Kansas had only a few years in which its bankers and merchants issued the now-obsolete notes that have become such popular - and rare - collector's items. This heavily illustrated history details Kansas paper bank notes and scrip through 1935. Like the Society of Paper Money Collectors' state catalogues it provides history and listings of specific notes and comments on their rarity, but it is unique in grouping notes and issuers alphabetically according to the economic period in which the notes were issued. Notes are separated into three major categories: municipal governments, merchants, and banks. Appendices examine modern reproductions of obsolete currency, altered notes and write-in scrip, the printers and engravers who created the physical notes, and more.

Tying together the history and economic development of the state, this catalog of Florida paper money covers Colonial days through the Great Depression-765 notes in all. The book includes currency issued by governments such as the Territory of Florida and the state of Florida; scrip issued by cities and counties; and notes issued by banks, railroads, insurance companies, merchants and individuals. Entries provide information on the paper money's issuers and engravers as well as an estimate of rarity using the familiar Sheldon scale. Whenever possible, the author has identified portraits of real and mythological characters or allegorical representations on the notes.

A bracing and vividly told story set against the backdrops of the Tunisian Bread Riots in 1984 and the Jasmine Revolution in 2010, Hope Has Two Daughters offers a glimpse inside revolution from the perspectives of a mother and daughter. Unwilling to endure a culture of silence and submission, and disowned by her family, Nadia leaves her native Tunisia in 1984 amidst deadly violence, chaos, and rioting brought on by rising food costs, eventually emigrating to Canada to begin her life. More than twenty-five years later, Nadia’s daughter Lila reluctantly travels to Tunisia to learn about her mother’s birth country. While she’s there, she connects with Nadia’s childhood friends, Neila and Mounir. She uncovers agonizing truths about her mother’s life as a teenager and imagines what it might have been like to grow up in fear of political instability and social unrest. As she is making these discoveries, protests over poor economic conditions and lack of political freedom are increasing, and soon, Lila finds herself in the midst of another revolution — one that will inflame the country and change the Arab world, and her, forever. Weaving together the voices of two women at two pivotal moments in history, the Tunisian Bread Riots in 1984 and the Jasmine Revolution in 2010, Hope Has Two Daughters is a vivid story that perfectly captures life inside revolution.

Fred Reed, who has referred to Oprah Winfrey as looking "like five hundred pounds of bear liver in a plastic bag," takes a jaundiced and highly irreverent view of all things sacred-journalism, marriage, affirmative action, federal scams, governmental uselessness, women, men, fellow reporters, and popular culture. On the other hand, he has a kind word for drunks, bar girls, and children.

Neither a liberal nor a conservative-he describes these as "twin halves of the national lobotomy"-he is just Fred. He figures it is enough. Anything more would be multiple-personality disorder.

Fred has spent many years doing things your mother wouldn't want you to do, such as living in alleys in Taipei, Bangkok, and Saigon, with some of the strangest people ever to crawl this weary earth. Once a war correspondent in Viet Nam and Cambodia, then for years a police reporter in places the media don't admit exist, he spent most of a decade writing a syndicated column on matters military. While he tends to write with wit, he has seen, he says, a lot of ugly things, and doesn't like the people responsible. He says so. Fred may charm or offend, but he'll keep your attention.

"Funny, sharply observant and often deeply poignant, Fred Reed writes what a hell of a lot of Americans are thinking, but are afraid these days to say. He is delightfully beyond category for anyone with an open mind, which is probably why he lives in Mexico, far enough away that the politically correct of both camps cannot strangle him."

--Joe Bageant, author of "Deer Hunting with Jesus "

""Oprah? I remember her," said Uncle Hant reflectively. "Looks like five hundred pounds of bear liver in a plastic bag?"

" So go the essays in "A Brass Pole in Bangkok," sometimes wildly funny, sometimes deadly serious, always merciless in their unmasking of the pretenses and charlatans of society. Fred, a former Marine, subscribes to no ideology ("an ideology is just a systematic way of misunderstanding the world") but exuberantly wreaks havoc on practically everything, and delights in everything else: the psychotherapy swindle, squalling feminists, race racketeers, damn fool wars, red-light districts in Asia, and tequila fests in Mexico, where he lives.

Why marry, he asks? And answers: "As a young man full of dangerous steroids, your answer will probably be, 'Ah, because her hair is like corn silk under an August moon; her lips are as rubies and her teeth, pearls; and her smile would make a dead man cry.' This amounts to, 'I'm horny, ' with elaborations."

Behind the folksy approach lie a great deal of reading and thought by a man who has spent a lifetime in journalism, much of it overseas in places like Cambodia and Taiwan, where you find the snake butchers.but that is inside.