Thoreau once surmised that most of us lead lives of quiet desperation. Reading these stories brings Thoreau's words to mind. The characters are found in settings in the Deep South in the days of Huey Long in Louisiana; in present day New York City with its current economic hardships and other difficult goings on; and in several Mississippi locales.. The characters exist in quiet desperation. Isolated within Themselves all face crisis and loss. And yet somehow they struggle to cope with the hope they will prevail. In the title story a Cajun bartender struggles against fate and the two sons who have "stolen" his farm. A farmer turned bartender, Joe Lee LeBlanc sues his boys to recover the farm. His story circulates. He has his few minutes of fame as interest in his case grows. People stop ignoring the khakis-clad bartender. They ask about progress in his cause. Of course free beer and tomorrow never arrive. The old bartender never gets his day in court. Chekhov's story, The Lament, is recalled as one reads FBT, set in Opelousas, Louisiana, during the Yambilee Festival. The shadow world of cockfighting with its unlawfulness and potential for violence is the environment where one youngster is coming of age. The Cockfighters, reminiscent of Sherwood Anderson's I Want To Know Why, and Ernest Hemingway's My Old Man, also has a Louisiana locale where the law and the Church (ironically in the Parish of St. Landry) turn a blind eye to the blood "sport" in which fighting cocks usually duel to the death. An unknown assailant kills the boy's father after a highly wagered cockfight. The Lad, freed from the sport, is urged to get an education by his guardian, a former prostitute and the mistress of the dead father. At the end of the story, the father's murder remains unsolved. And a sable rooster with a fighting spirit, a bird the family pinned its hopes on, is killed in a cockpit battle it was supposed to win. We are left to ponder what part the little cock had to do with the death of the father after the little bird is found nailed to a post outside the cockfighting arena. The question of the boy's true understanding of his father's profession remains unresolved. The boy is last seen studying hard in school, reading Hemingway and thinking about horseracing as a career. In The Picaninny, an African American child is forced to leave the South after innocently kissing a white boy. Later she finds fame as a singer in the North. She returns to her "roots" in Mississippi. She finds change and understanding after talking to a crippled white man from her past. She leaves Mississippi a second time but without " baggage". The protagonist in To Kill A Kingfish races against time to stop his cousin from killing Louisiana's former governor (U.S. Senator Huey Long in the story). The tale unfolds as the protagonist's grandson attempts to unravel a relative's ties to the assassination plot. In the end the grandson "scruples" and decides to let the story remain unrecorded. The WWII pilot hero of Beau Chandler's Wonderful Bedroom returns from the Battle and settles in New York City. He finds the perfect one bedroom that eventually becomes the prize in a battle of another sort. Chandler, a gentile, and Kahan, a Jew who manages the building, are both obsessed with the apartment but for different reasons. Both men are oblivious to some of the reasons the war was fought. There is no brotherly love in the story. In the end the old pilot, an alcoholic, dies in a fall down a stairwell. Was he pushed over the railing by Kahan? Does the old man simply give up the fight? In the end the thought lingers: how easily man is motivated to kill.

THE SECRET TO MY SOBRIETY The secret to my sobriety is that my sobriety is not a secret. Addiction is shrouded in secrecy, lies and darkness. Separation from God. Sobriety is staying in the light of the truth. My prayer is that this book provides hope and inspiration for you if you are seeking to break the bonds of addiction and become the person God meant you to be. If this book can touch one heart, help save one soul, and lead someone back to the path where they will find Godthen it has served its purpose. You are important. Life is now. Step into the sunlight. Ask God for help this moment. I did and I am forever grateful for His Grace.

Recovery message book

This is an introduction to pragmatics, the study of how people make sense of each other linguistically. The author explains, and illustrates, basic concepts such as the co-operative principle, deixis, and speech acts, providing a clear, concise foundation for further study.

Lean is about building and improving stable and predictable systems and processes to deliver to customers high-quality products/services on time by engaging everyone in the organization. Combined with this, organizations need to create an environment of respect for people and continuous learning. It’s all about people. People create the product or service, drive innovation, and create systems and processes, and with leadership buy-in and accountability to ensure sustainment with this philosophy, employees will be committed to the organization as they learn and grow personally and professionally. Lean is a term that describes a way of thinking about and managing companies as an enterprise. Becoming Lean requires the following: the continual pursuit to identify and eliminate waste; the establishment of efficient flow of both information and process; and an unwavering top-level commitment. The concept of continuous improvement applies to any process in any industry. Based on the contents of The Lean Practitioners Field Book, the purpose of this series is to show, in detail, how any process can be improved utilizing a combination of tasks and people tools and introduces the BASICS Lean® concept. The books are designed for all levels of Lean practitioners and introduces proven tools for analysis and implementation that go beyond the traditional point kaizen event. Each book can be used as a stand-alone volume or used in combination with other titles based on specific needs. Each book is chock-full of case studies and stories from the authors’ own experiences in training organizations that have started or are continuing their Lean journey of continuous improvement. Contents include valuable lessons learned and each chapter concludes with questions pertaining to the focus of the chapter. Numerous photographs enrich and illustrate specific tools used in Lean methodology. Suggesting Solutions: Brainstorming Creative Ideas to Maximize Productivity explores the process block diagram tool, how to do a Lean layout and Lean master layout and how to create standard work and visual management systems. The goal of this book is to introduce the balance of the tools and how to proceed once the analysis is completed. There are many pieces to a Lean implementation and all of them are interconnected. This book walks through the relationships and how the data presented can be leveraged to prepare for the implementation. It also provides suggest solutions for improvements and making recommendations to management to secure their buy-in and approval.

What is time? Is it merely a convenient way of measuring the movement of celestial bodies, or is it something much more? Why is it important to go beyond the daily clock and calendar? Are the secrets to life hidden within the mystery of time? This book seeks to answer these questions and many more. The first part explains, through basic science, that we are much more than we have been led to believe. Within us is the key to Creation. We are masters of time and space, but we have forgotten this. Our intention in these pages is to help you remember your magnificence. In the second part of the book, we offer practical applications of the ideas presented herein. A powerful new therapy is introduced that has already helped transform thousands of lives. Are you ready to go beyond traditional healing and therapy? Can you gain the courage to look at the deepest layers of the subconscious mind? Perhaps you can experience, in a few sessions, more healing than in years of psychotherapy. If you are receptive to the possibilities above, then open this book and begin the journey into a wonderful new awareness of self that goes beyond anything the world has to offer. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. — revised from the Hopi Elders

While there are numerous Lean Certification programs, most companies have their own certification paths whereby they bestow expert status upon employees after they have participated in or led a certain number of kaizen events. Arguing that the number of kaizen events should not determine a person's expert status, The Lean Practitioner's Field Book: Proven, Practical, Profitable and Powerful Techniques for Making Lean Really Work outlines a true learning path for anyone seeking to understand essential Lean principles. The book includes a plethora of examples drawn from the personal experiences of its many well-respected and award-winning contributors. These experts break down Lean concepts to their simplest terms to make everything as clear as possible for Lean practitioners. A refresher for some at times, the text provides thought-provoking questions with examples that will stimulate learning opportunities. Introducing the Lean Practitioner concept, the book details the five distinct Lean Practitioner levels and includes quizzes and criteria for each level. It highlights the differences between the kaizen event approach and the Lean system level approach as well as the difference between station balancing and baton zone. This book takes readers on a journey that begins with an overview of Lean principles and culminates with readers developing professionally through the practice of self-reliance. Providing you with the tools to implement Lean tools in your organization, the book includes discussions and examples that demonstrate how to transition from traditional accounting methods to a Lean accounting system. The book outlines an integrated, structured approach identified by the acronym BASICS (baseline, analyze, suggest solutions, implement, check, and sustain), which is combined with a proven business strategy to help ensure a successful and sustainable transformation of your organization.

The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences provides a remarkable comparative assessment of the variations of positivism and alternative epistemologies in the contemporary human sciences. Often declared obsolete, positivism is alive and well in a number of the fields; in others, its influence is significantly diminished. The essays in this collection investigate its mutations in form and degree across the social science disciplines. Looking at methodological assumptions field by field, individual essays address anthropology, area studies, economics, history, the philosophy of science, political science and political theory, and sociology. Essayists trace disciplinary developments through the long twentieth century, focusing on the decades since World War II. Contributors explore and contrast some of the major alternatives to positivist epistemologies, including Marxism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, narrative theory, and actor-network theory. Almost all the essays are written by well-known practitioners of the fields discussed. Some essayists approach positivism and anti-positivism via close readings of texts influential in their respective disciplines. Some engage in ethnographies of the present-day human sciences; others are more historical in method. All of them critique contemporary social scientific practice. Together, they trace a trajectory of thought and method running from the past through the present and pointing toward possible futures. Contributors. Andrew Abbott, Daniel Breslau, Michael Burawoy, Andrew Collier , Michael Dutton, Geoff Eley, Anthony Elliott, Stephen Engelmann, Sandra Harding, Emily Hauptmann, Webb Keane, Tony Lawson, Sophia Mihic, Philip Mirowski, Timothy Mitchell, William H. Sewell Jr., Margaret R. Somers, George Steinmetz, Elizabeth Wingrove

Principles and Practice of Surgical Oncology uniquely emphasizes a multidisciplinary, integrated approach to the treatment of solid tumors. It presents treatment strategies that combine surgery with preoperative or postoperative adjunctive chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, and/or radiation therapy to achieve optimal outcome. The book features contributions from surgeons, basic scientists, pathologists, radiologists, radiation therapists, and medical oncologists and offers a comprehensive presentation of genetics, molecular biology, pathogenesis, and multimodal therapeutic approaches. A unique feature of the book is a commentary following each chapter, which describes alternative approaches and discusses controversial areas of current therapy. A companion Website will offer the fully searchable text with images.