Danger Zones is the autobiography of John Gunther Dean, a leading American diplomat of the twentieth century. His early life and eventful international career provide provocative reflections on significant events and leaders, American and foreign, and insights and advice on the practice of proactive diplomacy. Over the course of his action-packed career, Dean found himself embroiled in controversy in hot spots in Asia and the Middle East. During several stints in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, he worked on development projects and with the U.S. military in Central Vietnam. He brokered the deal that ended the war in Laos and faced down an attempted coup d'état in 1973 against the neutralist regime of Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma. As ambassador in Cambodia, he was the last man out on April 12, 1975, as the last helicopter left Phnom Penh and Khmer Rouge forces approached the city. As ambassador to Lebanon, where he was nearly assassinated in an ambush, he reached out to all factions and promoted the idea of one Lebanon. As ambassador in Thailand, he worked closely with King Bhumibol to provide military training to the Thai army and secure U.S. military bases. As an activist diplomat, he worked hard to bring people together to avoid bloodshed.--Publisher description.
In each cup of coffee we drink the major issues of the twenty-first century-globalization, immigration, women's rights, pollution, indigenous rights, and self-determination-are played out in villages and remote areas around the world. In Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee, a unique hybrid of Fair Trade business, adventure travel, and cultural anthropology, author Dean Cycon brings readers face-to-face with the real people who make our morning coffee ritual possible. Second only to oil in terms of its value, the coffee trade is complex with several levels of middlemen removing the 28 million growers in fifty distant countries far from you and your morning cup. And, according to Cycon, 99 percent of the people involved in the coffee economy have never been to a coffee village. They let advertising and images from the major coffee companies create their worldview. Cycon changes that in this compelling book, taking the reader on a tour of ten countries in nine chapters through his passionate eye and unique perspective. Cycon, who is himself an amalgam-equal parts entrepreneur, activist, and mischievous explorer-has traveled extensively throughout the world's tropical coffeelands, and shows readers places and people that few if any outsiders have ever seen. Along the way, readers come to realize the promise and hope offered by sustainable business principles and the products derived from cooperation, fair pricing, and profit sharing. Cycon introduces us to the Mamos of Colombia-holy men who believe they are literally holding the world together-despite the severe effects of climate change caused by us, their "younger brothers." He takes us on a trip through an ancient forest in Ethiopia where many believe that coffee was first discovered 1,500 years ago by the goatherd Kaldi and his animals. And readers learn of Mexico's infamous Death Train, which transported countless immigrants from Central America northward to the U.S. border, but took a horrifying toll in lost lives and limbs. Rich with stories of people, landscapes, and customs, Javatrekker offers a deep appreciation and understanding of the global trade and culture of coffee. In each cup of coffee we drink the major issues of the twenty-first century-globalization, immigration, women's rights, pollution, indigenous rights, and self-determination-are played out in villages and remote areas around the world. What is Fair Trade Coffee? Coffee prices paid to the farmer are based on the international commodity price for coffee (the "C" price) and the quality premium each farmer negotiates. Fair Trade provides an internationally determined minimum floor price when the C plus premium sinks below $1.26 per pound for conventional and $1.41 for organics (that's us!). As important as price, Fair Trade works with small farmers to create democratic cooperatives that insure fair dealing, accountability and transparency in trade transactions. In an industry where the farmer is traditionally ripped off by a host of middlemen, this is tremendously important. Cooperatives are examined by the Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO), or the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT), European NGOs, for democratic process and transparency. Those that pass are listed on the FLO Registry or become IFAT members. Cooperatives provide important resources and organization to small farmers in the form of technical assistance for crop and harvest improvement, efficiencies in processing and shipping, strength in negotiation and an array of needed social services, such as health care and credit. Fair Trade also requires pre-financing of up to sixty percent of the value of the contract, if the farmers ask for it. Several groups, such as Ecologic and Green Development Fund have created funds for pre-finance lending.
Supercharge your impact on global issues and drive transformative change in the world around you Impact the World: Live Your Values and Drive Change As a Citizen Statesperson is your motivational guide to becoming a superpowered individual committed to improving your community—and the world—through your values and actions. You’ll discover why the intersection of a renewed civic spirit and new technologies empowering individuals at the local level equates to an unprecedented opportunity to channel global impact. From poverty and homelessness to violence and corruption, we often see challenges in the world around us and ask, “Why doesn’t someone do something?” We look to people with more experience, or people with more influence, or people with more time or resources than ourselves to step up and find answers to some of our biggest problems. But what if we didn’t wait for others? What if we stepped up, and looked for ways to employ our skills to solve the biggest and most complex problems of our time? That’s what leaders do. That’s what citizen statespeople do. This book is a call to action. From local to global, from the private sector to government, and to the frontlines of social entrepreneurship, authors Carrie Rich and Dean Fealk explore the benefits and challenges of becoming a citizen statesperson, showing how to pull together disparate threads to solve pressing social, political, and economic challenges. You’ll also discover: ● The lifecycle of a citizen statesperson, including an enlightening discussion of how to build your personal brand ● Inspiring case studies of real-life citizen statespeople around the world ● Explorations of the new technologies that can be used to accelerate the impact of a citizen statesperson on the world Simultaneously optimistic, inspiring, intensely practical, and engaging, Impact the World will earn a valued place in the libraries of civic leaders, activists, social justice advocates, business executives, politicians, volunteers, public servants, and anyone else looking for a way to magnify their influence and impact in any area that matters to them.
Leaders today—whether in corporations or associations, nonprofits or nations—face massive, messy, multidimensional problems. No one person or group can possibly solve them—they require the broadest possible cooperation. But, says Harvard scholar Dean Williams, our leadership models are still essentially tribal: individuals with formal authority leading in the interest of their own group. In this deeply needed new book, he outlines an approach that enables leaders to transcend internal and external boundaries and help people to collaborate, even people over whom they technically have no power. Drawing on what he's learned from years of working in countries and organizations around the world, Williams shows leaders how to approach the delicate and creative work of boundary spanning, whether those boundaries are cultural, organizational, political, geographic, religious, or structural. Sometimes leaders themselves have to be the ones who cross the boundaries between groups. Other times, a leader's job is to build relational bridges between divided groups or even to completely break down the boundaries that block collaborative problem solving. By thinking about power and authority in a different way, leaders will become genuine change agents, able to heal wounds, resolve conflicts, and bring a fractured world together.
Discover the nationally bestselling, true story of a life-changing friendship between a man and his rescue cat, Nala, as they adventure together on a bike journey around the world -- from the Instagram phenomenon @1bike1world. When 30-year-old Dean Nicholson set off from Scotland to cycle around the world, his aim was to learn as much as he could about our troubled planet. But he hadn't bargained on the lessons he'd learn from his unlikely companion. Three months after leaving home, on a remote road in the mountains between Montenegro and Bosnia, he came across an abandoned kitten. Something about the piercing eyes and plaintive meowing of the bedraggled little cat proved irresistible. He couldn't leave her to her fate, so he put her on his bike and then, with the help of local vets, nursed her back to health. Soon on his travels with the cat he named Nala, they forged an unbreakable bond -- both curious, independent, resilient and adventurous. The video of how they met has had 20 million views and their Instagram has grown to almost 750k followers -- and still counting! Experiencing the kindness of strangers, visiting refugee camps, rescuing animals through Europe and Asia, Dean and Nala have already learned that the unexpected can be pretty amazing. Together with Garry Jenkins, writer with James Bowen of the bestselling A Street Cat Named Bob, Dean shares the extraordinary tale of his and Nala's inspiring and heart-warming adventure together.
Martini Man goes beyond the simple caricature of the boozy lounge singer with a penchant for racy humor to reveal the substantive man behind that mask. Although Martin's movie roles receive in-depth attention in this incisive biography, as does his career-defining partnership with Jerry Lewis, details of Dino's personal life also abound, such as how Shierly MacLaine dropped by his house "to tell Dean she was in love with him-even though his wife was in the other room." William Schoell's chronicle is a sympathetic portrait that recreates the life and times of one of America's favorite entertainers.
Presents a new option in theology, "pragmatic historicism" which emerges out of the historicist assumptions of recent Western thought and resists both confessionalism and universalism.
T.S. Garp, a man with high ambitions for an artistic career and with obsessive devotion to his wife and children, and Jenny Fields, his famous feminist mother, find their lives surrounded by an assortment of people including teachers, whores, and radicals
Discusses the social and political implications of widespread belief in unidentified flying objects, extraterrestrials, and government cover-ups, and considers what they reveal in a culture of mass media and conflicting evidence.
