With A Stroke Of The Pen

The conventional wisdom holds that the president of the United States is weak, hobbled by the separation of powers and the short reach of his formal legal authority. In this first-ever in-depth study of executive orders, Kenneth Mayer deals a strong blow to this view. Taking civil rights and foreign policy as examples, he shows how presidents have used a key tool of executive power to wield their inherent legal authority and pursue policy without congressional interference. Throughout the nation's life, executive orders have allowed presidents to make momentous, unilateral policy choices: creating and abolishing executive branch agencies, reorganizing administrative and regulatory processes, handling emergencies, and determining how legislation is implemented. From the Louisiana Purchase to the Emancipation Proclamation, from Franklin Roosevelt's establishment of the Executive Office of the President to Bill Clinton's authorization of loan guarantees for Mexico, from Harry Truman's integration of the armed forces to Ronald Reagan's seizures of regulatory control, American presidents have used executive orders (or their equivalents) to legislate in ways that extend far beyond administrative activity. By analyzing the pattern of presidents' use of executive orders and the relationship of those orders to the presidency as an institution, Mayer describes an office much more powerful and active than the one depicted in the bulk of the political science literature. This distinguished work of scholarship shows that the U.S. presidency has a great deal more than the oft-cited "power to persuade."

Sixty-eight year old widow Kaitlyn Frost has received a letter in the mail. The instantly recognized handwriting on the envelope creates a painful whirlwind of emotions and memories that stretch fifty years into her past. Anxiously torn between what the mysterious letter says and her own conflicting dreams of what might-have-been, Kaitlyn carries the reader on her journey back to the innocent time of love's first bloom. Throughout the day, the letter remains unopened, as Kaitlyn struggles with the twilight fragility of her present, and how it could all be swept away by chance, with a simple stroke of the pen.

The inspiration for my book started about seven years ago after I suffered a massive stroke that the doctors were amazed that I even survived. Over the course of the next five years my body was ravaged by one major illness after another. I lived through heart surgery while being awake after the doctor's inadvertently hit a nerve which woke me up and they could not get me back under anesthesia. I had to endure the procedure from start to finish wide awake and I can attest to the fact there is no greater pain in the world than being awake during heart surgery. I suffered two more strokes, not nearly as powerful but definitely taking its toll on my brain and left side functions. All told, I had six stroke and two minor strokes. My brain isn't what it used to be but then whose is?

Far away and long ago, when dragons still existed and the only arcade game was ping-pong in black and white, a wizard cautiously entered a smoky tavern in the evil, ancient, foggy city of Morpork... A truly unmissable, beautifully illustrated collection of unearthed stories from the pen of Sir Terry Pratchett: award-winning and bestselling author, and creator of the phenomenally successful Discworld series. Twenty early short stories by one of the world's best loved authors, each accompanied by exquisite original woodcut illustrations. These are rediscovered tales that Pratchett wrote under a pseudonym for newspapers during the 1970s and 1980s. Whilst none are set in the Discworld, they hint towards the world he would go on to create, containing all of his trademark wit, satirical wisdom and fantastic imagination. Meet Og the inventor, the first caveman to cultivate fire, as he discovers the highs and lows of progress; haunt the Ministry of Nuisances with the defiant evicted ghosts of Pilgarlic Towers; visit Blackbury, a small market town with weird weather and an otherworldly visitor; and go on a dangerous quest through time and space with hero Kron, which begins in the ancient city of Morpork... A STROKE OF THE PEN is a must-have collection for fans of all ages. Praise for Terry Pratchett 'Pratchett is a master storyteller' - A. S. Byatt, Guardian 'The Discworld novels have always been among the most serious of comedies, the most relevant and real of fantasies' - Independent 'Compulsively readable, fantastically inventive, surprisingly serious exploration in story form of just about any aspect of our world . . . There's never been anything quite like it' - Evening Standard 'Like most true originals, Pratchett defies categorisation' - The Times 'Pratchett found something better than literature' - Frank Cottrell Boyce, Guardian

A Stroke of The Pen is a collection of short stories and poems, all of which are fiction. Each in its own way may evoke some little memory for the reader. Some are of a more serious nature, bringing a smile to the face or a shiver to the spine, but hopefully all of them are entertaining.