Showing results by narrator "Michael Butler Murray" in All Categories

Since 2001, the US Department of State has been sending hip hop artists abroad to perform and teach as goodwill ambassadors. There are good reasons for this: Hip hop is known and loved across the globe, acknowledged and appreciated as a product of American culture. Hip hop has from its beginning been a means of creating community through artistic collaboration, fostering what hip hop artists call building.

Secrets and Leaks examines the complex relationships among executive power, national security, and secrecy. State secrecy is vital for national security, but it can also be used to conceal wrongdoing. How then can we ensure that this power is used responsibly?

A metaphorical journey through the hot, shifting sands of the capital markets "desert" to awaken listeners to the urgency of the "Behavior Gap"—a chronic gap of under-performance relative to the markets experienced by investors worldwide. This is a roadmap of portfolio management concepts and contrarian tactics that can turn misbehaviors, undue risks, and short-term gambles into longer-term strengths.

Much of the attention paid to Trump's rise to power has focused on his corrosive personality and divisive style of governing. But he alone is not the problem. The vulnerability is much broader and deeper. The ascendance of Trump is the culmination of nearly 250 years of political reforms that gradually ceded party nominations to small cliques of ideologically motivated party activists, interest groups, and donors. Author Lawrence Jacobs provides a highly engaging history of political reforms since the late-eighteenth century that over time dangerously weakened democracy.

The intersection of 60th and Haverford Avenue in West Philly is one of the most notorious drug corners in the city. Seconds after police officer Jake Loman stops at the corner, one night, a man wearing a thobe - an Arab robe - over his street clothes, runs out of the corner bodega firing wildly at him. Jake takes several rounds before he can return fire. The shooter claims the attack was inspired by ISIS. Veteran detective Frank Benson and Sergeant Ophelia Brown-Thurman are assigned to the investigation.

Sean Gryphon has fought demons, werewolves, and other monsters that would give most people Lovecraftian nightmares without a second thought. He's tired of fighting, tired of killing, and most of all tired of protecting the human race when they seem intent on destroying themselves. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball. For Sean, that curve ball comes in the form of an ancient manuscript and the woman who found it.

The scene is the children's ward of a great hospital, and the story of a profoundly moving account of a young doctor's involvement in the life of Mary Berquam, an enchanting 11 year old girl affected with leukemia. He learns how to be a better, more compassionate doctor from this child.

In today's fast-moving and competitive business environment, strong leadership, insightful strategy, and effective innovation are critical links to staying ahead of your competition. Getting your business house in order can often be complicated, but does it really have to be? How do you take MBA 101 lessons, great models, and exceptional concepts and put them into play in the real world? Business Strategy: Plan, Execute, Win! strives to answers these questions in an educational and entertaining format.

Danny Keegan wants his fifth grade class to be different and, well, exciting. But when he meets four new kids who give new meaning to the term “weird” he realizes he’s in for more excitement than he bargained for!

Innovation is worth little unless it generates lasting success, and gaining measurable results from new ideas requires more than creative risk-taking. Successful innovation demands a tactical approach, and Getting Innovation Right reveals how your company can secure real traction and growth in the marketplace.

What is the future of news? That question takes on greater urgency with each passing year, and has triggered no shortage of controversy among journalists, scholars, and the public - some warning of serious journalism's imminent demise as traditional business models collapse, others anticipating its rebirth as networked citizens participate in the news process. What remains clear is that in our media shift from analog to digital, from one-way to increasingly many-to-many forms of communication, we need to rethink much of what we know about journalism - who produces it, under what conditions, and with what kind of impact in society.

Several centuries ago, a young Sioux woman called Lark rebels against her people's traditions and crosses the plains to save her adopted sister from a bad marriage proposal and return the girl to the Pawnee village from which she was abducted in childhood. At the end of her journey, Lark finds herself the center of a mysterious Pawnee ritual that undermines her plan as well as her confidence.

Charles Hunter, a former United States Re-Con Marine working as an independent contractor with an international security outfit, reluctantly accepts an assignment to assist in the rescue of a widow and her eight-year-old daughter who were being held hostage by a gang of criminals in Venezuela. His reluctance had nothing to do with the nature of the job, he liked rescues, they made him feel heroic. It was returning to Venezuela, the circumstances of his leaving, and the pain he had caused the people he had left behind that worried him.

John Schulian, a much-honored sportswriter for nearly forty years, takes us back to a time when our greatest athletes stood before us as human beings, not remote gods. In this compelling collection, Schulian paints prose portraits to remind fans of what today's cloistered stars won't share with them. The result is an audiobook guaranteed to stir memories for the generation that was - and to leave subsequent generations wishing they had it so good.

Explaining the world around us, and the life within it, is one of the most uniquely human drives, and the most celebrated activity of science. Good explanations are what provide accurate causal accounts of the things we wonder at, but explanation's earthly origins haven't grounded it: we have used it to account for the grandest and most wondrous mysteries in the natural world. Explanations give us a sense of understanding, but an explanation that feels right doesn't mean it is true.

Marketing with Web 2.0: Social Networking and Viral Marketing introduces social media marketing to advanced college and first year MBA students. The primary focus is to supplement and enhance the current marketing and technology curricula by applying standard marketing theory to the new online space. The text is positioned to build upon students’ familiarity with basic marketing approaches and their first-hand experience with social networking and viral marketing websites.