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Full Moon Rising
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A Kiss of Shadows
“My name is Meredith Gentry, but of course it’s not my real name. I dare not even whisper my true name after dark for fear that one hushed word will travel over the night winds to the soft ear of my aunt, the Queen of the Air and Darkness. She wants me dead. I don’t even know why.”
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Free Culture
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The Future of Ideas
The Internet revolution has come. Some say it has gone. In The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig explains how the revolution has produced a counterrevolution of potentially devastating power and effect. Creativity once flourished because the Net protected a commons on which widest range of innovators could experiment. But now, manipulating the law for their own purposes, corporations have established themselves as virtual gatekeepers of the Net while Congress, in the pockets of media magnates, has rewritten copyright and patent laws to stifle creativity and progress.
Lessig weaves the history of technology and its relevant laws to make a lucid and accessible case to protect the sanctity of intellectual freedom. He shows how the door to a future of ideas is being shut just as technology is creating extraordinary possibilities that have implications for all of us. Vital, eloquent, judicious and forthright, The Future of Ideas is a call to arms that we can ill afford to ignore.
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The Public Domain
In “The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind James” Boyle introduces readers to the idea of the public domain and describes how it is being tragically eroded by our current copyright, patent, and trademark laws. In a series of fascinating case studies, Boyle explains why gene sequences, basic business ideas and pairs of musical notes are now owned, why jazz might be illegal if it were invented today, why most of 20th century culture is legally unavailable to us, and why today’s policies would probably have smothered the World Wide Web at its inception.
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Against Intellectual Property
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How to build a web site from A to Z
Topics covered: How to understand the client’s needs on the first encounter?, How to calculate costs and delivery time of a web project?, How to avoid future thoughts from the customer, How to develop and organize the structure of a website?, How to find inspiration and design the layout of a website?, How to present the graphic draft to the client?, How to design the internal pages after the layout is approved?, How to export a psd into xhtml and css without losing your soul?, How to index a website without being an seo expert, How to make sure of not having committed errors before launching the Website online?.
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30 Days to Better Business Writing
Day 1: Be a reporter
Day 2: Interview someone
Day 3: Ask the right questions
Day 4: Find the story
Day 5: Find the angle
Day 6: Pick the right structure
Day 7: Analyse bad writing
Day 8: Analyse good writing
Day 9: Write like a human being
Day 10: Write for readability
Day 11: Learn to concentrate
Day 12: Play buzzword bingo
Day 13: Eliminate the passive
Day 14: Use shorter words
Day 15: Use fewer words
Day 16: Manage your writing
Day 17: Get the right tools
Day 18: Write a proper brief
Day 19: Give good feedback
Day 20: Write a great case study
Day 21: Write a great press release
Day 22: Write a better email
Day 23: Write a blog post
Day 24: Write readable web copy
Day 25: Invent great names
Day 26: Write a great presentation
Day 27: Find time for writing
Day 28: Break writer’s block
Day 29: Working with pro writers
Day 30: Final exercise
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Ruby Best Practices
Ruby Best Practices is for programmers who want to use Ruby the way Rubyists do. Written by the developer of the Ruby project Prawn (prawn.majesticseacreature.com), this concise book explains how to design beautiful APIs and domain-specific languages, work with functional programming ideas and techniques that can simplify your code and make you more productive, write code that’s readable and expressive, and much more. It’s the perfect companion to The Ruby Programming Language.
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Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
This DRAFT Preview contains three chapters from what will be a ten-chapter ebook when it’s released this summer. The three chapters make up Part II, “Moving from Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to Visual Studio 2010.”
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James Simpson - Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and Its Reformation Opponents
The evidence is everywhere: fundamentalist reading can stir passions and provoke violence that changes the world. Amid such present-day conflagrations, this illuminating book reminds us of the sources, and profound consequences, of Christian fundamentalism in the sixteenth century.
James Simpson focuses on a critical moment in early modern England, specifically the cultural transformation that allowed common folk to read the Bible for the first time. Widely understood and accepted as the grounding moment of liberalism, this was actually, Simpson tells us, the source of fundamentalism, and of different kinds of persecutory violence. His argument overturns a widely held interpretation of sixteenth-century Protestant reading--and a crucial tenet of the liberal tradition.
After exploring the heroism and achievements of sixteenth-century English Lutherans, particularly William Tyndale, Burning to Read turns to the bad news of the Lutheran Bible. Simpson outlines the dark, dynamic, yet demeaning paradoxes of Lutheran reading: its demands that readers hate the biblical text before they can love it; that they be constantly on the lookout for unreadable signs of their own salvation; that evangelical readers be prepared to repudiate friends and all tradition on the basis of their personal reading of Scripture. Such reading practice provoked violence not only against Lutheranism's stated enemies, as Simpson demonstrates; it also prompted psychological violence and permanent schism within its own adherents.
The last wave of fundamentalist reading in the West provoked 150 years of violent upheaval; as we approach a second wave, this powerful book alerts us to our peril.
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Greek Popular Religion in Greek Philosophy
Jon D. Mikalson examines how Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers described, interpreted, criticized, and utilized the components and concepts of the religion of the people of their time - practices such as sacrifice, prayer, dedications, and divination. The chief concepts involved are those of piety and impiety, and after a thorough analysis of the philosophical texts Mikalson offers a refined definition of Greek piety, dividing it into its two constituent elements of `proper respect' for the gods and `religious correctness'. He concludes with a demonstration of the benevolence of the gods in the philosophical tradition, linking it to the expectation of that benevolence evinced by popular religion.
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The Old Testament in Byzantium (Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposia and Colloquia)
This volume contains selected papers from a December 2006 Dumbarton Oaks symposium that complemented an exhibition of early Bible manuscripts at the Freer Gallery and Sackler Gallery of Art titled “In the Beginning: Bibles before the Year 1000.” Speakers were invited to examine the use of the Greek Old Testament as a text, social practice, and cultural experience in the Byzantine Empire. Not only are reminiscences of the Old Testament ubiquitous in Byzantine literature and art, but the Byzantine people also revered and identified with Old Testament role models. The Old Testament connected Byzantium not only with its Christian neighbors but with Jewish and Muslim peoples as well. This widespread phenomenon has never received systematic investigation. The Old Testament in Byzantium considers the manifestations of the holy books in Byzantine manuscript illustration, architecture, and government, as well as in Jewish Bible translations and the construction of Muhammad’s character.
About the Author
Paul Magdalino is Professor of Byzantine History at the University of St. Andrews.
Robert Nelson is Robert Lehman Professor of the History of Art and Medieval Art and Architecture at Yale University.
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Thomas G. Plante Ph.D. – Contemplative Practices in Action: Spirituality, Meditation, and Health
Contemplative practices, from meditation to Zen, are growing in popularity as methods to inspire physical and mental health. Contemplative Practices in Action: Spirituality, Meditation, and Health offers readers an introduction to these practices and the ways they can be used in the service of well being, wisdom, healing, and stress reduction.
Bringing together various traditions from the East and West, this thought-provoking work summarizes the history of each practice, highlights classic and emerging research proving its power, and details how each practice is performed. Expert authors offer step-by-step approaches to practice methods including the 8-Point Program of Passage Meditation, Centering Prayer, mindful stress management, mantram meditation, energizing meditation, yoga, and Zen. Beneficial practices from Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, and Islamic religions are also featured. Vignettes illustrate each of the practices, while the contributors explain how and why they are effective in facing challenges as varied as the loss of a partner or child, job loss, chronic pain or disease, or psychological disorders.
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The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States, and Regime Change, 1510-2010
Some blame the violence and unrest in the Muslim world on Islam itself, arguing that the religion and its history is inherently bloody. Others blame the United States, arguing that American attempts to spread democracy by force have destabilized the region, and that these efforts are somehow radical or unique. Challenging these views, The Clash of Ideas in World Politics reveals how the Muslim world is in the throes of an ideological struggle that extends far beyond the Middle East, and how struggles like it have been a recurring feature of international relations since the dawn of the modern European state.
John Owen examines more than two hundred cases of forcible regime promotion over the past five centuries, offering the first systematic study of this common state practice. He looks at conflicts between Catholicism and Protestantism between 1520 and the 1680s; republicanism and monarchy between 1770 and 1850; and communism, fascism, and liberal democracy from 1917 until the late 1980s. He shows how regime promotion can follow regime unrest in the eventual target state or a war involving a great power, and how this can provoke elites across states to polarize according to ideology. Owen traces how conflicts arise and ultimately fade as one ideology wins favor with more elites in more countries, and he demonstrates how the struggle between secularism and Islamism in Muslim countries today reflects broader transnational trends in world history.
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Bruce Vaughn, Emma Chanlett-avery, Thomas Lum, Mark Manyin, Larry Niksch - Terrorism in Southeast Asia
Since September 2001, the United States has been concerned with radical Islamist groups in Southeast Asia, particularly those in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore that are known to have ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network. Southeast Asia is a base for past, current, and possibly future Al Qaeda operations. For nearly fifteen years, Al Qaeda has penetrated the region by establishing local cells, training Southeast Asians in its camps in Afghanistan, and by financing and cooperating with indigenous radical Islamist groups. Indonesia and the southern Philippines have been particularly vulnerable to penetration by anti-American Islamic terrorist groups. Members of one indigenous network, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), with extensive ties to Al Qaeda, are known to have helped two of the September 11, 2001 hijackers and have confessed to plotting and carrying out attacks against Western targets.These include the deadliest terrorist attack since September 2001: the 12 October 2002, bombing in Bali, Indonesia, that killed approximately 200 people, mostly Westerners. On 9 September 2004, a suicide bombing attack thought to be the work of JI struck the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, killing 10 and wounding around 200. In October 2005, three suicide bombers exploded bombs within minutes of one another in Bali, killing more than 20 people. These attacks suggest that JI remains capable of carrying out relatively large-scale plots against Western targets, despite the arrest or death of hundreds of JI members, including most of its known leadership.To combat the threat, the Bush Administration has pressed countries in the region to arrest suspected terrorist individuals and organisations, deployed over 1,000 troops to the southern Philippines to advise the Philippine military in their fight against the violent Abu Sayyaf Group, launched a Regional Maritime Security Initiative to enhance security in the Straits of Malacca, increased intelligence sharing operations, restarted military-military relations with Indonesia (including restoring International Military Education and Training [IMET]), and provided or requested from Congress over $1 billion in aid to Indonesia and the Philippines. The responses of countries in the region to both the threat and to the U.S. reaction generally have varied with the intensity of their concerns about the threat to their own stability and domestic politics.In general, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines were quick to crack down on militant groups and share intelligence with the United States and Australia, whereas Indonesia began to do so only after attacks or arrests revealed the severity of the threat to their citizens. That said, many governments view increased American pressure and military presence in their region with ambivalence because of the political sensitivity of the issue with both mainstream Islamic and secular nationalist groups. Indonesia and Malaysia are majority Muslim states while the Philippines and Thailand have sizeable, and historically alienated and separatist-minded, Muslim minorities.
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M. D. Faber – Becoming God's Children: Religion's Infantilizing Process
Becoming God's Children: Religion's Infantilizing Process was written, its author says, to alert readers to the role of infantilization in the Judeo-Christian tradition generally and in Christian rite and doctrine particularly. Because religion plays such an important role in so may lives, it is essential to understand the underlying appeal and significance of religious doctrines.
To that end, Becoming God's Children offers the reader an in-depth account of human neuropsychological development, while unearthing the Judeo-Christian tradition's explicitly infantilizing doctrines and rites. This compelling perspective on the nature and meaning of religious behavior explores issues such as: to what extent religious faith is grounded in the mnemonic recesses of the worshipper's brain, whether believers are predisposed by both genetic makeup and environmental prompting to adhere to their religious convictions, and why some individuals are powerfully drawn to religious faith while others reject it. A final chapter explores the implications of religion's infantilizing process vis-a-vis the role of reason and scientific thought in the contemporary world.
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Miracles: God, Science, and Psychology in the Paranormal, Volume 2, Medical and Therapeutic Events
The book examines miracles of body, mind, and spirit, presenting the most recent research and writing on these uncommon events, aiming to bring hard science to some of the most persistent and peculiar phenomena associated with the human race.
Miracle stories live forever. They appear in all religious traditions and though the traditions change greatly over the centuries, the miracle stories stay the same.
Numerous explanations of miracle stories have filled uncountable volumes over the centuries. None, so far, quite satisfies the hunger of the human mind and spirit for a final answer to the questions, Are miracles real, or a chimera
of our imaginations? What really happened, and what does it mean?
Is it possible to devise thoroughly rational and naturalistic interpretations of this mystifying phenomenon, but then, when that is said and done, we have the sense that while the rationale holds up well enough, the intriguing
center of the issue has not been exploded.
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The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism
Forty-seven percent of the American people, according to a 1991 Gallup poll, believe that God made manas man is nowin a single act of creation, and within the last ten thousand years. Ronald L. Numbers chronicles the astonishing resurgence of this belief since the 1960s, as well as the creationist movement's tangled roots in the theologies of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Adventists, and other religious groups. Even more remarkable than Numbers's story of today's widespread rejection of the theory of evolution is the dramatic shift from acceptance of the earth's antiquity to the insistence of present-day scientific creationists that most fossils date back to Noah's flood and its aftermath, and that the earth itself is not more than ten thousand years old. Numbers traces the evolution of scientific creationism and shows how the creationist movement challenges the very meaning of science.
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