Monday, November 30, 2009

Benjamin Franklin or Building More Effective Unions

Benjamin Franklin: Writings (The Autobiography, Poor Richard's Almanack, Bagatelles, Pamphlets, Essays, & Letters) (Library of America)

Author: Benjamin Franklin

The Library of America is dedicated to publishing America's best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts. Hailed as the "finest-looking, longest-lasting editions ever made" (The New Republic), Library of America volumes make a fine gift for any occasion. Now, with exactly one hundred volumes to choose from, there is a perfect gift for everyone.

Library Journal

The Library of America has produced a witty contribution to the celebration of its own fifth anniversary and the anniversary of the United States Constitution. Included are authoritative versions of Franklin's best-known writings (e.g., The Autobiography ), as well as 57 new attributions. Also included are all prefaces and maxims from the full run of Poor Richard's Almanack , plus a generous and prudent selection of other writings, both personal and public. The material is arranged by the eras of Franklin's long life. Lemay's erudite notes, an excellent index, and the volume's acid-free paper all attest to admirable publishing standards. For most libraries. Sally Linden, Wellesley Coll. Lib., Mass .

School Library Journal

YA A collection of well-known Franklin writings as well as 57 newly attributed pieces, all arranged by period and place. High-school students of American history and literature will appreciate this comprehensive collection.



New interesting book: LEX and YACC or C Standard Library Practical Tips

Building More Effective Unions

Author: Paul F Clark

Employers have long turned to behavioral science for guidance on making their organizations more effective. Labor scholar Paul F. Clark believes union leaders should also take advantage of the valuable discoveries made in this field, and he offers a straightforward account of how they can do so.

Much of the behavioral science research relevant to unions relies on complex statistical analyses and is disseminated through scholarly journals. This clearly written book makes the findings of behavioral science accessible to those committed to building a stronger labor movement. It describes behavioral science's understanding of such topics as organizational commitment and member participation and suggests how this knowledge can best be applied to unions.

Building More Effective Unions offers practical strategies unions can use to their advantage in a number of areas, including:

  • Union participation
  • Organization and retention
  • Union orientation and socialization
  • Political action
  • Grievance procedures
  • Information and communications
  • Union image-building
  • Union culture
  • Union leadership
The book features examples of how unions and their leaders have benefited from putting the principles of behavioral science into practice.

About the Author:
Paul F. Clark is Associate Professor of Labor Studies and Industrial Relations at Pennsylvania State University. He has worked on labor education programs and research projects with many national and local unions over the last twenty years. He is the author of The Miners' Fight for Democracy: Arnold Miller and the Reform of the United Mine Workers.



Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Introduction
List of Union Acronyms
Ch. 1Behavioral Science and Union Effectiveness1
Ch. 2Union Participation: A Model14
Ch. 3Organizing and Retaining Members32
Ch. 4Union Member Orientation and Socialization53
Ch. 5Political Action71
Ch. 6Grievance Procedures90
Ch. 7Information and Communication Strategies106
Ch. 8Union Image-Building125
Ch. 9Union Culture144
Ch. 10Union Leadership168
Ch. 11Conclusion187
References193
Index205

Sunday, November 29, 2009

The US Constitution for Everyone or Chaos Point

The U.S. Constitution for Everyone

Author: Jerome Agel

History comes alive-in this illustrated guide to the Constitution and all 27 Amendments.

* Which state refused to send a delegation to the Constitutional Convention?
* Why was the Convention held in secret, with sentries at the door?
* What are the 27 Amendments?

The U.S. Constitution for Everyone relates how the "traitorous" Founding Fatherswrote the nation's supreme laws and how the thirteen Disunited States became a more perfect Union. A must for students of American history and for everyone who'd like to know more about the supreme laws of our nation.

Author Biography: Jerome Agel has written and produced more than 50 major books, including collaborations with Carl Sagan, Stanley Kubrick, Marshall McLuhan and R. Buckminster Fuller.

Author Biography: Mort Gerberg is a cartoonist and author who has written and illustrated 36 books.



Books about: Forgotten Man or The Goal

Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads

Author: Ervin Laszlo

Breakdown or Breakthrough?

We are at a critical juncture in history, a "decision-window" where we face the danger of global collapse--or the opportunity for global renewal. Written by Ervin Laszlo, the founder of systems philosophy and general evolution theory, The Chaos Point provides a concise overview of the present world situation, showing where we are and how we got here.

According to Laszlo, for the next six to seven years--roughly until the end of 2012--we have the opportunity to head off trends that would lead to a critical tipping point. Beyond this "chaos point," we either evolve to a safer, more sustainable world, or the social, economic, and ecological systems that frame our life become overstressed and break down.

The 2012 chaos point need not be the end of the world, but it will certainly be the end of the kind of world we have created. In today's decision-window, we have a unique chance to break through to a new world. This pioneering book tells us what this new world can look like and how each of us can help to achieve it.

The Chaos Point is a healing book. It not only identifies the nature of the malady every person and every society now suffers from, but offers a cure.



Saturday, November 28, 2009

Order of the Deaths Head or Suicide of Reason

Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS

Author: Heinz Hohn

"A monumental achievement." (The New York Times Book Review)

The SS was the terror of Europe. Swearing eternal allegiance to Adolf Hitler, it infiltrated every aspect of German life and was responsible for the deaths of millions. This gripping history recounts the strange and, at times, absurd true story of Hitler's SS. It exposes an organization that was not directed by some devilishly efficient system but was the product of accident, inevitability, and the random convergence of criminals, social climbers, and romantics. Above all, this eye-opening book describes in fascinating detail the chaotic political conditions that allowed the SS-despite rivalries and bizarre conditions-to assume and exercise unaccountable power.

Author Biography: Heinz Hљhne, a journalist specializing in Nazi and intelligence history, washead of the Foreign News Department at Der Spiegel. He has authored several books.



Go to: Energía, Ambiente, y Cambio climático

Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West

Author: Lee Harris

Whether by choice or not, the West finds itself in a low-grade yet bitter war with Islamic fanaticism. It is a war the West is singularly ill equipped to fight. The foe is resistant to any of the normal methods of conflict resolution such as negotiation, economic sanctions, or conventional armed confrontation. The Suicide of Reason shows how modern liberal societies, whose political theories are born of the Enlightenment, are unfamiliar with the nature o mass fanaticism. The West can only think of fanaticism as a social pathology, a failure to modernize, rather than as what it is: a variety of social order that is not only fully viable in the modern world but also willing to use weapons to which the West is uniquely vulnerable. A governing philosophy based on reason, tolerance, and consensus cannot defend itself against a strategy of ruthless violence without being radically transformed-or destroyed. Extraordinarily original and thought-provoking, The Suicide of Reason explains the logic of fanatical movements from the Crusades through Nazism to radical Islam; describes how the Enlightenment overcame fanatical thinking in the West; shows why most Western attempts to address the problem are doomed to fail; and offers strategies by which liberal internationalism can defend itself without becoming a mirror of the tribal forces it is trying to defeat.

The New York Times - Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Several authors have published books on radical Islam's threat to the West since that shocking morning in September six years ago. With The Suicide of Reason, Lee Harris joins their ranks. But he distinguishes himself by going further than most of his counterparts: he considers the very worst possibility—the destruction of the West by radical Islam. There is a sense of urgency in his writing, a desire to shake awake the leaders of the West, to confront them with their failure to understand that they are engaged in a war with an adversary who fights by the law of the jungle…Harris's book is so engaging that it is difficult to put down, and its haunting assessments make it difficult for a reader to sleep at night.

Sandra Collins - Library Journal

Extremist Islam today, says Harris, represents the revival of earlier fanatical movements-the Crusades, Hitler's Nazis, Stalinist Russia. Harris (Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History) defines a fanatic as "someone who is willing to make a sacrifice in his own self-interest for something outside himself." All such zealous movements, fueled by righteous belief in a cause or an idea, directly threaten the integrity of Western rationalism and reason, he says. He intends here to challenge as ill-conceived Western culture's efforts to grapple with fanatical Islam. Accessible in thought and language, his work presents compelling historical, intellectual, and political arguments. The author contends, for example, that the West is experiencing a leadership crisis because political parties, rather than popular acclaim, supply potential candidates. Harris's thesis is that "an exaggerated and hopelessly unrealistic overestimation of the power of reason alone to settle differences and prevent conflict" amounts to a "suicide of reason," exemplified by the U.S. invasion of Iraq and America's desire to export liberal democracy to the Islamic world. Though his defense of Iran's President Ahmadinejad is more than a bit troubling, this is a thought-provoking and insightful book sure to challenge debate. Recommended.



Table of Contents:
Preface     ix
Part 1
Fanaticism and the Myth of Modernity     3
The Denial of Fanaticism     15
Fanaticism and Resentment     29
The End of History?     39
Clash or Crash?     55
The Fanaticism of Reason     61
Reason, Fanaticism, and the Struggle for Existence
Demystifying Reason     79
Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Reason     105
The Origins of Popular Cultures of Reason
Condorcet's Tenth Stage     137
Reason and Autonomy     157
Liberal Exceptionalism     165
The Challenge of Islamic Fanaticism
The Logic of Fanaticism     205
The Legacy and Future of Jihad     215
Part 5
Can Carpe Diem Societies Survive?     241
Our New World Disorder     253
Conclusion     265
Index     281

Thursday, November 26, 2009

The Soviet Union and the June 1967 Six Day War or Handbook of Alternative Fuel Technologies

The Soviet Union and the June 1967 Six Day War

Author: Yaacov Roi

Why did the Soviet Union spark war in 1967 between Israel and the Arab states by falsely informing Syria and Egypt that Israel was massing troops on the Syrian border? Based on newly available archival sources, The Soviet Union and the June 1967 Six Day War answers this controversial question more fully than ever before. Directly opposing the thesis of the recently published Foxbats over Dimona by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez, the contributors to this volume argue that Moscow had absolutely no intention of starting a war. The Soviet Union's reason for involvement in the region had more to do with enhancing its own status as a Cold War power than any desire for particular outcomes for Syria and Egypt.

In addition to assessing Soviet involvement in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli Six Day War, this book covers the USSR's relations with Syria and Egypt, Soviet aims, U.S. and Israeli perceptions of Soviet involvement, Soviet intervention in the Egyptian-Israeli War of Attrition (1969-70), and the impact of the conflicts on Soviet-Jewish attitudes. This book as a whole demonstrates how the Soviet Union's actions gave little consideration to the long- or mid-term consequences of their policy, and how firing the first shot compelled them to react to events.



Table of Contents:

Preface James G. Hershberg Hershberg, James G.

Introduction Yaacov Ro'i Ro'i, Yaacov

1 Soviet Policy toward the Six Day War through the Prism of Moscow's Relations with Egypt and Syria Yaacov Ro'i Ro'i, Yaacov 1

2 The Outbreak of the June 1967 War in Light of Soviet Documentation Boris Morozov Morozov, Boris 43

3 A Paper Bear: Similarities and Contrasts in Soviet Involvement in the 1956 and 1967 Wars Yair Even Even, Yair 65

4 American Perceptions of the Soviet Threat before and during the Six Day War Jeremi Suri Suri, Jeremi 102

5 The Israeli Evaluation of the Soviet Position on the Eve of the Six Day War Shaul Shay Shay, Shaul 122

6 The Soviet Naval Presence in the Mediterranean at the Time of the Six Day War Mikhail Monakov Monakov, Mikhail 144

7 Eastern Europe and the Six Day War: The Case of Bulgaria Jordan Baev Baev, Jordan 172

8 The "Seventh Day" of the Six Day War: The Soviet Intervention in the War of Attrition (1969-1970) Dima P. Adamsky Adamsky, Dima P. 198

9 The Soviet Jewish Reaction to the Six Day War Yaacov Ro'i Ro'i, Yaacov 251

Conclusions Yaacov Ro'i Ro'i, Yaacov Dima P. Adamsky Adamsky, Dima P. 268

Appendix Selected Documents 281

Contributors 355

Index 357

Read also Spa Manicuring or View from the Cliff

Handbook of Alternative Fuel Technologies

Author: Sunggyu Le

In addition to enabling a clean and energy efficient future, alternative fuel sources are fast becoming a necessity for meeting today's growing demands for low-cost and convenient energy. The Handbook of Alternative Fuel Technologies offers a thorough guide to the science and available technologies for developing alternatives to petroleum fuel sources and petrochemical feedstocks. This handbook focuses on the different intermediates and raw material options that can generate energy output and products equivalent to conventional petroleum sources. It presents short-term options for clean alternative energy sources that complement the development of long-term sustainable energy infrastructures. Detailing the chemical processes for each technology, the text assesses the environmental impact, benefits, and performance of the various processes and fuel products. It also summarizes processing and transportation issues, safety concerns, regulations, and other practical considerations associated with alternative fuels. After presenting a global energy overview, the book describes clean and alternative methods of producing liquid fuels, crude oil, syngas, and methanol from coal, coal slurry, natural gas, resids, oil sand bitumen, and oil shale. It details the chemical reaction mechanisms, biological processes, and unit operations for converting corn, lignocellulosic materials, and biomass into alcoholic fuels. It also covers the processes and thermodynamics of converting various waste materials into energy. The final chapters discuss the science, benefits, and applications of geothermal energy, nuclear energy, and fuel cells. Blending up-to-date technical information with current trendanalyses and feasible implementation strategies, the Handbook of Alternative Fuel Technologies provides an ideal foundation for scientists, engineers, and policymakers interested in developing alternative energy sources.



Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Devils Highway or How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution

Devil's Highway: A True Story

Author: Luis Alberto Urrea

"In May 2001, a group of men attempted to cross the border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadliest region of the continent, a place called the Devil's Highway. Fathers and sons, brothers and strangers, entered a desert so harsh and desolate that even the Border Patrol is afraid to travel through it. Twelve came back out." Now, Luis Alberto Urrea tells the story of this modern odyssey. He takes us back to the small towns and unpaved cities south of the border, where the poor fall prey to dreams of a better life and the sinister promises of smugglers. We meet the men who will decide to make the crossing along the Devil's Highway and, on the other side of the border, the men who are ready to prevent them from reaching their destination. Urrea reveals exactly what happened when the twenty-six headed into the wasteland, and how they were brutally betrayed by the one man they had trusted most. And from that betrayal came the inferno, a descent into a world of cactus spines, labyrinths of sand, mountains shaped like the teeth of a shark, and a screaming sun so intense that even at midnight the temperature only drops to 97 degrees. And yet, the men would not give up. The Devil's Highway is a story of astonishing courage and strength, of an epic battle against circumstance. These twenty-six men would look the Devil in the eyes - and some of them would not blink.

The Washington Post

Urrea, a poet and novelist who is also a dogged reporter on the border wars, is keenly attuned to such eloquent and awful ironies and uses them to punctuate the The Devil's Highway, a painstaking, unsentimental and oddly lyrical chronology of the traveling party's horrific trek through the Sonora. — Chris Lehmann

Publishers Weekly

In May 2001, 26 Mexican men scrambled across the border and into an area of the Arizona desert known as the Devil's Highway. Only 12 made it safely across. American Book Award-winning writer and poet Urrea (Across the Wire; Six Kinds of Sky; etc.), who was born in Tijuana and now lives outside Chicago, tracks the paths those men took from their home state of Veracruz all the way norte. Their enemies were many: the U.S. Border Patrol ("La Migra"); gung-ho gringo vigilantes bent on taking the law into their own hands; the Mexican Federales; rattlesnakes; severe hypothermia and the remorseless sun, a "110 degree nightmare" that dried their bodies and pounded their brains. In artful yet uncomplicated prose, Urrea captivatingly tells how a dozen men squeezed by to safety, and how 14 others whom the media labeled the Yuma 14 did not. But while many point to the group's smugglers (known as coyotes) as the prime villains of the tragedy, Urrea unloads on, in the words of one Mexican consul, "the politics of stupidity that rules both sides of the border." Mexican and U.S. border policy is backward, Urrea finds, and it does little to stem the flow of immigrants. Since the policy results in Mexicans making the crossing in increasingly forbidding areas, it contributes to the conditions that kill those who attempt it. Confident and full of righteous rage, Urrea's story is a well-crafted m lange of first-person testimony, geographic history, cultural and economic analysis, poetry and an indictment of immigration policy. It may not directly influence the forces behind the U.S.'s southern border travesties, but it does give names and identities to the faceless and maligned "wetbacks" and "pollos," and highlights the brutality and unsustainable nature of the many walls separating the two countries. Maps not seen by PW. (Apr. 2) Forecast: Urrea has received coverage for his previous writing projects in numerous arts-related publications and has a loyal fan base. A six-city author tour and radio interviews will expand his audience further. The book has been optioned as the debut movie of Tucson-based Creative Dreams Inc. and is scheduled to begin filming in October 2004. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This is a book about death and dying along the Mexico-Arizona border-the Devil's Highway. It is not a simple book but instead a powerful account of 26 men from Veracruz, Mexico, who tried to enter the United States illegally in May 2001; 14 died in the Southwest desert as a consequence. Urrea (Wandering Times; Across the Wire) tells the story in the vernacular, adding to the impact of a tragedy that could have been averted. All of the men fell victim to the scalding sun and to dehydration, but the real culprits were the "coyotes" (or middle men) who recruited the Mexicans, taking their money with a promise of jobs in Los Estados Unidos, and the runners who led the crossing. Twelve of the men survived, providing Urrea with testimony of what has been a serious problem in Mexican-U.S. relations-exacerbated by the events of 9/11. Highly recommended for all libraries.-Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., AL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The rueful, fate-wracked tale of 26 men who tried to cross into the US from Mexico but chose the wrong time, place, and guide. More than half would die, turned to cinder in the sun-blasted desert of southern Arizona. American Book Award-winner Urrea (Wandering Time, 1999, etc.) tells this grim story wonderfully; like the Border Patrol's trackers, he cuts back and forth, looking for signs, following tracks wherever they might lead. This means relating the various biographies of the "walkers" themselves and discovering what drove them north, from the desire for a new life to a season's work in the orange groves to a job putting a new roof on a house. It means delving into the disastrous Mexican state, with its "catastrophic political malfeasance that forced the walkers to flee their homes and bake to death in the western desert." Urrea notes the shift in tactics, thanks to the Border Patrol's extremely effective interdiction and prevention policies, which now compel guides to take walkers over the most remote and dangerous routes. They will often be abandoned if the going gets too tough, as happened here. Urrea spends time in the ratty border hotels and towns ("Sonoita smells like bad fruit and sewage. Blue clouds of exhaust leak from the dying cars"), and he spends time with the Patrol, especially the trackers, who can read so much from a footprint that it's scary. But not as scary as hyperthermia and its ugly progress: the first stages of stress and fatigue, on through syncope and cramps, to the dreadful sludge of exhaustion and stroke. This is not the peaceful sleep-death brought on by freezing; it's reeling and raging, and when a man's son dies in his arms, "the father lurched away intothe desert, away from the trees, crying out in despair." A horrendous story told with bitter skill, highlighting the whole sordid, greedy mess that attends illegal broader crossings. Agent: Sandy Dijkstra/Sandra Dijkstra Agency



Read also Comunicazioni di Digitahi

How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution

Author: Richard A Epstein

In this provocative book, Richard Epstein shows how Progressives saw in constitutional interpretation an opportunity to advance their political agenda. They transformed a Constitution that reflected the influence of John Lock and James Madison into one that reflected the ideas of the leading intellectuals of their own time. As a result, they rewrote, because they did not understand, key provisions of the constitutional text.



Table of Contents:
Preface : why we must reopen closed debates
1Introduction1
2The classical liberal synthesis14
AFirst principles14
BThe old court federalism19
CEconomic liberties and property rights35
3The progressive era52
AFederalism revisited53
BIndividual rights77
4The post-progressive period111
5Progressivism today117