Awards Taking Quotes

It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.

Live your life in such a way that you'll be remembered for your kindness, compassion, fairness, character, benevolence, and a force for good who had much respect for life, in general.

There are all kinds of courage," said Dumbledore, smiling. "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr. Neville Longbottom!

Advice to my younger self: 1 Start where you are with what you have 2 Try not to hurt other people 3 Take more chances 4 If you fail, keep trying

Don't hang out with people who are: Ungrateful Unhelpful Unruly Unkindly Unloving Unambitious Unmotivated or make you feel... Uncomfortable

For all the woman who have done, or are doing the work to love yourself from the inside out. You’re allowed to take up space.

(While accepting the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award) I've been thinking about why you have to get famous to get an award for helping other people...If your name is John Doe, and you work night and day doing things for your helpless neighbors, what you get for your effort is tired. So, Mr. and Mrs. Doe, and all of you who give of yourselves, to those who carry too big a burden to make it on their own, I want you to reach out and take your share of this...Because if I have earned it, so too have you.

The little dragon turned on Vimes a gaze that would be guaranteed to win it the award for Dragon the Judges would Most Like to Take Home and Use as a Portable Gas Lighter.

Humanity will be gone. No. I won’t allow that. I can’t allow that. Whatever it takes. Even if it kills me.", FADE by Kailin Gow

There's something to that in both directions," said Ekaterin mildly. "Nothing is more guaranteed to make one start acting like a child than to be treated like one. It's so infuriating. It took me the longest time to figure out how to stop falling into that trap." "Yes, exactly," said Kareen eagerly. "You understand! So—how did you make them stop?" "You can't make them—whoever your particular them is—do anything, really," said Ekaterin slowly. "Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste . . . years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just . . . take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that, and walk away. But that's hard.

To me, there was nothing more powerful than a confident woman who didn’t take shit from anyone.

Take up space, Beatrix. Don’t apologize, and don’t let the world shame you for being you.

There are certain books that I mean to read and keep stacked by my bedside. I even take them on trips. Some of my books should be awarded their own frequent-flier miles, they've traveled so much. I take these volumes on flight after flight with the best of intentions and then end up reading anything and everything else. (Sky Mall! Golf Digest!)

So much was lost—names, faces, ages, ethnic identities—that African Americans must do what no other ethnic group writ large must do: take a completely shattered vessel and piece it together,

You will not remember much from school. School is designed to teach you how to respond and listen to authority figures in the event of an emergency. Like if there's a bomb in a mall or a fire in an office. It can, apparently, take you more than a decade to learn this. These are not the best days of your life. They are still ahead of you. You will fall in love and have your heart broken in many different, new and interesting ways in college or university (if you go) and you will actually learn things, as at this point, people will believe you have a good chance of obeying authority and surviving, in the event of an emergency. If, in your chosen career path, there are award shows that give out more than ten awards in one night or you have to pay someone to actually take the award home to put on your mantlepiece, then those awards are more than likely designed to make young people in their 20's work very late, for free, for other people. Those people will do their best to convince you that they have value. They don't. Only the things you do have real, lasting value, not the things you get for the things you do. You will, at some point, realise that no trophy loves you as much as you love it, that it cannot pay your bills (even if it increases your salary slightly) and that it won't hold your hand tightly as you say your last words on your deathbed. Only people who love you can do that. If you make art to feel better, make sure it eventually makes you feel better. If it doesn't, stop making it. You will love someone differently, as time passes. If you always expect to feel the same kind of love you felt when you first met someone, you will always be looking for new people to love. Love doesn't fade. It just changes as it grows. It would be boring if it didn't. There is no truly "right" way of writing, painting, being or thinking, only things which have happened before. People who tell you differently are assholes, petrified of change, who should be violently ignored. No philosophy, mantra or piece of advice will hold true for every conceivable situation. "The early bird catches the worm" does not apply to minefields. Perfection only exists in poetry and movies, everyone fights occasionally and no sane person is ever completely sure of anything. Nothing is wrong with any of this. Wisdom does not come from age, wisdom comes from doing things. Be very, very careful of people who call themselves wise, artists, poets or gurus. If you eat well, exercise often and drink enough water, you have a good chance of living a long and happy life. The only time you can really be happy, is right now. There is no other moment that exists that is more important than this one. Do not sacrifice this moment in the hopes of a better one. It is easy to remember all these things when they are being said, it is much harder to remember them when you are stuck in traffic or lying in bed worrying about the next day. If you want to move people, simply tell them the truth. Today, it is rarer than it's ever been. (People will write things like this on posters (some of the words will be bigger than others) or speak them softly over music as art (pause for effect). The reason this happens is because as a society, we need to self-medicate against apathy and the slow, gradual death that can happen to anyone, should they confuse life with actually living.)

Instead of just giving employees an award for the smartest idea or praise for a brilliant performance, they would get praise for taking initiative, for seeing a difficult task through, for struggling and learning something new, for being undaunted by a setback, or for being open to and acting on criticism.

Is it possible to take river water back after it has mixed into the sea? The river and the sea are united and one now.

He shrugged, working to make her understand. “There’s whole YouTube montages playing still shots of my butt to music. I don’t take credit for it. My mom’s been paying a trainer for years. Oh, and my six-pack won a Fan’s Choice Award called the SixPackAttack. Three years running.

Taking care of you” doesn’t mean to award yourself with a new pair of shoes or spending beyond measure on a trip to Tahiti. It actually means to take care of your financial future.

Conventional wisdom says if a jury is going to no-cause the plaintiff—award no damages—the verdict will be swift. Similar logic applies to criminal trials where juries will, within hours, convict people, but take days to acquit. In civil cases, this rule is more than courtroom legend . . . A defense verdict requires one finding—the defendant was not responsible . . . A plaintiff verdict requires a finding of liability and evaluation of damages, something not needed in a defense verdict. Thus, by sheer evidence evaluation, a jury has more work to do when rendering a verdict in favor of the plaintiff.

His huge shoulders lift in a shrug. “It’s true. How many of your favorite shows got canceled? How many of the best albums barely sold when they came out? I mean, It’s a Wonderful Life was a box office flop in its time. If everyone who worked on that movie had known, could see how things were going to pan out in the short term, would they have even bothered to make it? And then the world would’ve lost out on something beautiful. Just because something doesn’t make money or win awards doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. Or doesn’t deserve to exist. The job is alchemy. You take a hunk of rock and you try to turn it into gold, and the gold isn’t even really the point.

You'll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse,' Denzel Washington often said as we worked together on 'Fences.' 'I don't care how much money you have or what level of notoriety you've achieved, you can't take any of it with you.' There is a cap on earthly success, a ceiling on the amount of joy that possessions and awards can bring before disillusionment sets in. Our appearance, our prosperity, the applause: all of it is so fleeting. But a life of true significance has unlimited impact. It is measured in how well we've loved those around us, how much we've given away, how many seeds we've sown along our path. During her ninety-six years, Ms. [Cicely] Tyson has discovered the potent elixir: she has lived a life of that is bigger than she is, an existence grounded in purpose and flourishing in service to others. That is her defining masterpiece. That is her enduring gift to us all. [Viola Davis, Foreword]

The label of "marathoner" has, from the beginning, been awarded to those who went the distance under their own power, whether they ran, walked, crawled or tiptoed. When you cross that finish line, you've entered an elite group. About one-tenth of one percent of the population has done it. Don't let anyone take that great achievement away from you.

If I created a fable of my life, a fantasy, I see myself finally meeting God, gushing, crying, thanking the Almighty for the accolades, a fabulous husband, beautiful daughter, my journey from nothing to Hollywood, awards, travel. I can clearly see the Lord’s face, staring at me, taking me in and saying, 'You never thanked me for creating you as YOU.

Anyone who is in Christ is strategically positioned to win the most coveted award in this business called life. He doesn't want you playing itty-bitty roles. He wants bright lights in your dressing room, and the spotlight trained on you as you take the center stage.

Our lives and the lives of future generations do not only depend on the conflicts that take place, but also on the solutions we offer in response to them.

If my name were Oscar, I’d want to be an actor and win my namesake award and take back my identity.

Considering thus how much honor is awarded to antiquity, and how many times—letting pass infinite other examples—a fragment of an ancient statue has been bought at high price because someone wants to have it near oneself, to honor his house with it, and to be able to have it imitated by those who delight in that art, and how the latter then strive with all industry to represent it in all their works; and seeing, on the other hand, that the most virtuous works the histories show us, which have been done by ancient kingdoms and republics, by kings, captains, citizens, legislators, and others who have labored for their fatherland, are rather admired than imitated—indeed they are so much shunned by everyone in every least thing that no sign of that ancient virtue remains with us—I can do no other than marvel and grieve… From this it arises that the infinite number who read [the histories] take pleasure in hearing of the variety of accidents contained within them without thinking of imitating them, judging that imitation is not only difficult but impossible—as if heaven, sun, elements, men had varied in motion, order, and power from what they were in antiquity. Wishing, therefore, to turn men from this error, I have judged it necessary to write on all those books of Titus Livy...

Rape culture is a concept of unknown origin and of uncertain definition; yet it has made its way into everyday vocabulary and is assumed to be commonly understood. The award-winning documentary film Rape Culture made by Margaret Lazarus in 1975 takes credit for first defining the concept

For all the women in the world who give up a part of themselves trying to make other people happy. Don't let their expectations of who they think you're meant to be take away that joyful, authentic part of yourself. Be you. And anyone who doesn't love you for it, can fuck off. Tell them I said so.

There is a saturation of books on Amazon due to a sudden get-rich-quick surge in "everyone can be authors" seminars similar to the house flipping ones in the early 2000s which led to the housing bubble and an economic slowdown in the U.S. To distinguish quality books from those get-rich-quick ones, look at the author's track record - worldwide recognition as books that garnered credible awards, authors who speak at book industry events, authors who speak at schools, authors whose books are reference materials and reading sources at school and libraries. Get-rich books have a system to get over 500 reviews quickly, manipulates the Kindle Unlimited algorithm, and encourage collusion in the marketplace to knock out rivals. Be wary of trolls who are utilized to knock down the rankings of rival's books too. Once people have heard there is money to be made as a self-published author, just like house flipping, a cottage industry has risen to take advantage of it and turn book publishing into a get rich scheme, which is a shame for all the book publishers and authors, like me, who had published for the love of books, to write to help society, and for the love of literature. Kailin Gow, Parents and Books

We lose our gratitude so easily in this commerce-driven world, and take for granted our health, friendships, food, warm shelter, running water, etc. We can become so spoiled that we actually feel the universe is conspiring against us if we aren’t being handed an Academy Award, or if we aren’t as famous as U2.

To the accomplishment-oriented mother, what you achieve in life is paramount. Success depends on what you do, not who you are. She expects you to perform at the highest possible level. This mom is very proud of her children’s good grades, tournament wins, admission into the right college, and graduation with the pertinent degrees. She loves to brag about them too. But if you do not become what your accomplishment-oriented mother thinks you should, and accomplish what she thinks is important, she is deeply embarrassed, and may even respond with a rampage of fury and rage. A confusing dynamic is at play here. Often, while the daughter is trying to achieve a given goal, the mother is not supportive because it takes away from her and the time the daughter has to spend on her. Yet if the daughter achieves what she set out to do, the mother beams with pride at the awards banquet or performance. What a mixed message. The daughter learns not to expect much support unless she becomes a great hit, which sets her up for low self-esteem and an accomplishment-oriented lifestyle.

I don’t believe I can let this subject pass by leaving my own conflicted emotions unconfessed. When Carl Sagan won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1978, I dismissed it as a minor achievement for a scientist, scarcely worth listing. When I won the same prize the following year, it wondrously became a major literary award of which scientists should take special note.

Perhaps this is the bottom line to mental illness: incomprehensible events occur; your life becomes a bin for hoax-like fluctuations of what used to be reality. And not only that—as if that weren't enough—but you, like Fat, ponder forever over these fluctuations in an effort to order them into a coherency, when in fact the only sense they make is the sense you impose on them, out of the necessity to restore everything into shapes and processes you can recognize. The first thing to depart in mental illness is the familiar. And what takes its place is bad news because not only can you not understand it, you also cannot communicate it to other people. The madman experiences something, but what it is or where it comes from he does not know.

She scrambled to her feet, uncaring that a stray knee and elbow had Erik wincing. “How can you be groaning about a simple knee to the groin when you’ve just been battered by flying furniture, candelabras and hit on the head by a pot plant that must weigh a ton or more?” “I’ll have you know there is nothing simple about my groin…” He shot her his predatory grin, the one he often reserved for her breasts. Run little girl, run far and run fast… take those tempting curves, enticing kissable lips and award winning breasts with you.

You can be a member of all of the romance writers associations, take part in all of the networking available, or win the latest romance award... but guess what? None of that makes a difference if you don't WRITE something people want to READ. The greatest editor in the world won't make your book a best seller if it isn't something people care about. So forget all of the fluff that clouds your purpose... writing!!

By his own admission, Tom is nothing like his brother. He has neither the fierce ambition nor the compulsion for risk taking. ... Will relied on aggression to anchor the world while Tom passively accepted whatever the world would give or take away. Consequently Tom won no awards, achieved no fame, ... He drifted, bending to daily pressures, never protesting when he was deprived of what he should have rightfully claimed as his own. In his sad trip downstream, Tom dulled the pain with alcohol and a few joints a day - what he called his 'friendly haze'.

If you are a conservative—or even a liberal who says something deemed conservative—your speech will get canceled or your award revoked for taking a view at odds with liberal dogma. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s honorary degree at Brandeis was yanked for slamming Islam, but nobody blinked when at a 2007 Smith Commencement address, Gloria Steinem compared people who oppose abortion and same-sex marriage to “Germany under fascism.”54

I mean, It's a Wonderful Life was a box office flop in its time. If everyone who worked on that movie had known, could see how things were going to pan out in the short term, would they have even bothered to make it? And then the world would've lost out on something beautiful. Just because something doesn't make money or win awards doesn't mean it doesn't have value. Or doesn't deserve to exist. The job is alchemy. You take a hunk of rock and you try to turn it into gold, and the gold isn't even really the point." "Right, because the goal is immortality," I joke. "It's permanence," he says. "Not, like, having your name on the side of fucking airplane or skyscraper, or some shit like that. But bringing something intangible into the world that can live on without you. Something bigger than the person who made it. And even then, the goal is secondary to the process. The process is for us. It changes us in ways that can't be measured. At least, that's what I've always thought.

No one gets to pick their circumstances, Greer. The choice lies in what you do in response to them. It’s not awarded to you, but it is yours for the taking.

Let’s not only take great photos, but let’s make great photos with our lives.

We did not fall because of a moral error; we fell because of an intellectual error: that of taking the phenomenal world as real. Therefore we are morally innocent.

I was used to meeting politicians. I was not nervous. After the PM presented me with the award and check, I presented him with a long list of demands. I told him that we wanted our schools rebuilt and a girls’ university in Swat. I knew he would not take my demands seriously, so I didn’t push very hard. I thought, One day I will be a politician and do these things myself.

Adulthood isn’t an award they’ll give you for being a good child. You can waste . . . years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just . . . take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I’m sorry you feel like that, and walk away. But that’s hard.

Woolf turned her back on a number of tokens of her rising eminence in the 1930s, including an offer of the Companion of Honour award, an invitation from Cambridge University to give the Clark lectures, and honorary doctorate degrees from Manchester University and Liverpool University. ‘It is an utterly corrupt society,’ she wrote in her diary, ‘. . . & I will take nothing that it can give me

How wonderful it would be to live an entire life with such freedom to try new things, experience the unknown, and face our fears. It is hard for many adults to step out there and take those chances, but kids are more willing to release their inhibitions and truly live life. If we can teach them to embrace that feeling when they are young, hopefully it will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Here, you drive," Erik said. "What? Why?" "In case we do have to start shooting; I have a badge and you don't," he explained. "Fine. But for the record, I'm a better shot than you are." "For your information, I was the youngest kid awarded the rifle shooting merit badge in my troop," Erik said, holding the wheel as she climbed across him. "Is that supposed to impress me?" "Just enough to get you back into my bed." She took over the gas pedal and Erik slid out from underneath her. "It takes more than fancy shooting," she said loftily, making a sharp turn. Erik was thrown against the door. "Would you warn me before you do that?" "It's a car chase!

Create jobs people really want and that good people won’t want to lose. Why should you do all this? Not to be a generous soul. Not to be liked. Not to win some award. So that your bloody axe is feared and you can be fearless in swinging it.

He watched the newly arrived commuters as they stepped into the carriage, pushed their way down the tube, the odours from their damp clothes mingling, giving off varying degrees of mustiness: London grime, or smoke from airless offices. A woman wearing a blue swing coat glanced along the carriage, casting around for an empty seat. Her pale skin, the searching green eyes, reminded him of Emma. Briefly, he felt his breath catch; he stood, clambered back over his neighbour and indicated for her to take his seat. And so his mind stayed with Emma when he knew he should be working out a strategy for telling Dorothy of his news. But Emma was never far away; like the glitter balls in dance halls, she would slowly rotate in his memory, different facets reappearing, as the hues changed in her auburn hair.

The bus stops right in front of our house and takes me day to day, week to week, and month to month of the same girls saying the same things. But at the end of March, as I stand on the stage, accepting my award for receiving 100 percent in every class for the whole month, I catch a glimpse of myself in the certificate's shiny gold stamp and finger my baby hair back away from my face. I know I'm not going to get stuck on the bus with those girls. I'm going to travel places too far for them to see, miles and miles outside of being black, past the snap of their fingers with the complementary 'Baby, boom,' 'Baby, pop,' or 'Baby, please,' past anything they say about me until I can feel them so far behind that I can look back and see stupid little girls, still occasionally talking their smack, pushing me on.

If you’ll remember, helping people was one of the two basic things Fat has been told long ago to give up; helping people and taking dope. He had stopped taking dope, but all his energy and enthusiasm were now totally channeled into saving people. Better he had kept on with the dope.

1. What do you want? This is a deceptively simple question. It can be much more difficult than we realize to give ourselves permission to know and listen to ourselves, to align ourselves with our desires. How often when we answer this question do we say what we want for someone else? I reminded Ling and Jun that they needed to answer this question for themselves. To say I want Jun to stop drinking or I want Ling to stop nagging was to avoid the question. 2. Who wants it? This is our charge and our struggle: to understand our own expectations for ourselves versus trying to live up to others’ expectations of us. My father became a tailor because his father wouldn’t allow him to become a doctor. My father was good at his profession, he was commended and awarded for it—but he was never the one who wanted it, and he always regretted his unlived dream. It’s our responsibility to act in service of our authentic selves. Sometimes this means giving up the need to please others, giving up our need for others’ approval. 3. What are you going to do about it? I believe in the power of positive thinking—but change and freedom also require positive action. Anything we practice, we become better at. If we practice anger, we’ll have more anger. If we practice fear, we’ll have more fear. In many cases, we actually work very hard to ensure that we go nowhere. Change is about noticing what’s no longer working and stepping out of the familiar, imprisoning patterns. 4. When? In Gone with the Wind, my mother’s favorite book, Scarlett O’Hara, when confronted with a difficulty, says, “I’ll think about it tomorrow. … After all, tomorrow is another day.” If we are to evolve instead of revolve, it’s time to take action now.

But what finally undid me was when Ariana came whistle-toning in with excitement because she had spent the previous evening playing charades at Tom Hanks’s house. That was the moment I broke. I couldn’t take it anymore. Music performances and magazine covers…whatever, I’ll get over it. But playing a family game at National Treasure, two-time Academy Award-winner and six-time nominee Tom Hanks’s house? I’m done. From that moment on, I didn’t like her. I couldn’t like her. Pop star success I could handle, but hanging out with Sheriff Woody, with fucking Forrest Gump? This has gone too far.

Mr. Wonderful was probably taking his sweet time, right?” “No, it was actually my fault this morning. I was busy with…paperwork.” “Oh. Well, that’s alright. Don’t worry about it. What kind of paperwork?” He smiled. “Nothing important.” Mr. Kadam held the door for me, and we walked out into an empty hallway. I was just starting to relax at the elevator doors when I heard a hotel room door close. Ren walked down the hall toward us. He’d purchased new clothes. Of course, he looked wonderful. I took a step back from the elevator and tried to avoid eye contact. Ren wore a brand new pair of dark-indigo, purposely faded, urban-destruction designer jeans. His shirt was long-sleeved, buttoned-down, crisp, oxford-style and was obviously of high quality. It was blue with thin white stripes that matched is eyes perfectly. He’d rolled up the sleeves and left his shirt untucked and open at the collar. It was also an athletic cut, so it fit tightly to his muscular torso, which made me suck in an involuntary breath in appreciation of his male splendor. He looks like a runway model. How in the world am I going to be able to reject that? The world is so unfair. Seriously, it’s like turning Brad Pitt down for a date. The girl who could actually do it should win an award for idiot of the century. I again quickly ran through my list of reasons for not being with Ren and said a few “He’s not for me’s.” The good thing about seeing his mouthwatering self and watching him walk around like a regular person was that it tightened my resolve. Yes. It would be hard because he was so unbelievably gorgeous, but it was now even more obvious to me that we didn’t belong together. As he joined us at the elevator, I shook my head and muttered under my breath, “Figures. The guy is a tiger for three hundred and fifty years and emerges from his curse with expensive taste and keen fashion sense too. Incredible!” Mr. Kadam asked, “What was that, Miss Kelsey?” “Nothing.” Ren raised an eyebrow and smirked. He probably heard me. Stupid tiger hearing. The elevator doors opened. I stepped in and moved to the corner hoping to keep Mr. Kadam between the two of us, but unfortunately, Mr. Kadam wasn’t receiving the silent thoughts I was projecting furiously toward him and remained by the elevator buttons. Ren moved next to me and stood too close. He looked me up and down slowly and gave me a knowing smile. We rode down the elevator in silence. When the doors opened, he stopped me, took the backpack off my shoulder, and threw it over his, leaving me with nothing to carry. He walked ahead next to Mr. Kadam while I trialed along slowly behind, keeping distance between us and a wary eye on his tall frame.

What Hurts the People There are five things that hurt the people: There are local officials who use public office for personal benefit, taking improper advantage of their authority, holding weapons in one hand and people’s livelihood in the other, corrupting their offices, and bleeding the people. There are cases where serious offenses are given light penalties; there is inequality before the law, and the innocent are subjected to punishment, even execution. Sometimes serious crimes are pardoned, the strong are supported, and the weak are oppressed. Harsh penalties are applied, unjustly torturing people to get at facts. Sometimes there are officials who condone crime and vice, punishing those who protest against this, cutting off the avenues of appeal and hiding the truth, plundering and ruining lives, unjust and arbitrary. Sometimes there are senior officials who repeatedly change department heads so as to monopolize the government administration, favoring their friends and relatives while treating those they dislike with unjust harshness, oppressive in their actions, prejudiced and unruly. They also use taxation to reap profit, enriching themselves and their families by exactions and fraud. Sometimes local officials extensively tailor awards and fines, welfare projects, and general expenditures, arbitrarily determining prices and measures, with the result that people lose their jobs. These five things are harmful to the people, and anyone who does any of these should be dismissed from office.

Grabbing Jeremy's lapels, Nick pulled him closer, grasping him not with fingers but with claws. His face inches away from Jeremy's, his eyes burning red, his fangs sharp and gleaming, he screamed, "BECAUSE YOU'RE MINE! NO ONE THREATENS WHAT'S MINE AND WALKS AWAY!" His growl rumbled through the room, ratcheting down into the subsonic. "I WILL BURN DOWN WHOLE ARMIES BEFORE I LET THEM TAKE YOU FROM ME!"... "Jesus, big brother," said Toby. "I know vampires are territorial when it comes to their mates, but you're way out in front for the possessive macho bullshit award." Nick sighed. "I know. I've got to work on that.

When NASA had awarded SpaceX the contract to build a rocket that would take astronauts to the Space Station, it had, on the same day in 2014, given a competing contract, with 40 percent more funding to Boeing. By the time SpaceX succeeded in 2020, Boeing had not even been able to get an unmanned test flight to dock with the station.

The ruinous deeds of the ravaging foe (Beowulf) The best-known long text in Old English is the epic poem Beowulf. Beowulf himself is a classic hero, who comes from afar. He has defeated the mortal enemy of the area - the monster Grendel - and has thus made the territory safe for its people. The people and the setting are both Germanic. The poem recalls a shared heroic past, somewhere in the general consciousness of the audience who would hear it. It starts with a mention of 'olden days', looking back, as many stories do, to an indefinite past ('once upon a time'), in which fact blends with fiction to make the tale. But the hero is a mortal man, and images of foreboding and doom prepare the way for a tragic outcome. He will be betrayed, and civil war will follow. Contrasts between splendour and destruction, success and failure, honour and betrayal, emerge in a story which contains a great many of the elements of future literature. Power, and the battles to achieve and hold on to power, are a main theme of literature in every culture - as is the theme of transience and mortality. ................ Beowulf can be read in many ways: as myth; as territorial history of the Baltic kingdoms in which it is set; as forward-looking reassurance. Questions of history, time and humanity are at the heart of it: it moves between past, present, and hope for the future, and shows its origins in oral tradition. It is full of human speech and sonorous images, and of the need to resolve and bring to fruition a proper human order, against the enemy - whatever it be - here symbolised by a monster and a dragon, among literature's earliest 'outsiders'. ....... Beowulf has always attracted readers, and perhaps never more than in the 1990s when at least two major poets, the Scot Edwin Morgan and the Irishman Seamus Heaney, retranslated it into modern English. Heaney's version became a worldwide bestseller, and won many awards, taking one of the earliest texts of English literature to a vast new audience.

Howard understood from a very young age the very human desire to win. No one likes to lose, and most healthy people live their life to win. The only variation is the score we use. For some it’s money, for others it’s fame or awards. For some it’s power, love, a family or spiritual fulfillment. The metric is relative, but the desire is the same.

With every inhalation, I take. With every exhalation, I give. How grand it is not to buy, sell, hold, or hoard breath. Would that it were so with money. Enjoy breathing while you can, for unless something changes, it won’t be long until government awards ownership of the atmosphere to some commercial corporation to price and meter out as they please.

Call me Ace. That’s what my friends call me.” they both look up at me in question and I laugh, remembering just how young they really are,before I nudge my head slightly toward Ashton.Eric takes Ashton’s hand first, gesturing him forward like he’s got a secret to whisper in his ear. Of course, a five-year-old’s whisper might as well be through a megaphone. “What’s wrong with you?Livie’s really pretty for a girl.”I try not to laugh. Ashton’s eyes flicker to me and there’s a mischievous twinkle in them. A twinge of panic hits me. Of all the ways he could answer this question . . . “I’ve tried, little buddy. But Livie doesn’t like me very much.” “She’s your friend but she doesn’t like you? Why not?” Derek asks, a deep frown creasing his forehead. Ashton shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve tried as hard as I can, but . . .” then his shoulders slouch a bit and his smile falters, playing the role of wounded boy to Academy Award perfection. e twins cock their heads and stare at me in eerie unison. “Why don’t you like him, Livie?” Derek asks. And I have turned into the villain here.

Gratitude practices as they’re generally presented in pop culture—usually some form of grateful-for-what-you-have exercise, like “Every day, write a list of ten things you’re grateful for”—don’t cut it, empirically speaking. When Emily tried this, it always made her feel worse because it just reminded her of how many people don’t have those things, which made her feel helpless and inadequate. Then she read the research herself and followed the instructions of the evidence-based interventions…and it worked like a charm. There are two techniques that really get the job done, and neither involves gratitude-for-what-you-have. The key is practicing gratitude-for-who-you-have and gratitude-for-how-things-happen. A Short-Term Quick-Fix Gratitude Boost is gratitude-for-who-you-have. Mr. Rogers, accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award, asked everyone in the audience to take ten seconds to remember some of the people who have “helped you love the good that grows within you, some of those people who have loved us and wanted what was best for us, […] those who have encouraged us to become who we are.” That’s how to gratitude-for-who-you-have.

When something begins to devour the world, a serious matter is taking place. If the devouring entity is evil or insane, the situation is not merely serious; it is grim. But Fat viewed the process the other way around. He viewed it exactly as Plato had viewed it in his own cosmology: the rational mind (noös) persuades the irrational (chance, blind determinism, ananke), into cosmos.

THE RIGHT AND WRONG PICTURE OF A DREAM I’ve studied successful people for almost forty years. I’ve known hundreds of high-profile people who achieved big dreams. And I’ve achieved a few dreams of my own. What I’ve discovered is that a lot of people have misconceptions about dreams. Take a look at many of the things that people pursue and call dreams in their lives: Daydreams—Distractions from Current Work Pie-in-the-Sky Dreams—Wild Ideas with No Strategy or Basis in Reality Bad Dreams—Worries that Breed Fear and Paralysis Idealistic Dreams—The Way the World Would Be If You Were in Charge Vicarious Dreams—Dreams Lived Through Others Romantic Dreams—Belief that Some Person Will Make You Happy Career Dreams—Belief that Career Success Will Make You Happy Destination Dreams—Belief that a Position, Title, or Award Will Make You Happy Material Dreams—Belief that Wealth or Possessions Will Make You Happy If these aren’t good dreams—valid ones worthy of a person’s life—then what are? Here is my definition of a dream that can be put to the test and pass: a dream is an inspiring picture of the future that energizes your mind, will, and emotions, empowering you to do everything you can to achieve it.

Whether receiving an award or admitting to a mistake, a Bawse will stand up tall because they understand that both contribute toward growth and progress. When you have the guts to make mistakes, great things happen. And when you have the integrity to take ownership of those mistakes, the people around you will take notice. So eff up, empower your inner referee, call yourself out, and move one step closer to success.

Is that...the Looney Tunes theme?" Mer and St. Clair cock their ears. "Why,yes.I believe it is," St. Clair says. "I heard 'Love Shack' a few minutes ago," Mer says. "It's official," I say. "America has finally ruined France." "So can we go now?" St. Clair holds up a small bag. "I'm done." "Ooo,what'd you get?" Mer asks. She takes his bag and pulls out a delicate, shimmery scarf. "Is it for Ellie?" "Shite." Mer pauses. "You didn't get anything for Ellie?" "No,it's for Mum.Arrrgh." He rakes a hand through his hair. "Would you mind if we pop over to Sennelier before we go home?" Sennelier is a gorgeous little art supply sore,the kind that makes me wish I had an excuse to buy oil paints and pastels. Mer and I went with Rashmi last weekend. She bought Josh a new sketchbook for Hanukkah. "Wow.Congratulations,St. Clair," I say. "Winner of today's Sucky Boyfriend award.And I thought Steve was bad-did you see what happened in calc?" "You mean when Amanda caught him dirty-texting Nicole?" Mer asks. "I thought she was gonna stab him in the neck with her pencil." "I've been busy," St. Clair says. I glance at him. "I was just teasing." "Well,you don't have to be such a bloody git about it." "I wasn't being a git. I wasnt even being a twat, or a wanker, or any of your other bleeding Briticisms-" "Piss off." He snatches his bag back from Mer and scowls at me. "HEY!" Mer says. "It's Christmas. Ho-ho-ho. Deck the halls. Stop fighting." "We weren't fighting," he and I say together. She shakes her head. "Come on,St. Clair's right. Let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps." "I think it's pretty," I say. "Besides, I'd rather look at ribbons than dead rabbits." "Not the hares again," St. Clair says. "You're as bad as Rashmi." We wrestle through the Christmas crowds. "I can see why she was upset! The way they're hung up,like they'd died of nosebleeds. It's horrible. Poor Isis." All of the shops in Paris have outdone themselves with elaborate window displays,and the butcher is no exception. I pass the dead bunnies every time I go to the movies. "In case you hadn't noticed," he says. "Isis is perfectly alive and well on the sixth floor.

To review briefly, in the late 1960s, men got paid more than women (usually double) for doing the exact same job. Women could get credit cards in their husband's names but not their own, and many divorced, single and separated women could not get cards at all. Women could not get mortgages on their own and if a couple applied for a mortgage, only the husband's income was considered. Women faced widespread and consistent discrimination in education, scholarship awards, and on the job. In most states the collective property of a marriage was legally the husband's since the wife had allegedly not contributed to acquiring it. Women were largely kept out of a whole host of jobs--doctor, college professor, bus driver, business manager--that women today take for granted. They were knocked out in the delivery room... once women got pregnant they were either fired from their jobs or expected to quit. If they were women of color, it was worse on all fronts--work education, health care. (And talk about slim pickings. African American men were being sent to prison and cut out of jobs by the millions.) Most women today, having seen reruns of The Brady Bunch and Father Knows Best, and having heard of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, the bestseller that attacked women's confinement to the home, are all too familiar with the idealized yet suffocating media images of happy, devoted housewives. In fact, most of us have learned to laugh at them, vacuuming in their stockings and heels, clueless about balancing a checkbook, asking dogs directions to the neighbor's. But we should not permit our ability to distance ourselves from these images to erase the fact that all women--and we mean all women--were, in the 1950s and '60s supposed to internalize this ideal, to live it and believe it.

do want to write a good story. But I no longer trust the judgements of my age. The critic now assesses the writer’s life as much as her work. The judges award prizes according to a checklist of criteria created by corporations and bureaucrats. And we writers and artists acquiesce, fearful of a word that might be misconstrued or an image that might cause offence. I read many of the books nominated for the globalised book prizes; so many of them priggish and scolding, or contrite and chastened. I feel the same way about those films feted at global festivals and award ceremonies. It’s not even that it is dead art: it’s worse, it’s safe art. Most of them don’t even have the dignity of real decay and desiccation: like the puritan elect, they want to take their piety into the next world. Their books and their films don’t even have the power to raise a good stench. The safe is always antiseptic.

The spelling in the honors essays was mostly correct, and the diction was clear (although my cautious college-bound don’t-take-a-chancers had an irritating tendency to fall back on the passive voice), but the writing was pallid. Boring. My honors kids were juniors—Mac Steadman, the department head, awarded the seniors to himself—but they wrote like little old men and little old ladies, all pursey-mouthed and ooo, don’t slip on that icy patch, Mildred.

He looked at me, and I saw the knowledge in his eyes. The horror. “I didn’t know, Gideon. I swear to God, I didn’t know.” My heart jerked in my chest, then began to pound. My mouth went dry. “I, uh, went to see Terrence Lucas.” Chris’s voice grew hoarse. “ Barged into his office. He denied it, the lying son of a bitch, but I could see it on his face.” The brandy sloshed in my glass. I set it down carefully, feeling the floor shift under my feet. Eva had confronted Lucas, but Chris..? “I decked him, knocked him out could, but Good … I wanted to take one of those awards on his shelves and bash his head in.” “Stop.” The word broke from my throat like slivers of glass. “And the asshole who did … That asshole is dead. I can’t get to him. Goddamn it.” Chris dropped the tumbler onto the granite with a thud, but it was the sob that tore out of him that nearly shattered me. “Hell, Gideon. It was my job to protect you. And I failed.” “Stop!” I pushed off the counter, my hands clenching. “Don’t fucking look at me like that!” He trembled visibly, but didn’t back down. “I had to tell you –“ His wrinkled dress shirt was in my fist, his feet dangling above the floor. “Stop talking. Now!” Tears lipped down his face. “I love you like my own. Always have.” I shoved him away. Turned my back to him when he stumbled and hit the wall. I left, crossing the living room without seeing it. “I’m not expecting your forgiveness,” he called after me, tears clogging his words. “I don’t deserve it. But you need to hear that I would’ve ripped him apart with my bare hands if I’d known.” I rounded on him, feeling the sickness clawing up from my gut and burning my throat. “What the fuck do you want?” Chris pulled his shoulders back. He faced me with reddened eyes and wet cheeks, shaking but too stupid to run. “I want you to know that you’re not alone.” Alone. Yes. Far away from the pity and guilt and pain staring out at me through his tears. “Get out.” Nodding, he headed toward the foyer. I stood immobile, my chest heaving, my eyes burning. Words backed up in my throat, violence pounded in the painful clench of my fists. He stopped before he left the room, facing me. “I’m glad you told Eva.” “Don’t talk about her.” I couldn’t bear to even think of her. Not now, when I was so close to losing it. He left. The weight of the day crashed onto my shoulders, dropping me to my knees. I broke.

I stand. People move around me, they try to touch, but they can’t stick. Two, three, four steps and I’m less than a meter away. “June?” Enki says. I kneel. A subject to her king. I take his hand. His grip is firm and warm and dry; he smells of hibiscus and sea salt. I never really believed you would pick the Queen’s Award, he said. And he was right, in the end. “The person —” Enki puts his hand over my mouth. He looks scared. Has something else happened to the city? “Quiet.” His lips barely move.

Despite a seemingly pervasive belief that only people of colour ‘play the race card’, it does not take anything as dramatic as a slave revolution or Japanese imperialism to evoke white racial anxieties, something as trivial as the casting of non-white people in films or plays in which a character was ‘supposed’ to be white will do the trick. For example, the casting of Olivier award-winning actress Noma Dumezweni to play the role of Hermione in the debut West End production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child got bigots so riled up that J. K. Rowling felt the need to respond and give her blessing for a black actress to play the role. A similar but much larger controversy occurred when the character Rue in the film The Hunger Games was played by a black girl, Amandla Stenberg. Even though Rue is described as having brown skin in the original novel, ‘fans’ of the book were shocked and dismayed that the movie version cast a brown girl to play the role, and a Twitter storm of abuse about the ethnic casting of the role ensued. You have to read the responses to truly appreciate how angry and abusive they are.- As blogger Dodai Stewart pointed out at the time: All these . . . people . . . read The Hunger Games. Clearly, they all fell in love with and cared about Rue. Though what they really fell in love with was an image of Rue that they’d created in their minds. A girl that they knew they could love and adore and mourn at the thought of knowing that she’s been brutally killed. And then the casting is revealed (or they go see the movie) and they’re shocked to see that Rue is black. Now . . . this is so much more than, 'Oh, she’s bigger than I thought.’ The reactions are all based on feelings of disgust. These people are MAD that the girl that they cried over while reading the book was ‘some black girl’ all along. So now they’re angry. Wasted tears, wasted emotions. It’s sad to think that had they known that she was black all along, there would have been [no] sorrow or sadness over her death.

We aren't promised tomorrow. We aren't even really promised today, or that next second, or minute that ticks by. We're gifted with moments, each one precious, each one different. So take those moments and use them. Don't let them pass by in anger. Don't let those moments build up into silence between the two of you, because you never know if they'll be taken, and we never know the final number of moments we've been awarded. Let no moment go unused. Let no moments escape where you could have expressed love for one another.

Welcome to Hogwarts,’ said Professor McGonagall. ‘The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory and spend free time in your house common room. ‘The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours. ‘The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.’ Her

Of course Peeta’s right. The whole country adores Katniss’s little sister. If they really killed her like this, they’d probably have an uprising on their hands,” says Johanna flatly. “Don’t want that, do they?” She throws back her head and shouts, “Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn’t want anything like that!” My mouth drops open in shock. No one, ever, says anything like this in the Games. Absolutely, they’ve cut away from Johanna, are editing her out. But I have heard her and can never think about her again in the same way. She’ll never win any awards for kindness, but she certainly is gutsy. Or crazy. She picks up some shells and heads toward the jungle. “I’m getting water,” she says. I can’t help catching her hand as she passes me. “Don’t go in there. The birds —” I remember the birds must be gone, but I still don’t want anyone in there. Not even her. “They can’t hurt me. I’m not like the rest of you. There’s no one left I love,” Johanna says, and frees her hand with an impatient shake. When she brings me back a shell of water, I take it with a silent nod of thanks, knowing how much she would despise the pity in my voice.

The name Patrick Modiano drew a blank in the States when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2014. But in Paris, his home city, his many novels (more than thirty) are read, the screenplay he wrote for Louis Malle’s masterpiece Lacombe, Lucien remains a favorite, and the songs he wrote for Françoise Hardy you hear in cafés and on the radio. Still, Modiano, as man and artist, remains a mystery man. The search for phantoms of history is his basic plotline, the searches as well as the enigmatic love stories, all of which take place along the streets of Paris.

How long will the Gilgamesh Project – the quest for immortality – take to complete? A hundred years? Five hundred years? A thousand years? When we recall how little we knew about the human body in 1900, and how much knowledge we have gained in a single century, there is cause for optimism. Genetic engineers have recently managed to double the average life expectancy of Caenorhabditis elegans worms.12 Could they do the same for Homo sapiens? Nanotechnology experts are developing a bionic immune system composed of millions of nano-robots, who would inhabit our bodies, open blocked blood vessels, fight viruses and bacteria, eliminate cancerous cells and even reverse ageing processes.13 A few serious scholars suggest that by 2050, some humans will become a-mortal (not immortal, because they could still die of some accident, but a-mortal, meaning that in the absence of fatal trauma their lives could be extended indefinitely). Whether or not Project Gilgamesh succeeds, from a historical perspective it is fascinating to see that most late-modern religions and ideologies have already taken death and the afterlife out of the equation. Until the eighteenth century, religions considered death and its aftermath central to the meaning of life. Beginning in the eighteenth century, religions and ideologies such as liberalism, socialism and feminism lost all interest in the afterlife. What, exactly, happens to a Communist after he or she dies? What happens to a capitalist? What happens to a feminist? It is pointless to look for the answer in the writings of Marx, Adam Smith or Simone de Beauvoir. The only modern ideology that still awards death a central role is nationalism. In its more poetic and desperate moments, nationalism promises that whoever dies for the nation will for ever live in its collective memory. Yet this promise is so fuzzy that even most nationalists do not really know what to make of it. The

Novels, says Sartre, are not life, but they owe our power upon us, as upon himself as an infant, to the fact that they are somehow like life. In life, he once remarked, 'all ways are barred and nevertheless we must act. So we try to change the world; that is, to live as if the relations between things and their potentialities were governed not by deterministic processes but by magic.' The as if of the novel consists in a similar negation of determinism, the establishment of an accepted freedom by magic. We make up aventures, invent and ascribe the significance of temporal concords to those 'privileged moments' to which we alone award their prestige, make our own human clocks tick in a clockless world. And we take a man who is by definition de trop, and create a context in which he isn't. The novel is a lie only as our quotidian inventions are lies. The power which goes to its making--the imagination --is a function of man's inescapable freedom. This freedom, in Mary Warnock's words, 'expresses itself in his ability to see things which are not.' It is by his fiction that we know he is free. It is not surprising that Sartre as ontologist, having to describe many kinds of fictive behaviour, invents stories to do so, thus moving into a middle ground between life and novel. ....

John was one of Australia’s award-winning documentary filmmakers. He and Steve had met in the late 1980s, when Steve would help John shoot commercials that required a zoo animal like a lizard or a turtle. But their friendship did not really take off until 1990, when an Australian beer company hired John to film a tricky shot involving a crocodile. He called Steve. “They want a bloke to toss a coldie to another bloke, but a croc comes out of the water and snatches at it. The guy grabs the beer right in front of the croc’s jaws. You think that’s doable?” “Sure, mate, no problem at all,” Steve said with his usual confidence. “Only one thing, it has to be my hand in front of the croc.

The Endowed Progress Effect Punch cards are often used by retailers to encourage repeat business. With each purchase, customers get closer to receiving a free product or service. These cards are typically awarded empty and in effect, customers start at zero percent complete. What would happen if retailers handed customers punch cards with punches already given? Would people be more likely to take action if they had already made some progress? An experiment sought to answer this very question.[lxvi] Two groups of customers were given punch cards awarding a free car wash once the cards were fully punched. One group was given a blank punch card with 8 squares and the other given a punch card with 10 squares but with two free punches. Both groups still had to purchase 8 car washes to receive a free wash; however, the second group of customers — those that were given two free punches — had a staggering 82 percent higher completion rate. The study demonstrates the endowed progress effect, a phenomenon that increases motivation as people believe they are nearing a goal. Sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook utilize this heuristic to encourage people to divulge more information about themselves when completing their online profiles. On LinkedIn, every user starts with some semblance of progress (figure 19). The next step is to “Improve Your Profile Strength” by supplying additional information.

How are we going to bring about these transformations? Politics as usual—debate and argument, even voting—are no longer sufficient. Our system of representative democracy, created by a great revolution, must now itself become the target of revolutionary change. For too many years counting, vast numbers of people stopped going to the polls, either because they did not care what happened to the country or the world or because they did not believe that voting would make a difference on the profound and interconnected issues that really matter. Now, with a surge of new political interest having give rise to the Obama presidency, we need to inject new meaning into the concept of the “will of the people.” The will of too many Americans has been to pursue private happiness and take as little responsibility as possible for governing our country. As a result, we have left the job of governing to our elected representatives, even though we know that they serve corporate interests and therefore make decisions that threaten our biosphere and widen the gulf between the rich and poor both in our country and throughout the world. In other words, even though it is readily apparent that our lifestyle choices and the decisions of our representatives are increasing social injustice and endangering our planet, too many of us have wanted to continue going our merry and not-so-merry ways, periodically voting politicians in and out of office but leaving the responsibility for policy decisions to them. Our will has been to act like consumers, not like responsible citizens. Historians may one day look back at the 2000 election, marked by the Supreme Court’s decision to award the presidency to George W. Bush, as a decisive turning point in the death of representative democracy in the United States. National Public Radio analyst Daniel Schorr called it “a junta.” Jack Lessenberry, columnist for the MetroTimes in Detroit, called it “a right-wing judicial coup.” Although more restrained, the language of dissenting justices Breyer, Ginsberg, Souter, and Stevens was equally clear. They said that there was no legal or moral justification for deciding the presidency in this way.3 That’s why Al Gore didn’t speak for me in his concession speech. You don’t just “strongly disagree” with a right-wing coup or a junta. You expose it as illegal, immoral, and illegitimate, and you start building a movement to challenge and change the system that created it. The crisis brought on by the fraud of 2000 and aggravated by the Bush administration’s constant and callous disregard for the Constitution exposed so many defects that we now have an unprecedented opportunity not only to improve voting procedures but to turn U.S. democracy into “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” instead of government of, by, and for corporate power.

The seventeen Dauntlesses of Lieutenant Wally Short’s Bombing Five, which had circled around to take up a better initial diving position, followed about three minutes later. Plummeting toward the Shokaku at a 70-degree angle, they were harassed by Zeros and their windshields fogged over. Yet they somehow managed to plant two 1,000-pound bombs on the flight deck, one fore and one aft. The second was dropped by Lieutenant John J. Powers, who held his dive to below 1,000 feet before releasing. The low drop guaranteed that he would not survive—the explosion of his own bomb, on the starboard side abaft of the Shokaku’s island, engulfed his aircraft. It was virtually a suicide attack; Powers traded his life (and that of his rear-seat man) to remove the possibility of missing the target. He was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.

Until now. You and I are a mis-Match, Ellie, because I hacked into your servers to manipulate our results.” “Rubbish,” Ellie said, secretly balking at the notion. She folded her arms indignantly. “Our servers are more secure than almost every major international company across the world. We receive so many hacking attempts, yet no one gets in. We have the best software and team money can buy to protect us against people like you.” “You’re right about some of that. But what your system didn’t take into account was your own vanity. Do you remember receiving an email some time ago with the subject ‘Businesswoman of the Year Award’? You couldn’t help but open it.” Ellie vaguely remembered reading the email as it had been sent to her private account, which only a few people had knowledge of. “Attached to it was a link you clicked on and that opened to nothing, didn’t it?” Matthew continued. “Well, it wasn’t nothing to me, because your click released a tiny, undetectable piece of tailor-made malware that allowed me to remotely access your network and work my way around your files. Everything you had access to, I had access to. Then I simply replicated my strand of DNA to mirror image yours, sat back and waited for you to get in touch. That’s why I came for a job interview, to learn a little more about the programming and systems you use. Please thank your head of personnel for leaving me alone in the room for a few moments with her laptop while she searched for a working camera to take my head shot. That was a huge help in accessing your network. Oh, and tell her to frisk interviewees for lens deflectors next time—they’re pocket-sized gadgets that render digital cameras useless.

So much of the most important personal news I'd received in the last several years had come to me by smartphone while I was abroad in the city that I could plot on a map, could represent spatially the events, such as they were, of my early thirties. Place a thumbtack on the wall or drop a flag on Google Maps at Lincoln Center, where, beside the fountain, I took a call from Jon informing me that, for whatever complex of reasons, a friend had shot himself; mark the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, where I read the message ("Apologies for the mass e-mail...") a close cousin sent out describing the dire condition of her newborn; waiting in line at the post office on Atlantic, the adhan issuing from the adjacent mosque, I received your wedding announcement and was shocked to be shocked, crushed, and started a frightening multi week descent, worse for being so embarrassingly cliched; while in the bathroom at the SoHo Crate and Barrel--the finest semipublic restroom in lower Manhattan--I learned I'd been awarded a grant that would take me overseas for a summer, and so came to associate the corner of Broadway and Houston with all that transpired in Morocco; at Zucotti Park I heard my then-girlfriend was not--as she'd been convinced--pregnant; while buying discounted dress socks at the Century 21 department store across from Ground Zero, I was informed by text that a friend in Oakland had been hospitalized after the police had broken his ribs. And so on: each of these experiences of reception remained, as it were, in situ, so that whenever I returned to a zone where significant news had been received, I discovered that the news and an echo of its attendant affect still awaited me like a curtain of beads.

But what might a woman say about church as she? What might a woman say about the church as body and bride? Perhaps she would speak of the way a regular body moves through the world—always changing, never perfect—capable of nurturing life, not simply through the womb, but through hands, feet, eyes, voice, and brain. Every part is sacred. Every part has a function. Perhaps she would speak of impossible expectations and all the time she’s wasted trying to contort herself into the shape of those amorphous silhouettes that flit from magazines and billboards into her mind. Or of this screwed-up notion of purity as a status, as something awarded by men with tests and checklists and the power to give it and take it away. Perhaps she would speak of the surprise of seeing herself—flaws and all—in the mirror on her wedding day. Or of the reality that with new life comes swollen breasts, dry heaves, dirty diapers, snotty noses, late-night arguments, and a whole army of new dangers and fears she never even considered before because life-giving isn’t nearly as glamorous as it sounds, but it’s a thousand times more beautiful. Perhaps she would talk about being underestimated, about surprising people and surprising herself. Or about how there are moments when her own strength startles her, and moments when her weakness—her forgetfulness, her fear, her exhaustion—unnerve her. Maybe she would tell of the time, in the mountains with bare feet on the ground, she stood tall and wise and felt every cell in her body smile in assent as she inhaled and exhaled and in one loud second realized, I’m alive! I’m enfleshed! only to forget it the next. Or maybe she would explain how none of the categories created for her sum her up or capture her essence.

When I got back to Queensland, I discovered that I was, in fact, expecting. Steve and I were over the moon. I couldn’t believe how thrilled he was. Then, mid-celebration, he suddenly pulled up short. He eyed me sideways. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You were just in Fiji for two weeks.” “Remember the CableACE Awards? Where you got bored in that room full of tuxedos?” He gave me a sly grin. “Ah, yes,” he said, satisfied with his paternity (as if there was ever any doubt!). We had ourselves an L.A. baby. I visited the doctor. “This is a first for me,” I said. “What do I do?” “Just keep doing what you would normally do,” the doctor said. “It’s probably not a good time to take up skydiving, but it would be fine to carry on with your usual activities.” I was thrilled to get Dr. Michael’s advice. He had been the Irwin family doctor for years, and he definitely understood what our lifestyle entailed. I embarked on an ambitious schedule of filmmaking.

Meanwhile, the Gestapo’s most notorious investigator—who would within a year be awarded the Iron Cross (reputedly by Hitler himself) for torturing and slaughtering thousands of résistants—was also taking a personal interest in Virginia. Hauptsturmführer Klaus Barbie, reared by an abusive father who had been severely mentally and physically damaged in fighting the French at Verdun in 1916, was not yet based full-time in Lyon. But he was already consumed by an obsessive desire to crush SOE, seen by the Germans as the backbone of the whole underground threat. Dozens of Gestapo officers were intercepting suspect signals coming out of Lyon and conducting waves of arrests and constant day and night raids from a plushly carpeted suite of offices on the third floor of the cavernous Hôtel Terminus next to Perrache station. They knew they were fast moving in on the center of the terrorist cell. Someone would break down under torture; Barbie would make sure of it. The Limping Lady of Lyon was becoming the Nazis’ most wanted Allied agent in the whole of France.

The corporate system is interconnected and now share a common invested interest, the ability to control through business, the people. It is an inevitable path the parameters set will take the beast down following the easiest way to collective profits, to control the ones that provide them. It is also logical to protect your own, from ones that are shedding light through Art on the grey water they may have stepped into to reach their fullest profit potentials. It is the logical solution to what would be, just business. So the Matrix story albeit written to lift for all the ceiling of what is possible, has inevitably shined a light on the entire path that was chosen and the pre-chosen road ahead that collective corporations were on creating a separate state of politically connected elite and those seeking award through serving them. A natural progression of what was set in place from the beginning. The flaw was in the design of the collective corporate system, globally intertwined now, and immersed in politics, protecting its own, making the question real this time, how to balance the equation.

Suddenly, he wanted some credit for it. He wanted someone to thank him for not crapping on the institution of love. He wanted someone to thank him for not being yet another dilettante. He wanted someone to thank him for quitting poetry. He wanted some great poet to thank him for quitting poetry instead of desecrating it with his amateurishness. He wanted some unborn child to thank him for not conceiving her and not leaving her a hope chest full of mawkish villanelles. He wanted some sort of organization of martyrs to give him an award. He wanted to be decorated for not putting up a fuss. He wanted to be the president of forgettable people. He wanted there to be a competition for the least competitive person, and he wanted to win that competition. He wanted some sort of badge or outfit or medal or key or hat. He wanted to be asked to stand. He wanted to be considered. He wanted to be considered in earnest before being ignored. He wanted all the insane and beautiful and passionate people in the world to take one moment of silence in gratitude for the ones who had ceded them the stage-- he, the unread poet, the sacrifice, the schoolteacher-- he wanted one goddamned moment of appreciation.

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood won four Emmy awards, and Rogers himself was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1997 Daytime Emmys, a scene that Junod describes movingly in his profile. After Fred Rogers went onstage to accept the award, he bowed and said into the microphone, “All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are? . . . Ten seconds of silence.” Then, as Tom Junod recounted, “He lifted his wrist, and looked at the audience, and looked at his watch, and said softly, ‘I’ll watch the time,’ and there was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn’t kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked . . . and so they did. “One second, two seconds, three seconds . . . and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier, and Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said, ‘May God be with you’ to all his vanquished children.

The next day we booked a three-hundred pound sow for a most unusual photoshoot. She was chauffeured to Hollywood from a farm in Central Valley, and arrived in style at the soundstage bright and early, ready for her close-up. She was a perfect pig, straight from the animal equivalent of Central casting: pink, with gray spots and a sweet disposition. Like Wilbur from Charlotte's Web, but all grown up. I called her "Rhonda." In a pristine studio with white walls and a white floor, I watched as Rhonda was coaxed up a ramp that led to the top of a white pedestal, four feet off the ground. Once she was situated, the ramp was removed, and I took my place beside her. It was a simple setup. Standing next to Rhonda, I would look into the camera and riff about the unsung heroes of Dirty Jobs. I'd conclude with a pointed question: "So, what's on your pedestal?" It was a play on that credit card campaign: "What's in your wallet?" I nailed it on the first take, in front of a roomful of nervous executives. Unfortunately, Rhonda nailed it, too. Just as I asked, "What's on your pedestal?" she crapped all over hers. It was an enormous dump, delivered with impeccable timing. During the second take, Rhonda did it again, right on cue. This time, with a frightful spray of diarrhea that filled the studio with a sulfurous funk, blackening the white walls of the pristine set, and transforming my blue jeans into something browner. I could only marvel at the stench, while the horrified executives backed into a corner - a huddled mass, if you will, yearning to breath free. But Rhonda wasn't done. She crapped on every subsequent take. And when she could crap no more, she began to pee. She peed on my cameraman, She peed on her handler. She peed on me. Finally, when her bladder was empty, we got the take the network could use, along with a commercial that won several awards for "Excellence in Promos." (Yes, they have trophies for such things.) Interestingly, the footage that went viral was not the footage that aired, but the footage Mary encouraged me to release on YouTube after the fact. The outtakes of Rhonda at her incontinent finest. Those were hysterical, and viewed more times than the actual commercial. Go figure. Looking back, putting a pig on a pedestal was maybe the smartest thing I ever did. Not only did it make Rhonda famous, it established me as the nontraditional host of a nontraditional show. One whose primary job was to appear more like a guest, and less like a host. And, whenever possible, not at all like an asshole.

My Nobel appeal: it’s hard to put the whole world to rights, but let us at least think about how we can prepare our own small corner of it, this corner of literature where we read, write, publish, recommend, denounce, and give awards to books. If we are to play an important role in this uncertain future, if we are to get the best from the writers of today and tomorrow, I believe we must become more diverse. I mean this in two particular senses. Firstly, we must widen our common literary world to include many more voices from beyond our comfort zones of the elite first world cultures. We must search more energetically to discover the gems from what remain today unknown literary cultures, whether the writers live in faraway countries or within our own communities. Second, we must take great care not to set too narrowly or conservatively our definitions of what constitutes good literature. The next generation will come with all sorts of new, sometimes bewildering ways to tell important and wonderful stories. We must keep our minds open to them, especially regarding genre and form, so that we can nurture and celebrate the best of them. In a time of dangerously increasing division we must listen. Good writing and good reading will break down barriers. We may even find a new idea, a great humane vision around which to rally.

* Who do you think of when you hear the word “successful”? “The first people who come to mind are the real heroes of Task Unit Bruiser: Marc Lee, first SEAL killed in Iraq. Mike Monsoor, second SEAL killed in Iraq, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor after he jumped on a grenade to save three of our other teammates. And finally, Ryan Job, one of my guys [who was] gravely wounded in Iraq, blinded in both eyes, but who made it back to America, was medically retired from the Navy, but who died from complications after the 22nd surgery to repair his wounds. Those guys, those men, those heroes, they lived, and fought, and died like warriors.” * Most-gifted or recommended books? “I think there’s only one book that I’ve ever given and I’ve only given it to a couple people. That’s a book called About Face, by Colonel David H. Hackworth. The other book that I’ve read multiple times is Blood Meridian [by Cormac McCarthy].” * Favorite documentaries? “Restrepo, which I’m sure you’ve seen. [TF: This was co-produced and co-filmed by Sebastian Junger, the next profile.] There is also an hour-long program called ‘A Chance in Hell: The Battle for Ramadi.’” Quick Takes * You walk into a bar. What do you order from the bartender? “Water.” * What does your diet generally look like? “It generally looks like steak.” * What kind of music does Jocko listen to? Two samples: For workouts—Black Flag, My War, side B In general—White Buffalo

Rejecting failure and avoiding mistakes seem like high-minded goals, but they are fundamentally misguided. Take something like the Golden Fleece Awards, which were established in 1975 to call attention to government-funded projects that were particularly egregious wastes of money. (Among the winners were things like an $84,000 study on love commissioned by the National Science Foundation, and a $3,000 Department of Defense study that examined whether people in the military should carry umbrellas.) While such scrutiny may have seemed like a good idea at the time, it had a chilling effect on research. No one wanted to “win” a Golden Fleece Award because, under the guise of avoiding waste, its organizers had inadvertently made it dangerous and embarrassing for everyone to make mistakes. The truth is, if you fund thousands of research projects every year, some will have obvious, measurable, positive impacts, and others will go nowhere. We aren’t very good at predicting the future—that’s a given—and yet the Golden Fleece Awards tacitly implied that researchers should know before they do their research whether or not the results of that research would have value. Failure was being used as a weapon, rather than as an agent of learning. And that had fallout: The fact that failing could earn you a very public flogging distorted the way researchers chose projects. The politics of failure, then, impeded our progress. There’s a quick way to determine if your company has embraced the negative definition of failure. Ask yourself what happens when an error is discovered. Do people shut down and turn inward, instead of coming together to untangle the causes of problems that might be avoided going forward? Is the question being asked: Whose fault was this? If so, your culture is one that vilifies failure. Failure is difficult enough without it being compounded by the search for a scapegoat. In a fear-based, failure-averse culture, people will consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. They will seek instead to repeat something safe that’s been good enough in the past. Their work will be derivative, not innovative. But if you can foster a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen. How, then, do you make failure into something people can face without fear? Part of the answer is simple: If we as leaders can talk about our mistakes and our part in them, then we make it safe for others. You don’t run from it or pretend it doesn’t exist. That is why I make a point of being open about our meltdowns inside Pixar, because I believe they teach us something important: Being open about problems is the first step toward learning from them. My goal is not to drive fear out completely, because fear is inevitable in high-stakes situations. What I want to do is loosen its grip on us. While we don’t want too many failures, we must think of the cost of failure as an investment in the future.

We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?” The statement was vague, but Ilya understood. “Yes. If you want to try this, I will do what I need to do.” “I will too. Anything. I want this. I want us.” Ilya brushed Shane’s hair out of his eyes. “Then I am moving to Ottawa, I think.” “And we’re starting a charity.” “And we will become friends.” “And we’ll see each other all the time. As much as possible. And spend the summers together. Here.” “Yes.” They kissed again. Ilya couldn’t believe they had solved this impossible problem. Maybe it wouldn’t go as smoothly as they imagined, but it was a plan. “And when I retire,” Ilya said, “after I have won twelve Stanley Cups and thirteen MVP awards—” “The hell you will.” “And you have been retired for, like, eight years already because you got very bad at hockey...” Shane laughed. “Okay.” “Then I will bring you to that dock out there. I will have hundreds of candles all over it...” “That sounds like a fire hazard.” “Is on the water, Hollander. Fucking relax. Will be beautiful, you will love it. The candles. The lake. The full moon.” “Oh, is it a clear night?” “Yes. Of course. And I will get on one knee—” “Ilya—” “And I will say, ‘Shane Hollander, will you please marry me so I can become Canadian citizen faster?’” Shane burst out laughing, and shoved him. “You’re such an asshole.” “And you will say yes, because you are a nice, helpful guy.” “No,” Shane said, taking his hands. “I will say yes because I will still be madly in love with you. And I’ll want to spend the rest of my life with you.

Although Saudi authorities promised after the September 11 attacks to revise textbooks that taught hatred against Jews and Christians, as late as 2006 Saudi texts still referred to Jews as “apes” and Christians as “swine.”27 And in April 2008 a British employment tribunal awarded 70,000 pounds ($115,000) to a teacher who had been fired from a Saudi-funded Islamic school for exposing that the school’s textbooks spoke of “the repugnant characteristics of the Jews” and asserted, “Those whom God has cursed and with whom he is angry, he has turned into monkeys and pigs. They worship Satan.”28 There is an endless parade of similar examples. In March 2004 Sheikh Ibrahim Mudayris, speaking on official Palestinian Authority television, railed against “the Jews today taking revenge for their grandfathers and ancestors, the sons of apes and pigs.”29 And during the swine flu scare in May 2009, Sheikh Ahmad ‘Ali ‘Othman, the superintendent of da’wa [Islamic proselytizing] affairs at the Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowments, declared that “all pigs are descended from the Jews whom Allah transformed into apes, swine and worshippers of Satan, and must therefore be slaughtered.” Othman based his argument on Koran 5:60, one of the Koran’s notorious “apes and pigs” passages.30 In his televised sermon denouncing the Jews regardless of their actions in Israel or elsewhere, Muhammad Hussein Ya’qoub also invoked this theme: “As for you Jews—the curse of Allah upon you. The curse of Allah upon you, whose ancestors were apes and pigs. . . . Allah, we pray that you transform them again, and make the Muslims rejoice again in seeing them as apes and pigs. You pigs of the earth! You pigs of the earth! You kill the Muslims with that cold pig [blood] of yours.”31 Jews as apes and pigs: it’s in the Koran, holy book of the religion of peace.

Let’s look at your average American Muslim, someone like Siraj Wahaj, the recipient of the American Muslim community’s highest honors. Mr. Wahaj had the privilege in June of 1991 of becoming the first Muslim to deliver a daily prayer before the U.S. House of Representatives. In his prayer he recited from the Koran and appealed to almighty God to guide America’s leaders ‘and grant them righteousness and wisdom.’ The same Wahaj spoke to a Muslim audience a year later in New Jersey. This time Wahaj was singing a different tune to a different audience, and his words were far from his moderate ones in front of the U.S. House of Representatives. ‘If only Muslims were more clever politically,’ he told his New Jersey listeners, ‘they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate. If we were united and strong, we’d elect our own emir [leader] and give allegiance to him. . . . [T]ake my word, if 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us." If Wahaj is the example of the American Muslim community and the receiver of its highest honors, who needs enemies? If this is whom our government calls a ‘moderate’ and invites to deliver a prayer before the House of Representatives, we have ignorant elected officials sitting in our capital running our country. Do you feel safer now knowing that not all Muslims are plane-flying, bomb-wearing, or car-driving terrorists? Talking about overthrowing our government and replacing it with an Islamic caliphate is terrorism of a different kind, but it is still terrorism. This is the more dangerous kind, the kind that circles you slowly, so that by the time you realize you are about to be killed, it’s already too late to do anything about it. Where is the outrage? Have we lost our sense of patriotism and loyalty to America? Do you consider this ‘moderation’? A highly respected, award-winning Muslim from the Islamic American community calling to overthrow the United States government?

Roan studied the photo in his hand. Shiloh Gallagher had to be twenty-nine years old according to what Maud had told him. Damned if she didn’t look twenty-five or so, her features unlined. She wasn’t model pretty, but she had an arresting face, with huge intelligent-looking green eyes. His gaze dropped to her mouth and he felt himself stir. Her mouth would make any man go crazy. Her upper lip was full, but thinner than her lower one. The shape of her mouth made him feel heat in his lower body. “Is she married?” “No,” Maud said. She’s single. Never did marry. I don’t know why. Shiloh’s a beautiful girl.” She was hardly a girl, but Roan said nothing because he was fully reacting to her as a woman. He wondered if she was curvy or rail thin. He was disgruntled over his avid curiosity. “I have no problem with it. You know I get up early and come in late. She’s going to have to fend for herself. I’m not cooking for her.” “Right,” Maud agreed. “She’s pretty shaken up, Roan. You might find that stressful until, hopefully, Shiloh will start to relax.” Shrugging, he slid the photo onto the desk. “Maud, I just hope I don’t stress her out with my award-winning personality,” he said, and he cracked a small, sour grin. Maud cackled. “I think you’ll like her, Roan. She’s a very kind person. An introvert like you. Just remember, she’s trying to write. Because of the stalking, she’s suffering from writer’s block and she’s got a book due to her editor in six months. So, she’s under a lot of other stress.” “I’ll handle it, Maud. No problem.” “Good,” Maud said, relieved. She sat up in the chair. “I’ll call Shiloh back, let her know she can come, and I’ll find out what time she’s arriving tomorrow. I’d like you to pick her up at the Jackson Hole Airport. So take that photo with you.” He stood, settling the cowboy hat on his head. “Don’t need the photo.” Because her face was already stamped across his heart. Whatever that meant. “I’ll find her after she deplanes, don’t worry. Just get back to me on the time.

Where will you go if you don’t get into NYU?” he asks. “Where else?” I say. “Ole Miss, with Lucy and Morgan.” “Then Ole Miss is my backup too. Here’s the thing, Jem. I’m going wherever you’re going--whether it’s New York or Oxford. I’m not missing my chance this time.” “Why?” The word just tumbles out of my mouth before I can stop myself. “You’re going to be some kind of college superstar, whether it’s the SEC or the Ivy league. You’ll probably win a freaking Heisman.” “And you just might win an Oscar,” he counters. I roll my eyes. “Yeah, right. Please.” “Why not? God, Jemma, you don’t even see it. How strong and smart and tenacious you are. Everything you do, you do well. I’ve never seen you put your mind to something and not come out on top. You win that trophy at cheer camp every single summer--what’s it called, the superstar award? Only three people at the whole camp get it or something like that, right?” “How’d you know about that?” “Miss Shelby told my mom. I think they put it in the yearbook, too, don’t they?” “Maybe,” I say with a shrug. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a cheerleading trophy. “And how long did it take you to win your first shooting tournament after your dad bought you that gun? Six months, tops? From what I hear, you’re the best shot in all of Magnolia Branch.” “Okay, that’s true,” I say, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. He reaches for my hand. “And then there’s those dresses you make, like the one you wore to homecoming. You take something old and make it new--turn it into something special. My mom says you and Lucy could make a fortune selling ’em, and I bet she’s right. Don’t you see? You’re not just good at the stuff you do--you’re the best. That’s just the way you are. So I have no doubt that you’re going to be some award-winning filmmaker if you put your mind to it.” My heart swells unexpectedly. “You really think that?” He nods, his dark eyes shining. “I really do.” “Tell me again why we’ve hated each other all these years?” “Because we’re both stubborn as mules?” he offers. I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I’d say that about covers it.

Queen Anne of England established the Longitude Act in 1714, and offered a monetary prize of over a million in today’s dollars to anyone who invented a method to accurately calculate longitude at sea. Longitude is about determining one’s point in space. So one might ask what it has to do with clocks? Mathematically speaking, space (distance) is the child of time and speed (distance equals time multiplied by speed). Thus, anything that moves at a constant speed can be used to calculate distance, provided one knows for how long it has been moving. Many things have constant speeds, including light, sound, and the rotation of the Earth. Your brain uses the near constancy of the speed of sound to calculate where sounds are coming from. As we have seen, you know someone is to your left or right because the sound of her voice takes approximately 0.6 milliseconds to travel from your left to your right ear. Using the delays it takes any given sound to arrive to your left and right ears allows the brain to figure out if the voice is coming directly from the left, the right, or somewhere in between. The Earth is rotating at a constant speed—one that results in a full rotation (360 degrees) every 24 hours. Thus there is a direct correspondence between degrees of longitude and time. Knowing how much time has elapsed is equivalent to knowing how much the Earth has turned: if you sit and read this book for one hour (1/24 of a day), the Earth has rotated 15 degrees (360/24). Thus, if you are sitting in the middle of the ocean at local noon, and you know it is 16:00 in Greenwich, then you are “4 hours from Greenwich”—exactly 60 degrees longitude from Greenwich. Problem solved. All one needs is a really good marine chronometer. The greatest minds of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries could not overlook the longitude problem: Galileo Galilei, Blaise Pascal, Robert Hooke, Christiaan Huygens, Gottfried Leibniz, and Isaac Newton all devoted their attention to it. In the end, however, it was not a great scientist but one of the world’s foremost craftsman who ultimately was awarded the Longitude Prize. John Harrison (1693–1776) was a self-educated clockmaker who took obsessive dedication to the extreme.

Arafat himself sometimes spoke even more candidly. On January 30, 1996, he said in a closed meeting to forty Arab diplomats in Stockholm’s Grand Hotel, “We intend to destroy Israel and to establish a pure Palestinian state…. We will make the life of the Jews miserable and take everything from them…. I don’t need any Jews.”12 In a radio address on the Voice of Palestine on November 11, 1995, he said, “The struggle will continue until all of Palestine is liberated.” Lest anyone had doubts that by “all of Palestine” he meant not only Judea and Samaria and Gaza but all of Israel, he had proclaimed two months earlier, on September 7, 1995, “O Gaza, your sons are returning. O Lod, O Haifa, O Jerusalem, you are returning, you are returning,” in Arabic to a Palestinian audience. True to his deceptive character, he was careful not to mention places like Haifa and Lod, which were well within pre-1967 Israel and ostensibly not in the PLO’s plan for a state, when he spoke before Western audiences. On September 13, 1993, the day he signed the Oslo Accords, Arafat used more oblique language in explaining to a Palestinian audience that the agreement was nothing more than the PLO’s “Phased Plan.” This plan, calling for the destruction of Israel in stages, had been adopted by the PLO in 1964 and was well familiar to Palestinians. The unchanging and thinly disguised PLO strategy of destroying Israel in stages completely contradicted Oslo’s ostensible message of peace and reconciliation. So did the post-Oslo flood of official Palestinian exhortations dehumanizing Jews as pigs and teaching schoolchildren to glorify Palestinian suicide bombers. As usual, little of this entered the international discourse or caused governments to rethink the much-vaunted Oslo Accords. There was supposedly a honeymoon between the PLO and Israel under Prime Minister Rabin; Arafat and Rabin were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.” It was inconceivable that the prizewinning Arafat could be swindling the entire world. Of course, anybody with a sober view of the facts could see that this was precisely what was happening. But what Yoni had written years earlier about some in Israel was now true of many in the international community: “They want to believe, so they believe. They want not to see, so they distort.”13

Apparently someone spotted it inside the game area near the table hockey - is that a goldfish? Mark held up his plastic bag. Inside it, a small orange fish swam around in a circle. "This is the best patrol we've ever done," he said. "I've never been awarded a fish before." Emma sighed inwardly. Mark had spent the past few years of his life with the Wild Hunt, the most anarchic and feral of all faeries. They rose across the sky on all manner of enchanted beings - motorcycles, horses, deer, massive snarling dogs - and scavenged battlefields, taking valuables from the bodies of the dead and giving them in tribute to the Faerie Courts. He was adjusting well to being back among his Shadowhunter family, but there were still times when ordinary life seemed to take him by surprise. HE noticed now that everyone was looking at him with raised eyebrows. He looked alarmed and placed a tentative arm around Emma's shoulders, holding the bag in the other hand. "I have won for you a fish, my fair one," he said, and kissed her on the cheek. It was a sweet kiss, gentle and soft, and Mark smelled like he always did: like cold outside air and green growing things. And it made absolute sense, Emma thought, for Mark to assume that everyone was startled because they were waiting for him to give her his prize. She was, after all, his girlfriend. She exchanged a worried glance with Cristina, whose dark eyes had gotten very large. Julian looked as if he were about to throw up blood. It was only a brief look before he schooled his features back into indifference, but Emma drew away from Mark, smiling at him apologetically. "I couldn't keep a fish alive," she said. "I kill plants just by looking at them." "I suspect I would have the same problem," Mark said, eyeing the fish. "It is too bad - I was going to name it Magnus, because it has sparkly scales." At that, Christina giggled. Magnus Bane was the High Warlock of Brookly, and he had a penchant for glitter. "I suppose I had better let him go free," Mark said. Before anyone could say anything, he made his way to the railing of the pier and emptied the bag, fish and all, into the sea. "Does anyone want to tell him that goldfish are freshwater fish and can't survive in the ocean?" said Julian quietly. "Not really," said Christina. "Did he just kill Magnus?" Emma asked, but before Julian could answer, Mark whirled around.

The first signal of the change in her behavior was Prince Andrew’s stag night when the Princess of Wales and Sarah Ferguson dressed as policewomen in a vain attempt to gatecrash his party. Instead they drank champagne and orange juice at Annabel’s night club before returning to Buckingham Palace where they stopped Andrew’s car at the entrance as he returned home. Technically the impersonation of police officers is a criminal offence, a point not neglected by several censorious Members of Parliament. For a time this boisterous mood reigned supreme within the royal family. When the Duke and Duchess hosted a party at Windsor Castle as a thank you for everyone who had helped organize their wedding, it was Fergie who encouraged everyone to jump, fully clothed, into the swimming pool. There were numerous noisy dinner parties and a disco in the Waterloo Room at Windsor Castle at Christmas. Fergie even encouraged Diana to join her in an impromptu version of the can-can. This was but a rehearsal for their first public performance when the girls, accompanied by their husbands, flew to Klosters for a week-long skiing holiday. On the first day they lined up in front of the cameras for the traditional photo-call. For sheer absurdity this annual spectacle takes some beating as ninety assorted photographers laden with ladders and equipment scramble through the snow for positions. Diana and Sarah took this silliness at face value, staging a cabaret on ice as they indulged in a mock conflict, pushing and shoving each other until Prince Charles announced censoriously: “Come on, come on!” Until then Diana’s skittish sense of humour had only been seen in flashes, invariably clouded by a mask of blushes and wan silences. So it was a surprised group of photographers who chanced across the Princess in a Klosters café that same afternoon. She pointed to the outsize medal on her jacket, joking: “I have awarded it to myself for services to my country because no-one else will.” It was an aside which spoke volumes about her underlying self-doubt. The mood of frivolity continued with pillow fights in their chalet at Wolfgang although it would be wrong to characterize the mood on that holiday as a glorified schoolgirls’ outing. As one royal guest commented: “It was good fun within reason. You have to mind your p’s and q’s when royalty, particularly Prince Charles, is present. It is quite formal and can be rather a strain.

After that, we don’t talk, instead we get hammered. Shot after shot we down, chasing each one with a Little Debbie snack. Before we know it, we’re hanging on to the bar counter floating around in a sugar and alcohol coma, just the way I like it. “There’s my girl,” Racer shouts as he topples off his stool and onto the floor, laughing hysterically. Georgie stops in her tracks and looks over at Emma, who’s standing next to her, both holding two boxes of Little Debbie snacks each. “Emmmmmmmma,” Tucker drags out, waving his glass in the air. “You brought the snacks.” “Oh, Jesus,” Emma mutters as she approaches us. I point to my mouth and say, “Feed me. Daddy needs sugar.” Racer is beside me, tangled in the pegs of his bar stool, still laughing. “Did you bring Oatmeal Pies, George? Please tell me you have the pies.” “Uh, I think you’ve had enough for tonight,” she says, looking down at her boyfriend. “Never!” Racer struggles to get up and finally knocks the chair over to free himself. “Fucking bitch chair, digging into me with its claws.” Talking to the stool directly he says, “I’m taken, warm someone else’s ass.” “He’s going to propose, chair, leave him alone,” Tucker announces, causing me to cringe. “Dude, don’t say it out loud.” I punch Tucker in the shoulder. “Georgie is right there.” All three of us turn to Georgie, who’s shaking her head in humor. Hopefully. “I’ll take Aaron,” Emma tells Georgie. “Seems like Racer is more of a handful.” “Hell yeah, I am.” Racer stumbles while cupping his crotch. “A giant handful.” Georgie rolls her eyes. “And that’s our cue to leave.” “But we didn’t eat our snacks.” “Seems like you had enough.” Georgie grabs Racer by the hand. “Come on.” As they walk away, Racer asks, “Want to have sex in the car?” “Not even a little.” “Here, you two, you can have your boxes of snacks.” Emma hands Tucker and me both a box of Oatmeal Pies that we clutch to our chests. “You’re the best,” I admit. “She is, isn’t she?” Tucker says. “I love her so fucking hard. Best wife ever.” She pulls on both of our hands to get us moving. “She wins wife of the year award,” I announce. “Best wife goes to Emma. Can we get a round of applause?” Tucker breaks open his Oatmeal Pies and starts spraying them like confetti. “Emma. Emma. Emma.” He chants, getting the three other patrons in the bar to join in. I pump my fist as well, forgetting everything from earlier. I knew I could count on my guys. “Emma. Emma. Emma . . .” And then, everything fades to black. Emotions and feelings are non-existent as I pass out, just the way I like it. Just the way I need it.

Beginning in 2011, SpaceX won a series of contracts from NASA to develop rockets that could take humans to the International Space Station, a task made crucial by the retirement of the Space Shuttle. To fulfill that mission, it needed to add to its facilities at Cape Canaveral’s Pad 40, and Musk set his sights on leasing the most storied launch facility there, Pad 39A. Pad 39A had been center stage for America’s Space Age dreams, burned into the memories of a television generation that held its collective breath when the countdowns got to “Ten, nine, eight…” Neil Armstrong’s mission to the moon that Bezos watched as a kid blasted off from Pad 39A in 1969, as did the last manned moon mission, in 1972. So did the first Space Shuttle mission, in 1981, and the last, in 2011. But by 2013, with the Shuttle program grounded and America’s half-century of space aspirations ending with bangs and whimpers, Pad 39A was rusting away and vines were sprouting through its flame trench. NASA was eager to lease it. The obvious customer was Musk, whose Falcon 9 rockets had already launched on cargo missions from the nearby Pad 40, where Obama had visited. But when the lease was put out for bids, Jeff Bezos—for both sentimental and practical reasons—decided to compete for it. When NASA ended up awarding the lease to SpaceX, Bezos sued. Musk was furious, declaring that it was ridiculous for Blue Origin to contest the lease “when they haven’t even gotten so much as a toothpick to orbit.” He ridiculed Bezos’s rockets, pointing out that they were capable only of popping up to the edge of space and then falling back; they lacked the far greater thrust necessary to break the Earth’s gravity and go into orbit. “If they do somehow show up in the next five years with a vehicle qualified to NASA’s human rating standards that can dock with the Space Station, which is what Pad 39A is meant to do, we will gladly accommodate their needs,” Musk said. “Frankly, I think we are more likely to discover unicorns dancing in the flame duct.” The battle of the sci-fi barons had blasted off. One SpaceX employee bought dozens of inflatable toy unicorns and photographed them in the pad’s flame duct. Bezos was eventually able to lease a nearby launch complex at Cape Canaveral, Pad 36, which had been the origin of missions to Mars and Venus. So the competition of the boyish billionaires was set to continue. The transfer of these hallowed pads represented, both symbolically and in practice, John F. Kennedy’s torch of space exploration being passed from government to the private sector—from a once-glorious but now sclerotic NASA to a new breed of mission-driven pioneers.

Then, just as we were to leave on a whirlwind honeymoon in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, a call came from Australia. Steve’s friend John Stainton had word that a big croc had been frequenting areas too close to civilization, and someone had been taking potshots at him. “It’s a big one, Stevo, maybe fourteen or fifteen feet,” John said over the phone. “I hate to catch you right at this moment, but they’re going to kill him unless he gets relocated.” John was one of Australia’s award-winning documentary filmmakers. He and Steve had met in the late 1980s, when Steve would help John shoot commercials that required a zoo animal like a lizard or a turtle. But their friendship did not really take off until 1990, when an Australian beer company hired John to film a tricky shot involving a crocodile. He called Steve. “They want a bloke to toss a coldie to another bloke, but a croc comes out of the water and snatches at it. The guy grabs the beer right in front of the croc’s jaws. You think that’s doable?” “Sure, mate, no problem at all,” Steve said with his usual confidence. “Only one thing, it has to be my hand in front of the croc.” John agreed. He journeyed up to the zoo to film the commercial. It was the first time he had seen Steve on his own turf, and he was impressed. He was even more impressed when the croc shoot went off flawlessly. Monty, the saltwater crocodile, lay partially submerged in his pool. An actor fetched a coldie from the esky and tossed it toward Steve. As Steve’s hand went above Monty’s head, the crocodile lunged upward in a food response. On film it looked like the croc was about to snatch the can--which Steve caught right in front of his jaws. John was extremely impressed. As he left the zoo after completing the commercial shoot, Steve gave him a collection of VHS tapes. Steve had shot the videotapes himself. The raw footage came from Steve simply propping his camera in a tree, or jamming it into the mud, and filming himself single-handedly catching crocs. John watched the tapes when he got home to Brisbane. He told me later that what he saw was unbelievable. “It was three hours of captivating film and I watched it straight through, twice,” John recalled to me. “It was Steve. The camera loved him.” He rang up his contacts in television and explained that he had a hot property. The programmers couldn’t use Steve’s original VHS footage, but one of them had a better idea. He gave John the green light to shoot his own documentary of Steve. That led to John Stainton’s call to Oregon on the eve of our honeymoon. “I know it’s not the best timing, mate,” John said, “but we could take a crew and film a documentary of you rescuing this crocodile.” Steve turned to me. Honeymoon or crocodile? For him, it wasn’t much of a quandary. But what about me?” “Let’s go,” I replied.

Today, such studies are illegal. Medical scientists cannot offer inducements like pardons to persuade prisoners to take part in their studies. Although they can award small cash payments to research subjects, they are forbidden from giving anyone so much money or such tempting favors that their compensations might constitute what ethicists term an inappropriate inducement, an irresistible temptation to join the study. Now, more than eighty years after the 1918 flu, people enter studies for several reasons—to get free medical care, to get an experimental drug that, they hope, might cure them of a disease like cancer or AIDS, or to help further scientific knowledge. In theory at least, study participants are supposed to be true volunteers, taking part in research of their own free will. But in 1918, such ethical arguments were rarely considered. Instead, the justification for a risky study with human beings was that it was better to subject a few to a great danger in order to save the many. Prisoners were thought to be the ideal study subjects. They could offer up their bodies for science and, if they survived, their pardons could be justified because they gave something back to society. The Navy inmates were perfect for another reason. Thirty-nine of them had never had influenza, as far as anyone knew. So they might be uniquely susceptible to the disease. If the doctors wanted to deliberately transmit the 1918 flu, what better subjects? Was influenza really so easily transmitted? the doctors asked. Why did some people get it and others not? Why did it kill the young and healthy? Could the wartime disruptions and movements of troops explain the spread of the flu? If it was as contagious as it seemed, how was it being spread? What kind of microorganism was causing the illness? The normal way to try to answer such questions would be to study the spread of the disease in animals. Give the disease to a few cages of laboratory rats, or perhaps to some white rabbits. Isolate whatever was causing the illness. Show how it spread and test ways to protect animals—and people—against the disease. But influenza, it seemed, was a uniquely human disease. No animal was known to be susceptible to it. Medical researchers felt they had no choice but to study influenza in people. Either the Navy doctors were uncommonly persuasive or the enticement of a pardon was overwhelmingly compelling. For whatever reason, the sixty-two men agreed to be subjects in the medical experiment. And so the study began. First the sailors were transferred to a quarantine station on Gallops Island in Boston Harbor. Then the Navy doctors did their best to give the men the flu. Influenza is a respiratory disease—it is spread from person to person, presumably carried on droplets of mucus sprayed in the air when sick people cough or sneeze, or carried on their hands and spread when the sick touch the healthy. Whatever was causing the flu should be present in mucus taken from the ill. The experiments, then, were straightforward. The Navy doctors collected mucus from men who were desperately ill with the flu, gathering thick viscous secretions from their noses and throats. They sprayed mucus from flu patients into the noses and throats of some men, and dropped it into other men’s eyes. In one attempt, they swabbed mucus from the back of the nose of a man with the flu and then directly swabbed that mucus into the back of a volunteer’s nose.

In Hollywood today, the simple truth is that there are two types of movie studios: Disney, and those that wish they were Disney. Understanding why studios have turned so aggressively toward franchises, sequels, and superheroes and away from originality, risks, and mid-budget dramas takes more than an appreciation for the financial pressures faced by executives like Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal. Just as Olympic swimmers can’t help but pace themselves against Michael Phelps, Sony and its competitors have for years been jealous of and frustrated by Disney. Hollywood is a herd industry. Its executives are constantly looking out the side window or at the rearview mirror and asking, “Why aren’t we doing that?” For those peering at Disney, that means slashing the number of movies made per year by two-thirds. It also means largely abandoning any type of film that costs less than $100 million, is based on an original idea, or appeals to any group smaller than all the moviegoers around the globe. Disney doesn’t make dramas for adults. It doesn’t make thrillers. It doesn’t make romantic comedies. It doesn’t make bawdy comedies. It doesn’t make horror movies. It doesn’t make star vehicles. It doesn’t adapt novels. It doesn’t buy original scripts. It doesn’t buy anything at film festivals. It doesn’t make anything political or controversial. It doesn’t make anything with an R-rating. It doesn’t give award-winning directors like Alfonso Cuarón or Christopher Nolan wide latitude to pursue their visions.

Becoming the Admiral's Wife: A Dual Memoir of a Called Pair is an inspiring story of a woman who not only professes faith, but lives her faith. The book takes the reader on a lovely and tangled journey to her happy ending. The back cover copy not only tells the story, but the reason for its revealing––to encourage readers to trust the Lord's plan for their lives. Judge's Commentary 28th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards

The electoral college process doesn’t simply aggregate or reflect popular votes; it consistently distorts and often directly misrepresents the votes citizens have cast. Indeed, the unit vote actually takes votes of the minority in individual states and awards those votes, in the national count, to the candidate they opposed.

that doesn’t take away from how profound it was. In fact, not only do those five simple words mark a major turning point in the sale but they also mark the point where you’re going to begin your next pattern. You’re going to say, in a sympathetic tone: “Now, that I can understand. You don’t know me, and I don’t have the luxury of a track record; so let me take a moment to reintroduce myself. “My name is [your first and last name], and I’m a [your title] at [the name of your company], and I’ve been there for [actual number] years, and I pride myself on …” And now you’re going to tell your prospect a little bit about yourself—citing any degrees you have, any licenses you have, any special talents you have, any awards you’ve won, what your goals are at the company, what you stand for as a person in terms of ethics and integrity and customer service, and how you can be an asset to him and his family over the long term.

NetReputation's unparalleled business reputation management and branding offerings provide your business the tools and technology to control the conversation and compel customers to action. A comprehensive business reputation solution from NetReputation allows you to: ● Remove and suppress negative search results like bad articles, reviews and comments from the web faster than ever. ● Build and manage a glowing online review presence through the latest in review generation and review reply techniques. ● Grow your brand and reach more customers through award-winning content creation, citation building and local SEO solutions. Removing harmful info and building a positive, enduring online reputation takes time, strategy and dedication. Sometimes, restoring your online reputation may even seem impossible, testing your patience and your limits as you scramble to make things right. But with a trusted, industry-leading reputation management firm like NetReputation, you have dedicated customer-focused ORM experts on your side - professionals with the experience and knowhow to repair online damage fast and put your image back where it belongs: in your hands.

It was work to take pride in. Ph.D.'s have been awarded for less.

asked if we could take a photo together and tried to take one where we were standing, and she said, “No! Come stand here, darling. This is my light. This is my side. I want you to stand here so I can get my good side, girl.” She kept saying that in her deep, beautiful voice: “My good side, girl. My good side, girl.” I did everything Mariah Carey told me to do and we took the photo. Of course she was completely right about everything—the photo looked incredible. I know I won an award that night, but I couldn’t even tell you what it was. The perfect photo with Mariah Carey—that was the real prize.

Time credits can be complicated since they aren’t guaranteed and can be awarded or denied seemingly at the whim of corrections officers and circumstances beyond any rational control or prediction. However, there has been a long-standing pattern in Illinois of people sentenced to a year in prison actually serving only sixty-one days. To explain this, there was a rumor about obscure accounting bureaucracy. Apparently, state government budgetary months were rounded to thirty days. Once a prisoner was in for any amount of time longer than two months, the Illinois Department of Corrections (or maybe the specific institution) was eligible to, and in fact did, receive funds from the State to feed and house that person for a whole year. Therefore, the hustle by IDOC was to get as many nonviolent inmates as possible who were sentenced to one-year terms (primarily low-level drug possession convicts), kick them out on the sixty-first day, and take the money and run. It was so common that defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges all over the state routinely stretched ethical boundaries to dangle that number to defendants as a plea incentive.

Loved the book. On page after page, shot after shot, Tim Keane takes us on a wondrous, inspiring journey of words and pictures that evoke the true spirit of man and Mother Nature.

Loved the book. On page after page, shot after shot, Tim Keane takes us on a wondrous, inspiring journey of words and pictures that evoke the true spirit of man and Mother Nature. - Armen Keteyian, 11-time Emmy Award Winner and New York Times Best-Selling Author

But I want to hear you call me your good girl again while you fuck my mouth.” How the hell had I gotten so lucky to get a woman like Trixie? I reached up and cupped her chin in my hand, kissed her hard, and gave her what she wanted, because we were both going to enjoy it. “Then get on your knees and take this dick like a good girl.

The truth of the matter is that the system is not designed to allow for upstart third parties. It can adjust to accommodate a patently bogus third party, and it can tolerate the occasional Republican or Democrat bolting his party to pose as an ‘Independent,’ but a real third party doesn’t stand a chance. That is why you won’t find anything but Republicans and Democrats in the White House and the US Senate. Even the House of Representatives, reputedly the branch of the federal government most responsive to the people, counts just one Independent among its 435 members.34 That’s because we all know that voting for a third-party candidate is just throwing your vote away. Which is, sadly, quite true. True because the American system of ‘democracy’ is a winner-take-all system. And a minor party candidate, lacking funding and media support, has exactly no chance of winning. If, however, America were based on a representational system, as are the European democracies, winning would be a relative concept, and third-party votes would not be thrown away. For in that type of system, congressional or parliamentary seats are awarded proportionally based on the election outcome. In other words, your party need not ‘win’ to gain representation. Every vote for your party gains greater representation, and no votes are thrown away. It is easy to see how this type of democracy could quickly erode the entrenched ‘two-party’ system.

In Chapter 22, I mentioned people who fit the Seven S’s criteria, whose opinions have informed my own and provide me with further reasons to take the life-after death hypothesis seriously. They included: 1.A CEO of a major corporation 2.A former publisher who is the editor-in-chief of an award-winning newspaper 3.A former chairman of the department of surgery at a major university 4.A former chairman of the department of material sciences at a major university 5.An award winning composer for movies and television 6.A former high ranking staff member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 7.The director of a major foundation, educated at Harvard University, and 8.A distinguished anthropologist who was the director of an internationally known research institute. In the spirit of Criterion 5, I have reviewed this list and attempted to determine whether there were any responsible and justified reasons for challenging my evaluations of these people. Try as I might I cannot in good conscience dismiss any of these people as being untrustworthy. In sum, I cannot find valid reasons for concluding that these individuals no longer deserve my admiration and respect. Yes, I can point out a given person’s limitations (at least the ones I am aware of), but these do not impact the logic of my concluding that they meet each of the 7 S’s criteria for being credible and trustworthy. Hence, Criterion 3 passes the test posed by Criterion 5.

Life has no pre written scripts, no re- takes and no awards when you finish; the biggest reward being each moment lived well & complete.

Pervez Musharraf had a formidable ego. He was a Pakistani nationalist but not especially pious. There was no suggestion that he had undergone a religious recommitment like General Mahmud’s. Indeed, there was little evidence that Musharraf sought a unity of the “tactical and moral” in his life; he seemed above all to be a tactician. He had been educated in Catholic schools in Karachi and spent much of his boyhood in secular Turkey. Musharraf had faced expulsion from the army as a young officer because of discipline infractions. He salvaged his career in the Special Services Group, or S.S.G., as a commando. He won a gallantry award during the 1971 war for operating behind Indian lines. As he rose to become a four-star general and lead the army as chief of staff, he did not take advice easily.

The thing was: I accomplished a lot during that time when I was supposedly incapable of taking care of myself. In 2008, I won more than twenty awards, including a Cosmopolitan Ultimate Woman of the Year Award. At the VMAs, just one year after I'd been mocked for my "Gimme More" performance, I won three Moonmen. My video "Piece of Me" won every category it was nominated in, including Video of the Year. I thanked God, my sons, and my fans for standing by me. I sometimes thought that it was almost funny how I won those awards for the album I made while I was supposedly so incapacitated that I had to be controlled by my family. The truth was, though, when I stopped to think about it for very long, it wasn't funny at all.

Robots will never take sick days, never need a pay increase or employee benefits, never go on strike, and will work long hours without a break. Remember, the word means “forced labor.” There will be no need for employers to hire and fire employees. If a robot is injured while performing a dangerous job, it can easily be repaired or replaced by a new robot, without the need for disability payments or potential lawsuit awards. Computer intelligence is expected to outwork and outlast a mere flesh and blood human. The superior will overtake the lesser. What a perfect business model; robots will work, while wealthy humans hop on a spaceship to visit Mars.

Caleb shook his head. He wasn’t sure when Mac had gone wrong. Their mother spent a lot of time praying he would see the light. But Mac was obstinate—it would probably take more than divine intervention.

He seemed surprised to hear from me now, his tone holding a note of shock. “Saint, how are you? What can I do for you?” “Kenneth. I just heard about the new volunteer counselor. I was hoping to get a copy of his credentials. As you know, the situation with some of the kids is pretty tenuous and new people scare them,” I said. “Oh! Didn’t you know he was coming? He said he had been approved months ago but he had delayed his start date due to traveling out of state for a family death. His name is Roland Cunningham. He’s been a high school counselor for fifteen years and now he’s semi-retired and wants to give back. He says that he saw so many gay kids who needed an ear.” I rolled my eyes so hard I almost hurt myself and Rio frowned at me questioningly. I shook my head and pulled in one deep breath before I spoke. “No, he hasn’t been approved for months. I’ve never heard of him. I suspect he’s a spy who belongs to Clay Greene.” I could hear Kenneth suck air, then chuckle disbelievingly. “Oh, no, Saint. That’s impossible. He had a copy of a volunteer application that you signed and dated in January. You probably just forgot, I know you’ve had a lot on your mind with your sister and everything.” I heard him click his tongue and had to work to not reach through the phone and wring his neck. “He’s going to make sure the kids have someone else to talk to. Don’t worry about it, I’m taking care of everything.” Rio’s frown had morphed into mild alarm, and I wasn’t sure what my face was doing that was causing it but whatever it was must have been interesting. He edged closer as I took several deep breaths. “Kenneth. Listen to me. You need to be cautious. Have you seen the security reports from Mr. Rao? Did make sure you let him know about this Cunningham? Did you run the background check?” “I glanced through the reports, yes, but no, I didn’t tell him about Roland. Mr. Rao is the night guard and Roland is scheduled for afternoons.” He chuckled lightly. “I didn’t see the overlap.” I did not grind my teeth, but it was a near thing. Rio hovered, not touching me, which I was grateful for. Once I got off this phone I was going to go off. “What about the background check, Ken? You know the background check policy.” “Oh, yes,” Kenneth said. “We did the background check. Completely clean, exemplary record with several awards from his career. Really, you need to calm down. I have it all under control.” “Right,” I said. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it then, Ken. Thank you.” I hung up before Kenneth could reply and Rio looked at me warily. “I am going to have him kicked off the board so fast his fucking head is going to spin. Shouldn’t be too hard, it’s full of ball bearings and broken gravel,” I snarled. “So that didn’t go well,” Rio observed quietly. He was still hovering, clearly unsure of how best to handle me.

An idea has more potential than any theory, plan or quantity of knowledge. You should never underestimate your dreams and the ideas that form around them. But more importantly, you shouldn't waste any time making them a reality. Others may not agree with your ideas, they may not trust your ideas, and they may even think that it is foolish to follow your dreams, but they don't have to trust something they can't see. Each person is gifted with the dreams that match the soul attracting them and according to the nature of the spiritual path in which one is found, therefore any dream you have is within your reach, and may never be within the reach or the beliefs of others, not even when you fulfill them. When people don't trust your capacities to achieve something, they will also rationalize reasons and excuses after you demonstrate your intent and potential. If you are poor, they may say you can't be rich, and once you are rich, they will try to dissuade you from what you do, with insinuations, insults, and threats. The most common question a rich person is asked, is if he is paying taxes. It is foolish to try to explain anything to those people. I've seen it my entire life, because I have succeeded in many areas where everyone told me I would never succeed. Once you win, they downgrade your achievements with ridiculous theories, or they will simply call you lucky. You can't win in an argument with a fool, because fools are very creative in their own art of denying the being of others. They see the world as they see themselves, as just objects, empty vessels, reflections of the illusions of the outside world. In martial arts, if you beat taller and stronger opponents, they don't say you are a better fighter. They will select one of your movements or techniques as the cause, and then dissociate you from the movement or technique, and say that you won because you cheat in the fighting rules. In music, if you succeed against the best in the world, people won't say you are better than them, but dissociate you from your music and say that you got awarded because you are different in a strange way, or because you competed in a special moment. If you succeed as a writer, people won't say you are a good writer, but instead dissociate you from your books, and say that you invent things and have a big imagination, which is a covert way of calling you a "good liar", thus insulting you under the pretense of giving compliments, or they will say that you stole the knowledge from others, in order to morally place themselves above you and your work, and they may even say that you have a special trick, like taking knowledge from the air, from some imaginary records in the ether, or from demonic spirits. People say different things when dissociating you from your potential, work and achievements, all of which are simply various forms of disrespecting someone. They deny you of your potential to be yourself. And among the various forms of disrespect, making one feel guilty for being himself is probably the worse, reason why you'll find the most disgusting people of them all inside religious organizations. "God won't like it", "You have a problem with your ego", and "The devil is tempting you", are among the most common and imbecile things you will ever hear as an artist, as a person who loves to read and acquire knowledge, and above anything, as a true spiritual being thriving in self-development and a natural curiosity for life. For all these reasons, the requirements and the real theories for success will never be found in any popular book. Nobody wants to know that you only win when you stop burning yourself to make others warm. And when you understand this, people will dissociate you from your focus and discipline, and call you selfish, and they will call the person who guided you in this path of real success evil. They will then do their best to destroy the reputation of both of you to deny their own fault , ignorance and lies.

Twitter was based on live events and virality, so they wanted stars to use the site to do things that would start conversations and lead to a lot of retweets. Nowhere was that more obvious than at the March 2014 Oscars. Twitter’s television partnerships group had spent months with host Ellen DeGeneres’s team,15 tossing back and forth ideas about how she could create a tweetable moment from the star-studded awards event. DeGeneres liked the idea of taking a selfie.

It’s always amusing to me, you take a book, say, To Kill a Mockingbird, throw away three quarters of it and win an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. But if you take a screenplay and add three quarters of original material to it––which is a much, much more difficult piece of writing––well, that’s by definition ‘hackwork.’ And it’s much harder, having done both, to take a screenplay and make a book out of it than [to] take a terrific book and make a screenplay out of it.

research university that primarily awards master’s degrees and PhDs, JNU saw the number of seats offered to students wishing to enroll in a master’s or a doctoral program plummet by 84 percent, from 1,234 to 194 in one year.101 Furthermore, admissions committees were made up solely of experts appointed by the JNU vice-chancellor, flouting university statutes and guidelines followed by the University Grants Commission (UGC), which stipulate that academics should be involved.102 This made it possible to hire teachers from Hindu nationalist circles,103 with few qualifications,104 and some facing charges of plagiarism.105 In particular, several former ABVP student activists from JNU have been appointed as assistant professors even after being disqualified by the committee in charge of short-listing applicants.106 The vice-chancellor replaced deans in the School of Social Sciences without following appointment procedures, cutting the number of researchers by 80 percent and ceasing to apply rules JNU had set to ensure diversity through a mechanism taking into account the social background and geographic origin of its applicants.107 The new recruitment procedure strongly disadvantaged Dalits, Adivasis, and OBCs, who used to make up nearly 50 percent of the student intake and who now accounted for a mere 7 percent. The vice-chancellor also issued ad hoc promotions, nominating recently appointed faculty members to the post of full professor. Conversely, the freeze on promotions for “antigovernment” teachers who should have been promoted on the basis of seniority prompted some of the diktat’s victims to take the matter to court.108 However, even after the court—taking note of the illegality of the rejection procedure—ordered a reexamination of the claimants’ promotions, the latter were once again denied.109

An idea has more potential than any theory, plan or quantity of knowledge. You should never underestimate your dreams and the ideas that form around them. But more importantly, you shouldn't waste any time making them a reality. Others may not agree with your ideas, they may not trust your ideas, and they may even think that it is foolish to follow your dreams, but they don't have to trust something they can't see. Each person is gifted with the dreams that match the soul attracting them and according to the nature of the spiritual path in which one is found, therefore any dream you have is within your reach, and may never be within the reach of the beliefs of others, not even when you fulfill them. When people don't trust your capacities to achieve something, they will also rationalize reasons and excuses after you demonstrate your intent and potential. If you are poor, they may say you can't be rich, and once you are rich, they will try to dissuade you from what you do, with insinuations, insults, and threats. The most common question a rich person is asked, is if he is paying taxes. It is foolish to try to explain anything to those people. I've seen it my entire life, because I have succeeded in many areas where everyone told me I would never succeed. Once you win, they downgrade your achievements with ridiculous theories, or they will simply call you lucky. You can't win in an argument with a fool, because fools are very creative in their own art of denying the being of others. They see the world as they see themselves, as just objects, empty vessels, reflections of the illusions on the outside world. In martial arts, if you beat taller and stronger opponents, they don't say you are a better fighter. They will select one of your movements or techniques as the cause, and then dissociate you from the movement or technique, and say that you win because you cheat in the fighting rules. In music, if you succeed against the best in the world, people won't say you are better than them, but dissociate you from your music and say that you got awarded because you are different in a strange way, or because you competed in a special moment. If you succeed as a writer, people won't say you are a good writer, but instead dissociate you from your books, and say that you invent things and have a big imagination, which is a covert way of calling you a "good liar", thus insulting you under the pretense of giving compliments, or they will say that you stole the knowledge from others, in order to morally place themselves above you and your work, and they may even say that you have a special trick, like taking knowledge from the air, from some imaginary records in the ether, or from demonic spirits. People say different things when dissociating you from your potential, work and achievements, all of which are simply various forms of disrespecting someone. They deny you of your potential to be yourself. And among the various forms of disrespect, making one feel guilty for being himself is probably the worse, reason why you'll find the most disgusting people of them all inside religious organizations. "God won't like it", "You have a problem with your ego", and "The devil is tempting you", are among the most common and imbecile things you will ever hear as an artist, as a person who loves to read and acquire knowledge, and above anything, as a true spiritual being thriving in self-development and a natural curiosity for life. For all these reasons, the requirements and the real theories for success will never be found in any popular book. Nobody wants to know that you only win when you stop burning yourself to make others warm. And when you understand this, people will dissociate you from your focus and discipline, and call you selfish, and they will call the person who guided you in this path of real success evil. They will then do their best to destroy the reputation of both of your to deny their own fault , ignorance and lies.

Appreciating Your Work Before you can write your Achievement Stories, you need to appreciate your achievements. You cannot take your work for granted. Malcolm Forbes, Forbes’ magazine’s late publisher, said: Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. What usually happens is that if we do something, it seems commonplace, not special, just ordinary. However, when we see someone doing something we cannot do, we’re impressed. What we’re not considering is whether the person who impressed you can do what you can do. We’re also not asking ourselves: “Why did you keep your job so long?” “Why did you get raises?” “Why did you get promoted?” “Why did you receive those awards?” “Why did you get recognized as often as you did, via awards or complementary messages from your boss and others?” If you’re not getting raises, promotions, awards or complements, there could be a number of reasons. It might be that your company cannot afford to provide raises and promotions. It’s possible that a boss may think that if you get awards and compliments, you’ll ask for a raise, which her budget doesn’t permit. Unfortunately, there are also times when a boss may not want to draw attention to you because she’s afraid of you, afraid you’ll outshine her, afraid you’ll get her job. Of course, you need to be careful around someone like this. I once gave a presentation to a group of people, including my boss and her boss. After the presentation, my boss’s boss said it was excellent. All my boss did was look at me for what seemed like a long time. As long as she worked there, she never let me give another presentation.

How To Collect Your Achievement Stories Before we can write our Achievement Stories, we need to identify each and every one. This will take some work, but the payoff is employment and higher wages and salaries. Because I want you to look as impressive as possible, I’m going to remind you of all of the places where your achievements can be found: Performance Reviews I worked at a place where, at the end of every year, my boss had to convince his peers why I should get a raise and or a bonus. As a result, my performance reviews were a great place to find achievements I might have forgotten about. Awards Every time you receive an award, you have evidence that you are special. Depending on the number of achievements, you might want to list your awards as achievements. Usually, the reason you received the award is an achievement. Promotions Getting promoted is an achievement. Your promotion says to the hiring manager, “This woman is so good that we gave her more responsibility and a higher salary.

How To Collect Your Achievement Stories

 Before we can write our Achievement Stories, we need to identify each and every one. This will take some work, but the payoff is employment and higher wages and salaries.

 Because I want you to look as impressive as possible, I’m going to remind you of all of the places where your achievements can be found:

 Performance Reviews 

I worked at a place where, at the end of every year, my boss had to convince his peers why I should get a raise and or a bonus. As a result, my performance reviews were a great place to find achievements I might have forgotten about.

 Awards 

Every time you receive an award, you have evidence that you are special. Depending on the number of achievements, you might want to list your awards as achievements. Usually, the reason you received the award is an achievement. 

Promotions 

Getting promoted is an achievement. Your promotion says to the hiring manager, “This woman is so good that we gave her more responsibility and a higher salary. Bosses and Coworkers If you’re wracking your brain trying to think of achievements, consider giving a list of the achievements you’ve identified to bosses and co-workers. Then ask them, “What’s missing? What have I left out?” Emails If you have access to your old emails, go through each one to see what you can find. I did this every year when my boss asked for my achievements, this gave him the ammunition he needed to negotiate for my raises. This is the ammunition you need to win over the hiring manager. LinkedIn Recommendations Just the other day, I was reading my LinkedIn recommendations and was reminded of an accomplishment I had not included in my LI profile or resume. As you read each recommendation, think about the work you did with that person. It may jog your memory and help you remember things you’ve left out.

She's showing people what they can do to protect the environment. Thank you for what you are doing, Pat." President George H. Bush, Take Pride In America Award Ceremony, 1991

I’d also like to thank retired Army Colonel Douglas Moore, Dust Off helicopter pilot and recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, awarded to him for actions during the Vietnam War. Doug flew 1,847 combat missions, evacuated nearly 3,000 wounded, and was inducted into the Dust Off Hall of Fame in 2004. Thank you for taking the time to read and critique an early draft of The Women, and for answering an endless series of follow-up questions.

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Splitting at the seams and opening your heart does not feel good. Unraveling and taking down walls takes work. It isn’t comfortable to say, “Here I am. What do you think?” But we will always be fighting this battle. We will always be splitting, unraveling, and then trying to put ourselves back together again. The kindest thing you can do is to award yourself grace in these moments. And on the days the grace feels farther and farther away, know that I fight these battles alongside you; we are fighting together.

Rich people will take any excuse to celebrate themselves. Awards banquets, fundraisers, charity auctions—it’s all just an excuse for them to slap each other’s backs publicly.

As much as I tried to act French about it, watching my husband flaunt his mistress was a bit much for even me to take. I wasn't my sister Diana, whose poise in the face of her lover's lovers should have earned her an award of some kind. How does she do it? I stood, smoothing my hand down my flat abdomen as I walked to the cellaret. That level plane of my belly was another endless source of torment. How could life quicken inside of me when Prod planted his seed in another garden?

For all the women who have done, or are doing the work to love yourself from the inside out. You’re allowed to take up space.

Some of my books should be awarded their own frequent-flier miles, they’ve traveled so much. I take these volumes on flight after flight with the best of intentions and then wind up reading anything and everything else (SkyMall! Golf Digest!).

In its simplest terms, allyship is about mentorship or sponsorship across race lines. It's about creating opportunities for colleagues of color that can help them advance in their careers. Think promotions, attendance at conferences, nominations for awards or speaker-positions, inclusion on high profile committees, teaching your young colleagues of color the soft skills and rules of the game that they might not have learned otherwise. Ask what they need, share what you can offer, and see what makes the most sense. Don't assume you know what they need, and don't ask for kudos for your behaviour. Contribute to the change and know that the benefits of your efforts will come back to you.

For honors like this one, organizations have to submit nominations. Given my midlevel position, I knew the firm would never nominate me - at least not yet - so I was happy ColorComm submitted the awards entry. I wanted ColorComm to be recognized for our work, and I knew that making the list could mean big thngs for my career and the company I was building. What I didn't spend time worrying about was the protocol or the politics of it all - how the firm would feel about my nomination. If I won, would it rub people the wrong way? I thought I was deserving of the award, so I was happy to have my name submitted. If it made people mad, I could always ask for forgiveness later.

The truth is, taking a risk - and by risk I mean making a calculated, thought out decision to try something new or different, I'm not talking about throwing caution to the wind and doing something stupid on a whim - is about taking the pieces of yourself you value most and asking, "How can I grow this a little more, in a new way?" That might mean, as it did for me, going after an award so you are recognized in a secific industry and thus get more opportunity.

The best method, by the way, for finding SF that you’ll like is to take a look at the end-of-the-year anthologies. The ones that come to mind right now are The Year’s Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois, and the Nebula Awards series (several editors).

For Christians, the reward is even more than human virtue. It is imperishable because it is the crown of eternal life. “From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance” (2 Tim 4:8). “Hold fast to what you have, so that no one may take your crown” (Rev 3:11).

I’d seen every movie Charlie Yates had ever written, and I’d read every one of his screenplays—produced or unproduced—that I could get my hands on, printing them off the internet and lovingly binding them with brass brads before alphabetizing them on their own dedicated shelf on my bookcase. And I didn’t just read them. I highlighted them. Annotated them. Covered them with Post-its and exclamation points. No question it was good. Charlie Yates couldn’t write a bad screenplay if you threatened to take all his awards away

We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?” The statement was vague, but Ilya understood. “Yes. If you want to try this, I will do what I need to do.” “I will too. Anything. I want this. I want us.” Ilya brushed Shane’s hair out of his eyes. “Then I am moving to Ottawa, I think.” “And we’re starting a charity.” “And we will become friends.” “And we’ll see each other all the time. As much as possible. And spend the summers together. Here.” “Yes.” They kissed again. Ilya couldn’t believe they had solved this impossible problem. Maybe it wouldn’t go as smoothly as they imagined, but it was a plan. “And when I retire,” Ilya said, “after I have won twelve Stanley Cups and thirteen MVP awards—” “The hell you will.” “And you have been retired for, like, eight years already because you got very bad at hockey...” Shane laughed. “Okay.” “Then I will bring you to that dock out there. I will have hundreds of candles all over it...” “That sounds like a fire hazard.” “Is on the water, Hollander. Fucking relax. Will be beautiful, you will love it. The candles. The lake. The full moon.” “Oh, is it a clear night?” “Yes. Of course. And I will get on one knee—” “Ilya—” “And I will say, ‘Shane Hollander, will you please marry me so I can become Canadian citizen faster?’” Shane burst out laughing, and shoved him. “You’re such an asshole.” “And you will say yes, because you are a nice, helpful guy.” “No,” Shane said, taking his hands. “I will say yes because I will still be madly in love with you. And I’ll want to spend the rest of my life with you.” - Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry

For all the women in the world who give up a part of themselves trying to make other people happy. Don’t let their expectations of who they think you’re meant to be take away that joyful, authentic part of yourself. Be you. And anyone who doesn’t love you for it, can fuck off. Tell them I said so.

A major UK newspaper crowned me ‘Britain’s Biggest Bitch’ just a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think they’re actually supposed to be awards, but I’ll take them all the same.

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We compete on various levels as humans. Popularity. Intellectual capacity. Social status. Titles. Monetary superiority. Physical strength and fitness. Beauty. Ability to get romantic partners. Power. Influence. Morality. Talents. Skills. Achievements. Awards. Recognition. Personal qualities. Even a nun, a priest of the highest echelon, and the religious worker taking photos with random children in Africa, are competing for superior morality and recognition for their selfless deeds. Just because your inherent needs for recognition differ from those next to you does not mean you are free of them.

All we believe is the roads, the bridges, the railways, the electricity they build only on televisions. I always ask my self these questions: 1. Where are the roads? ✏The Abuja - Lokoja road was awarded by Obasanjo's administration. He spent 8 years in the office. Then Yaradua and Goodluck spent another 4 years. Now if Goodluck is elected, he will be spending another 8 years. This will amount to 20 years and 180 km road is yet to be completed. ✏Enugu - Onitsha road was also awarded by the Obasanjo administration and till date, a journey that is supposed to take 45 minutes can take you 8 hours if it rains. ✏Enugu- PH road is on the same series. ✏What about Uyo - Calabar route? Just to mention a few. 2. Where is the power? They sold all the NEPA to their friends. We pay for the light that was not supplied. 3. Our education and health system go bad everyday. Lecturers and Health workers spent more time at home than in the schools and hospitals as a result of incessant strikes. 4. The government failed to provide us with security. People are being killed everyday and yet government comes out to tell us they are in control. 5. Why are we pretending that all is well? It is only in Nigeria where monies develop wings and fly. $20 billion oil money disappeared and they said it was $10 billion. Forensic investigators were hired and that was the end of the story. N20 billion pension fund stolen and nothing came out of it. $9.3 million seized in South Africa and government claimed it was meant for ammunition purchase. The immigration scandal has also been swept under the carpet because the senate could not proceed with their investigation. The man behind the contract is sitting among the high seats in the senate. Innocent people were defrauded and they at the same time lost their lives yet, we have a transparent governance. 6. Why are we praising government as if they are doing whatever with their personal money. How many people in their various communities have they provided scholarship with their personal money before they got elected? The reason they got elected is to manage our resources and not to loot us dry. One thing I know is that we will not have any meaningful development except if we make a CHANGE.

From the Bridge” by Captain Hank Bracker The Hurricane of 1502 In the time before hurricanes were understood or modern methods of detection and tracking were available, people were frequently caught off guard by these monstrous storms. One of these times was on June 29, 1502. What had started as another normal day in the Caribbean turned into the devastation of a fleet of 30 ships, preparing to sail back to Spain laden with gold and other treasures from the New World. Without the benefit of a National Weather Service, mariners had to rely on their own knowledge and understanding of atmospheric conditions and the sea. Sensing that one of these storms was approaching, Columbus sought shelter for his ships near the Capitol city of Santo Domingo along the southern coast of Hispaniola, now known as the Dominican Republic. The following is taken from page 61 of the author’s award winning book, The Exciting Story of Cuba. “Columbus was aware of dangerous weather indicators that were frequently a threat in the Caribbean during the summer months. Although the barometer had not yet been invented, there were definitely other telltale signs of an approaching hurricane. Had the governor listened to Columbus’ advice and given him some leeway, he could have saved the convoy that was being readied for a return trans-Atlantic crossing. Instead, the new inexperienced governor ordered the fleet of over 30 caravels, laden, heavy with gold, to set sail for Spain without delay. As a result, it is estimated that 20 of these ships were sunk by this violent storm, nine ran aground and only the Aguja, which coincidently carried Columbus’ gold, survived and made it back to Spain safely. The ferocity of the storm claimed the lives of five hundred souls, including that of the former governor Francisco de Bobadilla. Many of the caravels that sank during this hurricane were ships that were part of the same convoy that Ovando had traveled with from Spain to the West Indies. However he felt about this tragedy, which could have been prevented, he continued as the third Governor of the Indies until 1509, and became known for his brutal treatment of the Taíno Indians. Columbus’ ships fared somewhat better in that terrible storm, and survived with only minor damage. Heaving in their anchors, Columbus’ small fleet of ships left Hispaniola to explore the western side of the Caribbean.” Hurricanes and Typhoons, remain the most powerful and dangerous storms on our planet. Hurricane Matthew that is now raking the eastern coastline of Florida is no exception. Perhaps the climate change that we are experiencing has intensified these storms and perhaps we should be doing more to stabilize our atmosphere but Earth is our home and the only place where proven life exists. Perhaps the conclusion to this is that we should take the warning signs more seriously and be proactive in protecting our environment! This is not a political issue and will affect us, our children and grandchildren for centuries!

Thorbjørn Jagland, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, approaches the podium. “All those with empathy for children and women who are ill-treated and killed, all those who believe in a future free from violence and war, will acclaim you today out of respect for the will to act that you represent.” He continues, “You give concrete meaning to the Chinese proverb which says women hold up half the sky. That was why, when giving its reasons for this year’s award, the Nobel Committee stated that ‘We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women acquire the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.’ We thank you for the hope you awaken in us all. Luckily women are not only victims. Some take action. Three of them are today receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for 2011.

Thirty-one days later, in the summer of 1981, he became a full-time writer, and the feeling of liberation as he left the agency for the last time was heady and exhilarating. He shed advertising like an unwanted skin, though he continued to take a sneaky pride in his bestknown slogan, “Naughty but nice” (created for the Fresh Cream Cake Client), and in his “bubble words” campaign for Aero chocolate (IRRESISTIBUBBLE, DELECTABUBBLE, ADORABUBBLE, the billboards cried, and bus sides read TRANSPORTABUBBLE, trade advertising said PROFITABUBBLE, and storefront decals proclaimed AVAILABUBBLE HERE). Later that year, when Midnight’s Children was awarded the Booker Prize, the first telegram he received—there were these communications called “telegrams” in those days—was from his formerly puzzled boss. “Congratulations,” it read. “One of us made it.

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.

I have fought for Arin, bled for him. I hold him in my heart. I have even named my tiger after him--no small honor. And yet, we have a problem. Arin of Herran was not always my friend, and once committed an offense against me that caused my queen to award me control over all he owns: his life, his belongings, and--since you say he possesses it--his country. I’ve been told to take from Arin what is due to me. I’ve been told it is mine by law. Must I? Yes. Will my people support my claim, with force if necessary? They will. Will my queen rise in admiration of me? Oh, indeed. And so I must. “No, Arin. Sit down. Otherwise you’ll make an ass out of yourself, and that role is mine. I see my tiger’s meal is here. You, there. Yes, you. With the platter. Bear it forth.” Kestrel laughed. Arin felt rather than saw that she had relaxed beside him, aglow with mirth. He sank back into his chair, because now he too understood Roshar’s game. He wanted to sag with relief. He wanted to strangle the prince. And thank him. “There.” Roshar flourished a hand at the platter. “Arin the tiger’s meal. Since I’ve ordered to take from Arin what belongs to Arin, I shall.” Roshar returned to his seat, platter in hand, and commenced cutting the meat. He took a bite. “Mmm. This is excellent. So well done. Now, as for what belongs to Arin the human, I relinquish any claim to it. Nothing of his was ever mine to take, nor will ever be. What belongs to him, I defend his right to keep, out of my love for him, and his for me.” He looked directly at the queen as he ate. “This is delicious. Exactly the way I like it.” The queen forced a smile. “Oh, and would someone bring another slice of loin? Raw, please. My tiger is hungry.

Get rid of it,” he said, settling the hilt of the knife in her palm. “I’ll get you a lady’s version of a pocket pistol and teach you how to use it, unless you’d rather approach one of your brothers to see to it.” “My brothers?” “St. Just would be best suited to the task.” Devlin St. Just was a decorated cavalry officer, one who’d been awarded an earldom for his exploits in the Peninsular War. Or for being a duke’s firstborn bastard. “He’s gone back North, where he’s likely to stay,” Miss Windham said. “If you can spare the time, I will take my instruction from you. But I hardly think your purpose in meeting me tonight was to accost me with a knife.” “Of

Marconi was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1911 for his “achievements” in radio, and was hailed as the “father of radio.” Tesla was infuriated and, in 1915, sued Marconi for infringement on his patents. He didn’t have the money to take on the flush Marconi, however, and the suit was dismissed.

no more stolen moments, let alone hours, in which to discover each other . . . from now on, they were formally betrothed, and that betrothal had its own rules. Maddening, perhaps intentionally so. Luci filched another stuffed date from the tray a sleepy maidservant was carrying back to the kitchen, and followed her father into the library. Her uncle and grandfather, already relaxed in chairs by the fireplace, looked up as she came in. "Luci, you should be in bed." "Papa, I'm not sleepy." He raised his eyebrows at her, but she didn't move. "Papa, I had a message cube from Esmay today." Her uncle Casimir sighed. "Esmay . . . now there's another problem. Berthold, did you get anywhere in the Landsmen's Guild?" "Nowhere. Oh, Vicarios won't oppose us, but that's because of Luci, and his support is half-hearted. It would be different if she hadn't left so young, I think. They don't really remember her, and even though they awarded her the Starmount, and consider her a hero, they do not want a Landbride—any Landbride but especially our Landbride—connected to an outlander family. Cosca told me frankly that even if she moved here, and also her husband, he would oppose it. Nothing good ever came from the stars, he insisted." "And the votes?" "Enough for a challenge, Casi, I'm sure of it. No, the only way out of this is for Esmaya to come and talk to them herself." "Or resign." "Or resign, but—will she?" Luci spoke up. "She mentioned that in her cube." "What—resigning? Why?" "Her precious Fleet seems to think about us the way the Landsmen's Guild thinks about them. She says they have some kind of regulation forbidding officers to marry Landbrides." Her father snorted. "Do they have one forbidding officers to be Landbrides? How ridiculous!" "Are you serious?" Casimir asked. "They have something specific about Landbrides? How would they know?" "I don't know," Luci said. "That's just what she said. And she said why didn't we take in all those women brought back from Our Texas—she was sure they'd fit in." A stunned silence, satisfying by its depth and length. "She what?" Casimir said finally. "Aren't those women—" "Free-birthers and religious cultists," Luci said, with satisfaction. "Exactly." "But—but the priests will object," Berthold said. "Not as badly as the Landsmen's Guild, if they hear of it. Dear God, I thought she had more sense than that!" "She is in love," Luci pointed out, willing now to be magnanimous. "Apparently Fleet is taking Barin's salary to pay for their upkeep—at least some of it—and Esmay's trying to help him out. Nineteen of them, after all, and all those children." "At our expense." Casimir shook his head. "Well, that settles it. She'll have to resign, as soon as I can get word to her. The Trustees will certainly not approve this, if I were willing to let it be known." He gave Luci a hard look. "You didn't tell Philip, I hope." "Of course not." Luci glared at her uncle. Esmay might not have any sense, but she knew what the family honor required. "I hope she does name you Landbride, Luci," Casimir said. "You'll be a good one." Luci had a sudden spasm of doubt. Was she being fair to Esmay, who after all had had so many bad things happen to her? But underneath the doubt, the same exultation she had felt when Esmay gave her the brown mare . . . mine, it's mine, I can take care of it, nobody can hurt it . . . "I wonder if we could place an ansible call," Casimir said. "Surely it's not that urgent,

Pausing for a breath, he uses his hand to keep Patrick right up at the edge before shoving Patrick’s cock back in his mouth, lapping at the leaking head and sucking deep into his throat. Patrick growls, his deep voice vibrating in the back of Will’s head like an urgent, needy buzz, and humps his mouth in frustration. “Stop teasing.” Will hums and taps Patrick’s squeezing hole in rhythm to his slurps. He’s happy with Patrick’s cock in his mouth, but the low hum that starts in his veins, an emptiness he recognizes as his blood sugar dropping, means he needs to have dinner soon. So he stops teasing and reaches for the open bottle of juice on the coffee table. He takes a few swigs, and then starts sucking just the way Patrick likes best: pulling his entire shaft in, then sliding up with a long, wet drag before diving down again. “Puddin’-pop,” Patrick grits out. “Yeah, yeah—like that.” A spurt of liquid hits his tongue, and Will pulls back to lick at the slit. Patrick’s cock thrums against his palm, rigid and throbbing. “Tastes good,” Will murmurs and then swoops down again. “Ungh,” Patrick grunts, tugging Will’s hair. “Get me off.” Will hollows his cheeks, sucks back up, and uses his hand to jerk the base of Patrick’s cock as he works. “Yes, yeah.” Patrick arches his hips up and his stomach tenses as he clenches Will’s hair in his fists. “Suck it.” Will slurps hard and steady while Patrick whispers filthy things and struggles to get there or hold back, thighs clenching and stomach quivering. “Gonna come,” Patrick groans. Will gets ready to swallow, and Patrick’s thighs jump and his asshole pulses against Will’s finger. “Fuck!” Patrick curls up, his hips bucking, and his cock shoves deep into Will’s throat. Choking, tangy spurts of come fill Will’s mouth, but he swallows all of it down while Patrick shakes and curses, tugging hard against Will’s hair. “Stop, stop,” Patrick whines, holding Will down on his dick despite his words. “Too much. Stop.” Will lets Patrick’s cock twitch in his mouth until Patrick loosens his grip, and then he pulls off with a wet, sweet slurp. Patrick falls back to the sofa, panting and rolling his head limply back and forth. Sweat shines on his forehead and in the notch at the base of his neck. He’s trembling all over, and Will beams up at him, his own cock throbbing against the placket of his jeans. “Good?” “A+ cock sucking,” Patrick whimpers. “Wins all the awards.” “I know.” “Mmm.” Will

There were several methods by which the Indians obtained eagle feathers. Some tribes dug a pit in the ground in the areas known to have eagles. These pits were large enough to conceal a brave. The trap was baited with a live rabbit or pieces of buffalo meat, and the opening was covered with a buffalo hide or brush. A large enough opening was left so that the Indian crouching in the pit could grab the tail feathers of the bird alighting to take the bait. The bird would lose its feathers, but could escape unharmed to grow new tail feathers by its next moulting period. This method was very dangerous. Often bears, attracted by the bait, would discover and kill the Indian. Sometimes eagles were caught and killed for their feathers. There also were tribes who captured young eagles while they were still in the nest. These birds were tethered by a leather thong around their leg and were kept solely for their feathers; they were plucked regularly. These birds seldom became tame and never lost their desire for freedom. They continually would fly into the air as far as the leather thong would allow, screaming their defiance at their captor. Regardless of where or how an Indian brave accumulated feathers, he was not allowed, according to tribal law, to wear them until he won them by a brave deed. He had to appear before the council and tell or re-enact his exploit. Witnesses were examined and if in the eyes of the council the deed was thought to be worthy, the brave was authorized to wear the feather or feathers in his hair or war bonnet. These honors were called “counting coup” (pronounced “coo”). Deeds of exceptional valor (such as to touch the enemy without killing him and escape) were called “grand coup” and were rated more than one feather. Sometimes a tuft of horsehair or down was added to the tip of a feather to designate additional honor. Some tribes designated special deeds by special marking on “coup” feathers, such as cutting notches or adding paint spots. The coup feathers of the American Indian can be compared to the campaign ribbons and medals awarded to our modern soldier. An Indian would rather part with his horse, his tepee, or even his wife, than to lose his eagle feathers. To do so would be to be dishonored in the eyes of the tribe. Many old Indian chiefs, such as Many Coup of the Crow tribe, had won enough honors to wear a double-tailed bonnet that dragged on the ground and to carry a feathered lance to display the additional feathers.

Torturous screams bounced around in his head, whimpers and cries of pain and lust clouding his mind, overbearing and foreboding. Sinning surrounded him, suffocating him, imprisoning him like a straightjacket. He tried to drive the noise away, to force it back and focus on something else, but the ruckus never stopped, never let up. It hindered his connection to the world outside the gates, muffling everything else to mere background noise. Blah, blah, motherfucking blah. This was his Hell: the inescapable torment he endured all alone. He craved silence but was awarded chaos. Instead of light and vitality, he existed in utter darkness. His Archangel nature helped him take it all in stride, but it was never easy, even for the one the world saw as the enemy. Satan

On November 2, 1899, eight members of the United States Navy were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism and service beyond the call of duty. On the night of June 2, 1898, they had volunteered to scuttle the collier USS Merrimac, with the intention of blocking the entry channel to Santiago de Cuba. On orders of Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, who was in command, their intention was to trap Spanish Admiral Cervera’s fleet in the harbor. Getting the USS Merrimac underway, the eight men navigated the ship towards a predetermined location where sinking her would seal the port. Their course knowingly took them within the range of the Spanish ships and the shore batteries. The sailors were well aware of the danger this put them into, however they put their mission first. Once the Spanish gunners saw what was happening, they realized what the Americans were up to and started firing their heavy artillery from an extremely close range. The channel leading into Santiago is narrow, preventing the ship from taking any evasive action. The American sailors were like fish in a barrel and the Spanish gunners were relentless. In short order, the heavy shelling from the Spanish shore batteries disabled the rudder of the Merrimac and caused the ship to sink prematurely. The USS Merrimac went down without achieving its objective of obstructing navigation and sealing the port. ‎Fête du Canada or Canada Day is the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the Canadian Constitution Act. This weekend Americans also celebrate the United States’, July 4, 1776 birthday, making this time perfect to celebrate George Fredrick Phillips heroic action. Phillips was one of the men mentioned in the story above of the USS Merrimac. He was born on March 8, 1862, in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and joined the United States Navy in March 1898 in Galveston, Texas. Phillips became a Machinist First Class and displayed extraordinary heroism throughout the Spanish bombardment during their operation. He was discharged from the Navy in August 1903, and died a year later at the age of 42 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His body was returned to Canada where he was interred with honors at the Fernhill Cemetery in his hometown of Saint John, New Brunswick.

And so-in what amounts to a deeply ironic twist of fate-Candrakirti was posthumously awarded highest honors from an orthodox scholarly tradition that could sustain its authority only by refusing to take seriously what he had himself insisted upon: Nagarjuna is not in the business of providing rational arguments designed to substantiate, prove, establish, or make certain anything.NN

Intuition must be taken seriously in the absence of substantial theoretical understanding, but once such theoretical understanding begins to take shape, prior intuitive judgments carry little weight unless they have been endorsed by the progress of theory. The greater one's theoretical understanding, the less weight one may assign to untutored judgment. All this applies equally well to the case of appeals to intuition in philosophy. We sometimes hear philosophers speak of some intuitions as 'merely' driven by theory, and thus to be ignored. While it is certainly true that judgments driven by bad theories are not to be taken seriously, the solution is not to try to return to some pure state of theory independent judgment, before the fall, as it were; rather the solution is to get a better theory. Intuition in the absence of theory does not count for nothing, especially if no credible theory is available. But this is not to award high marks to intuitive judgment before the arrival of successful theory, let alone after, when the initially low value of such judgment drops still lower.

Jimmy Valvano was a legendary college basketball coach and broadcaster. In June of 1992, he was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. In March of the following year, Jimmy gave a powerful speech at the first ever ESPY awards, presented by ESPN. His message was just as simple as it was moving: “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” Eight weeks later, he passed away. In his speech, he also said this:   To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears―could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.   And finally, this:   Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.   There is no other reason to be alive than to enjoy it. So laugh, think, cry. Work hard. Celebrate your victories. Embrace the day. And don’t ever give up.

Of course, to properly reward the “doers” you must correctly define what a doer is. This is central to the idea of execution. Simply put, a doer is a person who gets things done. Doing is meeting goals. Some goals are legitimately short-term goals that yield short-term results and are properly compensated on a short-term basis. But other goals are long-term and by definition we will not know if we have achieved those goals for some time. Consequently the people striving to meet those goals should be compensated on a long-term basis, with some portion of that long- term compensation based on achieving critical milestones toward the goal. And there are some goals that are so long- term that compensation should only be awarded when a person retires and his or her contributions to meeting those extremely long-term goals can be assessed. Leaders must take responsibility for setting the right rewards for doers. This is particularly true of boards of directors, many of which made egregiously bad calls in rewarding poor performance by the CEOs of their companies. Linked together as these behaviors are, rewarding the doers must be based on the correct metrics. For too long companies—and this often involved boards of directors— set “shareholder value” as one of the goals to be measured and rewarded in compensation plans. But the directors and CEOs who set shareholder value as a goal missed an essential point. Increasing shareholder value is an outcome, not a goal. If you set the right strategy with the right goals and execute well to implement the strategy and achieve the goals—growth in earnings per share, good cash flow, improved market share, for example—then shareholder value is the result. Get everything else right and shareholder value will take care of itself. EXPAND

How should you go about claiming your award money? There are two possible directions to take. You can try to prove that P = NP or you can aim to show that P is not equal to NP. To show that P = NP, all you have to do is take one of your favorite NP-Complete problems and find a polynomial algorithm that solves it. As we have seen, if you do find such an algorithm, then all NP problems will be solvable in a polynomial amount of operations. It might seem strange to think that a problem that demands an exponential or factorial amount of operations can be done in a polynomial amount of operations. It might seem strange to think that a problem that demands an exponential or factorial amount of operations can be done in a polynomial amount of operations. However, we saw something similar with the Euler Cycle Problem. Rather than look through all n! possible cycles to see if any are Euler cycles, we used the trick of checking if the number of edges touching each vertex is even or not. Does a similar trick for the Hamiltonian Cycle Problem exist? For many years, the smartest people around have been looking for such a trick or algorithm and have not been successful. However, you might possess some deeper insight that they lack. Get to it! On the other hand, you can try to show that P is not equal to NP. One way to do this is to take an NP problem and show that no polynomial algorithm exists for it. It so happens that it is very hard to prove such a claim: there are a lot of algorithms out there. This has turned out to be one of the hardest problems in mathematics. As a final hint, it should be noted that most researchers believe that P is not equal to NP.

Captain Hank Bracker, author of the multi-award winning book, “The Exciting Story of Cuba” presents “Suppressed I Rise.” This is the true story of Adeline Perry’s struggle to protect and raise her two daughters in foreign, war-torn, Nazi Germany. With her husband stationed in Paris, she is left to fend for herself in a hostile environment that she hardly understands but bravely faces. It recounts the harrowing story of the devastating daily bombings of Mannheim and her experiences confined in a crowded air-raid shelter with a dying woman and four children. Being abused by ruthless Nazis, she fled. This graphic book takes you from the Alsace region on the French border through Germany to Überlingen on the Bodensee near the Swiss frontier. It is a “riveting read” for anyone interested in a personal account of World War II, as seen from the perspective of a refugee caught inside the Third Reich.

Let's refuse to have a defeated mentality of “permanent failure” because we didn’t achieve the award-winning results we were after in the first round. Technical knockouts (TKOs) still require determination and grit.

Steve Jones, the award-winning former CEO of one of the largest banks in Australia, wanted to know what made financial advisers successful. His team studied key factors such as financial expertise and effort. But “the single most influential factor,” Jones told me, “was whether a financial adviser had the client’s best interests at heart, above the company’s and even his own.

Miles’s pause had lasted just a little too long. Genially taking his turn to fill it, Illyan turned to Ekaterin. “Speaking of weddings, Madame Vorsoisson, how long has Miles been courting you? Have you awarded him a date yet? Personally, I think you ought to string him along and make him work for it.” A chill flush plunged to the pit of Miles’s stomach. Alys bit her lip. Even Galeni winced. Olivia looked up in confusion. “I thought we weren’t supposed to mention that yet.” Kou, next to her, muttered, “Hush, lovie.” Lord Dono, with malicious Vorrutyer innocence, turned to her and inquired, “What weren’t we supposed to mention?” “Oh, but if Captain Illyan said it, it must be all right,” Olivia concluded. Captain Illyan had his brains blown out last year, thought Miles. He is not all right. All right is precisely what he is not . . . Her gaze crossed Miles’s. “Or maybe . . .” Not, Miles finished silently for her. Ekaterin

It is enough to write a few lines about tanks in the streets in some sad country, about a clear injustice, which requires no description; it is enough to move from one side to another, to satisfy someone’s taste, the need of the moment, the need for “big” games to take a peek into everything and to prove everything with cheap opinions formed almost on command, almost as a recipe of measured pain to resolve the crisis, to extinguish the pain based on a few words that don’t change anything except that they flatter vanity and a misguided interest in all dimensions of life and creation, in the air that is being poisoned by smoke from cars, smoke from the television screens, the smoke curtains of politicians, left and right, the smoke of films and pop culture, smokescreens of intelligence that finds an explanation for all this, makes up theories, finds justification for the schizophrenic decisions of the new rulers, for wars, agreements, contracts; finds justification for obedience, for the sale of beliefs under the disguise of conviction, for several awards, for a few moments of illusion in the hocus-pocus world where the truth does not interest anyone anymore, except for ways for lies to be packaged and sold as the greatest truth with the help of big intellectuals that will find a good argument, a good defense and justification for everything, since everything becomes much easier, if a hoax is supported by “scientific” evidence.

Habana Eva" released in 2010, Habana Eva is a funny Romantic comedy. Eva works as a seamstress in a sweatshop where she dreams of becoming a fashion designer with her own a room. Her love is her longtime partner Angel, a charming yet lazy islander. Her dream of marrying Angel fades when she meets Jorge, a handsome and wealthy Cuban raised in Venezuela who returns to Cuba, with a more ambitious project than taking photos of Eva for a book. Eva who has been living with her aunts falls for him and has to decide which of the two men she will want to marry. Directed by Fina Torres, starring Prakriti Maduro as Eva and Juan Carlos García as Jorge and Carlos Enrique Almirante as Angel. Venezuelan produced and filmed in La Habana, Cuba. Habana Eva film won the Best Picture award at the New York International Latino Film Festival on August 2, 2010.

It was on July 2, 1776 that the Second Continental Congress voted for the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain. On July 1, 1776, in anticipation of this great day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that Independence Day, would be the most memorable day in the history of America. He wrote “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.” He was right about the day; however he was off regarding the actual signing by two days. Americans now celebrate Independence Day on July 4th, since the resolution of independence was debated on in a closed session of Congress and the Congressional Vote didn’t take place until July 4, 1776. Independence Day has become a National Day to be celebrated with friends enjoying barbecues, picnics and patriotic concerts. So it will be on this day with me. Yesterday I learned that my book “Suppressed I Rise” had been selected for two awards by the Florida Authors & Publishers Association, to be conferred next month at the Hilton Hotel in Disney World. Although July 4th is our nations “Independence Day” it will have additional meaning for me and my friends who have contributed so much of themselves to make these awards a reality. This year the 4th of July will certainly have a special significance to me.

There are certain books that I mean to read and keep stacked by my bedside. I even take them on trips. Some of my books should be awarded their own frequent-flier miles, they’ve traveled so much.

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Already the respective roles of the Big Four had asserted themselves. Huntington would take care of lobbying in Washington, Stanford would see to the state government, Crocker would supervise construction, and Mark Hopkins would keep the books. Increasingly, Theodore Judah, the chief engineer of the Central Pacific, was finding himself odd man out as his four associates squeezed and resqueezed the project for every penny it was worth. When the Big Four awarded the construction contract to a dummy corporation which they owned, Judah bowed out with a $100,000 payment and an option to buy the company back for $400,000, if he could raise the money in the East. Sailing in October 1863 for New York, where he hoped to raise money from Cornelius Vanderbilt, Judah contracted typhoid fever crossing the Isthmus of Panama and died in New York, four months short of age thirty-eight, and a mere four days after the first rails had been laid in Sacramento.

Once in a while some guys get put up for decorations and a ceremony takes place somewhere. You see them in dress uniforms, standing proud. But that’s politics and theater. You should see them as I have, downrange, in action. They’re amazing to watch, risking their lives to serve their country. I don’t like to talk about valor awards. I don’t think it’s useful to think about them. We just go to work, and it’s the work itself that tells us who we are. Our pride is no less without the fanfare.

A spirit, who has not been refreshed by the union with Christ, will continue in it’s death condition. Jesus Christ is the only one who may reconcile men with God by refreshing their spirit. It is in the spirit, where the bridge between God and men is established. This does not happen at the level of the soul, which lacks of death or life (as the spirit does) by itself. It is just an instrument to keep us in touch with the material and animal world. Men were created to be a governing SPIRIT. That is its vital essence and that is the only place where they can receive salvation. Salvation and new birth are not achieved via an intellectual mechanics, but it is a matter of the spirit. The spirit must be engendered by the Spirit of God. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12 - 13 It is not the will of the flesh that produces this engenderment, but God awards it. He brings the precious seed of life and plants it in our spirit. This happens when with a sincere and repentent heart we give Him all that we are. Then, we are baptized. Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. Acts 2:38 and 41 In the New Testament, the consummation of the faith people had believed was immediately confirmed by the baptism. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved… Mark 16:16 a It is in the baptism where the union of our spirit with God’s Holy Spirit takes place, and a new spiritual creature is engendered and starts growing in God’s resemblance. God’s life in us is in the resurrection. All the power Jesus Christ arose with from death is now what dwells in our spirit.

Last year, 26 percent of Stanford’s undergraduate degrees were awarded in computer science or engineering, about three times as many as at Harvard. At Stanford, about 90 percent of undergraduates take at least one computer programming class, compared with about half at Harvard.

His name is C. J. Skender, and he is a living legend. Skender teaches accounting, but to call him an accounting professor doesn’t do him justice. He’s a unique character, known for his trademark bow ties and his ability to recite the words to thousands of songs and movies on command. He may well be the only fifty-eight-year-old man with fair skin and white hair who displays a poster of the rapper 50 Cent in his office. And while he’s a genuine numbers whiz, his impact in the classroom is impossible to quantify. Skender is one of a few professors for whom Duke University and the University of North Carolina look past their rivalry to cooperate: he is in such high demand that he has permission to teach simultaneously at both schools. He has earned more than two dozen major teaching awards, including fourteen at UNC, six at Duke, and five at North Carolina State. Across his career, he has now taught close to six hundred classes and evaluated more than thirty-five thousand students. Because of the time that he invests in his students, he has developed what may be his single most impressive skill: a remarkable eye for talent. In 2004, Reggie Love enrolled in C. J. Skender’s accounting class at Duke. It was a summer course that Love needed to graduate, and while many professors would have written him off as a jock, Skender recognized Love’s potential beyond athletics. “For some reason, Duke football players have never flocked to my class,” Skender explains, “but I knew Reggie had what it took to succeed.” Skender went out of his way to engage Love in class, and his intuition was right that it would pay dividends. “I knew nothing about accounting before I took C. J.’s class,” Love says, “and the fundamental base of knowledge from that course helped guide me down the road to the White House.” In Obama’s mailroom, Love used the knowledge of inventory that he learned in Skender’s class to develop a more efficient process for organizing and digitizing a huge backlog of mail. “It was the number-one thing I implemented,” Love says, and it impressed Obama’s chief of staff, putting Love on the radar. In 2011, Love left the White House to study at Wharton. He sent a note to Skender: “I’m on the train to Philly to start the executive MBA program and one of the first classes is financial accounting—and I just wanted to say thanks for sticking with me when I was in your class.

Awards shows wouldn’t exist if you didn’t have one group putting forward a highly flawed theory of what constitutes quality in a given field and another group complaining that this standard hopelessly misses the mark. You can’t have an X without a Y, and vice versa. The Y side has the numbers, but the X side is more stalwart, in part as a reaction against Y’s hegemony. Eventually, enthusiasm from the masses for Y moves on, allowing X to take over. How

Dear Rebecca— You may have picked up on my growing disappointment with you this afternoon as our first meeting progressed. I have to say that though you seem quite personable in your electronic communications, in person your behavior is a little lacking in some of the traits that would let you get from a first to a second date with regularity. If Lovability had a rating system, I would award you 2.5 out of 5 stars; however, if it used a scale that only allowed for integral values, I would unfortunately be forced to round down to two. Here are some suggestions for what you could do to improve the initial impression you make. I am speaking here as a veteran of the online dating scene in LA, which is MUCH more intense than New Jersey’s—there, you are competing with aspiring actors and actresses, and a professionally produced headshot and a warm demeanor are the bare minimum necessary to get in the game. By the end of my first year in LA my askback rate (the rate at which my first dates with women led to second dates) was a remarkable 68%. So I know what I’m talking about. I hope you take this constructive criticism in the manner in which it is intended. 1. Vary your responses to inquiries. When our conversation began, you seemed quite cheerful and animated, but as it progressed you became much less so. I asked you a series of questions that were intended to give you opportunities to reveal more about yourself, but you offered only binary answers, and then, troublingly, no answers at all. If you want your date to go well, you need to display more interest. 2. Direct the flow of conversation. Dialogue is collaborative! One consequence of your reticence was that I was forced to propose all of the topics of discussion, both before and after the transition to more personal subjects. If you contribute topics of your own then it will make you appear more engaged: you should aim to bring up one new subject for every one introduced by your date. 3. Take control of the path of the date. If you want the initial meeting to extend beyond the planned drinks, there are many ways you can go about doing this. You can directly say, for instance, “So I wasn’t thinking about this when you showed up, but…do you have any plans for dinner? I’m starving, and I could really go for some pad thai.” Or you can make a vaguer, more general statement such as “After this, I’m up for whatever,” or “Hey, I don’t really want to go home yet, Bradley: I’m having a lot of fun.” Again, this comes down to a general lack of engagement on your part. Without your feedback I was left to offer a game of Scrabble, which was not the best way to end the meeting. 4. Don’t lie about your ability in Scrabble. I won’t go into an analysis of your strategic and tactical errors here, in the interest of brevity, but your amateurish playing style was quite evident. Now, despite my reservations as expressed above, I really do feel that we had some chemistry. So I would like to give things another chance. Would you respond to this message within the next three days, with a suggestion of a place you’d like us to visit together, or an activity that you believe we would both enjoy? I would be forced to construe a delay of more than three days as an unfortunate sign of indifference. I hope to hear from you soon. Best, Bradley

Jersey chasers are a dime a dozen, always willing to take a ride on the football side, but you’ve got to be careful with the overly eager ones, the ones who aren’t just trying to make a trophy outta you, but a fuckin’ Lifetime Achievement award. As in, poking holes in condoms and look at that, you’re a baby daddy. I don’t know if Josie falls into that latter category, but she’s a little too eager for my taste.

TINY CRAB CAKES 1 egg 1½ cups fresh breadcrumbs (see Note) ¼ cup finely chopped scallions (2–3 scallions) 1 tablespoon mayonnaise 1 teaspoon lemon juice (juice of about ⅙ medium lemon) ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce ¼ teaspoon seafood seasoning mix, such as Old Bay 8 ounces fresh lump-style crabmeat, picked over 2–3 tablespoons vegetable oil Scallion brushes for garnish (optional; see page 19) MAKES ABOUT 24 MINI CAKES (4–6 SERVINGS) 1. To make the Curry-Orange Mayo, whisk together the mayonnaise, curry powder, orange zest, orange juice, and Tabasco in a small bowl. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days. When ready to serve, transfer to a pretty bowl and sprinkle with the scallions. 2. To make the crab cakes, lightly beat the egg in a large bowl. Add ¾ cup of the breadcrumbs, the scallions, mayonnaise, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and seasoning mix. Stir well to blend. Add the crabmeat and mix gently, being careful not to shred the crabmeat entirely. 3. Spread the remaining ¾ cup of breadcrumbs onto a plate. Form the crab mixture into 24 cakes, using a scant tablespoon for each one, and dredge lightly in the crumbs. Arrange on a wax paper-lined baking sheet. 4. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in one or two large skillets over medium heat. Cook the cakes until golden brown and crisp on one side, about 2 to 2½ minutes. Flip and repeat. The cakes should be hot inside. Repeat with any remaining cakes, adding more oil as necessary. Serve immediately, or place on a foil-lined baking sheet, wrap well, and refrigerate for up to 24 hours, or freeze for up to 2 weeks. 5. If you make the cakes ahead, remove from the refrigerator or freezer 30 minutes prior to reheating. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Bake the cakes until hot and crisp, 10 to 15 minutes. 6. Arrange on a platter with the sauce for dipping, and garnish with the scallion brushes, if desired. Note: Tear 3 slices of good-quality bread into pieces and whir in a food processor to make breadcrumbs. Portland Public Market The Portland Public Market, which opened in 1998, continues Maine’s long tradition of downtown public markets, dating back to the 19th century. Housed in an award-winning brick, glass, and wood structure, the market, which was the brainchild of Maine philanthropist Elizabeth Noyce, is a food-lover’s heaven. Vendors include organic produce farms; butchers selling locally raised meat; purveyors of Maine-made cheeses, sausages, and smoked seafood; artisan bakers; and flower sellers. Prepared take-away food includes Mexican delicacies, pizza, soups, smoothies, and sandwiches, and such well-known Portland culinary stars as Sam Hayward (see page 127) and Dana Street (see page 129) have opened casual dining concessions.

As evidence, he dug up those flimsy charges the army and FBI had investigated ten years before: that Oppenheimer was secretly a Communist and maybe even a Soviet spy. Strauss devised a plan for taking Oppenheimer down. He’d have the AEC strip Oppenheimer of his security clearance. Without this clearance, Oppenheimer would no longer be allowed to see secret information on the latest atomic weapons research. He couldn’t advise the government, because he wouldn’t know what was going on. Oppenheimer had two options: demand a hearing, or simply walk away. He knew by now that nothing he did or said could stop the arms race. But there was a principle involved—he couldn’t let the charges against him go unchallenged. “This course of action,” he told Strauss, “would mean that I accept and concur in the view that I am not fit to serve this government that I have now served for some twelve years. This I cannot do.” Oppenheimer got his hearing, but it was bogus from the start. Strauss personally picked the panel of judges. The FBI tapped Oppenheimer’s phones and listened in on conversations between him and his attorney. This illegally gathered information was used against Oppenheimer in court.

…Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. —Philippians 3:13 (NKJV) Chuck Lawrence is the minister at Christ Temple Church in Huntington, West Virginia. He’s also an accomplished musician and songwriter. In the 1980s, he wrote “He Grew the Tree,” which won a variety of accolades, including several Dove Awards. Barbara Mandrell recorded the sacred song about Calvary, which spoke of God nurturing the very tree that would become the old rugged cross. But today in his sermon Chuck had a different take on his accomplishment. He referred to Philippians 3:13, which says we are to forget those things that are behind us. “I believe that means even the good things. In 1982 I wrote ‘He Grew the Tree,’ but it’s not supposed to be my pinnacle. God wants us to look forward with anticipation to each new day.” Chuck’s words gave me pause. The 1980s were banner years for me too. I wrote for ten home-decorating magazines, where my byline was featured. Now, given the many changes in the publishing industry, I’m hard-pressed to find even one of my own articles. Chuck was urging me to look forward—not to yesterday, but to now, glorious today. Today’s a brand-new era, Lord. Help me to really look forward to it. Amen. —Roberta Messner Digging Deeper: Jer 29:11; Phil 3

Once the interlude was over and I was released, I fled the room and, taking the stairs two at a time, found refuge in a dank corner of the basement filled with potatoes and mice. I stayed there until dinner, doing my best to stop crying by staring at the glowing face of my father’s wristwatch.

Even though it’s pleasing to boast about achievements I have earned in my generation, nothing makes me more content in the world than just having the exciting opportunity to share my passion of work with the public. What is even more exhilarating, is being able (having the capability) to spend quality time with my loving wife, (Gloria) and family doing what I love most in the world -- writing. Their total well-being and health, along with my health too means everything to me. I have had my fair share of narrow escapes in my life to know how important my family, and health are to me. I will never take that for granted again – ever.

It’s not just Africa’s movie and music industry that is booming. African literature, led by the Young Lions, or rather, Lionesses, is seeing a revival, too. I mentioned Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her TED Talk about Africa’s “Single Story.” But Adichie, 37, is best known for writing, and her novels Half of a Yellow Sun (now a film directed by fellow Nigerian novelist Biyi Bandele) and Americanah, winner of the United States’ prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award in 2013, are international best sellers. Adichie is able to write in an authentic African voice and yet still connect with huge numbers of readers in the West. I have been told about other young African women who are taking the literary world by storm such as Zimbabwean NoViolet Bulawayo, who was long-listed for Britain’s Man Booker Prize, and her countrywoman, international trade lawyer Petina Gappah, a finalist for the United Kingdom’s prestigious Orwell Prize in 2010. These talented women are part of a confident, new, global Africa.

capital expenditures required in Clean Technology are so incredibly high,” says Pritzker, “that I didn’t feel that I could do anything to make an impact, so I became interested in digital media, and established General Assembly in January 2010, along with Jake Schwartz, Brad Hargreaves and Matthew Brimer.” In less than two years GA had to double its space. In June 2012, they opened a second office in a nearby building. Since then, GA’s courses been attended by 15,000 students, the school has 70 full-time employees in New York, and it has begun to export its formula abroad—first to London and Berlin—with the ambitious goal of creating a global network of campuses “for technology, business and design.” In each location, Pritzker and his associates seek cooperation from the municipal administration, “because the projects need to be understood and supported also by the local authorities in a public-private partnership.” In fact, the New York launch was awarded a $200,000 grant from Mayor Bloomberg. “The humanistic education that we get in our universities teaches people to think critically and creatively, but it does not provide the skills to thrive in the work force in the 21st century,” continues Pritzker. “It’s also true that the college experience is valuable. The majority of your learning does not happen in the classroom. It happens in your dorm room or at dinner with friends. Even geniuses such as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, who both left Harvard to start their companies, came up with their ideas and met their co-founders in college.” Just as a college campus, GA has classrooms, whiteboard walls, a library, open spaces for casual meetings and discussions, bicycle parking, and lockers for personal belongings. But the emphasis is on “learning by doing” and gaining knowledge from those who are already working. Lectures can run the gamut from a single evening to a 16-week course, on subjects covering every conceivable matter relevant to technology startups— from how to create a web site to how to draw a logo, from seeking funding to hiring employees. But adjacent to the lecture halls, there is an area that hosts about 30 active startups in their infancy. “This is the core of our community,” says Pritzker, showing the open space that houses the startups. “Statistically, not all of these companies are going to do well. I do believe, though, that all these people will. The cost of building technology is dropping so low that people can actually afford to take the risk to learn by doing something that, in our minds, is a much more effective way to learn than anything else. It’s entrepreneurs who are in the field, learning by doing, putting journey before destination.” “Studying and working side by side is important, because from the interaction among people and the exchange of ideas, even informal, you learn, and other ideas are born,” Pritzker emphasizes: “The Internet has not rendered in-person meetings obsolete and useless. We chose these offices just to be easily accessible by all—close to Union Square where almost every subway line stops—in particular those coming from Brooklyn, where many of our students live.

However, in other circumstances, such as with PSR 1913 + 16, the situation is very different, and gravitational radiation from the system indeed has a significant role to play. Here, Einstein's theory provides a firm prediction of the detailed nature of the gravitational radiation that the system ought to be emitting, and of the energy that should be carried away. This loss of energy should result in a slow spiralling inwards of the two neutron stars, and a corresponding speeding up of their orbital rotation period. Joseph Taylor and Russell Hulse first observed this binary pulsar at the enormous Aricebo radio telescope in Puerto Rico in 1974. Since that time, the rotation period has been closely monitored by Taylor and his colleagues, and the speed-up is in precise agreement with the expectations of general relativity (cf. Fig. 4.11). For this work, Hulse and Taylor were awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics. In fact, as the years have rolled by, the accumulation of data from this system has provided a stronger and stronger confirmation of Einstein's theory. Indeed, if we now take the system as a whole and compare it with the behaviour that is computed from Einstein's theory as a whole-from the Newtonian aspects of the orbits, through the corrections to these orbits from standard general relativity effects, right up to the effects on the orbits due to loss of energy in gravitational radiation-we find that the theory is confirmed overall to an error of no more than about 10^-14. This makes Einstein's general relativity, in this particular sense, the most accurately tested theory known to science!

From the Bridge” by Captain Hank Bracker Appreciation! Appreciation…. One of the nicer things we can get or give is appreciation. It makes what we do worthwhile! It inspires us to work harder, do better and above all, makes us feel better about ourselves. I feel appreciated when someone says thank you…. It’s as simple as that! Of course it’s also nice to receive an award for something I wrote. I recently won two awards for The Exciting Story of Cuba and it made my day! It felt even better to share the moment with my crew because they deserved it and I certainly appreciate them and their contribution, for the effort I got credit for. It’s really very nice when we appreciate people for what they have done for us and remember that it is better to give than receive. Now here is an existential thought that I’ll run past you. You might have heard the ancient chestnut.… “Does a tree make a noise when it falls in a forest with no one around to hear it?” The answer is debatable, with no definitive answer that everyone accepts. Now let’s take this thought one step further by contemplating life itself. Is there really anything, if there is no one to appreciate it? Could this account for our existence? Do we really have to exist at this time and place, within this sphere of infinity, to appreciate everything we are aware of including the universe? To me it’s an interesting thought, since philosophically “I am!” More interesting is that so are you and everyone else. Without us, would there be universe? And if so, would it make any difference, because there would be no one to know. What makes the difference is that we are here and we know that we are here! Therefore, we can appreciate it! I’m not a philosopher. I’m really just another “id” that is contemplating my existence, but what I want to impart is the importance of sharing this existence with others by appreciating them. The English poet John Donne said, “No man is an Island.” I guess the original content is found in prose, not poetry; however it’s the thought that counts. Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical theory of personality states that, “The id is the personality component made up of unconscious psychic energy that works to satisfy basic urges, needs and desires.” Now the way I see it, is that the reason that we are here is to appreciate each other and our wondrous surroundings. I might even take things a step further by getting religion into the mix. If we are made in our creator’s image, could that mean that our creator, like us, desires the appreciation of his creation and we are here to appreciate what he, or she, has created? The way we as a people are polarized causes me to wonder, if we are not all acting like a bunch of spoiled brats. Has our generation been so spoiled that we all insist on getting things our way, without understanding that we are interdependent. Seeing as how we all inhabit this one planet, and that everything we possess, need, aspire to and love, is right here on this rock floating in space; we should take stock and care for each other and, above all, appreciate what we have, as well as each other. So much from me…. I’ve been busy trying to get Suppressed I Rise – Revised Edition and Seawater One…. Going To Sea!, published before the holidays. It’s been a long time in coming, but I’m hoping that with just a little extra effort, these books will be available at your favorite book dealer in time to find a place under your Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush. That’s right! Just look at your calendar and you’ll see its October and that the holidays are almost here again! Take care, appreciate each other and have a good week. It’s later than you think….

Happiness is active, not passive; it's a decision, not an award someone gives you. Happiness takes adjustment. When something is broken, you adjust that thing with a wrench, a screwdriver, maybe a flamethrower.

From the Bridge” by Captain Hank Bracker Pebbles, Rocks & Mountains Rocks can be formed in many different ways and are found in just about every corner of our planet, the Moon, up in space and who knows where else. Now pebbles are the mini-me’s of rocks and generally are about one to three inches in size. Geologists will tell you that they are about 5 millimeters in diameter, but who’s counting? In fact there are two beaches that are made up entirely of pebbles such as the Shingle Beach in Somerset, England. Generally pebbles are found along rivers, streams and creeks whereas mountains are usually a part of a chain that was created along geothermal fault lines. The process of Mountain formation is associated with movements of the earth's crust, which is referred to as plate tectonics. See; now that I looked it up, I know these things! What I’m about to say has absolutely nothing to do with geology and everything to do about human nature. In the course of events we never trip over mountains and seldom over rocks, but tripping over pebbles is another thing. Marilyn French, a writer and feminist scholar is credited with saying, “Men (she should have included Women) stumble over pebbles, never over mountains.” She was the lady (I should have said woman) whose provocative 1977 novel, “The Women's Room” captured the frustration and fury of a generation of women fed up with society's traditional conceptions of their roles (and this is true). However, this has nothing to do with the feminist movement and is simply a metaphor. Of course we’re not going to trip over mountains, not unless we are bigger than the “Jolly Green Giant!” and so it’s usually the little things that trip us up and cause us problems. What comes to mind is found on page 466 of The Exciting Story of Cuba. This is a book that won two awards by the “Florida Authors & Publishers Association” and yet there are small mistakes. They weren’t even caused by me or my team and yet there they are, getting bigger and bigger every time I look at them. Now I’m not about to tell you what they are, since that would take the fun out of it, but if you look hard enough in the book, you’ll succeed in discovering them! I will however tell you that one of these mistakes was caused by a computer program called “Word.” It’s wonderful that this program has a spell check and can even correct my grammar, but it can’t read my mind. In its infernal wisdom, the program was so insistent that it was right and that I was wrong that it changed the spelling of, in this case, the name of a person in the middle of the night. It happened while I was sleeping! I would have seen it if it had been as big as a mountain, however being just a little pebble it escaped my review and even escaped the eagle eyes of Lucy who still remains the best proof reader and copy editor that I know. When you discover what I missed please refrain from emailing me, although, normally, I would really enjoy hearing from you! I unfortunately already know most of the errors in the book, for which I take full responsibility. The truth of it is that my mistakes leave me feeling stupid and frustrated. Now, you may disagree with me however I don’t think that I am really all that stupid, but when you write hundreds of thousands of words, a few of them might just slip between the cracks. None of us are infallible and we all make mistakes. I sometimes like to say that “I once thought that I had made a mistake, but then found out that I was mistaken.” And so it is; if you think about it, it’s the pebbles that create most of our problems, not the rocks and certainly not the mountains. I’ll let you know as soon as my other books, Suppressed I Rise – Revised Edition; Seawater One…. And Words of Wisdom, “From the Bridge” are available. It’s Seawater One that has the naughty bits in it… but that just spices it up. Now with that book you can really tell me what you think….