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Natural Elements
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Mason, Richard, PUBLISHER: Knopf Publishing Group, In his much celebrated debut novel, "The Drowning People," Richard Mason ("An Oxonian literary sensation" --"The" "New York" "Times Book Review") wrote with wisdom and mastery well beyond his twenty-one years--about love, betrayal, and revenge, and about the particular ritualized world of the English upper class. Now in his dazzling new novel Mason writes about mothers and daughters; aging and death; memory and longing; history and narrative; and about the high-stakes, full-tilt embrace of life. The setting is London. The time is the present. Mother and daughter are choosing an assisted-living facility and have come to The Albany, a late-nineteenth-century Victorian mansion, the flagship property of the TranquilAge(TM) chain of nursing homes. The mother, Joan--eighty years old, a gifted amateur pianist denied the pleasures of performance by arthritic hands--has recently been experiencing a rich inner world that she hides from her daughter, a world gained access through the (seemingly magic) pedals of her piano: a portal to adventure. She dreads the prospect of leaving her apartment, but her daughter has decided that she can no longer live on her own. The daughter, Eloise--forty-eight, a hedge fund manager, two decades in commodities--long ago rejected the possibilities of motherhood and has lived enviably free of responsibility. At her pressure-cooker job, Eloise has bought up $130 million (a quarter of the hedge fund's money) of osmium reserves--a transition metal--based on a casual remark by her former lover, a French metallurgist, a genius of sorts, with whom she lived and whom she almost married in Paris in the s. He's been working for years on the development of the compound, which will be tougher than diamonds for industrial use and is only months away from trials. If successful, it could more than double the value of the fund Eloise manages. While mother and daughter are on the trip-of-a-lifetime to the South African capital of the old Orange Free State, the city of Joan's girlhood, Eloise gets a frantic phone call. The price of osmium is in free fall; the fund is off-loading... Fighting panic with a coherent strategy, Eloise puts in motion a bold gamble that risks all--her future, the fund, her mother's well-being. As the stories of mother and daughter intersect, each in a race against time--Joan struggling to live in the present (she cannot believe her days will end in an institution); her daughter racing at breakneck speed toward the precipice of disaster--the novel rushes to its stunning conclusion.
Flash Rollei 134 REB
Funzionante con manuale originale Descrizione potente e facile da usare, il Rollei 134 REB è un flash TTL progettato per la fotografia a media distanza. Questo flash di montaggio a scarpa ha un campo di esposizione automatico di 2-20 ft. La parte superiore della testa ruota 180 gradi per l'illuminazione piena del soggetto. Due impostazioni automatiche di f-stop su questo flash della fotocamera Rollei consentono al fotografo di controllare la profondità di campo e di ottenere il massimo intervallo di flash automatico. Il rimbalzo verticale accende la luce per rendere la luce di qualità professionale. Inoltre, il circuito di tiristori auto sul Rollei 134 REB offre un tempo di riciclo più veloce di circa 10 secondi con batterie fresche con modalità a piena potenza. Questa tecnologia consente anche all'utente di ottenere più lampi dalla durata di quattro batterie AA che utilizzano questo flash di montaggio su scarpe. Il flash della fotocamera Rollei dispone anche di un quadrante di calcolo che è facile da usare e di un foro filettato da un quarto di pollice sul fondo del flash che si inserisce facilmente in qualsiasi telecamera da 35 mm o stand leggero. Offrendo una copertura a 60 gradi, l'unità Rollei 134 REB misura 5.6 x 2.9 x 2.65 pollici e pesa a 10.1 oz senza batterie installate. Description Durable, powerful, and easy to use, the Rollei 134 REB is a TTL flash designed for medium-distance photography. This shoe-mount flash has an automatic exposure range of 2-20 ft. Top of head swivels 180 degrees for full-fill lighting of the subject. Two automatic f-stop settings on this Rollei camera flash allow the photographer to control depth-of-field and achieve maximum automatic flash range. Vertical bounce softens light for rendering professional quality light. In addition, the auto Thyristor circuitry on the Rollei 134 REB provides a faster recycle time of about 10 seconds with fresh batteries using full-power mode. This technology also allows the user to achieve more flashes from the life of four AA batteries that operate this shoe-mount flash. The Rollei camera flash also features a calculator dial which is easy to use, and a one-quarter-inch threaded hole on bottom of flash which mounts easily to any 35 mm camera or light stand. Offering a full 60-degree coverage, the Rollei 134 REB unit measures 5.6 x 2.9 x 2.65 inches and weighs in at 10.1 oz without batteries installed.
Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Cagan, Joanna / Mause de, Neil / de Mause, Neil, PUBLISHER: Common Courage Press, Are you a sports fan distraught over seeing your home team move to another city? Or a happy sports fan whose city has just lured that team to your home turf with a brand new stadium? Or maybe you don't follow sports, but as a taxpayer are decrying cutbacks in school funding and other services. Whoever you are, state and local officials have thrown you a financial curve ball. While President Reagan made famous the false and chiding comment about "welfare queens" who ride around in Cadillacs, Field of Schemes introduces you to some real welfare kings -- who not only prefer BMWs, thank you, but also know the meaning of fun: -- A millionaire pizza baron wants more corporate luxury seating than his historic old ballpark provides, so he demands a new stadium at taxpayer expense, saying the old one is falling down. A group of grass-roots activists reveal that his engineering reports are faked, and that it would be far cheaper to renovate the old ballpark -- but the city and state go ahead with the project anyway. -- A used-car salesman turned baseba11 team owner promises to pay for a new stadium out of his own pocket, if the state government just agrees to move a highway to clear the land. Several backroom deals later, the state is paying to move the highway and raising a quarter-billion dollars towards the stadium costs, -- and the team owner is getting his stadium scott-free. -- The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft wants to buy a football team, but only if the state will build him a new stadium first. So he pays the state $4 million to hold an emergency referendum -- then spends millions more in advertising to make sure he wins. In exchange, he gets over $400 million in statetax money to build his team's new home. -- When an economically depressed city is faced with losing its football team, it scrambles to allocate $220 million for a new, state-of-the-art stadium. The next day, the city school system announces that it plans to lay off up to 160 teachers and eliminate interscholastic athletics. -- A Sunbelt town builds a new arena at public expense in order to lure expansion basketball and hockey franchises to the region. Just nine years later, the city is forced to build two new arenas, one for each sport, to keep the teams from bolting town. Total cost: almost $400 million, including $50 million for the soon-to-be-abandoned first arena. From Seattle Sea Hawks owner Paul Allen of Microsoft to New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, from Tom Monaghan of Domino's Pizza who destroyed Tiger Stadium to the building of Camden Yards, the stories are all here in a uniquely accessible journalistic style that brings you up close and personal to the moguls -- to the activists protecting your wallet. You'll be gripped by the behind-the scenes threats and political machinations in this play-by-play draining of billions of dollars from the public treasury. Between and , U.S. cities spent some $1.5 billion on building or r