Archives de catégorie : Current Issues

FIRE DRILL FRIDAYS de Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda’s next book focuses on the climate crisis and her Fire Drill Friday weekly demonstrations in Washington D.C.

FIRE DRILL FRIDAYS:
Bold Moves for a Burning Planet
by Jane Fonda
Penguin Press, July 2021

Since October 11th, Jane Fonda has been leading weekly Friday protests in Washington D.C. in her now iconic red coat, heeding the urgent call of young activists like Greta Thunberg to take fighting climate change to the streets. She and the Friday actions have gotten so much media attention, in part because of Jane’s unyielding commitment in the form of civil disobedience, in which other celebrities and growing crowds of activists have been inspired to participate.

In the book, she writes of her awakening from an environmentally responsible lifestyle to an urgent need to engage in global activism as she hikes in Big Sur. With urgency as well as her signature humanity and humor, Jane will take readers with her as she leaves her comfort zone, bonds with activists young and old, experiences each week’s actions, is arrested and spends time in jail. In addition, she will write about how she learns from experts before the events—activists and scientists—about everything from stopping fossil fuel production to the impact on health and women. As she says, so many of us feel overwhelmed; we need to connect the dots to better understand what needs to be done.

HAPPY NOT PERFECT de Poppy Jamie

A guide to mental wellbeing for Generation Z from influencer Poppy Jamie

HAPPY NOT PERFECT:
Four Steps To Shifting Your Brain—And Your Life
by Poppy Jamie
Rodale, March 2021

Poppy is a burst of 29-year old energy guiding the 250,000 individuals who have downloaded her app, HAPPY NOT PERFECT, to care about their brain health in an entirely new way. A mindfulness expert with personal experience to support her, Poppy draws on leading psychology research to present breakthrough solutions for the burnout, anxiety and insecurity afflicting her peers in unprecedented ways, as well as many others. HAPPY NOT PERFECT addresses the most anxious and depressed generation in history. The news is full of headlines about mental health concerns for GEN Z, including early onset stress burnout and a greatly increased suicide rate. In fact, half of millennials and 75% of Gen Zers have quit jobs for mental health reasons, according to CNBC this October. HAPPY NOT PERFECT identifies a new set of ideas to advance mental wellbeing and features one of Gen Z’s own who knows how to captivate her audience. Poppy’s platform is increasing rapidly, and she is already taking this conversation around the world.

Influencer and businesswoman Poppy Jamie was named one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” at age 25. By 26, Poppy was hosting her Snapchat talk show “Pillow Talk with Poppy” and taking part in the uniquely Millennial experience of sharing glamorous and heavily curated pictures of her fabulous life with her 95,000 Instagram followers, while privately facing a breakdown. Inspired by messages from her constituents, in May 2018 she launched Happy Not Perfect, and its corresponding product line. Poppy was born in the UK and currently lives in NY, London, and Los Angeles.

Lire une interview de Poppy Jamie sur le site Appear Here

FOMO – FEAR OF MISSING OUT by Patrick McGinnis

« FOMO: Fear of Missing Out is provocative, timely and highly persuasive »

FOMO – Fear of Missing Out: Practical Decision Making in a World of Overwhelming Choice
by Patrick J. McGinnis
Sourcebooks, May 2020

FOMO speaks directly to the dark side of social media lurking below all the colorful memes and hashtags and explores how FOMO is a powerful, persistent and widespread mindset that causes stress, insecurity, jealousy, and even depression in individuals in its sway.Writing with urgency, vision and brio, Patrick is opening a window on a pervasive condition that affects a huge number of people in their personal and business relationships – filled with real life stories, current research, and personal insights, FOMO: Fear of Missing Out is provocative, timely and highly persuasive in defining a cultural ethos of our digital-driven age and calling for change. There is no similar book on the market or in the works.

Patrick J. McGinnis is a writer, speaker and venture capitalist and private equity investor who has invested in leading companies in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. He is credited with coining the term “FOMO” or “fear of missing out,” which was added to the Oxford Dictionary in 2013. His original article on the topic, written while at Harvard Business School, was published in the “Fear” issue of Lapham’s Quarterly alongside pieces by Sigmund Freud, Nadine Gordimer, Joseph Heller, Václav Havel, and Thomas Hobbes. A graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard Business School, Patrick has visited more than 80 countries and is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

BLOWOUT de Rachel Maddow

Big Oil and Gas Versus Democracy–Winner Take All

BLOWOUT:
Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth
by Rachel Maddow
Crown, October 2019

Rachel Maddow’s Blowout offers a dark, serpentine, riveting tour of the unimaginably lucrative and corrupt oil-and-gas industry. With her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the globe–from Oklahoma City to Siberia to Equatorial Guinea–exposing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas. She shows how Russia’s rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia’s rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the United States, and the West’s most important alliances. Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, but ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson emerge as two of the past century’s most consequential corporate villains. The oil-and-gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers, and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, « like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can’t really blame the lion. It’s in her nature. »
This book is a clarion call to contain the lion: to stop subsidizing the wealthiest industry on earth, to fight for transparency, and to check the influence of predatory oil executives and their enablers. The stakes have never been higher. As Maddow writes, « Democracy either wins this one or disappears. »

Rachel Maddow is host of the Emmy Award-winning Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, as well as the author of Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power, a #1 New York Times bestseller. Maddow received a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Stanford University and earned her doctorate in political science at Oxford University. She lives in New York City and Massachusetts with her partner, artist Susan Mikula.

A ROPE FROM THE SKY de Zach Vertin

The untold story of America’s attempt to forge a nation from scratch, from euphoric birth to heart-wrenching collapse

A ROPE FROM THE SKY
The Making and Unmaking of the World’s Newest State
by Zach Vertin
Pegasus Books, January 2019

South Sudan’s historic independence was celebrated around the world―a triumph for global justice and an end to one of the world’s most devastating wars. But the party would not last long; South Sudan’s freedom fighters soon plunged their new nation into chaos, shattering the promise of liberation and exposing the hubris of their foreign backers. Chronicling extraordinary stories of hope, identity, and survival, A Rope from the Sky journeys inside an epic tale of paradise won and then lost. This character-driven narrative follows a cast of liberators who rally around a common idea and achieve the unthinkable. Mobilizing on their behalf is an unprecedented coalition of Americas: Democrats and Republicans, ideologues and activists, evangelical Christians, and Hollywood celebrities. This righteous alliance helps deliver South Sudan from tyranny, only to watch in disbelief as it comes dramatically undone. Finally, a war-weary people must pick up the piece and start over again―an uncertain quest to salvage a republic from the shards of a broken dream. Weaving together narratives local and global, this is first a story of power, promise, greed, compassion, violence, and redemption from the world’s most neglected patch of territory. But is also a story about the best and worst of America―both its big hearted ideals and its difficult reckoning with the limits of American power amid a changing global landscape.
Zach Vertin’s firsthand accounts, from deadly war zones to the halls of Washington power, bring readers inside this unique episode in global history―an unprecedented experiment in state-building, and a cautionary tale. From battlefields and ballrooms to the emerald green marshes of the Nile, A ROPE FROM THE SKY is brilliant and breathtaking, a modern-day Greek tragedy that will challenge our perspectives on global politics.

Zach Vertin is an American writer, foreign policy expert, and former diplomat; he has spent the last twelve years working in international peace and conflict issues, not least in South Sudan. He is currently a Lecturer at Princeton University and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center. He previously served in the Obama Administration as a Senior Adviser to the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and Sudan South Sudan, and prior to that he was a Senior Analyst for the International Crisis Group. He has written or commented for: The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Economist, The Atlantic, CNN, the BBC, and more.