Taking Aim At The President

Winner of the 2009 San Francisco Book Festival Award (Wild Card category) "I'm not sorry I tried...if successful, the assassination...just might have triggered the kind of chaos that could have started the upheaval of change." --Sara Jane Moore in 1976 Journalist Geri Spieler met would-be assassin Sara Jane Moore while she was in prison; Taking Aim at the President is based on over two decades of interviews as well as independant research. Spieler follows Moore's actions from her childhood in a small West Virginia town to her release from prison in December 2007. Moore's life was never conventional, and along the way she entered and dropped out of the military, was married five times, and was both a political radical and an FBI informant. Focusing on the complex psychology and motivations of a quintessentially desperate housewife and the only woman to ever fire a bullet at an American president, Spieler delivers a nuanced portrait of an elusive person and a fascinating glimpse back at a turbulent period in American history.

Negative campaigning is a central component of politics in the United States. Yet, until now, demonstrating the impact of combative advertising on voters has been elusive. How can we reconcile the findings of a plethora of studies with the methods of politicians? This book cuts through to the central issue: how negative advertising influences voters' attitudes and actions. Focusing on U.S. senatorial campaigns, Kim Fridkin and Patrick Kenney draw from surveys, experiments, facial expression analysis, content analyses, and focus groups. They develop the "tolerance and tactics theory of negativity" that marries citizens' tolerance for negativity with campaign messages varying in their civility and relevance and demonstrate how citizens' beliefs and behaviors are affected. Using this original framework, they find harsh and relevant messages influence voters' decisions, especially for people with less tolerance for negativity. And, irrelevant and uncivil advertisements demobilize voters, with low tolerance individuals affected most sharply.

Taking Aim! The Business of Being an Artist Today is a practical, affordable resource guide filled with invaluable advice for the emerging artist. The book is specially designed to aid visual artists in furthering their careers through unfiltered information about the business practices and idiosyncrasies of the contemporary art world. It demystifies often daunting and opaque practices through first-hand testimonials, interviews, and commentary from leading artists, curators, gallerists, collectors, critics, art consultants, arts administrators, art fair directors, auction house experts, and other art world luminaries. Published in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Artist in the Marketplace (AIM)—the pioneering career development program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts—Taking AIM! The Business of Being an Artist Today mirrors the structure and topics featured in the AIM program’s weekly workshops and discussions. Each chapter focuses on the specific perspective of an “art world insider”—from the artist to the public art program director to the blogger. Multiple viewpoints from a range of art professionals provide emerging artists with candid, uncensored information and tools to help them better understand this complex field and develop strategies for building and sustaining successful careers as professional artists. The book ends with an annotated chronology of the past three decades in the contemporary art field and a bibliography of publications, magazine articles, online sources, funding sources, residency programs, and other useful information for emerging artists.

Donovan does not say what he is up to these days, but over a decade ago he was doing HIV-prevention outreach with injection drug users, and wondered why the policymakers bemoaning the number of children with HIV restriction prevention among the very people who were parenting those children. He found that contradictions of policy are usually intertwined with the complexities of representational government. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

This article, reprinted from [Judicature,] considers the Council on Competitiveness's agenda for reform of the U.S. civil justice system. Citing the lack of evidence to support many of its assertions, the author suggests that the council is on shaky ground in blaming U.S. economic problems on the legal system. In favoring corporate defendants over individual plaintiffs, the council appears to have a political agenda.

Taking Aim at The Arms Trade: NGOs, Global Civil Society and the World Military Order takes a critical look at the ways in which NGOs portray the arms trade as a problem of international politics and the strategies they use to effect change. NGOs have been pivotal in bringing the suffering caused by the arms trade to public attention, documenting its negative impact on human rights, conflict, security and development around the world, and pushing for measures to control or eradicate the trade. Overall, however, their activity has helped sideline debate on Northern military predominance while facilitating intervention in the South based on liberal understandings of the arms trade, conflict, development and human rights. They thus contribute to the perpetuation of a hierarchical world military order and the construction of the South as a site of Northern benevolence and intervention. Stavrianakis exposes the tensions inherent in NGOs' engagement with the arms trade and argues for a re-examination of dominant assumptions about NGOs as global civil society actors.

The lunar colony, Asteria, offers hope to the desperate citizens of Earth. Overpopulation, war, famine and global warming have taken humankind to the brink of catastrophe. But as the lunar colony nears completion, Carla, a young technician, is faced with the hidden truth of Asteria... and the conspiracy runs deep. "BRILLIANT." - ARC Reviewer "OUTSTANDING.” - ARC Reviewer "I found myself swept away into an extraordinary tale of adventure that considers the true foundation of what it means to be human." - Morgan Wright (extract from Foreword). **BONUS CONTENT: - Alternative Ending - A first look at David's upcoming book: "Dragon Planet”