Armed with a 10-point list of dating criteria, skin-tight jeans, and flash cards on Nascar, football, and micro-breweries, she enlists everyone in sight to set her up on blind dates in a passionate quest to meet just one really great guy. Names are changed to protect the rejected as she humorously dishes dot-com hunks, rappers manques, and tattooed graduates of the Gene Simmons School of Dating. Bridget Jones would be proud of her American cousin. Elizabeth chronicles her true-life dating spree set off by the broken engagement as a marriage-minded mortician in her mid-30's.
“A powerful and timely addition to the literature of rhetoric and folklore.” —Choice In 1860, Abraham Lincoln employed the proverb Right makes might—opposite of the more aggressive Might makes right—in his famed Cooper Union address. While Lincoln did not originate the proverb, his use of it in this critical speech indicates that the fourteenth century phrase had taken on new ethical and democratic connotations in the nineteenth century. In this collection, famed scholar of proverbs Wolfgang Mieder explores the multifaceted use and function of proverbs through the history of the United States, from their early beginnings up through their use by such modern-day politicians as Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Bernie Sanders. Building on previous publications and unpublished research, Mieder explores sociopolitical aspects of the American worldview as expressed through the use of proverbs in politics, women’s rights, and the civil rights movement—and by looking at the use of proverbial phrases, Mieder demonstrates how one traditional phrase can take on numerous expressive roles over time, and how they continue to play a key role in our contemporary moment.
Ted Gioia tells the story of jazz as it has never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Gioia provides readers with lively portraits of great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created. 9 photos.
The Modern Man is hypocritically boasting of unprecedented material progress in a world , where ,inter-alia millions daily go to bed hungry, die or get killed through unwanted wars and preventable causes, live in inhumane conditions , vulnerable being exploited , with ever widening inequality , and might still ruling over right in international relations, even in the post UDHR era! an indictment on the collective conscience of mankind. Besides, the flame of materialism has been devouring time tested moral values, causing chaos within the basic unit in society- the family and relegating Man and his dignity to the level of animals and even manipulating his identity. Therefore questions arise: Is Moral law fading ; are political/economic systems and institutions like UN failing in realizing the lofty goal of affording due dignity , basic rights and social justice humanity deserves? Can the bystanders be mere onlookers anymore? This book seeks to dispassionately survey the yawning gap between the rhetoric and the ground reality in bringing about dignity and social justice for humanity from bystanders perspective in the light of these questions and underlines the imperative need for moral progress to go hand in hand to make Man assume his due role as the trustee on earth. It also exhorts bystanders to close ranks as human- dignity champions, rights defenders, identity protectors- against onslaughts from power hungry politicians, mighty powers and vested interests. This is the need of the times and what our future progeny demands.
An academically respectable description and evaluation of secular humanism is available at last. The diversity within humanism receives full recognition in this book, as does the fact that not everything about humanism is bad from a Christian point of view. Indeed, the author continues, there are many emphases within humanism that are compatible with Christian beliefs, a thesis to which he devotes an entire chapter. Part 1 summarizes in turn eight prominent forms of humanism: Huxley's evolutionism, Skinner's behaviorism, Sartre's existentialism, Dewey's pragmatism, Marxism, Rand's egocentrism, Lamont's culturalism, and the coalitional form present in the humanist declaration and manifestoes. Emerging from these chapters are both the differences between humanists and the consensus that binds them together. It is this humanistic consensus, writes the author, that most radically conflicts with Christian beliefs and that is the number one problem in the United States today. After the chapter on the helpful emphases of secular humanism, part 2 details this movement's comparative inferiority, internal inconsistencies, religious inadequacies, and philosophical insufficiencies. The final chapter demonstrates that, while Christianity is consistent with the central principles of science, philosophy, epistemology, and ethics, humanism is not. There is no rational justification, the author concludes, for being a humanist.
For years wordsmith and punster Richard Lederer has charmed and delighted fans with his bestselling "Anguished English" series. In his funniest book yet, readers will again cherish the author's latest chronicle of the goofs and gaffes and fluffs and flubs of our anguished language. And the best part? Everything in here actually occurred! Nothing has been made up! Bloopers from foreign restaurants include: * "Our wines leave you nothing to hope for." * "As for the tripe served here, you will be singing its praises to your grandchildren on your deathbed." Excerpts from students' twisted history papers include: * "World War I made the people so sad that it brought on the Great Depression." * "America was founded by four fathers. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Decoration of Independence, which says that all men are cremated equal and are well endowed by their creator." Hilarious illustrations by Jim McLean make The Bride of Anguished English the perfect book for anyone who loves English with all its blunders and bloopers and quips and quirks.
Packed with bizarre ideas, hopeless theories, impossible dreams, preposterous statements, loony prophecies: welcome to the deranged history of our planet.
