Spoiling For A Fight

More Americans now identify as political independents than as either Democrats or Republicans. Tired of the two-party gridlock, the pandering, and the lack of vision, they've turned in increasing numbers to independent and third-party candidates. In 1998, for the first time in decades, a third-party candidate who was not a refugee from one of the two major parties, Jesse Ventura, won election to state-wide office, as the governor of Minnesota. In 2000, the public was riveted by the Reform Party's implosion over Patrick Buchanan's presidential candidacy and by Ralph Nader's Green Party run, which infuriated many Democrats but energized hundreds of thousands of disaffected voters in stadium-sized super-rallies.What are the prospects for new third-party efforts? Combining the close-in, personal reporting and learned analysis one can only get by covering this beat for years, Micah L. Sifry's. Spoiling for a Fight exposes both the unfair obstacles and the viable opportunities facing today's leading independent parties. Third-party candidates continue be denied a fighting chance by discriminatory ballot access, unequal campaign financing, winner-take-all races, and derisive media coverage. Yet, after years of grassroots organizing, third parties are making major inroads. At the local level, efforts like Chicago's New Party and New York's Working Families Party have upset urban political machines while gaining positions on county councils and school boards. Third-party activists are true believers in democracy, and if America's closed two-party system is ever to be reformed, it will be thanks to their efforts

The rise to power of Eliot Spitzer, the scourge of Wall Street and one of America's most controversial politicians, by the reporter who knows his crusade best Few politicians have burst onto the American scene with as much impact as Eliot Spitzer. He has exposed wrongdoing by stock analysts, mutual fund managers, and insurance brokers, and he has investigated corporations that have misled or defrauded investors and consumers. When federal regulators have fallen down on their responsibilities, Spitzer has stepped in to protect ordinary, middle-class Americans. His actions as the New York State attorney general have made companies change the way they do business, which in turn affects every American with a retirement plan, an insurance policy, or a prescription to fill. No reporter has had better or more complete behind-the-scenes access to Spitzer's operation—and to the strategies that have underpinned his crusade against these powerful forces in the American economy—than Brooke A. Masters of The Washington Post. In Spoiling for a Fight, she presents a portrait that is at once dramatic and revealing, raising the question of whether Spitzer's way of conducting government business is good or bad for America. Combining passion and zeal with a savvy understanding of the press, Spitzer has brought down some of the biggest names in American finance and now has his sights set on higher office. This revelatory book shows Americans how Spitzer has transformed their lives and what his crusade could mean for the future.

Demigods and monsters fight to the death. Only to get reborn again. And fight to the death again. At a gym but not a gym: a monster hotspot! The demigod Jason hates hunting monster girls. Stuck hunting monster girls again. And his simple mission proves far worse than he ever imagined. And the stakes: world-changing. Once again join Jason in this exciting urban fantasy novel. Grab this conclusion of this amazing duology and you’ll never look at Greek Myth the same again!

Women Willing to Fight is a collection of essays that explores the presence of the fighting woman in contemporary Hollywood cinema. Drawn from a variety of genres, the authors examine the changing role, image and position of this figure in film over recent decades. The increasing dominance of this character and her repositioning as a protagonist reinvigorates discussion concerning the dynamics of film narrative and spectacle. Each contribution takes as its focus a central character from the Hollywood blockbuster era, examining in detail the motivations and implications of the fighting female. In doing so the collection raises significant questions about the place of the fighting woman in contemporary media and the relationships she forges on and off-screen. With a strong appreciation of the mixed messages inherent in images of fighting women, Women Willing to Fight seeks to draw attention to the embodied forms - physical, intellectual and emotional - through which female fighters are represented. The anthology places particular emphasis on the emergence of the physically empowered woman, a character for whom the body has become a weapon and a target. While early cinematic representations allowed women to voice their fury and frustration, today’s female fighters not only ‘speak up’ but ‘muscle up’. Putting aside the supernatural powers of many action heroines, this volume focuses on the kinds of fighting skills, abilities and desires that are engendered in characterisations of mortal women. To this end the volume implicitly addresses complex and cross-cultural notions of ‘extra-ordinary’ power. By examining the embodied arsenal that these characters possess and develop - through training, conditioning, and life experience - it considers the representation of motivation and metamorphoses into ‘the fighting woman’: how a woman fights holds implicit meaning and inevitably urges us to consider why and what she is fighting for.

Meet the greek demigod Jason. Hates hunting monster girls. Stuck hunting monster girls. On yet another training mission. What could go wrong? What he never imagined. And the cost: more than he could ever imagine. Grab the first spellbinding urban fantasy novel of a stunning duology and you’ll never look at Greek Mythology the same again!

Meet the greek demigod Jason. Hates hunting monster girls. Stuck hunting monster girls. On yet another training mission. What could go wrong? What he never imagined. And the cost: more than he could ever imagine. Grab the spellbinding urban fantasy and you'll never look at Greek Myth the same again!

Two murdered princes; a powerful queen betrayed; a nobleman riding towards his certain death... The story of the Princes in the Tower has been one of the most fascinating - and most brutal - murder mysteries in history for more than five hundred years. In a brilliant feat of historical daring, Emma Darwin has recreated the terrible, exhilarating world of the two youngest victims of the War of the Roses: the power struggles and passion that lay behind their birth, the danger into which they fell, the profoundly moving days before their imprisonment, and the ultimate betrayal of their innocence. In A Secret Alchemy, three voices speak: that of Elizabeth Woodville, the beautiful widow of King Edward IV; of her brother Anthony, surrogate father to the doomed Prince Edward and his brother Dickon; and that of present-day historian Una Pryor. Orphaned, and herself brought up in a family where secrets and rivalries threaten her world, Una's experience of tragedy, betrayal and lost love help her unlock the long-buried secrets that led to the princes' deaths. Weaving their stories together, Emma Darwin brilliantly evokes how the violence and glamour of past ages live on within our present.