Consider the horror we feel when we learn of a crime such as that committed by Robert Alton Harris, who commandeered a car, killed the two teenage boys in it, and then finished what was left of their lunch. What we don't consider in our reaction to the depravity of this act is that, whether we morally blame him or not, Robert Alton Harris has led a life almost unimaginably different from our own in crucial respects.

In "Does Law Morally Bind the Poor? or What Good's the Constitution When You Can't Buy a Loaf of Bread?," author R. George Wright argues that while the poor live in the same world as the rest of us, their world is crucially different. The law does not recognize this difference, however, and proves to be inconsistent by excusing the trespasses of persons fleeing unexpected storms, but not those of the involuntarily homeless. He persuasively concludes that we can reject crude environmental determinism without holding the most deprived to unreasonable standards.

The e-mail Danny and Allison read on their new computer in 1996 looks no different from the millions of others received by Web users around the world, with one glaring exception--it was sent by their dads who died during the 1970s. While residing in the afterworld at an amenity-laden paradise called Midway Manor, guitar-strumming Mickey Parks and piano-playing Lloyd Wallace monitor and manipulate the lives of their adult children on earth from the mid-'70s through the 1990s. Tampering with the facility's sophisticated computer, the dads thrust Mickey's daughter Allison and Lloyd's son Danny into a passionate but sometimes stormy relationship-a relationship steeped in Danny's heavy drinking and entangled in the often-zany world of men's adventure magazine publishing. After carefully implementing a plan to send their son and daughter a gift of knowledge that could enrich their lives forever, the dads' brief contact is cut short. They are banished to another destination in the afterworld, but not before they impart indisputable proof of life after death--and unwittingly put Danny's and Allison's earthbound lives on the line.

Edward Thomas 1878-1917, published author, critic, and essayist, died at 39, a casualty of World War I. At the suggestion of his friend Robert Frost, Thomas began to write poetry and six months after his death his first book of poems was published. As the prose writer died, the poet was born, and it is on the poems that his reputation still rests. This new biography--based on some 1,800 of Thomas's letters--tells the story of his courtship, his restless marriage, and his tormented need to choose between happiness with his wife and children and the need to find his way as a writer alone. With delicacy and understanding the book describes Thomas's complex character and his pilgrimage on the road to self-discovery, and reveals how the emergence of Thomas the poet became inevitable.

This excellent book is a concise yet thorough examination of the important and emerging field of the study of biological risk factors in drug abuse. Historically, drug abuse research has concentrated on the contributions of environmental and behavioral factors as the major influences on addiction. The revelatory studies in this volume examine the genetic contributions to drug taking behavior through the use of animal models, cellular experiments and human clinical studies. Behavioral and Biochemical Issues in Substance Abuse provides for the first time in one volume, up-to-date, easily digested reviews of topics concerning biological and genetic factors in drug abuse. Medical researchers in all areas of alcoholism and drug abuse, researchers in pharmacology, psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience, and clinicians interested in biological approaches to alcoholism and drug abuse problems will benefit greatly from this valuable resource. Authoritative contributors clearly demonstrate the capability of genetic factors to modulate the reinforcing or rewarding effects of drugs, thereby altering their addictive potential. In addition to gaining comprehension of the biological factors affecting addiction, a greater understanding of genetics related to drug abuse will enable future research to control biological factors, leading to more accurate studies of behavioral and environmental influences on drug and alcohol abuse.

Have the social safety nets, environmental protections, and policies to redress wealth and income inequality enacted after World War II contributed to declining rates of dementia today-and how do we improve brain health in the future? Winner of the American Book Fest Health: Aging/50+ by the American Book Fest, Living Now Book Award: Mature Living/Aging by the Living Now Book Awards For decades, researchers have chased a pharmaceutical cure for memory loss. But despite the fact that no disease-modifying biotech treatments have emerged, new research suggests that dementia rates have actually declined in the United States and Western Europe over the last decade. Why is this happening? And what does it mean for brain health in the future? In American Dementia, Daniel R. George, PhD, MSc, and Peter J. Whitehouse, MD, PhD, argue that the current decline of dementia may be strongly linked to mid-twentieth century policies that reduced inequality, provided widespread access to education and healthcare, and brought about cleaner air, soil, and water. They also * explain why Alzheimer's disease, an obscure clinical label until the 1970s, is the hallmark illness of our current hyper-capitalist era; * reveal how the soaring inequalities of the twenty-first century-which are sowing poverty, barriers to healthcare and education, loneliness, lack of sleep, stressful life events, environmental exposures, and climate change-are reversing the gains of the twentieth century and damaging our brains; * tackle the ageist tendencies in our culture, which disadvantage both vulnerable youth and elders; * make an evidence-based argument that policies like single-payer healthcare, a living wage, and universal access to free higher education and technical training programs will build collective resilience to dementia; * promote strategies that show how local communities can rise above the disconnection and loneliness that define our present moment and come together to care for our struggling neighbors. Ultimately, American Dementia asserts that actively remembering lessons from the twentieth century which help us become a healthier, wiser, and more compassionate society represents our most powerful intervention for preventing Alzheimer's and protecting human dignity. Exposing the inconvenient truths that confound market-based approaches to memory enhancement as well as broader social organization, the book imagines how we can act as citizens to protect our brains, build the cognitive resilience of younger generations, and rise to the moral challenge of caring for the cognitively frail.

All of us grumble, from time to time, about the ever-increasing commercialization of American life. Whether in the form of overt corporate sponsorship--as evidenced by the "branding" of every major sporting event--or the less conspicuous role of commercial interests in the funding of the arts, America's corporations are a ubiquitous presence.

While debates rage over the televising of liquor ads and the degree to which Joe Camel encourages adolescent smoking, of far greater concern, R. George Wright argues, should be the passivity with which we accept excessive commercialization. For many, the spread of commercialization by any means other than fraud or deception today seems merely a reflection of the capitalist pursuit of well-being. Yet owning and spending, for the middle- class consumers Wright discusses, is at best only weakly related to their happiness.

In recent years, corporate America has shrewdly sought shelter from reasonable regulation by embracing the First Amendment. Focusing on such flashpoint issues as the Internet, tobacco advertising, and intentionally controversial ads, and exposing the dangerous elephantiasis of our commercial culture, Selling Words serves up a forceful warning about the perils of conflating commerce with First Amendment rights.

This edited volume examines the historical, political, cultural, and aesthetic implications of re-visiting Restoration Spain (1874-1931) in television costume dramas produced since 2000. Contributors analyze, from different theoretical approaches and disciplinary perspectives, the appeal that the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries hold for twenty-first-century Spanish audiences, as well as for international viewers who consume these programs through new media platforms. Themes and issues explored include: the production of televisual heritage, representations of period technologies, evolving constructions of gender, hybridization of television genres, and television as historian. Expanding the scope of inquiry in Spanish media studies, this collection seeks to bring Spain into wider discussions of media and historical representation and visual and material culture in Europe, the Americas, and beyond.

Understanding Pope Francis: Message, Media, andAudienceoffers several chapters which illuminate the often misunderstood, but widely discussed, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis. With 1.3 billion baptized members living throughout every continent, communication by and about him is a subject deserving to be understood. As technology makes the "global village" predicted by Marshall McLuhan more apparent, the complexities of leading an organization across geographic boundaries with differing ideas about culture and governance present great need to be nuanced, indeed cautious, about messages communicated across diverse media platforms and consumed by divergent audiences. This book lay bare the messages Pope Francis produces, the way that varying platforms/media present those messages, and the complex ways in which audiences formulate their interpretations.

This excellent book is a concise yet thorough examination of the important and emerging field of the study of biological risk factors in drug abuse. Historically, drug abuse research has concentrated on the contributions of environmental and behavioral factors as the major influences on addiction. The revelatory studies in this volume examine the genetic contributions to drug taking behavior through the use of animal models, cellular experiments and human clinical studies. Behavioral and Biochemical Issues in Substance Abuse provides for the first time in one volume, up-to-date, easily digested reviews of topics concerning biological and genetic factors in drug abuse. Medical researchers in all areas of alcoholism and drug abuse, researchers in pharmacology, psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience, and clinicians interested in biological approaches to alcoholism and drug abuse problems will benefit greatly from this valuable resource. Authoritative contributors clearly demonstrate the capability of genetic factors to modulate the reinforcing or rewarding effects of drugs, thereby altering their addictive potential. In addition to gaining comprehension of the biological factors affecting addiction, a greater understanding of genetics related to drug abuse will enable future research to control biological factors, leading to more accurate studies of behavioral and environmental influences on drug and alcohol abuse.

Over the past decade, advances in molecular biology have provided the impetus for a resurgence of interest in plant metabolism. At a general level, the potential for modifying the quantity or quality of harvestable crop products through genetic manipulation has provided an agronomic rationale for seeking a greater understanding of primary plant metabolism and its regulation. Moreover, the now facile techniques for transformation of many plant species and the consequential capacity to manipulate the amounts of specific individual enzymes within specific cell types provides an exciting direct approach for studying metabolic problems. Such transgenic plants are also becoming invaluable tools in studies at the interface between metabolism and other sub-disciplines such as physiology and ecology. The interest generated in plant metabolism by these developments has also encouraged the re-introduction of more conventional biochemical techniques for metabolic analysis. Finally, in common with other areas of cell biology, the wealth of information that can be obtained at the nucleic acid level has provided the stimulus for identification and characterisation of metabolic processes in far greater detail than previously envisaged. The result of these advances it that researchers now have the confidence to address problems in plant metabolism at levels not previously attempted. This book presents the proceedings of an international conference held on 9-11 January 1997 at St Hugh's College, Oxford under the auspices of the Phytochemical Society of Europe.

Following immediately on from the events of the 2007 Deep Space Nineomnibus Twist of Faith, These Haunted Seascontinues the post-TV-series Star Trek: Deep Space Ninesaga with two major novels first published in the Mission GammaDS9 mini-series. Twilight:With the Dominion War behind them, the crew of the USS Defiantjourneys through the wormhole as Commander Elias Vaughn blazes new trails into the unexplored reaches of the Gamma Quadrant. Elsewhere, political forces throughout the Alpha Quadrant gather to determine the future of Bajor. And as a father and daughter confront their past, a mother and son are battling for the future. This Gray Spirit: The war-weary Cardassians send a familiar ambassador to station Deep Space 9 on a mission of hope, opening up old wounds and conjuring old ghosts. As tensions on all sides rise, Colonel Kira Nerys discovers that the line dividing friend from foe is narrower than she ever imagined. Meanwhile, the crew of the damaged starship Defiantforges an uneasy alliance with a mysterious alien species, one whose unusual biological makeup is the key to power in that region of the galaxy. As the crew becomes ensnared in a web of deceit, they must also struggle to stave off a genocidal war.

Edward Thomas, professional author and critic, was thirty-nine when he was killed in the Arras offensive on Easter Day, 1917. Six months later his first collection of poems was published and his literary reputation secured. These Selected Letters present a uniquely vivid portrait of Thomas's life, from his time as an undergraduate at Oxford through to his final days at the Front. Chosen from more than 2,000 extant letters from Thomas to his family and literary friends - including Robert Frost, Walter de la Mare, and Eleanor Farjeon - the selection traces his struggle to establish himself as a writer, his long and successful fight against depression, and, amid the strain of a marriage which sometimes brought much agony, the strength of his love for his wife Helen. The letters, which formed a key source for R George Thomas's highly praised biography of a poet, help substantiate the editor's belief that despite Thomas's immense prose output and the late flowering of his verse in 1914-1916, it was nevertheless the name and nature of poetry that was Edward Thomas's dominant lifelong concern.