Bøger af Steve Fiffer

Fred Karger is not your average Republican candidate for president in 2012. For one thing, he's moderate. For another, he's Jewish. And for another, he's gay. While he never hid his politics or religion from the world, he did keep his homosexuality a secret for years. He was 41 when he finally came out to his family. And in his 27 years at one of the most highly regarded political consulting firms in the U.S., he never told his peers. Only after Karger retired in 2004 did he reveal himself. The revelations coincided with a new found social activism that blossomed in 2008 when Karger became involved in the effort to save same sex marriage in California (the battle over Proposition 8). In "outing" the Mormon Church's secret funding of the campaign to eliminate same sex marriage, Karger found himself the subject of international headlines; vitriolic condemnation by the Church and its front, the National Organization for Marriage; and even received a death threat. He also received numerous messages from gay men and women--many of them young--thanking him for his efforts. Having worked on hundreds of political campaigns, including nine presidential races, Karger was energized to run for president. As he makes clear in this book, crashing the party is nothing new to him. In his youthfully exuberant days, he crashed the stage at the Academy Awards twice, Hubert Humphrey's campaign plane, and, yes, even the White House. "When you are a closeted gay person, you learn to be creative," he explains. In FRED WHO, Karger--with uncommon candor and poignant humor--answers the question that everyone from Sir David Frost to Rachel Maddow, from the New York Times to Politico, has been asking for the last several months: Who the hell is Fred Karger? He painstakingly relates what it is like to live in the closet, afraid to tell family, friends, colleagues, and the candidates for whom he works. He shares the lessons learned working for the likes of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. And he offers wonderful stories about life on the political trail and in Hollywood (where he was an actor before turning to politics. Sound familiar?) By the end of this memoir, the reader will indeed know who Fred Karger is and have new insights into the many worlds that he has inhabited. You may even want to support his candidacy.

Over 65 million years ago in what is now South Dakota, a battle-scarred Tyrannosaurus rex matriarch-perhaps mortally wounded in a ferocious fight-fell into the riverbed and died. In 1990 her skeleton was found, virtually complete, in what many have called the most spectacular dinosaur fossil discovery to date.And then another battle began - a "survival of the fittest" free-for-all involving commercial dinosaur hunters, gun-toting law officers, an ambitious federal prosecutor, a Native American tribe, jealous academics, an enterprising auction house, major museums, and corporate giants, all making their claim for the dinosaur named Sue. Before it was over, there would be claims and counterclaims; charges of checkbook-polluted science, criminal larceny, and vengeful prosecutions; and devastating prison terms. And the gavel would come down on the largest-ever ($8.36 million) auction price tag for a fossil, paid by Chicago's Field Museum, with help from Disney and McDonald's.Capturing the whole range of characters and issues embroiled in the fight for Sue, author Steve Fiffer communicates both the excitement over Sue's discovery and the motivations, maneuverings, and absurdities of the various forces attempting to control her destiny.

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