Covenantal Rights is a groundbreaking work of political theory: a comprehensive, philosophically sophisticated attempt to bring insights from the Jewish political tradition into current political and legal debates about rights and to bring rights discourse more fully into Jewish thought. David Novak pursues these aims by presenting a theory of rights founded on the covenant between God and the Jewish people as that covenant is constituted by Scripture and the rabbinic tradition. In doing so, he presents a powerful challenge to prevailing liberal and conservative positions on rights and duties and opens a new chapter in contemporary Jewish political thinking. For Novak, "covenantal rights" are rooted in God's primary rights as creator of the universe and as the elector of a particular community whose members relate to this God as their sovereign. The subsequent rights of individuals and communities flow from God's covenantal promises, which function as irrevocable entitlements. This presents a sharp contrast to the liberal tradition, in which rights flow above all from individuals. It also challenges the conservative idea that duties can take precedence over rights, since Novak argues that there are no covenantal duties that are not backed by correlative rights. Novak explains carefully and clearly how this theory of covenantal rights fits into Jewish tradition and applies to the relationships among God, the covenanted community, and individuals. This work is a profound and provocative contribution to contemporary religious and political theory.

In just a decade, blogging changed from a fad to a phenomenon with an estimated 51 million participants, mostly creative citizens with something to say or express. Citizens who want to participate in media rather than be subjected to it. Blogothon is a selection of blogs and essays posted by raconteur par excellence, gadfly of the media, and "News Dissector" Danny Schechter in an award-winning daily blog that he began writing in 2000. In Blogothon Schechter demonstrates the importance of blogging as an alternative media in an age when mainstream media has come under increasing scrutiny for a lack of credibility, real news and social value. This compilation of Schechter's blog posts describes the financial crisis developed during the first decade of the 21st century, the influence of activists such as Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson on Occupy Wall Street, the ascent of Al Jazeera, the expulsion of Helen Thomas and Keith Olbermann from mainstream media, and increased partisanship and polarization in U.S. politics. Blogothon is a fascinating read for followers of Schechter's blog, anyone interested in an authentic account of historic events still unfolding, and aspiring bloggers. A graduate of Cornell University and the London School of Economics, DANNY SCHECHTER is a writer, television producer, and independent filmmaker who also speaks about media and financial issues. He is the editor of Mediachannel1.org, the global media issues site, and blogs daily as the News Dissector at NewsDissector.net. Schechter is the author of fourteen books and has produced and directed more than thirty documentaries and television specials. His blog was named the 2009 "Blog of the Year" by the Hunter College Media Department of the City University of New York.

Expert advice on how any citizen can fight government fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption. Does government fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption make your blood boil? In The Art of the Watchdog , Daniel L. Feldman and David R. Eichenthal show how to fight back. Based on their own work in federal, state, and local government over the last forty years, they will arm you with the tools and techniques needed to put the spotlight on those who cheat and steal from the public or who squander valuable taxpayer dollars through waste and inefficiency. At the same time, Feldman and Eichenthal outline what they see as the good and the bad of current oversight efforts based on case studies from across the nation. Ultimately their goal is to ensure that the "art of the watchdog" does not become a lost one and to improve the quality and integrity of government and strengthen democracy.

If the new generation is not told accurate information, then not only will the new generation and the generations that follow be misguided but, more importantly, the policy makers of the future will be making decisions based on mis-assessments. There are three areas in which the truth of the past has been tragically misrepresented: The actions of the President, the role of the media, and the buried legacy of the South Vietnamese, the Laotians, the Cambodians and, of course, the Americans who gave their lives for the liberty of others. There is no higher morality than dying for the well-being of a stranger, and that is what they did. Their enemies were not only on the battlefield: many of their enemies are still revising the history of those days, either to justify their past actions, or to cloak their consciences, or they simply don't know the truth because they have been bombarded by those who rejected it. Their recorded words and fictionalized images are, at best, what they think is true, and at worst, are meant to deceive you.

This book addresses the economic and financial disturbances in the consuming countries and friction and tensions among the Western allies. It provides an analysis of possible solutions to the energy problem. It is useful for professionals in the petroleum industry and the Middle East in general.

On the Track of Murder

The Blogging Revolution is a colourful and revelatory account of bloggers around the globe who live and write under repressive regimes-many of them risking their lives in doing so. Antony Loewenstein's travels take him to private parties in Iran and Egypt, internet cafes in Saudi Arabia and Damascus, to the homes of Cuban dissidents and into newspaper offices in Beijing, where he discovers the ways in which the internet is threatening the rule of governments. Through first-hand investigations, he reveals the complicity of Western multinationals in assisting the restriction of information in these countries and how bloggers are leading the charge for change. This fully updated new edition of the book reveals some of the key players of the Arab Spring and how years of organising, web dissent and bravery led to momentous changes in US-backed dictatorships across the Middle East. The Blogging Revolution is a superb examination about the nature of repression in the twenty-first century and the power of brave individuals to overcome it.

Drawing on the riches of the Western tradition, Anthony T. Kronman defends a humane conservativism for our enlightened age "Rigorous and philosophically demanding, Kronman's book invites principled argument from every side."-- Kirkus Reviews As the party of the left has grown more strident, its conservative critics have responded in kind. Each year conservatives do a poorer job of defending their position as a citadel of human values without lapsing into an angry assault on ideals that they and progressives share. It becomes harder to see the enduring appeal of a true conservatism that celebrates the worth of custom and inheritance; the splendor of what is excellent and rare; the expansive solidarity of our friendship with the dead; and the dignity, indeed necessity, of our longing for a connection to the eternal and divine--while affirming that these timeless human goods are compatible with the modern ideals of equality, toleration, and reasoned argument. In this bracing book, Anthony Kronman defends a conservative philosophy of life that respects our enlightened ideals but decries the damage their arrogant simplification causes in our moral, political, and spiritual lives. Drawing on the work of Aristotle, Cicero, Spinoza, Burke, Hume, Madison, Tocqueville, Lincoln, Arendt, Heidegger, and others, he argues that humanism is conservatism, today as in the past. He reminds us that our humbling parameters make possible every form of human greatness, every human glory, every human love worthy of the name.

The title of political theorist Alan L. Mittleman's captivating new book is drawn from the patriarch Jacob's blessing to his children and grandchildren. The blessing contains the promise that Judah will become a royal house, perhaps forever. Kings, of course, ceased in Israel, but politics did not. Regime replaced regime. National independence was compromised and lost, regained and lost again. Yet the attention to things political was never lost. Old texts were applied to new political realities. Political awareness and thought, constantly transformed and adapted to new historical exigencies, persisted among the Jews. In The Scepter Shall Not Depart from Judah , Mittleman looks at some of the central problems of political philosophy-such as fundamental rights and the common good-from the point of view of rabbinic Judaism. At the same time, he considers conceptual issues in Judaism-such as covenant and tradition-from the perspective of political philosophy. Mittleman's sources range from the ancient rabbis to contemporary political theorists, making this volume an important one for courses and research in both Jewish studies and political theory.

With his typical grace and sparkling wit, Talmudic master and rabbi Steinsaltz explores in these collected essays topics ranging from the nature of Jewish identity and the character of the state of Israel to interpretations of the five megillot (Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, and Esther). Included here are two interviews that provide glimpses into the intensity that marks the life and work of this great teacher. Highly recommended. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Deciding what is and what is not political is a fraught, perhaps intractably opaque matter. Just who decides the question; on what grounds; to what ends- these seem like properly political questions themselves. Deciding what is political and what is not can serve to contain and restrain struggles, make existing power relations at once self-evident and opaque, and blur the possibility of reimagining them differently. Political Concepts seeks to revive our common political vocabulary - both everyday and academic -and to do so critically. Its entries take the form of essays in which each contributor presents her or his own original reflection on a concept posed in the traditional Socratic question format “What is X?” and asks what sort of work a rethinking of that concept can do for us now. The explicitness of a radical questioning of this kind gives authors both the freedom and the authority to engage, intervene in, critique, and transform the conceptual terrain they have inherited. Each entry, either implicitly or explicitly, attempts to re-open the question “What is political thinking?” Each is an effort to reinvent political writing. In this setting the political as such may be understood as a property, a field of interest, a dimension of human existence, a set of practices, or a kind of event. Political Concepts does not stand upon a decided concept of the political but returns in practice and in concern to the question “What is the political?” by submitting the question to a field of plural contention. --

A study of two bridges between science and society: governmental science policy and scientists' voluntary public-interest associations. According to a widespread stereotype, scientists occupy an ivory tower, isolated from other parts of society. To some extent this is true, and the resulting freedom to pursue curiosity-driven research has made possible extraordinary scientific advances. The spinoffs of "pure" science, however, have also had powerful impacts on society, and the potential for future impacts is even greater. The public and many policymakers, as well as many researchers, have paid insufficient attention to the mechanisms for interchange between science and society that have developed since World War II. Ivory Bridges examines two such mechanisms: governmental science policy (often involving the participation of "scientist administrators") and scientists' voluntary public-interest associations. The examination of science policy is guided by the notion of "Jeffersonian science"---defined as basic research on topics identified as being in the national interest. The book illustrates the concept with a historical case study of the Press-Carter Initiative of the late 1970s and proposes that a Jeffersonian approach would make a valuable addition to future science policy. The book also looks at the activities of citizen-scientists who have organized themselves to promote the welfare of society. It shows that their numerous and diverse organizations have made major contributions to the commonweal and that they have helped to prevent science from becoming either too subservient to government or too autonomous. An extensive appendix profiles a wide variety of these organizations.

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Considers the characteristic non-dominant ethnic groups of Europe and the ways in which their lives, their survival and their development were affected by the governments and the institutions of the state.

Bibliographical footnotes. "The principal works of Elie Halévy:" p. v-vi.

Laski's magnum opus

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In this groundbreaking portrait of the uneasy state of the province, Terry Glavin's lyrical narratives reveal the fibre of a British Columbia rarely glimpsed. With journalistic acumen, he surveys a landscape of inexorable suburban sprawl, dismantled railway lines, scapegoating of Native fisheries, and strange goings-on at Gustafsen Lake. A new breed of travelogue, This Ragged Place will leave the taste of oolichan grease on your lips and the seeds of a transcendent new British Columbian mythology in your mind. This Ragged Place earned Glavin a Governor General's Award finalist distinction in 1997.