Musings of an Inveterate Traveler III is the personalized experienced of a pleasure traveler to: Costa Rica, China, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary. It includes text referenced pictures, personal comments and insights, history, travel snafus, animals, plants, people, places, humor, ironies, and the sheer joy of traveling as one of lifes greatest gifts. The book will be enjoyed by experienced and inexperienced travelers of all ages who can relate to the manifold experiences or who enjoy those adventures vicariously from the comfort of their easy-chair. The writing, like life, is filled with humor, ironies, ups and downs, twists and curves. It is written without trying to judge the world, its leaders, or its economic systems; it takes place over four years, one unrelated trip at a time, with my partner Jean (aka Jean Lou, Jeanala, JR,) and me as the only repeating characters. Each chapter contains opinions, personal preferences, various insights about other people and me. My musings involve 8 Dr. Robert H. Schram experiences common to all travelers; e.g., travel connection problems, errors and omissions, comic cultural contacts, joyful interludes, camaraderie, dining, shopping. Uncommon to many travelers I include spiritual musings about humans, animals, plants, rocks, the Earth, and the universe. Read, laugh and most of all, ENJOY!

Musings of an Inveterate Traveler II is the personalized experience of a pleasure traveler to: Alaska, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Israel. It includes text referenced pictures, personal comments, insights, history, travel snafus, animals, plants, people, places, humor, ironies, and the sheer joy of travelling as one of lifes greatest gifts. The book will be enjoyed by experienced and inexperienced travelers of all ages who can relate to the manifold experiences or who enjoy those adventures vicariously from the comfort of their easy-chair. The writing, like life, is filled with humor, ironies, ups and downs, twists, and curves. It is written without trying to judge the world, its leaders, or its economic systems; it takes place over four years, one unrelated trip at a time, with my partner Jean (aka JeanLu, Jeanala, JR,) and me as the only repeating characters. Each chapter contains opinions, personal preferences, various insights about people and me. My musings involve experiences common to all travelers; e.g., travel connection problems, errors and omissions, comic cultural contacts, joyful interludes, camaraderie, dining, shopping. Uncommon to many travelers I include spiritual musings about humans, animals, plants, rocks, the Earth, and the universe, Read, laugh and most of all, ENJOY!

"Musings of an Inveterate Traveler IV" is the personalized experience of a pleasure traveler to: The Netherlands, England, Scotland, Norway, and Denmark. As the author’s fourth travel book it includes text referenced pictures, personal comments, insights, history, travel snafus, animals, plants, people, places, humor, ironies, and the sheer joy of traveling as one of life’s greatest gifts. The book will be enjoyed by experienced and inexperienced travelers of all ages who can relate to the manifold experiences or who enjoy those adventures vicariously from the comfort of their easy-chair. The book is written without trying to judge the world, its leaders, or its economic systems; it takes place in 2012 with the author and his partner Jean as the only repeating characters. Each chapter contains opinions, personal preferences, various insights about other people and the author. The author’s musings involve experiences common to all travelers; e.g., travel connection problems, errors and omissions, comic cultural contacts, joyful interludes, camaraderie, dining, and shopping.

Dr. Robert H. Schram has been employed by BARC Developmental Services since 1977 as its Executive Director. BARC Developmental Services is a large community nonprofit organization serving people with intellectual disabilities and Autism. He has advanced degrees in Political Science, Counseling Psychology, and a Doctorate in Public Administration. He received recognition as a Fellow by the American Association on Mental Retardation for meritorious contributions to the field. He was nominated for the Grenzebach Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation. He is trained in Jewish Shamanism, Spiritual Direction, and Himalayan Healing Bowls. He is President and Founder of the Rehaschra School of Yoga and Meditation. His three other published books are: Maximize Life by Living for Peace, Harmony, and Joy! Oh My God it is all the Same! Life is but a Dream!

This collection of writings by Gunther Schuller--the first composer to be awarded the Elise L. Stoeger Composer's Chair of the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center--provides a marvelous introduction to the man and his extraordinary range of musical experience, taste, and learning. In Part I, "Jazz and the Third Stream," Schuller offers his reflections on jazz, insightful pieces on such figures as Duke Ellington, Cecil Taylor, and Sonny Rollins, and several essays on "the third stream," the genre where jazz and classical music intersect. Part II, "Music Performance and Contemporary Music," includes articles on the art of conducting, the future of opera, the question of a new classicism, and Schuller's own thoughts on his controversial opera The Visitation. The final section, "Music Aesthetics and Education," presents Schuller's reflections on such matters as form, structure, and symbol in music; the need for broadening the audience for quality music; and his vision of the ideal conservatory and the total musician.

"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the movies from his youth were set. Instead he drove through a series of horrific burgs, which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Coma, and Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA, a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a partiality for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost: lost to itself because he found it blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.

Despite their significant contributions to the American theater, African American dramatists have received less critical attention than novelists and poets. This reference offers thorough critical assessments of the lives and works of African American playwrights from the 19th century to the present. The book alphabetically arranges entries on more than 60 dramatists, including James Baldwin, Arna Bontemps, Ossie Davis, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography, a discussion of major works and themes, a summary of the playwright's critical reception, and primary and secondary bibliographies. The volume closes with a selected, general bibliography. African American dramatists have made enormous contributions to the theater and their works are included in numerous editions and anthologies. Some of the most popular plays of the 20th century have been written by African Americans, and high school students and undergraduates study their works. But for all their popularity and influence, African American playwrights have received less critical attention than poets and novelists. This reference offers thorough critical assessments of more than 60 African American dramatists from the 19th century to the present.

The title, Behemoth, derives from the Hebrew word Behemah-a beast, an enormous creature, monstrously huge and vast. It is an apt description of the State on the eve of the twenty-first century. Loved by few, vilified by many from all perspectives, it nonetheless continues to grow; by turns rivaling and co-opting that more pleasant-sounding word: Society. Political sociology aims to define and understand the interrelationship between these two huge terms: State and Society. Continuing in a path begun by Horowitz in the 1950s in The Idea of War and Peace in Contemporary Social and Philosophical Thought, expanded upon in the 1970s with Foundations of Political Sociology, this summing up in the late 1990s is an effort to extract and evolve the canon of political sociology. Starting with Montesquieu, Horowitz proceeds through the European experience of Rousseau, Tocqueville, Hegel, Marx, Durkheim, Sorel, and Weber. He then takes the field on its tangled migration to America with the Frankfurt School in exile, followed by searching chapters on Schumpeter, Mills, Arendt, and Huntington, among others. The result is a stunning revaluation of the intellectual sources of the present day divisions between statists and socialists, welfarists and individualists, advocates of dictatorship and of democracy, mandated rules and voluntary association, hard realists and soft utopians, a world without states and a world with a single state. Horowitz does not offer the usual evolutionary notion of doctrines, but a canon embedded in and embattled with the societies they aim to serve or overthrow in the present as in the past. The result is a major recasting of the theory and practice of social science and normative frameworks. The final chapter offers Horowitz's own prognosis of what we can expect in the recasting of the Welfare State to include the Welfare Society, and its growing nemesis the global economy which threatens to engulf State and Society alike in a return to civilizational concerns. This is an essential text for policy-makers and social scientists interested in macroscopic changes in the political order.

A concise overview of 20th- and 21st-century Mexico, this volume explores the political, economic, social, and cultural history of the world's largest Spanish-speaking country. From NAFTA to narcotics, from immigration to energy, the ties that bind our nation and Mexico are varied and strong. Mexico uncovers the real Mexico that lies behind the stereotypes of tacos, tequila, and tourist hotels. Compiled by leading scholars of Mexican history and society, its more than 150 entries examine the nation in all its fascinating contradictions and complexity. This concise yet thorough study, covering the last 100 years of Mexican history, is the only one volume, A–Z reference work available to students, scholars, and readers curious about one of the world's most diverse and dynamic societies. What was the Mexican Revolution all about? Who are the Zapatistas? And why do Mexicans celebrate Cinco de Mayo? Mexicans are America's largest immigrant group and Mexico is America's favorite tourist destination. Yet we need to learn more and understand better our fascinating neighbor to the south. Mexico—comprehensive and accessible—is the best place to start.

There are numerous books written about Jewish mysticism, kabbalah, and the Zohar (Book of Radiance). The Zohar is written in code through the use of symbolism, euphemisms, figures of speech, ancient phraseology, and the Hebrew Bible or Tenakh. Tenakh is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of Masoretic Text’s three traditional subdivisions (Torah - the Five Books of Moses, Nevi’im - Prophets, and Ketuvim - writings). Thanks to the incredible scholarship of Professor Daniel Matt from Berkeley California the codes of the Zohar have become more comprehensible to the inquisitive reader. It was because of Professor Matt’s translation, explanations, and notes on the Zohar in his first seven volumes that I was moved to write this book. ”The Zohar is firmly rooted in tradition but thrives on discovery.”