Books about Rethinks from Amazon.com

Even geniuses change their minds sometimes

Edge (www.edge.org), the influential online intellectual salon, recently asked 150 high-powered thinkers to discuss their most telling missteps and reconsiderations: What have you changed your mind about? The answers were brilliant, eye-opening, fascinating, sometimes shocking, and certain to kick-start countless passionate debates.

Read Steven Pinker on the future of human evolution • Richard Dawkins on the mysteries of courtship • Sam Harris on the indifference of Mother Nature • Nassim Nicholas Taleb on the irrelevance of probability • Chris Anderson on the reality of global warming • Alan Alda on the existence of God • Lisa Randall on the secrets of the Sun • Ray Kurzweil on the possibility of extraterrestrial life • Brian Eno on what it means to be a "revolutionary" • Helen Fisher on love, fidelity, and the viability of marriage • Irene Pepperberg on learning from parrots. . . and many others.

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By popular demand—study guides to two of Bishop John Shelby Spong's bestselling and controversial works, including questions, reflections, and summaries for group and individual use.

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Is celibacy the only moral alternative to marriage? Should the widowed be allowed to form intimate relationships without remarrying? Should the church receive homosexuals into its community and support committed gay and lesbian relationships? Should congregations publicly and liturgically witness and affirm divorces? Should the church's moral standards continue to be set by patriarchal males? Should women be consecrated bishops? Bishop Spong proposes a pastoral response based on scripture and history to the changing realities of the modern world. He calls for a moral vision to empower the church with inclusive teaching about equal, loving, nonexploitative relationships.

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This book is a powerful reminder that there's more than one solution to every creative problem. Readers will find 37 original projects followed by reinterpretations from top professionals. These re-mixes serve as a creative jolt for those inevitable times when designers need a little extra inspiration. Each section starts with an original design and detailed Q&A-style captions that explain the concept and process behind the design. The following re-designs - ranging from wild freeform creations to more subtle changes - are paired with insightful captions that give readers a rare (and sometimes humorous) glimpse into other professionals' creative thought processes. With page after page full of never-before-seen artwork, this book is the kind designers will pull down from the shelf again and again. It's an essential idea-sparking tool..
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One third of adults in the United States some 71 million people are currently dieting to make positive changes in their health.

Yet physical fitness is only one aspect of living a Total Quality Life. Even if we get our bodies in shape through physical diets, we still do not have total health if our thought-life is not in proper balance.

The way we think determines the way we act. Thoughts become actions and actions become habits, so gaining control of our thoughts is the critical first step in making positive life changes.

The Apostle Paul knew that when he urged us to bring all of our thoughts into captivity and to abandon the practice of conforming the way we think to the low level of the world around us. Instead, we should be trans-formed by the renewing of our minds! Our thoughts are the key to maintaining healthy and productive lives.

In ReThink Your Life, best-selling author and leadership mentor Stan Toler outlines the practical steps anyone can take to discover purpose, focus, decision-making, and improve their quality of life by renewing the mind. This helpful book will lead readers to genuine life change through the most basic Christian discipline renewing the mind..
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The banner in Rafe Esquith’s classroom at Hobart Elementary School reads: “There are no shortcuts ” And his students are a testament to the power of that philosophy These are kids who speak English as a second language, fourth--and fifth--graders who go to school in a part of Los Angeles where violence and despair are the norms of the neighborhood.

But the statistics are not what you’d expect: Esquith’s students score in the country’s top 10 percent on standardized tests and go on to colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, University of Chicago, Swarthmore, Stanford, and UCLA. How do they do it?

Esquith’s view—that learning isn’t easy and that it shouldn’t be—is an increasingly unusual take among educators. Success, he believes, comes from a strong work ethic and from dedication and perseverance on the part of children, teachers, and parents alike. But such ideas prove to be a hard sell to those who believe that hard work and fun must be mutually exclusive. On the other hand, visitors from all over the world have made a pilgrimage to this astonishing classroom.

Esquith’s students work hard. They are in the classroom at 6:30 a.m. and stay until 5:00 p.m. They come to school during their vacations. Each year the Hobart Shakespeareans, as Esquith’s students are known, perform one of the Bard’s plays—Sir Ian McKellen and Hal Holbrook are passionate patrons. These Renaissance children are outstanding mathematicians and scientists; they read Steinbeck and Malcolm X; they are artists; they play classical music and blistering rock 'n' roll. Above all, they are recognized for their impeccable manners, which serve them well as Esquith accompanies them all over the United States. They are, as many observers have commented, the gold standard in American education.

His former students in middle and high school return on Saturdays, where they read Ibsen, Chekhov, and eight Shakespeare plays a year. In their “Wake Up with Will” program, these eager youngsters travel the world with Esquith and his wife, from London to Paris to colleges all over the country. It’s a classroom where the American Dream really does come true.

There have been no shortcuts for Rafe Esquith, either. He had to learn the hard way: dealing with bureaucratic administrators, antagonistic colleagues, and his own impetuous and occasionally tactless, even confrontational, nature. But his history, peppered with funny and painful incidents, and a gallery of incisive portraits--Miss Mothball, Miss Busy-As-a-Bee, Mr. Incompetent--explains his extraordinary success as a teacher.

His scathing yet loving view from the front lines is the most trenchant look at American education to appear
in many years. It’s a full-alert warning signal, an inspiration, and a guide for teachers, parents, and all the rest of us who care about our country’s children..
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In this bold critique of modern ideas about sex, marriage, and contraception, Sam and Bethany Torode set forth a vision that is fresh for our times yet rooted in centuries of Christian tradition. Weaving together a sound theology of spousal love with honest information and personal insight, Open Embrace offers a compelling alternative to the unquestioned use of contraception. The Torodes challenge modern lifestyles and popular wisdom about how soon to have children, how many are desirable, and how to prevent them, while still recognizing that the number of children each family can best support will vary. Open Embrace is far more than a case against contraception - it is a positive affirmation of fertility, childbearing, and prudent self-control. Couples who practice Natural Family Planning, as advocated in this book, cooperate with God's design for their bodies, making wise decisions about family size without losing respect for the mystery and meaning of sex. Whether one agrees or disagrees with its conclusions, Open Embrace is a rewarding read for all engaged and married couples seeking to sharpen their moral discernment..
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It is argued that we stand now at the end of the age of enlightenment--the reason-based network of social, political, and business relationships and understandings that have guided the Western world (as well as much of the East) for nearly 400 years. Bestselling author Danah Zohar has her finger on the pulse of this moment in history and brings her extraordinary intelligence to bear on how we are changing, what is required for positive change, and how this change plays a role in the evolution of business, organizations, and management.

Corporations have been a world of Newtonian organization, thriving on certainty and predictability. They are hierarchical, with power emanating from the top, and control exercised at every level. Heavily bureaucratic and rule-bound, they are necessarily inflexible and are managed as though the part organizes the whole.

Rewiring the Corporate Brain argues that we are moving away from a Newtonian to a complexity-based system and offers a new conceptual structure for a fundamental transformation in corporate thinking and leadership, together with suggestions for practical, structural implementation. Zohar, a noted author and speaker, writes with skill and breadth about the implications of new science, and remarkably brings her insights home in ways that are practical and applicable to the science and practice of organizational behavior and management. Rewring the Corporate Brain relates quantum and chaos thinking directly to organizational problems and challenges facing corporate leaders. It offers the human brain and its various thinking structures as the primary model for exercising the full creative capacities of the corporate brain.

Rewiring the Corporate Brain offers a genuinely new conceptual structure for a fundamental transformation in corporate thinking and leadership, along with suggestions for practical, structural implementation. Beautifully written, passionately and clearly argued, Rewiring the Corporate Brain makes new paradigm scientific thinking accessible, practical and inspiring to business readers..
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Seeking to re-imagine the meaning and significance of the international border, Opening the Floodgates makes a case for eliminating the border as a legal construct that impedes the movement of people into this country.

Open migration policies deserve fuller analysis, particularly on the eve of a presidential election. Kevin R. Johnson offers an alternative vision of how U.S. borders might be reconfigured, grounded in moral, economic, and policy arguments for open borders. Importantly, liberalizing migration through an open borders policy would recognize that the enforcement of closed borders cannot stifle the strong, perhaps irresistible, economic, social, and political pressures that fuel international migration.

Controversially, Johnson suggests that open borders are entirely consistent with efforts to prevent terrorism that have dominated immigration enforcement since the events of September 11, 2001. More liberal migration, he suggests, would allow for full attention to be paid to the true dangers to public safety and national security.

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