Articles With Pull Quotes

Article 100: "When pulling up to a stoplight, a Bro lowers his window so that all might enjoy his music selection." Corollary: "If there happens to be a hot chick driving the car next to the Bro, the Bro shall put his sunglasses down to get a better look. If he's not wearing his sunglasses, he will first put them on, then pull down to get a better look.

She went around reading men's minds. She went inside them as though they were bureaus and she were opening their drawers. She looked underneath folded articles of clothing. She found their dirty postcards. She pulled them out and had a look at them. And what lovely things she did find there.

Changing mainstream media will be hard, but you can help create parallel options. More academics should blog, post videos, post audio, post lectures, offer articles, and more. You’ll enjoy it: I’ve had threats and blackmail, abuse, smears and formal complaints with forged documentation. But it’s worth it, for one simple reason: pulling bad science apart is the best teaching gimmick I know for explaining how good science works.

I focused on the gun. I would show what him what needed to be done. Like you even know what to do with that, mocked Tucker. I glanced dwon, flicking the safety off. It's a nine millimeter, isn't it. I just pull back the slide, aim and fire. With a steady hand, I chambered the first round. Click.

You’re quiet.” Bodie issued that statement with no small amount of suspicion. “I’m always quiet.” As Bodie pulled the car past the gates and out onto the street, he glanced at me just long enough to smirk. “And I’m always perceptive. This quiet is a different quiet.” My mind was awash in the day’s events. Georgia’s visit. Vivvie and the article on Pierce. The two names from Henry’s list. Adam’s father being the one who had arranged the get-together in that photograph. “I’m fluent in all varieties of Kendrick silences,” Bodie declared. “And you and your sister both stare very intently at absolutely nothing when the wheels are turning in here.” He lazily reached over and tapped the side of my head. I swatted his hand away. “I have a lot to think about.

In our day, there are stresses and fractures of the human-animal bond, and some forces at work would sever it once and for all. They pull us in the wrong direction and away from the decent and honorable code that makes us care for creatures who are entirely at our mercy. Especially within the last two hundred years, we've come to apply an industrial mind-set to the use of animals, too often viewing them as if they were nothing but articles of commerce and the raw material of science, agriculture, and wildlife management. Here, as in other pursuits, human ingenuity has a way of outrunning human conscience, and some things we do only because we can--forgetting to ask whether we should.

So what are you guys doing?" Deacon sat beside them. He pulled his physics book from under Mark's bed. "Having guy talk," Mark said. Brandon snorted. "No, really. I read an article in Time about how guys share their feelings and whatever now. As long as we mention the name of a sports team once in this conversation, we're totally manly. Also, erogenous zones are science.

The upsides of the high-reactive temperament have been documented in exciting research that scientists are only now beginning to pull together. One of the most interesting findings, also reported in Dobbs’s Atlantic article, comes from the world of rhesus monkeys, a species that shares about 95 percent of its DNA with humans and has elaborate social structures that resemble our own.

Of course, if we all spoke a common language things might work more smoothly, but there would be far less scope for amusement. In an article in Gentleman’s Quarterly in 1987, Kenneth Turan described some of the misunderstandings that have occurred during the dubbing or subtitling of American movies in Europe. In one movie where a policeman tells a motorist to pull over, the Italian translator has him asking for a sweater (i.e., a pullover). In another where a character asks if he can bring a date to the funeral, the Spanish subtitle has him asking if he can bring a fig to the funeral.

The next minute he realized what had happened to him, but not before she’d caught him staring. For a decade, I was fixated by her beauty. I wrote an entire article on the evolutionary significance of beauty as a rebuke to myself, that I, who understood the concepts so well, nevertheless could not escape the magnetic pull of one particular woman’s beauty. She knew. With surgical precision, she had peeled back his layers of defenses, until his heart lay bare before her, all its shame and yearning exposed. He could have lived with this if only he’d kept his secret whole and buried. But she knew. She knew.

Mother-daughter relationships can be complicated and fraught with the effects of moments from the past. My mom knew this and wanted me to know it too. On one visit home, I found an essay from the Washington Post by the linguistics professor Deborah Tannen that had been cut out and left on my desk. My mom, and her mom before her, loved clipping newspaper articles and cartoons from the paper to send to Barbara and me. This article was different. Above it, my mom had written a note: “Dear Benny”—I was “Benny” from the time I was a toddler; the family folklore was that when we were babies, a man approached my parents, commenting on their cute baby boys, and my parents played along, pretending our names were Benjamin and Beauregard, later shorted to Benny and Bo. In her note, my mom confessed to doing many things that the writer of this piece had done: checking my hair, my appearance. As a teenager, I was continually annoyed by some of her requests: comb your hair; pull up your jeans (remember when low-rise jeans were a thing? It was not a good look, I can assure you!). “Your mother may assume it goes without saying that she is proud of you,” Deborah Tannen wrote. “Everyone knows that. And everyone probably also notices that your bangs are obscuring your vision—and their view of your eyes. Because others won’t say anything, your mother may feel it’s her obligation to tell you.” In leaving her note and the clipping, my mom was reminding me that she accepted and loved me—and that there is no perfect way to be a mother. While we might have questioned some of the things our mother said, we never questioned her love.

Listening to the radio, I heard the story behind rocker David Lee Roth’s notorious insistence that Van Halen’s contracts with concert promoters contain a clause specifying that a bowl of M&M’s has to be provided backstage, but with every single brown candy removed, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation to the band. And at least once, Van Halen followed through, peremptorily canceling a show in Colorado when Roth found some brown M&M’s in his dressing room. This turned out to be, however, not another example of the insane demands of power-mad celebrities but an ingenious ruse. As Roth explained in his memoir, Crazy from the Heat, “Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We’d pull up with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors—whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move the gear through. The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function.” So just as a little test, buried somewhere in the middle of the rider, would be article 126, the no-brown-M&M’s clause. “When I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl,” he wrote, “well, we’d line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error.… Guaranteed you’d run into a problem.” These weren’t trifles, the radio story pointed out. The mistakes could be life-threatening. In Colorado, the band found the local promoters had failed to read the weight requirements and the staging would have fallen through the arena floor.

WE THE PEOPLE PULL THE CORD . . . there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. Romans 3:11 The Founding Fathers didn’t think too highly of human nature, so they created three branches of government to keep power-hungry officials in check. They also slipped another “check” on these politicians into the Constitution. Remember learning how the Constitution can be amended through Congress? Well, even better, there’s a lesser-known way to change it when necessary, without Congress or the president stopping “We the People.” Our Founders knew government could grow so drunk on its own power that it wouldn’t ever voluntarily restrict itself, so constitutionalist George Mason allowed for a “Convention of States” in Article V to give the power back to the people. My friend Mark Levin describes this: “By giving the state legislatures the ultimate say on major federal laws, on major federal regulations, on major Supreme Court decisions, should 3/5 of state legislatures act to override them within a two year period, it doesn’t much matter what Washington does or doesn’t do. It matters what you do . . . the goal is to limit the entrenchment of Washington’s ruling class.” Keep educating the people, Mark!

a vast majority of us vandwellers are white. The reasons range from obvious to duh, but then there’s this.” Linked below the post was an article about the experience of “traveling while black.” That made me think: America makes it hard enough for people to live nomadically, regardless of race. Stealth camping in residential areas, in particular, is way outside the mainstream. Often it involves breaking local ordinances against sleeping in cars. Avoiding trouble—hassles with cops and suspicious passersby—can be challenging, even with the Get Out of Jail Free card of white privilege. And in an era when unarmed African Americans are getting shot by police during traffic stops, living in a vehicle seems like an especially dangerous gambit for anyone who might become a victim of racial profiling. All that made me think about the instances when I could have gotten in trouble and didn’t. One time I got pulled over at night while reporting in North Dakota. The cops asked where I was from and recommended some local tourist attractions before letting me off with a warning. In general, people didn’t give me grief when I was driving Halen. I wish I could chalk that up to good karma or some kind of cosmic benevolence, but the fact remains: I am white. Surely privilege played a role.

Unplugging helps you refocus on yourself instead of being pulled in a zillion different directions. Those directions may all be important, but you are just as important. Unplugging allows you to focus on being in the moment, here and now. It helps you step away from the emotional roller coaster that you ride reacting to a friend’s story, a news article, or outrage over worldwide events. Unplugging gives you the chance to remember who you are at your core.

I began to walk about the room, peering round each article of furniture, tucking up the valances of the bed, and opening its curtains wide. I pulled up the blinds and examined the fastenings of the several windows before closing the shutters, leant forward and looked up the blackness of the wide chimney, and tapped the dark oak paneling for any secret opening. There were two big mirrors in the room, each with a pair of sconces bearing candles, and on the mantelshelf, too, were more candles in china candlesticks.

write it, but that it exists on the far side of a gulf, which words can’t cross; that it’s to be pulled through only in a breathless anguish. Now when I sit down to an article, I have a net of words which will come down on the idea certainly in an hour or so. But a novel, as I say, to be good should seem, before one writes it, something unwriteable: but only visible; so that for nine months one lives in despair, and only when one has forgotten what one meant, does the book seem tolerable. I assure you, all my novels were first rate before they were written.

Yet, ironically, the most tech-cautious parents are the people who invented our iCulture. People are shocked to find out that tech god Steve Jobs was a low-tech parent; in 2010, when a reporter suggested that his children must love the just-released iPad, he replied: “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.” In a September, 10, 2014, New York Times article, his biographer Walter Isaacson revealed: “Every evening Steve made a point of having dinner at the big long table in their kitchen, discussing books and history and a variety of things. No one ever pulled out an iPad or computer.” Years earlier, in an interview for Wired magazine, Jobs expressed a very clear anti-tech-in-the-classroom opinion as well—after having once believed that technology was the educational panacea: “I’ve probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody on the planet. But I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.”34 Education

We know so much, but know so little, and the fine details keep shifting, but unlike any other American ethnic group those details are always hotly debated. We are not allowed the peace of mind of our own self-rumination. Every aspect of our history becomes a contested article on social media, a gospel truth to be disproved by experts at conferences, and a groupthink to be contained. Our cultural myths we design ourselves around are not sacred like other people’s myths; our anchors are constantly being pulled up to make white people feel as if they’re in control, and because of this we have struggled to come up with a cohesive and empowering narrative of our own.

Kavita looks peaceful when she's sleeping, when the Morphine finally brings her some comfort. Jasu sits in a chair next to the bed and reaches for her frail hand. With his touch, her eyes flutter open and she licks her dried lips. She sees him and smiles. “Jani, you’re back,” she says softly. “I went there, chakli.” He tries to begin slowly, but the words come tumbling out. “I went to Shanti, the orphanage. The man there knows her, he’s met her, Kavi. Her name is Asha now. She grew up in America, her parents are doctors, and she writes stories for newspapers—look, this is hers, she wrote this.” He waves the article in front of her. “America.” Kavita’s voice is barely a whisper. She closes her eyes and a tear drips down the side of her face and into her ear. “So far from home. All this time, she’s been so far from us.” “Such a good thing you did, chakli.” He strokes her hair, pulled back into a loose bun, and wipes her tears away with his rough fingers. “Just imagine if…” He looks down, shakes his head, and clasps her hand between his. He rests his head against their hands and begins to cry. “Such a good thing.”He looks up at her again. “She came looking for us, Kavi. She left this.” Jasu hands her the letter. A small smile breaks through on Kavita’s face. She peers at the page while he recites from memory. “My name is Asha…

She moved closer to me. I put my arm around her, marveling at the smoothness of her skin. "Thrasius..." "Passia?" She paused, and I realized that she was gathering her courage to speak. "That night, in your cubiculum, I..." I took her hands and held them together between my own. "It's all right, Passia. You don't have to say anything." "You surprised me," she blurted out. "I surprised myself. It took everything I had not to keep you there with me." She leaned forward until our faces were close. "I know." There was nothing to do but kiss her, with all the passion I had harbored from the moment when she first appeared in the kitchen on the day of my arrival. Her lips were soft, and sweet like fresh Iberian honey. I ran my hands along her back and up into the tangle of her hair. My thumbs stroked the flesh of her neck and cheeks, and when they pulled away, her lips. We fell into the sand, twining together our summer-tanned limbs. Our hands roamed up and down the length of each other, slowly removing each article of clothing. I delighted in feeling the way the measure of my passion made my skin tingle with desire from head to toe. "Apicius always says you are the answer to his prayers. I think he is wrong. I think you are the answer to mine," she whispered in my ear before I entered her and we both cried aloud. The sound was washed away by the crash of waves beyond us.

Swift came to the table and bowed politely. “My lady,” he said to Lillian, “what a pleasure it is to see you again. May I offer my renewed congratulations on your marriage to Lord Westcliff, and…” He hesitated, for although Lillian was obviously pregnant, it would be impolite to refer to her condition. “…you are looking quite well,” he finished. “I’m the size of a barn,” Lillian said flatly, puncturing his attempt at diplomacy. Swift’s mouth firmed as if he was fighting to suppress a grin. “Not at all,” he said mildly, and glanced at Annabelle and Evie. They all waited for Lillian to make the introductions. Lillian complied grudgingly. “This is Mr. Swift,” she muttered, waving her hand in his direction. “Mrs. Simon Hunt and Lady St. Vincent.” Swift bent deftly over Annabelle’s hand. He would have done the same for Evie except she was holding the baby. Isabelle’s grunts and whimpers were escalating and would soon become a full-out wail unless something was done about it. “That is my daughter Isabelle,” Annabelle said apologetically. “She’s teething.” That should get rid of him quickly, Daisy thought. Men were terrified of crying babies. “Ah.” Swift reached into his coat and rummaged through a rattling collection of articles. What on earth did he have in there? She watched as he pulled out his pen-knife, a bit of fishing line and a clean white handkerchief. “Mr. Swift, what are you doing?” Evie asked with a quizzical smile. “Improvising something.” He spooned some crushed ice into the center of the handkerchief, gathered the fabric tightly around it, and tied it off with fishing line. After replacing the knife in his pocket, he reached for the baby without one trace of self-consciusness. Wide-eyed, Evie surrendered the infant. The four women watched in astonishment as Swift took Isabelle against his shoulder with practiced ease. He gave the baby the ice-filled handkerchief, which she proceeded to gnaw madly even as she continued to cry. Seeming oblivious to the fascinated stares of everyone in the room, Swift wandered to the window and murmured softly to the baby. It appeared he was telling her a story of some kind. After a minute or two the child quieted. When Swift returned to the table Isabelle was half-drowsing and sighing, her mouth clamped firmly on the makeshift ice pouch. “Oh, Mr. Swift,” Annabelle said gratefully, taking the baby back in her arms, “how clever of you! Thank you.” “What were you saying to her?” Lillian demanded. He glanced at her and replied blandly, “I thought I would distract her long enough for the ice to numb her gums. So I gave her a detailed explanation of the Buttonwood agreement of 1792.” Daisy spoke to him for the first time. “What was that?” Swift glanced at her then, his face smooth and polite, and for a second Daisy half-believed that she had dreamed the events of that morning. But her skin and nerves still retained the sensation of him, the hard imprint of his body. “The Buttonwood agreement led to the formation of the New York Stock and Exchange Board,” Swift said. “I thought I was quite informative, but it seemed Miss Isabelle lost interest when I started on the fee-structuring compromise.” “I see,” Daisy said. “You bored the poor baby to sleep.” “You should hear my account of the imbalance of market forces leading to the crash of ’37,” Swift said. “I’ve been told it’s better than laudanum.

The Sixers killed my brother last night,” he said, almost whispering. At first, I was too stunned to reply. “You mean they killed his avatar?” I asked, even though I could already tell that wasn’t what he meant. Shoto shook his head. “No. They broke into his apartment, pulled him out of his haptic chair, and threw him off his balcony. He lived on the forty-third floor.” Shoto opened a browser window in the air beside us. It displayed a Japanese newsfeed article. I tapped it with my index finger, and the Mandarax software translated the text to English. The headline was ANOTHER OTAKU SUICIDE. The brief article below said that a young man, Toshiro Yoshiaki, age twenty-two, had jumped to his death from his apartment, located on the forty-third floor of a converted hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo, where he lived alone. I saw a school photo of Toshiro beside the article. He was a young Japanese man with long, unkempt hair and bad skin. He didn’t look anything like his OASIS avatar. When Shoto saw that I’d finished reading, he closed the window. I hesitated a moment before asking, “Are you sure he didn’t really commit suicide? Because his avatar had been killed?” “No,

Listen to Me in the truth of your soul. Listen to Me in the feelings of your heart. Listen to Me in the quiet of your mind. Hear Me, everywhere. Whenever you have a question, simply know that I have answered it already. Then open your eyes to your world. My response could be in an article already published. In the sermon already written and about to be delivered. In the movie now being made. In the song just yesterday composed. In the words about to be said by a loved one. In the heart of a new friend about to be made. My Truth is in the whisper of the wind, the babble of the brook, the crack of the thunder, the tap of the rain. It is the feel of the earth, the fragrance of the lily, the warmth of the sun, the pull of the moon. My Truth—and your surest help in time of need—is as awesome as the night sky, and as simply, incontrovertibly, trustful as a baby’s gurgle. It is as loud as a pounding heartbeat—and as quiet as a breath taken in unity with Me. I will not leave you, I cannot leave you, for you are My creation and My product, My daughter and My son, My purpose and My…Self. Call on Me, therefore, wherever and whenever you are separate from the peace that I am. I will be there. With Truth. And Light. And Love.

told me more about what happened the other night?” she asked, deciding to air her worst fears. “Am I under suspicion or something?” “Everyone is.” “Especially ex-wives who are publicly humiliated on the day of the murder, right?” Something in Montoya’s expression changed. Hardened. “I’ll be back,” he promised, “and I’ll bring another detective with me, then we’ll interview you and you can ask all the questions you like.” “And you’ll answer them?” He offered a hint of a smile. “That I can’t promise. Just that I won’t lie to you.” “I wouldn’t expect you to, Detective.” He gave a quick nod. “In the meantime if you suddenly remember, or think of anything, give me a call.” “I will,” she promised, irritated, watching as he hurried down the two steps of the porch to his car. He was younger than she was by a couple of years, she guessed, though she couldn’t be certain, and there was something about him that exuded a natural brooding sexuality, as if he knew he was attractive to women, almost expected it to be so. Great. Just what she needed, a sexy-as-hell cop who probably had her pinned to the top of his murder suspect list. She whistled for the dog and Hershey bounded inside, dragging some mud and leaves with her. “Sit!” Abby commanded and the Lab dropped her rear end onto the floor just inside the door. Abby opened the door to the closet and found a towel hanging on a peg she kept for just such occasions, then, while Hershey whined in protest, she cleaned all four of her damp paws. “You’re gonna be a problem, aren’t you?” she teased, then dropped the towel over the dog’s head. Hershey shook herself, tossed off the towel, then bit at it, snagging one end in her mouth and pulling backward in a quick game of tug of war. Abby laughed as she played with the dog, the first real joy she’d felt since hearing the news about her ex-husband. The phone rang and she left the dog growling and shaking the tattered piece of terry cloth. “Hello?” she said, still chuckling at Hershey’s antics as she lifted the phone to her ear. “Abby Chastain?” “Yes.” “Beth Ann Wright with the New Orleans Sentinel.” Abby’s heart plummeted. The press. Just what she needed. “You were Luke Gierman’s wife, right?” “What’s this about?” Abby asked warily as Hershey padded into the kitchen and looked expectantly at the back door leading to her studio. “In a second,” she mouthed to the Lab. Hershey slowly wagged her tail. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Beth Ann said, sounding sincerely rueful. “I should have explained. The paper’s running a series of articles on Luke, as he was a local celebrity, and I’d like to interview you for the piece. I was thinking we could meet tomorrow morning?” “Luke and I were divorced.” “Yes, I know, but I would like to give some insight to the man behind the mike, you know. He had a certain public persona, but I’m sure my readers would like to know more about him, his history, his hopes, his dreams, you know, the human-interest angle.” “It’s kind of late for that,” Abby said, not bothering to keep the ice out of her voice. “But you knew him intimately. I thought you could come up with some anecdotes, let people see the real Luke Gierman.” “I don’t think so.” “I realize you and he had some unresolved issues.” “Pardon me?” “I caught his program the other day.” Abby tensed, her fingers holding the phone in a death grip. “So this is probably harder for you than most, but I still would like to ask you some questions.” “Maybe another time,” she hedged and Beth Ann didn’t miss a beat. “Anytime you’d like. You’re a native Louisianan, aren’t you?” Abby’s neck muscles tightened. “Born and raised, but you met Luke in Seattle when he was working for a radio station . . . what’s the call sign, I know I’ve got it somewhere.” “KCTY.” It was a matter of public record. “Oh, that’s right. Country in the City. But you grew up here and went to local schools, right? Your

She knew how to play him so very well. He slipped his hand around hers. "Friends," he repeated roughly. Her smile was bright enough to light up the room-and make him see stars. "Excellent! I'm so pleased. And now I really should go. I don't want to keep your family waiting." His family. She was going out with his family. His mother and sister, who would no doubt think her absolutely perfect. Perfect for Archer, who his mother was determined to see married, now that she had given up all hopes for Grey. Or perhaps they'd want her for Trystan, although he was still living the life of an adventurous young man. "Have fun," he encouraged with all the false enthusiasm he could muster. She flashed a quick grin at him over her shoulder as she made for the door. "I'm sure I will. Your brother will see to that." As far as parting shots went, it wasn't bad. By no means mortal, but deep enough to wound never the less. Alone once more, Grey returned to his chair and pulled the copy of Voluptuous out from underneath the cushion of the other. He stared at it for a moment, contemplating finishing the article on pleasing a woman orally. And then, with a snarl, he flung the pages into the fire, watching ash and embers fly up in the assault. The paper caught quickly, giving off a sudden bloom of heat. Women, he thought as he watched the magazine's mocking text blacken and char. He would be much happier in his misery without them.

Situation awareness means possessing an explorer mentality A general never knows anything with certainty, never sees his enemy clearly, and never knows positively where he is. When armies are face to face, the least accident in the ground, the smallest wood, may conceal part of the enemy army. The most experienced eye cannot be sure whether it sees the whole of the enemy’s army or only three-fourths. It is by the mind’s eye, by the integration of all reasoning, by a kind of inspiration that the general sees, knows, and judges. ~Napoleon 5   In order to effectively gather the appropriate information as it’s unfolding we must possess the explorer mentality.  We must be able to recognize patterns of behavior. Then we must recognize that which is outside that normal pattern. Then, you take the initiative so we maintain control. Every call, every incident we respond to possesses novelty. Car stops, domestic violence calls, robberies, suspicious persons etc.  These individual types of incidents show similar patterns in many ways. For example, a car stopped normally pulls over to the side of the road when signaled to do so.  The officer when ready, approaches the operator, a conversation ensues, paperwork exchanges, and the pulled over car drives away. A domestic violence call has its own normal patterns; police arrive, separate involved parties, take statements and arrest aggressor and advise the victim of abuse prevention rights. We could go on like this for all the types of calls we handle as each type of incident on its own merits, does possess very similar patterns. Yet they always, and I mean always possess something different be it the location, the time of day, the person you are dealing with. Even if it’s the same person, location, time and day, the person you’re dealing who may now be in a different emotional state and his/her motives and intent may be very different. This breaks that normal expected pattern.  Hence, there is a need to always be open-minded, alert and aware, exploring for the signs and signals of positive or negative change in conditions. In his Small Wars journal article “Thinking and Acting like an Early Explorer” Brigadier General Huba Wass de Czege (US Army Ret.) describes the explorer mentality:   While tactical and strategic thinking are fundamentally different, both kinds of thinking must take place in the explorer’s brain, but in separate compartments. To appreciate this, think of the metaphor of an early American explorer trying to cross a large expanse of unknown terrain long before the days of the modern conveniences. The explorer knows that somewhere to the west lies an ocean he wants to reach. He has only a sketch-map of a narrow corridor drawn by a previously unsuccessful explorer. He also knows that highly variable weather and frequent geologic activity can block mountain passes, flood rivers, and dry up desert water sources. He also knows that some native tribes are hostile to all strangers, some are friendly and others are fickle, but that warring and peace-making among them makes estimating their whereabouts and attitudes difficult.6

Mom,” Vaughn said. “I’m sure Sidney doesn’t want to be interrogated about her personal life.” Deep down, Sidney knew that Vaughn—who’d obviously deduced that she’d been burned in the past—was only trying to be polite. But that was the problem, she didn’t want him to be polite, as if she needed to be shielded from such questions. That wasn’t any better than the damn “Poor Sidney” head-tilt. “It’s okay, I don’t mind answering.” She turned to Kathleen. “I was seeing someone in New York, but that relationship ended shortly before I moved to Chicago.” “So now that you’re single again, what kind of man are you looking for? Vaughn?” Kathleen pointed. “Could you pass the creamer?” He did so, then turned to look once again at Sidney. His lips curved at the corners, the barest hint of a smile. He was daring her, she knew, waiting for her to back away from his mother’s questions. She never had been very good at resisting his dares. “Actually, I have a list of things I’m looking for.” Sidney took a sip of her coffee. Vaughn raised an eyebrow. “You have a list?” “Yep.” “Of course you do.” Isabelle looked over, surprised. “You never told me about this.” “What kind of list?” Kathleen asked interestedly. “It’s a test, really,” Sidney said. “A list of characteristics that indicate whether a man is ready for a serious relationship. It helps weed out the commitment-phobic guys, the womanizers, and any other bad apples, so a woman can focus on the candidates with more long-term potential.” Vaughn rolled his eyes. “And now I’ve heard it all.” “Where did you find this list?” Simon asked. “Is this something all women know about?” “Why? Worried you won’t pass muster?” Isabelle winked at him. “I did some research,” Sidney said. “Pulled it together after reading several articles online.” “Lists, tests, research, online dating, speed dating—I can’t keep up with all these things you kids are doing,” Adam said, from the head of the table. “Whatever happened to the days when you’d see a girl at a restaurant or a coffee shop and just walk over and say hello?” Vaughn turned to Sidney, his smile devilish. “Yes, whatever happened to those days, Sidney?” She threw him a look. Don’t be cute. “You know what they say—it’s a jungle out there. Nowadays a woman has to make quick decisions about whether a man is up to par.” She shook her head mock reluctantly. “Sadly, some guys just won’t make the cut.” “But all it takes is one,” Isabelle said, with a loving smile at her fiancé. Simon slid his hand across the table, covering hers affectionately. “The right one.” Until he nails his personal trainer. Sidney took another sip of her coffee, holding back the cynical comment. She didn’t want to spoil Isabelle and Simon’s idyllic all-you-need-is-love glow. Vaughn cocked his head, looking at the happy couple. “Aw, aren’t you two just so . . . cheesy.” Kathleen shushed him. “Don’t tease your brother.” “What? Any moment, I’m expecting birds and little woodland animals to come in here and start singing songs about true love, they’re so adorable.” Sidney laughed out loud. Quickly, she bit her lip to cover.

booths fashioned from tarps and cast-off wood, a squalid tent city that housed vendors hawking tacky artifacts and articles of second-hand clothing. A retired Greyhound coach creaked as it entered the muddy lot, carrying a handful of intrepid tourists and commuters from the coastal suburbs. The tired air brakes hissed their protest as it pulled to a stop and disgorged its cargo, the rusting, graffiti-covered

As you know, I run all our committee applications through a background check.” “Didn’t you do that months ago?” Daphne interrupted. Meredith put a hand up. “Yes, I thought I had. Apparently the agency misfiled Amber’s. They ran it last week and called me today.” “And?” Daphne prodded. “And when they ran the social, they discovered that Amber Patterson has been missing for four years.” She held up a copy of a missing person flyer, with a photo of a young woman with dark hair and a round face, who looked nothing like Amber. “What? That must be some sort of mistake,” Daphne said. Amber kept quiet, but her heartbeat slowed. So that was all. She could work with this. Meredith sat up straighter. “No mistake. I called the Eustis, Nebraska, records department. Same social security number.” She pulled out a photocopy of an article from the Clipper-Herald with the headline “Amber Patterson Still Missing” and handed it to Daphne. “Want to tell us about it, Amber, or whatever your name is?” Amber put her hands up to her face and cried real tears of panic. “It’s not what you think.” She choked back a sob. “What is it, then?” Meredith’s tone was steely. Amber sniffled and wiped her nose. “I can explain. But not to her.

Joiner’s article “On Buckeyes, Gators, Super Bowl Sunday, and the Miracle on Ice” makes a strong case that it’s not the winning that counts but the taking part—the shared experience. It is true that he found fewer suicides in Columbus, Ohio, and Gainesville, Florida, in the years when the local college football teams did well. But Joiner argues that this is because fans of winning teams “pull together” more: they wear the team shirt more often, watch games together in bars, talk about the team, and so on, much as happens in a European country while the national team is playing in a World Cup. The “pulling together” saves people from suicide, not the winning. Proof of this is that Joiner found fewer suicides in the US on Super Bowl Sundays than on other Sundays at that time of year, even though few of the Americans who watch the Super Bowl are passionate supporters of either team. What they get from the day’s parties is a sense of belonging. That is the lifesaver. In Europe today, there may be nothing that brings a society together like a World Cup with your team in it. For once, almost everyone in the country is watching the same TV programs and talking about them at work the next day, just as Europeans used to do thirty years ago before they got cable TV. Part of the point of watching a World Cup is that almost everyone else is watching, too. Isolated people—the types at most risk of suicide—are suddenly welcomed into the national conversation. They

Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20). I'm learning what it means to descend, which is so revolutionary it often leaves me gasping. I have been trying to ascend my entire life. Up, up, next level, a notch higher, the top is better, top of the food chain, all for God's work and glory, of course. The pursuit of ascension is crippling and has stunted my faith more than any other evil I've battled. It has saddled me with so much to defend, and it doesn't deliver. I need more and more of what doesn't work. I'm insatiable, and ironically, the more I accumulate, the less I enjoy any of it. Instead of satisfaction, it produces toxic fear in me; I'm always one slip away from losing it all. Consequently, my love for others is tainted because they unwittingly become articles for consumption. How is this person making me feel better? How is she making me stronger? How is he contributing to my agenda? What can this group do for me? I am an addict, addicted to the ascent and thus positioning myself above people who can propel my upward momentum and below those who are also longing for a higher rank and might pull me up with them. It feels desperate and frantic, and I'm so done being enslaved to the elusive top rung. When Jesus told us to 'take the lowest place' (Luke 14:10), it was more than just a strategy for social justice. It was even more than wooing us to the bottom for communion, since that is where He is always found. The path of descent becomes our own liberation. We are freed from the exhausting stance of defense. We are no longer compelled to be right and are thus relieved from the burden of maintaining some reputation. We are released from the idols of greed, control, and status. The pressure to protect the house of cards is alleviated when we take the lowest place. The ascent is so ingrained in my thought patterns that it has been physically painful to experience reformation at the bottom. The compulsion to defend myself against misrepresentation nearly put me in the grave recently. I was tormented with chaotic inner dialogues, and there were days I was so plagued with protecting my rung that I couldn't get out of bed. With every step lower, the stripping-away process was more excruciating. I had no idea how tightly I clung to reputation and approval or how selfishly I behaved to maintain it. Getting to the top requires someone else to be on the bottom; being right means someone else must be wrong. It is the nature of the beast.

You’re not going to find any magazines on the newsstands with articles encouraging you to show humility. Instead, we are saturated with messages about power, independence, and control. We are bombarded with advice telling us to listen to our own hearts, to do whatever we feel like doing. The constant affirmation of the world and the pull of our own hearts make it so easy to believe that we deserve to be treated in a certain way. We should not have to listen to anyone telling us what to do; after all, we are strong and independent.

I keep the letter in a folder labeled GBGFB (God brings good from bad). It’s filled with letters, articles, scribbled notes that I pull out as an antidote to the negatives in my life.

She was, for several unpleasant moments, the isolated, lonely, insecure person she had been just three years earlier, a social blunderer, a locker-room towel for the maladjusted, unable to sell an article or figure out what to wear. Pull yourself together, she thought; it wasn't so bad.

Having hit on this “theory,” I began to recognize checklists in odd corners everywhere—in the hands of professional football coordinators, say, or on stage sets. Listening to the radio, I heard the story behind rocker David Lee Roth’s notorious insistence that Van Halen’s contracts with concert promoters contain a clause specifying that a bowl of M&M’s has to be provided backstage, but with every single brown candy removed, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation to the band. And at least once, Van Halen followed through, peremptorily canceling a show in Colorado when Roth found some brown M&M’s in his dressing room. This turned out to be, however, not another example of the insane demands of power-mad celebrities but an ingenious ruse. As Roth explained in his memoir, Crazy from the Heat, “Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We’d pull up with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors—whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move the gear through. The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function.” So just as a little test, buried somewhere in the middle of the rider, would be article 126, the no-brown-M&M’s clause. “When I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl,” he wrote, “well, we’d line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error.… Guaranteed you’d run into a problem.” These weren’t trifles, the radio story pointed out. The mistakes could be life-threatening. In Colorado, the band found the local promoters had failed to read the weight requirements and the staging would have fallen through the arena floor. “David Lee Roth had a checklist!” I yelled at the radio.

The Chinese Revolution—they wanted land. They threw the British out, along with the Uncle Tom Chinese. Yes, they did. They set a good example. When I was in prison, I read an article—don't be shocked when I say that I was in prison. You're still in prison. That's what America means: prison. When I was in prison, I read an article in Life magazine showing a little Chinese girl, nine years old, her father was on his hands and knees and she was pulling the trigger because he was an Uncle Tom Chinaman. When they had the revolution over there, they took a whole generation of Uncle Toms and just wiped them out. And within ten years that little girl became a full-grown woman. No more Toms in China. And today it's one of the toughest, roughest, most feared countries on this earth—by the white man. Because there are no Uncle Toms over there.

In your dream you call for Chaplain Charlie. You met the Navy chaplain when you interviewed him for a feature article you were writing. Chaplain Charlie was an amateur magician. With his magic, Chaplain Charlie entertained Marines in sick bays and distributed spiritual tourniquets to men who were still alive, but weaponless. To brutal, godless children Chaplain Charlie spoke about how God is merciful, despite appearances, about how the Ten Commandments lack detail because when you're writing on stone tablets with lightning bolts you've got to be brief, about how the Free World will conquer Communism with aid of God and a few Marines, and about free fish. One day a Vietnamese child booby-trapped Chaplain Charlie's black bag of tricks. Chaplain Charlie reached in and pulled out a bright ball of death...

He kept moving, not reclining on his side of the bed but shifting and rocking the mattress as he maneuvered himself to Louisa’s side. “Hello, Husband.” She was on her back. He was plastered against the length of her, a particular part of him prodding her hip. “Greetings, Wife, and as much as I admire the embroidery on your nightgown, I will wish that article of clothing farewell without a pang—at your earliest convenience.” She covered her face with both hands. “Must you sound so merry?” “A merry season is upon us.” He peeled her hands away and kissed her nose. “‘Oh why does that eclipsing hand of thine deny the sunshine of the Sun’s enlivening eye?’” “You have that Wilmot fellow on the brain.” “No, I do not. I have something else entirely—someone else—on my brain.” He spoke gently, but there was happiness for him in what he contemplated. Louisa could hear it in his voice. “Joseph, there are things we must discuss.” He untied the top bow of her nightgown. “We can discuss them naked.” A second bow came free. “We can discuss them tomorrow.” A third, a fourth. “We can discuss them naked tomorrow, but, Louisa, you are my lawfully wedded wife, and the time has come for me to pleasure you to the utmost, which I am enthusiastically willing to do.” Those were not lines penned by any long-dead earl. More of Louisa’s bows came undone, until there were no more bows to undo. Joseph pulled the covers up around her shoulders and slid a hand across her bare belly. “I did not feel the cold in Surrey, Louisa, not as long as I thought of what these moments with you might hold.” God in heaven. “Joseph, what am I supposed to do?” He shifted back to regard her, his dark brows drawing down. “You do whatever you please, with one exception.” He kissed her collarbone, a sweet little tasting that might have involved the tip of his tongue. “You do not think your way through this, Louisa Carrington. A plague on me if you’re able to cling to ratiocination at such a time. You put your prodigious mind with all its thoughts, languages, ciphering, and blasphemy aside, and let the damned thing rest while I love you.” The

Tonight the President will bury himself, perhaps, in two volumes Mrs. Lodge has just sent him for review: Gissing’s Charles Dickens, A Critical Study, and The Greek View of Life, by Lowes Dickinson. He will be struck, as he peruses the latter, by interesting parallels between the Periclean attitude toward women and that of present-day Japan, and will make a mental note to write to Mrs. Lodge about it.122 He may also read, with alternate approval and disapproval, two articles on Mormonism in the latest issue of Outlook. A five-thousand-word essay on “The Ancient Irish Sagas” in this month’s Century magazine will not detain him long, since he is himself the author.123 His method of reading periodicals is somewhat unusual: each page, as he comes to the end of it, is torn out and thrown onto the floor.124 When both magazines have been thus reduced to a pile of crumpled paper, Roosevelt will leap from his rocking-chair and march down the corridor. Slowing his pace at the door of the presidential suite, he will tiptoe in, brush the famous teeth with only a moderate amount of noise, and pull on his blue-striped pajamas. Beside his pillow he will deposit a large, precautionary revolver.125 His last act, after turning down the lamp and climbing into bed, will be to unclip his pince-nez and rub the reddened bridge of his nose. Then, there being nothing further to do, Theodore Roosevelt will energetically fall asleep.

I reached for the doorknob just as the doorbell sounded for the second time that afternoon. “What is this?” I said. “Grand Central Station?” I pulled the door open. Mark London was standing on the porch. At the sight of Alex, his face shuttered. “Sorry,” he said. “Bad timing.” “Nope,” Alex said cheerfully. He stepped around me, then past Mark, and moved to the edge of the porch. “Try not to be stupid, London. If I hear you’ve hurt her, I may feel compelled to do something macho like break both your arms. I’m a jock. We can do things like that, you know.” Then he sauntered down the porch and out into the rain. “So,” Mark said after a moment. “You guys kiss and make up or something?” “You are an idiot,” I said. “You know perfectly well he and Elaine are crazy for each other. He’s probably heading next door right now. If the only reason you’re here is to be a pain, you’d better watch out because I’m planning to slam the door in your face.” “Don’t,” Mark said suddenly. “Don’t make me go away, Jo.” I felt the breath back up in my lungs. “Just tell me what you want, London.” “To see you, for one thing,” Mark said explosively. “You’ve been avoiding me for weeks.” “I’ve been avoiding you!” I all but shouted. “Who stopped talking to me as soon as his award-winning articles came out? What happened? You got what you wanted so you didn’t need me anymore?” “I can’t believe you’d think that,” Mark said. “What am I supposed to think?” I said. “I don’t even know you!” “Stop,” Mark said suddenly. “Just stop.” With one quick motion he reached out and pulled me onto the porch and into his arms. “I didn’t come to fight. God, you feel good.” “I am not a pushover,” I mumbled against his chest. I felt, as well as heard, the rumble of his laughter. “No, I know you’re not.” He eased back, taking my face between his hands, running one thumb along my right cheekbone. “I know we don’t know each other very well,” he said. “That’s going to change, beginning now. I want to spend as much time with you as possible.” “What about what I want?” He kissed me then. Long and deep and slow. I felt my heart roll over inside my chest, then settle down to beat in time to his. “What do you want?” Mark said when the kiss was over. “I don’t know,” I confessed. If ever there was a moment for absolute truth, I figured now was the time. “Not altogether. But I’m pretty sure you’re a part of it.” His lips twitched, with suppressed laughter or irritation, I couldn’t quite tell. “When do you think you’ll know for sure?” “Are we going to stand here and play twenty questions all day? How the heck should I know?” He laughed then, the sound unlike anything I’d ever heard from him before. Open and joyous. “I think I’m going to enjoy the next few months,” he said. I smiled. “Just so long as you don’t mind a few surprises.

Perhaps that is part of Magritte’s point. We exist, and then we don’t. The world will be there when we are gone. The dull factuality of physical things does not need human perception to make it persist. Thinking about this through Magritte’s eyes becomes terrifying: that when you leave your home and lock the door all the objects in it still exist, unconscious as they are, without any need to be known, to be seen, by a conscious human. That’s one eerie way of looking at it, but there is no easy way to “decode” a Magritte painting. His art placidly and calmly asks terrifying questions about the solid things we take for granted. You know nothing, smiles the bowler-hatted magician, as he pulls away the rug from under your feet to reveal there’s no floor, either. And that’s not even a pipe you’re holding in your hand. "This is not an article: why René Magritte is a timeless genius

Congress went beyond merely enacting an income tax law and repealed Article IV of the Bill of Rights, by empowering the tax collector to do the very things from which that article says we were to be secure. It opened up our homes, our papers and our effects to the prying eyes of government agents and set the stage for searches of our books and vaults and for inquiries into our private affairs whenever the tax men might decide, even though there might not be any justification beyond mere cynical suspicion.      “The income tax is bad because it has robbed you and me of the guarantee of privacy and the respect for our property that were given to us in Article IV of the Bill of Rights. This invasion is absolute and complete as far as the amount of tax that can be assessed is concerned. Please remember that under the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress can take 100 percent of our income anytime it wants to. As a matter of fact, right now it is imposing a tax as high as 91 percent. This is downright confiscation and cannot be defended on any other grounds.      “The income tax is bad because it was conceived in class hatred, is an instrument of vengeance and plays right into the hands of the communists. It employs the vicious communist principle of taking from each according to his accumulation of the fruits of his labor and giving to others according to their needs, regardless of whether those needs are the result of indolence or lack of pride, self-respect, personal dignity or other attributes of men.      “The income tax is fulfilling the Marxist prophecy that the surest way to destroy a capitalist society is by steeply graduated taxes on income and heavy levies upon the estates of people when they die.      “As matters now stand, if our children make the most of their capabilities and training, they will have to give most of it to the tax collector and so become slaves of the government. People cannot pull themselves up by the bootstraps anymore because the tax collector gets the boots and the straps as well.      “The income tax is bad because it is oppressive to all and discriminates particularly against those people who prove themselves most adept at keeping the wheels of business turning and creating maximum employment and a high standard of living for their fellow men.      “I believe that a better way to raise revenue not only can be found but must be found because I am convinced that the present system is leading us right back to the very tyranny from which those, who established this land of freedom, risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to forever free themselves….” T. Coleman Andrews Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 1953–1955

Faced with the task of building a strong, cohesive corporate culture, many software companies have borrowed heavily from other organizations. Trilogy Software made headlines by sending its new recruits to a training “boot camp” for three months—with classes running from 8:00 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week, for the first month. Other companies, such as Scient, subject their new recruits to intense pep rallies, with constant repetition of the company slogan— “I’m on fire!” The popularity of these tactics has even led to some hand-wringing about the cult-like character of many business initiation rituals. One writer for Shift magazine captured the dilemma quite well in a brilliant article entitled “Why Your Fabulous Job Sucks.” “Work is a blast. Your colleagues are cool and they dig having your dog around. But something evil lures you to the company beer fridge. Ever wonder why you’re never home?” The observation here is quite astute. Creating a cool work environment, holding fabulous office parties with great bands, letting people wear whatever they want, setting up the LAN for multiplayer gaming— this may all seem like corporate generosity. But it also has a sound economic rationale. All these devices help to build among young employees allegiance, loyalty, and a willingness to work. The easiest way to persuade people to pull an all-nighter is to make being at the office more fun than being at home.

I can only thank the good Lord above,” she began after she turned back to him and Mr. Hodges assumed his usual stoic demeanor, “that your father and brother are away on business at the moment, because, well, I’m sure they’d have quite a bit to say regarding your current circumstance.” She released the tiniest of sighs. “Honestly, Edgar, one would have thought, considering you failed so spectacularly to win Wilhelmina’s hand the first time you proposed to her, that you would have tried a little more diligently to pull off a romantic moment the second time around.” “And one would have thought, considering how put out you’ve been at Wilhelmina over her rejecting my proposal all those years ago, that you would be trying to figure out a way to get me out of marrying her rather than marrying her.” “I’ve always adored Wilhelmina,” Nora said with a rattle of the paper she was still holding. “And while I’m sure I did lend the impression of being put out with her, that was mostly for your benefit, dear.” Edgar’s mouth dropped open. “Do not tell me that you’ve been holding out hope all these years for something like this to happen.” “I must admit that I have, and . . . now it would seem as if that hope was not misplaced if a wedding does indeed occur between the two of you in the foreseeable future.” Reaching for his tea again, Edgar drained the cup and set it aside. “I’m hesitantly optimistic that a wedding may soon take place, especially since I have come to realize that I still love Wilhelmina. I find her to be a most enchanting creature, and I would be a lucky gentleman indeed if she would truly agree to become my wife.” Nora frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t understand why you’re only hesitantly optimistic about marrying Wilhelmina. You’ve mentioned a time or two now that you told Mrs. Travers you were to be married, and while I know you’ve been away from society for quite some time, surely you haven’t forgotten that, as a gentleman, you have no choice but to go through with the wedding. And, as a lady, Wilhelmina can’t refute your declaration, not if she wants to keep her reputation, and . . . she can forget about continuing on as a social secretary if she doesn’t go through with the marriage because she’ll be looked at forevermore as a woman of loose moral values.” She rattled the paper again. “Add in the article Miss Quill published, and I can say with all certainty that there will be a wedding to plan, whether Wilhelmina has doubts or not.” Turning

You know, I heard once that kissin’ reduces the fire.” “Is that your cheap way of telling me you want to kiss me?” He looks into my eyes, his dark gaze capturing mine. “Querida, I always want to kiss you.” “I’m afraid it won’t be that easy, Alex. I want answers. Answers first, then kissing.” “Is that why you came here naked underneath that jacket?” “Who says I’m naked underneath?” I say, leaning close. Alex sets down his plate. If my mouth is still burning, I hardly notice. Now is my time to get the upper hand. “Let’s play a game, Alex. I call it Ask a Question, Then Strip. Every time you ask a question, you have to remove an article of clothing. Every time I ask, I have to remove one.” “I figure I can ask seven questions, querida. How many you got?” “Take it off, Alex. You asked your first question.” He nods in agreement and kicks off his shoe. “Why don’t you start with your shirt?” I ask. “You do realize you asked a question. I think that’s your cue--” “I did not ask a question,” I insist. “You asked me why I don’t start with my shirt.” He grins. My pulse quickens. I pull down my pom skirt, keeping my long jacket tightly closed. “Now it’s four.” He’s trying to stay aloof, but his eyes show a hunger I’ve seen before. And that silly grin is definitely gone as he licks his lips. “I need a cigarette bad. It’s too bad I quit again. Four you say?” “That sounded suspiciously like a question, Alex.” He shakes his head. “No, smart-ass, that wasn’t a question. Nice try, though. Um, let’s see. What’s the real reason you came here?” “Because I wanted to show you how much I love you,” I say. Alex blinks a couple of times, but beyond that he shows me no emotion. This time he lifts his shirt over his head. He flings it to the side, baring his bronzed, washboard stomach. I kneel next to him, hoping to tempt him and throw him off balance. “Do you want to go to college? The truth.” He hesitates. “Yes. If my life was different.” I kick off a sandal. “Did you ever have sex with Colin?” he asks. “No.” He takes off his right shoe, his eyes never leaving mine.

Let’s play a game, Alex. I call it Ask a Question, Then Strip. Every time you ask a question, you have to remove an article of clothing. Every time I ask, I have to remove one.” “I figure I can ask seven questions, querida. How many you got?” “Take it off, Alex. You asked your first question.” He nods in agreement and kicks off his shoe. “Why don’t you start with your shirt?” I ask. “You do realize you asked a question. I think that’s your cue--” “I did not ask a question,” I insist. “You asked me why I don’t start with my shirt.” He grins. My pulse quickens. I pull down my pom skirt, keeping my long jacket tightly closed. “Now it’s four.” He’s trying to stay aloof, but his eyes show a hunger I’ve seen before. And that silly grin is definitely gone as he licks his lips. “I need a cigarette bad. It’s too bad I quit again. Four you say?” “That sounded suspiciously like a question, Alex.” He shakes his head. “No, smart-ass, that wasn’t a question. Nice try, though. Um, let’s see. What’s the real reason you came here?” “Because I wanted to show you how much I love you,” I say. Alex blinks a couple of times, but beyond that he shows me no emotion. This time he lifts his shirt over his head. He flings it to the side, baring his bronzed, washboard stomach.

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I don’t take kindly to any of you shanty boys touching me,” she said. “So unless I give you permission, from now on, you’d best keep your hands off me.” With the last word, she lifted her boot and brought the heel down on Jimmy’s toes. She ground it hard. Like most of the other shanty boys, at the end of a day out in the snow, he’d taken off his wet boots and layers of damp wool socks to let them dry overnight before donning them again for the next day’s work. Jimmy cursed, but before he could move, she brought her boot down on his other foot with a smack that rivaled a gun crack. This time he howled. And with an angry curse, he shoved her hard, sending her sprawling forward. She flailed her arms in a futile effort to steady herself and instead found herself falling against Connell McCormick. His arms encircled her, but the momentum of her body caused him to lose his balance. He stumbled backward. “Whoa! Hold steady!” Her skirt and legs tangled with his, and they careened toward the rows of dirty damp socks hanging in front of the fireplace. The makeshift clotheslines caught them and for a moment slowed their tumble. But against their full weight, the ropes jerked loose from the nails holding them to the beams. In an instant, Lily found herself falling. She twisted and turned among the clotheslines but realized that her thrashing was only lassoing her against Connell. In the downward tumble, Connell slammed into a chair near the fireplace. Amidst the tangle of limbs and ropes, she was helpless to do anything but drop into his lap. With a thud, she landed against him. Several socks hung from his head and covered his face. Dirty socks covered her shoulders and head too. Their stale rotten stench swarmed around her. And for a moment she was conscious only of the fact that she was near to gagging from the odor. She tried to lift a hand to move the sock hanging over one of her eyes but found that her arms were pinned to her sides. She tilted her head and then blew sideways at the crusty, yellowed linen. But it wouldn’t budge. Again she shook her head—this time more emphatically. Still the offending article wouldn’t fall away. Through the wig of socks covering Connell’s head, she could see one of his eyes peeking at her, watching her antics. The corner of his lips twitched with the hint of a smile. She could only imagine what she looked like. If it was anything like him, she must look comical. As he cocked his head and blew at one of his socks, she couldn’t keep from smiling at the picture they both made, helplessly drenched in dirty socks, trying to remove them with nothing but their breath. “Welcome to Harrison.” His grin broke free. “You know how to make a girl feel right at home.” She wanted to laugh. But as he straightened himself in the chair, she became at once conscious of the fact that she was sitting directly in his lap and that the other men in the room were hooting and calling out over her intimate predicament. She scrambled to move off him. But the ropes had tangled them together, and her efforts only caused her to fall against him again. She was not normally a blushing woman, but the growing indecency of her situation was enough to chase away any humor she may have found in the situation and make a chaste woman like herself squirm with embarrassment. “I’d appreciate your help,” she said, struggling again to pull her arms free of the rope. “Or do all you oafs make a sport of manhandling women?” “All you oafs?” His grin widened. “Are you insinuating that I’m an oaf?” “What in the hairy hound is going on here?” She jumped at the boom of Oren’s voice and the slam of the door. The room turned quiet enough to hear the click-click of Oren pulling down the lever of his rifle. She glanced over her shoulder to the older man, to the fierceness of his drawn eyebrows and the deadly anger in his eyes as he took in her predicament.

He lay back on the blanket, pulling her with him. Every few minutes, one of them would lose an article of clothing, until there was nothing and yet everything between them.

Bannon and the Breitbart editors had the same reaction and immediately turned on Megyn Kelly, with a fusillade of negative articles. She became the newest Breitbart narrative: the back-stabbing, self-promoting betrayer-of-the-cause. And Breitbart became the locus of pro-Trump, anti-Fox conservative anger. Between Thursday night, when the debate took place, and Sunday evening, Breitbart published twenty-five stories on Kelly, and the site’s editor in chief, Alex Marlow, went on CNN to accuse Fox News of “trying to take out Donald Trump” and staging “a gotcha debate.” The intensity of Republican anger stunned Fox News executives. The debate had drawn a record 24 million viewers. Now many of them were apoplectic at the network’s top talent. “In the beginning, virtually 100 percent of the emails were against Megyn Kelly,” a Fox source told New York’s Gabriel Sherman. “Roger was not happy. Most of the Fox viewers were taking Trump’s side.” Word spread through the building that Kelly was furious and had personally complained to Ailes. By Sunday, the attacks against her showed no sign of letting up, as other conservative opinion makers, such as radio host Mark Levin, agreed that her questions to Trump had been “unfair.” In a panic, Ailes called Bannon and begged him to call off the attacks. “Steve, this isn’t fair, and it’s killing us,” Ailes said. “You have to stop it.” “Fuck that, that was outrageous what she did!” Bannon retorted. “She pulled every trick out of the leftist playbook.” “You’ve gotta knock this crap off, Steve.” “Not until she backs off Trump—she’s still going after him on her show.” “She’s the star of this network! Cut it out!” The call ended without resolution. Bannon and Ailes would not speak again for almost a year.

In 1974, ecologist Garrett Hardin wrote a pair of articles, titled “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor” and “Living on a Lifeboat,” arguing that pulling additional victims onto a crowded lifeboat would put the lives of the entire boat at risk, and that therefore wealthy nations (the lifeboats, in his metaphor) should not admit or send aid to the citizens of poorer nations (the swimmers), else they risk suffering their own collapse due to overuse of limited resources.16 This kind of radical utilitarianism appeals to some, but even today most immigration and asylum policies acknowledge a middle ground in the possibility that sharing some land and resources can benefit everyone, not just those lucky enough to be born in a lifeboat.

In September, Dr. McCullough used his own money to create a YouTube video showing four slides from his peer-reviewed American Medical Association articles to teach doctors the miraculous benefits of early treatment with HCQ and other remedies. His video went viral, with hundreds of thousands of downloads; YouTube pulled it two days later.

Variable rewards or not, no habit will stay interesting forever. At some point, everyone faces the same challenge on the journey of self-improvement: you have to fall in love with boredom. We all have goals that we would like to achieve and dreams that we would like to fulfill, but it doesn’t matter what you are trying to become better at, if you only do the work when it’s convenient or exciting, then you’ll never be consistent enough to achieve remarkable results. I can guarantee that if you manage to start a habit and keep sticking to it, there will be days when you feel like quitting. When you start a business, there will be days when you don’t feel like showing up. When you’re at the gym, there will be sets that you don’t feel like finishing. When it’s time to write, there will be days that you don’t feel like typing. But stepping up when it’s annoying or painful or draining to do so, that’s what makes the difference between a professional and an amateur. Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. Professionals know what is important to them and work toward it with purpose; amateurs get pulled off course by the urgencies of life. David Cain, an author and meditation teacher, encourages his students to avoid being “fair-weather meditators.” Similarly, you don’t want to be a fair-weather athlete or a fair-weather writer or a fair-weather anything. When a habit is truly important to you, you have to be willing to stick to it in any mood. Professionals take action even when the mood isn’t right. They might not enjoy it, but they find a way to put the reps in. There have been a lot of sets that I haven’t felt like finishing, but I’ve never regretted doing the workout. There have been a lot of articles I haven’t felt like writing, but I’ve never regretted publishing on schedule. There have been a lot of days I’ve

you’re going to need a blade. Now …” He moved to the next box, tearing off the lid, nails and all. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and look through a few of these yourself? See if anything jumps out at you. Remember, you’re looking for a blade. Not a mace or a maul or a huge spiked chain that you’d probably hurt yourself with trying to learn.” “Fine.” I wandered down the aisle, looking at random articles. “But I still say the flail looked like it could bash in a vamp’s head pretty efficiently.” “Allison—” “I’m going, I’m going.” More wooden boxes lined the aisle to either side, covered in dust. I brushed back a film of cobwebs and grime to read the words on the side of the nearest carton. Longswords: Medieval Europe, 12th century. The rest was lost to time and age. Another read: Musketeer Rapie … something or other. Another apparently had a full suit of gladiator armor, whatever a gladiator was. A clang from Kanin’s direction showed him holding up a large, double-bladed ax, before he laid it aside and moved on to another shelf. One box caught my attention. It was long and narrow, like the other boxes, but instead of words, it had strange symbols printed down the side. Curious, I wrenched off the lid and reached in, shifting through layers of plastic and foam, until my fingers closed around something long and smooth. I pulled it out. The long, slightly curved sheath was black and shiny, and a hilt poked out of the end, marked with diamond pattern in black and red. I grasped that hilt and pulled the blade free, sending a metallic shiver through the air and down my spine. As soon as I drew it, I knew I had found what Kanin wanted. The blade gleamed in the darkness, long and slender, like a silver ribbon. I could sense the razor sharpness of the edge without even touching it. The sword itself was light and graceful, and fit perfectly into my palm, as if it had been made for me. I swept it in a wide arc, feeling it slice through the air, and imagined this was a blade that could pass through a snarling rabid without even slowing down. A chuckle interrupted me. Kanin stood a few yards away, arms crossed, shaking his head. His mouth was pulled into a resigned grin. “I should have known,” he said, coming forward. “I should have known you would be drawn to that. It’s very fitting, actually.

All eyes were turned to the newly minted princess, Her Imperial Highness Princess Izumi, aka the Lost Butterfly. The wedding marked her first formal entrance into Japan society. Would she fly---or fall? HIH Princess Izumi certainly dressed the part in a jade silk gown and Mikimoto pearls, pulled from the imperial vaults and gifted by the empress.

The presence of the outlaw state was disrupting the slave societies of the Caribbean, and Thache and Hornigold delighted in the reversal of fortune. If a man was willing to sign the articles, join a crew, and work hard as a crew member, it didn’t matter to them if he was black, brown, yellow, or white in their eyes. Regardless of the color of his skin, he drew an equal share of the spoils and had equal voting rights, pure and simple, as long as he remained a consistently competent seaman who pulled his fair load on deck.

Anti-Network Effects Hit the Google+ Launch A charismatic executive from one of the most powerful technology companies in the world introduces a new product at a conference. This time, it’s June 2011 at the Web 2.0 Summit, where Google vice president Vic Gundotra describes the future of social networking and launches Google+. This was Google’s ambitious strategy to counteract Facebook, which was nearing their IPO. To give their new networked product a leg up, as many companies do, it led with aggressive upsells from their core product. The Google.com homepage linked to Google+, and they also integrated it widely within YouTube, Photos, and the rest of the product ecosystem. This generated huge initial numbers—within months, the company announced it had signed up more than 90 million users. While this might superficially look like a large user base, it actually consisted of many weak networks that weren’t engaged, because most new users showed up and tried out the product as they read about it in the press, rather than hearing from their friends. The high churn in the product was covered up by the incredible fire hose of traffic that the rest of Google’s network generated. Even though it wasn’t working, the numbers kept going up. When unengaged users interact with a networked product that hasn’t yet gelled into a stable, atomic network, then they don’t end up pulling other users into the product. In a Wall Street Journal article by Amir Efrati, Google+ was described as a ghost town even while the executives touted large top-line numbers: To hear Google Inc. Chief Executive Larry Page tell it, Google+ has become a robust competitor in the social networking space, with 90 million users registering since its June launch. But those numbers mask what’s really going on at Google+. It turns out Google+ is a virtual ghost town compared with the site of rival Facebook Inc., which is preparing for a massive initial public offering. New data from research firm comScore Inc. shows that Google+ users are signing up—but then not doing much there. Visitors using personal computers spent an average of about three minutes a month on Google+ between September and January, versus six to seven hours on Facebook each month over the same period, according to comScore, which didn’t have data on mobile usage.86 The fate of Google+ was sealed in their go-to-market strategy. By launching big rather than focusing on small, atomic networks that could grow on their own, the teams fell victim to big vanity metrics. At its peak, Google+ claimed to have 300 million active users—by the top-line metrics, it was on its way to success. But network effects rely on the quality of the growth and not just its quantity

He pulled up a news article with the headline Monsters Attack Village in Ukraine and pointed at it. “Someone

She would plan to read a certain number of articles every day, but the resolve never lasted more than a single morning. The magnetic pull of her interior life was too strong.

that pop-culture content.” Moore chuckled. “There’s been this amazing shift. It used to be the parents coming to me, worried sick about what their kids were watching and listening to, asking what they could do to pull them back,” he said. “Now, almost everywhere I go—this just happened at a church I visited the other night—it’s the kids coming to me. They say their evangelical parents have gone totally crazy, binge-watching Fox News or Newsmax or One America News, and they want to know how to pull them back.” Darling noted how there were people at his church who had strayed “really far into the conspiracy stuff, and sending them legitimate news articles with facts does not work.

Meritocracy means those who “merit” it are the ones who achieve it. In other words: those who deserve to get rich, get rich. At the core of these narratives, you’ll find a fallacy: We can all become billionaire entrepreneurs on the cover of Forbes, if only we pulled our socks up. If only we wanted it badly enough. If only we got up at 4 a.m. and hustled hard enough. We read articles and watch news segments about these superstar startup founders, and we read books that tell us we can all be like them if we simply get our shit together. Bullsh*t.

Dresses, jackets, trousers, and other articles of clothing were ripped to shreds as people tried to get through to the exits and escape the flames and smoke. When the crowd reached the doors, they found many of them locked. The locking mechanisms had been so confusing to the staff that they had not tried to open them before they fled. Other doors couldn’t be opened. They had been designed to swing inward rather than outward, and the crush of people prevented those in the front from pulling the doors open.

Getting comfortable again, I grab one of the magazines that I keep stuffed under my thin mattress. Flipping to the article the guard Paul told me about, I’m just getting to the part about how chandeliers are a necessity in creating an awesome she-shed, when two prison guards come running in. They take one look at my open cell door, the magic smoke still polluting the air, the unconscious male on the ground, and turn gaping looks at me. I give them a bright smile and point down at Scarface. “Hey, Paul. Could you clean that up for me? I think he wet himself.” Paul lowers his gun and pulls off his SWAT-style helmet. “Another one?” he asks, jerking his chin toward my uninvited cell guest. I shrug my shoulders and give him an apologetic smile. He shakes his head and nudges the unconscious jail-breaker with his boot. “Damn. We need to up our security. We aren’t used to so many supernaturals trying to break someone out of here,” he says, scratching the back of his neck as he frowns in thought. “Yeah, it’s very disruptive,” I tell him. He grunts in agreement. “Good thing your ride is here,” Paul mentions casually as my unwelcome cell guest groans loudly from the floor. I squeal and start clapping excitedly, which startles both guards. “Yes, finally!” I shoot up from my cot and thrust both arms out, ready for the required shackles whenever a prisoner is being transported. Paul releases an amused chuckle, and Terrence—the other guard in my cell right now—gives me some judgement-laced side-eye as I giggle and wait like a kid on Christmas morning for the cuffs to click into place. I’m finally going to be sentenced and booked into Nightmare Penitentiary. I can’t fucking wait.

In an interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson also challenges the leftist notion of toxic masculinity and questions why we are even talking about it, considering that the crime rates in the United States and all of North America have fallen by 50 percent in the last twenty-five years, including every category of violent crime. “So, where’s the crisis, and why in the world would we turn our children’s education over to idiot ideologues? Even the academics are waking up to this. There was an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education just two weeks ago excoriating the faculties of education for their appalling standards and their absolute ideological obssession. And this idea that we should address toxic masculinity from K to 12 is just an extension of that.”24 “The term [toxic masculinity] itself is terribly defined,” observes Peterson. “I think it’s appalling that faculties of education are pushing this sort of nonsense and I think that if your kids are exposed to that type of idiot social justice, pseudo education, you should pull them out of the schools. Everything about the idea is ridiculous.… They are not being educated; they are being propagandized. There’s also no evidence that we construct our identities as masculine and feminine by being expressly taught them by teachers. Almost all that is learned by example, to the degree that it’s learned, and a tremendous amount of it is a consequence of biological inclination.”25 Peterson’s assertion on biological inclination, of course, radically differs from the leftist notion that men and women are not that different biologically.

Holy Aphrodite’s girdle!’ I yelped as I pulled out … Aphrodite’s girdle. My hands trembled. I knew all about this particular article of clothing, though I’d never seen it in person before. Aphrodite was super careful about when she wore it. Crafted for Mom by Hephaestus (when they were still on good speaking terms), the girdle was more like a fashionable belt – a finely wrought wide band of gold filigree (twenty carat, if I’m not mistaken) – infused with magic. Supposedly, anyone who saw Mom wearing it got whipped up in a frenzy of passion for her. Not that she needs any help in that department. I mean, everyone who sees her gets the hots for her. As I held the magical belt, I couldn’t help wondering if its power would work for me. I thought about taking it for a test drive around camp. I’d saunter past a certain Brazilian boy’s cabin and pause long enough for him to take a gander … Tempting, I thought. But no. I tossed the girdle back in the trunk. Why? Because I’d heard tales of Hephaestus cursing the items he made. The girdle probably wasn’t cursed, but I wasn’t going to chance triggering some dormant spell. Besides, any magic item used by the gods could be too much for demigods to

Post Malone Open Carries Gun While Buying Hoverboard in Utah Wal Mart There's long history of firearms in the hip-hop industry. Most of it is only for the show, although some of this history includes violent undertones. In actuality, many rappers legally take on an everyday basis. This includes Article Malone, who carried while buying at a Utah Walmart a week to the rapper.The Walmart article received a lot more than 1000 opinions. A massive majority were positive in him shopping at Walmart and using an open carry pistol. Not everybody agreed. Some seemed to consider the concept of carrying out a gun to become juvenile. Utah law allows open transport, if the individual has a permit. The gun has to be carried with just two steps necessary for firing: racking the slide along with pulling on the trigger.Response to Create Malone Open Carrying There's absolutely not any way of knowing if Malone has a license for Utah. Approximately 22 per cent of state residents have licenses. Utah recognizes permits for all 50 states, so he may have one from somewhere else. He owns homes in California and Utah, therefore he might have permits for either one. Malone creates a advocate for your responsible use of guns.One particular reason he supports gun rights is the same as many other gun owners in the nation. He considers"the globe will shit," and wishes to be more prepared if something happens. He actually showed off part of the collection during a meeting with Spin. At exactly the exact same time he clarified he could be right into alternative news and conspiracy theories. The writer believed the set to be"disconcerting," seemingly not understanding that a lot of Americans possess firearms and hold a number of the exact beliefs. It might seem unusual but was normal within the Utah wal mart.A UTAH Wal-mart GOT A NICE SURPRISE WHEN RAPPER POST MALONE VISITED TO BUY A HOVERBOARD, ALL WHILE BEING AN ADVOCATE OF Open-carry WITH A PISTOL ON HIS HIP.The shop actually published a photograph of Malone with a Walmart employee and depriving him . While there, he purchased a hoverboard, and spent a few minutes posing for pictures and conversing with fans. And with that visit, Malone had a pistol within a holster. Our friends at Ballistic Magazine confirm that the pistol appears to function as described as a ZEV OZ9.Malone, whose name is Austin Richard Post, is a long time owner of firearms. Section of this might be because while he was born in New York, he was raised in Texas. Over time, media outlets have been told by him regarding his service of the Second Amendment. One of the tattoos, actually, is that a snake.

Immelt wanted division heads to generate imaginative new product and service concepts, which in turn would generate the new organic revenue on which his vision depended. It was a tall order: a handful of product ideas that would each pull in $100 million in new sales for each business. More important, Immelt wanted these “breakthrough” sessions to be led by each unit’s marketing department—to have the division that usually dictated advertising and branding stepping into the role that had been the province of product engineers. Immelt’s inspiration for the directive was an article he read about a smaller industrial conglomerate called Danaher Corporation that had formed an internal incubator to develop new ideas that could drive revenues and profits. Its CEO was a young whiz named Larry Culp who, at age thirty-seven, was even younger than Immelt had been when he took the reins.

She and I stared at each other. "You're just consulting for us, then." DI Sadiz had a glimmer in her eye. "Something like that." She unlocked her drawer and pulled out a file, then slid it across her desk. "Twenty minutes," she said, not unkindly. "I need to get back to my investigation. He can take notes, but don't photograph anything. And if you pick the locks on anyone's desks while I'm gone ..." She glanced meaningfully up at the camera in the corner of the room. I had clocked it when I'd walked in. "That goddamn Daily Mail article," I said. "Is it really my fault if people insist on buying the most basic locks -" "Yes," DI Sadiq said, and left.

The article discussed the tragedy of devoting yourself to only one thing, one pursuit, one passion, one interest. It discussed how life is never that simple. How there needs to be room for balance and other interests and passions to take hold of you and pull you in a different direction—which is often not planned for. It discussed how this makes a person grow and become a full-bodied, rich, enlightened, and intelligent individual.

Rook knew the stories were in the experience, not on the Internet. He had a vivid memory and a notes system that delivered him back into the moment every time he pulled the frayed black ribbon of his Moleskine bookmark to part it to a lined page of quotes remembered and details observed. He worked rapidly from beginning to end of the articles as he wrote, drafting at first-impression speed, leaving gaps and reserving the fine work to be done later when he would move once again from front to back. He made numerous passes like that but always continuously, without any backtracking, for a sense of flow. He wrote as if he were the reader. It was also how he kept his writing from becoming too cute, which is to say, about him not the subject. Rook was a journalist but strove to be a storyteller, one who let his subjects speak for themselves and stayed out of their way as much as possible.

Keeping out the mirror, water, and the towel, he put the other things away in the box and replaced it on the shelf. Another box held articles of a more technical nature. He pulled them all out and set them up neatly on the desk like a surgeon lining up his instruments before commencing an operation. He covered his shoulders and front with the towel and then sketched out what he wanted to do on a piece of paper. He applied spirit gum to his nose and tapped it with his finger to make it sticky. He then quickly added a bit of a cotton ball to the surface before the adhesive dried out. He used a Popsicle stick to remove from a jar a small quantity of nose putty mixed with Derma Wax. He rubbed the putty into a ball, warming it with his body heat, making it easier to manipulate. He

Cass was content anywhere. Whether hanging out in an airport lounge or waiting at the dentist, he needed only his laptop to feel at home. I came to understand why he was one of the most prolific scholars in the world -- he used every nook and cranny of the day, no matter where he was, to write. As soon as he had turned on his MacBook Air and pulled up a document on the screen before him, he simply picked up where he had left off ten minutes, an hour, or the day before. Whenever he received thoughtful criticism of his articles or books, it usually brought a smile to his face. 'I love this,' I heard him say once. 'His points are devastating.

Sit down and allow me to have a look at that cut.” Helping her to sit, he grabbed his stool and scooted it in front of her before reaching for his ample supply of ready-made bandages. “So,” he said, allowing a smirk to grow across his face. “You claim you weren’t snooping, and yet you were deliberately looking through articles on my desk. Very suspect, I must say.”  She refused to meet his gaze and he strangled the chuckle that wished for escape. He had to tease her a bit more. “I’m surprised at you, Kitty. I thought you were above such things.”  Kitty tried to tug her hand away and her tone tightened. “I really wasn’t, Nathaniel, I—” “Quiet now and stay still.” Keeping a stern look in his eyes he allowed a small quirk at the corner of his mouth. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and looked away, and suddenly the desire to scoot his stool closer swelled beyond the bounds of its levy. With a quick shake of his head, he ignored it. Nearly. Nathaniel pulled her injured hand closer. Lost in the feel of her skin against his, every sense of teasing faded. He took a long inhale of the scent of cinnamon that always seemed to follow her and regained focus on her injury. Fairly deep, and though the blood oozed steadily, ‘twas nothing serious. With a flick of his wrist he opened the bandage with one hand, applied pressure, and started wrapping. Wriggling, Kitty sat straighter. “I’m... I’m so sorry, Nathaniel. I feel simply terrible about the lamp, and soiling your books and papers with all that oil. I do hope you can forgive me.” Her silken voice draped around him like a fond embrace. Must she be so charming?  “Forgive you?” He pulled back, fighting the yearnings with a strong measure of humor. “I’m not sure I can.”  He almost regretted taking his jesting so far when her chin popped up and her dainty brows pinched low. “Nathaniel, I...” She started to protest, then humphed back in her seat with the most delightful twist on her lips. Nathaniel erupted in laughter while Kitty’s pert mouth curved sideways into a smile that stroked his masculine pride. He sighed, calming his jubilant nature. “Think nothing of it, Kitty. There is very little damage done.” He

What’s most curious about Swisher’s role in the Valley is not whether her connections and conferences compromise her—beyond grumbling about her Google conflict, not even her rivals can name a big story she’s pulled up short on, and she’s broken more big stories in the industry than anyone else—but how she’s managed to elevate herself into Silicon Valley royalty by writing about Silicon Valley royalty, often acerbically.” He was dead right—while I had not become them, I was part of the scene in a way that was starting to feel uncomfortable. I had been a camera, at times an eviscerating one, but it was long past time to use all that knowledge I had gained to finally tell people what that photo actually showed. And while I was hardly an amanuensis, I had already started thinking my role needed to change much earlier, in fact. I said so at a SXSW panel that year, which the article quoted: “More and more, as I’ve thought about our new endeavor, at some point, we’re going to have to start pissing people off more. And I think about that a lot. Sometimes I see people and I think: ‘Soon, I’m going to screw you.’ I do, I think that a lot more…. Things are going

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