A Textured Life

Based on an extensive Canadian survey of support services for adults with developmental disabilities, and 141 interviews with such adults, their families, and support staff, this book discusses the empowerment through community which developmentally disabled people can experience in today's post-deinstitutionalized society. The Canadian origins of the work do not prevent it from being relevant to professionals working with these populations in the United States and elsewhere. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Mixing rigorous social theory with concrete analysis, Reading and Writing Disability Differently unpacks the marginality of disabled people by addressing how the meaning of our bodily existence is configured in everyday literate society. Tanya Titchkosky begins by illustrating how news media and policy texts reveal dominant Western ways of constituting the meaning of people, and the meaning of problems, as they relate to our understandings of the embodied self. Her goal is to configure disability as something more than a problem, and beyond simply a positive or a negative, and to treat texts on disability as potential sites to examine neo-liberal culture. Titchkosky holds that through an exploration of the potential behind limited representations of disability, we can relate to disability as a meaningful form of resistance to the restricted normative order of contemporary embodiment. Incorporating a textual analysis of ordinary depictions of disability, this innovative study promises to represent embodied differences in new ways and alter our imaginative relations to the politics of the body.

"One morning Mel Toews put on his coat and hat and walked out of town, prepared to die. A loving husband and father, faithful member of the Mennonite church, and immensely popular school teacher, he was a pillar of his close-knit community. Yet after a lifetime of struggle, he could no longer face the darkness of manic depression. Now his daughter Miriam, an award-winning writer, has given her father a voice for his whole story. In Swing Low, Miriam recounts Mel's life as she imagines he would have told it, right up to the day he took his final walk. Toews takes us deep inside the experience of depression, but she also gives us winsome and hilarious tales of country life: growing up on a farm, courting a wife, becoming a teacher, and rearing a strong, happy family in the midst of private torment." --

This book gives voice to a group of leisure scholars who are engaged in conversations about sustainability. Beginning with discussions on the relationship between leisure and sustainability and how these concepts are addressed in current literature, a case is made for continued investigation of how leisure and sustainability need to be better understood; and viewed as integrally linked. The book discusses issues related to environmental sustainability; how, at the local level, leisure is considered as a solution to a range of social, environmental, and economic issues; and the value of leisure as an asset for addressing several social sustainability challenges. This book was originally published as a special issue of Leisure/Loisir: Journal of the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies.

America may be called the "land of opportunity," but countless kids and teens are struggling like young Davids in the urban wilderness, attempting to fight the giant of poverty under insurmountable odds. What could make a difference? The presence of a "Jonathan" in their lives to offer them the life-giving support they need to survive and thrive. The church is the best source of these Jonathans, as they partner with local schools and provide struggling youth with the relational connections that can help them overcome their circumstances. It's a strategy that works, as author Mike Tenbusch demonstrates through his own inspiring story. A Detroit native and longtime advocate for youth education, he brings you into the classrooms of the toughest schools in America so you can see firsthand the hardships of surviving as a child in these settings. And he introduces you to many real-life Jonathans who are making a tangible difference. The need is tremendous. If you have ever wondered how you, your company, or your church can be a part of the solution to the challenge of extreme poverty, this book will inspire you to take action. By coming alongside our nation's most vulnerable young people, you will help unleash the Jonathan Effect that will turn the tide in the battle against poverty.

This second volume in this new series aims to anchor the 21st century in the tradition of the new, to raise methodology into historiography. As the new millennium develops, it is becoming evident that science and society are critical pivots in the formation of a larger mosaic of culture and civilization. A tradition has developed and refuses to dissolve under the withering aspect of analysis. Whether flying under the banner of Arthur Lovejoy, George F. Kennan, Pitirim Sorokin, Arnold Toynbee, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, T. S. Eliot, Thorstein Veblen, and countless others, it has become clear that making sense of the whole, and not resting easy with bits and pieces has become the mission of Culture & Civilization. This second volume expands upon the initial efforts to deepen the sense of tradition, with outstanding contributions ranging from Charles Murray, The Happiness of the People; Peter Watson, Ideas: A History of Thought from Fire to Freud; Evan Selinger, Ethics and Poverty Tours; Walter A. McDougall, American Policy Traditions in the Middle East; Raymond Ibrahim, Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam; Michael Curtis, Israel: Land, Law, and Legitimacy; Marian Tupy, Persistent Poverty in Africa; David Ronfeldt and Danielle Varda, Cyberocracy Revisited; a retrospective by Leo Alexander on Medical Science under Dictatorship; and a series of brilliant new essays on Wyndham Lewis, Jonathan Swift, Max Scheler, and Thurman Arnold. Culture and Civilization does not embrace idiosyncratic visions of the apocalypse or the end of Western empires. It does attempt to bring together immediate issues and ideas that are substantial and challenging. The essential polarity between democracy and autocracy has now taken on historical dimensions that has now taken on larger, deeper dimensions in different political economic, and ecological terrain of our day is civilization versus barbarism. This second volume is a sober, deeper response to such a challenge.

Men appear to enjoy many advantages in society-on average they make more money, have more power, and enjoy a greater degree of social freedom than women. But many men pay a high price for the pursuit of success and power. Taking family and friends for granted, men will often let relationships take a back seat to their professional ambitions, only to ultimately find themselves with few real friends they can rely on in hard times. As a result, they turn to affairs, alcohol, and other self-destructive behaviors. Sadly, millions of men suffer untreated depression. In this groundbreaking and provocative book, award-winning clinical psychologist Thomas Joiner makes an impassioned call for society to recognize the harmful effects that solitude can have on men. Drawing on original research done for the National Institute of Mental Health, he focuses on the particular situations that leave men rudderless. He offers advice on support systems that are most useful to men, and he offers prescriptive advice on how men can improve their lives.

From the bestselling author of "The Bell Curve" comes a harrowing portrait of the haves and have nots in white America. A startling long-lens view, "Coming Apart" shows how class--not race or ethnicity--is putting the great tensions on the seams of American society.