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Kids on a planet similar to earth start painting their noses blue only to find out they don't like the "baggage" they must carry around and that it is difficult to quit. Allegory on drug abuse.

Poetry. A quiet lyric grace informs the poems of James Brock, a grace which never fails to console and locate their speaker, even in the midst of his restless odyssey among many American landscapes. The poems speak with a subtle necessity and authority, both as they confront the bagaries of daily living and as they perform their more demanding investigation into the meaning of loss. These are poems that understand, as one of his lines puts it, 'the inchoate currents of desire' -- David Wojahn. In this powerful collection, James Brock allows us to listen in on a fascinating argument between geography and the imagination. To describe a hugely various country, pulsing with radio talk, and covered with interstate highways, shopping malls, museums, beaches and potato fields is an ambitious project, but to show us how we become exiles and dreamers in our own land is to illuminate the inner landscape as well -- Maura Stanton.

One of James Brock's finest works, LeatherWings is fast paced, humor laced, and over-the-top. Schemes mix with blood, gore, and lots of explicit gay sex in this tale of power struggle, acceptance of what and who you are, and holding onto love with everything you have once you find it. Introduction: Raised by his out and over-the-top Uncle and their 'keeper of the house and rules' Marta, handsome orphan Carter Ellis seems to have it all: a loving home, the discipline to be a champion swimmer, and more money than an internet titan. He is kind, compassionate, caring and loyal, but he also has a few secrets. Carter's struggles, including his crush on the hot daddy next door, Ashford Tanner, are minor, however, compared to the hidden worlds that have been surrounding him his entire life. The secrets begin to give way when Carter learns that Ash and his young ward, Ty, are Vampires, creatures of the night who are working against an evil Vampiress and her honey sweet human "Renfrew" who is determined to help her employer take over the world, one bite at a time if need be! While pining for Ash (and reeling at the news that the object of his lust is among the undead!), young Carter diverts himself with work, a hot fling (who has a dark and a little smelly secret of his own) as well as his usual bickering banter with hot-as-a-Marine-in-a-jockstrap Ty. Thrown together to defend themselves against forces of the dark, Carter and Ty discover they have more in common than they realized, a long simmering attraction that had been hidden beneath a veneer of jealousy and hate. Excerpt: Ashford Connor appeared to be in his late forties and looked like a movie star of that same era. His lean, athletic torso was clothed in a pair of neatly pressed khaki pants, a light pink Ralph Lauren polo shirt stretched over his muscular chest. His often unruly shock of thick auburn hair had been combed into submission, piercing blue eyes were shielded by a pair of steel rim glasses which I knew were only for show. I smiled down at Ash while reaching into the coffin to pluck a pair of ear buds from his head. "Thank Jupiter for the New York Times," the handsome man in the casket said with a broad smile. "Uh huh. I'm sure it wasn't some trashy novel," I returned, with a trace of sarcasm which, given that I was late and nearly naked, was NOT called for. I went about picking up the electronic reader that had been resting on his chest as if nothing were unusual. Modern life had made some parts of being undead easier. Ash liked to be able to retire a little earlier than sunset some days and use his e-reader before he was turned into a statue in his dark, safe place. ****** Ty pushed my buttons, creeped me out (I had seen him feed), bugged me, tormented me, was a thorn in my side and just downright made me mad, but he DID NOT scare me. Oh, there were times he would make insinuations about what he could DO to me, yet no matter how Nosferatu he went on me, I just was not afraid of him. For one thing, he was too freaking cute to be afraid of. And besides, if he ever did try any funny business with me he would be on the receiving end of Ash's wrath, and the Gods of old help him then! He also got me hot. As much as I disliked his SO MANY bad qualities, he was one sexy vampire. So, yeah, despite some anger management issues, I often had carnal thoughts of Ty at the back of my mind.

A political scientist, scholar and the best-selling author of Stalking the Elephant: My Discover of America describes the War of 1812 and discusses the strange alliance of a Shawnee chieftain and an English Major-General.

"I love Jesus but not the church" is an all-too-frequently expressed sentiment that reflects the following reality: There exists a cultural divide between the church and her surrounding neighbors. This divide continues to grow and impede how the gospel is heard and experienced. This project was initiated in order to develop a disciple-making curriculum as a bridge-building strategy to equip Christ-followers to be full of grace (respect, love, mercy, and compassion) and full of truth (a biblically informed worldview that builds character and informs an ability to discern issues through a biblical lens) in everyday life. This research consisted of a two-part study. Study one (S1) utilized a quantitative anonymous survey to understand how attitudes and beliefs influence Christ-followers—specifically members of White River Christian Church (WRCC)—and their behaviors toward diverse people. The results revealed specific areas to address in the local context. In study two (S2), the findings were applied to the development of an intervention pilot at WRCC titled "BRIDGES: Becoming Good Neighbors and Building Missional Bridges." In order to evaluate if the tailored intervention, BRIDGES, was less effective, as effective, or more effective than a typical missional discipleship program administered at WRCC called "99:1," a quasi-experimental, pretest/posttest comparison group design was utilized to establish valid results. Both S1 and S2 included qualitative elements that provided objective data about respondents' attitudes and behaviors. Although multiple studies have been published regarding the ill effects of racism (e.g. slavery, lynching, and white privilege or the denial of it), little to no work within the Independent Christian Church has been completed on white, evangelical Christians’ perceptions of underrepresented racial, ethnic, and cultural populations and how their attitudes and biases affect their behaviors toward diverse people. Coming to terms with cultural otherness is a necessary part of the shared human experience of receiving God’s gift of grace, pointing others toward Christ, and bearing Christ’s image to others.

The Bigness Complex confronts head-on the myth that organizational giantism leads to economic efficiency and well-being in the modern age. On the contrary, it demonstrates how bigness undermines our economic productivity and progress, endangers our democratic freedoms, and exacerbates our economic problems and challenges. This new edition has a thoroughly updated variety of issues, examples, and new developments, including government bailouts of the airline industry; regulation of biotechnology; the fiasco of recent electricity deregulation; and mergers and consolidations in oil, radio, and grocery retailing. The analysis is framed in the timeless context of American distrust of concentrations of power. The authors show how both the left and the right fail to address the central problem of power in formulating their diagnoses and recommendations. The book concludes with an alternative public philosophy as a viable guidepost for public policy toward business in a free-enterprise democracy.

As Clueless brought Emma by Austen into the 1990s, Roosevelt, Michigan reimagines The Great Gatsby for troubadours in 2012. Welcome to an unforgettable celebration no one wants to end--until people start dying. Word by word, Dylan James Brock's take on a Michigan county summons the spirit of Fitzgerald and sets it in a world where Faulkner would feel at home. Roosevelt, Michigan is a novel inspired by all night house shows and early morning benders, where no one is sure what's in the punch but everyone is enjoying the journey. With painstaking attention to source material, Brock captures the spirit of Gatsby and takes him home to the Great Lakes. Buddy Henshaw is a folk musician and teenage orphan who lit out on a cross-country filmmaking project. After nearly killing his first love and collaborator Lily by falling asleep at the wheel, he flees her angry family for New York City, leaving her convinced he is dead. When he returns home to Michigan a decade later and founds an artists' colony in a desolate downtown, he hopes to recapture Lily, but ends up partying his way into a series of murders instead. Ultimately, casualties mount from battles between his artistic and romantic ambitions, and Buddy's friends are left to deal with the wreckage that remains.