Until the watershed leak of top-secret documents by Edward Snowden to the Guardian UK and the Washington Post, most Americans did not realize the extent to which our government is actively acquiring personal information from telecommunications companies and other corporations. As made startlingly clear, the National Security Agency (NSA) has collected information on every phone call Americans have made over the past seven years. In that same time, the NSA and the FBI have gained the ability to access emails, photos, audio and video chats, and additional content from Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, YouTube, Skype, Apple, and others, allegedly in order to track foreign targets.
In Spying on Democracy, National Lawyers Guild Executive Director Heidi Boghosian documents the disturbing increase in surveillance of ordinary citizens and the danger it poses to our privacy, our civil liberties, and to the future of democracy itself. Boghosian reveals how technology is being used to categorize and monitor people based on their associations, their movements, their purchases, and their perceived political beliefs. She shows how corporations and government intelligence agencies mine data from sources as diverse as surveillance cameras and unmanned drones to iris scans and medical records, while combing websites, email, phone records and social media for resale to third parties, including U.S. intelligence agencies.
The ACLU's Michael German says of the examples shown in Boghosian's book, "this unrestrained spying is inevitably used to suppress the most essential tools of democracy: the press, political activists, civil rights advocates and conscientious insiders who blow the whistle on corporate malfeasance and government abuse." Boghosian adds, “If the trend is permitted to continue, we will soon live in a society where nothing is confidential, no information is really secure, and our civil liberties are under constant surveillance and control.” Spying on Democracy is a timely, invaluable, and accessible primer for anyone concerned with protecting privacy, freedom, and the U.S. Constitution.
Australia’s new $50 billion industry—coal seam gas—carries unprecedented environmental risks, but it could be the path to energy salvation by being cleaner than coal, safer than nuclear energy, and a complement to renewables. While big oil and gas companies believe Australia could be the biggest liquid natural gas exporter in the world, farmers and environmentalists are united in their opposition to coal seam gas extraction from the nation's most fertile agricultural lands. Does interfering with thousands of coal seam gas wells poison food resources? Does coal seam gas really aid in tackling climate change? Where will they drill next? Visiting drill sites, boardrooms, pipelines, parliamentary offices, and farm gate protests, this book demonstrates how coal seam gas extraction may be one boom that is happening too fast.
In the vein of Dave Cullen's Columbine, the first comprehensive account of the Sandy Hook tragedy--with exclusive new reporting that chronicles the horrific events of December 14, 2012, including new insight into the dark mind of gunman Adam Lanza.
Twenty-six people dead; twenty of them schoolchildren between the ages of six and seven. The world mourned the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in December 2012. Now, here is the startling, comprehensive look at this tragedy, and into the mind of the unstable killer, Adam Lanza.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews and a decade's worth of emails from Lanza's mother to close friends that chronicled his slow slide into mental illness, Newtown pieces together the perfect storm that led to this unspeakable act of violence that shattered so many lives.
Newtown explores the two central theories that have permeated the media since the attack: some claim Lanza suffered from severe mental illness, while others insist that, far from being a random act of insanity, this was a meticulously thought out, premeditated attack at least two years in the making by a violent video-gamer so obsessed with "glory kills" and researching mass murderers that he was willing to go to any length to attain the top score. Lanza's dark descent from a young boy with adjustment disorders to a calculating killer is interwoven with the Newtown massacre as it unfolded at the time, told from the points of view of eye witnesses, survivors, parents of victims, first responders, and Adam's relatives. A definitive account of a tragedy that shook a nation, Newtown features exclusive material including initial misinformation reported by the media and commentary on how this catastrophic event became a lightning rod for political agendas, much like Columbine did more than a decade ago.
Something essential is missing from modern life. Many who’ve turned away from religious institutions—and others who have lived wholly without religion—hunger for more than what contemporary secular life has to offer but are reluctant to follow organized religion’s strict and often inflexible path to spirituality. In A Religion of One’s Own, bestselling author and former monk Thomas Moore explores the myriad possibilities of creating a personal spiritual style, either inside or outside formal religion.
Two decades ago, Moore’s Care of the Soul touched a chord with millions of readers yearning to integrate spirituality into their everyday lives. In A Religion of One’s Own, Moore expands on the topics he first explored shortly after leaving the monastery. He recounts the benefits of contemplative living that he learned during his twelve years as a monk but also the more original and imaginative spirituality that he later developed and embraced in his secular life. Here, he shares stories of others who are creating their own path: a former football player now on a spiritual quest with the Pueblo Indians, a friend who makes a meditative practice of floral arrangements, and a well-known classical pianist whose audiences sometimes describe having a mystical experience while listening to her performances. Moore weaves their experiences with the wisdom of philosophers, writers, and artists who have rejected materialism and infused their secular lives with transcendence.
At a time when so many feel disillusioned with or detached from organized religion yet long for a way to move beyond an exclusively materialistic, rational lifestyle, A Religion of One’s Own points the way to creating an amplified inner life and a world of greater purpose, meaning, and reflection.
Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new book he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again.
From the frigid trans-Siberian railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic MagLev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man's relationship with trains. Zoellner examines both the mechanics of the rails and their engines and how they helped societies evolve. Not only do trains transport people and goods in an efficient manner, but they also reduce pollution and dependency upon oil. Zoellner also considers America's culture of ambivalence to mass transit, using the perpetually stalled line between Los Angeles and San Francisco as a case study in bureaucracy and public indifference. Train presents an entertaining history of railway travel around the world, while offering a serious and impassioned case for the future of train travel.
Why does knitting occupy a place in the hearts of so many writers? What is so magical and transformative about yarn and needles? How does knitting help us get through life-changing events and inspire joy? In Knitting Yarns, Ann Hood has collected original essays by twenty-seven writers including Anita Shreve, Elizabeth Berg, Ann Patchett, and Barbara Kingsolver. Knitting Yarns tells stories about how knitting healed, challenged, or helped these writers to grow. Andre Dubus III tells how knitting a Christmas gift for his blind aunt helped him knit an understanding with his girlfriend. Kaylie Jones finds the woman who cared for her as a child by using knitting to heal old wounds. Sue Grafton writes about her passion for knitting. And knitting goddess Helen Bingham has created five original patterns for the anthology.
Poignant, funny, and moving, Knitting Yarns is sure to delight knitting enthusiasts and lovers of literature alike.
With more than 130 illustrations, The Photographed Cat is both an archive and an analytical exploration of the close relationships between Americans and their cats during a period that is significant for photography and for modern understandings of animals as pets. This volume examines the cultural implications of feline companions while also celebrating the intimacy and joys of pets and family photographs. In seven thematic sections, Arluke and Rolfe engage with the collection of antique images as representations of real relationships and of ideal relationships, noting the cultural trends and tropes that occur throughout this increasingly popular practice. Whether as surrogate children, mascots, or companions to women, cats are part of modern American life and visual culture.
Entertaining, smart, and filled with a collector's trove of wonderful images, The Photographed Cat pays homage to the surprising range of relationships we have with cats and offers thoughtful consideration of the ways in which we represent them.
Why Cows Need Names follows one young Amish family as they dream about and then struggle to establish a profitable and quintessentially American small farm. The story starts with Eli Gingerich's first timid phone call to author Randy James, the county agricultural agent in Ohio's Geauga Amish Settlement - the fourth-largest Amish settlement in the world - and traces the family's progress over the next five years. Through gentle dialogue and true stories, James captures the challenges of creating a simple business plan that will lead to the family's radiant success or dismal failure. As the narrative unfolds, readers get a rare glimpse into what it's like to work in the fields with draft horses; in the barn with cows, calves, children, and Chip the family dog; or to sit at the table talking with family and friends over a noontime meal. A picture emerges of how quietly living a shared goal and doing without during hard times can strengthen families and provide an appreciation for what is truly important in life.
In addition to the business aspects and day-to-day farm activities, James interweaves commentary on our complex relationships with animals. The stark differences in the way animals are treated and valued in agribusinesses versus on small family farms is a recurring theme, as is debunking the myth that bigger is always better in American agriculture.
Surrounded by a factory-farm world, the Gingerich family employs a business model that flatly rejects the dogma of economies of scale and instead focuses on the diversity, flexibility, and efficiency that only a small family farm can capture. Why Cows Need Names provides a partial roadmap, not only for other small farms but for the many thousands of family businesses that are created each year and largely ignored in our national psyche. It will appeal to anyone interested in business management, our food supply, animal welfare, and Amish family life.
Julian Barnes, author of the Man Booker Prize–winning novel The Sense of an Ending, gives us his most powerfully moving book yet, beginning in the nineteenth century and leading seamlessly into an entirely personal account of loss—making Levels of Life an immediate classic on the subject of grief.
Levels of Life is a book about ballooning, photography, love and loss; about putting two things, and two people, together, and about tearing them apart. One of the judges who awarded Barnes the 2011 Booker Prize described him as “an unparalleled magus of the heart.” This book confirms that opinion.
What does the news do to our brains, our souls, and our views of one another?
We spend an inordinate amount of time checking on it. It molds how we view reality, we’re increasingly addicted to it on our luminous gadgets, we check it every morning when we wake up and every evening before we sleep — and yet the news has rarely been the focus of an accessible, serious, saleable, book-length study. Until now.
Mixing snippets of current news with philosophical reflections, The News will blend the timeless with the contemporary, and bring the wisdom of thousands of years of culture to bear on our contemporary obsessions and neuroses. There will be illustrations for this book — a shot of Emma Watson having an ice cream, a portrait of Jesus by Duccio (both were playing a similar role in their respective societies, the book will allege) — and examples of news stories will be drawn from across the world.
The News ranges across news categories—from politics to murders, from economics to celebrities, from the weather to paparazzi shows — in search of answers to the questions: “What do we want from this?” and “Is it doing us any good?” After The News, we’ll never look at a celebrity story, the report on a tropical storm, or the sex scandal of a politician in quite the same way again.
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