Dr. Leonard Sax's outstanding seminal book, Boys Adrift, identifies several key factors in the creation and maintenance of neotenous men, sometimes called "slackers", as in the movie Failure to Launch. It also has very useful, well thought out ideas on how to address this issue, and how to guide boys into being responsible adults, who contribute to society. This response to Boys Adrift expands on some of those ideas, and responds to some areas that weren't covered as thoroughly as they could have been. It adds some secrets about how boys, and men, think, which are not found in print elsewhere. This book notes that Boys Adrift are mine canaries, warning us of larger societal problems. This response addresses some of those larger issues, with ideas for addressing them, as well, including how to connect boys with their mission and purpose in life.
"Confessions" is a compilation of poems, essays and proses revealing a journey of a soul in search of respite from inner turmoil and torture. A life plagued by addictions and abuse, crying out and searching for inner solace and peace, and the journey it took to find it.
Ruminating as a Gentle Man "Kenneth Woodall's collection of writings is beautiful, daring, and always entertaining. In some parts thought provoking, in others dramatically haunting, these poems will stay with you long after you read them, and will tempt you to return again and again to wallow in their esoteric depths. Dealing with topics as diverse as birth and death, temptation and sin, love and despair, poetry and revolution, everyone will draw a spark of hope, recognition or inspiration from this collection." -Natasha Rhodes, author, "Blade: Trinity", "Final Destination" series, "A Nightmare on Elm Street: Perchance to Dream", "Dante's Girl" and the Kayla Steele Series. INTRODUCTION: The following prose and poems are explorations and hopeful manifestations of the major, and minor, inquests of life: identity angst, reverence, tradition, intimacy, purpose, age, artificiality, and whatever else you are able to take from them, whether it be a solitary image or a cohesive narrative. I constructed each one with specific intent, some of which snatched their spirit from my clutch and stole away to transform themselves. I have noted the inspiration to some on the bottom of their respective pages. I could care less if you enjoy them. But my whole existence does depend upon your response, my love.
On an east Texas ranch outside of Beaumont, a bolt of lightning strikes a disabled young man, Josh Branden, and kills him. What follows is an unfathomable sequence of events that mystifies Josh's family, friends, and medical personnel alike, testing the parameters of reality and faith. As Josh struggles to deal with the incredible gift he's been given-a chance to begin anew, to love, to live, to truly have it all, he ponders the price. Can he be content to thrive when others, less fortunate, cannot? A single, white feather symbolizes the heart-wrenching decision he must make. A Seed Twice Delivered explores the very human attributes of loss and despair, compassion and hope, and finally choice-at times contradicted by what Josh comes to understand as the "eternal perspective".
The steel industry provides much of the material basis for modern civilisation. Although its end products are numerous, the largest sector of the industry is involved in the production of wide strip. This is used by countless other industries to make a range of products from automobile bodies, and the cases of domestic appliances, to metal furniture and cans for the preservation of foodstuffs and drinks. A hundred years ago sheet steel was made in labor-intensive operations by a large number of small rolling mills. This is an account of how this relatively backward part of the industry was transformed by the invention and industrial application of a revolutionary new technology. In the hot strip mill a slab of steel was passed through a series of rolls to be reduced into a continuous band of wide strip, which was then shipped either as coils or cut into sheets. The introduction of the wide continuous hot strip mill began to concentrate the sheet and tin plate industry into much bigger operations complete with iron making, steel works, rolling mills and finishing plant. New companies rose to prominence; some old industry leaders fell behind. Many former locations for sheet manufacture were abandoned, but other old plants and companies re-equipped and survived. Major producers of other products entered the new trade. Less than thirty years ago another major change began when electric arc steel furnace operators began to install strip mills and the trade of the now rather inappropriately named `mini-mill` grew rapidly at the expense of the longer established iron—open hearth steel—primary rolling mill—strip mill industry. Now, as its centenary approaches, the strip mill sector is still undergoing major changes. This book surveys the growth, structure and changes in this dominant part of the steel industry. The strip mill has transformed steel world-wide, but in its origins and development it has above all been a distinctively American achievement.
AN AMERICAN PROFESSOR TRAPPED IN A GREEK NATIONAL CRISIS ... A DECAYED BODY IN AN ATTIC ... NAZI LEGACY ... NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR NORTH KOREA ... AND LOVE, IN ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST BEAUTIFUL LOCALES ... Recently-widowed university professor Nathan Radcliff is in Athens to research his book about Anatole Katsaros, a national hero responsible for saving Jewish lives during the Nazi occupation of Greece. When he stumbles across his long-forgotten remains in a dusty attic of the National Archives, Nathan also finds a dossier implicating the hero's son as a Nazi collaborator and the boss of an international crime syndicate known as the Alliance. But the Alliance hears about the discovery and vows to destroy the evidence. When Nathan is nearly killed, an alluring Greek Secret Service Agent spirits him away to an Aegean island where their powerful chemistry promises healing of the past. But their tranquility is soon shattered. Leaving murder in their wake, the Alliance stops at nothing to destroy Nathan and the dossier. Despite involvement by the highest echelons of government, Nathan is betrayed by his protectors, and his daughter is taken hostage. Now the timid professor must garner strength he never knew he had.
