When George Pitts faked insanity in a federal district court in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1960 to beat twelve felony counts, he was sent to the US Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, under a lunacy commitment. He worked in the Education Department. Robert Stroud, the famous Birdman of Alcatraz, ran the library next door. They were friends, thus the title.
Presents photographs of hip-hop stars and other celebrities drawn from throughout the ten year history of Quincy Jones' "Vibe" magazine, including previously unpublished shots and outtakes.
Since the beginning of television, Westerns have been playing on the small screen. From the mid-1950s until the early 1960s, they were one of TV's most popular genres, with millions of viewers tuning in to such popular shows as Rawhide, Gunsmoke, and Disney's Davy Crockett. Though the cultural revolution of the later 1960s contributed to the demise of traditional Western programs, the Western never actually disappeared from TV. Instead, it took on new forms, such as the highly popular Lonesome Dove and Deadwood, while exploring the lives of characters who never before had a starring role, including anti-heroes, mountain men, farmers, Native and African Americans, Latinos, and women. Shooting Stars of the Small Screen is a comprehensive encyclopedia of more than 450 actors who received star billing or played a recurring character role in a TV Western series or a made-for-TV Western movie or miniseries from the late 1940s up to 2008. Douglas Brode covers the highlights of each actor's career, including Western movie work, if significant, to give a full sense of the actor's screen persona(s). Within the entries are discussions of scores of popular Western TV shows that explore how these programs both reflected and impacted the social world in which they aired. Brode opens the encyclopedia with a fascinating history of the TV Western that traces its roots in B Western movies, while also showing how TV Westerns developed their own unique storytelling conventions.
Looking at such films as "Frankenstein, Svengali, King Kong" and "The Mark of the Vampire," Berenstein argues that classical horror cinema is marked by malleable gender roles, not by entrenched conventional personas.
No. 1 bestseller and superstar doing what he does best, introducing millions of avid readers to little-known peoples and places. Until the early 1990s, when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, travelling behind the iron curtain was never easy. In undertaking his new journey through Eastern Europe, breathing in its rich history, and exquisite sights and talking to its diverse peoples, Michael fills what has been a void in his own experience and that of very many others. NEW EUROPE is very much a voyage of discovery, from the snows of the Julian Alps to the beauty of the Baltic sea, he finds himself in countries he'd barely heard of, many unfamiliar and mysterious, all with tragic histories and much brighter futures. During his 20-country adventure Palin meets Romanian lumberjacks, drives the 8.58 stopping train from Poznan to Wolsztyn, treads the catwalk at a Budapest fashion show, learns about mine-clearing in Bosnia and watches Turkish gents wrestling in olive oil. As with all his bestselling books, in his uniquely entertaining style, Palin opens up a new and undiscovered world to millions of readers.
Two classic short stories, one about a male reporter who writes an advice column, and the other, about people who have migrated to California in expectation of health and ease.
How does Gregory Thackery, a novice reporter working for a third-rate newsweekly, scoop the New York Press, the New York Daily Tribune, New York News Journal, and the vaunted New York Dispatch, America's so-called "newspaper of historical memory"? Luck? Common sense? Hidden connections? Even the clueless Gregory doesn't know for sure.
From the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, a small band of military activists waged war against corruption in the Pentagon, challenging a system they believed squandered the public's money and trust. The book examines the movement and its proponents and describes how the system responded to the criticisms and efforts to change accepted practices and entrenched ways of thinking. The author, an air force colonel and part of the movement, worked in the pentagon for fourteen years. He presents a view of the Department of Defense that only an insider could offer. He exposes serious flaws in the military policy-making process, particularly in weapons development and procurement. The details he gives on the unrelenting push for high-tech weapons, despite their ineffectiveness and extraordinary cost-overruns, provide a strong case for the charge of ethical bankruptcy. The second half of the book deals with the author's attempts to get frontline equipment tested under combat conditions. For the first time, readers learn the nasty details of his battle with the army over line-fire testing of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle--a battle that he eventually won, leading to the personnel carrier's redesign and the saving of many lives. Never reluctant to name names and reveal details, James G. Burton presents a forceful case. And his revelations offer insights not found elsewhere into the motivations and actions of the people who wield power from within. Nor does he stop at the walls of the Pentagon. In his epilogue he tells what happened in the field during the final hours of the Gulf War that allowed Hussein's elite Republican Guard to escape. Now back in print after having inspired a feature HBO film, this explosive account of insider corruption is sure to serve policy-makers for generations to come.
