This remarkable book, first published twenty years ago, continues to offer a singular window into the customs, politics, and places of twentieth-century Louisiana. This dazzling collection of landscapes and portraits drawn from the lifework of internationally renowned photographer Fonville Winans (1911- 1992) grants readers the opportunity to see his memorable photographs of the people- from oystermen to beauty queens- and the places- from salt mines to cane fields- that exemplify the Pelican State's enchanting culture and ecology. Featuring more than 100 black-and-white photographs spanning Winans' career, this book showcases his eye for authenticity as he captures a wide array of subjects, from politicians to ordinary citizens, and exotic locales to classic Louisiana landscapes. Providing commentary and historical background, Cyril E. Vetter contextualizes Winans' popular images of the state's icons, including Huey P. Long and Edwin Edwards; depictions of festival revelers and fishing rodeos; and glimpses into the Creole and Cajun communities that skirted the Gulf Coast. Yet the photographer's most critical legacy, as Vetter contends in a new introduction, may lie in his scenes of swamps and seascapes that either no longer exist or are currently threatened with extinction. Both nostalgic and refreshing, the perceptive and intriguing images found in Fonville Winans' Louisiana feature the state at its best, as a place of diversity and distinction.

Lying in a hospital bed, Jose P. Ramirez, Jr. (b. 1948) almost lost everything because of a misunderstood disease. When the health department doctor gave him the Handbook for Persons with Leprosy, Ramirez learned his fate. Such a diagnosis in 1968 meant exile and hospitalization in the only leprosarium in the continental United States--Carville, Louisiana, 750 miles from his home in Laredo, Texas.

In "Squint: My Journey with Leprosy," Ramirez recalls being taken from his family in a hearse and thrown into a world filled with fear. He and his loved ones struggled against the stigma associated with the term "leper" and against beliefs that the disease was a punishment from God, that his illness was highly communicable, and that persons with Hansen's disease had to be banished from their communities.

His disease not only meant separation from the girlfriend who would later become his wife, but also a derailment of all life's goals. In his struggle Ramirez overcame barriers both real and imagined and eventually became an international advocate on behalf of persons with disabilities. In "Squint," titled for the sliver of a window through which persons with leprosy in medieval times were allowed to view Mass but not participate, Ramirez tells a story of love and perseverance over incredible odds.

Jose P. Ramirez, Jr., is a social worker in Houston, Texas. He has written articles about Hansen's disease for the "Houston Chronicle," the "Star Magazine," the "National Association of Social Workers Newsletter," and other publications."

Government has really screwed things up for the average American. Work has been devalued. Education costs are out of sight. Effort and ambition have never been so scantily rewarded. Political guru James Carville and pollster extraordinaire Stan Greenberg argue that our political parties must admit their failures and the electorate must reclaim its voice, because taking on the wealthy and privileged is not class warfare--it is a matter of survival.
Told in the alternating voices of these two top political strategists, "It's the Middle Class, Stupid "provides eye-opening, outspoken, and provocative arguments on where our government has gone wrong and what Americans can do about it before it's too late.

Have you had enough of George W. Bush and the Republican right? Are you sick and tired of the tax-cutting, environment-desecrating, secret-keeping, influence-peddling, war-mongering, free speech-hating hypocrites who occupy America's halls of power? If so, you have company -- James Carville.
Like James Carville, America has been bruised and battered by the Republicans who are running our country and running it into the ground. The Bush administration has squandered a five-trillion-dollar surplus and created a five-trillion-dollar projected deficit. Their tax cut for the rich was supposed to create jobs -- but instead America has lost more than three million of them. This administration was supposed to bring honor and dignity to the White House but instead brought lies, leaks, secrecy, and fear. They promised to make the country stronger and safer but instead they've left us overstretched, isolated, and insecure.
And Carville has had enough.
In "Had Enough?" the legendary political adviser comes out of his corner swinging, taking on the Bush White House and the Republican leaders in Congress on every front -- from the economy to education to foreign affairs. But he doesn't just attack; he lays out constructive "had enough" solutions for healing the damage done by the Republicans and helping disheartened Democrats get back on their feet. In addition, he offers "Ten Rules for Progressives to Live By" and a new War Room mantra for a new era.
"Had Enough?" is a rousing handbook for taking back the country, for fighting back the right wing, and for returning the power to the people.

Every four years Americans hold a presidential election. Somebody wins and somebody loses. That's life. But 2008 was an anomaly. The election of President Barack Obama is about something far bigger than four or even eight years in the White House. Since 2004, Americans have been witnessing and participating in the emergence of a Democratic majority that will last not four but forty years. To understand the emergence of a lasting Democratic majority we'll first have to spend a few moments reviewing the profound and relentless incompetence of the Bush administration -- and the pursuant collapse of the Republican Party. That means looking back at the failure of Republican ideas -- including a wholesale rejection of the myth of conservative superiority on the economy -- and holding our noses long enough to survey the gallery of truly repellent scoundrels, scandals, and screwups that the Republican Party has been responsible for over the last eight years. After completing the unpleasant but edifying task of autopsying the Republican Party, we'll examine the underpinnings of Democratic victories in 2004, 2006, and 2008 -- and make the argument for why Democrats are going to keep winning. (Two words: young people.) In short, the Republicans are going to keep getting spanked again and again for forty more years because we're right and they're wrong, and Americans know it.

TOP TEN REASONS WHY REPUBLICANS SUCK
10. They're so incompetent they couldn't pour pee out of a boot if you wrote the instructions on the heel.
9. They lie like a rug. They lie like a dog. They lie like . . . ummm . . . a dog's rug. We mean, they just lie all the time.
8. They're a pack of crooks.
7. They are unbearably sanctimonious.
6. They have no sense of humor.
5. They're losing the war on terror.
4. They've put our economic future in Beijing's hands.
3. They steal elections.
2. Oh, yeah. They're destroying the planet, too.
1. They suck up to power.

The political strategists who directed the Clinton campaign's War Room reveal the lessons and secrets from their hard-fought battles -- and how to use these highly effective strategies for success in business and everyday life.
James Carville and Paul Begala have waged political war all across America and on three continents. They've won some of the most spectacular political victories of the twentieth century and lost a few campaigns too. Along the way, they've learned a few lessons. Some sound simple, like "Never Quit," some comic, like "Kiss Ass," and some are more complicated and nuanced, like "Strategy Ain't Tactics." But each lesson contains tried-and-true wisdom, illustrated with colorful stories from long political experience:
- Find out how Carville's mother used a bass boat to "frame the debate" in
selling encyclopedias.
- Learn the War Room tricks for sharpening your message and delivering the perfect sound bite.
- Discover what success secret Hillary Rodham Clinton and Tom DeLay share.
- And much more.
Whether you are a senior executive or a secretary, a political junkie or the president of the United States, the rules to live by can be found in "Buck Up, Suck Up...and Come Back When You Foul Up."

Never before has a more revealing X ray been taken of the modern American presidential campaign than this compelling memoir of the nation's foremost political operatives, Democrat James Carville and Republican Mary Matalin.

Not since Theodore White's legendary Making of the President series has a book on presidential campaigns so intimately recounted the power plays and clandestine maneuvers that are at the heart of American political dueling. James Cherville and Mary Matalin, themselves the key players at the center of the political battles and election headlines that gripped America, tell in candid, stunning detail of the day-by-day pressures, near disasters, and triumphs of campaign life; they take the reader deeper than ever before into the art of getting a president elected.

For anyone interested in politics and the way our nation chooses its leaders, All's Fair is a vital resource, and the most telling guide available to the inner workings of today's partisan conflict.