Proxmire


Book Description

Proxmire: Bulldog of the Senate is the first comprehensive biography of one of Wisconsin’s most important, and entertaining, political figures. Known for championing consumer-protection legislation and farming interests, Senator Proxmire also fought continuously against wasteful government spending, highlighting the most egregious examples with his monthly “Golden Fleece Award.” Remembered by many Wisconsinites as a friendly, hand-shaking fixture at sporting events and state fairs, Proxmire was one of the few politicians who voted his conscience and never forgot about the people he represented.




The Fleecing of America


Book Description

Examines numerous examples of the use and misuse of federal funds and offers suggestions for fiscal policies designed to promote more efficient government expenditures.




Proxmire and the Exodus of Prairieville


Book Description

Proxmire and the Exodus of Prairieville is a story told through the eyes of prairie dogs. Taking on human characteristics, these remarkable creatures are forced from their home on the Kansas prairie. Under the leadership of one called by the Great Creator, Proxmire is told to prepare to lead his doomed village to a Promised Land of peace and safety. Feeling inability in his leadership qualities, he is sent an atypical sidekick, a rabbit known as Potrella. As the group crosses into the Sandhills of Nebraska, there are moments of concern not unlike the Jewish people experienced upon entering their desert under the leadership of Moses. Emotions of mystery, terror, heartbreak, anxiety, and physical pain are balanced with those of joy, happiness, trust, and a growing respect for each other. Having taught at the fifth grade level for many years, I always felt an awareness of the need for literature which would stimulate the young reader into thinking about the importance of placing faith in a Higher Being, as well as raising thought to one’s responsibility to live a life of morality and serving others. Prairie dogs seemed to be the perfect animals to form my story around since they are in actuality high on the list of helpless creatures facing extinction. Therefore my purpose is twofold - - bringing to surface their present day plight as well as fulfilling my other intentions. It is my sincere hope that young and old alike will find a blessing in the reading of this story: that it may fill hearts with hope and souls with contentment, both of which I have personally found in serving the One they call The Great Creator.




Congressional Odyssey


Book Description




Desk 88


Book Description

Since his election to the U.S. Senate in 2006, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown has sat on the Senate floor at a mahogany desk with a proud history. In Desk 88, he tells the story of eight of the Senators who were there before him. "Perhaps the most imaginative book to emerge from the Senate since Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts produced Profiles in Courage." —David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe Despite their flaws and frequent setbacks, each made a decisive contribution to the creation of a more just America. They range from Hugo Black, who helped to lift millions of American workers out of poverty, to Robert F. Kennedy, whose eyes were opened by an undernourished Mississippi child and who then spent the rest of his life afflicting the comfortable. Brown revives forgotten figures such as Idaho’s Glen Taylor, a singing cowboy who taught himself economics and stood up to segregationists, and offers new insights into George McGovern, who fought to feed the poor around the world even amid personal and political calamities. He also writes about Herbert Lehman of New York, Al Gore Sr. of Tennessee, Theodore Francis Green of Rhode Island, and William Proxmire of Wisconsin. Together, these eight portraits in political courage tell a story about the triumphs and failures of the Progressive idea over the past century: in the 1930s and 1960s, and more intermittently since, politicians and the public have successfully fought against entrenched special interests and advanced the cause of economic or racial fairness. Today, these advances are in peril as employers shed their responsibilities to employees and communities, and a U.S. president gives cover to bigotry. But the Progressive idea is not dead. Recalling his own career, Brown dramatizes the hard work and high ideals required to renew the social contract and create a new era in which Americans of all backgrounds can know the “Dignity of Work.”




"A Problem from Hell"


Book Description

From former UN Ambassador and author of the New York Times bestseller The Education of an Idealist Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on America's repeated failure to stop genocides around the world In her prizewinning examination of the last century of American history, Samantha Power asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders who vow "never again" repeatedly fail to stop genocide? Power, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the former US Ambassador to the United Nations, draws upon exclusive interviews with Washington's top policymakers, thousands of declassified documents, and her own reporting from modern killing fields to provide the answer. "A Problem from Hell" shows how decent Americans inside and outside government refused to get involved despite chilling warnings, and tells the stories of the courageous Americans who risked their careers and lives in an effort to get the United States to act. A modern classic and "an angry, brilliant, fiercely useful, absolutely essential book" (New Republic), "A Problem from Hell" has forever reshaped debates about American foreign policy. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Winner of the Raphael Lemkin Award




Proxmire


Book Description




The Great Peshtigo Fire


Book Description

Reverend Peter Pernin was the parish priest for Peshtigo and nearby Marinette, whose churches burned to the ground. He published his account of the fire in 1874. The late William Converse Haygood served as editor of the Wisconsin Magazine of History from 1957 to 1975. He prepared this version of Father Pernin's account on the occasion of the Peshtigo Fire's centennial in 1971. Foreword writer Stephen J. Pyne is a professor at Arizona State University in Tempe and author of numerous books on wildland fire, including Fire in America.




Social Science for What?


Book Description

How the NSF became an important yet controversial patron for the social sciences, influencing debates over their scientific status and social relevance. In the early Cold War years, the U.S. government established the National Science Foundation (NSF), a civilian agency that soon became widely known for its dedication to supporting first-rate science. The agency's 1950 enabling legislation made no mention of the social sciences, although it included a vague reference to "other sciences." Nevertheless, as Mark Solovey shows in this book, the NSF also soon became a major--albeit controversial--source of public funding for them.







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