Preshrunk Ponderings and Rumpled Rememberings is a collection of folksy essays on low-cost housing and its relationship to homelessness, on public transportation and its relationships to independence of movement and quality of life, on artifice and institutionalism in higher education, and on the tinkering mind and creative science. The author draws from his experiences in living life fully from the low-end of the economic scale and offers uncommon perspectives on what readers may find common all around us. Reasonable analyses of problems are intended less toward offerings of solutions than to provoke thought and stimulate discussion. There are no overt polemics or hard-line politics that might stir the dental profession to action from widespread gnashing of teeth. These are just amiable discourses on a few diverse topics to animate some dimension to the prevailing flat dullness and torpor. They are easy reading for a few lazy hours.

Preshrunk Ponderings and Rumpled Rememberings is a collection of folksy essays on low-cost housing and its relationship to homelessness, on public transportation and its relationships to independence of movement and quality of life, on artifice and institutionalism in higher education, and on the tinkering mind and creative science. The author draws from his experiences in living life fully from the low-end of the economic scale and offers uncommon perspectives on what readers may find common all around us. Reasonable analyses of problems are intended less toward offerings of solutions than to provoke thought and stimulate discussion. There are no overt polemics or hard-line politics that might stir the dental profession to action from widespread gnashing of teeth. These are just amiable discourses on a few diverse topics to animate some dimension to the prevailing flat dullness and torpor. They are easy reading for a few lazy hours.

This book is an in-depth analysis of three of the most crucial years in twentieth-century Italian history, the years 1943-46. After more than two decades of a Fascist regime and a disastrous war experience during which Italy changed sides, these years saw the laying of the political and cultural foundations for what has since become known as Italy's First Republic. Drawing on texts from the literature, film, journalism, and political debate of the period, Antifascisms offers a thorough survey of the personalities and positions that informed the decisions taken in this crucial phase of modern Italian history.

Out of necessity in frankly covering a murky subject like pornography, this book may occasionally have language that could be offensive to some people. The book explores pornography in a social context that originated with the first clothing and the first language. The exploration continues with the invention of the camera, its offering of new opportunities in pornography, and various legal and social interactions growing out of these. The author explores a hypothesis that interest in pornography has its roots in a debaucher-debauchee dichotomy beginning with civilization, and this generates the spectator fascination, commercial customers, pornography creators, and porno models themselves. Touches on the history of pornography, legal issues raised by pornography, and descriptions of aspects of pornography should enlighten readers to an enormous and real cultural phenomenon lurking below the surface of our contemporary civilization and not without its effects on everyone.

A catastrophe of unimaginable proportions struck in the middle of the twelfth century BC and with a sudden swiftness brought Old World civilizations to an abrupt end. This initiated the worlds longest and deepest known dark age. When the world finally recovered centuries later, new written languages had replaced old ones, a new strategic and useful metal had replaced the old one, and the historical reality of the old civilizations had been replaced by yore and myth invented from fragments passed down through the barrier of the long deep dark age. Some of these fragments, and possibly some references to the catastrophe itself, may be found in the Old Testament and in ancient Greek literature. Out of the fragmented preserved memories, and stories built around them, we became what we are today.

Battling bad guys. High-tech hideouts. The gratitude of the masses. Who at some point in their life hasn't dreamed of being a superhero? Impossible, right? Or is it? Possessing no supernatural powers, Batman is the most realistic of all the superheroes. His feats are achieved through rigorous training and mental discipline, and with the aid of fantastic gadgets. Drawing on his training as a neuroscientist, kinesiologist, and martial artist, E. Paul Zehr explores the question: Could a mortal ever become Batman? Zehr discusses the physical training necessary to maintain bad-guy-fighting readiness while relating the science underlying this process, from strength conditioning to the cognitive changes a person would endure in undertaking such a regimen. In probing what a real-life Batman could achieve, Zehr considers the level of punishment a consummately fit and trained person could handle, how hard and fast such a person could punch and kick, and the number of adversaries that individual could dispatch. He also tells us what it would be like to fight while wearing a batsuit and the amount of food we'd need to consume each day to maintain vigilance as Gotham City's guardian. A fun foray of escapism grounded in sound science, Becoming Batman provides the background for attaining the realizable—though extreme—level of human performance that would allow you to be a superhero.

An aid to solving crosswords. It contains over 100,000 potential solutions, including plurals, comparative and superlative adjectives, and inflections of verbs. The list extends to first names, place names and technical terms, euphemisms and compound expressions, as well as abbreviations.