Beware of Cynicism is a satire that examines medical education with sharp and cutting humor in the context of profound disillusionment. The story chronicles the adventures of The Morality Police, Jaded Larry, Follows the Rules, and The Grumbler, four over 40-year-old students, as they navigate medical school at the world's most conservative university, The Land of the Zealots. The heroes find themselves immersed in a milieu with classmates young enough to be their children, bureaucrats who out of touch, and administrators struggling to adhere to their own proclaimed values. The Morality Police soon discovers a sinister plot to overthrow The Four Commands, which all Zealots are sworn to uphold, and an evil spirit of entitlement that threatens to destroy the foundations of medicine. Butler's story pulls back the curtain on medical education and the toll that it takes on students, especially those with lived experience.

A scathingly funny debut novel about disillusionment, indifference, and one man's desperate fight to assign absolutely no meaning to modern life. The only thing Shane cares about is leaving. Usually on a Greyhound bus, right before his life falls apart again. Just like he planned. But this time it's complicated: there's a sadistic corporate climber who thinks she's his girlfriend, a rent-subsidized affair with his landlord's wife, and the bizarrely appealing deaf assistant to Shane's cosmically unstable dentist. When one of the women is murdered, and Shane is the only suspect who doesn't care enough to act like he didn't do it, the question becomes just how he'll clear the good name he never had and doesn't particularly want: his own. “The malaise of cubicle culture may be well-trodden comedic territory by now, but Neilan's debut skewers office life with a flourish for the grotesque.” —The Village Voice

This easy-to-use, step-by-step guide takes you through everything you need to know in your first days, weeks, and months as a new teacher, from developing your plan book and filing system in August to updating your grade book and celebrating your success in June. Chapters cover diverse learners, classroom organization and management, curriculum and instruction, lesson planning, grading systems, professional development, and more. Practical and specific advice helps you build the right classroom environment, create “essential file folders,” make a curriculum calendar, and even find the right wall art! The First Days of Class provides all the tools of the trade for new, substitute, returning, and emergency credential teachers, including: Short, easy-to-reference sections within each chapter Tip boxes at the end of every chapter Classroom material samples, including “Our Classroom Rules” and a calendar of multicultural celebrations Resources that include a “A Teacher’s Ten Commandments,” Recommended Reading, and Educational websites.

While many of the essays in this book were written before 9/11, they point to a number of important issues such as the commercialization of public life, the stepped up militarization, racial profiling, and the threat to basic civil liberties that have been resurrected since the terrorist attacks. Public Spaces, Private Lives serves to legitimate the claim that there is much in America that has not changed since 9/11. Rather than a dramatic change, what we are witnessing is an intensification and acceleration of the contradictions that threatened American democracy before the tragic events of 9/11. Hence, Public Spaces, Private Lives offers a context for both understanding and critically engaging the combined threats posed by the increase in domestic militarization and a neoliberal ideology that substitutes market values for those democratic values that are crucial to rethinking what a vibrant democracy would look like in the aftermath of September 11th.

The church. The bride of Christ. The body of Christ on earth. A joy, delight, and a comfort to all Christians.And the source of some of our greatest hurt and struggle. We fight for the church, but we also fight inside the church, and the sight of a local congregation or denomination battling it out is one of the saddest and most shaming sights that we ever come across. So do we have the choice to opt out of the church altogether, to go it alone, just us and God? No, says Jeff Lucas. Whatever the problems, we have to learn to work together. With his usual humor and understanding, Jeff takes us through some of the key issues facing Christians in the twenty-first-century church—bullying leaders, grumbling, gossiping, spiritual dementia, and finally the overwhelming need for love. Whether it is asking for our daily bread, forgiving and seeking forgiveness, or exploring what it means for God’s will to be done, these Bible Daily notes are food for the brain and sustenance for the spirit. Bible Daily notes are written by Jeff Lucas to help you apply the lessons of God’s Word daily. Each day and with each devotion, Jeff uses his signature wit and wisdom to reveal insights and practical application you can use in your own life. Each Bible devotion takes only a few minutes to read, but the lessons learned can last a lifetime.

The Writer's Reader is an anthology of essays on writing by major writers of the past and present and is designed to introduce beginning writers to the art of writing as well as the life of writing. It draws on the experiences and advice of many of the world's best writers, mainly from Britain and America, but also from Latin America, Asia, and Europe. These essays offer a wealth of insights into the varied ways in which writers approach writing and represent a practical resource as well as a source of inspiration for those who are hoping to become writers or who are, perhaps, just at the beginnings of their career. They include classic as well as less well-known essays, both historical and contemporary, and include, for example, essays on the vocation of writing by Natalia Ginzburg, Robert Louis Stevenson, Danilo Kis, and Jonathan Franzen; thoughts on preparing for writing by, among others, Saul Bellow, Jorge Luis Borges, Joan Didion, and Margaret Atwood; and essays on the craft of writing by writers such as Italo Calvino, Virginia Woolf, and David Foster Wallace. Taken together, this collection is a must-read for any student or devotee of writing.

Discusses the need to reclaim American culture and how to protect and nurture the children of our country.

This original study reveals the importance of ancient Cynicism in defining the Enlightenment and its legacy. Louisa Shea explores modernity's debt to Cynicism by examining the works of thinkers who turned to the ancient Cynics as a model for reinventing philosophy and dared to imagine an alliance between a socially engaged Enlightenment and the least respectable of early Greek philosophies. While Cynicism has always resided on the fringes of philosophy, Shea argues, it remained a vital touchstone for writers committed to social change and helped define the emerging figure of the public intellectual in the 18th century. Shea's study brings to light the rich legacy of ancient Cynicism in modern intellectual, philosophical, and literary life, both in the 18th-century works of Diderot, Rousseau, Wieland, and Sade, and in recent writings by Michel Foucault and Peter Sloterdijk. Featuring an important new perspective on both Enlightenment thought and its current scholarly reception, The Cynic Enlightenment will interest students and scholars of the Enlightenment and its intellectual legacy, 18th-century studies, literature, and philosophy.

The essays by Christopher Tuckett collected in this volume represent a number of studies, published over a period of 30 years, seeking to throw light on the way in which Jesus traditions were developed and used in early Christianity. Many of the essays are concerned in one way or another with the Sayings Source "Q", discussing its existence, its possible pre-history, and key features of the material it contains. Further essays look at Jesus traditions in Paul and in the Gospel of Thomas. In a final section the author focuses on the individual synoptic gospels, with a number of studies concerned with Christology, especially the use of the term "Son of Man". These essays show that early Christian traditions about Jesus can provide valuable information not only about Jesus but also about how early Christians used these traditions to relate to their own situations and contexts.