After serving time for nearly killing his student—a crime he maintains he didn't commit—Sean McLaine, a puny drama teacher finds himself broke and friendless on the streets of South Boston at the peak of the Great Recession. His joints have been destroyed by compulsive weightlifting and his mind poisoned by the subtly sadistic prison psychologist. Salvation comes in the form of an Irish mobster who welcomes Sean into his clan and offers him a chance at a new life. A few plastic surgeries, fake documents, and a sham marriage help the underdog reinvent himself as a philanthropist. His radiant face now fronts one of the largest organ trade enterprises. To add a finishing touch to his saintly image, he adopts a mentally ill orphan named Casey. Diagnosed with juvenile schizophrenia and believed to be a menace to society, the girl spends most of her days in isolation with no access to electronics. When the flimsy child morphs into a moderately attractive teenager and catches the eye of a film student, Sean's lukewarm paternal affection takes a sinister turn. His inner demons that had been dormant for years become more active, and the weight of his secrets becomes a bit too heavy for his shoulders. Amidst the political upheavals and school violence of post-election America, the battle for Sean's soul begins. Very soon he discovers that hell has no bottom—you can always sink lower.

Top Secret Tips Unveiled Within! Part memoir, part survival manual, The Underdog's Manifesto isn't just one artist's story? It's every artist's story. It's our laughter in the face of disbelief; our resistance of corporate domination and social apathy; our commitment to crafting something original despite our culture's fascination with derivative, disposable mush. Underdog, in short, is the anti-how-to book. Creature's aim isn't sell another rags to riches homily but to remind us all through his candid reflections, raw wisdom and generosity of spirit that there's no shame in a hard day's hustle. Throughout history underdogs have always spirited the most authentic, audacious and original art of the day and spawned movements that have forever altered the creative landscape. Years from now Underdog may very well be regarded as the artistpreneur's clarion call. In the meantime let the voices and visions of the artists whose spirits canvas the pages of this book inspire you to look within and ask yourself why you create, what you're willing to sacrifice, what you believe and what it really means to be successful.

“Analyzing and refuting the common assumptions of anti-Americanism is a critical contribution to the global political debate. Thank goodness for this effort." —UN Ambassador John Bolton, author of Surrender is Not an Option David versus Goliath, the American Revolutionaries, "The Little Engine That Could," Team USA's "Miracle on Ice," the Star Wars Rebel Alliance, Rocky Balboa, the Jamaican bobsled team and the meek inheriting the Earth. Everyone, it seems, loves an underdog. Why is that? We begin life tiny and helpless, at the mercy of those who are bigger and more powerful than us: parents and guardians who tell us what to eat, what to wear, how to behave (even when to sleep and wake up). From childhood into adulthood, we're told what to do by those who wield more power—our parents, teachers, bosses government. So naturally, we have a predisposition to resent the overdogs and root for the little guy. But this tendency, which international political consultant and human rights activist Michael Prell calls “underdogma," can be very dangerous – both to America and to the world at large. In Underdogma, Prell, who has worked world leaders including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Australian and Canadian prime ministers and the Dalai Lama, explores our love/hate relationship with power within our culture and our politics. Underdogma explains seeming mysteries such as why: •Almost half of Americans blamed President Bush for the attacks of 9/11, even while the American media described the architect of these attacks as “thoughtful about his cause and craft" and “folksy." •Gays and lesbians protest those who protect gay rights (America, Israel), while championing those who outlaw and execute homosexuals (Palestine). •Environmentalists focus their rage on America, even though China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. •The United Nations elevates countries such as Sudan to full membership on the UN's Commission on Human Rights, even as the ethnic cleansing of Darfur proceeds. Tracing the evolution of this belief system through human history—ancient Greece to Marxism to the dawn of political correctness—Prell shows what continuing with this collective mindset means for our future. While America and its president increasingly exalt the meek and apologize for their power, America's competitors and enemies are moving in a different direction. China is projected to overtake the U.S. economically by 2027 and is ready to move into the position of hegemon, and radical Islamists are looking to extend their global territory, taking any sign of weakness as a chance to attack. America must return to its founding spirit, and underdogma must stop now—our nation depends on it.

The subject of this work consists of four influential books that had informedthe great political struggle known as the Cold War: "Darkness at Noon, Out ofthe Night, I Chose Freedom," and "Witness."

What are the still-unknown horizons of world thought? This book brings together prominent scholars from varying disciplines to speculate on this obscure question and the many crossroads that face intellectuals in our contemporary era and its aftermath. The result is a collection of “manifestos” that contemplate a potential global future for thinking itself, venturing across some of the most marginalized sectors of East and West (with particular emphasis on the Middle Eastern and Islamicate) in order to dissect crucial issues of culture, society, philosophy, literature, art, religion, and politics. The book explores themes such as as universality, translation, modernity, language, history, identity, resistance, ecology, catastrophe, memory, and the body, offering a groundbreaking alignment of texts and ideas with far-reaching implications for our time and beyond.

West Germany, 1915. Marie Stahl, a stoic combat nurse in her late twenties, unhindered by her own ailments, converts her family countryside estate into a convalescent home for soldiers slapped with the controversial diagnosis "shell shock". Her only helpers are two taciturn factory girls of Slavic descent. Marie's altruistic endeavor brings on the wrath of her embittered brother Fritz, a Sergeant-Major in the Germany army. Having lost a foot in the trenches, he considers these men traitors, deserving of execution, not sympathy. The one he detests most is Christoph Ahrens, an engineering student nicknamed "Nutcracker" for his unusually strong jaw. Despite her morose disposition, Marie finds herself intrigued by the haunted youngster, who turns out to be a pupil of her godfather, Dr. Drosselmeyer, a physics lecturer at the University of Cologne and a military technology pioneer. As Marie and Christoph grow closer, he confides in her about his nightmares. The most horrifying images are not of his experiences in the trenches but of Germany's future—the old country they have been proud to serve will not exist twenty years later. As a woman of science, Marie rejects the notion of clairvoyance, although a part of her cannot help but wonder if there is some truth to his predictions. In the meantime, the atmosphere at the convalescent home grows more hostile as the patients turn on each other and Marie begins to question her altruism. Set against the violence and paranoia of the Great War, Unshelled is a gritty, sinister retelling of the Christmas classic.

There has always been a strong connection historically between aesthetics and radical politics, and this is no less true for the global justice movement’s current preoccupation with cultural approaches to political action. The essays collected here seek to engage with past and present convergences between the theories and practices of artists and writers and the theories and practices of movements for radical social change. There is already a massive amount of literature on Marxist approaches to aesthetics, art and literature, and whilst recognising the usefulness of such approaches, the essays collected here attempt to engage with culture from other radical critical positions - whether they be anarchist, autonomist, ecological or otherwise. Such perspectives have often been overlooked historically, but it is arguable that they now more centrally influence the activities of radical artists and activists. As such, the perspectives of these essays, which are often drawn from or inspired by the practices of the current global justice movement, exhibit an exhilarating political and generational break with the suppositions of earlier radical theoretical approaches to cultural critique.