Take Back the Center

Take Back the Center
Author: Peter S. Wenz
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2012-08-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 026230502X

Reality-based arguments against right-wing fantasies: the case for reducing income inequality, rebuilding our infrastructure, investing in education, and putting people back to work. Midcentury America was governed from the center, a bipartisan consensus of politicians and public opinion that supported government spending on education, the construction of a vast network of interstate highways, healthcare for senior citizens, and environmental protection. These projects were paid for by a steeply progressive tax code, with a top tax rate at one point during the Republican Eisenhower administration of 91 percent. Today, a similar agenda of government action (and progressive taxation) would be portrayed as dangerously left wing. At the same time, radically anti-government and anti-tax opinions (with no evidence to support them) are considered part of the mainstream. In Take Back the Center, Peter Wenz makes the case for a sane, reality-based politics that reclaims the center for progressive policies. The key, he argues, is taxing the wealthy at higher rates. The tax rate for the wealthiest Americans has declined from the mid-twentieth-century high of 91 percent to a twenty-first-century low of 36 percent—even as social programs are gutted and the gap betweeen rich and poor widens dramatically. Ever since Ronald Reagan famously declared that government was the problem and not the solution, conservatives have had an all-purpose answer to any question: smaller government and lower taxes. Wenz offers an impassioned counterargument. He explains the justice of raising the top tax rates significantly, making a case for less income inequality (and countering society's worship of the wealthy), and he offers suggestions for how to spend the increased tax revenues: K-12 education, tuition relief, transportation and energy infrastructure, and universal health care. Armed with Wenz's evidence-driven arguments, progressives can position themselves where they belong: in the mainstream of American politics and at the center of American political conversations, helping their country address a precipitous decline in equality and quality of life.

Take Back the Economy

Take Back the Economy
Author: J. K. Gibson-Graham
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2013-05-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0816684456

In the wake of economic crisis on a global scale, more and more people are reconsidering their role in the economy and wondering what they can do to make it work better for humanity and the planet. In this innovative book, J. K. Gibson-Graham, Jenny Cameron, and Stephen Healy contribute complex understandings of economics in practical terms: what can we do right now, in our own communities, to make a difference? Full of exercises, thinking tools, and inspiring examples from around the world, Take Back the Economy shows how people can implement small-scale changes in their own lives to create ethical economies. There is no manifesto here, no one prescribed model; rather, readers are encouraged and taught how to take back the economy in ways appropriate for their own communities and context, using what they already have at hand. Take Back the Economy dismantles the idea that the economy is separate from us and best comprehended by experts. Instead, the authors demonstrate that the economy is the outcome of the decisions and efforts we make every day. The economy is thus reframed as a space of ethical action—something we can shape and alter according to what is best for the well-being of people and the planet. The book explores what people are already doing to build ethical economies, presenting these deeds as mutual concerns: What is necessary for survival, and what do we do with the surplus produced beyond what will fulfill basic needs? What do we consume, and how do we preserve and replenish the commons—those resources that can be shared to maintain all? And finally, how can we invest in a future worth living in? Suitable for activists and students alike, Take Back the Economy will be of interest to anyone seeking a more just, sustainable, and equitable world.

Take Back the Land

Take Back the Land
Author: Max Rameau
Publisher: Nia Press
Total Pages: 134
Release: 2008
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1434845567

On October 23, 2006, a group of activists brought land struggle to the US. After seizing public land in Liberty City, FL, the Umoja Village Shantytown was born.

How to Draft a Pattern

How to Draft a Pattern
Author: Shigeko Rustin
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2015-01-09
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 1499053886

The Essential Guide to Custom Design This book, a How To manual, provides properly sequenced techniques from the mid 1800's or earlier, when all garments were made by hand, which reflected expert craftsmanship in the process as well as appearance. The concepts of wearing clothing and being tastefully dressed are both universal and ancient, yet modern. Access to quality fabrics and well constructed garments with timeless lines was often reserved for the wealthy, powerful and/or socialites. This means the taste and desire of larger parts of society went generally ignored. Some form and use of apparel has been a perpetual need in the human experience, throughout most cultures around the globe. Regardless of the status, career, body proportion or geographical locationyou now have access. The wise person asks for insight. In a day gone by, they would have called it redeeming the time. It means buying up the opportunities and possibilities unique to each season of ones life. How to Draft a Pattern provides that insight. Why Wait? The techniques for properly measuring the human body are illustrated in crystal clear detail to ensure the proper fit of any garment you construct.

I Wasn't Even Here

I Wasn't Even Here
Author: Tom Stapleton
Publisher: Author House
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2014-08-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1496930282

Clay Easter is sixty-three-year-old disabled man whose wife leaves him. While the news doesn't devastate him, it does mean some big changes are coming. He works as a copy editor and part-time musician, and he begins to find solace and refuge by practicing Zen. He soon finds out his wife has died, and that his disability is worsening. He attends a five-day Zen retreat that spurs not only enlightenment, but a decision that will put his life on a completely different track.

If I Never Get Back

If I Never Get Back
Author: Darryl Brock
Publisher: Frog Books
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2007-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781583941874

Time travel meets baseball in this “grand adventure” about a modern-day reporter who witnesses the birth of America’s favorite pastime (The Washington Times) Contemporary reporter Sam Fowler is stuck in a dull job and a failing marriage when he is suddenly transported back to the summer of 1869. After a wrenching period of adjustment, he feels rejuvenated by his involvement with the nation’s first pro baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. But American sports isn't the only thing to undergo a major transformation—Sam himself starts to change as he faces life-threatening 19th-century challenges on and off the baseball diamond. With the support of his fellow ballplayers and the lovely Caitlin O'Neill, will he regain the sense of family he desperately needs? Darryl Brock masterfully evokes post-Civil War America—its smoky cities and transcontinental railroad, its dance halls and parlour houses, its financial booms and busts. Equally appealing to sports fans and anyone who appreciates a well-told story, If I Never Get Back is a literary home run that "grabs you from line one on page one and never lets go" (San Francisco Chronicle).

DIANE D

DIANE D
Author: Doris Miller
Publisher: Hill Publications
Total Pages: 650
Release: 2013-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0966205537

DIANE D The Musical Drama is a musical, drama, psychological, thriller about a family owned Charity and Entertainment Organization. This story involves 3 generations of the Diaz-Davidson family. The family's Charity and Entertainment Organization performs shows around the country and the world to raise money for charity. DIANE D The Musical Drama involves fistfights, violent tempers, arrests, superhuman strength, jail time, hospitalizations and mental illness. The lead character of this story is a young, gorgeous, sexy, attractive, half-black/half-Dominican female named Diane Denise Brown as known as Diane D. Diane D is around 24 years old. She was born in the Dominican Republic. She now lives in New York with her family and is married to Michael, a handsome black man from New York. Diane D is a professional gymnast, a professional dancer, tap dancer and a singer. She is also a personal trainer and has some background skills in the martial arts. She is a very athletic person. She also works in a hospital. On her spare time, she rides motorcycles with her Jamaican cousin Dana of ‘DANGEROUS DANA‘. Diane D’s parents, Mary and Barry and Mary’s parents, Margarita and Tomas, own and run a Charity and Entertainment Organization which was started by Margarita and Tomas back in the Dominican Republic. Diane D sings and dances on stage for her parents and grandparents’ Charity and Entertainment Organization. Her two brothers Nicolas and Mickey sing and play guitars for their family‘s organization and her husband Michael is the leader of a band that plays for the organization. The Charity and Entertainment Organization also have an All-Boys Baseball Team, an All-Boys Basketball Team, an All-Boys Dirt Bike Competition Team and an All-Boys Break Dance Team which includes around 60 boys altogether ranging from ages 10 - 14 from different backgrounds and cultures. The Charity and Entertainment Organization’s All-Boys Teams also includes a set of strikingly handsome identical twin hunks Mike and Mitch who are 12-years old. Mike and Mitch are half-white and half-Puerto Rican. They are tough. They are juvenile delinquents. They constantly get into fights with other boys. Their break dance team do break dance performances and hip-hop dancing. They also play sports with the Charity and Entertainment Organization’s All-Boys Teams like baseball, basketball and ride in the dirt motorbike competitions. They have tween girls and girls of all ages screaming for them all the time. They are young heartthrobs. Older girls even admire them. Mike and Mitch usually ignore their female admires. They have no interest in girls at the moment. They just want to be boys, hang with other boys and do boy things. Diane D, her brothers and her husband do other charity events with their family’s organization, but there is a dark side to Diane D. She has a very bad temper. She can be very violent and vicious when she is pushed. She can be a physically strong person, especially when angry, just like her cousin Dana. Diane D would get into a violent fit and vicious rage under certain circumstances. She loses her cool when she catches two of her back-up dancers drinking. She loses her cool on a TV Talk Show when male audience members ask her personal questions. She loses her cool and threatens her Jamaican lover’s girlfriend over the telephone telling the young woman that she’s going to come to her place of residence. The young woman becomes shocked when she hears Diane D describing her place of residence. She becomes horrified to discover that Diane D knows exactly where she lives and maybe even knows how she looks like, because as far as the young woman knows, Diane D has never seen or met her before, or has she. Diane D goes man-hunting for a date for a High School Dance she is suppose to appear at and perform. When one of the men finally agrees to be Diane D’s date, his wife finds out about it. She goes and looks for Diane D. When she finds Diane D, she angrily confronts Diane D! She then pays a price for it. Diane D and her family appear at an elementary school one night so that Diane D can perform for a charity case there. After Diane D’s singing performance inside a crowded auditorium is over, a chubby little black boy named Marcus approaches her. He brings Diane D to a private area in the school and tells Diane D that there is no charity case in the school. He confesses to Diane D that there was never a charity case at the school that the entire charity case was all a hoax planned by him and his brother. He tells Diane D that he and his brother tricked her and her family into thinking that there was a charity case at the school just so that she can appear there and perform. Diane D becomes shocked when she realize that there was never a charity case at the school. She is shocked when she realize that she and her family had been tricked into coming to the school. She starts to become sad. She then becomes angry. She then goes crazy and terrorizes the little boy right inside the school!