The American people are frustrated with their government-dismayed by a series of high-profile failures (Iraq, Katrina, the financial meltdown) that seems to just keep getting longer. Yet our nation has a proud history of great achievements: victory in World War II, our national highway system, welfare reform, the moon landing.We need more successes like these to reclaim government's legacy of competence. In If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, William Eggers and John O'Leary explain how to do it. The key? Understand-and avoid-the common pitfalls that trip up public-sector leaders during the journey from idea to results.The authors identify pitfalls including:-The Partial Map Trap: Fumbling handoffs throughout project execution-The Tolstoy Syndrome: Seeing only the possibilities you want to see-Design-Free Design: Designing policies for passage through the legislature, not for implementation-The Overconfidence Trap: Creating unrealistic budgets and timelines-The Complacency Trap: Failing to recognize that a program needs changeAt a time of unprecedented challenges, this book, with its abundant examples and hands-on advice, is the essential guide to making our government work better. A must-read for every public official, this book will be of interest to anyone who cares about the future of democracy.
So vast has the international commitment of our government grown in the last decades, and with this the corresponding increase in the staff engaged in foreign affairs activities, that it is no longer possible to find the channels for personal communications we once had. Yet undoubtedly today’s officers are engaged in a wider variety of experiences than ever before in our history.<P> This series of Occasional Papers produced by the Center for International Systems Research was designed to provide a forum for the expression of significant ideas by foreign affairs professionals, whereby they may go beyond the language of everyday reporting, may speculate or conjecture in the field of their specialization. In particular, these papers will provide an opportunity to assess the impact of contemporary systems research upon the operations of the foreign affairs community. This series offers an opportunity to communicate new ideas and evaluate old. At the same time, students of foreign relations, and others, have the opportunity to listen in, as it were, to a record which is neither an official report nor a formal journal, but a highly individualistic, personal narrative.<P> Because these Occasional Papers are indeed personal by nature, and are so meant to be, they do not represent the official position of the Department of State. They are considered reactions of highly skilled professionals to professional problems, situations, events that are of concern to them.<P> At the time of publication, CHRIS ARGYRIS was professor of organizational behavior and chairman of the Department of Administrative Sciences at Yale University. He received an A.B. from Clark University, an M.A. from Kansas University, and the Ph.D. from Cornell University.
As eloquently stated in Gita, «No one can remain without performing action even for a moment. Every creature is helplessly made to perform action by the gunas (properties) borne of nature». When one performs karma, the person performs karma for material benefits or spiritual benefits. Some people perform one form of karma more than the other forms of karma.
Monetary policy change should follow GDP growth rate and not try to stimulate GDP growth to achieve a certain objective as it will end up favoring one group of people over others which will lead to mal investment and severe business cycle downturn. Besides, excessive expansion of money supply leads to inflation.
Karma Capitalism advocates a wage difference (after taxes) between the lowest earner and highest earners to be in the ratio of 1:6. However, it does not limit it to that level in all cases.
In Karma capitalism, children and their immediate caretakers, i.e. their parents in most instances, have the first right on the resources of the country.
Karma Capitalism lays emphasis on the age old tradition of marriage to remove poverty among children. Government cannot become the missing parent in the household.
Karma capitalism aspires to end the effects of poverty on children such as malnutrition, poor health and lack of education.
This book wants to start a debate around the role and limitation of the government in the economic affairs of the people.
During their combined 40 years in Congress, Martin Frost and Tom Davis were the field generals for their respective parties, each serving two terms as chair of the Democratic and Republican House Campaign Committees, respectively. Now they have joined forces—along with columnist Richard Cohen—in an effort to save Congress from itself.
According to the authors, Congress is incapable of reforming itself without a good kick in the seat from the American public. Frost and Davis, with great insight and skill along with a wealth of anecdotes and photos, dissect the causes of legislative gridlock and offer a common-sense, bipartisan plan for making our Congress function again.
The Preface, by Pulitzer Prize finalist David Eisenhower, sets the stage for this powerful behind-the-scenes narrative that insightfully uncovers the past road to the present political gridlock—and then offers thought-provoking insights and possibilities for the way out.
A wide array of Republicans, Democrats, former presidents, and congressional colleagues, as well as many of today’s most highly respected news correspondents and analysts, have come together in broad, bipartisan, consensus support for this book and its message.
The Partisan Divide: Congress in Crisis is a fascinating “must-read” for the historically and politically curious—as well as for every citizen of the United States!
Our societies are growing more unequal, more hierarchical, meaner and less human every year.<br /> <br />Voters appalled by the direction of current politics respond to leaders that articulate a cohesive and genuine progressivism. This book provides the framework for politicians and activists to deliver that vision, organised around the themes of cooperative solutions to social problem-solving and a social contract centred on rights and the equal dignity of all people.<br /> <br />Drawing on contemporary Australian examples, 'Politics for the New Dark Age: Staying Positive Amidst Disorder' shows how the partisan divide recurs in policy debates from civil rights, to inequality, to economic growth, to the environment and foreign policy. It argues that we should recommit to fighting for our democracy in order to manage these social differences and channel them into opportunities for social progress.<br /> <br />As a former Australian diplomat with ten years' experience writing political analysis for government, Anthony Skews is well placed to provide a comprehensive introduction to left-wing thought for the contemporary 'post-fact', politically polarised era.<br /> <br />Above all, this book argues for an alternative future.
The purpose of this book is to provide an historical examination of China’s activities in Africa, an important yet overlooked aspect of the broader subject of China in Africa today. There is a tendency of observers of China in Africa to always look forward; however, there is a need to look backward. Modern China’s historical presence in Africa must be scrutinized in order to understand the context of its current and future actions on the continent.As the book will illustrate, China in the past meddled in the affairs of Africa, in places like Algeria, Ghana, and Tanzania. It did so for self-interest, for the benefit of the Communist Party of China, specifically its leaders’ strategic objective, which was to demonstrate influence in the world, that is, power in international politics. Though its material resources were scant in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, China nevertheless used them, in addition to devoting time and attention to Africa. It was a Meddling Dragon.China was not required to devote time, attention, and resources to Africa. But it did, in Algeria, Ghana, and Tanzania, especially. China skillfully used its limited diplomatic, intelligence, and economic means to gain traction on the continent. It sought influence through a combination of means – through shaping perceptions, developing personal relationships, and providing tangible assistance.There was a rhyme and reason to China’s early approach to the continent. And that rhyme and reason remains much the same today. Viewed in the broader historical and strategic contexts, China’s current presence in Africa demonstrates continuity with the past rather than a renewed focus. This book contributes vitally to the discourse on Sino-African history and adds to the contemporary strategic understanding and debate about China in Africa.The Chinese arrived on the African continent without fanfare, yet maintained an active and influential presence, a presence which ultimately was more pragmatic than revolutionary. Though often couched in ideological rhetoric, China’s behavior in Africa in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s demonstrated goals and actions of an aspiring great power in the world. Contemporary China receives much more attention in Africa, as it does everywhere else around the world. Nevertheless, it is crucial to understand the nature and character of China’s historical actions on the African continent in order to properly grasp its future policies. Rather than merely looking forward, one must look backward to comprehend the true nature of China in Africa.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) is generally considered one of the two greatest justices of the United States Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Marshall being the other. In more than 2000 opinions, he delineated an impressive legal philosophy that profoundly influenced American jurisprudence, particularly in the area of civil liberties and judicial restraint. At the same time, his abilities as a prose stylist earned him a position among the literary elite.In The Common Law, derived from a series of lectures delivered at the Lowell Institute in Boston, Holmes systematized his early legal doctrines. The result was an enduring classic of legal philosophy that continues to be read and consulted over a century later. Beginning with historical forms of liability (thought to have originated in the desire for vengeance in ancient Roman and Germanic blood feuds), the book goes on to discuss criminal law, torts, bails, possession and ownership, contracts, successions, and many other aspects of civil and criminal law.Encompassing Holmes's profound, wide-ranging knowledge of the law in its historical aspects, yet written in a manner easily accessible to the layman, The Common Law provoked this observation from another famed jurist; «The book is a classic in the sense that its stock of ideas has been absorbed and become part of common juristic thought … they placed law in a perspective which legal scholarship ever since has merely confirmed.» — Felix Frankfurter, Of Law and Men.Now the influential ideas and judicial theory of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. can be studied and appreciated in this superb edition — the only one in print — of his magnum opus. This edition also features a new introduction by Professor Sheldon M. Novick, author of Honorable Justice: The Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes. First published in 1881, this book is still indispensable reading for lawyers, political scientists, historians, general readers — anyone interested in the origins, development, and continuing evolution of the laws that govern human society.
In the aptly titled treatise What's Wrong With the World, one of the twentieth century's most memorable and prolific writers takes on education, government, big business, feminism, and a host of other topics. A steadfast champion of the working man, family, and faith, Chesterton eloquently opposed materialism, snobbery, hypocrisy, and any adversary of freedom and simplicity in modern society.Culled from the thousands of essays he contributed to newspapers and periodicals over his lifetime, the critical works collected for this edition pulse with the author's unique brand of clever commentary. As readable and rewarding today as when they were written over a century ago, these pieces offer Chesterton's unparalleled analysis of contemporary ideals, his incisive critique of modern efficiency, and his humorous but heartfelt defense of the common man against trendsetting social assaults.
Global media and advances in technology have profoundly affected the way people experience events. The essays in this volume explore the dimensions of contemporary spectacles from the Arab Spring to spectatorship in Hollywood. Questioning the effects that spectacles have on their observers, the authors ask: Are viewers robbed of their autonomy, transformed into depoliticized and passive consumers, or rather are they drawn in to cohesive communities? Does their participation in an event�as audiences, activists, victims, tourists, and critics�change and complicate the event itself? Spectacle looks closely at the permeable boundaries between the reality and fiction of such events, the methods of their construction, and the implications of those methods.
Extracts from Erin Pizzey's Foreword: 'Mike Buchanan is a very brave man. I've known other men who've tried to draw the public's attention to the damage done by the radical feminist movement. Many lost their jobs and none of them were able to find a publisher for their books. Men have been thrown out of their own houses and unjustly accused of domestic violence towards their partners, and some of sexually abusing their children. The legitimate interests of men in Western society are being systematically assaulted by radical feminists and this book goes a long way to providing the evidence. <br><br>Men are starting to campaign more effectively for their interests, though they have a long way to go before they halt the tide of radical feminist influence, let alone start to reverse it. Feminists can also expect more challenging from another quarter. An increasing number of women are summoning up the courage to openly criticise them. This shouldn't surprise us, given that the vast majority of women don't share the radical feminists' political ideology.<br><br>With every year that passes more women become aware of the damage man-hating and family-hating radical feminists wreak on society in general, and women's interests in particular. These women are becoming more vocal, and their number is on the rise… How much more damage will feminists be allowed to wreak before they're more widely recognised as the evil women they are?' <br><br>This book provides long-awaited answers to over 50 of the most challenging questions in the modern era including: 1. Are you a misogynist if you only hate feminists? 2. What is feminism in the modern era? 3. How do radical feminists view the world? 4. Are feminists less intelligent than normal women? 5. Are feminists less attractive than normal women? 6. Do feminists suffer from PPS (Permanent Premenstrual Syndrome)? 7. Why do feminists deny the different natures of men and women? 8. Why must taxpayers stop financing Women's Studies and Gender Studies courses? 9. What are the big fat feminist fantasies, lies, delusions and myths? 10. Are feminists delusional? Is the pope a Catholic? Do bears crap in woods? 11. How are feminists killing men and women? 12. Are some feminists (e.g. Tracey Emin) a pain in the arts? The book contains an appendix of quotations and ends with a sample chapter titled 'Would you like to have sex with my wife?' from Mike Buchanan's international bestseller 'Two Men in a Car (a businessman, a chauffeur, and their holidays in France)'. It also contains the plate section from the book (16 photographs).