They lie underfoot, embellished and gleaming. They seal off and provide entry to an underground world of conduits, water mains, power lines, and sewers. They appear by the thousands in our cities, but very few people ever look at them or think about them as art. At once completely ordinary and totally unexpected, manhole covers present an infinite variety of design in the commonplace as well as a record of defunct utility companies, forgotten business firms, and obsolete foundries. Manhole Covers documents this singular form of urban industrial art and its place in American culture. Mimi and Robert Melnick first revealed their obsession with street hardware twenty years ago in a remarkable little book called Manhole Covers of Los Angeles (1974). Printed in a small format and a limited edition, it quickly went out of print and is now a scarce collector's item. But that was just an introduction to their larger project, which has come to fruition in this book of 200 photographs and an extended narrative documenting manhole covers throughout the United States and discussing the history of their use, manufacture, and function. A subject that at first seems straightforward and commonplace becomes redolent and poetic in the Melnicks' hands, for their hieroglyphic reading of manhole covers reveals a chapter of urban history that can only be recovered from the logos and markings of these early disks. There are square lids, convex lids, perforated lids. And the older ones wear an astonishingly diverse range of anything-but-blank faces expressed in raised crosses, waffle grids, cut-out diamonds, radial stars, floral patterns, and honeycomb treads. The diversity of design corresponds to an equally diverse typology of form and function, as indicated by their evocative labels: handholes, vents, coalholes, grates, lampholes, storm drains, steam covers, meter lids, traffic buttons.

The place of poetry in modern democracy is no place, according to conventional wisdom. The poet, we hear, is a casualty of mass entertainment and prosaic public culture, banished to the artistic sidelines to compose variations on insipid themes for a dwindling audience. Robert Pinsky, however, argues that this gloomy diagnosis is as wrongheaded as it is familiar. Pinsky, whose remarkable career as a poet itself undermines the view, writes that to portray poetry and democracy as enemies is to radically misconstrue both. The voice of poetry, he shows, resonates with profound themes at the very heart of democratic culture. There is no one in America better to write on this topic. One of the country's most accomplished poets, Robert Pinsky served an unprecedented two terms as America's Poet Laureate (1997-2000) and led the immensely popular multimedia Favorite Poem Project, which invited Americans to submit and read aloud their favorite poems. Pinsky draws on his experiences and on characteristically sharp and elegant observations of individual poems to argue that expecting poetry to compete with show business is to mistake its greatest democratic strength--its intimate, human scale--as a weakness. As an expression of individual voice, a poem implicitly allies itself with ideas about individual dignity that are democracy's bedrock, far more than is mass participation. Yet poems also summon up communal life.. Even the most inward-looking work imagines a reader. And in their rhythms and cadences poems carry in their very bones the illusion and dynamic of call and response. Poetry, Pinsky writes, cannot help but mediate between the inner consciousness of the individual reader and the outer world of other people. As part of the entertainment industry, he concludes, poetry will always be small and overlooked. As an art--and one that is inescapably democratic--it is massive and fundamental.

The office of tomorrow is already with us. You can see it in coffee shops, airport lounges and hotel lobbies across the world. It's called the mobile office and in some instances consists of only a laptop and a wireless broadband card. Even now mobile office options are evolving rapidly and the bewildering range of add-ons is growing every day. Ironically, the choices meant to make your life simpler and more productive are in fact becoming more and more complex. Arthur Goldstuck has once again come to the rescue. This vital roadmap guides you through the jungle of competing products and connectivity options, and helps you to decipher the hard-sell you are bombarded with daily. Should you upgrade now? Should you wait for the next version? Are you being led down an electronic dead-end? This book answers such questions with insights into older technologies that are still viable, practical advice on current office options and predictions on what will arrive in the near future. Whether you are self-employed, an entrepreneur looking to start up a small business or a corporate looking to become more efficient, this book could hold the key to your streamlined success.

Where you are in life today is the result of all of the past decisions which you have made or which have been made for you in response to the various situations and events, both expected and unexpected, that have impacted your life. The decisions that you will make from this point forward will determine the degree to which your future will be positive or negative. "Decision Time!" describes the subjective and multi-variable nature of real life decisions and demonstrates techniques for making complex decisions with ease and insight. "Decision Time!" provides guidance for many different decision-making situations with both personal and business aspects. Topics with examples from life include games, negotiation, the challenge of financing a college education, starting a small business, purchasing/shopping, family relationships, getting the government to listen to you, investments, and many more. "Decision Time!" gives you insight into the decision-making process as applied to both small and large choices you will face. It includes dynamic aspects, cultural effects, and morality as applied to decision-making for individuals, teams, and societies. "Decision Time!" prepares you to face the continuous impact of decision situations confidently and without hesitation.

Monica Dickens' novel opens in a juvenile court in London. One of the young offenders is a 16-year-old girl, Kate, who is described as being in need of care and protection. In the court is a girl only slightly older, Emma, daughter of the magistrate. From her experience of going around with a social worker on his calls she knows that adolescents and, more important, small children are daily subjected to neglect and brutality and that "care and protection" cannot be prescribed like National Health aspirin.She meets Kate again, by chance, in her Uncle's supermarket where she is learning the business from the bottom up. And between these two girls, from different backgrounds, with very different parents who have different personal problems, there springs up a friendship which is deep and, for a while at any rate, beyond misunderstanding.Each girl has her way to make in life; each has her love, hate, despair, and hope; each the complications of parental control sapped by the inner knowledge of marriages that no longer work.

"For the high flying heavy drinking advertising boss Tom Banbury, the art of persuasion relies on an infiltration of the consumer's mind. In the case of his colleague and confidant Nikos Gazidis, the over developed sense of empathy that suits him to the business has given rise to a strange psychiatric condition. Nick has unwittingly crashed into the consciousness of his boss. While Tom drinks to forget the troubles of his early life, Nick is force to confront a past that is not his own: a childhood scarred by the small wars waged by an abusive father -- and by the events that brought them to a close. When Nick enters the panicked silence of the Abbey, a fortress for the rich and unstable, his sister guards him from the visiting Tom Banbury. But can this peculiar bond be broken or has Nikos Gazidis taken an empathetic leap too far?" -- Back cover

After graduating from the University of Texas in 1965, Carol Schwartz, born in Mississippi and raised in Midland, Texas, visited Washington, D.C. She was due to be married in Austin in January and had a job teaching special education there. After a very tough childhood, a happier, less stressful life stood before her. But things changed--with Carol doing the changing. As she puts it, "A magnetic pull drew me to D.C." Carol began a journey that took her away from the familiar to D.C. and the dynamic world of local politics. Then a Republican in a city where Democrats made up nearly 80% of voters, she ran for Mayor and nearly beat Marion Barry in 1994 in the closest Mayoral election in the city's history. In Quite A Life: From Defeat to Defeat ... and Back, Carol talks about growing up on the poor side of the tracks in that small West Texas town, where she was made to work starting from age eight in the family store. There were only a few Jewish families and some prejudice. Carol was often responsible, beginning at age six, for caring for her beloved older brother and only sibling Johnny, who was intellectually disabled. And sadly, she was also the target of a brilliant but full-of-rage father. Carol describes life with her own family--her three kids and husband David, who suffered from severe depression. But despite that, he went from being a child of a limited-means family with student loans to becoming one of the more successful attorneys in a city made up of them. Depression, though, and Jack Daniels ultimately caused David's tragic death when the children were teenagers. Although wounded from her childhood, she leapt over ongoing insecurity and fear to run for the D.C. Board of Education in 1974, where she became an outspoken member and leader. Carol fought against the tide to help create Banneker Academic High School and usher in educational reforms 40 years ago when it was unfashionable and took lots of courage to do it--and which led to test scores increasing. On the D.C. Council starting in 1985, she was a lone voice against bloated budgets that eventually led the city to the financial brink. Carol became an ethical watchdog in a government that too often battled corruption. Spotting government sweetheart deals, she helped root them out as a guardian of taxpayer dollars. And she spearheaded the unanimous passage of sick and safe leave for private sector workers, making D.C. the second jurisdiction in the country to have it. In doing so, she went from being a best friend of business to being viciously targeted by that community. Her passion for the city and its residents inspired her to run for Mayor several times in spite of the odds. But she picked herself up after defeat--as her tough childhood had trained her to do--and kept on ... All the while she championed wins on behalf of the city and its residents in her continuing Council career. Community responsibility has been a lifelong clarion call for Carol. She has volunteered to battle for people with HIV/AIDS and other marginalized groups, and served for nearly two decades on the Board of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, which was at the forefront of that crisis. She became the first woman president of the Metropolitan Police Boys and Girls Clubs in its 61-year history. Her volunteer work of 50 years has touched many people, animals and organizations, and continues. Now an Independent and always a straight-shooter, Carol talks about her life with characteristic candor and her opinions with unbridled honesty--and usually with humor. As Carol says, "If you want someone to give you a sugar-coated synopsis of a life, go elsewhere. But if you want an outspoken personal autobiography--with pictures galore--that also talks about the history of D.C. since Home Rule, gives you behind-the-scenes accounts of chaotic campaigns, as well as the inner-workings of government--all rolled together--come on this ride with me." It's a journey of wins and defeats, and coming back with hope.

In this compassionate and controversial book Irving Harris argues that the key to breaking the cycle of poverty, hopelessness, and violence is very early intervention: we must provide adequate caregiving to children from birth to age three and - to stop the cycle even sooner - we must discourage pregnancy among adolescents. Harris, a successful businessman, has devoted himself to children's causes for the past forty years and has initiated and funded numerous programs geared to children and families. He presents data from research in pediatrics, social work, nursing, psychology, and education showing that children who receive early nurturing and stimulation are far more likely to have success in school and in life. He urges that the government build more day-care centers and train more caregivers and public-health nurses for babies and small children; that schools offer instruction and counseling in prenatal care; and that there be easier access to contraceptives and abortions in order to reduced unwanted pregnancies.

"Orenstein is such a breezy, funny writer, it's easy to forget she's an important thinker too."--People In this lively, funny memoir, Peggy Orenstein sets out to make a sweater from scratch--shearing, spinning, dyeing wool--and in the process discovers how we find our deepest selves through craft. Orenstein spins a yarn that will appeal to everyone. The COVID pandemic propelled many people to change their lives in ways large and small. Some adopted puppies. Others stress-baked. Peggy Orenstein, a lifelong knitter, went just a little further. To keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in family life, she set out to make a garment from the ground up: learning to shear sheep, spin and dye yarn, then knitting herself a sweater. Orenstein hoped the project would help her process not just wool but her grief over the recent death of her mother and the decline of her dad, the impending departure of her college-bound daughter, and other thorny issues of aging as a woman in a culture that by turns ignores and disdains them. What she didn't expect was a journey into some of the major issues of our time: climate anxiety, racial justice, women's rights, the impact of technology, sustainability, and, ultimately, the meaning of home. With her wry voice, sharp intelligence, and exuberant honesty, Orenstein shares her year-long journey as daughter, wife, mother, writer, and maker--and teaches us all something about creativity and connection.

This book sets forth both a theory and a comparative empirical analysis of stagflation, that peculiar combination of high unemployment, slow growth, and spurts of high inflation bedeviling the advanced industrial nations during the past fifteen years. The authors first construct a small macroeconomic model that takes full account of aggregate demand and supply forces in the determination of output, employment, and the price level, in both a single-economy and a multi-economy setting. They then apply the model to provide an understanding of comparative performance of industrial countries in the areas of unemployment, inflation, productivity, and investment growth. They argue convincingly that the decay of the major economies during this period resulted from the supply shocks of the 1970s, such as the two major OPEC oil-price increases, and from the consequent policy-induced decrease in demand in response to inflationary pressures. Their analysis differs markedly from similar studies in that it takes specific account of institutional differences in the labor markets of the various economies. This helps to explain in particular the divergent adjustment profiles of the United States and Europe. Michael Bruno and Jeffrey D. Sachs make several key recommendations for the mix of demand management and incomes policies necessary to combat stagflation in individual countries as well as for the coordination of macroeconomic policies among the major industrial nations.

This book sets forth both a theory and a comparative empirical analysis of stagflation, that peculiar combination of high unemployment, slow growth, and spurts of high inflation bedeviling the advanced industrial nations during the past fifteen years. The authors first construct a small macroeconomic model that takes full account of aggregate demand and supply forces in the determination of output, employment, and the price level, in both a single-economy and a multi-economy setting. They then apply the model to provide an understanding of comparative performance of industrial countries in the areas of unemployment, inflation, productivity, and investment growth. They argue convincingly that the decay of the major economies during this period resulted from the supply shocks of the 1970s, such as the two major OPEC oil-price increases, and from the consequent policy-induced decrease in demand in response to inflationary pressures. Their analysis differs markedly from similar studies in that it takes specific account of institutional differences in the labor markets of the various economies. This helps to explain in particular the divergent adjustment profiles of the United States and Europe. Bruno and Sachs make several key recommendations for the mix of demand management and incomes policies necessary to combat stagflation in individual countries as well as for the coordination of macroeconomic policies among the major industrial nations.

A Revolution Is Coming. It Isn't What You Think.This book tells the improbable stories of Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, a small startup in Needham, Massachusetts, with aspirations to be a beacon to engineering education everywhere, and the iFoundry incubator at the University of Illinois, an unfunded pilot program with aspirations to change engineering at a large public university that wasn't particularly interested in changing. That either one survived is story enough, but what they found out together changes the course of education transformation forever: - How joy, trust, openness, and connec- tion are the keys to unleashing young, courageous engineers.- How engineers educated in narrow technical terms with a fixed mindset need an education that actively engages six minds-analytical, design, people, linguistic, body, and mindful- using a growth mindset.- How emotion and culture are the crucial elements of change, not content, curriculum, and pedagogy.- How four technologies of trust are well established and widely available to promote more rapid academic change.- How all stakeholders can join together in a movement of open innovation to accelerate collaborative disruption of the status quo.Read this book and get a glimpse inside the coming revolution in engineering. Feel the engaging stories in this book and understand the depth of change that is coming. Use this book to help select, shape, demand, and create educational experiences aligned with the creative imperative of the twenty-first century.

Tired of small business self-help books that over-promise and under-deliver? Then, Getting Rich Without Going Broke is the book for you! For the first time ever, millionaire entrepreneur and investor Rosalind Resnick shares her secrets of success and shows you how to use luck, logic and leverage to build your own multi-million-dollar business. From mapping out your strategy and targeting your market to raising capital and building the winning team, Resnick takes you by the hand and coaches you step-by-step on how to minimize your risk and maximize your chances of success. An invaluable resource for any aspiring entrepreneur!

If you're ready for some fresh, new, money-saving ideas for your small business, and hard-hitting financial advice that actually works, then this book might be for you.It's called 'Business Economizer: How To Generate Big Money-Saving Ideas For Your Small Business', and it's all about how to knuckle down, economize, and save more money in your business without making sacrifices or the typical boneheaded mistakes (i.e. cheapskate errors) that would otherwise ruin your long-term financial security and independence. It includes more than 101 fresh and practical ways to save money in your business right now. But instead of just telling you specific strategies and tactics that you mindlessly follow and implement, this book also teaches you how to generate your own money-saving strategies and integrate them into your own business and life-something money gurus hope you'll never learn.Business Economizer will teach you:? How to have "creativity on demand", and invent your own money-saving ideas, by hacking your brain and boosting your creative intelligence;? How to make good financial decisions every single time with a simple, clear, 5-step process - get good at this, and you might not ever need a financial advisor ever again;? How to get like-new equipment and goods for your business on the cheap (and sometimes, for free);And so much more...

Between 1948 and 2016, David Goldblatt returned periodically to Fietas, a suburb west of Johannesburg’s city centre, to photograph the impact of punitive segregation and ethnic cleansing wrought by apartheid legislation on its residents and landscape. Moved by the life force of the predominantly Indian community’s families, shopkeepers, and small business owners, Goldblatt attempted ‘to grasp something of their life and what they had built.’ The resulting photographs, collected and published here for the first time, form a vivid social document of Fietas before, during, and after its destruction under the Group Areas Act. Earlier images of storefronts and domestic interiors contrast poignantly with those of their demolition from the late 1970s onwards. Dignified portraits of traders in their stores capture their determined efforts to build a life for their families. Interviews with past and present Fietas residents close the book, recalling the testimonials of Goldblatt’s subjects in The Transported of Kwandebele and Ex-Offenders at the Scene of Crime. Exemplary of Goldblatt’s empathetic and observational documentary style, these photographs and oral histories establish a generous exchange between photographer and subject. Together these materials preserve narratives of Fietas as a racially diverse community that existed in defiance of apartheid. An accompanying essay by Professor Ashwin Desai places Fietas within the wider historical context of Indian South Africans and racist ideology before and after the advent of apartheid, completing a compelling reference to a little known community forever changed by the darkest point in South Africa’s history. (Verlagsangaben)

Surrounded by cemeteries in the flatlands of New Jersey, the small town of Lud is sustained by the business of death. In fact, with no synagogue and no congregation, Rabbi Jerry Goldkorn has only one true responsibility: to preside over burial services for Jews who pass away in the surrounding cities. But after the Arctic misadventures that led him to Lud, he wouldn't want to live (or die) anywhere else. As the only living child in Lud, his daughter Connie has a different opinion of this grisly city, and she will do anything to get away from it--or at least liven it up a bit. Things get lively indeed when Connie testifies to meeting the Virgin Mary for a late-night romp through the local graveyards.

Berlin! Berlin! is a satirical selection from the "man with the acid pen and the perfect pitch for hypocrisy," as New York author and Tucholsky-expert Peter Wortsman writes. This book os a complete collection of Tucholsky's news stories, features, satirical pieces, and poems about his hometown Berlin. It depicts Weimar Berlin, its cabarets, its policies, its follies, its ticks, and its celebrities, such as Pola Negri, Gussy Holl, Bert Brecht, Max Reinhardt, or Heinrich Zille. The book contains some of Tucholsky's most famous pieces, among them Berlin! Berlin!, a feature of the stereotypical Berliner on the phone, on vacation or doing "bizness", more than one satirical biography of the author himself, and some of his most famed stories such as where the holes in the cheese come from, or about the lion who escaped the Berlin zoo. Herr Wendriner, the chatty Berlin businessman makes an appearance, as well as Lottchen, the flapper, modelled after one of Tucholsky's real-life gilrfriends. Also Tucholsky's long-term friends Karlchen and Jakopp are part of this book. In Weimar Germany, Tucholsky was big, the most brilliant, prolific and witty cultural journalist of his time. He poured scorn on the reactionary institutions of the old regime, the follies of the Weimar Republic, and the peculiarities of the German character. - William Grimes, The New York Times Imagine a writer with the acid voice of Christopher Hitchens and the satirical whimsy of Jon Stewart. That's Tucholsky in a nutshell. - Anne Nelson, author of "The Red Orchestra" and "The Guys" Kurt Tucholsky was one of the most brilliant German-Jewish writers of his time. Today's Berliners adore him as one of their greatest sons. The world has yet to discover his genius. -Peter Schneider, author of "The Wall Jumper" and "Eduard's Homecoming" A selection from the man with the acid pen and the perfect pitch for hypocrisy, who was as much the voice of 1920s Berlin as Georg Grosz was its face. - Peter Wortsman, author of "Ghost Dance in Berlin" . . . a small, fat Berliner, who wanted to stop a catastrophe with his typewriter. -Erich Kästner, author of "Emil and the Detectives"

In Magnolia Street, where Jews and Christians live on opposite sides of the road, feuds and alliances, gossip and good humour thrive. This is a classic saga of working-class life in 1920s Manchester. First published in 1932, it was a bestseller. "I loved this book... it is basically a painting in words about a small street in Doomingtom (Manchester, England). The street is divided into Jewish and Gentile sides; the Gentiles have 2 major social venues - the pub and the barbers; the Jews have 2 major social gathering places - the grocer shop and the synagogue. Never the twain shall meet, until one of the incidents occurs that bring the two sides together for the first time... The beauty of this book is the way that each of the characters is drawn, how they fit into their families and into the street. The characters really come to life! It was just a joy to read."--Liz, Goodreads

Entrepreneur Magazine columnist and blogger Rosalind Resnick shares her secrets of success and shows you how to build your own multi-million-dollar business.