Breaking Through The Clouds

An inspiring picture book about the meteorologist whose discoveries helped us understand how weather works When Joanne Simpson (1923-2010) was a girl, she sailed her boat beneath the puffy white clouds of Cape Cod. As a pilot, she flew her plane so high, its wings almost touched them. And when World War II began and Joanne moved to the University of Chicago, a professor asked her to teach Air Force officers about those very clouds and the weather-changing winds. As soon as the war ended, Joanne decided to seriously study the clouds she had grown to love so much. Her professors laughed. They told her to go home. They told her she was no longer needed. They told her, "No woman ever got a doctorate in meteorology. And no woman ever will." But Joanne was stubborn. She sold her boat. She flew her last flight. She saved her money so that she could study clouds. She worked so hard and discovered so much that—despite what the professors said—she received a doctorate in meteorology. She was the first woman in the world to do so. Breaking Through the Clouds tells the story of a trailblazing scientist whose discoveries about clouds and how they work changed everything we know about weather today.

Inspired by his ranger days in Rocky Mountain national park over forty years ago and by his recent pilgrimage to Hareny Peak in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Richard Fleck has created these descriptive essays. The mountains are a constant source of spiritual renewal, enabling him to become more aware and whole.

Writing on her own experiences, Littauer addresses women suffering from any level of depression. Whether it is feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, or inferiority that keep women from living fully, Littauer offers suggestions for things to do to overcome depression.

Cloud computing is the most significant technology development of our lifetimes. It has made countless new businesses possible and presents a massive opportunity for large enterprises to innovate like startups and retire decades of technical debt. But making the most of the cloud requires much more from enterprises than just a technology change. Stephen Orban led Dow Jones's journey toward digital agility as their CIO and now leads AWS's Enterprise Strategy function, where he helps leaders from the largest companies in the world transform their businesses. As he demonstrates in this book, enterprises must re-train their people, evolve their processes, and transform their cultures as they move to the cloud. By bringing together his experiences and those of a number of business leaders, Orban shines a light on what works, what doesn't, and how enterprises can transform themselves using the cloud.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Change can begin right now. Learn to bring about dynamic personal growth using five uniquely effective tools—from psychotherapist Barry Michels and psychiatrist Phil Stutz, subject of the Netflix documentary Stutz. “These tools are emotional game changers. They do nothing less than deliver you to your best and most powerful self.”—Kathy Freston, author of Quantum Wellness The Tools offers a solution to the biggest complaint patients have about therapy: the interminable wait for change to begin. The traditional therapeutic model sets its sights on the past, but psychiatrist Phil Stutz and psychotherapist Barry Michels employ an arsenal of techniques—“the tools”—that allow patients to use their problems as levers that access the power of the unconscious and propel them into action. Suddenly, through this transformative approach, obstacles become new chances—to find courage, embrace discipline, develop self-expression, deepen creativity. A dynamic, results-oriented practice, The Tools aims to deliver relief from persistent problems and restore control and hope right away. Every day presents challenges—big and small—that the tools transform into opportunities to bring about bold and dramatic change in your life. Stutz and Michels teach you how to: • Get Unstuck: Master the things you are avoiding and live in forward motion. • Control Anger: Free yourself from out-of-control rage and never-ending grudges. • Express Yourself: Learn the secret of true confidence and find your authentic voice. • Combat Anxiety: Stop obsessive worrying and negative thinking. • Find Discipline: Activate willpower and make the most of every minute. With The Tools, Stutz and Michels allow you to realize the full range of your potential. Their goal is nothing less than for your life to become exceptional—exceptional in its resiliency, in its experience of real happiness, and in its understanding of the human spirit.

Senior year kicks off when the words on a Post-it note spark a sticky romance between two unlikely friends. Transfer student Talia Vanderbilt has one goal at her new school: to blend in with the walls. Lagan Desai, basketball captain and mathlete, would do just about anything to befriend the new girl. One Post-it note at a time, Lagan persuades Talia to peel back her heart, slowly revealing a world where hope seems to lie around the corner. She never turns.--Publisher description.

Publisher Description

Religion is universal human culture. No phenomenon is more widely shared or more intensely studied, yet there is no agreement on what religion is. Now, in Faces in the Clouds, anthropologist Stewart Guthrie provides a provocative definition of religion in a bold and persuasive new theory. Guthrie says religion can best be understood as systematic anthropomorphism--that is, the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things and events. Many writers see anthropomorphism as common or even universal in religion, but few think it is central. To Guthrie, however, it is fundamental. Religion, he writes, consists of seeing the world as humanlike. As Guthrie shows, people find a wide range of humanlike beings plausible: Gods, spirits, abominable snowmen, HAL the computer, Chiquita Banana. We find messages in random events such as earthquakes, weather, and traffic accidents. We say a fire "rages," a storm "wreaks vengeance," and waters "lie still." Guthrie says that our tendency to find human characteristics in the nonhuman world stems from a deep-seated perceptual strategy: in the face of pervasive (if mostly unconscious) uncertainty about what we see, we bet on the most meaningful interpretation we can. If we are in the woods and see a dark shape that might be a bear or a boulder, for example, it is good policy to think it is a bear. If we are mistaken, we lose little, and if we are right, we gain much. So, Guthrie writes, in scanning the world we always look for what most concerns us--livings things, and especially, human ones. Even animals watch for human attributes, as when birds avoid scarecrows. In short, we all follow the principle--better safe than sorry. Marshalling a wealth of evidence from anthropology, cognitive science, philosophy, theology, advertising, literature, art, and animal behavior, Guthrie offers a fascinating array of examples to show how this perceptual strategy pervades secular life and how it characterizes religious experience. Challenging the very foundations of religion, Faces in the Clouds forces us to take a new look at this fundamental element of human life.