Showing results for "The Vanishing" in Politics & Social Sciences

A sweeping new look at the unheralded transformation that is eroding the foundations of American exceptionalism. Americans today find themselves mired in an era of uncertainty and frustration. The nation's safety net is pulling apart under its own weight; political compromise is viewed as a form of defeat; and our faith in the enduring concept of American exceptionalism appears increasingly outdated. But the American Age may not be ending.

The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known, simple model of a dual economy to examine the dynamics of the rich/poor divide in America.

On a clear May afternoon at the end of his junior year at Harvard, Howard Axelrod played a pick-up game of basketball. In a skirmish for a loose ball, a boy's finger hooked behind Axelrod's eyeball and left him permanently blinded in his right eye. A week later, he returned to the same dorm room, but to a different world. A world where nothing looked solid, where the distance between how people saw him and how he saw had widened into a gulf.

By 2050, nearly 115 million people in the world will have Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. But when our memories fade, what do we become - a shadow of our old selves or somebody new? After losing her grandmother to Alzheimer's, writer Anu Silfverberg travels to see the future of dementia care. In the Netherlands, a new kind of care home lets patients live in their own pasts. Here, you'll find gated gardens and a pub for the demented along with a stylized class system designed by a team of consultants.

In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. The earlier forays are peaceful affairs, allowing our guide to meditate at length on the character of his native land, a terrain of olive trees on terraced hillsides, luxuriant valleys carved by sacred springs, carpets of wild iris and hyacinth, and ancient monasteries built over 1,000 years ago. Shehadeh’s love for this magical place saturates his renderings of its history and topography.

Six hundred thousand people are reported missing each year. Most are isolated events without a common thread. But in some instances, the victims are linked by one key detail…location. From the creators of Up and Vanished, The Vanishing Point transports listeners to the last known location shared by multiple missing individuals, uncovering new details about their cases and the significance of the area. In this six episode installment, we’ll take you to Hoopa, California, home of the Hoopa Valley tribe. Located in the Pacific Northwest, this area is known for its breathtaking landscapes but ...

There may be no story today with a wider gap between fact and fiction than the relationship between the United States and Mexico. Through portraits of business leaders, migrants, chefs, movie directors, police officers, and media and sports executives, Andrew Selee looks at this emerging Mexico, showing how it increasingly influences our daily lives in the United States in surprising ways - the jobs we do, the goods we consume, and even the new technology and entertainment we enjoy.

Turtle Bunbury discusses life and its learnings with Ireland's elders. These are voices of courage, kindness and humour that will resound for future generations. The Vanishing Ireland project was co-founded by Turtle and photographer James Fennell in 2001. Visit https://turtlebunbury.com for more.

Vanishing Postcards is a documentary travelogue that invites listeners on a road trip exploring the hidden dives, traditions, and frequently threatened histories discovered by exiting the interstates. Named one of the Best Podcasts of 2022 by Digital Trends.

As geopolitical tensions rise and nuclear arsenals are expanded and modernized, decades of arms control agreements, security cooperation, and a growing consensus about the unacceptability of nuclear weapons are coming undone. One of the greatest security achievements of the 20th and early 21st century is thus unraveling. 

From these disparate phenomena: Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse who as president of a Midwestern college observed the trials of this generation up close, sees an existential threat to the American way of life. In The Vanishing American Adult, Sasse diagnoses the causes of a generation that can't grow up and offers a path for raising children to become active and engaged citizens. He identifies core formative experiences that all young people should pursue.

In a society where raging narcissism dominates the moral landscape, the virtue of humility is often dismissed as irrelevant. Not only is humility vanishing from contemporary culture, but we are also witnessing how destructive a lack of humility has become among our churches and ministry leaders. And yet, Richard Foster, the founder of Renovare, insists that humility is central to the journey toward character formation and spiritual transformation. For this reason he decided to spend a year studying the virtue of humility.

Xia, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, investigates the impacts of engineered landscapes, the market pressures of development, and the ecological activism and political scrimmages that have carved our contemporary coastline—and foretell even greater changes to our shores. From the beaches of the Mexican border up to the sheer-cliffed North Coast, the voices of Indigenous leaders, community activists, small-town mayors, urban engineers, and environmental scientists commingle. Together, they chronicle the challenges and urgency of forging a climate-wise future.

"The Mission to Save Vanishing Internet Art" is from the October 21, 2016 Entertainment section of The New York Times. It was written by Frank Rose and narrated by Paul Ryden.

Born in Shen Village in Southeast China, Shen Fuyu grew up in a family of farmers. Years later, Shen, now a writer, returned to his hometown to capture the village's rich history in the face of industrialization. Through his own childhood memories and those of his ancestors, Shen resurrects the working life of Shen Village through interlinked stories of 15 artisans as their lives intersect over the course of a century.

Apples, a common New England crop, have been called the United States' most endangered food. The iconic Texas Longhorn cattle is categorized at critical risk for extinction. Unique date palms, found nowhere else on the planet, grow in California’s Coachella Valley, but the family farms that caretake them are shutting down. Apples, cattle, dates―these are foods that carry significant cultural weight. But they’re disappearing. In Endangered Eating, culinary historian Sarah Lohman travels the country learning about the distinct ingredients at risk of being lost.

Shocked by a five-month arson spree that left rural Virginia reeling, Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse drove down to Accomack County to cover the trial of Charlie Smith, who pled guilty to 67 counts of arson. But Charlie wasn't lighting fires alone: he had an accomplice - his girlfriend, Tonya Bundick. Through her depiction of the dangerous shift that happened in their passionate relationship, Hesse brilliantly brings to life the once-thriving coastal community and its distressed inhabitants.

Conflict exists not only between nations and political parties; it's also battling with our neighbor, bickering with the person in the next cubicle, struggling with our spouse. Whatever the size of the conflict, it's clear that violence never solves conflict. So how can we end conflict?

Boilerplate - the fine-print terms and conditions that we become subject to when we click "I agree" online, rent an apartment, enter an employment contract, sign up for a cellphone carrier, or buy travel tickets - pervades all aspects of our modern lives. On a daily basis, most of us accept boilerplate provisions without realizing that should a dispute arise about a purchased good or service, the nonnegotiable boilerplate terms can deprive us of our right to jury trial and relieve providers of responsibility for harm.