Description Details
Description Two bank employees, one married male and the other unmarried female happened to mark affinity for self in the other. This unmarried person was the boss of the other one. In view of the mutual affinity, this boss visited the other’s residence for delivering in person the `invite` on the occasion of her marriage with an NRI doctor. In a couple of years, the marriage of both these persons reached the stage of irretrievable breakdown, as both were feeling suffocated with the behaviour and attitude of their spouses. By the by, they happen to divulge to each other the emotional injuries suffered at the hands of their respective callous spouses. However, they happen to be neighbours by virtue of the flat allotted to them by their bank under the self-financing scheme for its employees envisaged to reach them a surprise bonanza in a unique `no profit, no lost` basis. The events at the inlaws family in the case of both of thembrought them physically closer, with the blessings of their parents. Thus, they happen to be `a circumstantially evolved couple`. ...

Excerpt Details
Excerpts: “It appears to me that almost every religion tends to circumscribe the reasoning potentials of its followers. The self-styled custodian of the religious beliefs would not take it upon himself as a duty to seek the explanations of the `deviating folk`, unless an explosive situation emerges,” Nidhi expresses her opinion in the presence of the lone listener … She says, “Even at this moment, some kuchcha structure is visible. A notice board is also clearly visible from here. I think, let’s move towards that hut, to check, if that hermit is still using that hutment even after a period of fifty five years has gone by.” He looks undecided, but his wife almost drags him towards that sign-board. It reads the same contents. The door seems to have been bolted from inside. They move away awfully, lest they disturb the hermit’s peace. …. Nidhi often happens to recall her days when she had once heard from Anirudh that Smriti’s father is a doctor in a government dispensary and has been living an ostentatious type of life. It had resulted in his daughter always complaining of the total absence of modern amenities for leading `a...

Table of Contents Details
Contents Chapter Page BOARD OF REVIEWERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi A Perspective from the Commander in Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Barack H. Obama SECTION I: RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION 1 Religion in the Military: Finding the Proper Balance . . . . . . . . 15 Barry W. Lynn 2 Burning Bibles and Censoring Prayers: Is That Defending Our Constitution? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Gordon James Klingenschmitt 3 The Need for (More) New Guidance Regarding Religious Expression in the Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Paula M. Grant 4 The One True Religion in the Military . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 James E. Parco and Barry S. Fagin 5 Against All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Chris Rodda 6 Religious...

Description Details
Having lost her mother, and virtually rendered `orphan`, in the absence of `father`, a little girl Named Bhoomika, by dint of sheer circumstances, happens to reach a virgin teacher. Here, the `blessed opportunity for education` awaits her, as she is inspired and guided by this benevolent lady towards higher education. Once, she was offered a part-time job of `a reader for a blind class-fellow` of hers at Khadi Degree College, Guhahati: and she gladly accepted it. Of course, some nascent opportunities came to her, even in Delhi, when she was staying in a Working Women’s Hostel, while doing some odd jobs to support self, economically. But the travails of life also came her way; and she coped up with every sort of situation, by way of `fine-tuning` the responses from her brain and heart, every time, with an objective to attaining a quality decision from within. Having once been requested by very senior colleague to stay with one spinster Professor, during her illness, she served the lady so dutifully that the Professor persistently requested her to live with her till the young girl is married off. Having attained some extraordinary ...

Excerpt Details
"In fact, I had never spoken to her even a single word, though she continued to send me signals for initiating a dialogue with her. I had to go to fetch my daily quota of water from the water-tap, provided at the back of her tenement, for all the four segments, in the vicinity. Almost every time, we had to place our buckets or utensils, in a queue, while waiting for our turn. Being shy of passing through the front lane, while approaching the water-tap, I preferred to walk along the back of the segment, in our front. God knows, how she could spot me from such a long distance that I had come out of my room, with buckets in my hands. Quite often, I marked her busy in looking towards me with furtive glances, while waiting for her turn, as she would deliberately waste her time, simply to ignore the fact of my arrival there and would thus make room for me to place my buckets before hers.” .......... It pains him to recall his last meeting with that `unfortunate girl`, who was destined to spend a spinster's life and breathe her last, while resting her head at Bihari's knee, who kept caressing her forehead, in the presence of her trusted ...

Description Details
A collection of short nonfiction works in the public domain. The essays, speeches and reports included in this collection were independently selected by the readers, and the topics encompass history, government, military history, science, philosophy, sports, nature and religion. (summary by J. M. Smallheer)...

Excerpt Details
History, Nature, Philosophy, Religion, War stories, Science, Politics

Description Details
Edward Granville Browne (1862 – 1926), born in Stouts Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, England, was a British orientalist who published numerous articles and books of academic value, mainly in the areas of history and literature. His works are respected for their scholarship, uniqueness, and style. He published in areas which few other Western scholars had explored to any sufficient degree. He used a language and style that showed high respect for everybody, even toward those he personally did not view in positive light. In A Year Amongst the Persians (1893) he wrote a sympathetic portrayal of a Persian society which few Westerners had ever seen, including a frank account of the effects of opium. It did not attract the attention it deserved at the time of its initial publication, but after his death in 1926 it was reprinted and became a classic in English travel literature. A Year Amongst the Persians includes moving accounts of the Bahá’í community in Iran. Concerning his meetings with the Bahá’ís of Iran, Browne writes: “The memory of those assemblies can never fade from my mind; the recollection of those faces and those tones no time...

Excerpt Details
Travel, Religion, Philosophy

Description Details
How to live on 5 cents a day! How to survive financial ruin without losing your house! How to keep to a bare bones budget and still have money left over to buy books! Tough questions! They were tough questions even in the 1870’s, when Sarah Elizabeth Harper Monmouth penned her quirky memoir, the subtitle of which was “How a Lady, Having Lost a Sufficient Income from Government Bonds by Misplaced Confidence, Reduced to a Little Homestead Whose Entire Income is But $40.00 per Annum, Resolved to Hold It, Incurring no Debts and Live Within it. How She has Lived for Three Years and Still Lives on Half a Dime a Day.” Sarah Elizabeth (‘Lizzie‘) Monmouth, born in 1829, was a Civil War widow, living on a run-down small farm in New Hampshire, when her investments imploded. She awoke one morning to find herself poor--an old roof above her, “dearer than life,” but “not a dollar of money left.” For months she was “paralyzed with cold, clammy terror . . . stunned and knew not what to do.” Then her “mind stepped to the front with a bold standard displayed.” She said to herself “Understand, once for all, that I rule and make your plans accordingly....

Excerpt Details
Advice, Memoirs

Description Details
From hunters and gatherers through agro-cities, State-religious Empires infiltrated by migrating Tai persons with a wet glutinous rice technology, evolved to produce a sustainable agriculture. Rice culture determined administrative structures in a pragmatic society which regularly produced a saleable surplus. Ayutthaya’s ascendancy, continuing today, consolidated the importance of rice agriculture to national security and economic well-being, as Chinese and European influence benefited agribusiness and initiated the demand which would expand agriculture through population increase until accessible land was expended. The resulting central interest in the spoils of agriculture more than its producers pervaded decision-making until recently, and was supported by narrow economic development advocates. As agriculture declined in relative financial importance, it continued to provide the benefits of employment, crisis resilience, self-sufficiency, rural social support, and cultural custody. Technical and economic globalisation forces which assumed a cultural uniformity were eventually revealed to require modification, but had meanwhile a...

Table of Contents Details
Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Uniquely Agricultural Golden Cradle The Land of the Thai Soils Water Resources Climate Other Natural Resources Regional Origins Intensification Industrialisation National and Global Responsibilities Current Situation Ingredients of Thai Agriculture Summary Chapter 2 - Agricultural Origins From Gathering to Growing Neolithic to Iron Age Domination of Rice Early Thai Agriculturists Khmer Agriculture Pagan Agriculture Southern Thailand Summary Chapter 3 - Arrival of Tai Agriculture Chinese Tai Muang F Integrating Technologies Tai Agriculturists Migrating Farmers Tai in Thailand Tai Traits Environmental Traditions Tai and Buddhist Environments Summary Chapter 4 - Expansion of Thai Agriculture from 1200 C Agricultural Organisation Agricultural Administration Integrating Irrigation Systems Agricultural Domination Tai to Thai Agriculture 5 Agricultural Life Summary Chapter 5 - Emerging Agribusiness: Ayutthaya to the Early Twentieth Century Agriculture, Environment and Morality Export Rice Cash Crops Foreign Influence Administering the Peasants State Irrigation Development Traders and Early Agrib...

Description Details
On preservation of the Western rights, freedoms and quality of life in 21st century and beyond

Excerpt Details
Systemic approach to life of the highly cultured people provides them with higher level of happiness simply because their lives are better organized, risks are covered, reserves are maintained, dangers avoided, contacts established and so on so forth. Culture is not something that comes only with DNA, but genetic pre-disposition towards culture exists without doubt. Otherwise there would be no examples of people raising themselves above the scum they were born in and reaching high levels of society. Understanding of the elements of high culture, its systemic approach to organizing one’s life, can be practiced by virtually everybody. One just needs to want to elevate themselves and work towards that goal, which may involve getting better training and education, moving to a different neighborhood, getting a different job, spending time on more important things rather than on leisure, quitting drinking and smoking, refusing drugs, taking care of health, concentrating on the upbringing of the children and helping them in their adult life, babysitting grand-children, watching over quality of food supply and keeping the family ...

Table of Contents Details
Table of Contents Introduction iii Table of Contents iv About this book ix Who should not read this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Who is this book for? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Response to our critics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x About the authors xiii I What do we want to preserve and why? 1 1 Foreword 3 2 Measuring the quality of life 5 2.1 Individual happiness and self-fulfillment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.2 Individual rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.3 Social harmony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3 Checks and balances 11 3.1 Acceptable personal risk and responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4 What is worth to fight for? 15 4.1 Security of the person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 4.2 Personal and societal wealth . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

Description Details
Thai agriculture is traced through prehistory, agro-cities, and religious empires with immigrant Tai, to a sustainable wet glutinous rice culture which shaped institutions for an exporting society. Agriculture's provision of security and wealth increased with population and Chinese and European agribusiness, until accessible land was expended. Employment, crisis resilience, self-sufficiency, rural social support, and culture were maintained through agriculture, although hampered by institutional orientations to taxation more than research and education. By the 1960s, agribusiness contrasted with small-holders. Thailand is one of the world's few major agricultural exporters, leading in rice, rubber, canned pineapple, black tiger prawn, and regional chicken meat production and export, and feeding four times its population from less intensive agriculture than its neighbours. Issues remain in poverty, education, research, governance, national debt, and sensitive alternatives for small-holders. Past specialties in irrigation, administration, export, multinational agribusiness, negotiation, retained potential, and acceptance of new ...

Table of Contents Details
Chapter 1 - Uniquely Agricultural Golden Cradle The Land of the Thai Soils Water Resources Climate Other Natural Resources Regional Origins Intensification Industrialisation National and Global Responsibilities Current Situation Ingredients of Thai Agriculture Summary Chapter 2 - Agricultural Origins From Gathering to Growing Neolithic to Iron Age Domination of Rice Early Thai Agriculturists Khmer Agriculture Pagan Agriculture Southern Thailand Summary Chapter 3 - Arrival of Tai Agriculture Chinese Tai Muang F Integrating Technologies Tai Agriculturists Migrating Farmers Tai in Thailand Tai Traits Environmental Traditions Tai and Buddhist Environments Summary Chapter 4 - Expansion of Thai Agriculture from 1200 C Agricultural Organisation Agricultural Administration Integrating Irrigation Systems Agricultural Domination Tai to Thai Agriculture Agricultural Life Summary Chapter 5 - Emerging Agribusiness: Ayutthaya to the Early Twentieth Century Agriculture, Environment and Morality Export Rice Cash Crops Foreign Influence Administering the Peasants State Irrigation Development Traders and Early Agribusiness Summary Chapt...

Description Details
The long-awaited third edition of the Atlas of Hawai'i is entirely revised in content and design. It is divided into six sections, five of which are abundantly illustrated. The first contains detailed reference maps with place names for towns, mountains, bays, harbors, and other features; geographical descriptions of the state and the main islands; and an introduction to Hawaiian place names. This is followed by four sections on the physical, biotic, cultural, and social aspects of the Hawai'i environment. Geology, climate, the ocean, water, soils, and astronomy are among the topics discussed in "The Physical Environment." Next the special character of terrestrial and marine ecosystems is described in "The Biotic Environment." "The Cultural Environment" considers the people of Hawai'i. The diversity of the state's cultures is treated in chapters on history and languages as well as archaeology, religion, and the arts. "The Social Environment" treats such elements as the economy, government, and tourism. The sixth and final section comprises a statistical supplement, bibliography, and gazetteer for the reference maps. Readers of th...

Excerpt Details
Eo e ku'u lei mokupuni o na kai 'ewalu- I call to you, acknowledge O my lei islands of the eight seas. Located between 19 and 22 degrees north latitude, Hawai'i is the southernmost state in the United States and has the same general latitude as Hong Kong and Mexico City. It is situated almost in the center of the Pacific Ocean and is one of the most isolated yet populous places on Earth. The west coast of North America, for example, is 2,400 miles (3,900 kilometers) from Honolulu, and Japan is 3,800 miles (6,100 kilometers) away. Six time zones separate Hawai'i from the eastern United States. This means that 9:00 A.M. (eastern standard time) in Washington, D.C. and New York City is 6:00 a.m. in Los Angeles and 4:00 a.m. in Hawai'i....

Table of Contents Details
Preface -- ix -- Acknowledgments -- xi -- Introduction -- xiii -- Kaua'i and Ni'ihau -- 3 -- O'ahu -- 7 -- Moloka'i and Lana'i -- 11 -- Maui -- 14 -- Hawai'i -- 17 -- Northwestern Hawaiian Islands -- 23 -- Hawaiian Place Names -- 26 -- Mapping and Geodesy -- 29 -- Geology -- 37 -- Geothermal Resources -- 47 -- Climate -- 49 -- Hawai'i and Atmospheric Change -- 60 -- Paleoclimate and Geography -- 64 -- Natural Hazards -- 67 -- Earthquakes -- 69 -- Volcanic Hazards on the Island of Hawai'i -- 72 -- Hurricanes -- 74 -- Tsunamis -- 76 -- Coastal Hazards -- 79 -- The Ocean -- 82 -- Water -- 87 -- Soils -- 92 -- Astronomy -- 97 -- Biogeography -- 103 -- Evolution -- 107 -- Marine Ecosystems -- 111 -- Terrestrial Ecosystems -- 121 -- Birds -- 130 -- Native Plants -- 135 -- Insects and Their Kin -- 140 -- Hawaiian Tree Snails -- 144 -- Alien Species and Threats to Native Ecology -- 146 -- Endangered and Threatened Species -- 150 -- Protected Areas -- 154 -- Archaeology -- 161 -- History -- 169 -- Population -- 183 -- Languages -- 198 -- Religion -- 201 -- Architecture -- 205 -- Museums and Libraries -- 208 -- Culture and the Arts -- 211 --...

Description Details
What this Book is About There is a commonly held view that the incidence and scale of disasters is increasing in the modern world although some disagreement on whether the incidence of events, such as Tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, floods etc., that can give rise to disasters is increasing. The view is understandable, both population and their built environment are increasing so more is at risk and this trend of increased risk will continue while populations continue to rise. As the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) enumerates this: ‘Natural disasters are becoming more costly: in constant dollars, disaster costs between 1990 and 1999 were more than 15 times higher ($652 billion in material losses) than they were between 1950 and 1959 ($38 billion at 1998 values) The human cost is also high: over the 1984–2003 period, more than 4.1 billion people were affected by natural disasters. The number affected has grown, from 1.6 billion in the first half of that period (1984–93) to almost 2.6 billion in the second half (1994-2003), and has continued to increase. Although disasters caused by natural events occur throughout...

Table of Contents Details
List of figures, table & Abbreviations ix Acknowledgements x What this Book is About 1 Chapter 1 - Key Concepts 7 Disaster Risk Reduction 7 Risk 10 Fast and Slow Onset Disasters 11 Resilience 12 Systems Thinking 13 Self-organising Systems 18 A System for Disaster Risk Reduction 21 Evaluation of Natural Disasters 22 Chapter 2 –Components of Disasters and NRM 27 Economic Analysis – Five Forms of Capital 27 The Significance of Context 31 Ecosystems Functional Analysis ...

Description Details
The whole paradoxist distich should be as a geometric unitary parabola, hyperbola, ellipse at the borders between art, philosophy, rebus, and mathematics – which exist in complementariness. The School of Paradoxist Literature, which evolved around 1980s, continues through these bi-verses closed in a new lyric exact formula, but with an opening to essence. For this kind of procedural poems one can elaborate mathematical algorithms and implement them in a computer: but, it is preferable a machine with … soul!...

Excerpt Details
I M M O D E S T With the shame Shamelessness U N D E C I D E D Fighting Himself J A Z Z ( I ) Melodious Anarchy J A Z Z ( I I ) Anarchic Melody...

Table of Contents Details
Fore/word and Back/word _________ 3 The making of the distich : _____ 3 Characteristics: ______________ 3 Historical considerations: _____ 5 Types of Paradoxist distiches ___ 8 1. Clichés paraphrased: ___ 8 2. Parodies: _____________ 8 3. Reversed formulae: ____ 8 4. Double negation _______ 8 5. Double affirmation, ____ 8 6. Turn around on false tracks: _________________ 8 7. Hyperboles (exaggerated): __________________ 8 8. With nuance changeable from the title: ________ 8 9. Epigrammatic: ________ 8 10. Pseudo-paradoxes: ___ 8 11. Tautologies: ________ 9 12. Redundant: _________ 9 13. Based on pleonasms: _ 9 14. or on anti-pleonasms: 9 15. Substitution of the attribute in collocations ___ 9 16. Substitution of the complement in collocations 9 17. Permutation of various parts of the whole: ___ 9 18. The negation of the clichés ______________ 10 19. Antonymization (substantively, adjectively, etc.) ________________ 10 20. Fable against the grain: _________________ 10 21. Change in grammatical category (preserving substitutions’ homonymy): ________________ 10 22. Epistolary or colloquia style: _________...