I work here, I carry a badge. The story you are about to see is true..." Before Charlie's Angels, Miami Vice, or NYPD Blue, there was Dragnet. From 1951 to 1959, Jack Webb starred as Sergeant Joe Friday in the most successful police drama in television history. Webb ("Just the facts, ma'am") was also the creator of Dragnet, and what made the show so revolutionary was its documentary-style format and the fact that each episode was "ripped" from the files of the LAPD. But 1950s television censors deemed many of the stories in the LAPD's files too violent or sensational for the airwaves. The Badge is Webb's collection of stories that could not be presented on TV: untold, behind-the-scenes accounts of the Black Dahlia murder, the Brenda Allen confessions, Stephen Nash's "thrill murders," and Donald Bashor's "sleeping lady murders," to name just a few. Case by case, The Badge takes readers on a spine chilling police tour through the dark, shadowy world of Los Angeles crime. "Some books influence a writer. Books rarely shape a writer's curiosity whole. I'm anomalous that way. I got lucky at the get-go. It was one-stop imaginative shopping. I found all my stuff in one book." -- James Ellroy on The Badge

     Essential oils hold great wellness benefits.Kathy Heshelow makes it easy for beginners or dabblers in aromatherapy to walk away with a good understanding of how to USE THIS FOR THAT. You'll get great info, recipes, applications and tips to keep you and your family well.

    The result is a fresh interpretation of Mozart's genius, as Robert Gutman shows the great composer in a new light. With an informed and sensitive handling, Mozart emerges as an affectionate and generous man with family and friends, self-deprecating, witty, and winsome but also an austere moralist, incisive and purposeful. The major genres in which Mozart worked-chamber music, liturgical, theater and keyboard compositions, concertos, operas, symphonies, and oratorios-are unfolded to reveal a man of luminous intellect. Mozart is an extraordinary portrait of a man and his times and a brilliant distillation of musical thought.

    A proud and independent nation developed from a number of smaller states; brilliant art and a unique way of life flourished, although the evidence of this, unfortunately, is often sketchy.A noted Celtic scholar, Nora Chadwick spent much of her life researching this field. Here she describes the rise and spread of the Celts and their arrival in the British Isles in about the eighth century BC. Chapters on their literature and art, their institutions and religion, punctuate the historical narrative and provide an illuminating insight into the Celtic way of life.

    He tells his life story, from growing up in the Midlands to all the excesses of glam rock, and is currently busy carving out a new career for himself in the TV sitcom, The Grimleys.

    The first is professional basketball's metamorphosis from a fringe sport whose championship games would air tape-delayed at 11:30 p.m., after the local news had already given the scores, to become the big-money sports spectacular it is today, filled with outrageously inflated salaries and egos. The other journey is that of Shelton Jackson Lee himself, who has gone from a skinny kid playing ball on the streets of Brooklyn, sneaking into Madison Square Garden to watch his beloved Knicks, to Morehouse College and NYU film school, to being a world-renowned film director and hoops fan. The book charts Spike's artistic journey from his first college film (Super 8), called "Last Hustle in Brooklyn," and his gradual move down from the raucous, nosebleed blue seats just below the Garden's rafters, closer and closer to the on-court action until, in the year "Malcolm X" was released, Spike landed the coveted courtside seats he has today - the best seats in the house. From there, his blue-seat emotions, transplanted to within arm's reach of the action, have led to numerous confrontations with refs and opposing players - some of them public, like the notorious Reggie Miller incident - but most never before discussed. Along the way Spike takes readers on entertaining and provocative detours, including a one-on-one with that other film-directing, Brooklyn-born, Garden-inhabiting hoops fan, Woody Allen; reviews of sports movies (Spike has seen them all, and the results aren't pretty); an unusually candid and revelatory interview with Michael Jordan; and astark assessment of the role of African-American athletes both in the big business of sports and in the broader culture.

    Charting topics as diverse as Minoan civilization, the Persian Wars, the Golden Age of Athens, and the conquests of Alexander the Great, the atlas traces the development of this creative and restless people and assesses their impact not only on the ancient world but also on our own attitudes and environment today.

    Doug Chamberlain endured many challenges. One challenge was a direct order to bury the remains of a Marine that had been left behind by another unit and be forced to participate in the following cover-up. The order was in direct contraction of United States Marine Corps Policy and the Warrior's Honor Code of never leaving any Marine behind. Following this order meant committing an act of incomprehensible betrayal and dishonor.In this captivating new book, Capt. Chamberlain explains in detail the events that transpired as he was forced into playing the role of a political pawn in a massive wartime cover-up. Capt. Chamberlain expertly paints a picture of deceit and military malfeasance, sharing with the reader the moral and mental struggles that ate away at him in the decades that followed this horrible act.

    In this biography of Livia, the first in English, Anthony Barrett sets aside the portrait of a cunning and sinister schemer to reveal Livia as a complex figure whose enduring political influence helped shape Roman government long after her death."An excellent biography of Livia-as appealing to the general reader as it is satisfying to the scholar."—Colin M. Wells, Trinity University, San Antonio"In reading Anthony Barrett’s biography of Livia, I not only learned about this remarkable woman, but also gained a meaningful appreciation of life and society in her time."—Howard Alper, President, The Royal Society of Canada "First-rate."—Mary Beard, Times Literary Supplement

    His aim is to account for the evolution of cultural forms as Darwin accounted for the evolution of biological forms: to show how cultures adopt their characteristic forms in response to changing ecological modes."[A] magisterial interpretation of the rise and fall of human cultures and societies."-- Robert Lekachman, Washington Post Book World"Its persuasive arguments asserting the primacy of cultural rather than genetic or psychological factors in human life deserve the widest possible audience."-- Gloria Levitas The New Leader"[An] original and...urgent theory about the nature of man and at the reason that human cultures take so many diverse shapes."-- The New Yorker"Lively and controversial."-- I. Bernard Cohen, front page, The New York Times Book Review

    It includes sections on viniculture and viticulture, Old World and New World wines, beer and other fermented beverages, and all varieties of spirits. Review questions, key terms, a pronunciation guide, maps, and even sample wine labels provide invaluable test prep information for acing the major sommelier certification exams. For each type of beverage, author Michael Gibson covers the essential history, manufacturing information, varieties available, and tasting and pairing information. He also includes sections on service, storage, and wine list preparation for a full understanding of every aspect of beverage service. - An ideal test prep resource for anyone studying for certification by The Court of Master Sommeliers, The Society of Wine Educators, or The International Sommelier Guild - An excellent introduction to wine and beverages for bartenders, beverage enthusiasts, and students - Based on education materials developed by the author for his culinary and hospitality students at the Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Scottsdale With concise, accessible information from an expert sommelier, this is the most complete guide available to all the wines, beers, and spirits of the world.

    Wagons West is a stirring history of the years from 1840 to 1849--the years between the era of the fur trappers and the beginning of the gold rush. In all the sagas of human migration, few can top the drama of the journey by Midwestern farmers to Oregon and California in those years. Although they used mountain men as guides, they went almost literally into the unknown, braving dangers from hunger, thirst, disease, and drowning.Using original diaries and memoirs, McLynn “provides intimate, perceptive insights into that time”(The Baltimore Sun) and underscores the incredible heroism and dangerous folly on the overland trails. His well-informed and authoritative narrative investigates the events leading up to the opening of the trails, the wagons and animals used by the pioneers, the role of women, relations with Native Americans, and much else. The climax arrives in McLynn's expertly re-created tale of the dreadful Donner party, and he closes with Brigham Young and the Mormons beginning communites of their own. Full of high drama, tragedy, and triumph, it brilliantly chronicles one of the principal chapters in the creation of the United States as we know it today.The Anglo-Americans were the last people to arrive in the West. The British had penetrated the Oregon Territory, the Spanish had occupied Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and California, and even the Russians and Chinese had traveled to the Pacific seaboard. But until the 1840s, the West was a mere backwater in the life of the United States. The U.S. interest in the West didn’t begin until the 1840s, years after the Lewis and Clark expedition, commissioned by the US President Thomas Jefferson after he purchased the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803. This new territory doubled the size of the United States, and Lewis and Clark were to explore the newly acquired and unfamiliar land. However, exploring the vast area between the Mississippi and the Pacific was largely the work of the “mountain men,” who between 1820 and 1840 reconnoitered the routes that would later be recognized as the Santa Fe, California, and Oregon trails.Whereas in 1841 just thirty-four people had made it overland to California and in 1842 a mere 125 had reached Oregon, in 1844 1,528 people reached the west coast on the Oregon and California trails. Though the 1844 emigrants were very well organized and equipped, they faced problems no previous Pacific-bound emigrants had had to contend with: torrential rain and tremendous flooding. Having scarcely survived the high waters, the originally combined Oregon-bound and California-bound parties decided to go their separate ways at Fort Laramie. The Oregon-bound party then endured many deaths from disease, and largely degenerated into a free-for-all, with individual riders heading as fast as their horses would take them for the Columbia River. Though the first snows were not expected for a month, they came unseasonably early and caused starvation. One group did however get safely over the Blue Mountains. Around the same time, the Stephens-Murphy party reached Sutter’s Fort and was subsequently the first party to prove that wagons could be taken all the way to the Pacific Coast in California.The Donner party unknowingly headed into the most unimaginable disaster. Moving too slowly to avoid the coming snowstorms, the Donner party proceeded without maps, direct trails or guides. After weeks of starvation due to the snow, members of the Donner party began to discuss cannibalism as an option. Those who did not survive the starvation were eaten by some of the survivors. When relief parties finally found the survivors, they learned to their horror that some of the party’s members, including infants and children, had been murdered for their flesh. But the press purposely silenced and suppressed news of the Donner party so as not to discourage overland pioneers. By the time the news reached the Midwest it was too late to deter the emigrants of 1847, and by 1848 the gold strike in California had swept aside all other considerations.The most dramatic emigration of 1847 was that of the Mormons from Illinois to their new Zion in Oregon. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was killed by a mob of anti-Mormon militiamen in June of 1844. Brigham Young, one of his appointed “apostles,” became the new leader of the Mormons after his death. In March of 1846 he led 5,000 Mormon emigrants on their westward trail. To ensure the loyalty of the Mormons in territory that was still technically Mexican, President Polk demanded that the Mormons furnish a battalion of five hundred men to serve in the Mexican war, specifically to march against Santa Fe and California with US forces. By complying with the President’s request, Young got the US government to provide free transsssssport to the West, plus allowances for future Mormon emigrants. However, despite the aid, the going was very difficult for the Mormons and the casualties suffered were much more severe than those of previous emigrations. Four hundred deaths occurred from disease at one Mormon camp alone, and the Mormons also suffered Indian hostility and massacres greater than ever seen before on the trail. While Oregon saw nearly ten times more emigrants in 1847 than the previous year, because of the Mexican war and reports of Indian attacks, less than a third of the previous year’s emigrants arrived in California in 1847. But the discovery of gold in California in 1848 overwhelmed all deterrents and created numbers beyond the power of Indians to resist.

    AD 539-594) is a fascinating exploration of the events that shaped sixth-century France. This volume contains all ten books from the work, the last seven of which provide an in-depth description of Gregory's own era, in which he played an important role as Bishop of Tours. With skill and eloquence, Gregory brings the age vividly to life, as he relates the exploits of missionaries, martyrs, kings and queens - including the quarrelling sons of Lothar I, and the ruthless Queen Fredegund, third wife of Chilperic. Portraying an age of staggering cruelty and rapid change, this is a powerful depiction of the turbulent progression of faith at a time of political and social chaos.

    I give an expression of care every day to each child, to help him realize that he is unique. I end the program by saying, 'You've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you; and I like you just the way you are.' And I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health.” – Fred Rogers An anomalous YouTube video crudely entitled “Mr. Rogers is a [sic] Evil Man” stands at over 1.8 million views, with 1,000 likes and a whopping 30,000 dislikes. Similarly, saying an ill word about the universally adored Mister Rogers on the forums of the imageboard, 4Chan, will get the commenter torn to shreds by even its notoriously toxic anonymous users, and almost definitely ousted from the online community for good. In an age where even the motives of Gandhi and Mother Teresa are questioned by the cynical and they are at times vilified as “frauds,” one would be hard-pressed to find a rational argument against the untouchable character of Mister Rogers. When one does happen upon such an abnormality, the public is quick to defend the gentle soul. “It takes a special kind of scum to hate Mister Rogers,” reads the top comment on the aforementioned video, posted by user Sergei Ivanovich Mosin. The video has been picked apart by multiple journalists from the likes of Huffington Post and the Pittsburgh Magazine, amongst many others. So who exactly was Fred Rogers, and how did the host of one of history’s most beloved shows win the hearts of children around the world? Fred Rogers: The Life and Legacy of the Legend behind Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood profiles one of America’s most iconic television personalities. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Fred Rogers like never before.