Batch Day Quotes

There was a dragon who had a long-standing obsession with a queen's breasts," she said, growing breathless. "The dragon knew the penalty to touch her would mean death, yet he revealed his secret desire to the king's chief doctor. This man promised he could arrange for the dragon to satisfy his desire, but it would cost him one thousand gold coins." She spread her soapy hands over his nipples, then down his arms. "Though he didn't have the money, the dragon readily agreed to the scheme." Grace," Darius moaned, his erection straining against her stomach. She hid her smile, loving that she had this much power over such a strong man. That she, Grace Carlyle, made him ache with longing. "The next day the physician made a batch of itching powder and poured some into the queen's bra… uh, you might call it a brassiere… while she bathed. After she dressed, she began itching and itching and itching. The physician was summoned to the Royal Chambers, and he informed the king and queen that only a special saliva, if applied for several hours, would cure this type of itch. And only a dragon possessed this special saliva." Out of breath, she paused. Continue," Darius said. His arms wound around her so tightly she could barely breathe. His skin blazed hot against hers, hotter than even the steamy water. Are you sure?" Continue." Taut lines bracketed his mouth. Well, the king summoned the dragon. Meanwhile, the physician slipped him the antidote for the itching powder, which the dragon put into his mouth, and for the next few hours, the dragon worked passionately on the queen's breasts. Anyway," she said, reaching around him and lathering the muscled mounds of his butt, "the queen's itching was eventually relieved, and the dragon left satisfied and touted as a hero." This does not sound like a joke," Darius said. I'm getting to the punch line. Hang on. When the physician demanded his payment, the now satisfied dragon refused. He knew that the physician could never report what really happened to the king. So the next day, the physician slipped a massive dose of the same itching powder into the king's loincloth. And the king immediately summoned the dragon." -Heart of the Dragon

When a doctor makes a mistake, a person goes six feet below the ground. When a judge makes a mistake, a person is hung six feet above the ground. But when a teacher makes a mistake, the entire batch of students is destroyed. Don’t ever look down on teachers.

Public schools were not only created in the interests of industrialism—they were created in the image of industrialism. In many ways, they reflect the factory culture they were designed to support. This is especially true in high schools, where school systems base education on the principles of the assembly line and the efficient division of labor. Schools divide the curriculum into specialist segments: some teachers install math in the students, and others install history. They arrange the day into standard units of time, marked out by the ringing of bells, much like a factory announcing the beginning of the workday and the end of breaks. Students are educated in batches, according to age, as if the most important thing they have in common is their date of manufacture. They are given standardized tests at set points and compared with each other before being sent out onto the market. I realize this isn’t an exact analogy and that it ignores many of the subtleties of the system, but it is close enough.

It often happens that men pull in a certain political, social, or familiar harness simply because they never have time to ask themselves whether the position they stand in and the work they accomplish are right; whether their occupations really suit their inner desires and capacities, and give them the satisfaction which everyone has the right to expect from his work. Active men are especially liable to find themselves in such a position. Every day brings with it a fresh batch of work, and a man throws himself into his bed late at night without having completed what he had expected to do; then in the morning he hurries to the unfinished task of the previous day. Life goes, and there is no time left to think, no time to consider the direction that one's life is taking. So it was with me.

When I went home…I promised myself, I would take a cool shower and I would read. After a day spent dealing with others, television was just one more batch of voices to listen to; I’d rather have a book in my hands than the remote control.

He drank the cotton-candy milk from the day at the pier. The last batch was from the morning she left and this milk was full of plans I didn't know about. When he finished that bottle she was really gone, every last drop of her.

His master plan to get them all out the door early met its first check of the day when he opened his closet door to discover that Zap the Cat, having penetrated the security of Vorkosigan House through Miles's quisling cook, had made a nest on the floor among his boots and fallen clothing to have kittens. Six of them. Zap ignored his threats about the dire consequences of attacking an Imperial Auditor, and purred and growled from the dimness in her usual schizophrenic fashion. Miles gathered his nerve and rescued his best boots and House uniform, at a cost of some high Vor blood, and sent them downstairs for a hasty cleaning by the overworked Armsman Pym. The Countess, delighted as ever to find her biological empire increasing, came in thoughtfully bearing a cat-gourmet tray prepared by Ma Kosti that Miles would have had no hesitation in eating for his own breakfast. In the general chaos of the morning, however, he had to go down to the kitchen and scrounge his meal. The Countess sat on the floor and cooed into his closet for a good half-hour, and not only escaped laceration, but managed to pick up, sex, and name the whole batch of little squirming furballs before tearing herself away to hurry and dress.

Dr. Bone Specialist came in, made me stand up and hobble across the room, checked my reflexes, and then made me lie down on the table. He bent my right knee this way and that, up and down, all the way out to the side and in. Then he did the same with my left leg. He ordered X rays then started to leave the room. I panicked. I MUST GET DRUGS. "What can I take for the pain?" I asked him before he got out the door. "You can take some over the counter ibuprofen," he suggested. "But I wouldn't take more than nine a day." I choked. Nine a day? I'd been popping forty. Nine a day? Like hell. I couldn't even go to the bathroom on my own, I hadn't slept in three weeks, and my normally sunny cheery disposition had turned into that of a very rabid dog. If I didn't get good drugs and get them now, it was straight to Shooter's World and then Walgreens pharmacy for me. "I don't think you understand," I explained. "I can't go to work. I have spent the last four days with my mother who is addicted to QVC, watching jewelry shows, doll shows and make-up shows. I almost ordered a beef-jerky maker! Give me something, or I'm going to use your calf muscles to make the first batch!" Without further ado, he hastily scribbled out a prescription for some codeine and was gone. I was happy. My mother, however, had lost the ability to speak.

It is Father’s Day today. I should probably call all three of mine and say Hello, and thanks for possibly pumping my mom with the winning batch of semen.

of the problem was that Chaos got a little creation-happy. It thought to its misty, gloomy self: Hey, Earth and Sky. That was fun! I wonder what else I can make. Soon it created all sorts of other problems—and by that I mean gods. Water collected out of the mist of Chaos, pooled in the deepest parts of the earth, and formed the first seas, which naturally developed a consciousness—the god Pontus. Then Chaos really went nuts and thought: I know! How about a dome like the sky, but at the bottom of the earth! That would be awesome! So another dome came into being beneath the earth, but it was dark and murky and generally not very nice, since it was always hidden from the light of the sky. This was Tartarus, the Pit of Evil; and as you can guess from the name, when he developed a godly personality, he didn't win any popularity contests. The problem was, both Pontus and Tartarus liked Gaea, which put some pressure on her relationship with Ouranos. A bunch of other primordial gods popped up, but if I tried to name them all we’d be here for weeks. Chaos and Tartarus had a kid together (don’t ask how; I don’t know) called Nyx, who was the embodiment of night. Then Nyx, somehow all by herself, had a daughter named Hemera, who was Day. Those two never got along because they were as different as…well, you know. According to some stories, Chaos also created Eros, the god of procreation... in other words, mommy gods and daddy gods having lots of little baby gods. Other stories claim Eros was the son of Aphrodite. We’ll get to her later. I don’t know which version is true, but I do know Gaea and Ouranos started having kids—with very mixed results. First, they had a batch of twelve—six girls and six boys called the Titans. These kids looked human, but they were much taller and more powerful. You’d figure twelve kids would be enough for anybody, right? I mean, with a family that big, you’ve basically got your own reality TV show. Plus, once the Titans were born, things started to go sour with Ouranos and Gaea’s marriage. Ouranos spent a lot more time hanging out in the sky. He didn't visit. He didn't help with the kids. Gaea got resentful. The two of them started fighting. As the kids grew older, Ouranos would yell at them and basically act like a horrible dad. A few times, Gaea and Ouranos tried to patch things up. Gaea decided maybe if they had another set of kids, it would bring them closer…. I know, right? Bad idea. She gave birth to triplets. The problem: these new kids defined the word UGLY. They were as big and strong as Titans, except hulking and brutish and in desperate need of a body wax. Worst of all, each kid had a single eye in the middle of his forehead. Talk about a face only a mother could love. Well, Gaea loved these guys. She named them the Elder Cyclopes, and eventually they would spawn a whole race of other, lesser Cyclopes. But that was much later. When Ouranos saw the Cyclops triplets, he freaked. “These cannot be my kids! They don’t even look like me!” “They are your children, you deadbeat!” Gaea screamed back. “Don’t you dare leave me to raise them on my own!

There will be a cauldron of spiced hot cider, and pumpkin shortbread fingers with caramel and fudge dipping sauces as our freebies, and I've done plenty of special spooky treats. Ladies' fingers, butter cookies the shape of gnarled fingers with almond fingernails and red food coloring on the stump end. I've got meringue ghosts and cups of "graveyard pudding," a dark chocolate pudding layered with dark Oreo cookie crumbs, strewn with gummy worms, and topped with a cookie tombstone. There are chocolate tarantulas, with mini cupcake bodies and legs made out of licorice whips, sitting on spun cotton candy nests. The Pop-Tart flavors of the day are chocolate peanut butter, and pumpkin spice. The chocolate ones are in the shape of bats, and the pumpkin ones in the shape of giant candy corn with orange, yellow, and white icing. And yesterday, after finding a stash of tiny walnut-sized lady apples at the market, I made a huge batch of mini caramel apples.

I hope you’ll take the next right step today and choose just one way to be kind. Then another. Then another. Then another. Here’s a few ideas to get you started. Write a thank-you note. Extend an invitation. Bring muffins to the office. Offer someone a ride to the airport. Donate blood. Challenge yourself to go a day without saying anything negative. Call your grandmother. Look at the month ahead for birthdays and plan something special for a friend or family member. Send a care package. Send congrats flowers for a friend who reached a new milestone. Make a double batch of soup and bring half to someone who just moved. Wave at kids on a school bus.

There's a distinction between telling death reinforce the meaning of life and "living every day as if it were your last." No one can really live that way with out getting locked up. We cannot realistically approach each day as if it were our last. What would you do if you found out you were going to die at the end of this day? Would you do into work? Would you sit and pray_ Would you run around in a panic trying to get out last batch of letters or e-mails? Giving stuff away? I don't know exactly what any of us would do under such circumstances, but it's my guess that it would not feel too comfortable. It would make me feel utterly dejected. I wouldn't know where to turn first.

After nine days of turmoil—nine days in which millions of Americans went to the polls to vote early—and just thirty-six hours before Election Day, Comey sent another letter announcing that the “new” batch of emails wasn’t really new and contained nothing to cause him to alter his months-old decision not to seek charges. Well, great. Too little, too

My friends, I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to give people a batch of philosophy every Sunday morning and evening, and neglect the truths of this Holy Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to leave out the main cardinal doctrines of the Word of God, and preach a religion which is all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatever. I take it that man does not preach Christ and him crucified, who can get through a sermon without mentioning Christ's name once; nor does that man preach Christ and him crucified, who leaves out the Holy Spirit's work, who never says a word about the Holy Ghost, so that indeed the hearers might say, "We do not so much as know whether there be a Holy Ghost." And I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith without works; not unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor, I think, can we preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation, after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion, and to all gainsayers we reply, "We have not so learned Christ.

As he looked around the computer, he realized the PC was acting as the back-end system for the point-of-sale terminals at the restaurant—it collected the day’s credit card transactions and sent them in a single batch every night to the credit card processor. Max found that day’s batch stored as a plain text file, with the full magstripe of every customer card recorded inside. Even better, the system was still storing all the previous batch files, dating back to when the pizza parlor had installed the system about three years earlier.

It requires discipline to maintain boundaries and not let other kinds of work spill in, but batching is a masterful way to protect creative work from the day-to-day interruptions that feel urgent but actually aren’t and can easily wait until you’re ready to deal with them.

5-4-10 Tuesday 8:00 A.M. Made a large batch of chili and spaghetti to freeze yesterday. And some walnut fudge! Relieved the electricity is still on. It’s another beautiful sunny day with fluffy white clouds drifting by. The last cloud bank looked like a dog with nursing pups. I open the window and let in some fresh air filled with the scent of apple and plum blossoms and flowering lilacs. Feels like it’s close to 70 degrees. There’s a boy on a skate board being pulled along by his St. Bernard, who keeps turning around to see if his young friend is still on board. I’m thinking of a scene still vividly displayed in my memory. I was nine years old. I cut through the country club on my way home from school and followed a narrow stream, sucking on a jawbreaker from Ben Franklins, and I had some cherry and strawberry pixie straws, and banana and vanilla taffy inside my coat pocket. The temperature was in the fifties so it almost felt like spring. There were still large patches of snow on the fairways in the shadows and the ground was soggy from the melt off. Enthralled with the multi-layers of ice, thin sheets and tiny ice sickles gleaming under the afternoon sun, dripping, streaming into the pristine water below, running over the ribbons of green grass, forming miniature rapids and gently flowing rippling waves and all the reflections of a crystal cathedral, merging with the hidden world of a child. Seemingly endless natural sculptures. Then the hollow percussion sounds of the ice thudding, crackling under my feet, breaking off little ice flows carried away into a snow-covered cavern and out the other side of the tunnel. And I followed it all the way to bridge under Maple Road as if I didn't have a care in the world.

Once you’re out of college and your single days are behind you, you’re truly lucky if you’ve managed to hang on to any of those old friends—the ones you’ve handpicked by careful scrutiny and examination of their loyalty and judgment. Because if you do happen to lose those bosom buddies—due, say, to the rigorous, time-consuming, pay-your-dues career years, or the I-don’t-have-time-for-you-because-of-my-new-boyfriend-and-his-friends years, or the I’m-so-fat-and-depressed-I-can’t-see-anyone years—the next batch of friends you don’t get to choose. Your kids do. Because they are the parents of your children’s friends. So

Batching similar tasks makes everything more manageable and less daunting. You might set aside a specific time each day for processing emails and one for making phone calls rather than allow these activities to proliferate throughout your day, stealing precious time from work that requires sustained concentration.

the blue-headed wrasse is a fish that lives on coral reefs. All wrasses begin life as females and continue to pump out eggs as they age and grow larger. Every reef section has one extremely large, territorial male that fertilizes up to forty batches of eggs a day. When the male dies, the largest female spontaneously changes sex and starts producing sperm.

Clinton’s aides didn’t know that batches of Podesta’s e-mails would be released day after day from October 7 until November 7, the last day before the election. Nor could they have imagined that the intelligence finding of Russian interference in the election would so quickly get drowned out by the combination of the Trump Access Hollywood video and the Podesta e-mails.

Many people assume that working from home is like a vacation, where you get to do what you want when you want. This was not the case for me. The demands of eBay put me on the strictest schedule I’d ever endured. Because my auctions were timed, there were very real consequences for missing deadlines. The prime time for auctions to go live was Sunday evening. If mine went up late, that meant my customers, who were likely waiting to pounce on my latest batch of vintage gems, might end up disappointed, instead giving another seller their business. If I took too long to respond to a customer inquiry, she might get impatient, choosing to bid on something else. Shipping orders out late might result in negative feedback, and if I didn’t steam and prep all the clothes the night before a shoot, there wouldn’t be time to get through everything in one day.

These children were often caught; police arrested batches each day. Were they scolded? Yes, often scathingly. Were their noses rubbed in it? Rarely. News organs and officials usually kept their names secret—in many places the law so required for criminals under eighteen. Were they spanked? Indeed not! Many had never been spanked even as small children; there was a widespread belief that spanking, or any punishment involving pain, did a child permanent psychic damage.

Aunty Rose's scones were small windowless buildings - if you could manage to worry one down it sat and sulked at the bottom of your stomach for hours, impervious to the processes of digestion. I giggled, and she said haughtily, "My scones are very nice." "We could bury you with a batch," I suggested as we went slowly back down the hall. "And if archaeologists opened your grave thousands of years in the future they'd find them there, just as good as on the day they were cooked." "Ill mannered wench," Aunty Rose said. She sank onto the edge of her bed and reached up to touch my cheek as he had Matt's. "I'm glad the pair of you finally sorted yourselves out." I smiled at her. "You sorted us out, didn't you ?" "I swore I wouldn't interfere, but I couldn't stand it any longer." "Thank-you," I said soberly. "You're welcome. Honestly, Josephine, for an intelligent girl you can be appallingly dim at times. Couldn't you have fluttered your eyelashes at the poor boy ?

Well, Harry, while we’ve still got you here, you won’t mind helping with the preparations for Bill and Fleur’s wedding, will you? There’s still so much to do.” “No--I--of course not,” said Harry, disconcerted by this sudden change of subject. “Sweet of you,” she replied, and she smiled as she left the scullery. From that moment on, Mrs. Weasley kept Harry, Ron, and Hermione so busy with preparations for the wedding that they hardly had any time to think. The kindest explanation of this behavior would have been that Mrs. Weasley wanted to distract them all from thoughts of Mad-Eye and the terrors of their recent journey. After two days of nonstop cutlery cleaning, of color-matching favors, ribbons, and flowers, of de-gnoming the garden and helping Mrs. Weasley cook vast batches of canapés, however, Harry started to suspect her of a different motive. All the jobs she handed out seemed to keep him, Ron, and Hermione away from one another; he had not had a chance to speak to the two of them alone since the first night, when he had told them about Voldemort torturing Ollivander. “I think Mum thinks that if she can stop the three of you getting together and planning, she’ll be able to delay you leaving,” Ginny told Harry in an undertone, as they laid the table for dinner on the third night of his stay. “And then what does she think’s going to happen?” Harry muttered. “Someone else might kill off Voldemort while she’s holding us here making vol-au-vents?

POTATO PIEROGI Makes 65 to 70 pierogi; 8 to 10 servings This recipe…yields a large amount. You could halve the recipe, but instead I recommend making the full amount and freezing half. Frozen pierogi can be dropped directly into boiling water for cooking; there’s no thawing required. You can also refrigerate the dough for a day or two, so you can make the pierogi in a couple batches. PIEROGI WRAPPERS • 1 large egg yolk • 1 cup whole milk • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil • 3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

There’s mounting evidence that processing your email in batches is much more efficient and less stress inducing than checking it throughout the day. This is because our brains take time to switch between tasks, so it’s better to focus on answering emails all at once. I know what you’re thinking—you can’t wait all day to check email. I understand. I too need to check my inbox to make sure there’s nothing truly urgent. Checking email isn’t so much the problem; it’s the habitual rechecking that gets us into trouble.

As the other startups do at the end of their presentations, Shen offers to the batch the expertise of his team's members: "Kalvin and Randy are developers," he says, and as for himself, he knows how to stay motivated in the face of rejection. "I've gotten rejected thirty days in a row," he says, a reference to his putting himself through "Rejection Therapy," in which one must make unreasonable requests so that one is rejected by a different person, at least once, every single day- inuring one to the pain of rejection. (One example of Shen's first bid to be rejected: he asked a flight attendant if he could move up to first class for free. In another case, he saw an attractive woman on the train and decided he would ask her for her phone number, and when she would turn him down, he would have fulfilled the day's required quota of rejection. He sat near her, fell into a conversation, and when they got off the train and he asked for her number, she said, "Sure." He categorized this as "Failed Rejection.") "So if you need to get pumped up for your sales calls, talk to me. p121

Baking and cooking bring me inner peace, like a tasty version of yoga, without all the awkward stretching and sweating. When my life spins out of control, when I can't make sense of what's going on in the world, I head straight to the kitchen and turn on my oven, and with the press of a button, I switch one part of my brain off and another on. The rules of the kitchen are straightforward, and when I'm there I don't have to think about my problems. I don't need to think about anything but cups and ounces, temperatures and cooking times. When I was a freshman at Cornell, I heard a plane had flown into the World Trade Center while sitting in my Introduction to American History lecture. My friends and I ran back to our dorm rooms and spent the next few hours glued to the television. I kept my TV on all day, but after talking to my parents and watching three hours of the coverage, I headed straight to the communal kitchen and baked a triple batch of brownies, which I then distributed to everyone on my floor. Some of my friends thought I was crazy ("Who bakes brownies when the country is under attack?"), but it was the only thing I could do to keep from having a panic attack or bursting into tears. I couldn't control what was happening to our country, but I could control what was happening in that kitchen. Baking was my way of restoring order in a world driven by chaos, and it still is.

I keep notations, like my mother. She had notebook after notebook of trials and errors, all written in her perfect penmanship on quad-ruled pages, a square for each letter to nest in. My journal is a thick black hardcover with unlined pages. Like her, I'm a technician, a statistician, copiously documenting slight variations in texture, color, taste. I'm a chemist. A quarter cup of rye flour added to the white wheat gives a sweeter flavor. A half teaspoon more salt and 78 percent hydration of the dough result in those coveted large, irregular rooms in the crumb. Mastering formulas, not recipes, in the quest for the perfect loaf. Xavier tells me not to bother. He doesn't believe in perfection. "Forget the ingredients. Forget the environment. 'You' are different each day. You can't replicate yourself. Your hands are stronger, or weaker. Your mind thinks different thoughts while kneading. Life is all over you, changing you. All that goes into the making comes out in the bread. It won't be the same from one batch to the next. Not ever." "It'll be close, though." "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." He's the artist. He makes me brave enough to try. With his encouragement, I've focused on the creativity of bread, writing my own recipes, exploring nontraditional flavors and shapes. Not all of them turn out well, but he tastes my failures with me, with layers of warm butter.

THE WAY I see it, there are three reasons never to be unhappy. First, you were born. This in itself is a remarkable achievement. Did you know that each time your father ejaculated (and frankly he did it quite a lot) he produced roughly twenty-five million spermatozoa – enough to repopulate Britain every two days or so? For you to have been born, not only did you have to be among the few batches of sperm that had even a theoretical chance of prospering – in itself quite a long shot – but you then had to win a race against 24,999,999 or so other wriggling contenders, all rushing to swim the English Channel of your mother’s vagina in order to be the first ashore at the fertile egg of Boulogne, as it were. Being born was easily the most remarkable achievement of your whole life. And think: you could just as easily have been a flatworm. Second, you are alive. For the tiniest moment in the span of eternity you have the miraculous privilege to exist. For endless eons you were not. Soon you will cease to be once more. That you are able to sit here right now in this one never-to-be-repeated moment, reading this book, eating bon-bons, dreaming about hot sex with that scrumptious person from accounts, speculatively sniffing your armpits, doing whatever you are doing – just existing – is really wondrous beyond belief. Third, you have plenty to eat, you live in a time of peace and ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree’ will never be number one again.

In the Volksgarten “I’d like to have a blue balloon! A blue balloon is what I’d like!” “Here’s a blue balloon for you, Rosamunde!” It was explained to her then that there was a gas inside that was lighter than the air in the atmosphere, as a consequence of which, etc. etc. “I’d like to let it go—,” she said, just like that. “Wouldn’t you rather give it to that poor little girl over there?” “No, I want to let it go—!” She lets the balloon go, keeps looking after it, till it disappears in the blue sky. “Aren’t you sorry now you didn’t give it to the poor little girl?” “Yes, I should’ve given it to the poor little girl.” “Here’s another blue balloon, give her this one!” “No, I want to let this one go too up into the blue sky!”— She does so. She is given a third blue balloon. She goes over to the poor little girl on her own, gives this one to her, saying: “You let it go!” “No,” says the poor little girl, peering enraptured at the balloon. In her room it flew up to the ceiling, stayed there for three days, got darker, shriveled up and fell down dead, a little black sack. Then the poor little girl thought to herself: “I should have let it go outside in the park, up into the blue sky, I’d’ve kept on looking after it, kept on looking—!” In the meantime, the rich little girl gets another ten balloons, and one time Uncle Karl even buys her all thirty balloons in one batch. Twenty of them she lets fly up into the sky and gives ten to poor children. From then on she had absolutely no more interest in balloons. “The stupid balloons—,” she said. Whereupon Aunt Ida observed that she was rather advanced for her age! The poor little girl dreamed: “I should have let it go up into the blue sky, I’d’ve kept on looking and looking—!

Let us take them in order. The first is the taste, Which is meagre and hollow, but crisp: Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist, With a flavour of Will-o'-the-wisp. –––––––– "Its habit of getting up late you'll agree That it carries too far, when I say That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea, And dines on the following day. –––––––– "The third is its slowness in taking a jest. Should you happen to venture on one, It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed: And it always looks grave at a pun. –––––––– "The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines, Which is constantly carries about, And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes— A sentiment open to doubt. –––––––– "The fifth is ambition. It next will be right To describe each particular batch: Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite, And those that have whiskers, and scratch.

Managerial abilities, bureaucratic skills, technical expertise, and political talent are all necessary, but they can be applied only to goals that have already been defined by military policies, broad and narrow. And those policies can be only as good as strategy, operational art of war, tactical thought, and plain military craft that have gone into their making. At present, the defects of structure submerge or distort strategy and operational art, they out rightly suppress tactical ingenuity, and they displace the traditional insights and rules of military craft in favor of bureaucratic preferences, administrative convenience, and abstract notions of efficiency derived from the world of business management. First there is the defective structure for making of military decisions under the futile supervision of the civilian Defense Department; then come the deeply flawed defense policies and military choices, replete with unnecessary costs and hidden risks; finally there come the undoubted managerial abilities, bureaucratic skills, technical expertise, and political talents, all applied to achieve those flawed policies and to implement those flawed choices. By this same sequence was the fatally incomplete Maginot Line built, as were all the Maginot Lines of history, each made no better by good government, technical talent, careful accounting, or sheer hard work. Hence the futility of all the managerial innovations tried in the Pentagon over the years. In the purchasing of weapons, for example, “total package” procurement, cost plus incentive contracting, “firm fixed price” purchasing have all been introduced with much fanfare, only to be abandoned, retried, and repudiated once again. And each time a new Secretary of Defense arrives, with him come the latest batch of managerial innovations, many of them aimed at reducing fraud, waste, and mismanagement-the classic trio endlessly denounced in Congress, even though they account for mere percentage points in the total budget, and have no relevance at all to the failures of combat. The persistence of the Administrator’s Delusion has long kept the Pentagon on a treadmill of futile procedural “reforms” that have no impact at all on the military substance of our defense. It is through strategy, operational art, tactical ingenuity, and military craft that the large savings can be made, and the nation’s military strength greatly increased, but achieving long-overdue structural innovations, from the central headquarters to the combat forces, from the overhead of bases and installations to the current purchase of new weapons. Then, and only then, will it be useful to pursue fraud, waste, and mismanagement, if only to save a few dollars more after the billions have already been saved. At present, by contrast, the Defense Department administers ineffectively, while the public, Congress, and the media apply their energies to such petty matters as overpriced spare parts for a given device in a given weapon of a given ship, overlooking at the same time the multibillion dollar question of money spent for the Navy as a whole instead of the Army – whose weakness diminishes our diplomatic weight in peacetime, and which could one day cause us to resort to nuclear weapons in the face of imminent debacle. If we had a central military authority and a Defense Department capable of strategy, we should cheerfully tolerate much fraud, waste, and mismanagement; but so long as there are competing military bureaucracies organically incapable of strategic combat, neither safety nor economy will be ensured, even if we could totally eliminate every last cent of fraud, waste, and mismanagement.

We came to the city because we wished to live haphazardly, to reach for only the least realistic of our desires, and to see if we could not learn what our failures had to teach, and not, when we came to live, discover that we had never died. We wanted to dig deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to be overworked and reduced to our last wit. And if our bosses proved mean, why then we’d evoke their whole and genuine meanness afterward over vodka cranberries and small batch bourbons. And if our drinking companions proved to be sublime then we would stagger home at dawn over the Old City cobblestones, into hot showers and clean shirts, and press onward until dusk fell again. For the rest of the world, it seemed to us, had somewhat hastily concluded that it was the chief end of man to thank God it was Friday and pray that Netflix would never forsake them. Still we lived frantically, like hummingbirds; though our HR departments told us that our commitments were valuable and our feedback was appreciated, our raises would be held back another year. Like gnats we pestered Management— who didn’t know how to use the Internet, whose only use for us was to set up Facebook accounts so they could spy on their children, or to sync their iPhones to their Outlooks, or to explain what tweets were and more importantly, why— which even we didn’t know. Retire! we wanted to shout. We ha Get out of the way with your big thumbs and your senior moments and your nostalgia for 1976! We hated them; we wanted them to love us. We wanted to be them; we wanted to never, ever become them. Complexity, complexity, complexity! We said let our affairs be endless and convoluted; let our bank accounts be overdrawn and our benefits be reduced. Take our Social Security contributions and let it go bankrupt. We’d been bankrupt since we’d left home: we’d secure our own society. Retirement was an afterlife we didn’t believe in and that we expected yesterday. Instead of three meals a day, we’d drink coffee for breakfast and scavenge from empty conference rooms for lunch. We had plans for dinner. We’d go out and buy gummy pad thai and throat-scorching chicken vindaloo and bento boxes in chintzy, dark restaurants that were always about to go out of business. Those who were a little flush would cover those who were a little short, and we would promise them coffees in repayment. We still owed someone for a movie ticket last summer; they hadn’t forgotten. Complexity, complexity. In holiday seasons we gave each other spider plants in badly decoupaged pots and scarves we’d just learned how to knit and cuff links purchased with employee discounts. We followed the instructions on food and wine Web sites, but our soufflés sank and our baked bries burned and our basil ice creams froze solid. We called our mothers to get recipes for old favorites, but they never came out the same. We missed our families; we were sad to be rid of them. Why shouldn’t we live with such hurry and waste of life? We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to decrypt our neighbors’ Wi-Fi passwords and to never turn on the air-conditioning. We vowed to fall in love: headboard-clutching, desperate-texting, hearts-in-esophagi love. On the subways and at the park and on our fire escapes and in the break rooms, we turned pages, resolved to get to the ends of whatever we were reading. A couple of minutes were the day’s most valuable commodity. If only we could make more time, more money, more patience; have better sex, better coffee, boots that didn’t leak, umbrellas that didn’t involute at the slightest gust of wind. We were determined to make stupid bets. We were determined to be promoted or else to set the building on fire on our way out. We were determined to be out of our minds.

Cacciatore means “hunter” in Italian. Allegedly, in the olden days, if a hunter were to return home empty-handed, his wife would go kill a chicken. This uncommon dish is centered on the common ingredients of chicken and vegetables. 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 3½ to 4 pounds chicken thighs 1 onion, sliced 1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced 8 ounces button mushrooms, sliced 2 garlic cloves, sliced ⅓ cup white wine 1 (28-ounce) can plum tomatoes 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme 2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano Salt Freshly ground black pepper 1 In a Dutch oven over medium heat, heat the olive oil. Working in batches, cook the chicken pieces, skin-side down, until evenly browned, about 5 minutes. Turn over and repeat. Transfer to a platter and continue with the next batch. 2 Drain off all but 2 tablespoons of fat. Add the onion, pepper, and mushrooms to the pot. Increase the heat to medium-high. Cook about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, or until the onions

Going back to the place where you are from is always fraught, memories scattered like broken glass on every pavement, be careful where you tread. I meditated, feeling a little guilty that I have the space to. A space for peace, to which everyone is entitled. “It’s alright for you in the back of a car that Hitler used to ride in,” I imagined that drunk bloke saying. I’d have to point out that it wasn’t literally Hitler’s car, that would be a spooky heirloom, but it is all right for me. I do have a life where I can make time to meditate, eat well, do yoga, exercise, reflect, relax. That’s what money buys you. Is it possible for everyone to have that life? Is it possible for anyone to be happy when such rudimentary things are exclusive? They tell you that you ought eat five fruit and veg a day, then seven; I read somewhere once that you should eat as much as ten, face in a trough all day long, chowing on kale. The way these conclusions are reached is that scientists look at a huge batch of data and observe the correlation between the consumption of fruit and veg and longevity. They then conclude that you, as an individual, should eat more fruit and veg. The onus is on you; you are responsible for what you eat. Of course, other conclusions could be drawn from this data. The same people that live these long lives and eat all this fruit and veg are also, in the main, wealthy; they have good jobs, regular holidays, exercise, and avoid the incessant stress of poverty. Another, more truthful, more frightening conclusion we could reach then is that we should have a society where the resources enjoyed by the fruit-gobbling elite are shared around and the privileges, including the fruit and veg, enjoyed by everybody. With this conclusion the obligation is not on you as an individual to obediently skip down to Waitrose and buy more celery, it is on you as a member of society to fight for a fairer system where more people have access to resources.

Flowers. Lots of women say they don’t want them. But every woman is happy when they get them. Which is why I’ve arranged to have them delivered to Kate’s office, every hour on the hour. Seven dozen at a time. That’s one dozen for every day we were apart. Romantic, right? I thought so too. And although I know Kate’s favorite are white daisies, I specifically told the florist to avoid them. Instead, I’ve chosen exotics—bouquets with brightly colored petals and strange shapes. The kinds of flowers Kate has probably never seen in her life, from places she’s never been. Places I want to take her to. At first I kept the notes simple and generic. Take a look: Kate, I'm sorry. Drew Kate, Let me make it up to you. Drew Kate, I miss you. Please forgive me. Drew. But after a few hours I figured I needed to step it up a notch. Get more creative. What do you think? Kate, You're turning me into a stalker. Drew Kate, Go out with me on Saturday and I'll give you all of my clients. Every. Single. One. Drew Kate, If I throw myself in front of a bus, will you come visit me at the hospital? Drew PS - Try not to feel too guilty if I don't survive. Really. That last batch was delivered forty-five minutes ago. Now I’m just sitting at my desk, waiting. Waiting for what, you ask? You’ll see. Kate may be stubborn, but she’s not made of stone. My office door slams open, leaving a dent in the drywall. Here we go. “You are driving me crazy!” Her cheeks are flushed, her breathing’s fast, and she’s got murder in her eyes. Beautiful. I raise my brows hopefully. “Crazy? Like you want to rip my shirt open again?” “No. Crazy like the itch of a yeast infection that just won’t go away.” I flinch. Can’t help it. I mean—Christ. Kate steps toward my desk. “I am trying to work. I need to focus. And you’ve got Manny, Moe, and Jack playing every cheesy eighties song ever written outside my office door!” “Cheesy? Really? Huh. I so had you pegged for an eighties kind of girl.” Well, you live and learn.

How did farming change how much physical activity we do and how we use our bodies to do the work? Although hunting and gathering is not easy, nonfarming populations like the Bushmen or the Hadza generally work only five to six hours a day.36 Contrast this with a typical subsistence farmer’s life. For any given crop, a farmer has to clear a field (perhaps by burning vegetation, clearing brush, removing rocks), prepare the soil by digging or plowing and perhaps fertilizing, sow the seeds, and then weed and protect the growing plants from animals such as birds and rodents. If all goes well and nature provides enough rain, then comes harvesting, threshing, winnowing, drying, and finally storing the seeds. As if that were not enough, farmers also have to tend animals, process and cook large batches of foods (for example by curing meat and making cheese), make clothing, build and repair homes and barns, and defend their land and stored harvests. Farming involves endless physical toil, sometimes from dawn to dusk. As

The emphasis was on “soft.” No matter what else happened, the wranglers were to stay soft while riding the horses. Soft hands, soft seat, and soft legs. There was to be absolutely no hitting, kicking, slapping, or yelling at any time for any reason. The penalty for doing such things was to be placed on a two-day suspension. A second offense would lead to termination. Neither penalty was ever needed. At times it wasn’t easy to stay quiet with the horses because so many of them had been “used up” over the years, dulled to any form of cue. However, we remained consistent in our focus and the horses responded. The wranglers were instructed to ride the horses with the softest cues possible, often using nothing more than a light squeeze to get forward movement and a shift of weight in the saddle, along with light pressure on the reins, for a stop. They were also instructed to look for, find, and then release their cues at the slightest try from the horse—something they all became very adept at doing. With everyone riding in the same manner from one day to the next, all the horses began to respond within a few weeks. Before we knew it, all of our horses, including the very old ones that had been in the program for years and years, became responsive to the lightest of cues. We’d taught our horses to be responsive to these light cues, but a question remained. How could we keep them that way, particularly with the hundreds of different people who would be riding each horse over the summer? The answer was simple. Everyone needed to remain consistent. So, instead of expecting our horses to respond to the conflicting cues that each new rider was bound to give, we taught each rider how to communicate with our horses. Each week when a new batch of guests arrived at the ranch, we held an orientation in the riding arena. During this orientation, we explained how our horses were trained and what was expected of them as a rider of one of our horses. We gave them a demonstration in the saddle of proper seat and hand position, so they could keep their balance. We showed them the cues for walk, stop, trot, lope, and turn, using a horse right out of the string. Once we had demonstrated how our horses worked, we got everyone on horseback in the arena and helped them to practice giving the cues, allowing the horse to respond, and releasing the cues so that the horse would remain responsive. Of note is the fact that after

Cold Care Capsules One of my favorite recipes for keeping a cold at bay or getting over one more quickly, these Cold Care Capsules are easy to make but pack a big punch. Take the half hour or so that’s required to make a batch, and keep it on hand for the cold season. You can find gelatin or vegetable capsules at most herb shops and natural foods stores, and some pharmacies. 1 part echinacea root powder 1 part goldenseal root powder (organically cultivated) ½ part marsh mallow root powder ¼–½ part cayenne powder (depending on your heattoler ance level) “OO” gelatin or vegetable capsules To make the capsules: Mix the powders together in a small bowl. Scoop the powder into each end of a capsule, packing tight, and recap. It takes only a few minutes to cap 50 to 75 capsules, a winter’s worth for most families. Store in a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. To use: At the first sign of a cold or flu coming on, take 2 capsules every 2 to 3 hours until the symptoms subside, or up to 9 capsules a day. This is a high dose and should not be continued for longer than 2 to 3 days, at which time you should decrease the dose to 2 capsules three times a day (the normal adult dose for most herbal capsules; see pages 46–47 for further information on appropriate

crispy baked wontons Brianna Shade | BEAVERTON, OREGON These quick, versatile wontons are great for a crunchy afternoon snack or paired with a bowl of soothing soup on a cold day. I usually make a large batch, freeze half on a floured cookie sheet, then store them in an air-tight container for a fast bite. 1/2 pound ground pork 1/2 pound extra-lean ground turkey 1 small onion, chopped 1 can (8 ounces) sliced water chestnuts, drained and chopped 1/3 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce 1/4 cup egg substitute 1-1/2 teaspoons ground ginger 1 package (12 ounces) wonton wrappers Cooking spray Sweet-and-sour sauce, optional In a large skillet, cook the pork, turkey and onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in the water chestnuts, soy sauce, egg substitute and ginger. Position a wonton wrapper with one point toward you. (Keep remaining wrappers covered with a damp paper towel until ready to use.) Place 2 heaping teaspoons of filling in the center of wrapper. Fold bottom corner over filling; fold sides toward center over filling. Roll toward the remaining point. Moisten top corner with water; press to seal. Repeat with remaining wrappers and filling. Place on baking sheets coated with cooking spray; lightly coat wontons with additional cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown, turning once. Serve warm with sweet-and-sour sauce if desired.

She buys only the best couverture, from a fair trade supplier down near Marseille, and pays for it all in cash. A dozen blocks of each kind, to begin with, she says; but I already know from her eager response that a dozen blocks will not be enough. She used to make all her own stock, so she tells me, and though I'll admit I didn't quite believe it at first, the way she has thrown herself back into the business tells me that she was not exaggerating. The process is deft and peculiarly therapeutic to watch. First comes the melting and tempering of the raw couverture: the process that enables it to leave its crystalline state and take on the glossy, malleable form necessary to make the chocolate truffles. She does it all on a granite slab, spreading out the melted chocolate like silk and gathering it back toward her using a spatula. Then it goes back into the warm copper, the process to be repeated until she declares it done. She rarely uses the sugar thermometer. She has been making chocolates for so long, she tells me, that she can simply sense when the correct temperature has been reached. I believe her; certainly over the past three days I have been watching her, she has never produced a less than flawless batch. During that time I have learned to observe with a critical eye: to check for streaks in the finished product; for the unappealing pale bloom that denotes incorrectly tempered chocolate; for the high gloss and sharp snap that are the indicators of good-quality work.

Sam was about to travel to Asia with her boyfriend and she was fretting about what her backers would think if she released some of her new songs while she was 'on vacation'. She was worried that posting pictures of herself sipping a Mai Tai was going to make her look like an asshole. What does it matter? I asked her, where you are whether you're drinking a coffee, a Mai Tai or a bottle of water? I mean, aren't they paying for your songs so that you can... live? Doesn't living include wandering and collecting emotions and drinking a Mai Tai, not just sitting in a room writing songs without ever leaving the house? I told Sam about another songwriter friend of mine, Kim Boekbinder, who runs her own direct support website through which her fans pay her monthly at levels from $5 to $1,000. She also has a running online wishlist of musical gear and costumes kindof like a wedding registry, to which her fans can contribute money anytime they want. Kim had told me a few days before that she doesn't mind charging her backers during what she calls her 'staring at the wall time'. She thinks this is essential before she can write a new batch of songs. And her fans don't complain, they trust her process. These are new forms of patronage, there are no rules and it's messy, the artists and the patrons they are making the rules as they go along, but whether these artists are using crowdfunding (which is basically, front me some money so I can make a thing) or subscription services (which is more like pay me some money every month so that I can make things) or Patreon, which is like pay per piece of content pledge service (that basically means pay me some money every time I make a thing). It doesn't matter, the fundamental building block of all of these relationships boils down to the same simple thing: trust. If you're asking your fans to support you, the artist, it shouldn't matter what your choices are, as long as you're delivering your side of the bargain. You may be spending the money on guitar picks, Mai Tais, baby formula, college loans, gas for the car or coffee to fuel your all-night writing sessions. As long as art is coming out the other side, and you're making your patrons happy, the money you need to live (and need to live is hard to define) is almost indistinguishable from the money you need to make art. ... (6:06:57) ... When she posts a photo of herself in a vintage dress that she just bought, no one scolds her for spending money on something other than effects pedals. It's not like her fan's money is an allowance with nosy and critical strings attached, it's a gift in the form of money in exchange for her gift, in the form of music. The relative values are... messy. But if we accept the messiness we're all okay. If Beck needs to moisturize his cuticles with truffle oil in order to play guitar tracks on his crowdfunded record, I don't care that the money I fronted him isn't going towards two turntables or a microphone; just as long as the art gets made, I get the album and Beck doesn't die in the process.

BACON, EGG, AND CHEDDAR CHEESE TOAST CUPS Preheat oven to 400 degrees F., rack in the middle position. 6 slices bacon (regular sliced, not thick sliced) 4 Tablespoons (2 ounces, ½ stick) salted butter, softened 6 slices soft white bread ½ cup grated cheddar cheese 6 large eggs Salt and pepper to taste Cook the 6 slices of bacon in a frying pan over medium heat for 6 minutes or until the bacon is firmed up and the edges are slightly brown, but the strips are still pliable. They won’t be completely cooked, but that’s okay. They will finish cooking in the oven. Place the partially-cooked bacon on a plate lined with paper towels to drain it. Generously coat the inside of 6 muffin cups with half of the softened butter. Butter one side of the bread with the rest of the butter but stop slightly short of the crusts. Lay the bread out on a sheet of wax paper or a bread board butter side up. Hannah’s 1st Note: You will be wasting a bit of butter here, but it’s easier than cutting rounds of bread first and trying to butter them after they’re cut. Using a round cookie cutter that’s three and a half inches (3 and ½ inches) in diameter, cut circles out of each slice of bread.   Hannah’s 2nd Note: If you don’t have a 3.5 inch cookie cutter, you can use the top rim of a standard size drinking glass to do this. Place the bread rounds butter side down inside the muffin pans, pressing them down gently being careful not to tear them as they settle into the bottom of the cup. If one does tear, cut a patch from the buttered bread that is left and place it, buttered side down, over the tear. Curl a piece of bacon around the top of each piece of bread, positioning it between the bread and the muffin tin. This will help to keep the bacon in a ring shape. Sprinkle shredded cheese in the bottom of each muffin cup, dividing the cheese as equally as you can between the 6 muffin cups. Crack an egg into a small measuring cup (I use a half-cup measure) with a spout, making sure to keep the yolk intact. Hannah’s 3rd Note: If you break a yolk, don’t throw the whole egg away. Just slip it in a small covered container which you will refrigerate and use for scrambled eggs the next morning, or for that batch of cookies you’ll make in the next day or two. Pour the egg carefully into the bottom of one of the muffin cups. Repeat this procedure for all the eggs, cracking them one at a time and pouring them into the remaining muffin cups. When every muffin cup has bread, bacon, cheese and egg, season with a little salt and pepper. Bake the filled toast cups for 6 to 10 minutes, depending on how firm you want the yolks. (Naturally, a longer baking time yields a harder yolk.) Run the blade of a knife around the edge of each muffin cup, remove the Bacon, Egg, and Cheddar Cheese Toast Cups, and serve immediately. Hannah’s 4th Note: These are a bit tricky the first time you make them. That’s just “beginner nerves”. Once you’ve made them successfully, they’re really quite easy to do and extremely impressive to serve for a brunch. Yield: 6 servings (or 3 servings if you’re fixing them for Mike and Norman).

Hitler initially served in the List Regiment engaged in a violent four-day battle near Ypres, in Belgian Flanders, with elite British professional soldiers of the initial elements of the British Expeditionary Force. Hitler thereby served as a combat infantryman in one of the most intense engagements of the opening phase of World War I. The List Regiment was temporarily destroyed as an offensive force by suffering such severe casualty rates (killed, wounded, missing, and captured) that it lost approximately 70 percent of its initial strength of around 3,600 men. A bullet tore off Hitler’s right sleeve in the first day of combat, and in the “batch” of men with which he originally advanced, every one fell dead or wounded, leaving him to survive as if through a miracle. On November 9, 1914, about a week after the ending of the great battle, Hitler was reassigned as a dispatch runner to regimental headquarters. Shortly thereafter, he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. On about November 14, 1914, the new regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Philipp Engelhardt, accompanied by Hitler and another dispatch runner, moved forward into terrain of uncertain ownership. Engelhardt hoped to see for himself the regiment’s tactical situation. When Engelhardt came under aimed enemy smallarms fire, Hitler and the unnamed comrade placed their bodies between their commander and the enemy fire, determined to keep him alive. The two enlisted men, who were veterans of the earlier great four-day battle around Ypres, were doubtlessly affected by the death of the regiment’s first commander in that fight and were dedicated to keeping his replacement alive. Engelhardt was suitably impressed and proposed Hitler for the Iron Cross Second Class, which he was awarded on December 2. Hitler’s performance was exemplary, and he began to fit into the world around him and establish the image of a combat soldier tough enough to demand the respect of anyone in right wing, Freikorps-style politics after the war. -- Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 88

The enemy won some points at the very beginning. On both of the two days preceding his remarks about Worth, Hitchcock notes that American deserters had been shot while crossing the Rio Grande. Probably they were just bored with army rations but there was some thought that they might be responding to a proclamation of General Ampudia’s which spies had been able to circulate in camp. Noting the number of Irish, French, and Polish immigrants in the American force, Ampudia had summoned them to assert a common Catholicism, come across the river, cease “to defend a robbery and usurpation which, be assured, the civilized nations of Europe look upon with the utmost indignation,” and settle down on a generous land bounty. Some of them did so, and the St. Patrick Battalion of American deserters was eventually formed, fought splendidly throughout the war, and was decimated in the campaign for Mexico City — after which its survivors were executed in daily batches.… This earliest shooting of deserters as they swam the Rio Grande, an unwelcome reminder that war has ugly aspects, at once produced an agitation. As soon as word of it reached Washington, the National Intelligencer led the Whig press into a sustained howl about tyranny. In the House J. Q. Adams rose to resolve the court-martial of every officer or soldier who should order the killing of a soldier without trial and an inquiry into the reasons for desertion. He was voted down but thereafter there were deserters in every Whig speech on the conduct of the war, and Calm Observer wrote to all party papers that such brutality would make discipline impossible. But a struggling magazine which had been founded the previous September in the interest of sports got on a sound financial footing at last. The National Police Gazette began to publish lists of deserters from the army, and the War Department bought up big editions to distribute among the troops. Taylor sat in his field works writing prose. Ampudia’s patrols reconnoitered the camp and occasionally perpetrated an annoyance. Taylor badly needed the Texas Rangers, a mobile force formed for frontier service in the Texas War of Independence and celebrated ever since. It was not yet available to him, however, and he was content to send out a few scouts now and then. So Colonel Truman Cross, the assistant quartermaster general, did not return from one of his daily rides. He was still absent twelve days later, and Lieutenant Porter, who went looking for him with ten men, ran into some Mexican foragers and got killed.

Jackaby was still engrossed in his examination when I came back inside. “Books. Books. Just books,” he was muttering. Jenny was hovering by the window. I joined her. “How did you manage it, by the way?” I asked. “All those Bibles, all across town? It is a remarkable feat.” “It looks more impressive than it is,” she said, still not meeting my eyes. “I borrowed Jackaby’s special satchel, the one that holds anything. The whole pile took just one trip. The real trick was keeping myself solid all the way home. That’s the bit I’m really proud of—” She turned to face me. “Oh, Abigail, it was amazing. People saw me!” “People saw you?” “I was in disguise, of course. I wore my long coat and gloves, and I had that floppy white hat on, so they didn’t see much, but still—people saw me and they didn’t gasp or make a scene. Someone even mumbled Good day to me as I was crossing the footbridge! It was exhilarating! I have never been so excited to have somebody see me—actually see me—and not care at all!” She glanced at Jackaby. “Although you would think I would be used to it by now.” “Jenny, that is absolutely amazing!” I said. “It is, isn’t it?” she said wistfully. “Just a little bit, at least? Oh, Abigail, I’m exhausted, I’m not ashamed to tell you. I had planned on setting my spoils out in nice triumphant rows when I got back, but it was all I could do to hold myself intact by then. Solidity is sort of like flexing a muscle, except the muscle is in your mind, and your mind is really just an abstract concept. I was basically flexing my entire body into existence the whole way home. But did it merit so much as a Good job, Jenny from that infuriating man?” Jackaby surfaced from his perusal and looked up at last. His cloud gray eyes found focus on Jenny. From his expression, I couldn’t tell if he had been following our conversation or not. “Completely unexceptional,” he said. “Nothing at all in this batch. We will need to scrutinize them more closely, of course, just to be sure. Oh, and Miss Cavanaugh . . .” She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You performed . . . quite adequately,” he said, “despite expectations.” Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but then closed it again. Her face fluttered through a series of potential reactions. Finally she just threw up her hands and vanished from sight with a muffled whuph of air closing into the space where she suddenly wasn’t. “What in heaven’s name was all that?” said Jackaby. “Exquisite frustration, I believe, sir.” “Ah. Right.” He slumped into the desk chair and began to fidget absently with the spine of one of the Bibles. “Miss Cavanaugh is a singular and exceptional spirit, you know.” “Only a suggestion, sir, but that is precisely the sort of thing you might consider saying when she is still present and corporeal.

Deal with email in batches, during limited, fixed times every day Process your inbox to zero at least once a day Constantly create filters, opt-out and delete faster Think before you send Plan filing maintenance once a month  

Stagger Plantings for Better Control Even in the smallest garden, an important technique for keeping the work manageable is to plant in dribs and drabs: Plant a little lettuce seed now and a little more two weeks later. Though you’ll want to plant some crops all at one time — like peppers or tomatoes — planting small batches of many crops is a good garden habit to cultivate. Whatever size garden you tend, you’ll find that staggering the planting spreads out the harvest, and much of the attention that plants need in between, too. Instead of having a 20-foot-long row of lettuce or beets to thin on a given day, you’ll have only a foot or two of seedlings to thin. Cover with plastic soil that’s not yet planted to help it warm up, or cover it with grass clippings to keep it moist and suppress weeds. Or let the weeds germinate as a short-term cover crop and then slice them off before you plant your seeds.

Recipe for Raspberry Vinegar A refreshing summer drink with a tingle like a carbonated punch. To make your own Raspberry Vinegar Concentrate: 6 cups fresh or frozen raspberries 1 cup white vinegar Pour vinegar over the berries, cover, and let brine for 2-3 days at room temperature. Strain out juice and discard the pulp. Measure the juice and add an equal amount sugar or honey, heating to dissolve. This will make about 1 quart concentrate. Pour a small amount in the bottom of a glass and fill with water. You’ll soon see what strength you enjoy! The quart of concentrate will make about 8 gallons of beverage but stores perfectly fine in a covered jar in the fridge for a long time. If you’re making a mega-batch (I often do 4-5 gallons of frozen berries at a time), you can preserve the concentrate by hot water bath canning quart jars for 15 minutes. Enjoy a taste of summer year ’round!

in another bowl until smooth. Slowly add dry ingredients to banana mixture, whisking until smooth. Heat a 12 inch non-stick skillet over medium heat; brush with melted butter. Working in batches, ladle about 1⁄4 cup of the batter for each pancake into skillet. Cook until bubbles form on tops of pancakes, this should take 2-3 minutes. Flip the pancakes and continue them cooking until the centre is cooked through, about 2 minutes more. Serve

Like me, they were alive at the moment—today’s samples from the current batch of Cro-Magnon man. There were almost five billion of us specimens alive that morning in 1982. We who were awake were a multitude trampling the continents for our day in the light—feeling our lives and stirring about, building a better world a jot, or not—and soon the continents would roll us under, and new sets of people would trample us.

This compressed schedule is possible because I’ve invested significant effort to minimize the shallow in my life while making sure I get the most out of the time this frees up. I build my days around a core of carefully chosen deep work, with the shallow activities I absolutely cannot avoid batched into smaller bursts at the peripheries of my schedule. Three to four hours a day, five days a week, of uninterrupted and carefully directed concentration, it turns out, can produce a lot of valuable output.

Aza [Raskin] said: 'For instance, Facebook tomorrow could start batching your notifications, so you only get one push notification a day ... They could do that tomorrow.' ....So instead of getting 'this constant drip of behavioural cocaine,' telling you every few minutes that somebody liked your picture, commented on your post, has a birthday tomorrow, and on and on - you would get one daily update, like a newspaper, summarising it all. You'd be pushed to look once a day, instead of being interrupted several times an hour. 'Here's another one,' he said 'Infinite scroll. ...it's catching your impulses before your brain has a chance to really get involved and make a decision.' Facebook and Instagram and the others could simply turn off infinite scroll - so that when you get to the bottom of the screen, you have to make a conscious decision to carry on scrolling. Similarly, these sites could simply switch off the things that have been shown to most polarise people politically, stealing our ability to pay collective attention. Since there's evidence YouTube's recommendation engine is radicalising people, Tristan [Harris] told one interviewer: 'Just turn it off. They can turn it off in a heartbeat.' It's not as if, he points out, the day before recommendations were introduced, people were lost and clamouring for somebody to tell them what to watch next. Once the most obvious forms of mental pollution have been stopped, they said, we can begin to look deeper, at how these sites could be redesigned to make it easier for you to restrain yourself and think about your longer-term goals. ...there could be a button that says 'here are all your friends who are nearby and are indicating they'd like to meet up today.' You click it, you connect, you put down your phone and hang out with them. Instead of being a vacuum sucking up your attention and keeping it away from the outside world, social media would become a trampoline, sending you back into that world as efficiently as possible, matched with the people you want to see. Similarly, when you set up (say) a Facebook account, it could ask you how much time you want to spend per day or per week on the site. ...then the website could help you to achieve your goal. One way could be that when you hit that limit, the website could radically slow down. In tests, Amazon found that even 100 milliseconds of delay in the pace at which a page loads results in a substantial drop-off in people sticking around to buy the product. Aza said: 'It just gives your brain a chance to catch up to your impulse and [ask] - do I really want to be here? No.' In addition, Facebook could ask you at regular intervals - what changes do you want to make to your life? ...then match you up with other people nearby... who say they also want to make that change and have indicated they are looking for the equivalent of gym buddies. ...A battery of scientific evidence shows that if you want to succeed in changing something, you should meet up with groups of people doing the same. At the moment, they said, social media is designed to grab your attention and sell it to the highest bidder, but it could be designed to understand your intentions and to better help you achieve them. Tristan and Aza told me that it's just as easy to design and program this life-affirming Facebook as the life-draining Facebook we currently have. I think that most people, if you stopped them in the street and painted them a vision of these two Facebooks, would say they wanted the one that serves your intentions. So why isn't it happened? It comes back... to the business model.

We analyzed the ten tech companies worth over a billion dollars that went public in 2014 and 2015, and the average company spent a jaw-dropping $0.72 on sales and marketing for every $1.00 of sales during the three-year hypergrowth period before going public. As a matter of fact, one of the companies, Box, spent $1.59 for every $1.00 in sales! You’re probably wondering, how does a company like Box justify spending more money on sales and marketing than they generate in sales? The answer is “customer lifetime value.” Once Box mathematically proved that they could acquire a customer for less than the lifetime value (LTV) of that customer, they raised a war chest of investment capital and didn’t care if they spent more on sales and marketing than they generated in annual sales, because they knew that they would generate a big return in the long run. You probably don’t have access to a massive war chest of investment capital, but that doesn’t mean you are unable to invest more resources on growth. Instead of benchmarking your growth investment against customer lifetime value, benchmark against your bottom-line profits. Here is a list of financial scenarios and corresponding actions: If you desire growth and have a profitable business, operate at a break-even point and reinvest the profit, or a portion of the profit, back into growth. If you are running a break-even or unprofitable business, spend some time going through your expenditures looking for redundancies or unnecessary expenses. If you cannot find any opportunities to save money, prepare yourself to take a temporary pay cut (you can time this around your tax refund or right after your busy period if your business has seasonality). If you are unable to take a temporary pay cut, prepare yourself to work some extra hours (start by batching activities so you can spend a day per week working from home, and use the time you save when not having a work commute to invest in growth). If you are unable to take a temporary pay cut AND unable to work any extra hours, then read the paragraph below.

Rushing to bring a vaccine to market could also cause other sorts of safety problems in its manufacturing. Infamously, this happened in the Cutter Incident during the early launch of the polio vaccine, in 1955. When the polio vaccine was made available, mass vaccination days were organized by local communities. More than 120,000 children received a batch of the vaccine in which the process of inactivating the live virus was incomplete. Within days, there were reports of children developing paralysis, and the mass immunization program was abandoned within a month. Investigation showed that two batches of the vaccine, manufactured by Cutter Laboratories, had the live virus, resulting in symptoms in forty thousand people, permanent paralysis in fifty-one, and death in five; and this does not include cases of the virus spreading to other children.

It could be any date night. Perhaps Tom takes her to Ray's in Ballard. They share a bottle of Chateau Ste. Michelle Dry Riesling, even though Tom is more of a negroni man. The wine goes well with her market halibut and the view of the bay. He has the filet mignon, and judging by the bite he offers her, it's exquisite. Or perhaps it's that Mexican place somewhere in Ravenna, operated out of an old house. The wall paint is chipping, but the air is sweet with the aroma of freshly cut tomatillos. They have margaritas and share chicken mole, with extra chips and fresh guacamole on the side. No matter where they go, it has been a long day, a bad day for Elle. She probably dropped a pie, or an angry customer yelled at Bonnie, or old milk ruined a batch of cake batter. She probably almost said no to Tom's spontaneous idea for a dinner date. As usual, though, she's glad she didn't. The crème brûlée or fried ice cream is reason enough-- let alone the way he makes the negativity melts away.

in her Montreal office the day a batch of rejection letters arrived, ripping them into pieces and dropping them on the floor for the hired help to clean up. ‘This world is messed up, I tell you. People are cruel and insensitive, they’re out to screw each other. There’s no love or compassion. This’, she sliced her book violently in the air like an ancient mythical hammer, heading for an unforgiving anvil, ‘will teach

I decided to make the seafood chowder I first ate twenty years ago in the English Market in Cork, Ireland---or at least my own version of that smoky, tomato-based soup with cod, scallops, clams, and shrimp; sometimes (in Ireland), it had periwinkles (sea snails) and enough smoked haddock to give it a wonderful campfire tang. Of course, I had to skip the periwinkles and for the smokiness I made do with frozen finnan haddie. I'd worked on the recipe over the years, cranking the flavors so that when I finally went back to the English Market a couple of years ago, their chowder was so bland and watery that Jack didn't believe it was the same soup I made at home. It was possible that the Irish cook was having a bad day, or someone was trying to stretch the last bit of a used-up batch, or they'd made the recipe from memory for so long, it had ceased being itself---a chef at a good restaurant here in Los Angeles once told me that vigilance is the key to consistency, and that if she or a trusted supervisor didn't keep an eye on the plates as they came out of the kitchen, a dish could become unrecognizable within hours.

That's his perception of reality," Nenad responded. "He has adopted it as his interpretation and cannot break free from it, and probably doesn't even consider doing so. In fact, we too are unable to escape his worldview as it partly is our own. However, when faced with the choice between the cat and the belt, I choose the cat. It's not doomed, it's not poisoned, and it can be easily removed by hand from the engine, even if it comes at a financial cost. I have enough space in my cage for its rescue. I can imagine that within its mind, this engine has become a prison for his hopes of salvation. Overcoming our phobias of losing money in the pursuit of something else, even in small amounts, is healthy. A ground strap costs nothing, and though it may require a bit of time in a repair shop, in this day and age, we are used to wasting our time for far less. The reality of our daily lives is filled with every online distraction, like a sheet riddled with holes from moths that we wrap ourselves in out of habit without even noticing. It’s so comforting. At first, you embrace what everyone else does, what you are told to think. But eventually, you come to the realization that you have the power to dictate your thought patterns and become the architect of your ideology. You can construct a personal propaganda machine that aligns with your values and desires, creating a unique model of the world that is entirely your own. Your mind is still going to be a box in one of the billions of drawers, but it’s going to be YOUR box. Your true home. Manipulate yourself. We should manipulate ourselves towards common sense, compassion, and hope that we’ll get a good batch of people at some point so we can live among more like-minded peers. Now it’s up to our online feed. Now the education in our phone holds the reins, encapsulated in the three-second video of someone's take on history, the five-second clip of fitness models or investment strategies. And if we're fortunate, some famous person would quote Epictetus' Discourses, perhaps echoing the wisdom of Dostoevsky, Camus, Kafka, Marcus Aurelius, Sartre, etc. This is our chance for us to avoid descending into mere survival instincts without the tempering influence of morality and an understanding of the absurdity that we have created around us. To get addicted to the freedom in our minds. OR to choose the ground strap, choose to sacrifice someone else’s life so we can preserve our resources, because that’s what greed is, on a deep ancient level it’s you hoarding resources the same way a squirrel does with its winter supplies. Choose to be a squirrel rather than a human and live off your acorns. Choose to kill the cat. Choose not to ruin your precious machine. Choose the current model of society and disappear in it like a pelican getting caught in an airplane engine. Perhaps responsibility is the first and maybe even the only synonym for human purpose. Of course, there is value in the small moments we experience, but they lack foundation if they don’t fit into the break from working on something meaningful.

You’ll get a fair trial by court martial, and you’ll be shot immediately afterwards. The day after tomorrow we shall probably start court-martialling traitors in batches of twenty.

Given the demonstrated benefits of interactivity, why do so many of us continue to solve problems with our heads alone? Blame our entrenched cultural bias in favor of brainbound thinking, which holds that the only activity that matters is purely mental in kind. Manipulating real-world objects in order to solve an intellectual problem is regarded as childish or uncouth; real geniuses do it in their heads. This persistent oversight has occasionally been the cause of some irritated impatience among those who do recognize the value of externalization and interactivity. There’s a classic story, for example, concerning the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, who was as well known for authoring popular books such as Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! as for winning the Nobel Prize (awarded to him and two colleagues in 1965). In a post-Nobel interview with the historian Charles Weiner, Weiner referred in passing to a batch of Feynman’s original notes and sketches, observing that the materials represented “a record of the day-to-day work” done by the physicist. Instead of simply assenting to Weiner’s remark, Feynman reacted with unexpected sharpness. “I actually did the work on the paper,” he said. “Well,” Weiner replied, “the work was done in your head, but the record of it is still here.” Feynman wasn’t having it. “No, it’s not a record, not really. It’s working. You have to work on paper and this is the paper. Okay?” Feynman wasn’t (just) being crotchety. He was defending a view of the act of creation that would be codified four decades later in Andy Clark’s theory of the extended mind. Writing about this very episode, Clark argues that, indeed, “Feynman was actually thinking on the paper. The loop through pen and paper is part of the physical machinery responsible for the shape of the flow of thoughts and ideas that we take, nonetheless, to be distinctively those of Richard Feynman.” We often ignore or dismiss these loops, preferring to focus on what goes on in the brain—but this incomplete perspective leads us to misunderstand our own minds. Writes Clark, “It is because we are so prone to think that the mental action is all, or nearly all, on the inside, that we have developed sciences and images of the mind that are, in a fundamental sense, inadequate.” We will “begin to see ourselves aright,” he suggests, only when we recognize the role of material things in our thinking—when we correct the errors and omissions of the brainbound perspective, and “put brain, body, and world together again.

We will make up tonight or tomorrow. We will get along fine the next day and the next and the next—until we do it again, until the pot boils over, until we forget our love and throw around another batch of hurtful words. But until then, we will get along fine. Still, I can’t help but wonder if one of these times, we’re going to go too far.

I build my days around a core of carefully chosen deep work, with the shallow activities I absolutely cannot avoid batched into smaller bursts at the peripheries of my schedule.

Shortly after that, a new batch of police officer recruits turned up at the police academy next door. One day a couple of weeks later my life changed forever when a little red-haired ball of fire named Joanna Brady—the newly minted Sheriff of Cochise County—marched into the Roundhouse, stepped up to my bar, and ordered herself a Diet Coke.

Anyone who remembers licking stamps before the days of self-adhesives will appreciate Fibber’s description that the last batch he had “tasted like a rubber floor mat out of the engine room of a diesel-powered Scandinavian tuna boat.

Thirty-eight of the seventy-three households in Mashai reported that they brewed and sold beer at least six times in the last year. Many brewed far more often than that, and some brewed once a week or even more. Brewing can bring in a significant amount of money. Most often about forty liters were brewed at a time, which could be sold for between M4 and M10 depending on the quality of the beer. The ingredients, which included a washbasin full of sorghum and a small bowl of maize meal for each forty liter batch, usually cost less than M1, so it was possible for a diligent brewer to net as much as M5, M10, or even more per week from beer. For many households which lacked wage labor, beer brewing was the main source of income (see Gay 1980a for an account of the economics and sociology of brewing in a lowland village). Beer brewing, like many other economic activities through which women support themselves, must be understood not simply as a productive activity, but as a mechanism of redistribution. Beer is sold only to local villagers, predominantly men, and brewing is first of all a way of obtaining access to the cash earnings of employed men. Production of beer is directly stimulated by the presence within the village of men with money to buy it, and it is best understood as one of a number of possible ways for women to get a piece of that money. Brewing is thus very much a dependent or derived form of production; without migrant labor, the villagers of Mashai could no more support themselves through beer brewing than Mark Twain’s famous townsmen could support themselves by taking in each other’s laundry. Understood in this way, it is easy to see why brewing is as much a social skill as a technical one, and why one’s ability to make money by brewing is not a simple matter of the amount of beer one produces. Beer drinking is the main social event in the village for men, and it goes on in small or large groups every day. To sell a lot of beer a woman must be a cheerful and congenial hostess, and have a strong social position in the village. Making money on beer requires the same kinds of skills and social assets as throwing a successful party. It is thus a form of economic activity which is deeply embedded in the social relations of the village. I shall return to this point later.

Hm. A dal bean curry, eh? It looks similar to Chana Masala, a Punjabi dish that uses chickpeas... ! This viscous stickiness...!" "It's Natto!" Gooey texture and savory flavor are melding together inside my mouth! Was natto ever this delicious? "Wait... this is no normal natto! Could it be..." "Yes, sir. This natto I made by hand using charcoal smoke. It's charcoal-aged natto. After I added the natto spores to a batch of soybeans, I stored them in an underground room. There I lit a charcoal fire and then kept the room at just the right temperature and humidity to ferment the soybeans. As this process takes several days to complete, I prepared it ahead of time, over my summer break." "The carbon dioxide generated by the charcoal fire impacts the maturation of the soy proteins. It gives the natto a richer flavor. It also halts bacteria death in the beans, preventing the typical smell of ammonia from developing!" "Did you know all that?" "I heard a little about it once. It's supposed to be a really hard process that takes loads of time to finish!" "And she made it by herself?!" "But that isn't all. There's another flavor--- a deeper, more savory one that resonates across the tongue like a deep bass chord." "Oh, that? As a special hidden seasoning, I added shoyu koji." SHOYU KOJI Instead of salt, soy sauce is added to the koji bacteria and mixed with the rice until thick. Then it is left to ferment at a constant temperature for several weeks. So that's the black stuff that was in that jar! Shoyu koji has over ten times glutamic acid---an umami component--- than shio koji does. I see. While the strong flavor of curry spices drowns out most other seasonings, shoyu koji's flavor is powerful enough to that it is instead a savory magnifier! Her curry takes full advantage of her detailed knowledge of fermentation techniques! It is truly a magnificent dish! "The creamy Japanese-style curry roux has blended in with the natto's gooeyness beautifully!" "The mound of crisp, minced green onion on top is hard to resist as well!"

the inventor of general-purpose computer “time-sharing,” a technique that let individual users interact with batch-processing behemoths in a way that looked very much like present-day personal computing.

This means, for example, that instead of having a unique small box for each small task on your plate for the day—respond to boss’s e-mail, submit reimbursement form, ask Carl about report—you can batch similar things into more generic task blocks. You might find it useful, in this case, to draw a line from a task block to the open right-hand side of the page where you can list out the full set of small tasks you plan to accomplish in that block. When you’re done scheduling your day, every minute should be part of a block. You have, in effect, given every minute of your workday a job. Now as you go through your day, use this schedule to guide you.

Proximity to livestock and animal feces, I have found in my travels, is not necessarily an indicator of a bad meal. More often than not, in recent experience, it's an early indicator of something good on the way. Why is that? It might have to do with the freshness question. Still living close to the source of your food, you often don't have a refrigerator or freezer. Equipment and conditions are primitive. You can't be lazy - because no option other than the old ways exists Where there are freezers and refrigerators, laziness follows, the compromises and slow encroachment of convenience. Why spend all day making mole when you can make a jumbo batch and freeze it? Why make salsa every day when it lasts OK in the fridge? Try a salsa or a sauce hand-ground with a stone mortar and pestle and you'll see what I mean.

Each of the factory’s welding stations can make any piece of equipment Rogue manufactures. “We don’t have single-purpose machines where the guy pushes the green button,” Henniger brags. “There’s five hundred jobs you can put on these tables.” On the welding floor, no one works on one kind of job for more than half a day before switching to a batch of something different. If you don’t vary the task, he says, “you wear people out.

But the person who is really to blame is my mother, for dying. I’m hungry for my mother and it makes me angry and there is scar tissue ripping inside me making me scream and I might suddenly explode blood and I want a BATCH of something that is not diabetes-friendly that I can eat for days and days until there is no hunger anywhere inside me anymore so I can feel as though she didn’t die, leaving me to figure out how to be a mother after only eleven years of getting to witness my own.

How the fuck did I get here? I can’t believe I just did that. If you told me two months ago I’d be getting railed by anyone, let alone my dad’s co-worker at Salacious on his wedding day, I’d tell you that you smoked a bad batch.

In 2011, price discovery was happening in a different way. It involves producers like Wirtz sitting behind desks with a phone cradled between their ear and their shoulder, trying to find someone to buy their hogs. Instead of a raucous market with hundreds of buyers to compete on price, Wirtz basically gets to choose between four. Those buyers are Hormel, Cargill, JBS Swift, and Tyson. But really, not all four of them are in the market at the same time. Most of them have hogs locked up through forward contracts, and they enter the cash market only haltingly to buy last batches of pigs they need to keep their slaughterhouses running at full capacity. On some days, farmers like Wirtz might try to stoke up competition between three or even two buyers. This wasn’t the case even as recently as 1995. Back then, the top four meat companies controlled only about 46 percent of the total hog market. By 2006, the top four companies controlled 66 percent.

On January 11, 2020, Chinese authorities released the virus’s genetic sequence.[11] Moderna scientists got to work with powerful machine-learning tools that analyzed what vaccine would work best against it, and just two days later they had created the sequence for its mRNA vaccine.[12] On February 7 the first clinical batch was produced. After preliminary testing, it was sent to the National Institutes of Health on February 24. And on March 16—just sixty-three days after sequence selection—the first dose went into a trial participant’s arm.

When Lonegan hosted rallies, he and his team were ready to record the e-mail address of anyone who shared it. They made phone trees and hosted volunteer training sessions. They passed out the phone numbers of local congressmen to activists and coached them on the best time to call. (Late night was sometimes best so that volunteers could leave voicemails, which would be waiting in big batches when the politician showed up for work the next day.) They taught volunteers the fine art of calling talk-radio programs and getting on the air, coaching them to mention the right website address or phone number when they were on the air. Lonegan and his colleagues did more than just get Tea Party activists to focus on the Waxman-Markey bill. Americans for Prosperity also helped direct the activists’ passion toward a very specific group of targets: Republican politicians. Attacking the Republican party was one of AFP’s central strategies from the earliest days. In 2006, Lonegan attended a private AFP event hosted by Charles and David Koch, in Aspen, Colorado.

Respond slowly to emails, chats, texts, and other messages. Let hours, days, and sometimes weeks go by before you get back to people. This may sound like a total jerk move. It’s not. [...] Online, anyone can contact you, not just the highly relevant people in your physical vicinity. They have questions about their priorities—not yours—when it’s convenient for them—not you. Every time you check your email or another message service, you’re basically saying, “Does any random person need my time right now?” And if you respond right away, you’re sending another signal both to them and to yourself: “I’ll stop what I’m doing to put other people’s priorities ahead of mine no matter who they are or what they want.” Spelled out, this sounds insane. But instant-response insanity is our culture’s default behavior. [...] You can change this absurd default. You can check your inbox rarely and let messages pile up till you get around to answering them in a batch. You can respond slowly to make more time for Laser mode, and if you’re worried about coming off like a jerk, remind yourself that being focused and present will make you more valuable as a colleague and friend, not less.

These scrums provide opportunities for problems to surface and for a team member who’s overloaded to get help from another team member. Software teams benefit from meeting every day because their batches (user stories) are small enough to require daily coordination.

You’ll notice that I use these ingredients again and again in lots of different formulations, so it’s a good idea to just keep them in the house. 3% hydrogen peroxide (what you get in the brown bottle): a whitener, stain-remover, and chlorine bleach alternative. Borax: Borax, or sodium borate, is a naturally occurring mineral. While it is not as gentle as baking soda, it mixes well with lemon, vinegar, and water for cleaning purposes and does clean quite well when used properly. See here (bathroom) for my favorite Borax trick. Cornstarch: Used in glass cleaner; super soft, provides the most gentle abrasion, and wipes off streak-free. Cream of tartar: Can remove stains when combined with vinegar or lemon juice. Rubbing alcohol: A quick-drying agent for some of my recipes and a dissolver of oil and grease. It is also known to disinfect. White vinegar: Can be used as a deodorizer, degreaser, stainless-steel cleaner, glass cleaner, and it does away with soap scum and limescale. Lemon can do almost anything that vinegar does, but there are practical reasons why I recommend vinegar, not least of all the ridiculousness of having to juice a bunch of lemons before cleaning. You can always sub in lemon juice for vinegar if you want to, but be aware that a product with lemon juice in it will go rancid, where vinegar will not, so any big batch meant to last for a while should contain vinegar. Remember, you can always amp up your vinegar game with 6 percent or 10 percent acidity.

It’s for you from Miss Tempy.” Aletta stood and stretched from side to side, then accepted the offered treat. She started to take a drink, then paused and looked back at him, doing her best to make her frown look real. “If it’s for me, then why is half of it gone?” He grinned. “I didn’t want to spill any on the way so I drank a little.” She laughed and took a sip. Delicious as usual. She’d finally managed to watch Tempy mixing a batch one day and had learned the woman’s secret—a little salt and vanilla. And, of course, a generous amount of cream. “Are we ready to hang the star yet, Mama?” “Almost. But I’m to the point now where I’m going to need some help putting it all together.” He jumped up. “I’ll help.” She tousled his hair. “I appreciate that. But I think you and I might require a third person for this next part.” Just then Aletta looked over to see Jake walking from the house, past the barn and toward his cabin. “Captain Winston!” she called. He turned, gave a quick wave, and headed in their direction. “Evening, Aletta.” He knelt and gave Andrew a playful poke in the tummy. “Hey, buddy, how you doing?” “I’m good, Ja—” Andrew cut his eyes in her direction. “I mean . . . Captain Winston, sir. You want some cocoa? Tempy made some just now.” Jake smiled. “That sounds good, thank you.” Aletta caught her son’s gaze, appreciating how he’d corrected his mistake. “Do you plan on drinking half of the Captain’s too?” With an impish grin, Andrew darted back to the kitchen. “Fine boy you’ve got there, Aletta.” “Thank you. I think I’ll keep him.” “With good reason.” Jake eyed the booth lying in pieces on the barn floor beside the manger, and knelt to examine her work. “Very impressive. Your father taught you well.” “I only wish I’d learned how to carve like he could. He would’ve taught me, but I didn’t consider it important enough at the time.” He ran a hand over the manger and looked up at her, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “It’s never too late to learn something new.” “I’ve got yours, Captain Winston!” They looked up to see Andrew slowly walking toward them, his attention homed in on the cup in his hands. Captain Winston took the cup from him but eyed it suspiciously. “Tell me now . . . how much of mine did you drink?” Andrew grinned. “Not as much as Mama’s.

Even after baking that afternoon while Dre covered the counter, she'd been left with very few cupcakes to refrigerate overnight, as she routinely did, selling them as day olds the next day, for a reduced price. She still had fresh frozen extra batches of unfrosted cupcakes, her base vanilla bean cake and semi-sweet chocolate, which she'd thaw, then pipe fresh frosting on in the morning. Even with those she'd still be behind with her freshly baked trademark flavors, no matter how early a start she got. She'd whipped up some of those frostings this evening, but everything else would have to be made fresh from scratch in the morning. She should be in bed, sleeping. Not standing in the shop kitchen, experimenting with a pavlova roulade she didn't need and couldn't sell. But therapy was therapy, and she needed that, too.

Aung San spent the rest of 1940 in the Japanese capital, learning Japanese and apparently getting swept away in all the fascist euphoria surrounding him. “What we want is a strong state administration as exemplified in Germany and Japan. There shall be one nation, one state, one party, one leader . . . there shall be no nonsense of individualism. Everyone must submit to the state which is supreme over the individual . . . ,” he wrote in those heady days of the Rising Sun.8 He spoke Japanese, wore a kimono, and even took a Japanese name. He then sneaked back into Burma, landing secretly at Bassein. He changed into a longyi and then took the train unnoticed to Rangoon. He made contact with his old colleagues. Within weeks, in small batches and with the help of Suzuki’s secret agents in Rangoon, Aung San and his new select team traveled by sea to the Japanese-controlled island of Hainan, in the South China Sea. There were thirty in all—the Thirty Comrades—and they would soon be immortalized in nationalist mythology. Aung San at twenty-five was one of the three oldest. He took Teza meaning “Fire” as his nom de guerre. The other two took the names Setkya (A Magic Weapon) and Ne Win (the Bright Sun). All thirty prefixed their names with the title Bo. “Bo” meant an officer and had come to be the way all Europeans in Burma were referred to, signifying their ruling status. The Burmese were now to have their own “bo” for the first time since 1885. But six months of harsh Japanese military training still lay ahead. It wasn’t easy, and at one point some of the younger men were close to calling it quits. Aung San, Setkya, and Ne Win received special training, as they were intended for senior positions. But all had to pass through the same grueling physical tests, saluting the Japanese flag and learning to sing Japanese songs. They heard tales of combat and listened to Suzuki boasting of how he had killed women and children in Siberia.9 It was a bonding experience that would shape Burmese politics for decades to come.

This soup, which is great for really cold winter days, would have been a very easy one to prepare out on the prairie. In the winter, I will make a big pot of this soup in the late morning and just leave it on the stove until late afternoon. That way, anyone can grab a mugful at any time. Serves 4 to 6 2 bunches (about 10) spring onions, trimmed ¼ cup (60 ml) sunflower or vegetable oil 1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped 3 russet potatoes (about 1½ pounds/680 g), peeled and quartered 1 quart (960 ml) chicken broth Salt and freshly ground black pepper • Cut the spring onions in half crosswise, dividing the white and green parts. Coarsely chop the white parts and set aside. Finely chop the green parts and set them aside separately. • Heat the oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Add the yellow onion and chopped white parts of the spring onions and cook, stirring often with a wooden spoon, until soft, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the potatoes and broth and season to taste with salt and pepper. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring just to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are soft, 30 to 35 minutes. • Allow the soup to cool slightly. Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender or a food processor until very smooth. Return the pureed soup to the pot and cook over medium heat until hot. Adjust the seasonings to taste. Garnish individual servings with the reserved spring onion greens.

On June 23 the Detroit Free Press printed Jimmy’s last letter to the editor under the title “Race: The Issue Isn’t Black and White.” This letter said: It is no longer useful to look at the racial climate of this country only in terms of black and white. People from more than 100 ethnic groups live here. By 2040 European Americans and African Americans will be among the many minorities who make up the United States. Blacks in Detroit are a majority; they need to stop thinking like a minority or like victims. Both African Americans and European Americans should be thinking of how to integrate with Detroiters of Latino and Arab descent. To the very end Jimmy was striking out at two of his favorite targets: racial (or what he called biological) thinking, and blacks viewing themselves as a minority. When Ossie and Ruby stopped by to see us in June, he met them at the door with a three-page memo suggesting things for them to work on. The next week Ruby sent him a big batch of rich dark gingerbread that she had baked. A few weeks before his death he called Clementine to alert her to the killing of children that was going on in Liberia and to instruct her how to intervene. A few days later he spoke at a Detroit Summer gathering. The next day he went out with a friend (without his oxygen tank) to supervise the moving of a refrigerator. The week before he died he did a two-hour interview with a local radio reporter. Up to two days before his death, he was grooming himself as carefully as always. Then, suddenly on Tuesday night, July 20, he began to stumble, sat down in a bedroom chair, and never got up or spoke again. I was all alone and wasn’t sure what I should do. There didn’t seem to be any point in calling anybody. So I kept stroking him and saying to him over and over: You are a helluva guy. You raised a whole lot of hell—and a helluva lot of questions. You made a helluva lot of friends—and a helluva lot of enemies. You had a helluva lot of ideas— And wrote a helluva lot of books and pamphlets. You made a helluva lot of difference to a helluva lot of people.

night, I got home and Clay stood in the kitchen cooking dinner for two.  I had to suppress the happy-dance I wanted to do and, instead, nonchalantly walked by him.  A note on the table from Rachel explained she had gone out with Peter and would be back late.  The note stressed alone. Since Clay’s last appearance, I’d thought of several questions to ask him—starting with his teeth—and hoped he wouldn’t get annoyed and go fur on me again.  I decided to ease him into my agenda. “Wow, I didn’t know you cooked.  It smells great.”  I set my messenger bag on a chair and hovered behind him, watching him work. He pulled baked potatoes from the oven.  To the side, two plates waited with steaming chicken breasts.  Seeing dinner almost ready, I grabbed flatware for us and sat down. “So, other than cooking, how did you keep yourself busy today?” He set a plate in front of me and sat down.  He pointed to the last batch of books I’d brought home that he had piled neatly on the table between us. “You read them all already?” He nodded. “That’s a lot to read in just five days.  Are you skipping chapters?” I teased. He glanced up at me then back down at his food.  Maybe I needed to work on my teasing.  I supposed smiling would have helped. “So,

So уоu ѕit dоwn аnd make a рlаn. This dоеѕn’t rеԛuirе muсh еnеrgу, and уоu can spread thе work оut оvеr many dауѕ. Yоu idеntifу all thе vаriоuѕ targets уоu’ll need to strike if уоu wаnt tо hаvе a chance оf ѕuссеѕѕ. First, аll thе junk fооd nееdѕ to lеаvе your kitchen, inсluding аnуthing you hаvе a tеndеnсу tо оvеrеаt, and уоu need tо rерlасе it with foods thаt will help уоu lоѕе wеight, like fruitѕ аnd veggies. Sесоndlу, уоu knоw уоu’ll bе tеmрtеd to gеt fаѕt fооd if уоu come hоmе hungrу аnd dоn’t have аnуthing rеаdу tо eat, ѕо уоu dесidе to рrе-сооk a wееk’ѕ wоrth of food in аdvаnсе еасh wееkеnd. Thаt wау you always have something in thе refrigerator. Yоu ѕеt aside a blосk of ѕеvеrаl hours еасh weekend to buу grосеriеѕ and сооk аll your food fоr thе wееk. Plus уоu gеt a dесеnt сооkbооk of hеаlthу recipes. Gеt a decent ѕсаlе thаt саn measure wеight and body fаt %. Mаkе a liѕt оf sample mеаlѕ (5 brеаkfаѕtѕ, 5 lunсhеѕ, аnd 5 dinnеrѕ), аnd роѕt it on уоur rеfrigеrаtоr. And ѕо оn…. At thiѕ роint аll оf thiѕ gоеѕ intо thе writtеn рlаn. Then уоu еxесutе — hаrd and fast. Yоu can рrоbаblу implement thе whole рlаn in one day. Purge thе unhealthy fооd frоm the kitсhеn. Buу thе nеw grосеriеѕ, thе nеw сооkbооk, and the new ѕсаlе. Post thе wеight сhаrt аnd thе sample mеаlѕ liѕt. Sеlесt recipes аnd сооk a batch of fооd fоr thе wееk. Whew! By thе end of the day, you’ve uѕеd your willpower nоt tо diеt dirесtlу but tо еѕtаbliѕh the соnditiоnѕ that will mаkе уоur diеt еаѕiеr tо fоllоw. When уоu wаkе uр thе next mоrning, уоu’ll find your environment drаmаtiсаllу changed in ассоrdаnсе with уоur рlаn. Yоur fridge will be stocked with рlеntу оf pre-cooked hеаlthу fооd fоr you to еаt. Thеrе wоn’t bе any junkiе рrоblеm fооdѕ in уоur home. Yоu’ll hаvе a rеgulаr blосk оf time ѕеt аѕidе for grосеrу shopping and food prep. It will ѕtill require ѕоmе discipline to follow your diеt, but уоu’vе already сhаngеd thingѕ ѕо much thаt it wоn’t bе nearly аѕ diffiсult аѕ it wоuld bе withоut thеѕе changes.

Andrea is coming to pick me up in about thirty minutes to head to her folks' house for Thanksgiving. I've got buttery yeast rolls from Aimee's mom's old family recipe, my cranberry sauce with port and dried cherries, and a batch of spicy molasses cookies sandwiched with vanilla mascarpone frosting. I also have the makings for dried shisito peppers, which I will make there. Andrea's mom, Jasmin, is making turkey and ham, and braised broccoli and an apple pie, Andrea is doing a potato and celery root mash and a hilarious Jell-O mold that contains orange sherbet and canned mandarin oranges and mini marshmallows, and her dad, Gene, is making his mother's candied yams and sausage corn bread stuffing. Benji is cooking and serving most of the day at the group home where he grew up, and will come join us for dessert, bringing his chocolate pecan pie with bourbon whipped cream.

WHAT WORKS WELL Mornings: I tend to get a lot done in the mornings. Scheduling/ batching: I spend time each month creating and scheduling social media posts all in one go. Project management: I use Asana to manage all my projects. (I moved to it recently after finding Basecamp a truly painful experience.) And I have ready-made projects set up, which means I can ‘set and forget’ and then wait for the alerts telling me what to do each day. Psst: By ‘ready-made projects’ I mean templates that are set up with standard tasks for each type of job I do. Documentation: I have documents for everything. I also have templates for all kinds of project emails, as well as ad hoc things such as interview requests, favour requests and tech issues. Toggl: I use Toggl to track my time (when I remember to switch it on). Typing: I type super fast (one of my superpowers). Bravery: I’m willing to give stuff a go without fear of failure, which means I don’t procrastinate much.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK SO WELL Psst: Check out all the contradictions, which are all part of the entrepreneurial life. Afternoons: Once it hits 2pm my brain doesn’t work so well. I use this fuzzy time to do monotonous tasks such as social media scheduling, WordPress fixes, editing, etc. Scheduling/ batching: I’d also like to batch things like writing blog posts and creating videos. But I tend to do them randomly when the urge takes me, which isn’t productive at all. Social media: It’s a huge time suck that I wrestle with all day, every day. Boundaries: I try to switch off each evening around 3pm (school days) or 6pm (work days). But I often find myself logging in again. (It doesn’t help that Netflix is on my laptop, which makes it all too easy to flick over to my work email or business Facebook groups every two seconds.) Bravery: Because I’m willing to give things a go, I sometimes launch them without thinking things through!

How would you feel about doing a little something in the kitchen?" Avis asks tentatively. Brian laughs. He used to assist her before they had children, before she hired helpers, but she was impatient with him: he made mistakes- forgot to time the roasting almonds, or failed to sift the cake flour, or let the chocolate seize. Still, he accepts an apron and ties it on, smiling at the sense of the occasion. He rests his knuckles on his hips. "Ready as I'll ever be." The first recipe is ancient, written on a card in her mother's sloping hand- though her mother never actually made it. A list: eggs, brown sugar, vanilla, flour, chocolate chips. Over the course of the day, Avis and Brian fill the cooling racks with cookies: oatmeal raisin, molasses, butterscotch, peanut butter, and chocolate chip. Humble, crude, lightly crisp and filigreed at the edges, butter, salt, and sweetness at the centers. Avis samples batches with Brian. They stand near each other, immersed in the good, clean silence of work.

Now, I often make a big batch of soup on Saturday or Sunday, and we eat that for days. Fortunately, neither of us minds having taco soup for three or four nights in a row!

I was going on a motorbike with a friend of mine in my area [Shah Faisal Colony] and suddenly we saw a university students’ union van. At that time, the union was run by the Jama‘at-e-Islami [IJT]. It was very surprising because the jama‘atis never dared to enter our area. Then I saw one badmash [rogue] called Sayyid in the van. So I told my friend: ‘Maybe they are planning to do something to us, to attack us. There must be something wrong, we must follow them.’ So we followed them in the colony and they parked the van in front of a house and Sayyid and another badmash came out of the car and they had two large boris [gunny bags] that looked very heavy. Then they dumped these two bags in that house. […] I decided that we should check on them in the morning. I gathered all our friends, maybe 20, 30, in my house, and in the early morning, we surrounded their house. At eight o’clock, Sayyid came back with the van and they started uploading the bags. When they were about to upload the second one, Tipu [the most well known PSF militant] came and, you know, he had no patience in him. I had told everyone, ‘Let them complete their job and then we’ll do something.’ But after the first batch [was uploaded in the van], Tipu shouted ‘O, Sayyid!’ He was carrying a gun—we only had one gun, with maybe 20 bullets—and he started firing at Sayyid. Sayyid ran away and the other man ran away and we captured all those bags. They were full of pistols, Sten guns, knives… Hundreds of them… That is the day we became rich in Karachi, when we realised that we could conquer all Karachi. Jama‘at was vanished from Karachi University for a month. Not a single of them went outside because they knew that we had guns now. It was the first time that we saw so many guns. Then the thinkers, the political people [like him] realised that something is happening. How come they have that much and are bringing that many revolvers in Karachi University? [Nearly] 500 revolvers and Sten guns? What is happening? Everybody realised that things in Karachi were about to change.32

Assorted types of churros offered with Mexican hot chocolate, café con leche, and/or a ramekin of cajeta I made churros all day yesterday and I've set them on different plates in front of Fawn, Dee, and Merry Carole the next morning at the salon. I've used different types of sugar and fried them at different temperatures and for different amounts of time. For dipping, I've made a batch of café con leche and Mexican hot chocolate made with cinnamon (canela) and just a pinch of cayenne pepper. I also offer a small ramekin of cajeta, which is a caramelly concoction made from goat's milk that I may have become obsessed with lately.

I’ve invested significant effort to minimize the shallow in my life while making sure I get the most out of the time this frees up. I build my days around a core of carefully chosen deep work, with the shallow activities I absolutely cannot avoid batched into smaller bursts at the peripheries of my schedule. Three to four hours a day, five days a week, of uninterrupted and carefully directed concentration, it turns out, can produce a lot of valuable output.

We stop, together as if on signal, and stand and look at the bodies. It doesn't matter if we look. We're supposed to look: this is what they are there for, hanging on the Wall. Sometimes they'll be there for days, until there's a new batch, so as many people as possible will have the chance to see them. What they are hanging from is hooks. The hooks have been set into the brickwork of the Wall, for this purpose. Not all of them are occupied. The hooks look like appliances for the armless. Or steel question marks, upside-down and sideways. It's the bags over the heads that are the worst, worse than the faces themselves would be. It makes the men like dolls on which the faces have not yet been painted; like scarecrows, which in a way is what they are, since they are meant to scare. Or as if their heads are sacks, stuffed with some undifferentiated material, like flour or dough. It's the obvious heaviness of the heads, their vacancy, the way gravity pulls them down and there's no life anymore to hold them up. The heads are zeros. Though if you look and look, as we are doing, you can see the outlines of the features under the white cloth, like gray shadows. The heads are the heads of snowmen, with the coal eyes and the carrot noses fallen out. The heads are melting. But on one bag there's blood, which has seeped through the white cloth, where the mouth must have been. It makes another mouth, a small red one, like the mouths painted with thick brushes by kindergarten children. A child's idea of a smile. This smile of blood is what fixes the attention, finally. These are not snowmen after all.

The next morning, October 31, marked the beginning of the family-friendly part of the holiday. That’s when the mischievous gifts from under the Halloween Tree were handed out by hungover adults. The rule was that if your gift was actually thoughtful or useful to the recipient, you had failed—these gifts were to be tasteless and worse than useless. They were also extremely difficult to shop for, you had to know a person pretty well to know exactly what they hated. For the kids, there were baskets of booby-trapped treats (say, a batch of six caramel apples, only one was secretly an onion). Everyone either had a separate costume for that day, or a tasteful modification to their Devil’s Night outfit for the traditional haunted houses and trick-or-treating.

It is impossible to view Calamity Jane today without responding to the gay subtext; hell, it’s not even subtext—the lesbian aspects of the film are all right out there. Dressed in buckskins, with a cap on her head and a red bandana around her neck, dirt streaking her face, Calamity says to Katie, “You’re the purtiest thing I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know a woman could look like that.” Hugging Katie, she invites her to move in with her to “chaperone” each other. Helping Katie out of the horse and wagon, Calam tells Katie, “We’ll batch it here as cozy as two bugs in a blanket.” And after Katie cleans the entire cabin, the finishing touch is a front-door stencil that reads “Calam and Katie.” It’s not exactly difficult to guess which woman is the butch one in this relationship; similarly, it is no accident that The Celluloid Closet, the documentary examination of Hollywood’s depiction of gay men and women on film, contains footage of Doris Day in buckskin singing “Secret Love,” the very title itself a code in 1950s America.