Normal Life

Book Description :

Revised and Expanded Edition Wait—what's wrong with rights? It is usually assumed that trans and gender nonconforming people should follow the civil rights and "equality" strategies of lesbian and gay rights organizations by agitating for legal reforms that would ostensibly guarantee nondiscrimination and equal protection under the law. This approach assumes that the best way to address the poverty and criminalization that plague trans populations is to gain legal recognition and inclusion in the state's institutions. But is this strategy effective? In Normal Life Dean Spade presents revelatory critiques of the legal equality framework for social change, and points to examples of transformative grassroots trans activism that is raising demands that go beyond traditional civil rights reforms. Spade explodes assumptions about what legal rights can do for marginalized populations, and describes transformative resistance processes and formations that address the root causes of harm and violence. In the new afterword to this revised and expanded edition, Spade notes the rapid mainstreaming of trans politics and finds that his predictions that gaining legal recognition will fail to benefit trans populations are coming to fruition. Spade examines recent efforts by the Obama administration and trans equality advocates to "pinkwash" state violence by articulating the US military and prison systems as sites for trans inclusion reforms. In the context of recent increased mainstream visibility of trans people and trans politics, Spade continues to advocate for the dismantling of systems of state violence that shorten the lives of trans people. Now more than ever, Normal Life is an urgent call for justice and trans liberation, and the radical transformations it will require.

Book Description :

Olivia was a townswoman of Haiti whose life has been persecuted in all aspects. She talked about how in her childhood, she has become a friend of nature, which has impacted her life and abetted her throughout the diversity of many encumbrances. Through nature, she has learned what life is about, and nature has helped her overcome utmost the madness she has encountered along her pathway. She believes that the cycle change in the nature is likened to the cycle change in people’s lives. Abandoned by her father while she was only an embryo, a father that had never come across her way, isolated from her mother at the age of six, she was left to be raised by her grandparents. Her existence is marked by many junctures. At an early age, she already knew what sexual harassment is about. She boarded many strangers’ houses. In her teenage years, she traveled virtually the entire country from north, south, and central and has seen things that normal teens haven’t seen and probably won’t ever see in their existence. In her thirties, her husband left her in Haiti with two of her children, after the chaotic presidential overthrow of 1986. Fearing retaliation by an uprising populace, her husband was the first to emigrate in USA because as an act of reprisal toward anyone that had worked for the regime, no matter what your job was, thugs in the streets terrorized everyone (you can be here today and dead tomorrow). In 1987, after passing a long time into hell, in a country still under revolution, she and her children fled to New York. Then ten months after, she moved to Miami with her family, where she made it home in the United States, her adopted country. In 1992, while her life started to recover, her new home was hit by the most violent cyclone, Hurricane Andrew, which had destroyed everything she had amassed. A few years later, her husband left her again to go back to his native land, to stay. This is to ask if everyone that she loves will always find a way to pass as an absentee in her life. Over the following years, many chronic diseases have attacked her body, and from there the fun started, the fun game to stay alive. No one would imagine of what she’s going through. She always looks happy, but under the veil of her happiness was hiding all sort of life complications that you would never thought could happen to one person. Her conviction is that she should not complain about herself. In this world we’re living in, each of us carries secret onuses. By experience, she realized that people have a habit of comparing our burdens with the other people’s. It isn’t a fair tactic to support a friend or a family member in despair by associating his or her problem with another. Life is an impartial place for all of us. Don’t presume that some problems are less than others. You exactly detain what you can bear oneself and what was predestined to fit only you.

Book Description :

In the summer of 1953 the author was a carefree, athletic boy of fourteen. But after he collapsed during a school dance one night, he was suddenly bedridden, drifting in & out of consciousness, as his body disintegrated into a shadow of its former self. He had been stricken with spinal polio. When he emerged from the grip of the disease, he was confronted with a life change so enormous that it challenged all he had believed in & forced him, despite his young age, to redefine himself. His once stereotypically normal life, filled with baseball & swimming pools & dreams of girls, had been irreversibly altered. He was almost the same person he had been; he was nearly normal. His moving personal narrative is a textured portrait of life in the fifties - a time when America & her fighting spirit collided with this disease. Both funny & profound, he is a gifted, unique writer, who unravels the mysteries of youth in a Cold War climate, who gives voice to the mind of a child with a potentially fatal disease, & whose recognition of himself as a disabled outsider heightens his brilliant talents as a storyteller.

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In her critically acclaimed first book, Johnny’s Girl, Kim Rich presented the story of her unconventional childhood as the daughter of an Alaskan mobster and a troubled showgirl. This new memoir picks up where Johnny’s Girl left off, retelling the story of the author’s nearly lifelong pursuit to live what she thought to be “a normal life.” Rich tugs at your heartstrings as you follow her journey toward normalcy, from her teen years, freshly orphaned, through her high school years spent couch-surfing at local families’ homes, then through her itinerant college years, a failed first marriage, and a rising career as a journalist. Through frank and down-to-earth storytelling, Rich also tells of her grandfather’s kidnapping, a frightening health crisis, and a six-year attempt to have children. In A Normal Life, Rich recounts her vivid story of being an ordinary girl faced with extraordinary circumstances—at seemingly every turn in life—with grace, humility, and wit.

Book Description :

"I never legislated, I never enforced, and I never obeyed any laws! Laws dictated by the interests of a handful of rulers. I came across their laws everywhere, but I never found justice. I'll remain with the unique ones; the uncatchables. Those that consciously chose to lead their lives normally, reacting to an abnormal world..." A Normal Life is the autobiography of Vassilis Palaiokostas, known to some as the 'Greek Robin Hood', to others as 'The Uncatchable'. His is a life of kidnappings and robberies. A life lived in defiance of the police and of the state. For decades it has been a life lived as a fugitive. It is a life led extraordinarily. He has become a modern folk hero of sorts, earning millions in robbed banks and kidnapped CEOs whilst distributing his gains to those who need it most. He is most famous for not only one but two helicopter escapes from the Korydallos Prison in Athens. Vassilis Palaiokostas is hated by the authorities, deemed a terrorist, his freedom a continued insult to the Greek state. Now, translated to English for the first time, Palaiokostas tells his story in his own words. He does not justify his actions, but elaborates his motivations and dreams and their totality. A Normal Life is a gripping account of life on the run and in prison, of car chases, prison life, daring escapades and the camaraderie of bandit life. It is also the story of his motivations. He is still free.

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This collection explores the aesthetic qualities of human relationships, sports, taste, smell, food, and natural and built environments.

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Film scholar Ronald Schwartz examines the most significant representatives of the Neo-Noir style, beginning with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and concluding with Michael Mann's Collateral (2004). Schwartz provides in-depth analyses of over 30 of the best Neo-Noir films and explains the qualities and characteristics of the new noir style. He also explains how it differs from Film Noir of the forties and fifties. In this chronological guide, Schwartz examines such landmark films as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), The French Connection (1971), Taxi Driver (1976), Reservoir Dogs (1992), L.A. Confidential (1997), and Memento (2000). The book also includes an alphabetical filmography listing over 650 films that in plot, style, or subject matter reflect the diversity of the genre. This reference work will be a valuable resource for film scholars and fans who wish to explore the ever-evolving aspects of Neo-Noir cinema.

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“[Makaila] shoots straight about the pressures of growing up in such a highly social climate and offers much-needed advice for other teens.” —David Boreanaz, actor, director, producer of film and television Being a teenager today is one of the hardest jobs in the world. You have grades to maintain, obligations to extra-curricular activities, and soul-crushing pressure to excel at everything so colleges take notice. On top of it all, you’re forced to act as your own public relations manager because, thanks to social media, every bit of your life is on display. No one knows that better than teen model, actress, and author Makaila Nichols. Nichols’ book, Blatantly Honest, is filled with peer-to-peer advice on navigating life as a teen in a world that begs young people to grow up before they’re really ready. Unlike books for teens written from an adult perspective, Blatantly Honest offers real, relatable advice based on lessons learned in today’s world. After all, adults today have no experience being a teen in a social climate where peers have immediate, constant access to one another. Despite her rising fame, Nichols has struggled through body image issues, dating disasters, friendship failures and bullying. In this refreshing, open, and honest book, Nichols offers hard-earned advice on these tough topics and more. “It’s a daring undertaking to be honest about ourselves. Makaila genuinely shares her experiences, and it is such a true gift to her peers for them to realize that we all deal with our insecurities.” —Frederique van der Wal, supermodel and entrepreneur “Makes you feel like you’re talking with an older sister or a close friend—but this isn’t your mother’s advice.” —Anna Caltabiano, teen author and influencer

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A memoir in bite-size chunks from the author of the viral Modern Love column “You May Want to Marry My Husband.” “[Rosenthal] shines her generous light of humanity on the seemingly humdrum moments of life and shows how delightfully precious they actually are.” —The Chicago Sun-Times How do you conjure a life? Give the truest account of what you saw, felt, learned, loved, strived for? For Amy Krouse Rosenthal, the surprising answer came in the form of an encyclopedia. In Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life she has ingeniously adapted this centuries-old format for conveying knowledge into a poignant, wise, often funny, fully realized memoir. Using mostly short entries organized from A to Z, many of which are cross-referenced, Rosenthal captures in wonderful and episodic detail the moments, observations, and emotions that comprise a contemporary life. Start anywhere—preferably at the beginning—and see how one young woman’s alphabetized existence can open up and define the world in new and unexpected ways. An ordinary life, perhaps, but an extraordinary book.

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Shortly after the book’s protagonists moved into their apartment complex in Sarajevo, they, like many others, were overcome by the 1992-1995 war and the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia More than a decade later, in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, they felt they were collectively stuck in a time warp where nothing seemed to be as it should be. Starting from everyday concerns, this book paints a compassionate yet critical portrait of people’s sense that they were in limbo, trapped in a seemingly endless “Meantime.” Ethnographically investigating yearnings for “normal lives” in the European semi-periphery, it proposes fresh analytical tools to explore how the time and place in which we are caught shape our hopes and fears.

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The place of the psychotherapist within the hierarchy of the medical profession and his status in the public opinion are ambiguous: many myths and ill-informed fears cloud the practice of psychotherapy not the least of which is the thorny issue of doctor-patient relationships. In this finely etched book, Peter Lomas puts the case for a personal psychotherapeutic approach based on his work with patients over many years. The Psychotherapy of Everyday Life argues that the response to a person who comes for help should be an intuitive one, not hidebound by confusing technical theory. Psychotherapy is best understood as the application of ordinary interpersonal competence within an unusual setting, and formulations about its nature should take this point into account as their starting point. In his brilliant new introduction, the author juxtaposes the clinical neutrality of Sigmund Freud to the Saridor Ferenczi position, which entails a sense of the rights of and respect for the patient. Lomas holds that Freud initiated the setting but brought to bear upon it an unnecessary and inappropriate theoretical superstructure that now stands between therapist and patient. It is not ideology but everyday judgment that should be the touchstone of treatment. Rigid professional distance can blind the analyst to the actual needs of real people.

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Praise for Microaggressions in Everyday Life "In a very constructive way, Dr. Sue provides time-tested psychological suggestions to make our society free of microaggressions. It is a brilliant resource and ideal teaching tool for all those who wish to alter the forces that promote pain for people." —Melba J. T. Vasquez, PhD, ABPPPresident, American Psychological Association "Microaggressions in Everyday Life offers an insightful, scholarly, and thought-provoking analysis of the existence of subtle, often unintentional biases, and their profound impact on members of traditionally disadvantaged groups. The concept of microaggressions is one of the most important developments in the study of intergroup relations over the past decade, and this volume is the definitive source on the topic." —John F. Dovidio, PhD Professor of Psychology, Yale University "Derald Wing Sue has written a must-read book for anyone who deals with diversity at any level. Microaggressions in Everyday Life will bring great rewards in understanding and awareness along with practical guides to put them to good use." —James M. Jones, PhD Professor of Psychology and Director of Black American Studies, University of Delaware "This is a major contribution to the multicultural discourse and to understanding the myriad ways that discrimination can be represented and its insidious effects. Accessible and well documented, it is a pleasure to read." —Beverly Greene, PhD, ABPP Diplomate in Clinical Psychology and Professor of Psychology, St. John's University A transformative look at covert bias, prejudice, and discrimination with hopeful solutions for their eventual dissolution Written by bestselling author Derald Wing Sue, Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation is a first-of-its-kind guide on the subject of microaggressions. This book insightfully looks at the various kinds of microaggressions and their psychological effects on both perpetrators and their targets. Thought provoking and timely, Dr. Sue suggests realistic and optimistic guidance for combating—and ending—microaggressions in our society.

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Download Bulletin book written by Michigan Education Association, available in PDF, EPUB, and Kindle, or read full book online anywhere and anytime. Compatible with any devices.

Book Description :

Paek Nam-nyong’s Friend is a tale of marital intrigue, abuse, and divorce in North Korea. A woman in her thirties comes to a courthouse petitioning for a divorce. As the judge who hears her statement begins to investigate the case, the story unfolds into a broader consideration of love and marriage. The novel delves into its protagonists’ past, describing how the couple first fell in love and then how their marriage deteriorated over the years. It chronicles the toll their acrimony takes on their son and their careers alongside the story of the judge’s own marital troubles. A best-seller in North Korea, where Paek continues to live and write, Friend illuminates a side of life in the DPRK that Western readers have never before encountered. Far from being a propagandistic screed in praise of the Great Leader, Friend describes the lives of people who struggle with everyday problems such as marital woes and workplace conflicts. Instead of socialist-realist stock figures, Paek depicts complex characters who wrestle with universal questions of individual identity, the split between public and private selves, the unpredictability of existence, and the never-ending labor of maintaining a relationship. This groundbreaking translation of one of North Korea’s most popular writers offers English-language readers a page-turner full of psychological tension as well as a revealing portrait of a society that is typically seen as closed to the outside world.

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Everything is Normal offers a lighthearted worm’s-eye-view of the USSR through the middle-class Soviet childhood of a nerdy boy in the 1970s and ’80s. A relatable journey into the world of the late-days Soviet Union, Everything is Normal is both a memoir and a social history—a reflection on the mundane deprivations and existential terrors of day-to-day life in Leningrad in the decades preceding the collapse of the USSR. Sergey Grechishkin’s world is strikingly different, largely unknown, and fascinatingly unusual, and yet a world that readers who grew up in the United States or Europe during the same period will partly recognize. This is a tale of friendship, school, and growing up—to read Everything is Normal is to discover the very foreign way of life behind the Iron Curtain, but also to journey back into a shared past.

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Acclaimed on first publication and today considered one of the defining works of the sociology, The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life is Erving Goffman's extraordinary analysis of the structure of our social interactions. Blurring the line between workaday life and theatrical performance, Goffman argues that our behaviour with others is defined by how we wish to be perceived - resulting in displays bearing a startling similarity to those of an actor on the stage. From the houses and clothes that we use as 'fixed props' to the 'backstage' of the solitude in which our personas are rehearsed and relaxed, Goffman's insight reveals human character to be not fixed or stable, but liquid and consciously maintained.

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Praised by Entertainment Weekly as “the man who put the fizz into physics,” Dr. Len Fisher turns his attention to the science of cooperation in his lively and thought-provoking book. Fisher shows how the modern science of game theory has helped biologists to understand the evolution of cooperation in nature, and investigates how we might apply those lessons to our own society. In a series of experiments that take him from the polite confines of an English dinner party to crowded supermarkets, congested Indian roads, and the wilds of outback Australia, not to mention baseball strategies and the intricacies of quantum mechanics, Fisher sheds light on the problem of global cooperation. The outcomes are sometimes hilarious, sometimes alarming, but always revealing. A witty romp through a serious science, Rock, Paper, Scissors will both teach and delight anyone interested in what it what it takes to get people to work together.

Book Description :

Melissa Joan Hart explained it all-from dating to bullies-in her groundbreaking role as Clarissa Darling on Clarissa Explains It All. She cast a spell on millions more viewers as Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Now, in Melissa Explains It All, Melissa tells the frank and funny behind-the-scenes stories from her extraordinary past and her refreshingly normal present. Melissa has been entertaining audiences most of her life; when there were no girls named Melissa on her favorite show, the forceful four year old decided she'd get on television her way. From that moment on, Melissa has shown a singular determination and focus-whether it's for booking three national commercials so her dad would build her a tree house or for nailing the audition for Clarissa. From her first commercial to her current starring role in ABC Family's hit Melissa and Joey, Hart never let fame go to her head. She always had one foot in Hollywood and one foot in reality-and still does. Melissa makes us laugh along with her as she talks about: --guest appearances in shows like Saturday Night Live and The Equalizer --auditioning for Punky Brewster and Clarissa --her early Broadway days --wacky parties she's thrown and attended -- the actors who influenced her and whom she befriended, worked with and competed against --her experiences both on and off-set-with Sabrina's Salem the Cat and Elvis the Alligator on Clarissa --how she met the love of her life at the Kentucky Derby Melissa Joan Hart explains all that she's learned along the way-what's kept her grounded, normal and working when others have not been so fortunate-and that she's the approachable, hilarious girl-next-door her fans have always thought she'd be.

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VALIDATING SINGLES is an essential guide to healthy single life that is based in profound biblical truth and can revolutionize the church’s understanding in affirming singleness. Christian singles will no longer tolerate a message that is simply a pep rally for singleness. Both marriage and singleness demand serious scriptural insight. This book has developed such a treatment. If you are single and Christian, you face certain problems that come with the territory such as frustration in identity, sexuality, and professionally. You may feel a wilted identity amid a landscape of happy successful couples. If so, you will be pleased with this work—crammed full with pragmatic ideas, deep-felt experience and nuggets of spiritual insights. God has a plan for your singleness. You are not single just to bide time until the day you get married. Amidst extremes of celibacy versus marriage in Christian culture, there is today’s proliferation of sexual non-commitment and a biblical stance. Whether you have a temporary or permanent “gift” of singleness, God wants you to discover fulfillment while you are single. Validating Singles presents strategies for living as a single. This insightful book will help you, whether never married, widowed, or divorced, to understand God’s desires and plans for your life as a single.

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Presents results from a qualitative approach to the psychological study of everyday human experiences.