northern Ireland 1978–79 (Wasted Years, Wasted Lives Volume 2 Ser. #2)
by Ken WhartonVolume 2 does what it says on the can - it continues from where the first volume left off. It looks at the bloody years of 1978 and 1979. It covers eyewitness accounts from soldiers on the ground and there is the occasional comment from civilians who were living in the troubled province at the time. There are accounts from the IRA atrocity at the la Mon Restaurant when the terrorists used a napalm-like device to incinerate 12 innocent civilians; it includes the murder of Lord Mountbatten, hero of Burma, and some of his family and staff on his yacht in Co Sligo. It also covers the worst tragedy for the Army in Ulster, the murder of 18 soldiers at Warrenpoint. Every single troubles-related death and every major incident is covered and includes those soldiers who died in 'non-battle' incidents, the ones who are not included in the 'official' figures. The book pulls no punches and the author is outspoken in his criticism of the Irish-American community and their incredibly naïve support of the Republican terrorists who almost destroyed an entire country. The author condemns in equal measure the paramilitaries of both sides and considers the evil activities of Lenny Murphy and the 'Shankill Butchers' as bad as anything which the Provisional IRA or INLA did. The book looks at individual incidents and tries to examine the terrorist mindset and their motives for the atrocities which they carried out in the name of their communities. It supports the security forces unequivocally but renders criticism where appropriate. The book examines the role of the young soldiers from Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, indeed from every part of the UK from which these young men came. It looks at foot patrols, riot control and the daily fear and threat under which they operated for their four month or two year tours. Read carefully the words of an Irish-American who clearly is contemptuous of the way her fellow Americans almost sleepwalked into supporting the IRA from afar with the dollars which they placed so willingly into the NORAID collection jars. The level of detail and research the author goes into is phenomenal and demonstrates his commitment to continue telling the story of one of Britain's forgotten wars.
Wastelands: Recycled Commodities and the Perpetual Displacement of Ashkali and Romani Scavengers
by Eirik SaethreWastelands is an exploration of trash, the scavengers who collect it, and the precarious communities it sustains. After enduring war and persecution in Kosovo, many Ashkali refugees fled to Belgrade, Serbia, where they were stigmatized as Gypsies, consigned to slums, sidelined from the economy, and subjected to violence. To survive, Ashkali collect the only resource available to them: garbage. Vividly recounting everyday life in an illegal Romani settlement, Eirik Saethre follows Ashkali as they scavenge through dumpsters, build shacks, siphon electricity, negotiate the recycling trade, and migrate between Belgrade, Kosovo, and the European Union. He argues that trash is not just a means of survival: it reinforces the status of Ashkali and Roma as polluted Others, creates indissoluble bonds to transnational capitalism, enfeebles bodies, and establishes a localized sovereignty.
Wasters
by Nick Webb Shane RossDuring the years when all seemed well with the Irish economy, a scandal bloomed in front of our faces but went mostly unnoticed: the scandal of public waste. Vast overspending on infrastructure (including a number of white elephants), extravagant use of overpriced consultants, the creation of dozens of quangos whose primary purpose seemed to be jobs for the boys, the culture of junketry that took hold in the semi-state sector and the Oireachtas - these and other dubious practices flourished during the years when the state's coffers were overflowing. The insiders benefited; the rest of us got ripped off. Now, as the state scrambles to bail out the banks and to bring order to the shattered public finances by taking money out of the pockets of ordinary working people, Shane Ross and Nick Webb tell the story of the wasters: the people who perfected and benefited from the culture of cronyism and waste. Thanks in large part to Ross and Webb's journalism in the Sunday Independent exposing scandals in FAS and CIE, we already know part of this story. In Wasters, the authors show how wide and how deep the rot runs, and they show that every scandal has one thing in common: insiders profiting at the expense of ordinary people.
Wastewater Assessment, Treatment, Reuse and Development in India (Earth and Environmental Sciences Library)
by Shalini Yadav Abdelazim M. Negm Ram Narayan YadavaThis book contains up-to-date information and findings in research on the evaluation, treatment, reusability, and development of wastewater in India. The book covers the assessment for drinking water, including membrane filtration, supervision, and evaluation of wastewater, environmental pollution control, wastewater treatment and recycling, advanced bioremediation techniques and wastewater's impact on India. With this wide range of treatment and technologies of wastewater, this book is a source of invaluable information to guide Indian policy planners and makers to move forward to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 6.
The Wastrels of Defense
by Winslow T. WheelerIn this damning expose, a veteran senate defense advisor argues that since Sept 11, 2001, the conduct of the U.S. Congress has sunk to new depths and endangered the nation's security. Winslow Wheeler draws on three decades of work with four prominent senators to tell in lively detail how members of Congress divert money from essential war-fighting accounts to pay for pork in their home states, cook the budget books to pursue personal agendas, and run for cover when confronted with tough defense issues. With meticulous documentation to support his claims, he contends that this behavior is not confined to one party or one political philosophy. He further contends that senators who sell themselves as reformers and journalists covering Capitol Hill are simply not doing their jobs. Pork is far from a new phenomenon in Washington, yet most Americans fail to understand its serious consequences. Wheeler knows the harm it does and challenges citizens to take action against lawmakers pretending to serve the public trust while sending home the bacon. Dubbed a "Hill Deep Throat" who participated in the game he now criticizes, he fills his book with evidence of Congressional wrongdoing, naming names and citing specific examples. Pointing to the extremes that have become routine in the legislative process, he focuses on defense appropriations and Congress's willingness to load down defense bills with pork, in some cases with the Pentagon's help. On the question of deciding war, he accuses today's members of Congress of lacking the character of their predecessors, often positioning themselves on both sides of the question of war against Iraq without probing the administration's justifications. Wheeler concludes with a model for reform that he calls twelve not-so-easy steps to a sober Congress.
The Watchdog: How the Truman Committee Battled Corruption and Helped Win World War Two
by Steve DrummondThe story of how a little-known junior senator fought wartime corruption and, in the process, set himself up to become vice president and ultimately President Harry Truman. Months before Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that the United States was on the verge of entering another world war for which it was dangerously ill-prepared. The urgent times demanded a transformation of the economy, with the government bankrolling the unfathomably expensive task of enlisting millions of citizens while also producing the equipment necessary to successfully fight—all of which opened up opportunities for graft, fraud and corruption. In The Watchdog, Steve Drummond draws the reader into the fast-paced story of how Harry Truman, still a newcomer to Washington politics, cobbled together a bipartisan team of men and women that took on powerful corporate entities and the Pentagon, placing Truman in the national spotlight and paving his path to the White House. Drawing on the largely unexamined records of the Truman Committee as well as oral histories, personal letters, newspaper archives and interviews, Steve Drummond—an award-winning senior editor and executive producer at NPR—brings the colorful characters and intrigue of the committee&’s work to life. The Watchdog provides readers with a window to a time that was far from perfect but where it was possible to root out corruption and hold those responsible to account. It shows us what can be possible if politicians are governed by the principles of their office rather than self-interest.
Watchdog: The Real Stories Behind the Headlines from the Congressman Who Exposed Washington's Biggest Scandals
by Darrell IssaYou might think you had a front-row seat to the shocking scandals of Benghazi, the IRS targeting of conservatives, Fast & Furious, illegal email servers, mishandling America's secrets and cover-ups at the EPA. The rest of the story, told here for the first time, is even more troubling.In Watchdog, Congressman Darrell Issa reveals some of the worst of Washington, pulls back the curtain on business as usual in the Capitol, and lets in the sunshine of accountability.As Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Issa led a years-long fight to uncover what was really happening in the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton's State Department, while taking on a mainstream media and establishment Beltway culture he quickly found out weren't always interested in the truth.But what the public doesn't know about Big Government and what the people may not realize is happening to their country requires someone in Washington willing to tell the truth no matter who gets the blame. Carrying out aggressive oversight brought Issa into conflict with not only political foes, but friends and allies as well. Through it all, he has sought to remind everyone in government they are still subject to the rule of law and accountable to the American people. Watchdog is the inside account of what it took to get the truth and what it will take for our democracy to endure.
The Watchdog Still Barks: How Accountability Reporting Evolved for the Digital Age (Donald McGannon Communication Research Center's Everett C. Parker Book Series)
by Beth KnobelPerhaps no other function of a free press is as important as the watchdog role—its ability to monitor the work of the government. It is easier for politicians to get away with abusing power—wasting public funds and making poor decisions—if the press is not shining its light with what is termed “accountability reporting.” This need has become especially clear in recent months, as the American press has come under virulent direct attack for carrying out its watchdog duties. Upending the traditional media narrative that watchdog accountability journalism is in a long, dismaying decline, The Watchdog Still Barks presents a study of how this most important form of journalism came of age in the digital era at American newspapers.Although the American newspaper industry contracted significantly during the 1990s and 2000s, Fordham professor and former CBS News producer Beth Knobel illustrates through empirical data how the amount of deep watchdog reporting on the newspapers’ studied front pages generally increased over time despite shrinking circulations, low advertising revenue, and pressure to produce the kind of soft news that plays well on social media. Based on the first content analysis to focus specifically on accountability journalism nationally, The Watchdog Still Barks examines the front pages of nine newspapers located across the United States to paint a broad portrait of how public service journalism has changed since 1991 as the advent of the Internet transformed journalism. This portrait of the modern newspaper industry shows how papers of varying sizes and ownership structures around the country marshaled resources for accountability reporting despite significant financial and technological challenges.The Watchdog Still Barks includes original interviews with editors who explain why they are staking their papers’ futures on the one thing that American newspapers still do better than any other segment of the media: watchdog and investigative reporting.
Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government (Miller Center Studies on the Presidency)
by Glenn A. FineThe last line of defense for our institutions, and our democracy Inspectors general may be the most important public servants you&’ve never heard of. In Watchdogs, Glenn Fine—who served as the inspector general of the Department of Justice from 2000 to 2011 and the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense from 2016 to 2020—explains why all Americans should be familiar with this critical pillar of our democracy. Drawing on his own experiences in numerous high-profile investigations over two decades, from 9/11 to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Fine provides a fascinating insider&’s view of government at the highest levels, illuminating how federal officials spend our tax dollars and how inspector general oversight seeks to make government more honest and accountable. Full of revealing stories—from the FBI&’s handling of evidence in the Timothy McVeigh trial to the treatment of post-9/11 detainees to investigating the US Navy&’s most infamous corruption scandal—Watchdogs illustrates the mission of inspectors general in improving government operations, deterring wasteful spending, and curtailing corruption, and the ways they work every day in America&’s unique system of oversight.
The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror
by John Duffy Ray NowosielskiThe Shocking Reexamination of Unexplored Failures by Government Officials to Use Available Intelligence to Stop the Events of September 11th In 2009, documentarians John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski arrived at the offices of Richard Clarke, the former counterterror adviser to Presidents Clinton and Bush. In the meeting, Clarke boldly accused one-time Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet of “malfeasance and misfeasance” in the pre-war on terror. Thus began an incredible—never-before-told—investigative journey of intrigue about America’s intelligence community and two 9/11 hijackers. The Watchdogs Didn’t Bark details that story, unearthed over a ten-year investigation. Following the careers of a dozen counterterror employees working in different agencies of the US government from the late 1980s to the present, the book puts the government’s systems of oversight and accountability under a microscope. At the heart of this book is a mystery: Why did key 9/11 plotters Khalid Al Mihdhar and Nawaf Al Hazmi, operating inside the United States, fall onto the radars of so many US agencies without any of those agencies succeeding in stopping the attacks? The answers go beyond mere “conspiracy theory” and “deep state” actors, but instead find a complicated set of potential culprits and an easily manipulated system. Taking readers on a character-driven account of the causes of 9/11 and how the lessons of the attacks were cynically inverted to empower surveillance of citizens, kidnapping, illegal imprisonment, torture, government-sanctioned murder, and a war on whistleblowers and journalists, an alarm is raised which is more pertinent today than ever before.
Watchdogs of Democracy?
by Helen ThomasIn the course of more than sixty years spent covering Washington politics, Helen Thomas has witnessed a raft of fundamental changes in the way news is gathered and reported. Gone are the days of frequent firsthand contact with the president. Now, the press sees the president only at tightly controlled and orchestrated press conferences. In addition, Thomas sees a growing -- and alarming -- reluctance among reporters to question government spokesmen and probe for the truth. The result has been a wholesale failure by journalists to fulfill what is arguably their most vital role in contemporary American life -- to be the watchdogs of democracy. Today's journalists, according to Thomas, have become subdued, compromised lapdogs. Here, the legendary journalist and bestselling author delivers a hard-hitting manifesto on the precipitous decline in the quality and ethics of political reportage -- and issues a clarion call for change. Thomas confronts some of the most significant issues of the day, including the jailing of reporters, the conservative swing in television news coverage, and the administration's increased insistence on "managed" news. But she is most emphatic about reporters' failure to adequately question President George W. Bush and White House spokesmen about the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, and on subjects ranging from homeland security to the economy. This, she insists, was a dire lapse. Drawing on her peerless knowledge of journalism, Washington politics, and nine presidential administrations, as well as frank interviews with leading journalists past and present, Thomas provides readers with a rich historical perspective on the roots of American journalism, the circumstances attending the rise and fall of its golden age, and the nature and consequences of its current shortcomings. The result is a powerful, eye-opening discourse on the state of political reportage -- as well as a welcome and inspiring demand for meaningful and lasting reform.
Watchdogs on the Hill
by Linda L. FowlerAn essential responsibility of the U.S. Congress is holding the president accountable for the conduct of foreign policy. In this in-depth look at formal oversight hearings by the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, Linda Fowler evaluates how the legislature's most visible and important watchdogs performed from the mid-twentieth century to the present. She finds a noticeable reduction in public and secret hearings since the mid-1990s and establishes that American foreign policy frequently violated basic conditions for democratic accountability. Committee scrutiny of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, she notes, fell below levels of oversight in prior major conflicts.Fowler attributes the drop in watchdog activity to growing disinterest among senators in committee work, biases among members who join the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, and motives that shield presidents, particularly Republicans, from public inquiry. Her detailed case studies of the Truman Doctrine, Vietnam War, Panama Canal Treaty, humanitarian mission in Somalia, and Iraq War illustrate the importance of oversight in generating the information citizens need to judge the president's national security policies. She argues for a reassessment of congressional war powers and proposes reforms to encourage Senate watchdogs to improve public deliberation about decisions of war and peace.Watchdogs on the Hill investigates America's national security oversight and its critical place in the review of congressional and presidential powers in foreign policy.
The Watcher and Other Stories
by Italo CalvinoThis collection of three long stories by the author of Cosmicomics “demonstrates clearly his talent for transforming the mundane into the marvelous” (The New York Times).Italo Calvino is widely recognized as one of postwar Italy’s greatest fiction writers and one of the twentieth century’s greatest fabulists. This collection of three stories showcases his range and virtuosity.In the title story, an Italian Communist poll watcher is stationed at a hospital in Turin, where nuns guide the hands of invalids to their preferred candidate in a special election. In “Smog,” a city’s cooperative laundry facility reveals a harbinger of social purification. And in “The Argentine Ant,” the citizens of a provincial seaside town struggle against a government-controlled infestation.“Like Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez, Italo Calvino dreams perfect dreams for us.” —John Updike, New Yorker
The Watchers
by Shane HarrisUsing exclusive access to key insiders, Shane Harris charts the rise of America's surveillance state over the past twenty-five years and highlights a dangerous paradox: Our government's strategy has made it harder to catch terrorists and easier to spy on the rest of us. Our surveillance state was born in the brain of Admiral John Poindexter in 1983. Poindexter, Reagan's National Security Advisor, realized that the United States might have prevented the terrorist massacre of 241 Marines in Beirut if only intelligence agencies had been able to analyze in real time data they had on the attackers. Poindexter poured government know-how and funds into his dream-a system that would sift reams of data for signs of terrorist activity. Decades later, that elusive dream still captivates Washington. After the 2001 attacks, Poindexter returned to government with a controversial program, called Total Information Awareness, to detect the next attack. Today it is a secretly funded operation that can gather personal information on every American and millions of others worldwide. But Poindexter's dream has also become America's nightmare. Despite billions of dollars spent on this digital quest since the Reagan era, we still can't discern future threats in the vast data cloud that surrounds us all. But the government can now spy on its citizens with an ease that was impossible-and illegal-just a few years ago. Drawing on unprecedented access to the people who pioneered this high-tech spycraft, Harris shows how it has shifted from the province of right- wing technocrats to a cornerstone of the Obama administration's war on terror. Harris puts us behind the scenes and in front of the screens where twenty-first-century spycraft was born. We witness Poindexter quietly working from the private sector to get government to buy in to his programs in the early nineties. We see an army major agonize as he carries out an order to delete the vast database he's gathered on possible terror cells-and on thousands of innocent Americans-months before 9/11. We follow General Mike Hayden as he persuades the Bush administration to secretly monitor Americans based on a flawed interpretation of the law. After Congress publicly bans the Total Information Awareness program in 2003, we watch as it is covertly shifted to a "black op," which protects it from public scrutiny. When the next crisis comes, our government will inevitably crack down on civil liberties, but it will be no better able to identify new dangers. This is the outcome of a dream first hatched almost three decades ago, and The Watchers is an engrossing, unnerving wake-up call.
The Watchers
by Shane HarrisAn explosive look at the domestic agencies charged with spying on all of us. Given recent terrorist events in the U. S. , this timely book draws on access to political and operational insiders to create a brilliant exposé of why and how the American government spies on citizens. Born in the wake of the 1983 massacre of 241 Marines in Beirut, the plan by Ronald Reagan's national security advisor, John Poindexter, to coordinate intelligence on terrorists has claimed billions of government dollars. Despite the cost, it has failed in its mission to identify new threats. But as Harris shows, it has provided the government with a tool for spying on Americans that has ushered in an age of constitutionally questionable intrusion into the lives of every citizen.
Watching Human Rights: The 101 Best Films
by Mark GibneyIn order to be able to protect human rights, it is first necessary to see the denial of those rights. Aside from experiencing human rights violations directly, either as a victim or as an eyewitness, more than any other medium film is able to bring us closer to this aspect of the human experience. Yet, notwithstanding its importance to human rights, film has received virtually no scholarly attention and thus one of the primary goals of this book is to begin to fill this gap. From an historical perspective, human rights were not at all self-evident by reason alone, but had to gain standing through an appeal to human emotions found in novels as well as in works of moral philosophy and legal theory. Although literature continues to play an important role in the human rights project, film is able to take us that much further, by universalizing the particular experience of others different from ourselves, the viewers. Watching Human Rights analyzes more than 100 of the finest human rights films ever made-documentaries, feature films, faux documentaries, animations, and even cartoons. It will introduce the reader to a wealth of films that might otherwise remain unknown, but it also shows the human rights themes in films that all of us are familiar with.
Watching Jim Crow: The Struggles Over Mississippi TV, 1955-1969
by Steven D. ClassenIn the early 1960s, whenever the Today Show discussed integration, wlbt-tv, the nbc affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi, cut away to local news after announcing that the Today Show content was "network news . . . represent[ing] the views of the northern press. " This was only one part of a larger effort by wlbt and other local stations to keep African Americans and integrationists off Jackson's television screens. Watching Jim Crow presents the vivid story of the successful struggles of African Americans to achieve representation in the tv programming of Jackson, a city many considered one of the strongest bastions of Jim Crow segregation. Steven D. Classen provides a detailed social history of media activism and communications policy during the civil rights era. He focuses on the years between 1955--when Medgar Evers and the naacp began urging the two local stations, wlbt and wjtv, to stop censoring African Americans and discussions of integration--and 1969, when the U. S. Court of Appeals issued a landmark decision denying wlbt renewal of its operating license. During the 1990s, Classen conducted extensive interviews with more than two dozen African Americans living in Jackson, several of whom, decades earlier, had fought to integrate television programming. He draws on these interviews not only to illuminate their perceptions--of the civil rights movement, what they accomplished, and the present as compared with the past--but also to reveal the inadequate representation of their viewpoints in the legal proceedings surrounding wlbt's licensing. The story told in Watching Jim Crow has significant implications today, not least because the Telecommunications Act of 1996 effectively undid many of the hard-won reforms achieved by activists--including those whose stories Classen relates here.
Watching Murder: ISIS, Death Videos and Radicalization
by Simon CotteeWatching Murder shines a light onto the dark world of jihadi murder videos and the people who watch and share them on the internet. Images and videos of murder, torture and other cruelties are everywhere on the internet. Why do some people seek out and watch this material, how are they affected by it and do they have a right to watch any of it in the first place? In this ground-breaking book, terrorism scholar Simon Cottee visits the murky fringes of the internet in search of answers. Focusing on ISIS, he shows how the group transformed the urban myth of the snuff movie into a grim reality watched by tens of thousands of people across the globe. On shock-sites, he finds a contingent of ISIS fans who, while hating the group, love to watch its most monstrous depredations in high definition. He interviews his fellow extremism researchers and asks them about all the dark things they have seen online and how this has affected their mental health. He speaks with the "cleaners" whose job is to report and remove violent jihadi propaganda from the internet. And he surveys thousands of young adults to find out what they think of ISIS and its notorious beheading videos. Cottee exposes the hysteria around online radicalization, and shows how our engagement with violent online spectacles is much more complex and multifaceted than many would have us believe. Watching Murder will appeal to anyone with an interest in violence, media, terrorism and ISIS. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars of terrorism studies, political science, culture and communication.
Watching the Door: Drinking Up, Getting Down, and Cheating Death in 1970s Belfast
by Kevin MyersKevin Myers was a young, wide-eyed, and naive outsider thrust into the thick of the conflict in Northern Ireland as it teetered on the brink of civil war. Quickly absorbed into the local community and privy to the secrets of both the Protestant and Catholic paramilitaries, Myers gained a unique perspective into both sides of the sectarian violence.Devoid of any political agenda, Myers describes the streets of Belfast at its bloodiest with searing clarity, capturing every inch of the city's disturbing violence. Flirting with death at every turn, Myers comes of age as the world around him falls apart, fueled by the psychotic rage, senseless murder, and unrelenting terror that surround Northern Ireland's loyalist gangs, paratroopers, police force, and, of course, average citizen.Part unofficial history, part personal memoir, Watching the Door is raw, provocative, and darkly funny, offering an unbridled account of sex, death, and violence in Northern Ireland by one of its most dynamic witnesses.
Watching the Watchers
by Hugh BochelThis study offers a new and detailed examination of parliamentary scrutiny of the British intelligence and security agencies. Through detailed analysis of parliamentary business, coupled with interviews with MPs, peers and senior officials, it examines the various mechanisms by which parliament seeks to scrutinise the secret state, and assesses the extent to which parliament has both the capacity and the will to provide effective oversight of intelligence and security policy and agencies. In addition to providing a detailed analysis of the impact of the Intelligence and Security Committee, this is the first book to examine the various other means by which a range of parliamentary bodies including select committees, all-party groups and individual parliamentarians have sought to scrutinise the intelligence agencies and the handling of intelligence by government.