Book Description
It is best to travel slowly along the roads and highways of Texas. Not because of speed traps, though they are there. But because if you travel slowly, you are less likely to miss the turns that will take you to the heart of this great state. Take these turns, and they will lead you to stories and places of faith.
The Amazing Faith of Texas is an exploration in words and pictures of people and places that represent the strong, abiding belief that sustains faith-filled Texans. A belief that transcends the boundaries of religion. Transcends the dogma. Transcends the differences.
We have heard all we need to hear about what divides us.
The Amazing Faith of Texas is about what unites us. From tiny churches on dusty back roads to the mega churches along our cities' highways, from temples, mosques, and synagogues—
Amazing Faith is a look at our places of worship and a listen to the stories that bring Texans to their faith. From the desert of West Texas to the pines of East Texas, from the Panhandle to the border,
The Amazing Faith of Texas is an exploration of common ground on higher ground.
Customer Reviews:
The photographer makes it happen........2007-02-28
The photographer, Randal Ford, is amazing. He captures the essence of everything he shoots -see his website and no, I'm not related... I can't judge the stories, although they seem pretty good to me.
Just the photos are worth the price of this book. For a little bit more of Texas check out books by Wyman Meinzer and John Graves. Texas - it's a big place.
Beautiful photos, inspirational text.......2007-01-10
I thought this was going to be primarily an art book. I purchased it as a gift for my in-laws, but of course I had to glance through it before I gave it to them. I loved it - the stories that go with the lovely pictures are short and well-written - I couldn't put it down. My in-laws loved it, too. Now I want one for me!
Regular reader of books.......2007-01-05
It is amazing, with all the different faiths, that we all are working for the same thing: higher ground. Pictures in the bok are great.
The Amazing Austin Area and a few strangers.......2006-12-18
This book proves that if you have enough money, you can publish a book that includes your family and friends. Add to that a few more of the rich and famous of the Austin area, throw in a few out-of-town strangers for authenticity (unbeknownst to them), then call it art. Mike Blair wrote that he "crisscrossed the state, searching for stories of faith..." And the book is by "Roy Spence with the People of Texas." Hmmmmm... The photographer's work is incredible, but many of the stories are not. This is a good example of what Chogyam Trungpa calls spiritual materialism at its best. I'd be curious to find out the number of people who are native Texans--since it seems that many are not. C'mon. Don't Mess with Texas.
A buddy of mine also loves this book..........2006-11-21
This book will fill you with hope for the future! The absolutely breathtaking photos of holy men and women were taken by Randal Ford, and the stories were collected and edited by Mike Blair. Some motivational pieces are as follows: A quote by St. Ignatius Loyola, "For those who believe, no explanation is needed, for those who do not believe, no explanation is possible" is positioned opposite a photo of a stark white metal cross in a Texas field. Sister Angela, a Catholic nun who lives in a monastery and raises miniature horses, says, "God is the boss, and I'm just an employee." There is a great photo of Gerald Mann, who was the founder of Riverbend Church, and he is quoted, "The dirtiest word in the English language is they." Alan Graham of Mobile Loaves and Fishes in Austin, is pictured on the streets with a homeless friend and he states, "When you walk through the wall of prejudice, you will find that we are all indeed children of God." Carol C. Walker, Ph.D., is listed as "Missionary, Humanitarian, Texan" and her words quoted are, "We need to always be able to step back and say, 'There might be another way of thinking than mine.'" If you need a spiritual boost as I did, leaf through these pages and know that God is with us.
Book Description
With the small but powerfully
inspiring word "hope,"
nationally recognized leader
and policy-maker Governor
Mike Huckabee points out that
progress for our country cannot
happen with the continued
bipartisan rift dividing it. He
taps into the fundamental core
of every American, confronting matters closest at hand with the
call for a critical change in perspective and a clear plan of action
that shows what we can become as a truly indivisible nation. The
governor presents 12 key things we need to STOP doing in order
to make America stronger, speaking out on immigration, the job
market, health care, education, and taxes, and provides practical
solutions that could bring our nation to higher ground.
Customer Reviews:
Great book from a very good Governor.......2007-08-08
I am not a Republican so I was surprised to see how much I liked this book. Huckabee calls 'em as he see 'em. He is unrelenting on FEMA when Arkansas hosted Katrina refugees. He does not toe the administration line. Missing here are chapters and support for global warming, torture, and laissez-faire HMO medicalism. In fact, in many issues (such as education and his program for Arkansas kids healthcare ARKidsfirst), Huckabee could be a democrat. Huckabee wants to get away from partisan bickering and name-calling. He makes us aware that good ideas can come from diverse points-of-views, including democrats and republicans. I wish that more politicians were like him.
A Good Campaign Book, and a Good Book in General.......2007-07-06
Gov. Huckabee's From Hope to Higher Ground is eminently readable and insightful.
"Hope" refers to Hope, Arkansas, where Gov. Huckabee is from. "Higher Ground" can be a metaphor for many things, including improving ourselves, improving our families, and improving our nation, not to mention to Gov. Huckabee's presidential ambitions. It is a metaphor that works well in this quick 196-page read.
The book gives us 12 "Stops" to restoring America's greatness. The stops refer to things that we must stop doing, which is interesting because the book not only serves to introduce us to Gov. Huckabee's beliefs and political positions, but provides us with sound advice. The book will thus have resonance beyond 2008, as do, I am sure, his earlier titles: Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork and Character Makes a Difference.
For instance, we should stop "being cynical," stop "abusing our planet," stop "robbing the taxpayers," stop "the heat and turn on the light for hot issues," stop "the loss of America's prestige at home and abroad," and-my favorite-stop "being a selfish citizen," among others. Gov. Huckabee interweaves into each chapter specific standards we ought to hold our political leaders accountable to and specific principles by which we ought to be governed. He also tells stories from his life, including his ten-and-a-half years as Governor of Arkansas, to illustrate his stops. At the end of each chapter, Gov. Huckabee lists "12 Action Steps" to stop doing whatever the subject of the chapter is. For example, in "STOP the Culture of Chronic Disease," he lists, "Eliminate processed sugar from your diet as much as possible, if not totally;" in "STOP Being Cynical," he lists "have regular conversations with people very unlike you." I appreciate the specificity of the suggestions, which tell us much about the type of person Gov. Huckabee strives to be.
Gov. Huckabee comes across in this book-which he wrote without a ghost writer-exactly like he comes across in debates, speeches, and campaign stops: articulate, humorous, kind, humble, and right on the important issues of the day. If you are interested at all in Gov. Huckabee's campaign, this book will give you good insight into the man. If you are not interested in his campaign, this book will still give you good insight into "restoring America's greatness."
This guy understands middle America like no other...........2007-06-20
Mike Huckabee is a great writer and someone who has "walked the walk" so to speak. It is evident in this book. He really does believe the things he talks about, such as not pushing a left or right agenda, but instead pushing an agenda that lifts up America. He gives some very simple, practical things that people can do to make sure that what they do is lifting America up instead of bringing it down. Well written, easy read, feel good book, very credible...for a book of this genre, it is great!
Great Man.......2007-06-08
Perhaps I'm a bit prejudiced since I've known Mike for 13-14 years, since he first became Lt. Governor of Arkansas. He was born and raised in Hope, unlike Bill Clinton, who grew up in wide open Hot Springs. This upbringing gave him values that endure to this day. His education and career as a Baptist minister have served him well. I fully expect him to go on to higher achievement. I have six of his books.
Good idea - poor execution........2007-03-09
Having seen Mr. Huckabee tout this book on "The Daily Show", I was hoping for some fascinating ideas from the author on how to make the USA great again. However, Mr. Huckabee seems to spend more time telling the reader about how brilliant a person he is. He recommends that we (as a nation) need to STOP being cynical, yet it becomes almost impossible to be anything else while reading it.
And I'm still trying to figure how he and his wife, newly married, were struggling to get along on the salaries from his 2 jobs and her 1 job, yet after she gets treatment for a serious illness, she is able to quit her job, he cuts back to only one job and they manage to survive AND pay off the medical bill. I'm just baffled.
Book Description
During the 1990s, growing demands to end chronic welfare dependency culminated in the 1996 federal "welfare-to-work" reforms. But regardless of welfare reform, the United States has always been home to a large population of working poor-- people who remain poor even when they work and do not receive welfare. In a concentrated effort to address the problems of the working poor, a coalition of community activists and business leaders in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, launched New Hope, an experimental program that boosted employment among the city's poor while reducing poverty and improving children's lives. In Higher Ground, Greg Duncan, Aletha Huston, and Thomas Weisner provide a compelling look at how New Hope can serve as a model for national anti-poverty policies.
New Hope was a social contract--not a welfare program--in which participants were required to work a minimum of 30 hours a week in order to be eligible for earnings supplements and health and child care subsidies. All participants had access to career counseling and temporary community service jobs. Drawing on evidence from surveys, public records of employment and earnings, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic observation, Higher Ground tells the story of this ambitious three-year social experiment and evaluates how participants fared relative to a control group. The results were highly encouraging. Poverty rates declined among families that participated in the program. Employment and earnings increased among participants who were not initially working full-time, relative to their counterparts in a control group. For those who had faced just one significant barrier to employment (such as a lack of access to child care or a spotty employment history), these gains lasted years after the program ended. Increased income, combined with New Hope's subsidies for child care and health care, brought marked improvements to the well-being and development of participants' children. Enrollment in child care centers increased, and fewer medical needs went unmet. Children performed better in school and exhibited fewer behavioral problems, and gains were particularly dramatic for boys, who are at the greatest risk for poor academic performance and behavioral disorders.
As America takes stock of the successes and shortcomings of the Clinton-era welfare reforms, the authors convincingly demonstrate why New Hope could be a model for state and national policies to assist the working poor. Evidence based and insightfully written, Higher Ground illuminates how policymakers can make work pay for families struggling to escape poverty.
Average customer rating:
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Finding Higher Ground: A Life of Travels (Enivromental Arts and Humanities Series)
Catharine Savage Brosman
Manufacturer: University of Nevada Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0874175380 |
Book Description
Catharine Savage Brosman explores the places of her own life in the essays in Finding Higher Ground. The tour, for the reader, is one of delight and wonder. Brosman's places range from the West Texas desert of her girlhood to a chilly flat in the North of England, from the flooded streets of New Orleans to the sublimities of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Even as her meditations reflect on her connections to these places and the ways they have shaped her life, at the same time they also examine the broader connections between individual and community, culture and society, experience and memory. Her voice is unique--combining a poet's sensitivity to nuances of setting and behavior with salty good sense, passionate engagement in the world of letters, sly wit, and a rugged independence of character inherited from generations of her Western ancestors.
Book Description
Many feminists love a utopia—the idea of restarting humanity from scratch or transforming human nature in order to achieve a prescribed future based on feminist visions. Some scholars argue that feminist utopian fiction can be used as a template for creating such a future. However, Sally L. Kitch argues that associating feminist thought with utopianism is a mistake.
Drawing on the history of utopian thought, as well as on her own research on utopian communities, Kitch defines utopian thinking, explores the pitfalls of pursuing social change based on utopian ideas, and argues for a "higher ground" —a contrasting approach she calls realism. Replacing utopianism with realism helps to eliminate self-defeating notions in feminist theory, such as false generalization, idealization, and unnecessary dichotomies. Realistic thought, however, allows feminist theory to respond to changing circumstances, acknowledge sameness as well as difference, value the past and the present, and respect ideological give-and-take.
An important critique of feminist thought, Kitch concludes with a clear, exciting vision for a feminist future without utopia.
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Advocacy Research in Literacy Education: Seeking Higher Ground
Meredith Rogers Cherland , and
Helen Harper
Manufacturer: Lawrence Erlbaum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0805850570 |
Book Description
This book reviews what the authors term advocacy research in literacy education-research that explicitly addresses issues of social justice, equity, and democracy with the distinct purpose of social transformation. It surveys what educational researchers who are working for social justice have accomplished, describes current challenges, and outlines future possibilities.
The first section maps the terrain of advocacy research in literacy education. The authors group this large and expanding body of research into four categories: Critical Literacy(ies); Radical Counternarratives in Literacy Research; Literacy as Social Practice; and Linguistic Studies. Each chapter describes the research area, traces its history, provides example studies, and assesses the contributions of research to advocacy work now and potentially in the future. The second section provides a deeper consideration of challenges to the field of advocacy research and suggests future directions for research and scholarship; this section reflects the need to complicate and trouble the terms and relations between and among social justice, ethics, democracy, freedom, and literacy.
As a whole, this book is a response to the current popular understandings of literacy education that limit the efficacy of advocacy work in these troubled times-understandings that support the proliferation of standardized testing, teacher testing, and scripted lessons and programs, along with the privileging of particular forms of research. Intended for those who work or soon will work in literacy education-students, teacher educators, researchers, and practitioners-this book represents the authors' belief that it is time for advocacy workers to strengthen and intensify their efforts to promote the most principled, effective literacy education for democratic life. It is their hope that this book will contribute to such an effort.
Book Description
Nannerl O. Keohane is one of the most widely respected leaders in higher education. A political theorist who served as President of Wellesley College and Duke University, she has firsthand knowledge of the challenges facing modern universities: rising costs, the temptations of “corporatization,” consumerist students, nomadic faculty members, and a bewildering wave of new technologies. Her views on these issues and on the role and future of higher education are captured in Higher Ground, a collection of speeches and essays that she wrote over a twenty-year period.
Keohane regards colleges and universities as intergenerational partnerships in learning and discovery, whose compelling purposes include not only teaching and research but also service to society. Their mission is to equip students with a moral education, not simply preparation for a career or professional school.
But the modern era has presented universities and their leadership with unprecedented new challenges. Keohane worries about access to education in a world of rising costs and increasing economic inequality, and about threats to academic freedom and expressions of opinion on campus. She considers diversity as a key educational tool in our increasingly pluralistic campuses, ponders the impact of information technologies on the university’s core mission, and explores the challenges facing universities as they become more “global” institutions, serving far-flung constituencies while at the same time contributing to the cities and towns that are their institutional homes.
Reflecting on the role of contemporary university leaders, Keohane asserts that while they have many problems to grapple with, they will find creative ways of dealing with them, just as their predecessors have done.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting reflections by political philosopher cum President.......2007-03-06
This book is largely a collection of speeches (a personal festschrift) given by Keohane in her capacity as President of Wesley and Duke respectively. A strong sense of her social conscience is felt throughout the book that makes it stand apart, in my opinion, from several other musings by college presidents. Strikingly, Keohane largely steers away for the 'corporatization' debate. However, the book because of the diverse origins of its material does not reach the heights of Nussbaum's reflections on college values and ethical citizenship.
There are pros and cons to assembling past speeches into book form. On the one hand, positions worked out for a diverse constituency are elaborated intelligently, but on the other there is always the nagging concern that the occasions of the speeches required covering all bases.
To be fair to the author, the overview chapter in the beginning outlines quite trenchantly her own practical and philosophical take on many of the issues facing contemporary college presidents. This chapter makes the book a lot more revealing than it otherwise might have been. The tone in general is executive sounding, creating the impression that was written to be read ultimately by college presidents. Obviuosly it was written by a college president, but others such as Derek Bok, have ploughed this field without narrowing the readership. This is a personal reaction to the text, but having read Bok, Kerr etc, it struck me as a weakness.
Product Description
Scholars from ten dsiciplines describe the evolution of discourse about teaching and learning in their fields, the ways in which their disciplines' styles of discourse influence inquiry into teaching and learning, and the nature and role of intellectual exchange across disciplines.
Average customer rating:
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The Keys to the Castle: The Magic of Higher Ground Leadership
Lance Secretan
Manufacturer: Secretan Center
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
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One: The Art and Practice of Conscious Leadership
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Inspire! What Great Leaders Do
ASIN: 0969456166 |
Amazon.com
Lance Secretan is not your conventional business consultant. A member of MENSA, he built a $100 million company from scratch by age 40 and then retired to work with other executives worldwide, conduct seminars, and write books about the route he believes will lead to real success. Reclaiming Higher Ground: Creating Organizations That Inspire the Soul--which pictures Secretan on the cover smiling broadly in dark suit, dark turtleneck, shaved head, and bare feet--is his manifesto for those seeking an alternative to the traditional corporate way of life. Secretan's ideas, combined with supportive examples from today's business world, are truly thought provoking.
Book Description
Dr. Lance Secretan has a radical idea: that people are yearning for spirit and values at work and that the principal role of leaders is to build great organizations by meeting that need. In Reclaiming Higher Ground he describes a model used by visionary leaders who are creating the inspired organization of the future.
Customer Reviews:
reclaiming spirituality in business for the 90's.......1998-09-01
Lance Secretan hits home with a well-timed and easily understood description of the lack of morality and spirituality present in business today. He also does an excellent job of showing us what is working in business today, and although rare, examples of daring business leaders that have envisioned a business capable of operating on higher ground, and capturing the elusive human spirit as a core competency in a world too frequently dominated by technology, and lawyers. Lance shows us ways to reclaim our own personal spirituality, and how to transmit it throughout our organizations to recapture fun, passion, excitement and creativity. A quick read, but with a message that will be touted more and more as the average Joe searches for meaning in his life and his work.
Books:
- The Dinner Party: From Creation to Preservation
- The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type
- The Glass Castle: A Memoir
- The Glory of Their Times
- The Great Migration: An American Story
- The Hours of Simon de Varie (Getty Museum Monographs on Illuminated Manuscripts)
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Merck Manual 18th Edition
- The New Eighteenth-Century Style: Rediscovering a French Décor
- The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't
Books Index
Books Home
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- Art Deco and Other Figures, 2nd Edition
- Orchid Biology: Reviews and Perspectives
Don't Mess with Texas: The Story Behind the Legend
Between Heaven and Texas
Birdlife of Houston, Galveston, and the Upper Texas Coast
Historic Texas Courthouses
Insiders' Guide to Austin, 5th (Insiders' Guide Series)
