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Best-selling author Leland Gregory--who has so entertainingly highlighted humanity's stupidity in the areas of crime, business, love, politics, cruelty, and history--is back with Stupid California. This time, Gregory builds a case for the common suspicion that Californians, from movie moguls to beach bums, have a special affinity for idiocy. Culled from print, online, and broadcast sources, Stupid California is a hilarious collection of true stories, trivia, and factoids about the Golden State, such as: * "California's state animal is the California grizzly bear, which is also on the state flag. The bear was honored in 1953, a full 31 years after the last known bear in the state was killed." * "During the 1980s, in a bold stroke against terrorism, the Chico City Council banned nuclear weapons, enacting a mandatory $500 fine for anyone detonating a nuclear weapon within city limits." Silly, shocking, weird, and amusing, Stupid California is ideal for both kinds of people--those who love California and those who hate it.
“Concise, clear and convincing. . . a vision for the country as a whole.” —James Fallows, The New York Times Book Review A leading sociologist's brilliant and revelatory argument that the future of politics, work, immigration, and more may be found in California Once upon a time, any mention of California triggered unpleasant reminders of Ronald Reagan and right-wing tax revolts, ballot propositions targeting undocumented immigrants, and racist policing that sparked two of the nation's most devastating riots. In fact, California confronted many of the challenges the rest of the country faces now—decades before the rest of us. Today, California is leading the way on addressing climate change, low-wage work, immigrant integration, overincarceration, and more. As white residents became a minority and job loss drove economic uncertainty, California had its own Trump moment twenty-five years ago, but has become increasingly blue over each of the last seven presidential elections. How did the Golden State manage to emerge from its unsavory past to become a bellwether for the rest of the country? Thirty years after Mike Davis's hellish depiction of California in City of Quartz, the award-winning sociologist Manuel Pastor guides us through a new and improved California, complete with lessons that the nation should heed. Inspiring and expertly researched, State of Resistance makes the case for honestly engaging racial anxiety in order to address our true economic and generational challenges, a renewed commitment to public investments, the cultivation of social movements and community organizing, and more.
The world Cal and Frida have always known is gone, and they've left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable in the face of hardship and isolation. Mourning a past they can't reclaim, they seek solace in each other. But the tentative existence they've built for themselves is thrown into doubt when Frida finds out she's pregnant. Terrified of the unknown and unsure of their ability to raise a child alone, Cal and Frida set out for the nearest settlement, a guarded and paranoid community with dark secrets. These people can offer them security, but Cal and Frida soon realize this community poses dangers of its own. In this unfamiliar world, where everything and everyone can be perceived as a threat, the couple must quickly decide whom to trust. A gripping and provocative debut novel by a stunning new talent, California imagines a frighteningly realistic near future, in which clashes between mankind's dark nature and deep-seated resilience force us to question how far we will go to protect the ones we love. "In her arresting debut novel, Edan Lepucki conjures a lush, intricate, deeply disturbing vision of the future, then masterfully exploits its dramatic possibilities."-Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad
Cannibals, Surfboards, and, Like, Everything! In the deep, dark 1980s, Jim Crotty and Michael Lane quit their jobs, traded everything they owned for a 26-foot motorhome, and hit the road with their cats, their convictions, and a solar-powered Mac. Their mission: to travel the great American landscape and report on the incredible people, places, and parking lots they encountered along the way. One fateful day, their Monkmobile rattled into California… "Reading these guys is like watching a grainy, irreverent film about America— real, unreal, surreal." —The Boston Globe "[The Monks] don't simply document a chosen city or region. They dissect it, demystify it, revel in its oddities." —San Diego Union Tribune "Modern troubadors…writing about themselves and America." —The New York Times "Kerouacs of the ’90s." —The Seattle Times "An unshaven version of Travel & Leisure." —Utne Reader Dockweiler State Beach Museum of Jurassic Technology Slab City ■ Mojave Airport Pacific Lumber Company Saint Stupid's Day Parade Columbarium ■ Sixteen to One Mine Banana Man ■ Nudist Colonies The Astrophysicist of Love L.A. Police Academy ■ Madonna Inn Forestiere Underground Gardens Foster's Big Horn ■ Critical Mass Devil's Golf Course Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum Deep Creek Hot Springs Sagely, City of 10,000 Buddhas and more, More, More Visit us Online at www.frommers.com
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Cadillac Desert in the past few weeks, as the rain fell and fell and kept falling over California, much of which, despite the pouring heavens, seems likely to remain in the grip of a severe drought. Reisner anticipated this moment. He worried that the West’s success with irrigation could be a mirage — that it took water for granted and didn’t appreciate the precariousness of our capacity to control it.” – Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times, January 20,2023 "The definitive work on the West's water crisis." --Newsweek The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecological and economic disaster. In his landmark book, Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West. Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden--an Eden that may only be a mirage. This edition includes a new postscript by Lawrie Mott, a former staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, that updates Western water issues over the last two decades, including the long-term impact of climate change and how the region can prepare for the future.
An A-to-Z treasury of dumb, disastrous, and hard-to-believe human behavior from the New York Times-bestselling author of Stupid History! * A doctor’s actual diagnostic notation: The patient is married but sexually active. * “Shooting Reported at Firing Range” —The State, Columbia, South Carolina, August 4, 2006 * Arrested for public urination in Bowling Green, Ohio: Mr. Joshua Pees. —The Sentinel-Tribune, Bowling Green, Ohio, September 5, 2001 From absurd 911 calls to presidential philosophizing and foolish felons, Leland Gregory generates the best laughs by exposing the worst of human nature. This best-of collection features fifty percent new material and fifty percent fan favorites, arranged alphabetically by topic. And because the stories Gregory chronicles are just that unbelievable, each anecdote, quote, or factoid is presented with relevant background information, including its verified news source.
New York Times Bestseller: Welcome to the land of the free, the home of the brave—and, apparently, the dumb, bizarre, and gullible . . . Did you know that . . . *John Tyler was on his knees playing marbles when he was informed that Benjamin Harrison had died and he was now president of the United States *For reasons still unknown, Texas congressman Thomas Lindsay Blanton, a Presbyterian Sunday school teacher and prohibitionist, inserted dirty words into the Congressional Record in 1921—for which his colleagues officially censured him by a vote of 293-0 *Two US presidents were indentured servants—and one of them ran away and wound up with a $10 reward posted for his capture From Columbus to George W. Bush, the bestselling coauthor of America’s Dumbest Criminals leads us through the many mythconceptions of our nation’s history in this lively book, exposing lots of entertaining moments of idiocy and inanity along the time line.
"Am I different? Yeah. Deep down, you know you want to wear wider bottoms; you're just not secure enough. . . . Do I do my hair with a weed whacker? I admit it." --Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio, 1985-2002) Supposedly some of our brightest speakers, politicians say some pretty stupid things. Members of America's major political parties put out a roaring stream of downright dumb comments, pronouncements, and observations. For proof, look no further than Ted Rueter's 449 Stupid Things Democrats Have Said. In 449 Stupid Things Democrats Have Said. Al Gore said, "I would have kissed Tipper longer at the convention." Hillary Rodham Clinton, during a 2000 campaign interview with Hot 97, a Manhattan hip-hop radio station, stated, "Motown, Motown: That's my era. Those are my people." Rueter snags them all and provides two wonderful collections of quotations that will truly go down in history.
Am I different? Yeah. Deep down, you know you want to wear wider bottoms; you're just not secure enough. . . . Do I do my hair with a weed whacker? I admit it. --Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio, 1985-2002) Supposedly some of our brightest speakers, politicians say some pretty stupid things. Members of America's major political parties put out a roaring stream of downright dumb comments, pronouncements, and observations. For proof, look no further than Ted Rueter's 449 Stupid Things Republicans Have Said. 449 Stupid Things Republicans Have Said includes subjects ranging from cloning and federal spending to foreign affairs and kissing. Asked what he and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair have in common, President George W. Bush remarked, Well, we both use Colgate toothpaste. According to then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, If you set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear energy is really very good.; Rueter catches the best of the best, whether the gaffes came from Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Strom Thurmond.