Geeks Bearing Gifts: Imagining New Futures for News is a creative, thought-provoking and entertaining exploration of the possible future(s) of news by Professor Jeff Jarvis, who leads the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.To Jarvis, journalism helps a community better organize its knowledge so it can better organize itself: “But we in the field came to define ourselves less by our value and mission and more by our media and tools — ink on pulp or slick paper, sound or images over airwaves. Now we have new tools to exploit. Those tools require new skills and create new value. But at the core, we serve citizens and communities.” He offers not a single definitive future of journalism and news, but a range of possibilities depending on how journalists and journalism evolve – with the help of the “geeks” whose advances in media technology offer many opportunities for journalists and media entrepreneurs who are willing to think creatively and take risks.Jarvis, one of the preeminent voices on emerging forms of journalism, news delivery, and community engagement, advises many media companies, startups, and foundations. He is a former president and creative director of Advance.net, the online arm of Advance Publications, and was the creator and founding editor of Entertainment Weekly; Sunday editor and associate publisher of the New York Daily News; TV critic for TV Guide and People; a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner; and assistant city editor and reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

    In this startling, eye-opening book, you'll learn how powerful corporations are planning a future where:Strangers will be able to scan the contents of your purse or briefcase from across a room.Stores will change prices as you approach-squeezing extra profits out of bargain shoppers and the poor.The contents of your refrigerator and medicine cabinet will be remotely monitored.Floors, doorways, ceiling tiles, and even picture frames will spy on you?leaving virtually no place to hide.microchip implants will track your every move?and even broadcast your conversations remotely or electroshock you if you step out of line.This is no conspiracy theory. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been invested in what global corporations and the government are calling "the hottest new technology since the bar code." Unless we stop it now, RFID could strip away our last shreds of privacy and usher in a nightmare world of total surveillance?to keep us all on Big Brother's very short leash.What critics are saying about Spychips, the book:Spychips "make[s] a stunningly powerful argument against plans for RFID being mapped out by government agencies, retail and manufacturing companies." ?Evan Schuman, CIO Insight"The privacy movement needs a book.  I nominate Spychips." ?Marc Rotenberg, EPIC"Brilliantly written; so scary and depressing I want to put it down, so full of fascinating vignettes and facts that I can't put it down." ?Author Claire WolfeSpychips "makes a very persuasive case that some of America's biggest companies want to embed tracking technology into virtually everything we own, and then study our usage patterns 24 hours a day. It's a truly creepy book and well worth reading." ?Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe"You REALLY want to read this book." ?Laissez Faire

    Gulag America tells the story of the eight years that followed, through two federal trials and the underworld of the federal prison system, at a time when it was undergoing unprecedented expansion due to the War on Drugs. Stratton was shipped by bus from LA's notorious Glass House to jails and prisons across the country, a softening process known as diesel therapy. Resisting pressure to falsely implicate his friend and mentor, Norman Mailer, he was convicted in his second trial under the kingpin statute and sentenced to twenty-five years without the possibility of parole.While doing time in prisons from Manhattan's Criminal Hilton to rural Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, and New York, he witnessed brutality as well as camaraderie, rampant trafficking of contraband, and crimes by both guards and convicts. He first learned the lessons of survival. Then he learned to prevail, becoming a jailhouse lawyer and winning the reversal of his kingpin sentence and eventual release.Gulag America includes cameos by Norman Mailer and Muhammad Ali, and an account of the author's friendship with mafia don Joe Stassi, a legendary hitman from the early days of the mob who knew gangsters Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Abe Zwillman and has insights into the killing of Dutch Schultz and the Kennedy assassinationGulag America is the second volume in Richard Stratton's trilogy, Remembrance of the War on Plants.

    The book also features an exclusive foreword by rock legend Glenn Hughes (Black Sabbath, Deep Purple).

    It was as if her mother knew that Risé was not meant to be written into the family’s tragedies. In fact, from a young age Risé found a way to rise above the chaos, abuse, and molestation of her childhood, eventually escaping the weight of her family, and learning to love and believe in herself. This story is a testament to her deep determination and innate courage.

    His more than twenty-five years as a player and coach have informed his popular Hockey Night in Canada commentary segment, "Coach's Corner." And now he's got more stories to share.In Don Cherry's Hockey Stories, Part 2, Grapes tells us about the 2010 Stanley Cup, relays the lessons he's learned both on and off the ice, and takes us inside hockey's mythical players' "code." You'll encounter familiar names from the game and find out who this idol looks up to. You'll travel back in time to Cherry's days playing in the minor leagues. You'll share his experiences of being named Coach of the Year in the NHL and in the AHL. And you'll hear from his kids about what it was like growing up with a dad like Don..Don Cherry tells it like it is, for better or for worse. You won't be disappointed.P.S. Don wants you to know it's a book the whole family can enjoy.

    Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science and economics at UCLA, has spent years constructing precise, quantitative measures of the slant of media outlets. He does this by measuring the political content of news, as a way to measure the PQ, or "political quotient" of voters and politicians.Among his conclusions are: (i) all mainstream media outlets have a liberal bias; and (ii) while some supposedly conservative outlets--such the Washington Times or Fox News' Special Report--do lean right, their conservative bias is less than the liberal bias of most mainstream outlets.Groseclose contends that the general leftward bias of the media has shifted the PQ of the average American by about 20 points, on a scale of 100, the difference between the current political views of the average American, and the political views of the average resident of Orange County, California or Salt Lake County, Utah. With Left Turn readers can easily calculate their own PQ--to decide for themselves if the bias exists. This timely, much-needed study brings fact to this often overheated debate.

    Equal parts memoir/family saga/film book, Growing Up with Manos: The Hands of Fate shares the behind-the-scenes story of the making of Manos: from creator Hal Warren's alleged bet with TV producer Stirling Silliphant that "anyone could make a movie," to the tragic suicide of John Reynolds (Torgo), right up through the newest Manos-related projects that are carrying the film into the digital age. Jackey's stories dispel much of the Manos mythology while crystallizing a unique time and place in America, where a crew of actors with a bad script and a rented camera set out to make a bad movie-and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Jackey Neyman Jones is a professional artist living in the Great Northwest. Laura Mazzuca Toops is a writer/editor with more than 30 years' experience in business and fiction writing. She is the author of three historical novels.

    And you have no idea what you signed up for. Or maybe you've been a stepmom for a while now, but things are getting you down. Who do you turn to for help? Where is the stepmothering support group that'll give you the advice you need? Who actually gets how hard being a stepmom can be?We do. We are the women who have chosen stepmotherhood and lived to tell the tale. This guide holds our solutions to help you:- Brave the crazy ex demands- Overcome the financial hurdles of a blended family- Be prepared for the legal battles and custody arrangements- Handle disrespectful children- Nourish your relationship- Manuever the emotional breakdowns of stepmotherhood- Build your own stepmom's club- Understand why you need your partner to have your backWritten by stepmoms for stepmoms, these tips, anecdotes, and words of advance will help you find success and support within your new family.We are the Stepmoms' Club --your club --and we're here to help you.

    Lawmakers have tried to amend or abolish it more than 700 times. To this day, millions of voters, and even members of Congress, misunderstand how it works. It deepens our national divide and distorts the core democratic principles of political equality and majority rule. How can we tolerate the Electoral College when every vote does not count the same, and the candidate who gets the most votes can lose?Twice in the last five elections, the Electoral College has overridden the popular vote, calling the integrity of the entire system into question—and creating a false picture of a country divided into bright red and blue blocks when in fact we are purple from coast to coast. Even when the popular-vote winner becomes president, tens of millions of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—find that their votes didn't matter. And, with statewide winner-take-all rules, only a handful of battleground states ultimately decide who will become president.Now, as political passions reach a boiling point at the dawn of the 2020 race, the message from the American people is clear: The way we vote for the only official whose job it is to represent all Americans is neither fair nor just. Major reform is needed—now. Isn't it time to let the people pick the president?In this thoroughly researched and engaging call to arms, Supreme Court journalist and New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman draws upon the history of the founding era, as well as information gleaned from campaign managers, field directors, and other officials from twenty-first-century Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, to make a powerful case for abolishing the antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College. In Let the People Pick the President he shows how we can at long last make every vote in the United States count—and restore belief in our democratic system.

    But that’s just what Kelly Corrigan has set out to do here. In her New York Times bestselling memoirs, Corrigan distilled our core relationships to their essences, showcasing a warm, easy storytelling style. Now, in Tell Me More, she’s back with a deeply personal, unfailingly honest, and often hilarious examination of the essential phrases that turn the wheel of life.In “I Don’t Know,” Corrigan wrestles to make peace with uncertainty, whether it’s over invitations that never came or a friend’s agonizing infertility. In “No,” she admires her mother’s ability to set boundaries and her liberating willingness to be unpopular. In “Tell Me More,” a facialist named Tish teaches her something important about listening. And in “I Was Wrong,” she comes clean about her disastrous role in a family fight—and explains why saying sorry may not be enough. With refreshing candor, a deep well of empathy, and her signature desire to understand “the thing behind the thing,” Corrigan swings between meditations on life with a preoccupied husband and two mercurial teenage daughters to profound observations on love and loss.With the streetwise, ever-relatable voice that defines Corrigan’s work, Tell Me More is a moving and meaningful take on the power of the right words at the right moment to change everything.

    So they flooded in: the profiteers, deadbeats, ex-cons, dreamers, and doers. And so too did Maya Rao, a journalist who embedded herself in the surreal new American frontier.With an eye for the dark, humorous, and absurd, Rao set out in steel-toed boots to chronicle the largest oil boom since the 1968 discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Businessmen turned up to restart their careers after bankruptcy or fraud allegations from the financial crisis. An ex-con found his niche as a YouTube celebrity exposing the underside of oilfield life. A high-rolling Englishman blew investors’ money on $400 shots of cognac as authorities started to catch on that his housing developments were part of a worldwide Ponzi scheme.Part Barbara Ehrenreich, part Upton Sinclair, this is an on-the-ground narrative of capitalism and industrialization as a rural, insular community transformed into a colony of outsiders hustling for profit-a sobering exploration of twenty-first century America that reads like a frontier novel.

    How important is composting? Is seed saving really worth it? Focusing on sustainable, organic growing practices and plants, The Backyard Gardener is a comprehensive handbook that will help get them started. Kelly Orzel covers everything from soil selection to growing and harvesting. Sidebars such as "garden center survival tips" offer useful advice to help readers build their confidence and know-how. This guide also features photographs of beautiful plant bed designs, propagation techniques, and much more.

    Filled with strange anecdotes and illustrated with many bizarre and ghoulish images, Death: A History of Man’s Obsessions and Fears records the lengths to which people throughout history have gone to cope with the five principle fears regarding death: the fear of being buried alive; of our body being defiled in the grave; of disintegrating; of being forgotten; and of suffering an ignominious death. Here you can read about: The case of Lavrinia Merli, who died of hysterics. Two days after burial she was discovered turned over in her grave, having given birth to a seven month old baby. The various methods of embalming, including the Egyptian, and a step-by-step account of modern embalming. The horrifying slow and painful ending of Robert Francois Damiens, who was tortured to death after attempting to assassinate King Louis XV.

    This is a unique personal perspective on forensic science, written in a darkly humorous voice by an expert who worked as a crime scene investigator for over 10 years.