- Table View
- List View
Smart Universities in Smart Cities: Shaping the Future of Education and Urban Innovation (Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design)
by Radosław Wolniak Joanna Rosak-SzyrockaSmart Universities in Smart Cities: Shaping the Future of Education and Urban Innovation focuses on how higher education institutions are adapting to the challenges of the digital age in a world increasingly influenced by technology and sustainability. Universities are becoming an indispensable element of smart cities, driving forward innovation, sustainability, and urban living.The book explores how emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, and blockchain are transforming campuses into dynamic, data-driven ecosystems. Both of these dimensions are studied through data analytics, case studies, and futuristic thinking perspectives to identify opportunities and challenges of the establishment of smart universities within the broader ecosystem of smarter cities. The book offers a holistic approach to planning educational institutions, covering issues such as sustainable campus development, digital learning environments, and smart mobility solutions.As universities undergo digital transformation, they advance not only learning but also the larger role of academia in society. The book envisions the future, where intelligent campuses act as centres of knowledge, collaboration, and sustainable development, propelling the world into a smarter and more inclusive reality for future generations. It will be of interest to researchers and students of urban planning and sustainability studies, as well as to urban planners and policymakers.
Smart Urban Safety and Security: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
by Anniina Autero Marcela de Moraes Batista Simão Ilari KarppiThis open access book explores the use of technologies for urban safety and security. Rather than focusing on the technologies themselves, it provides and in-depth analysis of the complex urban transformations linked to the increasing integration of technical systems in the built environment. Interdisciplinary contributions explain how technologies can improve urban safety, whilst offering a broader discussion relative to urban, socio-economic and political factors. Against simplistic techno-solutionist ideas, the authors illustrate the role of technology as means to an end and show how technologies can widen our understanding of safety and security. Readers are introduced to issues relative to the practical implementation, development, and testing of urban technologies via numerous case studies from cities around the world.
Smart Users for Energy and Societal Transition
by Hervé Barry Benoit Robyns Claude Lenglet Malik Bozzo-ReyClimate change and the loss of biodiversity are now realities. Their causes and origins stem from the energy, goods and resources relied upon by the lifestyle of a growing part of humanity. Smart Users for Energy and Societal Transition presents this much needed transition, as well as the scenarios and paths essential to mitigating the impacts of climate change. It deals with transitions experimented in the form of ecosystems in universities, cities and territories, as well as with concepts of smart buildings, smart grids and smart cities, addressed to smart users – or not – in an interdisciplinary research context. Sociological issues related to the role of smart building users are discussed, ranging from acceptance to the appropriation of the technologies made available to them. The book highlights the ethics of this essential transition and the importance of individual behaviors in safeguarding humanity on a preserved planet.
Smart and Healthy Walking: Toward Better Health and Life in Smart Cities (SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology)
by Tin-Chih Toly Chen Yun-Ju LeeThis book examines smart technologies and their invaluable role in augmenting the walking experience of mobile users. From meticulously planned walking routes to precise footprint detection and analysis, as well as cutting-edge fall detection and prevention mechanisms, these intelligent technologies have the potential to revolutionize healthy and smart walking. Against the backdrop of the post-COVID-19 era, where unrestricted mobility has become pivotal for restoring normalcy, the demand for smart healthcare solutions has soared. The book explores latest advances in sensor technology, cloud computing, deep learning, and networking and related innovative applications that can leverage smart technologies to enhance healthy walking.
Smart and Sustainable Cities and Buildings (Contemporary Urban Design Thinking Ser.)
by Rob Roggema Anouk RoggemaThis book brings together the papers presented at the Smart and Sustainable Built Environments Conference, 2018 (SASBE).This latest research falls into two tracks: smart and sustainable design and planning cities; and the technicalities of smart and sustainable buildings. The growth of smart cities is evident, but not always linked to sustainability. This book gives an overview of the latest academic developments in increasing the smartness and sustainability of our cities and buildings. Aspects such as inclusivity, smart cities, place and space, the resilient city, urbanity and urban ecology are prominently featured in the design and planning part of the book; while energy, educational buildings, comfort, building design, construction and performance form the sub-themes of the technical part of the book. This book will appeal to urban designers, architects, urban planners, smart city designers and sustainable building experts.
Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions
by Richard Stephens Adriano Bisello Daniele Vettorato Pietro EliseiThis book presents cutting-edge work on innovative planning methodologies, tools and experiences aimed at supporting the transition of our cities and regions towards a more smart and sustainable dimension. This book comprises a selection of the best papers presented at the international conference "Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions 2015", held in November 2015 in Bolzano, Italy. Contributions from different research fields within urban and regional planning from the scientific as well as the professional community are presented: energy planning for cities and regions, how to couple the energy-climate goals with the development or renovation of the built environment and how to tackle the vulnerability to climate change; smart and sustainable technologies, big data, integrated infrastructures and mobility management, from holistic geospatial tools to innovative apps and Internet of Things; benefits, costs and opportunities of urban transition toward a more smart and sustainable dimension, accounting and assessment of values and trade-offs within the decision making processes; governance for smart and sustainable growth, fostering place-based policy-making, active and effective stakeholders' participation, co-production and public-private partnerships; cooperation and demonstration projects: their role in fostering the adoption of new approaches and technologies, towards the development of win-win solutions.
Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions: Results Of Sspcr 2015 (Green Energy And Technology)
by Adriano Bisello Daniele Vettorato Pierre Laconte Simona CostaThis book comprises a selection of the top contributions presented at the second international conference “Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions 2017”, held in March 2017 in Bolzano, Italy. Featuring forty-six papers by policy-makers, academics and consultants, it discusses current groundbreaking research in smart and sustainable planning, including the progress made in overcoming cities’ challenges towards improving the quality of life. Climate change adaptation and mitigation of global warming, generally identified as drivers of global policies, are just the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to smart energy transition. Indeed, equally relevant towards this current transformation – and key topics in this volume – are ICTs, public spaces and society; next economy for the city; strategies and actions for good governance; urban-rural innovation; rethinking mobility. The book’s depth in understanding and insightfulness in re-thinking demonstrate the breaking of new ground in smart and sustainable planning. A new ground that policy-makers, academics and consultants may build upon as a bedrock for smart and sustainable planning.
Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions: Results of SSPCR 2019 (Green Energy and Technology)
by Judith Borsboom-van Beurden Håvard Haarstad Adriano Bisello Daniele VettoratoThis book offers a selection of research papers and case studies presented at the 3rd international conference “Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions”, held in December 2019 in Bolzano, Italy, and explores the concept of smart and sustainable planning, including top contributions from academics, policy makers, consultants and other professionals. Innovation processes such as co-design and co-creation help establish collaborations that engage with stakeholders in a trustworthy and transparent environment while answering the need for new value propositions. The importance of an integrated, holistic approach is widely recognized to break down silos in local government, in particular, when aimed at achieving a better integration of climate-energy planning. Despite the ongoing urbanization and polarization processes, new synergies between urban and rural areas emerge, linking development opportunities to intrinsic cultural, natural and man-made landscape values. The increasing availability of big, real-time urban data and advanced ICT facilitates frequent assessment and continuous monitoring of performances, while allowing fine-tuning as needed. This is valid not only for individual projects but also on a wider scale. In addition, and circling back to the first point, (big) urban data and ICT can be of enormous help in facilitating engagement and co-creation by raising awareness and by providing insight into the local consequences of specific plans. However, this potential is not yet fully exploited in standard processes and procedures, which can therefore lack the agility and flexibility to keep up with the pulse of the city and dynamics of society. The book provides a multi-disciplinary outlook based on experience to orient the reader in the giant galaxy of smart and sustainable planning, support the transposition of research into practice, scale up visionary approaches and design groundbreaking planning policies and tools.
Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions: Results of SSPCR 2019—Open Access Contributions (Green Energy and Technology)
by Adriano Bisello Daniele Vettorato David Ludlow Claudia BaranzelliThis open access book offers a selection of research papers and case studies presented at the 3rd international conference “Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions”, held in December 2019 in Bolzano, Italy, and explores the concept of smart and sustainable planning, including top contributions from academics, policy makers, consultants and other professionals. Innovation processes such as co-design and co-creation help establish collaborations that engage with stakeholders in a trustworthy and transparent environment while answering the need for new value propositions. The importance of an integrated, holistic approach is widely recognized to break down silos in local government, in particular, when aimed at achieving a better integration of climate-energy planning. Despite the ongoing urbanization and polarization processes, new synergies between urban and rural areas emerge, linking development opportunities to intrinsic cultural, natural and man-made landscape values. The increasing availability of big, real-time urban data and advanced ICT facilitates frequent assessment and continuous monitoring of performances, while allowing fine-tuning as needed. This is valid not only for individual projects but also on a wider scale. In addition, and circling back to the first point, (big) urban data and ICT can be of enormous help in facilitating engagement and co-creation by raising awareness and by providing insight into the local consequences of specific plans. However, this potential is not yet fully exploited in standard processes and procedures, which can therefore lack the agility and flexibility to keep up with the pulse of the city and dynamics of society. The book provides a multi-disciplinary outlook based on experience to orient the reader in the giant galaxy of smart and sustainable planning, support the transposition of research into practice, scale up visionary approaches and design groundbreaking planning policies and tools.
Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions: Results of SSPCR 2022 (Green Energy and Technology)
by Dionysia Kolokotsa Adriano Bisello Daniele Vettorato Marta BotteroThis open access book includes a selection of innovative contributions presented at the 4th international conference “Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions 2022”, held in Bolzano, Italy in July 2022. Featuring 10 papers by academics and consultants, strongly rooted in practical experiences and international projects, it discusses current ground-breaking research in innovative and sustainable planning for cities, with a focus on the environmental, economic, and social challenges associated with the global sustainability transition and energy systems integration. The contributions are illustrative of the richness of the issues discussed and the breadth of the emerging themes, including innovative business models for building and infrastructure at district level, integrated sustainability assessment schemes for Positive Energy Districts, a material flow accounting model for regional metabolism, energy communities as a lever to promote historical and landscape values, optimized and electrified last-mile logistics, multi-criteria decision analysis tools to redefine center/periphery relationships, a framework for socio-spatial analysis related to social practices, design principles and communication technologies improving both indoor and outdoor public spaces, augmented nature-based solution coupling the green elements with the latest technologies to deliver healthier and more appealing cities.
Smart and Sustainable Urban Ecosystems: Proceedings of Smart and Sustainable Cities 2022 (Springer Geography)
by Riccardo Valentini Elvira Dovletyarova Viacheslav Vasenev Maria Korneykova Sergey Gorbov Denis Vinnikov Diana DushkovaThis book provides multidisciplinary approaches to smart and sustainable urban ecosystems. Urbanization is a global tendency, and up to 70% of the world population is projected to live in cities by 2050. How will this rapid urbanization alter the face of the world? What are the environmental consequences of megacities’ expansion? What are smart solutions to make life in cities safe, comfortable, and environmentally friendly? These and other important questions are addressed by the conference Smart and Sustainable Cities (SSC). This year’s theme for the conference will be « Sustainable urban ecosystems: challenges and solutions». Megapolises are complex ecosystems. Air and water quality, vegetation, and soils in megapolises are exposed to anthropogenic influence. Studying negative environmental consequences of the anthropogenic and technogenic pressures is among the key tasks of urban ecology and environmental impact assessment. Advanced approaches and smart technologies to monitor, model, and assess environmental consequences and risks in megapolises will be widely discussed at the conference. Searching for solutions of the environmental problems of modern megapolises will be the key point of the conference. Successful experiences of sustainable urban development and nature-based solutions to support climate adaptation, carbon neutrality, and human health will be presented in the conference proceedings.
Smart on Crime: The Struggle to Build a Better American Penal System
by Garrick L. PercivalThe most punitive era in American history reached its apex in the 1990s, but the trend has reversed in recent years. Smart on Crime: The Struggle to Build a Better American Penal System examines the factors causing this dramatic turnaround. It relates and echoes the increasing need and desire on the part of actors in the American government system to construct a penal system that is more rational and humane.Author Garrick L. Percival points out that the prison boom did not naturally emerge as a governmental response to increasing crime rates. Instead, political forces actively built and shaped the growth of a more aggressive and populated penal system. He is optimistic that the shifting political forces surrounding crime and punishment can now reform the system, explaining how current political actors can craft more constructive and just policies and programs. The book shows how rationality and humanitarianism lead to a penal system that imprisons fewer people, does less harm to the lives of individual offenders and those close to them, and is less expensive to maintain.The book presents empirical data to concretely demonstrate what is working and what is not in today’s penal system. It closely examines policies and practices in Texas, Ohio, and California as comparative illustrations on what progress has been made or needs to be made in penal systems across the United States. The book includes a comprehensive discussion of highlighted issues, and relates more than two dozen interviews with pivotal political actors who clarify why there is a major shift underway in the American penal system. Their insights reveal paths that can be taken to improve the current penal system.
Smart. Internet(s): una investigación
by Frédéric Martel<P>Un análisis sorprendente del uso de internet y las redes sociales en el mundo, por el aclamado autor de Cultura Mainstream ¿Cómo ha podido China crear sus propios clones de Google, Facebook y YouTube? ¿De qué manera los países árabes supieron emplear las redes sociales para emprender sus revoluciones? ¿Debemos temer que el inglés se convierta en la lengua empleada «por defecto» en Internet? <P>De Silicon Valley a Tokio, de Brasil a Washington, de Sudáfrica a la India y llegando hasta Cuba o Gaza, Frédéric Martel emprende una investigación sin precedentes, sobre el terreno, y hace un análisis profundo del protagonismo y la influencia de internet y las redes sociales en el mundo, demostrando que hay tantos internets como países. <P>Este enfoque del tema, novedoso y optimista, da cuenta de un mundo mucho más smart de lo que pensábamos, en el que se respetan las singularidades nacionales, las identidades y las diferenciaslocales. No debemos temer el mundo digitalizado: el futuro de internet depende del uso que se haga de él.
Smarter Ballots: Electoral Realism and Reform (Elections, Voting, Technology)
by J.S. MaloyThis book presents a new democratic theory of election reform, using the tradition of political realism to interrogate and synthesize findings from global elections research and voting theory. In a world of democratic deficits and uncivil societies, political researchers and reformers should prioritize creating smarter ballots before smarter voters. Many democracies’ electoral systems impose a dilemma of disempowerment which traps voters between the twin dangers of vote-splitting and “lesser evil” choices, restricting individual expression while degrading systemic accountability. The application of innovative conceptual tools to comparative empirical analysis and previous experimental results reveals that ballot structure is crucial, but often overlooked, in sustaining this dilemma. Multi-mark ballot structures can resolve the dilemma of disempowerment by allowing voters to rank or grade multiple parties or candidates per contest, thereby furnishing democratic citizens with a broader array of options, finer tools of expression, and stronger powers of accountability. Innovative proposals for ranking and grading ballots in both multi-winner and single-winner contests, including referendums, are offered to provoke further experimentation and reform—a process that may help the cause of democratic elections’ relevance and survival.
Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools, Second Edition: How to Survive and Thrive in Tight Times
by Nathan LevensonIn the updated edition of Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools, Nathan Levenson proposes fresh strategies for more efficient, equitable resource allocation within school districts.Budgets, according to Levenson, can be a surprisingly powerful lever for improved student achievement outcomes and equity. Readers of this revised edition will find practical advice for funding equity initiatives and social-emotional services, among other student needs. Levenson also discusses how to accommodate common, necessary school expenses and district improvement measures such as capital purchases, personnel costs, and campus renovations within tight funding models. The key is creativity: Levenson invites readers to shift their mindsets and embrace innovative ideas for using limited resources strategically.An indispensable guide, Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools delivers proven, successful practices for school leaders—superintendents, central office leaders, building principals, and school board members—who hope to make smarter, better informed financial decisions and stretch declining district budgets. It outlines budget management tactics for working around financial constraints brought on by shrinking tax revenues, rising health care and pension costs, and increased special education needs. The book also addresses how to manage declining or increasing enrollment numbers.Throughout this useful and timely work, Levenson provides real-world examples, critical worksheets, and actionable suggestions to help decision-makers apply these concepts and realize a greater academic return on their investments.
Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools: How To Survive and Thrive in Tight Times
by Nathan LevensonArmed with real-world examples and out-of-the-box ideas, Nathan Levenson challenges conventional thinking about school budgeting and offers practical, actionable advice for school superintendents, central office leaders, building principals, and school board members.Virtually every school district in the nation is experiencing an extended period of financial constraints. Shrinking tax revenue, decreasing federal stimulus funds, rising health care and pension costs, and growing high-need student populations will continue to test superintendents and school boards as they seek to prepare students for a globally competitive environment.
Smarter Growth: Activism and Environmental Policy in Metropolitan Washington (The City in the Twenty-First Century)
by John H. SpiersSuburban sprawl has been the prevailing feature—and double-edged sword—of metropolitan America's growth and development since 1945. The construction of homes, businesses, and highways that were signs of the nation's economic prosperity also eroded the presence of agriculture and polluted the environment. This in turn provoked fierce activism from an array of local, state, and national environmental groups seeking to influence planning and policy. Many places can lay claim to these twin legacies of sprawl and the attendant efforts to curb its impact, but, according to John H. Spiers, metropolitan Washington, D.C., in particular, laid the foundations for a smart growth movement that blossomed in the late twentieth century.In Smarter Growth, Spiers argues that civic and social activists played a key role in pushing state and local officials to address the environmental and fiscal costs of growth. Drawing on case studies including the Potomac River's cleanup, local development projects, and agricultural preservation, he identifies two periods of heightened environmental consciousness in the early to mid-1970s and the late 1990s that resulted in stronger development regulations and land preservation across much of metropolitan Washington.Smarter Growth offers a fresh understanding of environmental politics in metropolitan America, giving careful attention to the differences between rural, suburban, and urban communities and demonstrating how public officials and their constituents engaged in an ongoing dialogue that positioned environmental protection as an increasingly important facet of metropolitan development over the past four decades. It reveals that federal policies were only one part of a larger decision-making process—and not always for the benefit of the environment. Finally, it underscores the continued importance of grassroots activists for pursuing growth that is environmentally, fiscally, and socially equitable—in a word, smarter.
Smarter New York City: How City Agencies Innovate
by André Corrêa D’AlmeidaInnovation is often presented as being in the exclusive domain of the private sector. Yet despite widespread perceptions of public-sector inefficiency, government agencies have much to teach us about how technological and social advances occur. Improving governance at the municipal level is critical to the future of the twenty-first-century city, from environmental sustainability to education, economic development, public health, and beyond. In this age of acceleration and massive migration of people into cities around the world, this book explains how innovation from within city agencies and administrations makes urban systems smarter and shapes life in New York City.Using a series of case studies, Smarter New York City describes the drivers and constraints behind urban innovation, including leadership and organization; networks and interagency collaboration; institutional context; technology and real-time data collection; responsiveness and decision making; and results and impact. Cases include residential organic-waste collection, an NYPD program that identifies the sound of gunshots in real time, and the Vision Zero attempt to end traffic casualties, among others. Challenging the usefulness of a tech-centric view of urban innovation, Smarter New York City brings together a multidisciplinary and integrated perspective to imagine new possibilities from within city agencies, with practical lessons for city officials, urban planners, policy makers, civil society, and potential private-sector partners.
Smarter Planet?: IBM's Climate Solutions
by Eban Goodstein Sharon NunesOn October 19, 2011, Sharon Nunes participated in The National Climate Seminar, a series of webinars sponsored by Bard College's Center for Environmental Policy. The online seminars provide a forum for leading scientists, writers, and other experts to talk about critical issues regarding climate change. The series also opens a public conversation, inviting participants to ask questions and contribute their own thoughts. Sharon Nunes is Vice President of the Smarter Cities Strategy & Solutions program at IBM, working with municipal leaders to manage urban systems more efficiently. In her lecture, Nunes discussed the ability of smart grids and other information technology to save energy, time, and costs. Questions focused on the barriers to implementing these systems, and Nunes addressed ongoing challenges as well as successful programs. This E-ssential is an edited version of Nunes' talk and the subsequent question and answer session. While some material has been cut and some language modified for clarity, the intention was to retain the substance of the original discussion.
Smartphones, Current Events and Mobile Information Behavior: Consuming, Reacting, Sharing, and Connecting through News
by Kyong Eun Oh Rong TangSmartphones and Information on Current Events provides unprecedented insights into young people’s news consumption patterns and the ecology of mobile news. Advancing our knowledge of mobile behaviour, the book also highlights the ways in which mobile news impacts the lives of the general public. Using a multi-faceted research model on mobile news consumption behaviour, Oh and Tang examined a wide spectrum of mobile news consumption activities, outlined the key characteristics of mobile news, as well as captured users’ near real-time evaluation of and emotional reactions to news stories. The book also shows that the process of using smartphones to receive, read, find, share, and store news stories has resulted in new behavioural patterns that enable people to consume news in a multifaceted way. Analyzing the extent and various methods of mobile news sharing can, Oh and Tang argue, help us understand how such exchanges reshape contemporary society. Demonstrating that mobile news consumption is now an integral part of people’s daily lives, the book clearly shows that its impact on people’s day-to-day activities, and their political and social lives, cannot be underestimated. Smartphones and Information on Current Events will be useful to scholars, students, and practitioners who are studying library and information science, journalism and media, digital communication, user behaviour, information technology, human-computer interaction, marketing, political science, psychology, and sociology.
Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments
by Erin L. ThompsonA leading expert on the past, present, and future of public monuments in America. An urgent and fractious national debate over public monuments has erupted in America. Some people risk imprisonment to tear down long-ignored hunks of marble; others form armed patrols to defend them. Why do we care so much about statues? Which ones should stay up and which should come down? Who should make these decisions, and how? Erin L. Thompson, the country’s leading expert in the tangled aesthetic, legal, political, and social issues involved in such battles, brings much-needed clarity in Smashing Statues. She lays bare the turbulent history of American monuments and its abundant ironies, from the enslaved man who helped make the statue of Freedom that tops the United States Capitol, to the fervent Klansman fired from sculpting the world’s largest Confederate monument—who went on to carve Mount Rushmore. And she explores the surprising motivations behind contemporary flashpoints, including the toppling of a statue of Columbus at the Minnesota State Capitol, the question of who should be represented on the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in Central Park, and the decision by a museum of African American culture to display a Confederate monument removed from a public park. Written with great verve and informed by a keen sense of American history, Smashing Statues gives readers the context they need to consider the fundamental questions for rebuilding not only our public landscape but our nation as a whole: Whose voices must be heard, and whose pain must remain private?
Smear Tactics: The Liberal Campaign to Defame America
by Brad MinerIn this spirited survey of liberal lies and dirty tricks, Brad Miner, one of America's leading conservative insiders, offers a look at the American liberal tradition of slander, insult, and character assassination throughout history. Smear Tactics mines both today's papers and the classic campaigns of history for tales of liberal deception and manipulation. Tracing smears from the early days of our nation right through the run-up to the 2008 elections, Miner highlights the Left's most atrocious campaigns against:Soldiers: The media's attacks on our troops, from Vietnam to IraqThe Faithful: The Left's campaign to vilify Christians in American lifeEntrepreneurs: Is the American Dream dead? The Left says yes, and Girl Scout cookies, Wal-Mart, and Legos have all played a part.President Bush: He caused global warming and Hurricane Katrina? Smears against the man the Left loves to hate. As Brad Miner shows, American politics has never been a sport for gentlemen—but recent campaigns have proven dirtier than ever, full of negative ads, rumormongering, and worse. With the coming election a wide-open race, full of polarizing candidates of all stripes, the mud is about to start flying across the American landscape, and in Smear Tactics Brad Miner returns the fire—with a vengeance.
Smells like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire
by Matt TaibbiMatt Taibbi is notorious as a journalistic agitator, a stone thrower, a "natural provocateur" (Salon. com). His scathing, vibrant prose shines an unflinching spotlight on the corruption, dishonesty, and sheer laziness of our leaders. Smells Like Dead Elephants brings together Taibbi's most incisive, intense, and hilarious work from his "Road Work" column in Rolling Stone. Written over the last two years, a period in our history with no shortage of outrages to compel Taibbi's pen, these pieces paint a shocking portrait of our government at work--or, as Taibbi points out in "The Worst Congress Ever," rarely working. "In the Sixties and Seventies, Congress met an average of 162 days a year. The 109th Congress set the all-time record for fewest days worked by a U.S. Congress: 93. Figuring for half-days, in fact, the 109th Congress probably worked almost two months less than the notorious 'Do-Nothing' Congress of 1948". Taibbi has plenty to say about George W. Bush, Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, and all the rest, but he doesn't just hit inside the Beltway. He gets involved in the action, infiltrating Senator Conrad Burns's birthday party under disguise as a lobbyist for a fictional oil firm that wants to drill in the Grand Canyon. He floats into apocalyptic post-Katrina New Orleans in a dinghy with Sean Penn. He goes to Iraq as an embedded reporter, where he witnesses the mind-boggling dysfunction of our occupation and spends three nights in Abu Ghraib prison. And he reports from two of the most bizarre and telling trials in recent memory: California v. Michael Jackson and the evolution-vs.-intelligent-design trial in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A brilliant collection from one of the most entertaining political writers of today, Smells Like Dead Elephants is a stylish record of the offenses of the Bush years.
Smelter Wars: A Rebellious Red Trade Union Fights for Its Life in Wartime Western Canada (Canadian Social History Series)
by Ron VerzuhIn 1938, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) sent communist union organizer Arthur "Slim" Evans to the smelter city of Trail, British Columbia, to establish Local 480 of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. Six years later the local was recognized as the legal representative of more than 5,000 workers at a smelter owned by the powerful Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada. But the union’s fight for survival had only just begun. Smelter Wars unfolds that historic struggle, offering glimpses into the political, social, and cultural life of the semi-rural, single-industry community. Hindered by economic depression, two World Wars, and Cold War intolerance, Local 480 faced fierce corporate, media, and religious opposition at home. Ron Verzuh draws upon archival and periodical sources, including the mainstream and labour press, secret police records, and oral histories, to explore the CIO’s complicated legacy in Trail as it battled a wide range of antagonists: a powerful employer, a company union, local conservative citizens, and Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) leadership. More than the history of a union, Smelter Wars is a cultural study of a community shaped by the dominance of a world-leading industrial juggernaut set on keeping the union drive at bay.
Smeltertown
by Monica PeralesCompany town. Blighted community. Beloved home. Nestled on the banks of the Rio Grande, at the heart of a railroad, mining, and smelting empire, Smeltertown--La Esmelda, as its residents called it--was home to generations of ethnic Mexicans who labored at the American Smelting and Refining Company in El Paso, Texas. Using newspapers, personal archives, photographs, employee records, parish newsletters, and interviews with former residents, including her own relatives, Monica Perales unearths the history of this forgotten community. Spanning almost a century,Smeltertowntraces the birth, growth, and ultimate demise of a working class community in the largest U. S. city on the Mexican border and places ethnic Mexicans at the center of transnational capitalism and the making of the urban West. Perales shows that Smeltertown was composed of multiple real and imagined social worlds created by the company, the church, the schools, and the residents themselves. Within these dynamic social worlds, residents forged permanence and meaning in the shadow of the smelter's giant smokestacks. Smeltertownprovides insight into how people and places invent and reinvent themselves and illuminates a vibrant community grappling with its own sense of itself and its place in history and collective memory.