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isslibrary · 5 years

Text

New Library Material August - November 2019

Sorted by Call Number / Author.

031 O

Bill O'Neill. Trivia Madness : 1000 fun trivia questions. Wiq Media, 2016.

031 O

Bill O'Neill. Trivia Madness : 1000 fun trivia questions. Wiq Media, 2016.

031 O

Bill O'Neill. Trivia Madness : 1000 fun trivia questions about anything. LAK Publishing, 2017. The complete manual providing trivia, trivia facts, interesting facts, trivia questions, random facts, brain teaser quizzes, and brain games to strengthen your knowledge base!.

031 S

Evan Salveson. Game night trivia : 2,000 trivia questions to stump your friends. Lexington, KY, : 2019.

323.1

Eskew, Glenn T. But for Birmingham : the local and national movements in the civil rights struggle. Chapel Hill, NC : University of North Carolina Press, c1997. Provides an analysis of the struggle for desegregation in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1960s, during which the Southern Christian Leadership Conference urged the African-American community into a mass protest that ultimately resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

333.95 W

Wilson, Edward O. The diversity of life. Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992.

338.2 M

Maddow, Rachel, author. Blowout. First edition. "Rachel Maddow's Blowout offers a dark, serpentine, riveting tour of the unimaginably lucrative and corrupt oil-and-gas industry. With her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the globe-from Oklahoma City to Siberia to Equatorial Guinea-exposing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas. She shows how Russia's rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia's rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the United States, and the West's most important alliances. Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, but ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson emerge as two of the past century's most consequential corporate villains. The oil-and-gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers, and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, "like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can't really blame the lion. It's in her nature.""--.

355.3 S

Stengel, Richard, author. Information wars : how we lost the global battle against disinformation and what we can do about it. First edition. Welcome to State -- Getting There -- The Job -- Information War -- The Battle Is Engaged -- Disruption -- What to Do About Disinformation. "In February of 2013, Richard Stengel, the former editor-in-chief of Time, joined the Obama administration as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Within days, two shocking events made world-wide headlines: ISIS executed American journalist James Foley on a graphic video seen by tens of millions, and Vladimir Putin's "little green men"-Russian special forces-invaded Crimea, amid a blizzard of Russian denials and false flags. What these events had in common besides their violent law-lessness is that they were the opening salvos in a new era of global information war, where countries and non-state actors use social media and disinformation to create their own narratives and undermine anyone who opposes them. Stengel was thrust onto the front lines of this battle as he was tasked with responding to the relentless weaponizing of information and grievance by ISIS, Russia, China, and others. He saw the scale of what he was up against and found himself hopelessly outgunned. Then, in 2016, the wars Stengel was fighting abroad came home during the presidential election, as "fake news" became a rallying cry and the Russians used the techniques they learned in Ukraine to influence the election here. Rarely has an accomplished journalist been not only a close observer but also a principal participant in the debates and decisions of American foreign policy. Stengel takes you behind the scenes in the ritualized world of diplomacy, from the daily 8:30 morning huddle with a restless John Kerry to a midnight sit-down in Saudi Arabia with the prince of darkness Mohammed bin Salman. The result is a rich account of a losing battle against trolls and bots-who are every bit as insidious as their names imply."--.

355.8 K

Kean, Sam, author. The bastard brigade : the true story of the renegade scientists and spies who sabotaged the Nazi atomic bomb. First edition. Prologue: Summer of '44 -- Prewar, to 1939 -- 1940-1941 -- 1942 -- 1943 -- 1944 -- 1945. The leaders of the Manhattan Project were alarmed to learn that Nazi Germany was far outpacing the Allies in nuclear weapons research. Hitler would soon have the capability to reverse the entire D-Day operation and conquer Europe. Kean tells the story of a rough and motley crew of geniuses-- dubbed the Alsos Mission-- sent into Axis territory to spy on, sabotage, and even assassinate members of Nazi Germany's feared Uranium Club. The Mission included Moe Berg, a major league catcher and multilingual international spy; Joe Kennedy Jr, whose need for adventure lead him to volunteer for the dangerous mission; and Irène and Frederic Joliot-Curie, a physics Nobel-Prize winning power couple who became active members of the resistance. -- adapted from jacket.

364.152 C

Cep, Casey N., author. Furious hours : murder, fraud, and the last trial of Harper Lee. First edition. "The stunning story of an Alabama serial killer and the true-crime book that Harper Lee worked on obsessively in the years after To Kill a Mockingbird. Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted -- thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the Reverend. Sitting in the audience during the vigilante's trial was Harper Lee, who had traveled from New York City to her native Alabama with the idea of writing her own In Cold Blood, the true-crime classic she had helped her friend Truman Capote research seventeen years earlier. Lee spent a year in town reporting, and many more working on her own version of the case. Now Casey Cep brings this nearly inconceivable story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South. At the same time, she offers a deeply moving portrait of one of the country's most beloved writers and her struggle with fame, success, and the mystery of artistic creativity."--.

419.07 B

Butterworth, Rod R. Signing made easy; : a complete program for learning sign language... Putnam, 1989. ...includes sentence drills and exercises for increase comprehension and signing skill.

419.7 D

Duke, Irene. The everything sign language book : American Sign Language made easy. 2nd ed. Avon, Mass. : Adams Media, c2009. Explains basic communication using American Sign Language, including proper handshapes, body language, signing etiquette, and communicating with the hearing impaired.

419.7 G

Guido, James W., author. Learn American sign language : everything you need to start signing now. Alphabet -- Numbers -- Basics -- Days & times -- Family & friends -- Body & health -- At home -- Out & about -- School & work -- Food & drink -- Activities -- Social -- Nature -- Misc. verbs -- Descriptors. American Sign Language (ASL) is a vibrant, easy-to-learn language that is used by approximately half a million people each day. Current with the latest additions to ASL and filled with thousands of brand new photographs by Deaf actors, Learn American Sign Language is the most comprehensive guide of its kind.- Learn more than 800 signs, including signs for school, the workplace, around the house, out and about, food and drink, nature, emotions, small talk, and more.- Unlock the storytelling possibilities of ASL with classifiers, easy ways to modify signs that can turn "fishing" into "catching a big fish" and "walking" into "walking with a group."--Find out how to make sentences with signs, use the proper facial expressions with your signs, and other vital tips.

636.7 D

Davis, Kathy Diamond. Therapy dogs : training your dog to help others. 2nd ed. Wenatchee, Wash. : Dogwise Pub., c2002. Benefits therapy dogs provide -- Orientation to reality -- Focal point for attention-deficit problems -- Morale -- Antidote to depression -- Cooperation -- Social stimulation.

649.1 G

Ginott, Haim G. Between parent and child : the bestselling classic that revolutionized parent-child communication. Rev. and updated /Orig. pub.: Macmillan, 1965. New York : Three Rivers Press, c2003. The code of communication : parent-child conversations -- The power of words : better ways to encourage and guide -- Self-defeating patterns : there's no right way to do a wrong thing -- Responsibility : transmitting values rather than demanding compliance -- Discipline : finding effective alternatives to punishment --A day in a child's life -- Jealousy : the tragic tradition -- Some sources of anxiety in children : providing emotional safety -- Sex and human values : sensitive handling of an important subject -- Summing up : lessons to guide your parenting -- Epilogue.

796.334 A

Adams, Sean, 1977-. Mia Hamm. New York : Barnes & Noble Books, 2003.

809.1 C

Classic writings on poetry. New York : Columbia University Press, c2003.

810.8 O

The outlaw bible of American literature. New York : Thunder's Mouth Press ;, c2004.

811 D

Davis, Geffrey M., 1983- author. Night angler : poems. First edition. The fidelity of water -- Hymn or hum -- The radiance -- The night angler -- Bop: no more your mirror/Side a: my son's prelude -- Survivor -- First blood -- Human note -- The epistemology of cheerios -- Prayer with miscarriage/Grant us the ruined grounds -- A proposal from the previously divorced -- Pillow kombat with the ultimate sleep fighter -- Son's face -- What I mean when I say harmony -- Self-portrait with headwaters -- Self-portrait as a dead black boy -- I have my father's hands -- Smolder -- The book of family -- What make a man -- From the country notebooks -- The fidelity of music -- The night angler -- Poem in which my son wakes crying -- Arkansas aubade -- What I mean when I say harmony -- 3:16: whosoever -- 3:16: so loved -- 3:16: for 56 -- 3:16: world -- 3:16: blackout -- Like a river -- From the suicide notebooks -- The fidelity of angles -- What i mean when I say harmony -- Bop: no more your mirror/Side b: my wife's fugue -- Pleasures of place -- The epistemology of growing pains -- West Virginia nocturne -- Hear the light -- For the child's mole -- The night angler.

812 G

Williams, Jaston. Greater Tuna. New York : S. French, c1983. Play.

812.54 W

Wilson, August. The piano lesson. New York : Plume, c1990. Dramatizes the struggles of an African-American family as they consider selling a prized possession, an ornate upright piano, in order to buy the tract of land upon which they were once enslaved.

813 B

Baldwin, James, 1924-1987, author. Later novels.

821 B

Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824. The major works. Oxford ; : Oxford University Press, 2008.

821 D

John Donne : Selected poems. Phoenix Edition, 2003. London (UK) : Orion Publishing Group, 2003.

821.008 C

Roy J. Cook. One Hundred and One Famous Poems. 122 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10011 : Barnes & Noble, Inc, 2009.

821.809

Hay, Daisy, 1981-. Young romantics : the Shelleys, Byron, and other tangled lives. 1st American ed. New York : Farrar Straus & Giroux, c2010. A group biography that tells the story of the interlinked lives of England's young Romantic poets. Focuses on the network of writers and readers who gathered around Percy Bysshe Shelley and the campaigning journalist Leigh Hunt. They included Lord Byron, John Keats, and Mary Shelley, as well as a host of lesser-known figures: Mary Shelley's stepsister and Byron's mistress, Claire Clairmont; Hunt's botanist sister-in-law, Elizabeth Kent; the musician Vincent Novello; the painters Benjamin Haydon and Joseph Severn; and writers such as Charles and Mary Lamb, Thomas Love Peacock, and William Hazlitt. They were characterized by talent, idealism, and youthful ardor, and these qualities shaped and informed their politically oppositional stances--as did their chaotic family arrangements, which often left the young women, despite their talents, facing the consequences of the men's philosophies.

823.9 L

Lewis, C. S. (Clive Staples), 1898-1963. Till we have faces : a myth retold. 1st Harvest/HBJ ed. New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980, c1956.

828.609

Gordon, Charlotte. Romantic outlaws : the extraordinary lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley. First U.S. edition. "Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and her daughter Mary Shelley (1797-1851) have each been the subject of numerous biographies by top tier writers, yet no author has ever examined their lives in tandem. Perhaps this is because these two amazing women never knew each other--Wollstonecraft died of infection at the age of 38, a week after giving birth to her daughter. Nevertheless their lives were closely intertwined, their choices, dreams and tragedies so eerily similar, it seems impossible to consider one without the other: both became famous writers; both fell in love with brilliant but impossible authors; both were single mothers and had children out of wedlock (a shocking and self-destructive act in their day); both broke out of the rigid conventions of their era and lived in exile; and both played important roles in the Romantic era during which they lived. The lives of both Marys were nothing less than extraordinary, providing fabulous material for Charlotte Gordon, a gifted story teller. She seamlessly weaves their lives together in back and forth narratives, taking readers on a vivid journey across Revolutionary France and Victorian England, from the Italian seaports to the highlands of Scotland, in a book that reads like a richly textured historical novel"--.

914.304 G

The vagabonds : the story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison'sTen-Year Road Trip. First Simon & Schuster Hardback Edition, 2019. New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, 2019. Prologue: Paris, Michigan : mid-August 1923 -- 1914 -- 1915 -- 1916 -- 1918 -- 1919 -- 1920 -- 1921 -- Interim: November 1921-June 1923 -- 1923 -- 1924 -- Jep Bisbee is famous. "A brilliant portrait of two American giants, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, and America entering the automobile age, told through the fascinating but little-known narrative of the summer road trips taken by Edison and Ford"-- Provided by publisher.

920.72 C

Clinton, Hillary Rodham, author. The book of gutsy women. First Simon and Schuster hardcover edition. EARLY INSPIRATIONS. Harriet Tubman -- Anna Pavlova, Isadora Duncan, Maria Tallchief, and Virginia Johnson -- Helen Keller -- Margaret Chase Smith -- Margaret Bourke-White -- Maria von Trapp -- Anne Frank -- Rigoberta Menchú Tum -- Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Florence Griffith Joyner -- EDUCATION PIONEERS. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz -- Margaret Bancroft -- Juliette Gordon Low -- Maria Montessori and Joan Ganz Cooney -- Mary McLeod Bethune -- Esther Martinez -- Daisy Bates -- Patsy Mink, Bernice Sandler, and Edith Green -- Ruby Bridges Hall -- Malala Yousafzai -- EARTH DEFENDERS. Marjory Stoneman Douglas -- Rachel Carson -- Jane Jacobs and Peggy Shepard -- Jane Goodall and "The Trimates" -- Wangari Maathai -- Alice Min Soo Chun -- Greta Thunberg -- EXPLORERS AND INVENTORS. Caroline Herschel and Vera Rubin -- Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper -- Margaret Knight and Madam C.J. Walker -- Marie Curie and Irène Jolior-Curie -- Hedy Lamarr -- Sylvia Earle -- Sally Ride -- Mae Jemison -- HEALERS. Florence Nightingale -- Clara Barton -- Elizabeth Blackwell, Rebecca Lee Crumpler, and Mary Edwards Walker -- Betty Ford -- Mathilde Krim -- Dr. Gao Yaojie -- Dr. Hawa Abdi -- Flossie Wong-Staal -- Molly Melching -- Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha -- Vaccinators -- ATHLETES. Alice Coachman and Wilma Rudolph -- Junko Tabei -- Billie Jean King -- Diana Nyad -- Abby Wambach -- Michelle Kwan -- Venus and Serena Williams -- Ibtihaj Muhammad -- Tatyana McFadden -- Caster Semenya -- Aly Raisman -- ADVOCATES AND ACTIVISTS. Dorothy Height and Sojourner Truth -- Ida B. Wells -- Eleanor Roosevelt -- Elizabeth Peratrovich -- Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin -- Coretta Scott King -- Dolores Huerta -- The Peacemakers -- Victoria Mxenge -- Ai-jen Poo -- Sarah Brady, Gabby Giffords, Nelba Màrquez-Greene, Shannon Watts, and Lucy McBath -- Nza-Ari Khepra, Emma Gonzàlez, Naomi Wadler, Edna Chavez, Jazmine Wildcat, and Julia Spoor -- Becca Heller -- STORYTELLERS. Maya Angelou -- Mary Beard -- Jineth Bedoya Lima -- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -- America Ferrera -- Ali Stoker -- Amani Al-Khatahtbeh -- ELECTED LEADERS. Bella Abzug -- Shirley Chisholm -- Ann Richards -- Geraldine Ferraro -- Barbara Jordan -- Barbara Mikulski -- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf -- Wilma Mankiller -- Michelle Bachelet -- Danica Roem -- GROUNDBREAKERS. Frances Perkins -- Katharine Graham -- Constance Baker Motley -- Edie Windsor -- Ela Bhatt -- Temple Grandin -- Ellen DeGeneres -- Maya Lin -- Sally Yates -- Kimberly Bryant and Reshma Saujani -- WOMEN'S RIGHTS CHAMPIONS. Rosa May Billinghurst -- The Suffragists -- Sophia Duleep Singh -- Fraidy Reiss -- Manal al Sharif -- Nadia Murad. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, share the stories of the gutsy women who have inspired them -- women with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done. Ensuring the rights and opportunities of women and girls remains a big piece of the unfinished business of the twenty-first century. While there's a lot of work to do, we know that throughout history and around the globe women have overcome the toughest resistance imaginable to win victories that have made progress possible for all of us. That is the achievement of each of the women in this book. So how did they do it? The answers are as unique as the women themselves. Civil rights activist Dorothy Height, LGBTQ trailblazer Edie Windsor, and swimmer Diana Nyad kept pushing forward, no matter what. Writers like Rachel Carson and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie named something no one had dared talk about before. Historian Mary Beard used wit to open doors that were once closed, and Wangari Maathai, who sparked a movement to plant trees, understood the power of role modeling. Harriet Tubman and Malala Yousafzai looked fear in the face and persevered. Nearly every single one of these women was fiercely optimistic -- they had faith that their actions could make a difference. And they were right. To us, they are all gutsy women -- leaders with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done. So in the moments when the long haul seems awfully long, we hope you will draw strength from these stories. We do. Because if history shows one thing, it's that the world needs gutsy women.

940.54 S

Smith, Jean Edward, author. The liberation of Paris : how Eisenhower, De Gaulle, and Von Choltitz saved the City of Light. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. Paris occupied -- De Gaulle and the resistance -- The Allies advance -- The German defense -- The resistance rises -- Eisenhower changes plans -- Leclerc moves out -- A field of ruins -- Day of liberation -- De Gaulle triumphant. "The liberation of Paris tells the dramatic story of the Allied decision in World War II to divert from the strategic plan in order to save the City of Light from chaos and assist de Gaulle's efforts to become France's new leader even as the German general in charge of the occupation defied his orders to destroy the city as the Allies closed in"--.

942.01 A

Alexander, Michael, 1941-. Medievalism : the Middle Ages in modern England. New Haven : Yale University Press, c2007. Introduction -- The advent of the Goths : the medieval in the 1760s -- Chivalry, romances and revival : Chaucer into Scott : The lay of the last minstrel and Ivanhoe -- Dim religious lights -- The lay, Christabel and 'The eve of St Agnes' -- 'Residences for the poor' : the Pugin of Contrasts -- Back to the future in the 1840s : Carlyle, Ruskin, Sybil, Newman -- 'The death of Arthur was the favourite volume' : Malory into Tennyson -- History, the revival and the PRB -- Westminster, Ivanhoe, visions and revisions -- History and legend : the subjects of poetry and painting -- The working men and the common good : Madox Brown, Maurice, Morris, Hopkins -- Among the lilies and the weeds : Hopkins, Whistler, Burne-Jones, Beardsley -- 'I have seen-- a white horse' : Chesterton, Yeats, Ford, Pound -- Modernist medievalism : Eliot, Pound, Jones -- Twentieth-century Christendom : Waugh, Auden, Inklings, Hill -- Epilogue : 'riding through the glen.

944.05 N

Napoleon : the art of war & power. 2018. London (UK) : Sirius Publishing; a division of Arcturus Publishing, Ltd, 2018.

973 G

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., author. Stony the Road : Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow. Antislavery/antislave backlash : the white resistance to black Reconstruction -- The old Negro : race, science, literature, and the birth of Jim Crow -- Chains of being : the black body and the white mind -- Framing blackness : Sambo art and the visual rhetoric of white supremacy -- The United States of race : mass-producing stereotypes and fear -- The new Negro : redeeming the race from the redeemers -- Reframing race : enter the new Negro -- Epilogue. "A profound new rendering of the struggle by African-Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counterrevolution that resubjugated them as seen through the prism of the war of images and ideas that have left an enduring stain on the American mind. The abolition of slavery in the aftermath of the Civil War is a familiar story, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century in between remains a mystery: if emancipation came in Lincoln's America, why was it necessary to march in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s America? In this new book, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of our leading chroniclers of the African-American experience, seeks to answer that question in a history that moves from the Reconstruction Era to the 'nadir' of the African-American experience under Jim Crow, through to World War I and the Harlem Renaissance. Through his close reading of the visual culture of this tragic era, Gates reveals the many faces of Jim Crow and how, together, they reinforced a stark color line between white and black Americans. Bringing a lifetime of wisdom to bear as a scholar, filmmaker, and public intellectual, Gates uncovers the roots of structural racism in our own time, while showing how African Americans after slavery combatted it by articulating a vision of a "New Negro" to force the nation to recognize their humanity and unique contributions to America as it hurtled toward the modern age. The book will be accompanied by a new PBS documentary series on the same topic, with full promotional support from PBS"--.

973.09 G

Goodwin, Doris Kearns, author. Leadership in turbulent times. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. Part 1. Ambition and the recognition of leadership -- Abraham: "Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition" -- Theodore: "I rose like a rocket" -- Franklin: "No, call me Franklin" -- Lyndon: "A steam engine in pants" -- Part 2. Adversity and growth -- Abraham Lincoln: "I must die or be better" -- Theodore Roosevelt: "The light has gone out of my life" -- Franklin Roosevelt: "Above all, try something" -- Lyndon Johnson: "The most miserable period of my life" -- Part 3. How they led: man and the times -- Transformational leadership: Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation -- Crisis management: Theodore Roosevelt and the Coal Strike -- Turnaround leadership: Franklin Roosevelt and the Hundred Days -- Visionary leadership: Lyndon Johnson and Civil Rights -- Epilogue: Of death and legacy. Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader? Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely -- Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights) -- to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entries into public life, we encounter them at a time when their paths were filled with confusion, fear, and hope. They all collided with dramatic reversals that disrupted their lives and threatened to shatter forever their ambitions. Nonetheless, they all emerged fitted to confront the contours and dilemmas of their times. No common pattern describes the trajectory of leadership. Although set apart in background, abilities, and temperament, these men shared a fierce ambition and a deep-seated resilience that enabled them to surmount uncommon hardships. At their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. At moments of great challenge, they were able to summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others.

973.91 G

Goodwin, Doris Kearns. The bully pulpit : Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of journalism. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

92 Bagehot

Grant, James, 1946- author. Bagehot : the life and times of the greatest Victorian. First edition. Prologue: "With devouring fury" -- "Large, wild, fiery, black" -- "In mirth and refutation; in ridicule and laughter" -- "Vive la guillotine" -- The literary banker -- "The ruin inflicted on innocent creditors" -- "The young gentleman out of Miss Austen's novels" -- A death in India -- The "problem" of W.E. Gladstone -- "Therefore, we entirely approve" -- "The muddy slime of Bagehot's crotchets and heresies" -- The great scrum of reform -- A loser by seven bought votes -- By "influence and corruption" -- "In the first rank" -- Never a bullish word -- Government bears the cost -- "I wonder what my eminence is?". "The definitive biography of a banker, essayist, and editor of the Economist, by an acclaimed financial historian. During the upheavals of 2007-9, the chairman of the Federal Reserve had the name of a Victorian icon on the tip of his tongue: Walter Bagehot. Banker, man of letters, inventor of the Treasury bill, and author of Lombard Street, Bagehot prescribed the doctrines that--decades later--inspired the radical responses to the world's worst financial crises. In James Grant's colorful and groundbreaking biography, Bagehot appears as both an ornament to his own age and a muse to our own. Brilliant and precocious, he was influential in political circles, making high-profile friends, including William Gladstone--and enemies: Lord Overstone, Benjamin Disraeli. As an essayist on wide-ranging topics, he won the admiration of Matthew Arnold and Woodrow Wilson. He was also a misogynist, and while he opposed slavery, he misjudged Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. As editor of the Economist, he offered astute commentary on the financial issues of his day, and his name lives on in an eponymous weekly column"--.

92 Napoleon

Napoleon : a life. 2015. New York, NY : Penguin Books, 2015. Introduction -- Rise. Corsica ; Revolution ; Desire ; Italy ; Victory ; Peace ; Egypt ; Acre ; Brumaire -- Mastery. Consul ; Marengo ; Lawgiver ; Plots ; Amiens ; Coronation ; Austerlitz ; Jena ; Blockades ; Tilsit ; Iberia ; Wagram ; Zenith -- Denouement. Russia ; Trapped ; Retreat ; Resilience ; Leipzig ; Defiance ; Elba ; Waterloo ; St Helena. " ... the first single-volume, cradle-to-grave biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon's thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation"--Jacket.

92 Napoleon

Brown, Adam. Napoleon Bonaparte : the biography of a leader who changed the history of France (including the French Revolution). 2018.

92 Roosevelt

Ryan Swanson. The Strenuous life : Theodore Roosevelt and the making of the American athlete. New York, NY : Diversion Publishing Corp, 2019.

CD Hob

Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973. The Hobbit. Complete and unabridged ed. London : HarperCollins, 2002. Read by Rob Inglis. Bilbo Baggins enjoys a quiet and contented life, with no desire to travel far from the comforts of home; then one day the wizard Gandalf and a band of dwarves arrive unexpectedly and enlist his services - as a burglar - on a dangerous expedition to raid the treasure-hoard of Smaug the dragon. Bilbo's life is never to be the same again.

CD Rai

Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930-1965. A raisin in the sun. 2008 by Recorded Books, LCC. Recorded by arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers. Starring Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, Diana Sands, Leonard Jackson, Sakes Mokae, Sam Schacht, and Harold Scott; Lloyd Richards, director.

DVD Bir

The birth of a nation. [Blu-ray/DVD combo]. Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Mark Boone Jr., Colman Domingo, Aunjanue Ellis, Dwight Henry, Aja Naomi King, Esther Scott, Roger Guenveur Smith, Gabrielle Union, with Penelope Ann Miller and Jackie Earle Haley. In 1831, when Virginia slave Nat Turner learns of slavery conditions in other parts of the state, he leads an uprising against slave owners in the area.

DVD Gre

Based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby [2013]. DVD. Joel Edgerton, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Elizabeth Debicki, Leonardo Dicaprio, Isla Fisher. A would-be writer, Nick Carraway leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz, bootleg kings, and skyrocketing stocks. Chasing his own American dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby. It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super rich, their illusions, loves, and deceits. "The cast is first-rate, the ambiance and story provide a measure of intoxication and, most importantly, the core thematic concerns pertaining to the American dream, self-reinvention and love lost, regained and lost again are tenaciously addressed."--Hollywood Reporter. "The best attempt yet to capture the essence of the novel."--Richard Roeper. "...Stands out like a beacon in a sea of silly blockbusters."--New York Post.

DVD Jer

Jerry Tarkanian's amoeba zone defense. Ames, IA 50010 : Championship Productions, 1996. Coach Tarkanian explains, in several teaching progressions, why your zone defense must be similar to your man-to-man defense. Tark shows how the Amoeba prevents the offensive players from getting into the gaps, beating you with the dribble and getting cross-court passes. On-court, the Runnin' Rebels demonstrate run glide run, zig zags, close outs and denials. Drills include the Amoeba drill for guards, back line, 5-on-7, 5-on-5 and how to double team the first pass.

F Atw

Atwood, Margaret, 1939-. The testaments : a novel. 1st edition.

F Bal

Baldwin, James, 1924-1987. If Beale Street could talk. New York : Dial Press, 1974.

F Ber

Berry, Flynn, 1986- author. A double life. "A gripping, intense, stunningly written novel of psychological suspense from the award-winning author of Under the Harrow Claire is a hardworking doctor living a simple, quiet life in London. She is also the daughter of the most notorious murder suspect in the country, though no one knows it. Nearly thirty years ago, while Claire and her infant brother slept upstairs, a brutal crime was committed in her family's townhouse. Her father's car was found abandoned near the English Channel the next morning, with bloodstains on the front seat. Her mother insisted she'd seen him in the house that night, but his powerful, privileged friends maintained his innocence. The first lord accused of murder in more than a century, he has been missing ever since"--.

F Coa

Coates, Ta-Nehisi, author. The water dancer : a novel. First edition. "Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage--and lost his mother and all memory of her when he was a child--but he is also gifted with a mysterious power. Hiram almost drowns when he crashes a carriage into a river, but is saved from the depths by a force he doesn't understand, a blue light that lifts him up and lands him a mile away. This strange brush with death forces a new urgency on Hiram's private rebellion. Spurred on by his improvised plantation family, Thena, his chosen mother, a woman of few words and many secrets, and Sophia, a young woman fighting her own war even as she and Hiram fall in love, he becomes determined to escape the only home he's ever known. So begins an unexpected journey into the covert war on slavery that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia's proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the deep South to dangerously utopic movements in the North. Even as he's enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, all Hiram wants is to return to the Walker Plantation to free the family he left behind--but to do so, he must first master his magical gift and reconstruct the story of his greatest loss. This is a bracingly original vision of the world of slavery, written with the narrative force of a great adventure. Driven by the author's bold imagination and striking ability to bring readers deep into the interior lives of his brilliantly rendered characters, The Water Dancer is the story of America's oldest struggle--the struggle to tell the truth--from one of our most exciting thinkers and beautiful writers"--.

F Edu

Edugyan, Esi., author. Washington Black. First United States edition.

F Gol

Goldring, Suzanne. My name is Eva. London, EC4Y 0DZ : Bookouture: In Imprint of StoryFire Ltd, 2019.

F Gre

Green, John. Looking for Alaska. 1st ed. New York : Dutton Bks, c2005. Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.

F Kin

King, Stephen, 1947-. Doctor Sleep : a novel. First Scribner hardcover edition. The now middle-aged Dan Torrance (the boy protagonist of The Shining) must save a very special twelve-year-old girl from a tribe of murderous paranormals.

F Leg

Claire legrand. Kingsbane : the Empirium Trilogy. Naperville, IL : Sourcebooks, Inc, 2019. Sun Queen Rielle faces new trials as she tries to maintain the Gate and is tempted by the angel Corien, while centuries later, Eliana must choose whether to embrace the crown or reject it forever.

F Sun

Sun, Rivera. Billionaire buddha.

F Sun

Sun, Rivera. The roots of resistance.

F Tol

Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973. The Hobbit, or, There and back again. Authorized ed., Rev. ed 1982. New York : Ballantine Books, 1982, ℗♭1980. The adventures of the well-to-do hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, who lived happily in his comfortable home until a wandering wizard granted his wish. A new edition to Tolkien's classic, the prelude to the Lord of the Rings saga, is available just in time for "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, " set for release in theaters in December 2002. Illustrations. In this fantasy, a prelude to The Lord of the Rings, the reader meets Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, in a land filled with dwarfs, elves, goblins, and dragons. The Greatest Fantasy Epic of our Time, Bilbo Baggins was a hobbit who wanted to be left alone in quiet comfort. But the wizard Gandalf came along with a band of homeless dwarves. Soon Bilbo was drawn into their quest, facing evil orcs, savage wolves, giant spiders, and worse unknown dangers. Finally, it was Bilbo-alone and unaided-who had to confront the great dragon Smaug, the terror of an entire countryside ... This stirring adventure fantasy begins the tale of the hobbits that was continued by J.R.R. Tolkien in his bestselling epic The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien are the movie tie-in editions to The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of the three New Line Films based on the classic epic fantasy, which opens December 19, 2001. A saga of dwarfs and elves, goblins and trolls in a far-off, long ago land. There is a special edition illustrated by Michael Hague (1984.

F Twa

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910, author. Five novels. San Diego, Calif. : Canterbury Classics, c2011. The adventures of Tom Sawyer -- The prince and the pauper -- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- A Connecticut yankee in King Arthur's court -- The tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson.

R 419

Sternberg, Martin L. A. American Sign Language dictionary. 3rd ed., rev. ed. New York : HarperPerennial, c1998.

SC Hey

Heyer, Georgette, 1902-1974, author. Snowdrift : and other stories. Collects fourteen stories of romance, intrigue, and villainy, including "Pistols for two," "A husband for Fanny," and "Runaway match.".

SC O

O'Brien, Tim, 1946-. The Things They Carried : a work of fiction. 1st Broadway Books trade pbk. ed. New York : Broadway Books, 1998, c1990. Related stories, linked by recurring characters and an interwoven plot, recreate an American foot soldier's experience in the Vietnam War.

SC Twa

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910. The complete short stories. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.

Supp F Sun

Sun, Rivera. The dandelion insurrection study guide : making change through nonviolent action. Study Guide.

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droneseco · 5 years

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VR Goes Mainstream: Oculus Quest is The Headset You’ve Been Waiting For

Our verdict of the Oculus Quest: The first true VR console, the Oculus Quest is an all-in-one system that requires no PC or external tracking sensors. The only let down is the tinny audio, but that's a compromise I can live with. 910

The Oculus Quest is a groundbreaking achievement: it’s an affordable VR headset that anyone can use. It doesn’t need a gaming PC; or any PC at all, in fact. It’s a self-contained unit, with full motion controllers, and an inside-out tracking system that doesn’t need external sensors. It just works. It’s the most console-like VR system yet.

Join me as I take a closer look at exactly what had to be compromised to make this possible in a $399 package. At the end of this review, enter to win your own Oculus Quest in our giveaway!

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Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Mobile VR

Not long ago, if you’d have told me mobile VR had any future at all, I’d have laughed. Google Cardboard and the Daydream successor were a thorn in the side of any real VR efforts. They poisoned the well, and now even Google doesn’t like to talk about them. If you met someone who said they’d tried VR and it was terrible, perhaps even made them sick, you can guarantee they meant they played with some horrid mobile VR headset. There’s a good reason Apple mostly left that market alone. Mobile VR has singlehandedly damaged the reputation of VR as a whole for generations to come.

But the Oculus Go gave us a glimpse of what mobile VR could be when done right. It was still ultimately limited to standing on sitting in one place, and using a pointer or gamepad to navigate, but it was a great refinement.

The Oculus Quest is groundbreaking. It offers a full “room scale” VR experience, with fully tracked controllers for both hands, in a single untethered all-in-one mobile package. It’s actual, real VR, in a mobile package. It plays real VR games. This is the headset that will bring VR to the world.

Oculus Quest Specifications

Oculus Quest Oculus Quest Buy Now On Amazon $399.00

Resolution: 1440 x 1600 per eye (compared to 1280 x 1440 on the Oculus Go, or 1080 x 1200 on the original Rift)

Display: OLED 72Hz

Weight: 571g

Snapdragon 835 with 4GB RAM

Connectivity: USB-C, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi ac/b/g/n

Internal speakers

Physical IPD adjustment

$399 for 64GB model, $499 for 128GB

In the box, you’ll also find:

5V 3A fast USB-C charger

3m/10ft USB-C cable

Left and right controllers

Glasses spacer

The glasses spacer can be used to increase the distance from your face to the lenses, in case your glasses are pushing up against them. My frames are quite small so I haven’t found this to be necessary, but you may. In terms of comfort, I found no issues with 1-2 hour play sessions. The semi-rigid strap should cup the back of your skull, relieving some of the weight from your face. If you’ve sweat a bit too much, the facial padding can be removed and washed.

The internal battery is good for about two to two and a half hours of use. The inclusion of a really long USB cable is generous and allows you to continue playing even when low on power. Many users are also buying shorter USB-C cables and attaching an additional battery pack directly to the back of the headset.

Two controllers are included in the set. These are very similar to the original Rift Touch controllers, with the same button layout and capacitive sensing features. Each controller features a thumbstick, grip and trigger buttons, A/B buttons on top, and a system or menu button. The only real difference is that the ring of tracking LEDs faces up top rather than down, for better visibility from the cameras in the headset. As with the originals, these are also designed for your left or right hand. Helpfully, they’re labeled L or R in the augmented reality view as you put on the headset.

Interestingly, these are also the exact same controllers used on the current desktop Rift S headset. Not just similar; they are interchangeable. If you own both headsets and happen to lose or break a controller, you will be able to use these instead, and vice versa.

Audio on the Quest is delivered in a similar way to the Oculus Go, using internal speakers within the headset. This results in appallingly tinny audio that everyone around you can hear, and it’s the only major criticism I have. You can optionally purchase a pair of stereo earbuds, or connect your own headphones, but this is additional wires on an otherwise very elegant design.

The Games

While the library is quite slim at launch, there are some amazing titles available: Beat Saber, Rec Room, and Robo Recall being the most notable. These are not new games–they’ve been available on PC for a while–nor are they in any way fundamentally different to their PC versions.

If you already own some games on the Oculus store, you may find they’re available to download on the Quest, too. But it’s unlikely. Some you may have to purchase again. To be clear: this is the developer’s decision, not Oculus. The facility for cross-buy is there, but it’s up to the developers to both add support for the Quest, and to set whether it’s free for existing owners.

Beat Saber is not free, even if you already own it for the Rift. It is the perfect game for demoing the Quest though, and apart from less flashing lights, it’s identical to the version on other platforms (not to understate the amount of optimization I expect it took the developer to get it up to that standard). The only downside is that you’ll really notice the lack of bass with the built-in audio.

Rec Room has been my main point of comparison, with around 300 hours mostly played on the HTC Vive. It’s often compared to Wii Sports, but it’s so much more than that. Consisting of many different games, each of which would stand alone as a full game in their own right, some are not yet available on the Quest. Paintball is, as is the Golden Trophy adventure. My verdict is: this is the exact same game, just with much less shininess. There’s less effects, less particles, less reflections, less lighting–but gameplay is the same.

In fact, you can even play alongside your PC VR, PSVR, and non-VR players on other platforms, as it’s completely cross-platform play. I played about 95% as well as I would on PC. In fact, the higher resolution means paintball sniping is actually easier. Rec Room is completely free, but you can support the developers through in-game tokens for cosmetic items.

Robo Recall is also not cross-buy enabled, and while I wasn’t much of a fan on the tethered Rift headset, the freedom of wireless really lets the game shine on the Quest, even with a small graphical downgrade.

The Quest doesn’t support SteamVR natively. That may sound obvious, since it isn’t connected to a PC, but they were originally rumors that a tethering feature might exist, enabling the Quest as a hybrid mobile/PC headset. I say “natively” not supported because an open source project called ALVR has enabled wireless streaming of SteamVR games to the Quest. Virtual Desktop has done the same, but the feature was removed from the Oculus Store version, so for either method, you’ll need to enable developer mode and sideload the APK through the SideQuest unofficial store. This can also be used to sideload custom Beat Saber songs!

Tracking

The biggest concern I had for the Quest was the inside-out tracking system. This uses no external sensors or markers, nor any laser emitters. Instead, four cameras on the headset itself look at your surroundings and see where both you and your controllers are located. Combined with IMU sensor data, this allows for accurate positioning in the 3D space.

This is essentially the same as the current crop of Windows Mixed Reality tethered PC headsets, and my experience with those has been… horrendous. It’s easy to lose tracking on the WMR controllers when they’re near your head, resting to the side, or behind you.

The difference is that the Quest combines four cameras worth of data (located on both the top and bottom of the headset), while WMR uses only two. This gives a much wider field of view around the sides of the headset, allows you to get closer to your face, move controllers further out to the side, and generally just works seamlessly.

In fact, the Oculus Quest has restored my faith that inside-out tracking is perhaps the most viable solution moving forward. There will always be room in the market for the epic warehouse scale and the flawless tracking capabilities of the Valve’s laser-based Lighthouse system, but for most people, the inside-out Oculus tracking is going to be more than sufficient.

Quest can work outside, but only after the sun has gone down.

There are some specific downsides to this approach. It won’t work in low-light because the headset is unable to locate itself. It won’t work in bright sunlight either, because the infra-red of the sunlight overpowers the infra-red tracking LEDs on the controllers (even though your headset itself will be tracking fine, you won’t have hands!). You shouldn’t be using your headset in bright sunlight anyway as even a few seconds shining into the lenses will burn the screen, but you may want to use it in the dark for a virtual cinema.

Oculus has promised a future update will address this, allowing the Quest to degrade to 3DOF (rotational only) tracking in dark environments specifically for use cases like watching a movie or using virtual desktop. This is a clever compromise, but there’s no specific date penned for this update.

Lights out mode. You will have the option to use 3dof tracking in dark rooms, mostly for media applications.

— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) May 28, 2019

Some users are reporting success with IR lamps in dark rooms, too.

Passthrough Cameras

Using cameras on the headset to catch a glimpse of your real-world surroundings is nothing new–the original HTC Vive had it, Windows Mixed Reality has it–but the Oculus Quest has integrated it so seamlessly that it’s actually useful. When you step outside of your defined boundary, the real world comes into view. It’s somewhat grainy, monochrome, and the scale is every so slightly too small for my eyes, but it absolutely works. You can walk around, make a drink, answer the door, and do whatever it is you need to do before jumping back into your play space. It remembers where your playspace is even if you wander off somewhere completely different.

Passthrough cameras enable you to walk around and manipulate objects in the real world without taking off your headset. You’ll still need a straw to drink from it though…

I can’t emphasize enough how cool, and useful, this actually is. It’s a small feature that I never knew how badly I wanted it until I tried.

Beyond a stereoscopic passthrough view of the world, there’s no further deep integration into games or the system. It’s in this mode that you draw your boundaries, but there’s no augmented reality gaming, and no way to map your real-world objects into a virtual environment. Oculus has teased these sort of features, but I’d expect those on PC if they ever materialize, rather than mobile.

Should You Buy The Oculus Quest?

The Oculus Quest has that all-important quality of pick up and play. There are no longer any barriers to playing VR, and that’s an incredible achievement.

Should you buy a Quest if you already have another PC-based VR headset or PSVR? Probably not. You’ll miss out on superior graphics or exclusive games. Unless you really want one for travel or demos, there’s no need to buy this headset as well. It’s not for you.

Though I admit, even with a superior Vive setup, I find my VR time split equally between that and the Quest. I don’t always want to lock myself away in the basement. Sometimes it’s nice to be alongside other members of the family in the living room or kitchen.

This is the headset that will bring VR to the world.

Oculus Quest Oculus Quest Buy Now On Amazon $399.00

The Good

All-in-one device with no setup needed.

Inside-out tracking works well.

Stereo passthrough view of the world when you step outside boundaries.

Freedom to play anywhere.

Seamless, console-like experience.

The Bad

Audio lacks bass, and everyone around you can hear.

Light leak is problematic when it doesn’t currently work in the dark. A Lights Out mode is promised at some point specifically for watching movies.

Restricted library, and even those that are ported may not be cross-buy. You may find yourself paying for the same games on the Oculus store again.

Enter the Competition!

Oculus Quest Giveaway

Read the full article: VR Goes Mainstream: Oculus Quest is The Headset You’ve Been Waiting For

VR Goes Mainstream: Oculus Quest is The Headset You’ve Been Waiting For published first on http://droneseco.tumblr.com/

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rolandfontana · 6 years

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It’s Time to End the Supreme Court’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ Mystique

The consensus says that the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process and its narrow outcome pose a crisis of legitimacy for the Supreme Court.

And, within 24 hours of his swearing in, the newly minted justice acknowledged the clamor, and stepped forward to address the situation. He had hired his four law clerks, he announced, and all four are women.

In this way, he seemed to argue, he had expressed his devotion to gender equity. The whole controversy around that issue must have been a mistake.

Putting aside for now the riddle of why anyone might think that hiring female law clerks is a response to the industrialized trashing of a woman who accused you of sexual assault, we still face the question of how the hiring of junior federal employees became a vehicle for judicial self-expression.

And what exactly do these hires express?

Groucho Marx legendarily resigned from the Friars’ Club by writing to the membership committee, “I don’t care to belong to a club that would have someone like me as a member.”

Justice Kavanaugh embodies the polar opposite point of view—or way of life. We can’t ignore the fact that, in the end, membership is what this present moment is all about.

Kavanaugh’s career is a model of its kind—that is, of the kind associated with the distribution of ecclesiastical patronage in the more corrupt days of the Renaissance Church of Rome. Membership is its key.

Justice Kavanaugh wants, has always wanted, sought early, and apparently will pay almost any cost to retain, membership. Now, he is in a position to bestow its gaudy prizes.

He joined the Federalist Society and climbed on the escalator early. He held the handrail, and the process carried him smoothly through legacy admission to feeder school, where he cultivated “feeder professors” who fed him to “feeder judges,”until he had ripened into a “feeder judge” himself.

The prestige of the Supreme Court has always had a certain manufactured Wizard of Oz quality to it.

All that the Court’s work really requires is office space and a library for nine judges and their staffs. Instead the building where this work now occurs is a grandiose marble temple, a venue suitable for the ceremonial opening of beasts and fowl and the priestly reading of their entrails—a setting intended to awe.

It is not only the Republican versus Democrat partisan divide that threatens the Supreme Court’s legitimacy in the aftermath of the Kavanaugh hearings; it is also the glaring contrast between the Court’s pretensions to Olympian detachment and the reality of its for-the-members, by-the-members, majority that the Kavanaugh confirmation process has stripped bare.

What matters—if membership is to be achieved—is dedication to the simple position that it is essential that “our” team wins.

Membership means inclusion, but it also means that someone has to be excluded. For “our” members to win in any satisfying way, someone has to lose.

Our legacy admissions must survive; their affirmative action must disappear. Our sexual activities must be immune; women’s reproductive rights must be curtailed.

Membership requires maintenance: secret handshakes, tokens of arrival.

Justice Kavanaugh’s life is an unbroken series of these gestures.

When Kavanaugh invoked the appointment of his law clerks for a second time (during his speech at his ceremonial swearing in) it was to defend himself against charges of misogyny.

But that speech crystallized the fact that the confirmation was not a victory for him alone; it was a victory for the membership—for the idea of membership—that was being celebrated. Yes, these clerks were women, but they had been fed to him, and by the authorized feeders, in a process that makes the Freemasons look transparent.

It is worth remembering that while this episode has a right-wing cast of characters, the mechanism was painstakingly constructed over decades in reaction to (even emulation of) what the right saw as a prevailing liberal version of the procedure, with the ACLU and ADA pulling the levers and throwing the switches.

Consider this modest proposal.

Supreme Court and Court of Appeals clerks will be chosen from a diverse pool of qualified applicants, many with clerkship experience, by an eclectic, experienced, rotating committee (or committees) maintained by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. The best young lawyers will be chosen as a class, and randomly assigned to individual justices and judges.

No “feeder” professors (such as Yale’s egregious “Tiger Mother,” Amy Chua, whose “look a certain way” advice to women aimed to make them delectable to Kavanaugh in his Circuit Court incarnation).

No “feeder” judges (such as the sex-addled Alex Kozinski, whose clerks were induced to accept without complaint his little porn seminars) or are involved in the process. No winks, no nods (for or against) from former clerks. No backs are scratched. No tactical silent acceptance of harassment to maintain one’s place is incentivized.

Throw out the whole corrupt, incestuous process, along with the sale of indulgences.

We might then get a diverse group: maybe, now and then, even someone from a state university! Maybe someone who didn’t know anyone they are supposed to know or exactly what suit to wear will get a clerkship.

I realize that this modest proposal of mine will be greeted as if it were Jonathan’s Swift’s modest proposal to use Irish babies as a food source during the Famine, but the howling will just show you how far things have gone. The protagonists no longer see anything odd about this process.

The professors will scream. Tough. There are law professors with bright students across the country. Distinguish yourself by your scholarship, not by your status as eminence gris.

Won’t the “magical” relationship of justice and clerk be undermined? Good. All of these people have actual families of their own, and the ersatz “family” of the judicial chambers is really a little icky, especially when financed by public funds, and it is saturated with power. These are public employers and public employees.

The clerk and the justice may not be ideological soulmates on their first date? Fine. A little friction might be a good thing. The justice is still the boss, the clerk still has to do the research, and maybe the two will learn from their dialogue. They can form their relationship while doing the work well, not through a grooming and matchmakers’ process preceding the hiring.

The justices will certainly be unhappy too: the incense-infused process of nominating and choosing clerks has become one of the expected perks of their job. An annual parade of interviews with fawning applicants provides a nice break.

They’ll live. There are other perks. Yes, it’s pleasurable. Why do we indulge them?

What I am proposing is not the end of the world. It is one very small step toward reclaiming the Supreme Court’s legitimacy by making it clear that it is a constitutional court that decides cases, not a royal or papal court that manages careers and distributes preferments.

The Court’s best strategy now (as Jennifer Rubin suggested in a recent column) is not to shout more loudly about its sacrosanct status but to take small—really very, very small—steps like this to strip away practices that have become normalized. (Giving up speeches to the members’ “feeder” organizations is another.)

Behave like a court in a democracy. Act as scholars and judges, not as courtiers.

James M. Doyle is a Boston defense lawyer and author, and a frequent contributor to The Crime Report. He welcomes readers’ comments.

It’s Time to End the Supreme Court’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ Mystique syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

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