Measuring Visitor Expenditure for Inbound Tourism

Book Description

The process of globalization, evidenced by environmental change, migration, industrial relations and the extraordinary acceleration of industrial economic relations, has not led to increased convergence in the global economy. Rather, in some cases it has been accompanied by greater divergence between the fortunes of the world's richest and poorest nations. Professor Sylos Labini offers a new approach to the theory of economic growth and reminds us of the great variety of economic trajectories in developing countries. He further proposes a strategy of institutional reform to respond to the problem of underdevelopment.

Book Description

Leading experts and journalists offer an incisive, wide-ranging critique of welfare reform. In the four years since Congress acted to "end welfare as we know it," millions of people have been forced out of government assistance programs into low-wage, dead-end jobs with few, if any, benefits. Making Work Pay brings together the foremost thinkers in the fields of social policy and public affairs to examine the effects of the new national prosperity on the working poor—to ask what happened to the second half of President Bill Clinton's welfare reform, which was supposed to "make work pay." As Robert Reich notes in his introduction, "like other ideas that have had the misfortune of becoming political slogans, 'making work pay' went from obscurity to meaninglessness without any intervening period of coherence." This book, which originated as a special double issue of The American Prospect magazine, brings coherence to the original notion, and updates it for a new century. In Making Work Pay, leading policy analysts and journalists examine the broad fallout of welfare reform: Marcia Meyers shows how welfare offices undermine welfare reform; Naomi Barko reveals how the gender gap in wages hits low-income workers hardest; Harold Meyerson describes the growing movement to organize low-wage workers; and Michael Massing details welfare-to-work programs that actually work. Arriving as Congress considers the reauthorization of welfare reform, and including reports of state programs, Making Work Pay is a timely contribution to a pressing debate.

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A radical new look at Lucas

The constant sexual references destroy the spirit of Star Wars

Much more than a mere dark comedy spoof

Give It a Chance

Very interesting, methinks

The Empire Menaced: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Dearth Nadir
Dearth Nadir , and Xiao En
Manufacturer: Aventine Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Parodies | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1593301596

Book Description

"Lies! It's all a pack of lies. I've already dispatched my lawyer droids to fix this little problem." --The Emperor.

In The Empire Menaced: the unauthorized autobiography of Dearth Nadir, author Sean Miller throws political correctness out the window and writes the "true", uncensored story of Darth Vader. Told in "Dearth Nadir's" voice, this parody reinterprets with dark humor the entire Star Wars saga, including Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, while adding new and provocative twists to the tale as it plumbs the depths of the tormented mind of a Darth Vader that occupies both the Star Wars galaxy and, by extraordinary circumstances, our own.

Find out: * How "Kobe-San" really defeated "Dearth Mall" * Who seduced whom: "Anykind" or "Mandala" * "Anykind's" real parentage * How "Anykind" actually became "Dearth Nadir"

While most parodies take broad and clumsy swipes at their targets, The Empire Menaced aggressively appropriates the voice of Darth Vader in order to explore themes sorely underdeveloped in the movie version. To learn the truth, go to the source. Find out what George Lucas is too afraid to show you in the movie theater. There are always at least two sides to any story. The Emperor has his version. And now Dearth Nadir has his.

Customer Reviews:

A radical new look at Lucas.......2005-09-18

Full appreciation of this book requires the reader to have a thorough knowledge of George Lucas' little saga, especially Episode One, The Phantom Menace (also known as movie four, or the one with the bland kid and the chick with the white make-up, or whatever). You'll also need to be able to translate Ebonics, understand computer jargon and to have eaten the obscure part of a large dictionary for breakfast.

As spoofs go, this one is a pretty small book compared to the size of the reputation of the subject of the autobiography, but still manages to whole-heartedly disagree with almost everything the movie told us.

A Guide to the players:

Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader - Anykind Whystalker/Dearth Nadir
Queen Amidala - Queen Mandala
Qui-Gon Jinn - Chi-Gong Djinn
Obi-Wan Kenobi - Kobe-San Kenbarbie
Shmi Skywalker - Shmear Whystalker
Yoda - Yoga
Jar Jar Binks - Jug Jug Bling
C-3PO - 3-CPU
R2-D2 - R2-Me2
Watto - W'at'o

Seems Nadir's washed up as a Jeteye and doesn't have enough substance left to function as a bad guy, or any kind of guy for that matter, and is now reduced to telling his sorry tale via the mighty WWW dot com.

According to Nadir, Mandala wasn't the upright, goody-goody white faced mannequin that Natalie Portman immortalized, but had pretty nimble fingers and a roving eye for young Jeteyes. Chi-Gong apparently had been ringing Ma Shmear's bells on the sly, and Kobe-San wasn't exactly a ladies man. Jug Jug at least remains as annoying as ever, further destroying any hope of promoting the case for teaching Ebonics in better schools throughout the galaxy.

This book is not easy reading, and is not for everybody. Readers without a first degree in Lucas Lore will be completely on the dark side, and comprehending the phraseology is recurrently arduous, repeatedly requiring Herculean labors. There's also a couple of chunks of inappropriate material for underage Jeteyes that don't really advance the story very much.

If you're big on Star Wars, and spiffy with spoofs you'll probably like this one, if not, you probably won't. Rated 3.5 stars for sheer audacity.

Amanda Richards, September 17, 2005

The constant sexual references destroy the spirit of Star Wars.......2005-07-08

This book is a parody of the Star Wars series and in my opinion, it is a failure. The sexual aspects are in many ways offensive to the spirit of Star Wars as an epic story. On page 25, the equivalent of the boy Anakin and the adult queen Amidala have a sexual encounter. She sucks on him, performing what is clearly the sexual exploitation of a child. He asks if his "soo-soo" will be stuck in a hard position. She then asks him to reciprocate, and he tries. After a short time, she tells him he is f---ing useless and that she will finish the job herself. I found this, along with many of the other sexual aspects of the book extremely distasteful. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would find the sexual exploitation of a child funny in any way. On page 55, there is the list of "Top Five Ways to F--- Mandala", and I cannot determine what the point of the list is. The sexual activities listed range from the slightly demented to downright gross.
The book was so offensive; that I started reading it twice and never made it past page sixty. It is one of the worst books I have ever encountered. My partner Kathy Brogla also started reading it and after a few pages she stopped and gave me a two-word contribution, "Flush it!"

Much more than a mere dark comedy spoof.......2005-07-04

In all honesty, I'm not exactly sure what my reaction to this book is. By rights it is a satirical take on Darth Vader's personal story, but it seemed to move beyond this, particularly in the later stages of the book, to some kind of psychological and sociological diatribe replete with dark insight and meaning - far removed from standard spoof material. In its way, The Empire Menaced is a quite an intellectual tome. I have a pretty extensive vocabulary, and there were several occasions upon which I had to reread a paragraph to try and get some handle on what the author was trying to say with the kind of words you only find in a dictionary.

The premise of the novel is that Dearth Nadir, in the interest of telling his own story, actually managed to manifest himself into some kind of electronic submission that ultimately found residence in the Earth's Internet (although he later took over the body of some poor software programming dope). Thus, he knows all about our culture - and he had a hand in George Lucas' representations of a certain space opera. Lucas didn't get a lot of things right, though, and he definitely sugarcoated some of the less savory aspects of the story. (Surprisingly, though, Nadir does not complain about the fact that a talentless actor was chosen to play him as a young Jeteye.) In Dearth's illuminating auto-biography, we learn that Queen, then Senator, Mandala was a lusty wench who sexually abused young Dearth as a child (it was no less than "a harrowingly premature exposure to the Sartrean Hole"), his old master W'at'O was apparently an Islamic jihadist, Chi-Gong had something going with his mother, and Kobe-San was not quite the man we thought he was. Nadir's whole romance with Mandala began as an act of revenge against her rapacious treatment of him as a lad. As for Jug Jug, he is in fact the ultimate black caricature - but he's only doing it for show. Dearth's turn to the Dark Side cannot be distilled down to one point, and he basically declares the subject closed by equating his suffering with the recalcitrant evil that now dominates his worldview. One thing is certain, though: he's no boot-scraping sycophant of the Emperor. Most of his hatred seems to be directed inward, although Dearth's darkest passions all seemed wrapped up in his relationship with Mandala.

The actual transformation from the promising young Jeteye to Dearth Nadir is far different than anything conveyed by Lucas' films (of course, one must also keep in mind that this book was published a year before Episode III hit the screen), and it is interesting that the man behind the mask, so to speak, represents the self-image of the newly turned Jeteye traitor. I'm afraid the point of the book was somewhat lost for me in the concluding chapters, however, as Dearth wallows in the memories of his lusty relationship with Mandala (this book is definitely not for children, I should note). Dearth becomes the equivalent of the patient on the couch who, forgetting the very presence of his therapist, gushes forth with uninhibited descriptions of the subject matter, all sorts of emotional self-analyses, and ruminations on the debilitating emotional effects of family and heredity.

This is a book that, depending upon your level of devotion to the Star Wars saga, you will quite likely either love or hate. Ironically, I find myself somewhere in the middle. As I mentioned, it's hard for me to pin this book down; what started out as a brilliant little spoof eventually took on sociological aspects that sometimes confused me. Of course, this very aspect of the book also distinguishes it from the ubiquitous nature of the traditional spoof. In the author's hands, this becomes nothing less than a philosophical study of life and truth, a sociological treatment of society and the individual, and far more than the general reader expecting a dark comedy spoof may expect from the experience.

Give It a Chance.......2005-07-01

You have to give this book a chance. Personally, this is not my favorite genre. But, if you like spoofs and parodies, you should try this. Particularly if you are a Star Wars fan. Some of detail is amazing and will be appreciated by fanatics.

A lot of between-the-lines philosophy and politics is thrown in, obviously from the author's viewpoint, but much of it is level headed and observant.

This is not a book for kids, though. There are several (okay, many) sexual references that are rated R, if not NC-17. So, don't be buying it as gifts for young kids.

The text itself is well written and fairly easy to read. Worth giving a try. Kinda like what "This is Spinal Tap" is for the rock stars.

Very interesting, methinks.......2005-06-29

Have you ever watched the ultra-revered Star Wars trilogy and just thought something along the lines of, Gee, everything's just a little too easy here? I mean, come on: Luke and Obi-Wan are so innocent they practically squeak when they walk; Yoda's so impossibly wise he makes Gandhi seem like Stalin; the Emperor is as cartoonishly evil as Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot combined; and in the end Darth Vader goes to being "more machine than man" in the words of Obi-Wan to loving father and redeemed hero. Not to mention, the rebels, joined in Return of the Jedi by those adorable little Ewoks, are presented as pretty much the pictures of virtue compared to the stodgy old Imperial officers and their machine-like stormtroopers, even though we know little of either group's agenda. If only real life were so cut-and-dried, we might not have to worry about electing tiresome prisses, windy demagogues, and petty tyrants to power on a regular basis.

In other words, if anything's ripe for a good old-fashioned sendup, it's George Lucas's holy trilogy and its three-pack of recent prequels. While it's certainly not the first such effort, Sean Miller's The Empire Menaced: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Dearth Nadir still scores plenty of points for creativity, ambition and wit. Basically, The Empire Menaced is to the Star Wars movies what Shaun of the Dead was to George A. Romero's living dead trilogy: a parody of a sort, but one that takes its source material as a starting point to create its own world and its own inspired ideas. To put it another way, where parodies like Mel Brooks's Spaceballs (still probably the best-known of them all) mostly just took broad (if sometimes funny) swipes at their target, the satirical slant of The Empire Menaced is more sidelong, injecting its author's skewed worldview into the Star Wars universe.

It's all told through the viewpoint of the titular character, Dearth Nadir, later turned into Darth Vader in George Lucas's films (or electric shadows, as Dearth puts it), which apparently didn't get much right, especially the names of the principals. It turns out ol' Dearth, tired of serving as lackey to the cranky, capricious Emperor, projected his consciousness out into space some 150 million years ago, or just in time for it to pass by our planet and get stuck in a primitive version of our Internet. Dearth managed to learn about our history and culture while zipping around in the form of some packets of information in cyberspace, and eventually his experiences found his way into the mind of a young George Lucas, who ended up adapting them to the silver screen in greatly modified form.

The picture of Dearth that emerges in these pages is, to put it mildly, significantly different than that of the Darth Vader generations of filmgoers have come to know and love. This version isn't so much an embodiment of evil as a confused, philosophical, and deeply flawed individual, burdened by his tremendous gifts, insecure over his fatherless childhood and his ambiguous feelings for Queen Padthai Mandala, and tormented by relentless self-examination. Fortunately, Dearth fits right into the parallel universe that Miller has created here: While the original trilogy was based on a stark good/evil contrast, episodes I-III (especially II) explored more ambigous moral territory through Anikin's gradual transformation into his Darth Vader alter ego, and The Empire Menaced basically takes that direction and runs relentlessly in it.

To put it bluntly, the world Miller creates in this book is not a world of Right against Wrong, Good against Evil, Us against Them. Instead, it's a good deal more mundane than Lucas would've had us believe. The Jeteye are hypocritical guardians of the status guo, with an academy eerily reminiscent of an Ivy League school in its combination of feel-good egalitarian dogma and strict status-based social hierarchy. The rebels, meanwhile, are tiresome Socialists spouting hackneyed leftist rhetoric. The feared, vaunted Galactic Empire is here more a gigantic corporation than anything else, complete with a vast bureacracy and an Emperor who conducts corporate retreats in order to educate his underlings on the nature of evil. Ranking second in command as he does in the movies, Dearth is keenly aware that he's just a cog in the vast machinery of the Empire, albeit an extremely powerful and important one. In one of his many moments of brutal honesty, Dearth writes "Dearth Nadir wasn't, isn't a noble villain, a tragic anti-hero with a fatal flaw. Look at the evidence. He's a creepy state-sanctioned serial killer. He's Mengele in snazzy black tights and a cape. He's a carbonized chunk of radioactive fear with a half-life no longer than the shelf life of a Twinkie." Ouch.

Ultimately, though, it's what Miller adds to his Star Wars takeoff that makes the book, as The Empire Menaced is chock full of high style, clever wordplay, heavy philosophy, and erudite allusions. In one particularly memorable early passage, Dearth alludes to the dreaded Dearth Star "whip[ping] like a knuckleball through the vacuum of space," launching a paragraph with more clever similes and metaphors than you'll find in some entire books. There are also plenty of philosophical musings to be found, covering such diverse territory as love, the nature of free will, and the meaning of life; along with some references to modern Earthling debates ranging from globalization to the War on Terror (the desert planet inhabited by Muslims is a nice touch). And you've got to love a book that can pull out a prolonged allusion to Dante's Inferno right after introducing a rapping, Ebonics-speaking Jar Jar Binks sendup named Jug Jug.

While not everything works completely here (some of the sexual content is a bit gratuitous at best), The Empire Menaced is still one of the smartest, most innovative books I've gotten to read in a while. Somebody else made a reference to David Foster Wallace in his review, and I think that's a pretty fitting comparison, as Miller shows a great deal of skill at incorporating all kinds of unconventional elements into his narrative without losing focus. If you're a Star Wars fan, you should appreciate this book's alternate take on George Lucas's world and one of its leading characters, and even if you're not you still might get a chuckle and find some deep thoughts provoked at the same time. Definitely a worthy read.

Book Description

Before Genesis became a worldwide mega-selling AOR phenomenon, they were at the forefront of English progressive rock. Singer Peter Gabriel introduced theatrics to their live shows, and interest in this period has never been higher. Using tapes and memorabilia from the official Genesis archives, the book is a documentary of their career and a complete analysis of Genesis live shows from Charterhouse schooldays to "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway."

Customer Reviews:

It's about time..........2005-01-14

Taking inspiration from Louis Rey, Russell presents a detailed examination of Genesis live through the Peter Gabriel years. He reviews every tape in circulation, and even some that are not in circulation (where are those Lamb soundboards??) This book presents great summeries of each show that still exists along with some comments about the quality of the tape and relevant cuts.
We even have an exclusive interview with Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Anthony Phillips where the author asks the exact detailed questions that are on every collector's mind (details about "The Light" for example).
I only wish Russell would have given relevent boot citations for the tape he describes (like Rey does). But that is a very minor criticism. Overall this is an excellent presentation about the long ago Gabriel Genesis years and brings back many nice memories.

Read Me Their Live Show.......2004-11-27

Read this and you'll come to know why Gabriel's Genesis was so good live act. Theatrical shows, fascinating customs and proge music that touched many people. Those were the days before the great success. In my opinion, Gabriel's year were Genesis greatest for musically. Many pictures and interesting stories will reveal you many interesting things for band members. Highly recommand for every Genesis fan!

Book Description

This book explains America's love of sport just as it reveals sport's darker side--the influence of big business, corruption, price gouging, political maneuvering, and media grandstanding.

Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport

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Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport
D. Stanley Eitzen
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Essays | Miscellaneous | Sports | Subjects | Books

General | Sports | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Sports Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
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Sport in Contemporary Society: An Anthology

ASIN: 074251952X

Book Description

Explains America's love of sport just as it reveals sport's darker side--the influence of big business, corruption, price gouging, political maneuvering, and media grandstanding. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Average customer rating:

Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport
D. Stanley Eitzen
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Mythology & Folklore | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books

Reference | Miscellaneous | Sports | Subjects | Books

Sports Psychology | Miscellaneous | Sports | Subjects | Books

Essays | Miscellaneous | Sports | Subjects | Books

General | Sports | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0847691705

Book Description

This book moves beyond the myths and media hype to take a closer look at America's love of sport and how it so often comes in conflict with our most basic values. With reverence yet a sharp eye for the influence of big business, corruption, price gouging, political maneuvering, and media grandstanding, Eitzen portrays famous and lesser known events from professional and college sports, including well known coaches and players, to give us a deeper understanding of what sports means to us and how it affects our everyday world.

Average customer rating:

Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport
D. Stanley Eitzen
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Essays | Miscellaneous | Sports | Subjects | Books

Sociology of Sports | Miscellaneous | Sports | Subjects | Books

General | Sports | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 074254561X

Book Description

This book explains America's love of sport just as it reveals sport's darker side--the influence of big business, corruption, price gouging, political maneuvering, and media grandstanding.

Book Description

"Handy writes with the eloquence of simplicity and his gift to us is an enjoyable, profound, and reliable guide toward meaning and direction."--Max De Pree, author of Leading without Power and chairman emeritus, Herman Miller Inc.

Charles Handy's reflections on work and life have earned him legions of fans throughout the world. His previous books have together sold over a million copies. And his "Thought for the Day" series on BBC radio is celebrated throughout the U.K. Now present and future fans in America can sample what his BBC listeners have enjoyed for so long. Waiting for the Mountain to Move includes the gifted commentator's best essays, culled from ten years of radio broadcasts. These succinct writings draw poignant lessons from everyday occurrences and cause us to examine our lives, our institutions, and our society in a different and revealing light.

NOT FOR SALE OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA

Customer Reviews:

A Great Read.......2007-01-10

'Waiting For The Mountain To Move' is full of interesting and thought provoking. It is written in an easy to read format.

Jill Weeks
Author 'Where To Retire In Australia'

Edxcellent Book.......2002-01-08

One of the easier to read books by Handy. Contains many interesting ideas presented in a easy to read and understand manner. Excellent.

Stop & ponder about some of the thoughts in the book!.......2001-07-03

An excellent book to make you stop and think about the realities of work and life. Prof. Handy has put some very valuable truths in the short essays in the book. Some of the essays touch on spiritual issues and I endorse the truths he mentions! The essays are short and you could read them at the start of a long commute and ponder over the thoughts during the journey. Or are we do too busy to do that even? For those you have read Prof. Handy's other books, don't miss this one!

The Greatest Living "Social Philosopher".......1999-08-02

I can't say enough about Charles Handy's many books, and this little gem is absolutely thrilling. Comprised of 65 stories of about 500 words each, Handy's eloquent style and a non-proselytized collection of Christian anecdotes make each story a beautiful experience. Core values with a deep, profound essence of faith. I hope more Americans become familiar with his tremendous work.

Book Description

Oracle database administration is a complex and stressful job. In a series of easy-to-use checklists, this concise pocket reference summarizes the enormous number of tasks you must perform as an Oracle DBA. Each section takes a step-by-step "cookbook" approach to presenting DBA quick-reference material. The Oracle DBA Checklists Pocket Reference is divided into three major sections covering the main areas of an Oracle DBA's responsibilities:

Database management. Describes how to maintain existing databases (with a checklist of daily, weekly, and monthly activities), prepare new databases for production, and back up and recover databases (with checklists for how to recover tables, data files, index files, control files, rollback segments, and active and inactive redo logs).
Installation and configuration. Contains a summary of key procedures for installation on Unix, Windows NT, and VMS platforms. Also includes special steps for configuring a parallel database.
Network management. Helps with installing, configuring, and testing Net8 software on server and client machines. Tasks include confirming network availability and Net8 connectivity, verifying Net8 name resolution, configuring Net8 clients (with LDAP or Oracle Names), configuring Net8 on the server, configuring the Multi-Threaded Server (MTS), tracing client connections, and tracing the Net8 listener.

This book's quick-reference, step-by-step approach takes the stress out of DBA problem solving by making it easy to find the information you need--and find it fast.

Customer Reviews:

Nice stuff to have in your back pocket........2002-12-04

You can formulate(If you're not that documenting kind of a dba;)) to make religiously your own checklists from this simple but very helpful pocket reference.

Tarry

For DBAs knowing what they are going to do.......2002-08-05

This is, as the title suggests, a pocket size collection of checklists about how common operations are done. This is a good reference but not a book for you if you are still learning how to use Oracle.
DBA Checklists is an excellent reference, when you are performing one of covered operations:
- In a hurry
- Middle of night (and in a hurry)
- First time after few months last time you did it
- Making sure a junior DBA does things properly

Summary: this reference you want to keep in a bookshelf close to you workstation.

Good And Concise.......2002-04-02

A good reference of how things you should worry about. Provides an execellent guide on how to move databases to production. Get it and use it, and when you don't need it anymore pass it on to a Junior DBA.

Great tool - not *just* for DBAs.......2001-06-30

The checklists in this 80-page guide are both comprehensive and complete. While this book's obvious value is to DBAs (which I'm not), it is also an invaluable tool for a number of other IS/IT areas. Specifically:

* Change control analysts who need to develop or validate implementation and rollback plans

* Project and release managers who want to scope out and plan the key tasks for upgrades and implementations

* Desktop support folks who install and configure client software

* Help desk analysts who are tasked with developing problem screening and identification checklists.

For the last group the checklists for confirming network connectivity via Net8 can make the difference between misassigning an Oracle Net8 problem to the network group, which only slows the resolution process. You do not have to be a DBA to benefit from this excellent book.

Simple, lightweight, Precise Guidelines.......2001-06-07

it covers many areas like preparing a database for production, conducting recovery, installation and network management. It gives a precise guidelines to take a concept how to start some administrative job and investigation. Of course, it covers some brief steps and ideas, it is enough for me and I can get more details from those Oracle press "Bible" ^_^...Quite Thick and heavy.

Simple DBA task list is good to people taking an initial concepts on administering Oracle. If there is a PDA book for it, it is much more convenient!!

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