Author Benjamin Lorr wandered into a yoga studio—and fell down a rabbit hole Hell-Bent explores a fascinating, often surreal world at the extremes of American yoga. Benjamin Lorr walked into his first yoga studio on a whim, overweight and curious, and quickly found the yoga reinventing his life. He was studying Bikram Yoga (or "hot yoga") when a run-in with a master and competitive yoga champion led him into an obsessive subculture—a group of yogis for whom eight hours of practice a day in 110- degree heat was just the beginning. So begins a journey. Populated by athletic prodigies, wide-eyed celebrities, legitimate medical miracles, and predatory hucksters, it's a nation-spanning trip—from the jam-packed studios of New York to the athletic performance labs of the University of Oregon to the stage at the National Yoga Asana Championship, where Lorr competes for glory. The culmination of two years of research, and featuring hundreds of interviews with yogis, scientists, doctors, and scholars, Hell-Bent is a wild exploration. A look at the science behind a controversial practice, a story of greed, narcissism, and corruption, and a mind-bending tale of personal transformation, it is a book that will not only challenge your conception of yoga, but will change the way you view the fragile, inspirational limits of the human body itself.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Washington insiders operate by a proven credo: When a Peter Schweizer book drops, duck and brace for impact. For over a decade, the work of six-time New York Times bestselling investigative reporter Peter Schweizer has sent shockwaves through the political universe. Clinton Cash revealed the Clintons’ international money flow, exposed global corruption, and sparked an FBI investigation. Secret Empires exposed bipartisan corruption and launched congressional investigations. And Throw Them All Out and Extortion prompted passage of the STOCK Act. Indeed, Schweizer’s “follow the money” bombshell revelations have been featured on the front pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and regularly appear on national news programs, including 60 Minutes. Now Schweizer and his team of seasoned investigators turn their focus to the nation’s top progressives—politicians who strive to acquire more government power to achieve their political ends. Can they be trusted with more power? In Profiles in Corruption, Schweizer offers a deep-dive investigation into the private finances, and secrets deals of some of America’s top political leaders. And, as usual, he doesn’t disappoint, with never-before-reported revelations that uncover corruption and abuse of power—all backed up by a mountain of corporate documents and legal filings from around the globe. Learn about how they are making sweetheart deals, generating side income, bending the law to their own benefits, using legislation to advance their own interests, and much more. Profiles in Corruption contains tomorrow’s headlines.
World-class beaches, fragrant frangipani, swaying palms, and hula girls. Most folks think of Hawaii as a vacation destination. Mob-style executions, drug smuggling, and vicious gang warfare are seldom part of the postcard image. Yet, Hawaii was once home to not only Aloha spirit, but also a ruthless, homegrown mafia underworld. From 1960 to 1980, Hawaiian gangsters grew rich off a robust trade in drugs, gambling, and prostitution that followed in the wake of Hawaii’s tourist boom. Thus, by 1980—the year Charles Marsland was elected Honolulu's top prosecutor—the honeymoon island paradise was also plagued by violence, corruption and organized crime. The zeal that Marsland brought to his crusade against the Hawaiian underworld was relentless, self-destructive, and very personal. Five years earlier, Marsland’s son had been gunned down. His efforts to bring his son’s killers to justice—and indeed, eradicate the entire organized criminal element in Hawaii—make for an extraordinary tale that culminates with intense courtroom drama. Hawaii Five-O meets Wiseguy in author Jason Ryan’s vigorously reported chronicle of brazen gangsters, brutal murders, and a father’s quest for vengeance—all set against an unlikely backdrop of seductive tropical beauty.
Politicians and regulators do not run businesses. Bribery and Corruption is for managers who do. It will help you transform uncertainties and problems created via legislation and regulations (such as The UK Bribery Act, The Proceeds of Crime Act, The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Sarbanes-Oxley) into opportunities to: ¢ Maintain entrepreneurial, profitable, and enjoyable working environments while easily surpassing compliance standards ¢ Control incoming, internal, outgoing, competitive corruption and fraud ¢ Take decisions in grey areas, confidently Bribery and Corruption frames control and compliance in an entirely different way: not as a brake on your company’s forward motion but as essential protective equipment enabling you to go faster and further in safety. Written by the world’s leading practitioners in the fields of fraud prevention, detection and investigation with massive practical experience in both commercial and governmental sectors, Bribery and Corruption exposes the misconceptions, myths and corruption of the word bribery and suggests effective solutions that go well beyond simple compliance. It commits to assertive managerial rather than timorous legal solutions to anti-bribery and other laws. It explains how processes can be tested - using automated fraud detection software - to expose current cases of fraud and corruption or to provide assurance that controls are functioning optimally. It tackles the usually ignored problems of stratospheric, political, academic and media corruption, which often motivate commercial bribery. It exposes the dangers of employee to employee corruption; skulduggery by blue collar workers and lots more. Over the last 25 years, Mike Comer, occasionally writing with Tim Stephens, has been responsible for some of the most readable and influential books on fraud. Bribery and Corruption is another tour de force, complete, authoritative and yet a great pleasure to read.
Dreams might be a heart’s desire, but nightmares are its obsession in the first novel of a dark romance series from New York Times bestselling author Penelope Douglas. Erika Fane’s boyfriend's older brother is handsome, strong, and completely terrifying. The star of his college's basketball team gone pro, he's more concerned with the dirt on his shoe than he is with her. But she saw him. She heard him. The things that he did, and the deeds that he hid... For years, Erika bit her nails, unable to look away. Now, she’s in college, but she hasn’t stopped watching him. He’s bad and the things she’s seen aren’t content to stay in her head anymore. Because he's finally noticed her. But Michael Crist knows the hold he has on Rika, how much she fears him. She looks down when he enters the room and stills when he’s close. He knows she thinks only of him. When Michael’s brother leaves for the military, leaving Rika alone and unprotected, he knows the opportunity is too good to be true. Three years ago she put Michael’s friends in prison, and now they’re free. Every last one of her nightmares is about to come true.
For thirty years starting in the mid-1970s, the byline of Jim Dooley appeared on riveting investigative stories of organized crime and political corruption that headlined the front page of Honolulu’s morning daily. In Sunny Skies, Shady Characters, James Dooley revisits highlights of his career as a hard-hitting investigative reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser and, in later years, for KITV television and the online Hawaii Reporter. His lively backstories on how he chased these high-profile scandals make fascinating reading, while providing an insider’s look at the business of journalism and the craft of investigative reporting. Dooley’s first assignment as an investigative journalist involved the city housing project of Kukui Plaza, which introduced him to the “pay to play” method of awarding government contracts to obliging consultants. In later stories, he scrutinized bloody struggles over illicit gambling revenue, the murder of a city prosecutor’s son, local syndicate ties to the Teamsters Union, and the dealings of Bishop Estate. His groundbreaking coverage of the forays by yakuza into Hawaii and the continental United States were the first of its kind in American journalism. As Dooley pursued stories from the underside of island society, names of respected public figures and those of violent criminals filled his notebook: entertainer Don Ho, U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye, Governors George Ariyoshi and Ben Cayetano, Mayor Frank Fasi, and notorious felons Henry Huihui, Nappy Pulawa, and Ronnie Ching. Woven throughout is the name of Big Island rancher Larry Mehau—was he the “godfather of organized crime” in Hawaii as alleged by the FBI, or simply an ex-cop who befriended power brokers in the course of doing business for his security guard firm? The book includes a timeline of Mehau’s activities to allow readers to judge for themselves.
This book brings together a number of African anti-corruption policy makers from across different academic disciplines, religions, and generations. It engages in processes of economic, social, and political transformation to eliminate poverty and inequity, through individual and institutional means. Through historical and contemporary perspectives on authority structures, institutionalised myths, beliefs, and rituals of authority, the volume explores how to correctly mobilise and influence citizens’ behaviour and attitudes towards accountability, transparency and probity, all of which are key to strengthening national integrity systems all over Africa, and are needed for equity and sustainable development. The book strongly advocates that corruption is everybody’s business. All the chapters in some way commemorate the inaugural anti-corruption year of the African Union in 2018 by interrogating how mechanisms to eliminate inequity and poverty can be built in Africa.
People living on the Indian subcontinent have been a sharply divided lot for a very long time in spite of belonging to the same established respected older civilization. Our divisiveness resulted in inviting repeated assaults by uncivilized Arabs and savages from other parts of Asia. This led to foreign subjugation for a millennium first by Islamic invaders and looters; then by Europeans who came as traders but became rulers. The entry of aliens led to unabashed proselytizing into their newer religions. It may not be wrong to say that 99 percent of Muslims and Christians living on the subcontinent are converts from Hinduism (that has been more a way of life rather than a watertight religion for two millennia or more). This means todays inhabitants are from the same civilization and culturally speaking Hindustanis. However, a proliferation of alien religions did aggravate and compound divisiveness. The British ruled the country for two centuries or so, and did the maximum damage to our character, morale and psyche. After the First War of Independence the British promulgated pretty stiff laws especially the Police Act of 1861 to keep their slaves under tight leash. Worse still they introduced Macaulay system of education in English to wean us away from our cultural moorings, heritage, literature, moral values and our own Sanskrit language. Indian social religious and educational reformers Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Sahjanand, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, Swami Vivekananda and Rishi Aurobindo Ghosh as well as the likes of them brought back the pride of our civilization and culture. Their influence was apparent from the beginning of 19th century in the fields of politics, public administration, and education, as well as strengthening Hinduism. This first awakening from slumber or hibernation ignited the minds of revolutionaries who selflessly and untiringly worked hard on the soils of the subcontinent and the foreign lands culminating in throwing out deeply entrenched British lock, stock and barrel. Not so nationalistic but opportunistic Congress party led by their self-serving trio of stalwarts Gandhi, his adopted son Nehru and lieutenant Patel got the subcontinent partitioned and formed government in divided India. Congress party ruled but NOT served Hindustan for 90 percent of the time since independence by strictly following British Divide and Rule policy to perfection without changing/improving archaic British laws. Being communal, Congress aggravated the divisiveness thus bringing untold misery to the masses in the form of communal strife and Hindu-Muslim riots repeatedly. The prolonged misrule by those corrupt inept rudderless politicians including the decade under its economist dummy PM heading the most corrupt and arrogant government ever in the history of independent country brought in lawlessness, fragile environment, grossly inadequate infrastructure, increasing terrorism and Maoism/Naxalism, ever mounting inflation, sky-rocketing corruption, gargantuan scams, bankrupt economy, policy paralysis, stalling of reforms, and what not. The absolute number of the poor today is far more than total population of newly born country in 1947. This grave crisis-like situation warranted a second awakening in 21st century. Expectedly Hindustanis rose to the occasion once again, decimated the corrupt Congress and voted for a change by electing a visionary, strong, and honest PM from BJP with a thumping majority. This gentleman is a dynamic, focused, highly optimistic, staunchly nationalistic real leader unlike the pygmies of Congress. The task ahead is dauntingly stupendous. Modi started showing promise during his first 60 days. The damage done in 60 years may take ten years, if not more, to repair and actual proper turnaround thus placing this once great country on track to reclaim its lost genuine glory. Although independence was ushered in 67 years ago yet freedom is still awaited. That will require imminent electoral, intellectual, judicial, police, political and social reforms together with building moral character and bringing meritocracy in every appointment by doing away with the Congress policy of favours, quotas and reservations for the undeserving. Very much like Narendra Modi, the first PM to be born after independence and heading the youngest India-educated ministry, all of us have to remain optimistic and vigilant. We must perform our duties diligently as law-abiding faithful but demanding citizens alive to the times!
This book was not written for the weak kneed, spineless, politically correct, non-practicing American. It is instead for those of us who have witnessed the methodical dismantling of traditional morals and values thus exhausting the limits of our tolerance. The contents of this book will detail our cultural mutation which applauds deviance, rewards failure and elects the corrupt in terms designed to wake up the lethargic patriot in all of us, in an effort to re-enforce the urgency in our resolve so we may reverse our current descending cultural trajectory thus sparing future generations from an otherwise inevitable implosion.
In the wake of Watergate, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) in an effort to prevent the corruption of future elections. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), defined corruption as quid pro quo--"get for giving"--meaning Congress could only regulate the kind of corruption that had occurred if a campaign contributor received political favors from the candidate. This definition has since shaped and limited efforts at campaign finance reform, often with ironic and unintended consequences. By shifting the focus to the source and amount of contributions, the justices in the Buckley decision ignored disparities in funding and the resulting ability of particular candidates to dominate communication channels. In Coining Corruption, legal and political historian Kurt Hohenstein provides a hitherto untold story about the successes and limitations of political reform. From 1876 until 1976, lawmakers and courts permitted regulation that potentially infringed upon freedom of speech: they understood corruption as the conversion of economic power into political power. In their view, corruption existed if a candidate's unfettered campaign spending overwhelmed other voices and limited real deliberation. Yet, as Hohenstein shows, Buckley's limited "quid pro quo" definition ignores these considerations. Following the evolution of the campaign finance system through the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001 and the Supreme Court's decisions in McConnell v. FEC (2001) and Landell v. Sorrell (2006), Hohenstein calls for a return to a broad, historical understanding of corruption. American democracy demands regulation of the sources and amounts of campaign funding in order to prevent a monopoly on the vehicles of political debate. Those interested in reform politics, public policy, constitutional history, and Congress will appreciate this groundbreaking study.
