Welcome 2 Houston

Langston Collin Wilkins returns to the city where he grew up to illuminate the complex relationship between place, identity, and music in Houston’s hip hop culture. Interviews with local rap artists, producers, and managers inform an exploration of how artists, audiences, music, and place interact to create a heritage that musicians negotiate in a variety of ways. Street-based musicians, avant-garde underground rappers, and Christian artists offer candid views of the scene while Wilkins delves into related aspects like slab, the area’s hip hop-related car culture. What emerges is a portrait of a dynamic reciprocal process where an artist, having identified with and embodied a social space, reproduces that space in a performance even as the performance reconstructs the social space. A vivid journey through a southern hip hop bastion, Welcome 2 Houston offers readers an inside look at a unique musical culture.

“Crack open this book and enter a bromide-free zone. Jane White knows why American families feel as if they are on a treadmill running out of control, and she explains the reasons with clarity, insight, and rare honesty. She also offers several practical suggestions for how we as individuals, families, and a nation can get out of the mess. Policymakers would be wise to listen.” Evan Cooper, Deputy Editor, InvestmentNews “This eye-opening book sounds the alarm about many Americans’ dim financial futures if consumers, businesses, and politicians don’t change their ways. Jane White lays blame and names names. Until change happens, White offers prescriptions for your biggest money concerns--retirement, housing, college costs, and credit cards--featuring tried-and-true advice.” Gregory Karp, Syndicated Newspaper Columnist and Author of The 1-2-3 Money Plan and Living Rich by Spending Smart “Americans need this vigorous wake-up call if they are to make it through the first half of the 21st century. They are burying themselves in debt--for education, for homes, and for toys--leaving too little for savings and investment. Jane White shows them where they are going wrong and how they can put themselves right.” Thomas G. Donlan, Editorial Page Editor, Barron’s National Business and Financial Weekly “Jane White has written a barnburner of a book. Though the title may cause alarm, America, Welcome to the Poorhouse is ultimately reassuring. We can protect our own financial futures if we get wise--and get together to demand real change.” Jacob S. Hacker, Author of The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream Too many American families are racing toward financial catastrophe--saddled with exploding credit card and college debt, out-of-control housing costs, and underfunded 401(k) accounts. America, Welcome to the Poorhouse reveals the political and economic forces that got us into this predicament, strategies to get Congress to enact needed reform, and practical tips you won’t find anywhere else on how to make the most of your money until reform happens. White offers indispensable practical advice for regaining control of your own financial future--specific strategies for reducing your debt, safeguarding your retirement, and helping your children get the education they’ll need to compete in today’s world. Shrimp on the barbie, Koala bears, and a secure retirement. Why most Australians will end up with at least half a million dollars in their version of a 401(k) plan--and what we can do to transform our 401(k) plans into actual pensions. How the mortgage industry lobbied to dismantle regulation and offer bait-and-switch adjustable rate mortgages. How to protect yourself--no matter what happens. Your personal plan for saving for retirement, finding “bargain” colleges, and getting out of credit card debt. How to build a citizens lobby that wins. Making taxpayers as powerful as the so-called financial services industry and getting rid of the members of Congress that do its bidding.

James Friedman, a retired philosophy professor living in Houston, receives an invitation from a woman, identifying herself only as Shekhinah, who claims she was once God. She wants to talk to him about her decision to abandon heaven for earth. Accepting the invitation, Friedman encounters a tall, ebony-skinned, twenty-three-year-old, same-gender-loving woman who is wearing a “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt. She tells Friedman a creation story about a loving God who, at the moment of creation, fourteen billion years ago, gave up power over the world out of respect for human freedom. This view of God is similar to one Friedman has expounded. According to Shekhinah, to God’s horror and surprise, countless human beings have misused their freedom to cause massive injustice—bigotry, genocide, cruelty, etc.—and to put the earth itself in peril. Powerless as God, Shekhinah asserts that the Creator could make a difference in the world only by becoming a human being—which meant the death of God. God, she claims, entered the world as a Black, Same-Gender-Loving Woman to divinely affirm three often disrespected identities. For reasons she reveals, Shekhinah, now a socially engaged secular Buddhist, chose Houston as the place to partner with others and begin her project of saving a damaged planet and achieving justice for all human beings.

Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States

Visitors to Market Square Park can pause on their stroll through the downtown centerpiece for a palpable experience of its past. Houston's first four city halls laid their foundations here, and relics of the square's heritage remain embedded in the sidewalks of the park. Chalk up a chance sneeze on Milam Street to the final ghostly gasp of dust from Robert Boyce's sawpits. Step from Congress Street into La Carafe, Houston's oldest commercial building, for the kind of atmosphere that even deceased bartenders are reluctant to leave. From the phantom tailors above Treebeard's to the forgotten mysteries of the town's founding, Sandra Lord and Debe Branning resurrect the history humming through the four blocks surrounding Market Square Park.

Do you love stories with sexy, romantic heroes who have it all—wealth, status, and incredibly good looks? Harlequin® Desire brings you all this and more with these three new full-length titles in one collection! RANCHER IN HER BED Texas Cattleman’s Club: Houston by Joanne Rock Rich rancher Xander Currin isn’t looking for a relationship. Cowgirl Frankie Walsh won’t settle for anything less. When combustible desire consumes them both just as secrets from Frankie’s past come to light, will their passion survive? TAKEN BY STORM Dynasties: Secrets of the A-List by Cat Schield Isabel Withers knows her boss, hotel executive Shane Adams, should be off-limits—but the chances he’ll notice her are zilch. Until they’re stranded together in a storm and let passion rule. Can their forbidden love overcome the scandals waiting for them? STAR-CROSSED SCANDAL Plunder Cove by Kimberley Troutte When Chloe Harper left Hollywood to reunite with her family, she vowed to heal herself before hooking up with anyone. But now sexy star-maker Nicolas Medeiros is at her resort, offering her the night of her dreams. She takes it…and more. But how will she let him go? Look for Harlequin® Desire’s June 2019 Box set 1 of 2, filled with even more scandalous stories and powerful heroes! Join HarlequinMyRewards.com to earn FREE books and more. Earn points for all your Harlequin purchases from wherever you shop.