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Nature's Perfect Food: How Milk Became America's Drink
by E. Melanie DupuisThe story of how Americans came to drink milkFor over a century, America's nutrition authorities have heralded milk as "nature's perfect food," as "indispensable" and "the most complete food." These milk "boosters" have ranged from consumer activists, to government nutritionists, to the American Dairy Council and its ubiquitous milk moustache ads. The image of milk as wholesome and body-building has a long history, but is it accurate? Recently, within the newest social movements around food, milk has lost favor. Vegan anti-milk rhetoric portrays the dairy industry as cruel to animals and milk as bad for humans. Recently, books with titles like, "Milk: The Deadly Poison," and "Don't Drink Your Milk" have portrayed milk as toxic and unhealthy. Controversies over genetically-engineered cows and questions about antibiotic residue have also prompted consumers to question whether the milk they drink each day is truly good for them.In Nature's Perfect Food Melanie Dupuis illuminates these questions by telling the story of how Americans came to drink milk. We learn how cow's milk, which was associated with bacteria and disease became a staple of the American diet. Along the way we encounter 19th century evangelists who were convinced that cow's milk was the perfect food with divine properties, brewers whose tainted cow feed poisoned the milk supply, and informal wetnursing networks that were destroyed with the onset of urbanization and industrialization. Informative and entertaining, Nature's Perfect Food will be the standard work on the history of milk.
Global Families: A History of Asian International Adoption in America (Nation of Nations #8)
by Catherine Ceniza ChoyIn the last fifty years, transnational adoption—specifically, the adoption of Asian children—has exploded in popularity as an alternative path to family making. Despite the cultural acceptance of this practice, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the factors that allowed Asian international adoption to flourish. In Global Families, Catherine Ceniza Choy unearths the little-known historical origins of Asian international adoption in the United States. Beginning with the post-World War II presence of the U.S. military in Asia, she reveals how mixed-race children born of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese women and U.S. servicemen comprised one of the earliest groups of adoptive children. Based on extensive archival research, Global Families moves beyond one-dimensional portrayals of Asian international adoption as either a progressive form of U.S. multiculturalism or as an exploitative form of cultural and economic imperialism. Rather, Choy acknowledges the complexity of the phenomenon, illuminating both its radical possibilities of a world united across national, cultural, and racial divides through family formation and its strong potential for reinforcing the very racial and cultural hierarchies it sought to challenge.
The Lavender Vote: Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals in American Electoral Politics
by Mark HertzogTraces the influences of lesbian, gay and bisexual voters in American electionsIn the half century since the Stonewall riots in New York City's Greenwich Village launched the national gay-rights movement in earnest, LGB voters have steadily expanded their political influence. The Lavender Vote is the first full- length examination of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals as a factor in American elections. Mark Hertzog here describes the differences in demographics, attitudes, and voting behavior between self-identified bisexuals and homosexuals and the rest of the voting population. He shows that lavender self-identifiers comprise a distinctive voting bloc equal in numbers to Latino voters, more liberal across the board on domestic social issues (though not necessarily on economic or national security issues) than non-gay voters, and extremely unified in high-salience elections. Further, lavender voters, contrary to popular belief, are up for grabs between the two major parties. Offering a clear and thorough explanation of LGB voting tendencies, this volume will be must-reading for elected officials, candidates for office, and all those interested in learning about LGB voters.
Race Consciousness: Reinterpretations for the New Century
by Judith Jackson FossettBringing together an impressive range of new scholarship deeply informed both by the legacies of the past and current intellectual trends, Race Consciousness is a veritable Who's Who of the next generation of scholars of African-American studies. This collection of original essays, representing the latest work in African-American studies, covers such trenchant topics as the culture of America as a culture of race, the politics of gender and sexuality, legacies of slavery and colonialism, crime and welfare politics, and African-American cultural studies. In his entertaining Foreword to the volume, Robin D. G. Kelley presents a startling vision of the state of African-American Studies--and the world in general--in the year 2095. Arnold Rampersad and Nell Irvin Painter, chart the different disciplinary and theoretical paths African-American Studies has taken since the 19th century in their Preface to the volume.
Passionate Communities: Reading Lesbian Resistance in Jane Rule's Fiction (The Cutting Edge: Lesbian Life and Literature Series)
by Marilyn R. SchusterIn this new full-length study of Jane Rule's life and work, Marilyn Schuster argues that Rule's novels provide a way of "writing and reading lesbian" that resists and subverts dominant discourses of gender and sexuality-both those of mainstream culture and of political and sexual subcultures. From her earliest novel, Desert of the Heart (1964), Rule's fiction has provided a challenge to the concept of a fixed identity and to the identity politics founded on such a concept. Incorporating all of Jane Rule's early work-including unpublished manuscripts, letters, magazine and newspaper columns, as well as fan mail she received-Schuster also draws on interviews, conversations, and personal encounters with the author to elicit the ways in which Rule interrogates the meanings and politics of sexuality, the relationship between sexuality and language, and the stakes of communities in individual claims on identity. Passionate Communities is a thorough, engaging, and long-overdue study of an important voice in lesbian literature and gay and lesbian politics.
Developing Android Applications with Adobe AIR: An ActionScript Developer's Guide to Building Android Applications
by Véronique BrossierPut your ActionScript 3 skills to work building mobile apps. This book shows you how to develop native applications for Android-based smartphones and tablets from the ground up, using Adobe AIR. You learn the entire development process hands-on, from coding specific functions to options for getting your app published.Start by building a sample app with step-by-step instructions, using either Flash Professional or Flash Builder. Then learn how to use ActionScript libraries for typical device features, such as the camera and the accelerometer. This book includes ready-to-run example code and a case study that demonstrates how to bring all of the elements together into a full-scale working app.Create functionality and content that works on multiple Android devicesChoose from several data storage optionsCreate view and navigation components, including a back buttonGet tips for designing user experience with touch and gesturesBuild a location-aware app, or one that makes use of motionExplore ways to use audio, video, and photos in your applicationLearn best practices for asset management and development
jQuery UI: Learn How to use Dialogs, Autocomplete, and More
by Eric SarrionWith the jQuery UI library, you can apply the power and standards of jQuery to user interface design, complete with interactive elements, animation, and themeable widgets. This concise, code-heavy guide demonstrates how to harness interactive features that HTML5 lacks, including tabs, accordions, and dialog boxes. You’ll also learn how to program common but complex tasks, such as managing drag and drop and autocomplete, that make it easier for users to interact with your site.This book provides a quick tour of how jQuery UI can improve your HTML pages, followed by standalone chapters that focus on each of the components in detail. If you’re a web developer or designer looking to enrich your website with new features—without having to dive into full-fledged Javascript—jQuery UI is a must.This book covers the following extensions in version 1.8:Tab managementAccordion menusDialog boxesButtonsProgress barsSlidersDate pickersAutocompletersDrag and drop managementSelection, resizing, and switching of elementsNew visual effects
Learning PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, and CSS: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites
by Robin NixonLearn how to build interactive, data-driven websites—even if you don’t have any previous programming experience. If you know how to build static sites with HTML, this popular guide will help you tackle dynamic web programming. You’ll get a thorough grounding in today’s core open source technologies: PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, and CSS.Explore each technology separately, learn how to combine them, and pick up valuable web programming concepts along the way, including objects, XHTML, cookies, and session management. This book provides review questions in each chapter to help you apply what you’ve learned.Learn PHP essentials and the basics of object-oriented programmingMaster MySQL, from database structure to complex queriesCreate web pages with PHP and MySQL by integrating forms and other HTML featuresLearn JavaScript fundamentals, from functions and event handling to accessing the Document Object ModelPick up CSS basics for formatting and styling your web pagesTurn your website into a highly dynamic environment with Ajax callsUpload and manipulate files and images, validate user input, and secure your applicationsExplore a working example that brings all of the ingredients together
Cython: A Guide for Python Programmers
by Kurt W. SmithBuild software that combines Python’s expressivity with the performance and control of C (and C++). It’s possible with Cython, the compiler and hybrid programming language used by foundational packages such as NumPy, and prominent in projects including Pandas, h5py, and scikits-learn. In this practical guide, you’ll learn how to use Cython to improve Python’s performance—up to 3000x— and to wrap C and C++ libraries in Python with ease.Author Kurt Smith takes you through Cython’s capabilities, with sample code and in-depth practice exercises. If you’re just starting with Cython, or want to go deeper, you’ll learn how this language is an essential part of any performance-oriented Python programmer’s arsenal.Use Cython’s static typing to speed up Python codeGain hands-on experience using Cython features to boost your numeric-heavy PythonCreate new types with Cython—and see how fast object-oriented programming in Python can beEffectively organize Cython code into separate modules and packages without sacrificing performanceUse Cython to give Pythonic interfaces to C and C++ librariesOptimize code with Cython’s runtime and compile-time profiling toolsUse Cython’s prange function to parallelize loops transparently with OpenMP
Ethernet: Designing and Managing Local Area Networks
by Joann Zimmerman Charles E. SpurgeonGet up to speed on the latest Ethernet capabilities for building and maintaining networks for everything from homes and offices to data centers and server machine rooms. This thoroughly revised, comprehensive guide covers a wide range of Ethernet technologies, from basic operation to network management, based on the authors’ many years of field experience.When should you upgrade to higher speed Ethernet? How do you use switches to build larger networks? How do you troubleshoot the system? This book provides the answers. If you’re looking to build a scalable network with Ethernet to satisfy greater bandwidth and market requirements, this book is indeed the definitive guide.Examine the most widely used media systems, as well as advanced 40 and 100 gigabit EthernetLearn about Ethernet’s four basic elements and the IEEE standardsExplore full-duplex Ethernet, Power over Ethernet, and Energy Efficient EthernetUnderstand structured cabling systems and the components you need to build your Ethernet systemUse Ethernet switches to expand and improve network designDelve into Ethernet performance, from specific channels to the entire networkGet troubleshooting techniques for problems common to twisted-pair and fiber optic systems
Beautiful Visualization: Looking at Data through the Eyes of Experts
by Noah Iliinsky Julie SteeleVisualization is the graphic presentation of data -- portrayals meant to reveal complex information at a glance. Think of the familiar map of the New York City subway system, or a diagram of the human brain. Successful visualizations are beautiful not only for their aesthetic design, but also for elegant layers of detail that efficiently generate insight and new understanding.This book examines the methods of two dozen visualization experts who approach their projects from a variety of perspectives -- as artists, designers, commentators, scientists, analysts, statisticians, and more. Together they demonstrate how visualization can help us make sense of the world.Explore the importance of storytelling with a simple visualization exerciseLearn how color conveys information that our brains recognize before we're fully aware of itDiscover how the books we buy and the people we associate with reveal clues to our deeper selvesRecognize a method to the madness of air travel with a visualization of civilian air trafficFind out how researchers investigate unknown phenomena, from initial sketches to published papers Contributors include:Nick Bilton,Michael E. Driscoll,Jonathan Feinberg,Danyel Fisher,Jessica Hagy,Gregor Hochmuth,Todd Holloway,Noah Iliinsky,Eddie Jabbour,Valdean Klump,Aaron Koblin,Robert Kosara,Valdis Krebs,JoAnn Kuchera-Morin et al.,Andrew Odewahn,Adam Perer,Anders Persson,Maximilian Schich,Matthias Shapiro,Julie Steele,Moritz Stefaner,Jer Thorp,Fernanda Viegas,Martin Wattenberg,and Michael Young.
The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation
by Jono BaconOnline communities provide a wide range of opportunities for supporting a cause, marketing a product or service, or building open source software. The Art of Community helps you recruit members, motivate them, and manage them as active participants. Author Jono Bacon offers experiences and observations from his 14-year effort to build and manage communities, including his current position as manager for Ubuntu.Discover how your community can become a reliable support network, a valuable source of new ideas, and a powerful marketing force. This expanded edition shows you how to keep community projects on track, make use of social media, and organize collaborative events. Interviews with 12 community management leaders, including Linus Torvalds, Tim O’Reilly, and Mike Shinoda, provide useful insights.Develop specific objectives and goals for building your communityBuild processes to help contributors perform tasks, work together, and share successesProvide tools and infrastructure that enable members to work quicklyCreate buzz around your community to get more people involvedHarness social media to broadcast information, collaborate, and get feedbackUse several techniques to track progress on community goalsIdentify and manage conflict, such as dealing with divisive personalities
The New How [Paperback]: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy
by Nilofer MerchantWhat people are saying about The New How"How are you going to get rid of your Air Sandwich if you don't even know what it is? Provocative and practical at the same time."--Seth Godin, author of Linchpin"The New How is informative and provides exciting insights because the suggestions are practical and doable. Merchant gets the new reality--leadership fails not so much from flawed strategy as it does from failed processes of engagement from those responsible for implementing the strategy. In high-performing organizations, everyone acts like a leader, and they own the strategy and take actions to ensure its success. If you care about making a difference, read this book."--Barry Posner, author of The Leadership Challenge"Collaboration is a powerful, competitive weapon: this book shows you how to use it to win markets."--Mark Interrante, VP Content Products, Yahoo, Inc."In a world in which the pace of change is ever quickening, collaboration, not control, is the route to a successful organization. This book tells you how to make your organization collaborative. And Nilofer Merchant's writing is a model of clarity."--Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less"Want to transform your organization into a collaborative enterprise? Nilofer Merchant provides insightful and practical strategies in The New How."--Padmasree Warrior, CTO, Cisco Systems, Inc."Merchant's book is a practical guide for the journey from strategy to implementation. The collaborative tools described here can help companies reach strategic success--and avoid pitfalls along the way."--Tom Kelley, General Manager, IDEO, and author of Ten Faces of InnovationOnce in a generation, a book comes along that transforms the business landscape. For today's business leaders, The New How redefines the way companies create strategies and win new markets.Management gurus have always said "people matter." But those same gurus still relegate strategy to an elite set of executives who focus on frameworks, long presentations, and hierarchical approaches. Business strategy typically has been planned by corporate chiefs in annual meetings, and then dictated to managers to carry out. The New How turns that notion on its head. After many years of working with Apple, Adobe, HP, and many other companies, Nilofer Merchant discovered the secret sauce: the best way to create a winning strategy is to include employees at all levels, helping to create strategy they not only believe in, but are also equipped to implement.In The New How, Nilofer shows today's corporate directors, executives, and managers how they can transform their traditional, top-down approach to strategy planning and execution into collaborative "stratecution" that has proven to be significantly more effective.Enhance performance and outcomes by deflating the "air sandwich" between executives in the boardroom and employeesRecognize that strategy and execution are thoroughly intertwinedUnderstand how successful strategy is founded in effective idea selection-a pile of good ideas doesn't necessarily build good strategyCreate company strategy and link it to targeted execution, using the practical models and techniques provided
Social eCommerce: Increasing Sales and Extending Brand Reach
by Stephan Spencer Jennifer Sheahan Jimmy HardingWant to make money online? Then ignore social media at your own risk. Social media is vital if you want to your business to thrive, and though you can’t control the conversations, you can influence them. This book will teach you how.If mismanaged, social media can create more noise than signal. It can be a time and energy suck—for you and your audience. Or worse still, it can become an echo chamber for negative PR.If done well, guerrilla social media marketing can help you persuade, command attention, establish dialogue, differentiate yourself, capture new markets, and outmaneuver the competition—all on a shoestring budget. Whether you’re selling digital goods and services, physical goods, or local services, this book has the answers.Strategize and optimize your social presence in ways you didn’t know were possibleDrive more clicks and sales with better-performing Facebook adsDevelop remarkable content with viral potentialManage your online reputation, instead of letting it manage youIntegrate social media into your SEO strategy, and vice versaLeverage online influencers to promote your brand, and become an influencer yourself
Mapping Hacks: Tips & Tools for Electronic Cartography
by Schuyler Erle Rich Gibson Jo WalshSince the dawn of creation, man has designed maps to help identify the space that we occupy. From Lewis and Clark's pencil-sketched maps of mountain trails to Jacques Cousteau's sophisticated charts of the ocean floor, creating maps of the utmost precision has been a constant pursuit. So why should things change now?Well, they shouldn't. The reality is that map creation, or "cartography," has only improved in its ease-of-use over time. In fact, with the recent explosion of inexpensive computing and the growing availability of public mapping data, mapmaking today extends all the way to the ordinary PC user.Mapping Hacks, the latest page-turner from O'Reilly Press, tackles this notion head on. It's a collection of one hundred simple--and mostly free--techniques available to developers and power users who want draw digital maps or otherwise visualize geographic data. Authors Schuyler Erle, Rich Gibson, and Jo Walsh do more than just illuminate the basic concepts of location and cartography, they walk you through the process one step at a time.Mapping Hacks shows you where to find the best sources of geographic data, and then how to integrate that data into your own map. But that's just an appetizer. This comprehensive resource also shows you how to interpret and manipulate unwieldy cartography data, as well as how to incorporate personal photo galleries into your maps. It even provides practical uses for GPS (Global Positioning System) devices--those touch-of-a-button street maps integrated into cars and mobile phones. Just imagine: If Captain Kidd had this technology, we'd all know where to find his buried treasure!With all of these industrial-strength tips and tools, Mapping Hacks effectively takes the sting out of the digital mapmaking and navigational process. Now you can create your own maps for business, pleasure, or entertainment--without ever having to sharpen a single pencil.
Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys (New Perspectives in Crime, Deviance, and Law #7)
by Victor M. RiosHonorable Mention, 2014 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award presented by the Society for the Study of Social Problems2012 Best Book Award, Latino/a Sociology Section, presented by the American Sociological Association2012 Finalist, C. Wright Mills Book Award presented by the Study of Social ProblemsA classic ethnography that reveals how urban police criminalize black and Latino boysVictor Rios grew up in the ghetto of Oakland, California in the 1980s and 90s. A former gang member and juvenile delinquent, Rios managed to escape the bleak outcome of many of his friends and earned a PhD at Berkeley and returned to his hometown to study how inner city young Latino and African American boys develop their sense of self in the midst of crime and intense policing. Punished examines the difficult lives of these young men, who now face punitive policies in their schools, communities, and a world where they are constantly policed and stigmatized.Rios followed a group of forty delinquent Black and Latino boys for three years. These boys found themselves in a vicious cycle, caught in a spiral of punishment and incarceration as they were harassed, profiled, watched, and disciplined at young ages, even before they had committed any crimes, eventually leading many of them to fulfill the destiny expected of them. But beyond a fatalistic account of these marginalized young men, Rios finds that the very system that criminalizes them and limits their opportunities, sparks resistance and a raised consciousness that motivates some to transform their lives and become productive citizens. Ultimately, he argues that by understanding the lives of the young men who are criminalized and pipelined through the criminal justice system, we can begin to develop empathic solutions which support these young men in their development and to eliminate the culture of punishment that has become an overbearing part of their everyday lives.
Global Obscenities: Patriarchy, Capitalism, and the Lure of Cyberfantasy
by Zillah EisensteinThe New York Times devotes the cover of its magazine to America's declining interest in politics and its obsession with money, finance, and the markets. Bill Gates builds a $50 million mansion while food pantries and homeless shelters overflow with the desperate. The explosive expansion of media and cyber conglomerates creates dreamworlds while the ecology of our actual world is jeopardized. Public space and public democracy withers, as is evidenced by the fact that the closest facsimile of a town square is the local Barnes and Noble. New geographies of power are defined by sex scandals, plant closings, cyberporn, sweatshop labor, information webs, and stock market schizophrenia. Global capitalism and its cyberrelations use this chaos to construct modern forms of sexual and racial exploitation. Into this world steps Zillah Eisenstein, with a book of profound despair and yet also great hope, informed by her trademark sharp analysis and her unrelenting passion for a more humane world. Exposing the purported democratic effect of new media for the global mirage it is, Eisenstein shows how transnational capital and its patriarchal obsessions threaten us all, while at the same time creating possibilities for a new democratic society.
Jammed Up: Bad Cops, Police Misconduct, and the New York City Police Department
by Robert J. Kane Michael D. WhiteDrugs, bribes, falsifying evidence, unjustified force and kickbacks:there are many opportunities for cops to act like criminals. Jammed Up is the definitive study of the nature and causes of police misconduct. While police departments are notoriously protective of their own—especially personnel and disciplinary information—Michael White and Robert Kane gained unprecedented, complete access to the confidential files of NYPD officers who committed serious offenses, examining the cases of more than 1,500 NYPD officers over a twenty year period that includes a fairly complete cycle of scandal and reform, in the largest, most visible police department in the United States. They explore both the factors that predict officer misconduct, and the police department’s responsesto that misconduct, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding the issues. The conclusions they draw are important not just for what they can tell us about the NYPD but for how we are to understand the very nature of police misconduct. ACTUAL MISCONDUCT CASES»» An off-duty officer driving his private vehicle stops at a convenience store on Long Island, after having just worked a 10 hour shift in Brooklyn, to steal a six pack of beer at gun point. Is this police misconduct?»» A police officer is disciplined no less than six times in three years for failing to comply with administrative standards and is finally dismissed from employment for losing his NYPD shield (badge). Is this police misconduct?»» An officer was fired for abusing his sick time, but then further investigation showed that the officer was found not guilty in a criminal trial during which he was accused of using his position as a police officer to protect drug and prostitution enterprises. Which is the example of police misconduct?
New York, Year by Year: A Chronology of the Great Metropolis
by Jeffrey A. KroesslerWinner, The New York Public Library, Best of Reference Award, 2002A year by year reference work painting the colorful history of New York City If any city deserves a complete chronology, it is surely New York. New York, Year by Year is a cornucopia of the familiar and the forgotten, the historic and the ephemeral, the heroic and the banal. In this handy reference work, Jeffrey A. Kroessler takes us from Verrazano's arrival in 1524 into the new millennium, highlighting the strikes and strikeouts, tunnels and towers, personalities and parades which not only made history in New York, but also proved to be defining moments for the nation. New York, Year by Year features events such as Mark Twain's first lecture at Cooper Union, and the letter he later wrote when the Brooklyn Public Library tried to restrict access to Huckleberry Finn. In contrast, we are reminded of the publication in the 1950s of Eloise, A Book for Precocious Grown-Ups, Kay Thompson's fanciful tale of a little girl's adventures in the Plaza Hotel, the appearance of the Beat Generation, and the flight (literally) of the Dodgers and Giants to California. New York, Year by Year chronicles the opening of Shea Stadium in April 1964 and the performance by the Beatles there that August. The Sixties also saw the opening of The Fantastiks, which is still running on Sullivan Street, and the closing of Steeplechase, the last of the great amusement parks at Coney Island. And this chronology makes sure we don't forget when Kitty Genovese was murdered in Kew Gardens and her cries for help were left unanswered because her neighbors "didn't want to get involved." Kroessler leads us on a tour of the city from its first settlers until the November 2001 election of a new mayor for the new millennium. From the colonial era and the Revolution through the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties, Kroessler has compiled a record of cultural, economic, political, and social events. Some are of transient importance, others of lasting significance, but all illuminate the city's fascinating history.
China, The United States, and the Future of Central Asia: U.S.-China Relations, Volume I (U.S.-China Relations #1)
by David B. H. DenoonThe first of a three-volume series on the interaction of the US and China in different regions of the world, China, the United States, and the Future of Central Asia explores the delicate balance of competing foreign interests in this resource-rich and politically tumultuous region. Editor David Denoon and his internationally renowned set of contributors assess the different objectives and strategies the U.S. and China deploy in the region and examine how the two world powers are indirectly competitive with one another for influence in Central Asia. While the US is focused on maintaining and supporting its military forces in neighboring states, China has its sights on procuring natural resources for its fast-growing economy and preventing the expansion of fundamentalist Islam inside its borders. This book covers important issues such as the creation of international gas pipelines, the challenges of building crucial transcontinental roadways that must pass through countries facing insurgencies, the efforts of the US and China to encourage and provide better security in the region, and how the Central Asian countries themselves view their role in international politics and the global economy. The book also covers key outside powers with influence in the region; Russia, with its historical ties to the many Central Asian countries that used to belong to the USSR, is perhaps the biggest international presence in the area, and other countries on the region’s periphery like Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and India have a stake in the fortunes and future of Central Asia as well. A comprehensive, original, and up-to-date collection, this book is a wide-ranging look from noted scholars at a vital part of the world which is likely to receive more attention and face greater instability as NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan.
Cable Guys: Television and Masculinities in the 21st Century
by Amanda D. LotzThe emergence of "male-centered serials" such as The Shield, Rescue Me, and Sons Of Anarchy and the challenges these characters face in negotiating modern masculinities. Fromthe meth-dealing but devoted family man Walter White of AMC’s Breaking Bad,to the part-time basketball coach, part-time gigolo Ray Drecker of HBO’s Hung,depictions of male characters perplexed by societal expectations of men andanxious about changing American masculinity have become standard across thetelevision landscape. Engaging with a wide variety of shows, including TheLeague, Dexter, and Nip/Tuck, among many others, Amanda D. Lotzidentifies the gradual incorporation of second-wave feminism into prevailinggender norms as the catalyst for the contested masculinities on display incontemporary cable dramas.Examiningthe emergence of “male-centered serials” such as The Shield, Rescue Me, and Sons of Anarchy and the challenges these characters face in negotiatingmodern masculinities, Lotz analyzes how these shows combine feminist approachesto fatherhood and marriage with more traditional constructions of masculineidentity that emphasize men’s role as providers. She explores the dynamics ofclose male friendships both in groups, as in Entourage and Men of aCertain Age, wherein characters test the boundaries between the homosocialand homosexual in their relationships with each other, and in the dyadicintimacy depicted in Boston Legal and Scrubs. Cable Guys provides amuch needed look into the under-considered subject of how constructions of masculinitycontinue to evolve on television.
Two Presidents Are Better Than One: The Case for a Bipartisan Executive Branch
by David Orentlicher“Many Americans are unsatisfied with politics. Simultaneously, we are hesitant to question the basic soundness of our constitutional system. In this refreshingly provocative book, David Orentlicher explains why it is due time for us to reconsider dominant ideas about the presidency, now arguably our most powerful political institution. Challenging the conventional wisdom that the best executive is necessarily a unitary executive, Orentlicher makes a wonderful case for why ‘two presidents are better than one.’ Sure to be of interest to political scientists, legal scholars, as well as informed citizens justifiably worried about the fate of American democracy, this fascinating book dares to challenge everything you thought you knew about one of our favorite political institutions.”—William E. Scheuerman, Indiana University “Can Orentlicher be serious in calling for a plural executive? The answer is yes, and he presents thoughtful and challenging arguments responding to likely criticisms. Any readers who are other than completely complacent about the current state of American politics will have to admire Orentlicher’s distinctive audacity and to respond themselves to his well-argued points.”—Sanford Levinson, author of Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance When talking heads and political pundits make their “What’s Wrong with America” lists, two concerns invariably rise to the top: the growing presidential abuse of power and the toxic political atmosphere in Washington. In Two Presidents Are Better Than One, David Orentlicher shows how the “imperial presidency” and partisan conflict are largely the result of a deeper problem—the Constitution’s placement of a single president atop the executive branch. Accordingly, writes Orentlicher, we can fix our broken political system by replacing the one person, one-party presidency with a two-person, two-party executive branch. Orentlicher contends that our founding fathers did not anticipate the extent to which their checks and balances would fail to contain executive power and partisan discord. They also did not foresee how the imperial presidency would aggravate partisan conflict. As the stakes in presidential elections have grown ever higher since the New Deal, battles to capture the White House have greatly exacerbated partisan differences. Had the framers been able to predict the future, Orentlicher argues, they would have been far less enamored with the idea of a single leader at the head of the executive branch and far more receptive to the alternative proposals for a plural executive that they rejected. Like their counterparts in Europe, they might well have created an executive branch in which power is shared among multiple persons from multiple political parties. Analyzing the histories of other countries with a plural executive branch and past examples of bipartisan cooperation within Congress, Orentlicher shows us why and how to implement a two-person, two-party presidency. Ultimately, Two Presidents Are Better Than One demonstrates why we need constitutional reform to rebalance power between the executive and legislative branches and contain partisan conflict in Washington.
The Wrongs of the Right: Language, Race, and the Republican Party in the Age of Obama
by Matthew W. Hughey Gregory S. ParksExamines the coded language of the Republican PartyIn The Wrongs of the Right, Matthew W. Hughey and Gregory S. Parks set postracial claims into relief against a background of pre- and post-election racial animus directed at President Obama, his administration, and African Americans. They show how the political Right deploys racial fears, coded language and implicit bias to express and build opposition to the Obama administration. Racial meanings are reservoirs rich in political currency, and the race card remains a potent resource for othering the first black president in a context rife with Nativism, xenophobia, white racial fatigue, and serious racial inequality.
HTML5 and JavaScript Web Apps: Bridging the Gap Between the Web and the Mobile Web (Oreilly And Associate Ser.)
by Wesley HalesThis hands-on book looks past the hype and buzzwords surrounding HTML5 and gives you a conservative and practical approach to using HTML5, JavaScript MVC frameworks, and the latest W3C specifications. You’ll quickly master how to build mobile and desktop web apps that are widely supported across all major web browsers and devices.Even though Web Storage, Web Workers, Geolocation, Device Orientation, and WebSockets have been covered many times in the past, it is often from a very high or basic level. This book goes into the trenches to review actual use cases for each of these APIs and gives real-world examples on how to use each one. If you're familiar with JavaScript, CSS and HTML basics and are ready to start piecing together the architecture of HTML5, then this book is for you.Assemble a coherent architectural whole from HTML5’s complex collection of partsGain a clear understanding of client-side architecture and the "mobile first" approachDesign, create, and tune eye-catching and robust mobile web appsExplore how the top five JavaScript MVC frameworks interact with the serverLearn best practices for setting up a raw WebSocket serverExamine how sites such as Google, Twitter, and Amazon store data on the clientUse real-world methods for applying geolocation, and learn the pitfalls of various implementationsProcess images and other data in the background with Web Workers
The Productive Programmer (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly))
by Neal FordAnyone who develops software for a living needs a proven way to produce it better, faster, and cheaper. The Productive Programmer offers critical timesaving and productivity tools that you can adopt right away, no matter what platform you use. Master developer Neal Ford not only offers advice on the mechanics of productivity-how to work smarter, spurn interruptions, get the most out your computer, and avoid repetition-he also details valuable practices that will help you elude common traps, improve your code, and become more valuable to your team. You'll learn to:Write the test before you write the codeManage the lifecycle of your objects fastidiouslyBuild only what you need now, not what you might need laterApply ancient philosophies to software developmentQuestion authority, rather than blindly adhere to standardsMake hard things easier and impossible things possible through meta-programmingBe sure all code within a method is at the same level of abstractionPick the right editor and assemble the best tools for the jobThis isn't theory, but the fruits of Ford's real-world experience as an Application Architect at the global IT consultancy ThoughtWorks. Whether you're a beginner or a pro with years of experience, you'll improve your work and your career with the simple and straightforward principles in The Productive Programmer.