Celebrity Pride Quotes

Don't try to make yourself marketable, you'll be surprised to see yourself at the bottom. Stay incognito, and people will peruse the whole world looking for you, by that time, you'll be at the top.

Civilized people must, I believe, satisfy the following criteria: 1) They respect human beings as individuals and are therefore always tolerant, gentle, courteous and amenable ... They do not create scenes over a hammer or a mislaid eraser; they do not make you feel they are conferring a great benefit on you when they live with you, and they don't make a scandal when they leave. (...) 2) They have compassion for other people besides beggars and cats. Their hearts suffer the pain of what is hidden to the naked eye. (...) 3) They respect other people's property, and therefore pay their debts. 4) They are not devious, and they fear lies as they fear fire. They don't tell lies even in the most trivial matters. To lie to someone is to insult them, and the liar is diminished in the eyes of the person he lies to. Civilized people don't put on airs; they behave in the street as they would at home, they don't show off to impress their juniors. (...) 5) They don't run themselves down in order to provoke the sympathy of others. They don't play on other people's heartstrings to be sighed over and cosseted ... that sort of thing is just cheap striving for effects, it's vulgar, old hat and false. (...) 6) They are not vain. They don't waste time with the fake jewellery of hobnobbing with celebrities, being permitted to shake the hand of a drunken [judicial orator], the exaggerated bonhomie of the first person they meet at the Salon, being the life and soul of the bar ... They regard prases like 'I am a representative of the Press!!' -- the sort of thing one only hears from [very minor journalists] -- as absurd. If they have done a brass farthing's work they don't pass it off as if it were 100 roubles' by swanking about with their portfolios, and they don't boast of being able to gain admission to places other people aren't allowed in (...) True talent always sits in the shade, mingles with the crowd, avoids the limelight ... As Krylov said, the empty barrel makes more noise than the full one. (...) 7) If they do possess talent, they value it ... They take pride in it ... they know they have a responsibility to exert a civilizing influence on [others] rather than aimlessly hanging out with them. And they are fastidious in their habits. (...) 8) They work at developing their aesthetic sensibility ... Civilized people don't simply obey their baser instincts ... they require mens sana in corpore sano. And so on. That's what civilized people are like ... Reading Pickwick and learning a speech from Faust by heart is not enough if your aim is to become a truly civilized person and not to sink below the level of your surroundings. [From a letter to Nikolay Chekhov, March 1886]

I sprang toward him with the stake, hoping to catch him by surprise. But Dimitri was hard to catch by surprise. And he was fast. Oh, so fast. It was like he knew what I was going to do before I did it. He halted my attack with a glancing blow to the side of my head. I knew it would hurt later, but my adrenaline was running too strong for me to pay attention to it now. Distantly, I realized some other people had come to watch us. Dimitri and I were celebrities in different ways around here, and our mentoring relationship added to the drama. This was prime-time entertainment. My eyes were only on Dimitri, though. As we tested each other, attacking and blocking, I tried to remember everything he'd taught me. I also tried to remember everything I knew about him. I'd practiced with him for months. I knew him, knew his moves, just as he knew mine. I could anticipate him the same way. Once I started using that knowledge, the fight grew tricky. We were too well matched, both of us too fast. My heart thumped in my chest, and sweat coated my skin. Then Dimitri finally got through. He moved in for an attack, coming at me with the full force of his body. I blocked the worst of it, but he was so strong that I was the one who stumbled from the impact. He didn't waste the opportunity and dragged me to the ground, trying to pin me. Being trapped like that by a Strigoi would likely result in the neck being bitten or broken. I couldn't let that happen. So, although he held most of me to the ground, I managed to shove my elbow up and nail him in the face. He flinched and that was all I needed. I rolled him over and held him down. He fought to push me off, and I pushed right back while also trying to maneuver my stake. He was so strong, though. I was certain I wouldn't be able to hold him. Then, just as I thought I'd lose my hold, I got a good grip on the stake. And like that, the stake came down over his heart. It was done. Behind me, people were clapping but all I noticed was Dimitri. Our gazes were locked. I was still straddling him, my hands pressed against his chest. Both of us were sweaty and breathing heavily. His eyes looked at me with pride—and hell of a lot more. He was so close and my body yearned for him, again thinking he was a piece of me I needed in order to be complete. The air between us seemed warm and heady, and I would have given anything in that moment to lie down with him and have his arms wrap around me. His expression showed that he was thinking the same thing. The fight was finished, but remnants of the adrenaline and animal intensity remained.

Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honour and recognition. It will devise subtle, religiously acceptable means to call attention to the service rendered. If we stoutly refuse to give in to this lust of the flesh, we crucify it. Every time we crucify the flesh, we crucify our pride and arrogance.

When you hear of Gay Pride, remember, it was not born out of a need to celebrate being gay. It evolved out of our need as human beings to break free of oppression and to exist without being criminalized, pathologized or persecuted. Depending on a number of factors, particularly religion, freeing ourselves from gay shame and coming to self-love and acceptance, can not only be an agonising journey, it can take years. Tragically some don't make it. Instead of wondering why there isn't a straight pride be grateful you have never needed one. Celebrate with us.

Confession is a difficult Discipline for us because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. We cannot bear to reveal our failures and shortcomings to others. We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped onto the high road to heaven. Therefore, we hide ourselves from one another and live in veiled lies and hypocrisy. But if we know that the people of God are first a fellowship of sinners, we are freed to hear the unconditional call of God's love and to confess our needs openly before our brothers and sisters. We know we are not alone in our sin. The fear and pride that cling to us like barnacles cling to others also. We are sinners together. In acts of mutual confession we release the power that heals. Our humanity is no longer denied, but transformed.

The code-of-ethics playlist: o Treat your colleagues, family, and friends with respect, dignity, fairness, and courtesy. o Pride yourself in the diversity of your experience and know that you have a lot to offer. o Commit to creating and supporting a world that is free of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. o Have balance in your life and help others to do the same. o Invest in yourself, achieve ongoing enhancement of your skills, and continually upgrade your abilities. o Be approachable, listen carefully, and look people directly in the eyes when speaking. o Be involved, know what is expected from you, and let others know what is expected from them. o Recognize and acknowledge achievement. o Celebrate, relive, and communicate your successes on an ongoing basis.

He’d tended her wounds, as she had his, and knew she healed well, healed fast. His resilient, hardheaded cop. But there were parts inside that tough, disciplined body that remained fragile—perhaps always would. And those vulnerable places pulled at him to protect, to comfort, to do anything he could to spare her a bruise or blow. The vulnerability undid him even as the strength brought him pride. And the whole of her brought him love beyond the measuring of it.

Our pets will never be with us for long enough, at least physically, but when they have been blessed with opportunity and been able to live a full life, how can we respond with anything less than pride and celebration?

In an earlier age, it might have been possible to believe that goodness would prevail over pride, but not anymore. The proud could be proud with impunity, because there was nobody to contradict him in his pride and because narcissism was no longer considered a vice. That was what the whole cult of celebrity was about, she thought; and we fêted these people and fed their vanity.

Pride is what keeps us from celebrating what others have accomplished. Pride is what causes us to keep our mouths shut when we should be pouring on the praise.

If I were a man, they’d be celebrating me for that. That’s why my philosophy is WWWMD.” “I’m not even going to try to guess.” “What would a white man do?” “Ha-ha, love that.” “Seriously though, a white man would come into this office, or a boardroom or whatever, and believe he had the duty—the power—to change things, make history, lead a charge. Well, I do too.

Joy, not grit, is the hallmark of holy obedience. We need to be lighthearted in what we do to avoid taking ourselves too seriously. It is a cheerful revolt against self and pride. Our work is jubilant, carefree, merry. Utter abandonment to God is done freely and with celebration. And so I urge you to enjoy this ministry of self-surrender. Don't push too hard. Hold this work lightly, joyfully.

This denial prevents us from crediting ourselves (pride), pleasuring ourselves (lust), feeding and securing ourselves (gluttony, greed), releasing our emotions and asserting our needs (anger), relaxing (sloth), and desiring…really anything at all (envy). This denial keeps us from celebrating abundance, personal accomplishment, and fulfillment.

Open them, weak yet proud man, pitiful ant that struggles to crawl over its speck of dust! You declare yourself free and great, and for all the wretchedness of your life you hold yourself in high esteem, celebrating – no doubt in a spirit of derision – your rotten and transient flesh. And then you imagine that this beautiful life, lived out between a little pride that you call greatness, and that base selfinterest which is at the heart of your society, will be rewarded by some form of immortality. Immortality for you – more lascivious than the monkey, more evil than the tiger, more crawling than the serpent? Come on! Show me a paradise for the monkey, the tiger, the snake, a paradise of lust, of cruelty and baseness, a paradise of selfishness – eternity for this dust, immortality for this nothingness. You boast of being free and of being able to do what you call good and evil? Doubtless so that you can be denounced more rapidly, for what good can you possibly do? Is a single one of your gestures produced by anything other than pride or self-interest?

Nothing changes if we just feel shitty about being White. And nothing changes if we refuse to talk about it. The opposite of white pride does not have to be white shame. We can’t push it away and pretend it’s not us. We are not color-blind, we are not post-race, we do not get to reject our whiteness because it makes us feel bad…This does not get solved with a Celebration of Diversity Day and a coexist bumper sticker. (Kate Schatz)

We can still fall into the trap of self-deceit today. It always begins through pride and arrogance, somehow thinking that our ways are superior to God’s ways. In this season when the church celebrates Jesus’ mighty work of redemption, let’s not miss the joy of complete obedience to God’s will and plans for our life.

So impossible it is for a man who looks no further than the present world to fix himself long in a contemplation where the present world has no part; he has no sure hold, no firm footing; he can never expect to remove the earth he rests upon while he has no support besides for his feet, but wants, like Archimedes, some other place whereon to stand. To talk of bearing pain and grief without any sort of present or future hope cannot be purely greatness of spirit; there must be a mixture in it of affectation and an alloy of pride, or perhaps is wholly counterfeit. It is true there has been all along in the world a notion of rewards and punishments in another life, but it seems to have rather served as an entertainment to poets or as a terror of children than a settled principle by which men pretended to govern any of their actions. The last celebrated words of Socrates, a little before his death, do not seem to reckon or build much upon any such opinion; and Caesar made no scruple to disown it and ridicule it in open senate.

Above all, believe. Cultivate your swagger. Make this your new religion: You are funny and talented, and you’re going to try something new. This is the exact right time for that. This is the most important year of your life, and for once you are NOT going to let yourself down. If you fall down and feel depressed, you will get back up. If you feel lethargic and scared, you will try something else: a new routine, a new roommate situation, a healthier diet. You will read books about comedy. You will work tirelessly and take pride in your tireless work. And you will take time every few hours to stop and say to yourself, “Look at me. I’m doing it. I’m chasing my dream. I am following my calling.” It doesn’t matter if your dreams come true, if agents swoon and audiences cheer. Trust me on that: It truly doesn’t matter. What matters is the feeling that you’re doing it, every day. What matters is the work—diving in, feeling your way in the dark, finding the words, trusting yourself, embracing your weird voice, celebrating your quirks on the page, believing in all of it. What matters is the feeling that you’re not following someone else around, that you’re not half-assing this, that you’re not waiting for something to happen, that you’re not waiting for your whole life to start. What matters is you, all alone at your desk at five in the morning. I write this from my own desk at five in the morning, my favorite place, a place where I know who I am and what I’m meant to accomplish in this life. Savor that precious space. That space will feel like purgatory at first, because you’ll realize that it all depends on you. That space will feel like salvation eventually, because you’ll realize that it all depends on you.

The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action.

Key moods for a powerful team are ambition, acceptance, serenity, respect, membership, pride, camaraderie, and celebration.

People speak of love and all these things it ought to be, but the truth is that love is not always a wondrous thing to be carried with pride or celebrated.

Pride is not an LGBT celebration, it's a human rights celebration - it's a celebration of equality - it's a celebration of inclusion - it's a celebration of acceptance.

I am in my own line a celebrated person—I may say a most celebrated person. My gifts, in fact, are unequalled!

Celebrate when there´s something to celebrate. Take pride in what you do. Don´t do sloppy work. Be the best. Have something original and special to offer that makes people´s lives better

I refuse to believe that Southern pride stems from the pain we’ve inflicted on others. Southern pride comes from what we’ve built together. In our music and art and innovation. In the people who honor us by taking our culture out into the world and celebrating it. It comes from people seeking us out, and flocking here to experience all that we know and love. We are all neighbors. We are all Southerners. This is OUR culture, and it means what WE choose it to mean. So, yes. I’ll say it again—Southern Pride is good collard greens. Death to the flag. Long live the South.

Every memory came flooding back of all the times she'd woken like this before, safe in Gina's arms. How often had she dreamed herself here over the years, only to find herself alone in an empty bed?

I had never in all my life felt so elated. Peter cared for me! It was a miracle I longed to celebrate - to tell all Hertfordshire - and I had to hold my hand to my mouth against an involuntary smile.

I want to celebrate my homecoming, not my funeral. I still have so much I want to say and do. Life is too short not to live it right … from this day forward I will embrace everything good and desecrate all that is evil. I’ve seen enough evil to last a lifetime now. I want the good in life without worrying. To be with people who are caring, smiles that last for miles, and love that’s forever lasting, a home that I call my own, not a prison. I may be defeated and beaten down, only to get back up again, to stand tall with head held high and my pride not shaken. Only to survive this horrible nightmare with my heart still attached and my soul not stolen and walk away without a scar on me.

Our ordinary method of dealing with ingrained sin is to launch a frontal attack. We rely on our willpower and determination. Whatever may be the issue for us--anger, fear, bitterness, gluttony, pride, lust, substance abuse--we determine never to do it again; we pray against it, fight against it, set our will against it. But the struggle is all in vain, and we find ourselves once again morally bankrupt or, worse yet, so proud of our external righteousness that "whitened sepulchers" is a mild description of our condition.

and if Mitsubishi and Europe alike take pride in our continuity with our pasts, much of our pride rests in celebrating the fact that we as nations became better over time, and overcame our selfishness, voicing and then answering the call to hold ourselves to something higher.

If we are to seek whatever is honorable, it must include seeking the honor that is inherent in God's image bearers. We must recognize their intrinsic dignity and hold it in high esteem. There is no wiggle room on this. No matter how different a person may be from us, no matter what political, social, or moral views they may hold, no matter how strongly and vehemently we disagree with them, no matter their crimes, we must not dishonor the image of God in them. To joke about their death or destruction, to celebrate their pain and loss, to openly mock and belittle their struggles is to blaspheme the God in whose image they are created. This is no easy thing---especially when someone is not living honorably themselves, when they are not living in a way that is consistent with their identity as an image bearer. Somehow their hatred, pride, and deceit are able to draw hatred, pride, and deceit from us. That's why in his first epistle, Peter makes a point to call slaves to honor unkind masters, wives to honor unbelieving husbands, and all to honor the emperor---an emperor who at that very moment was seeking their lives. In calling us to honor those who have, in all human logic, forfeited the right to honor, we testify to a greater reality: whether or not a person is living within the dignity of their identity as an image bearer does not change the fact that God has bestowed dignity on them. In honoring them, we honor God.

Society gives you some goals. You achieve them after much effort. You celebrate for a few days. Then life becomes the same as before. You don't get the happiness you were expecting. Achievements feel useless. Then you attach your pride to them to make them seem useful. Pride is a tool of self deception.

In America the gay world touched my life at the margins, though references and images and occasional conversations with men and women who celebrated their homosexuality with pride. As far as I could see there was nothing to be proud about. There was only pain, humiliation and shame. If I were to join this group, I would have to act proud and hide my feelings of rejection and loneliness. If I were to show these men and women that I was terrified for my future, I would be regarded as misguided or a victim of Islam or Arabness. But if there was one thing I wsa certain of it was that there was nothing misguided about my feelings, and I did not feel that Islam or my Arabness was to blame. If I were to join this group, I would simply go from the repressiveness of secrecy to the repressiveness of pride. I didn't despise my shame. I had no reason to do so. My shame illuminated my intense attachment to the world, my desire to be connected with others.

The trouble begins when a group of people are conditioned in different ways to believe that their heritage is superior to that of others. That is a dangerous kind of conditioning, especially in a country like ours that has a shared heritage. However, many people have convinced themselves about the supremacy of their mythologies over the ideas that their mythologies are trying to convey. So, while our epics warn us against arrogance, we embody the same arrogance to promote our religions. In a way, that is self-defeating. Many of us are stuck up in stagnancy of pride over our heritage, without taking the pain of diving deeper in ancient ideas to understand the essence of those epics. Only if we did, we would realize that in almost every country, majority of the population is brainwashed to commit the same mistake that their holy books warned them against, while ironically celebrating mythological as well as historical figures with empty hero worship.

As black people, our lives are not tragedies. I will keep fighting against that narrative. Our lives are survival stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. These stories are about joy and celebration and our inherent power. No-one has the capacity to steal our joy. We must resist, resist and keep resisting. We refuse to be annihilated.

He’d taken that growth they’d achieved together and he’d done the selfless thing. He’d made the decision she was too scared to make herself. His turn had arrived to be the strong one and he’d risen to the occasion. Maybe she could have celebrated him for it if she hadn’t been blindsided. Now that she’d gained time and perspective, she had no choice but to see his actions for what they were. A man expressing his love the only way he’d known how. “Yes, I know he wants what’s best for me,” Josephine said. “Always.” “Do you want what’s best for him?” “Yes,” she managed. “Of course.” “That’s love, honey.” Evelyn tipped her head at the television. “And even when it’s hard or you have to swallow your pride, love should always be celebrated.

Over the past several months, Amelía’s Google history had become a reference of her despair: “can’t have children, reasons for infertility in women, reasons for infertility in men, discussing infertility with husband, price of surrogate mothers, signs of depression, adoption agencies, infertility support groups…” The endless searches only provided two categories of results: medical sites that took pride in listing every worst-case scenario, and blogs written by white women with phrases like “silent suffering” and “living with uncertainty,” mixing in Bible verses about God’s Grace, none of which filled the void or helped Aimee ignore the fact that Mother’s Day was a month away and she would have to watch her family celebrate the one thing she wanted most and might never have.

Haven't I told you scores of times, that you're always beginners, and the greatest satisfaction was not in being at the top, but in getting there, in the enjoyment you get out of scaling the heights? That's something you don't understand, and can't understand until you've gone through it yourself. You're still at the state of unlimited illusions, when a good, strong pair of legs makes the hardest road look short, and you've such a mighty appetite for glory that the tiniest crumb of success tastes delightfully sweet. You're prepared for a feast, you're going to satisfy your ambition at last, you feel it's within reach and you don't care if you give the skin off your back to get it! And then, the heights are scaled, the summits reached, and you've got to stay there. That's when the torture begins; you've drunk your excitement to the dregs and found it all too short and even rather bitter, and you wonder whether it was really worth the struggle. From that point there is no more unknown to explore, no new sensations to experience. Pride has had its brief portion of celebrity; you know that your best has been given and you're surprised it hasn't brought a keener sense of satisfaction. From that moment the horizon starts to empty of all hopes that once attracted you towards it. There's nothing to look forward to but death. But in spite of that you cling on, you don't want to feel you're played out, you persist in trying to produce something, like old men persist in trying to make love, with painful, humiliating results. ... If only we could have the courage to hang ourselves in front of our last masterpiece!

Themes of descent often turn on the struggle between the titanic and the demonic within the same person or group. In Moby Dick, Ahab’s quest for the whale may be mad and “monomaniacal,” as it is frequently called, or even evil so far as he sacrifices his crew and ship to it, but evil or revenge are not the point of the quest. The whale itself may be only a “dumb brute,” as the mate says, and even if it were malignantly determined to kill Ahab, such an attitude, in a whale hunted to the death, would certainly be understandable if it were there. What obsesses Ahab is in a dimension of reality much further down than any whale, in an amoral and alienating world that nothing normal in the human psyche can directly confront. The professed quest is to kill Moby Dick, but as the portents of disaster pile up it becomes clear that a will to identify with (not adjust to) what Conrad calls the destructive element is what is really driving Ahab. Ahab has, Melville says, become a “Prometheus” with a vulture feeding on him. The axis image appears in the maelstrom or descending spiral (“vortex”) of the last few pages, and perhaps in a remark by one of Ahab’s crew: “The skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world.” But the descent is not purely demonic, or simply destructive: like other creative descents, it is partly a quest for wisdom, however fatal the attaining of such wisdom may be. A relation reminiscent of Lear and the fool develops at the end between Ahab and the little black cabin boy Pip, who has been left so long to swim in the sea that he has gone insane. Of him it is said that he has been “carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro . . . and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps.” Moby Dick is as profound a treatment as modern literature affords of the leviathan symbolism of the Bible, the titanic-demonic force that raises Egypt and Babylon to greatness and then hurls them into nothingness; that is both an enemy of God outside the creation, and, as notably in Job, a creature within it of whom God is rather proud. The leviathan is revealed to Job as the ultimate mystery of God’s ways, the “king over all the children of pride” (41:34), of whom Satan himself is merely an instrument. What this power looks like depends on how it is approached. Approached by Conrad’s Kurtz through his Antichrist psychosis, it is an unimaginable horror: but it may also be a source of energy that man can put to his own use. There are naturally considerable risks in trying to do so: risks that Rimbaud spoke of in his celebrated lettre du voyant as a “dérèglement de tous les sens.” The phrase indicates the close connection between the titanic and the demonic that Verlaine expressed in his phrase poète maudit, the attitude of poets who feel, like Ahab, that the right worship of the powers they invoke is defiance.

I will not stop living my queerness out loud. I will not stop raining my good queer love down on the world until we all have a seat at the table. Until expressions of love and identity are met with the wonder with which we should meet all evidence of goodness in a world as harsh and lonely as this one can be. Until the glitter of generations of fragmented hearts just like mine are finally welcomed all the way home.

Pride is a feeling of pleasure or celebration related to our accomplishments or efforts. Hubris is an inflated sense of one’s own innate abilities that is tied more to the need for dominance than to actual accomplishments. Humility is openness to new learning combined with a balanced and accurate assessment of our contributions, including our strengths, imperfections, and opportunities for growth. We really get this wrong.

In the United States, thirteen-year-old Jewish boys often mark the transition to adulthood with a bar mitzvah, involving a rather elaborate ceremony that includes singing a passage from the ancient Torah, followed by a celebration of dancing to hip-hop music and gorging on dessert. Sambian boys in Papua New Guinea mark the same transition by participating in the Flute Ceremony, which includes playing ritual flutes and performing fellatio on older boys and elders of their tribe. Imagine if the Sambian and American Jewish boy suddenly changed places. We’d witness how a momentous source of pride to members of one culture could be a totally meaningless or humiliating experience to members of another, because the behaviors and achievements that confer self-esteem do so only to the extent that we embrace a cultural worldview that deems them worthy.

More tiring than the work itself is the memory of hard work, just thinking you have worked hard interferes with the quality of rest. Some people take pride in working hard without any results. And there are others who crave for a long rest without knowing that true rest is in non-doership. Thinking you need rest makes you restless. Thinking you have to work hard makes you tired. Thinking you have worked hard brings self-pity.

I am incapable of telling you not to repine and rebel, because I have so, to my cost, the imagination of all things, and because I am incapable of telling you not to feel. Feel, feel, I say – fell for all you’re worth, and even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live, especially to live at this terrible pressure, and the only way to honor and celebrate these admirable beings who are our pride and our inspiration.

As a culture, we had no heroes. Certainly not any politician—Barack Obama was then the most admired man in America (and likely still is), but even when the country was enraptured by his rise, most Middletonians viewed him suspiciously. George W. Bush had few fans in 2008. Many loved Bill Clinton, but many more saw him as the symbol of American moral decay, and Ronald Reagan was long dead. We loved the military but had no George S. Patton figure in the modern army. I doubt my neighbors could even name a high-ranking military officer. The space program, long a source of pride, had gone the way of the dodo, and with it the celebrity astronauts. Nothing united us with the core fabric of American society. We felt trapped in two seemingly unwinnable wars, in which a disproportionate share of the fighters came from our neighborhood, and in an economy that failed to deliver the most basic promise of the American Dream—a steady wage.

Remembering the martyrs and honoring the armed forces on veterans day may make you feel proud, but sustaining a tradition that conditions you to celebrate the loss of life in the name of patriotism is not something to take pride in - if anything this celebration is a brutal reminder of tribalism - of our shortfalls - of our inability to assimilate - of our failure in becoming truly civilized. Therefore, the need of the hour is, we work so that we no longer need a veterans day.

A popular Chinese essay by an anonymous author carved out an archetype of the young white-collar class, the men and women who sip cappuccino, date online, have a DINK family, take subways and taxis, fly economy, stay in nice hotels, go to pubs, make long phone calls, listen to the blues, work overtime, go out at night, celebrate Christmas, have one-night-stands … keep The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice on their nightstands. They live for love, manners, culture, art, and experience. In

Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and almost every other faith, tries to help people deflate their own ego, and reduce selfishness, pride, and materialism; but in an industry that is built on self-righteous, hedonism, and money, one would expect that religions teachings modestly, moderation, and humility would be rejected. That’s not to say spirituality or religion altogether has been rejected in Hollywood. Quite the contrary, it is alive and well—it’s just not the brand of religion one is accustomed to.

Anyone Can Sing" Anyone can sing. You just open your mouth, and give shape to a sound. Anyone can sing. What is harder, is to proclaim the soul, to initiate a wild and necessary deepening: to give the voice broad, sonorous wings of solitude, grief, and celebration, to fill the body with the echoes of voices lost long ago to bravery, and silence, to prise the reluctant heart wide open, to witness defeat, to suffer contempt, to shrink, lose face, go down in ignominy, to retreat to the last dark hiding-place where the tattered remnants of your pride still gather themselves around your nakedness, to know these rags as your only protection and yet still open—to face the possibility that your innermost core may hold nothing at all, and to sing from that—to fill the void with every hurt, every harm, every hard-won joy that staves off death yet honours its coming, to sing both full and utterly empty, alone and conjoined, exiled and at home, to sing what people feel most keenly yet never acknowledge until you sing it. Anyone can sing. Yes. Anyone can sing.

Take pride in your choices, not your gifts. ... This is something that's super-important for young people to understand, and for parents to preach to young people. It's really easy for a talented young person to take pride in their gifts: "I'm really athletic," or "I'm really smart," or "I'm really good at math." That's fine. You should celebrate your gifts. You should be happy. But you can't be proud of them ... What you can be proud of is your choices. How did you decide to use your gifts? Did you study hard? Did you work hard? Did you practice? The people who excel combine gifts and hard work, and the hard work part is a choice. You get to decide that. And that is something that when you're looking back on your life, you will be very proud of.

Well, you did walk away from that beautiful creature in the kitchen without so much as a glance, so I don't know about the genius part," the other woman said, and DJ felt his face warm. "You want to go back in there? I'll introduce you. You can celebrate for real." Both women broke into giggles. DJ almost smiled; maybe he'd overreacted in there a bit. "No thank you," the good doctor said in that voice of hers. "But thanks for thinking I'm desperate enough to be set up with the hired help." DJ stepped away from the door, the warmth on his face turning into an angry burn. The hired help? He had worked at a Michelin-starred restaurant, for crying out loud. For years. People across Paris knew his name. Who the bloody hell did this woman think she was? Sometimes he really, truly hated rich people.

In a society in which the dream of success has been drained of any meaning beyond itself, men have nothing against which to measure their achievements except the achievements of others. Self-approval depends on public recognition and acclaim, and the quality of this approval has undergone important changes in its own right. The good opinion of friends and neighbors, which formerly informed a man that he had lived a useful life, rested on appreciation of his accomplishments. Today men seek the kind of approval that applauds not their actions but their personal attributes. They wish to be not so much esteemed as admired. They crave not fame but the glamour and excitement of celebrity. They want to be envied rather than respected. Pride and acquisitiveness, the sins of an ascendant capitalism, have given way to vanity.

What we are faced with in our culture is the post-Christian version of the doctrine of original sin: all human endeavor is radically flawed, and the journalists who take delight in pointing this out are simply telling over and over again the story of Genesis 3 as applied to today’s leaders, politicians, royalty and rock stars. And our task, as image-bearing, God-loving, Christshaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to the world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to the world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to the world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion. So the key I propose for translating Jesus’ unique message to the Israel of his day into our message to our contemporaries is to grasp the parallel, which is woven deeply into both Testaments, between the human call to bear God’s image and Israel’s call to be the light of the world. Humans were made to reflect God’s creative stewardship into the world. Israel was made to bring God’s rescuing love to bear upon the world. Jesus came as the true Israel, the world’s true light, and as the true image of the invisible God. He was the true Jew, the true human. He has laid the foundation, and we must build upon it. We are to be the bearers both of his redeeming love and of his creative stewardship: to celebrate it, to model it, to proclaim it, to dance to it. “As the Father sent me, so I send you; receive the Holy Spirit; forgive sins and they are forgiven, retain them and they are retained.” That last double command belongs exactly at this point. We are to go out into the world with the divine authority to forgive and retain sins. When Jesus forgave sins, they said he was blaspheming; how then can we imagine such a thing for ourselves? Answer: because of the gift of the Holy Spirit. God intends to do through us for the wider world that for which the foundation was laid in Jesus. We are to live and tell the story of the prodigal and the older brother; to announce God’s glad, exuberant, richly healing welcome for sinners, and at the same time God’s sorrowful but implacable opposition to those who persist in arrogance, oppression and greed. Following Christ in the power of the Spirit means bringing to our world the shape of the gospel: forgiveness, the best news that anyone can ever hear, for all who yearn for it, and judgment for all who insist on dehumanizing themselves and others by their continuing pride, injustice and greed.

The “United States” does not exist as a nation, because the ruling class of the U.S./Europe exploits the world without regard to borders and nationality.  For instance, multinational or global corporations rule the world.  They make their own laws by buying politicians– Democrats and Republicans, and white politicians in England and in the rest of Europe.  We are ruled by a European power which disregards even the hypocritical U.S. Constitution.  If it doesn’t like the laws of the U.S., as they are created, interpreted and enforced, the European power simply moves its base of management and labor to some other part of the world.   Today the European power most often rules through neocolonial regimes in the so-called “Third World.”  Through political leaders who are loyal only to the European power, not to their people and the interests of their nation, the European power sets up shop in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  By further exploiting the people and stealing the resources of these nations on every continent outside Europe, the European power enhances its domination.  Every institution and organization within the European power has the purpose of adding to its global domination: NATO, the IMF, the World Bank, the military, and the police.   The European power lies to the people within each “nation” about national pride or patriotism.  We foolishly stand with our hands over our hearts during the “National Anthem” at football games while the somber servicemen in their uniforms hold the red, white and blue flag, then a military jet flies over and we cheer.  This show obscures the real purpose of the military, which is to increase European power through intimidation and the ongoing invasion of the globe.  We are cheering for imperialist forces.  We are standing on Native land celebrating the symbols of de-humanizing terrorism.  Why would we do this unless we were being lied to?   The European imperialist power lies to us about its imperialism.  It’s safe to say, most “Americans” do not recognize that we are part of an empire.  When we think of an empire we think of ancient Rome or the British Empire.  Yet the ongoing attack against the Native peoples of “North America” is imperialism.  When we made the “Louisiana Purchase” (somehow the French thought Native land was theirs to sell, and the U.S. thought it was ours to buy) this was imperialism.  When we stole the land from Mexico, this was imperialism (the Mexican people having been previously invaded by the European imperialist power).  Imperialism is everywhere.  Only the lies of capitalism could so effectively lead us to believe that we are not part of an empire.

Returning from that task and a visit to a nearby tepee,his eyes twinkled with pride as he offered a tiny rawhide pouch full of elk's teeth to Jesse. She caught her breath.Only two teeth were saved from each elk,and to be able to decorate an entire dress with teeth would put her in a position of envy in the tribe. "How long have you been saving these?" she asked. "I am a skillful hunter...it is nothing," came the proud reply. "I only had to get them back from Running Bear. He has been keeping them for me." Jesse worked all afternoon to add the elks' teeth to her new dress.She scolded herself for her pridefulness, but when she and Rides the Wind attended the celebration,she could not contain her happiness at the admiring glances that came her way.Rides the Wind could not have said what made him prouder-the wife he believed to be beautiful or the brave son who had earned the name Soaring Eagle.

As a culture, we had no heroes. Certainly not any politician--Barack Obama was then the most admired man in America (and likely still is), but even when the country was enraptured by his rise, most Middletonians viewed him suspiciously. George W. Bush had few fans in 2008. Many loved Bill Clinton, but many more saw him as the symbol of American moral decay, and Ronald Reagan was long dead. We loved the military but had no George S. Patton figure in the modern army. I doubt my neighbors could even name a high-ranking military officer. The space program, long a source of pride, had gone the way of the dodo, and with it the celebrity astronauts. Nothing united us with the core fabric of American society. We felt trapped in unwinnable wars, in which a disproportionate share of the fighters came from our neighborhood, and in an economy that failed to deliver the most basic promise of the American dream--a steady wage.

I LOVE men. I understand and love the solid atmosphere that men spread. I understand and love their determination that makes them reach their goals so successfully. I love their courage to take risks and tackle things that scare me or what I don't have the mental or physical strength to do. I love their friendly tussles and their ability to meet problems with humor. I love their unspeakable gentleness, tenderness and care in dealing with the fragile. I love their strengths that they so generously give - and their weaknesses that give the opportunity to balance and give back to them. I love how “impossible” they are sometimes because it gives the opportunity to love unconditionally. I love their straightforwardness and their pride, and their wild passions as well as their shyness and humbleness when they realize life is calling them to grow. Men and women can complement each other perfectly and I celebrate that! I love manhood and I LOVE all my boys!

There are so many priests who enter triumphantly and walk up toward the altar, greeting people left and right, so as to appear sympathetic. Just look at the sad spectacle of some Eucharistic celebrations. ... Why so much frivolousness and worldliness at the moment of the Holy Sacrifice? Why so much profanation and superficiality, given the extraordinary priestly grace that renders us able to make the Body and Blood of Christ substantially present by the invocation of the Spirit? Why do some think that they are obliged to improvise or invent Eucharistic Prayers that conceal the sacred prayers in a wash of petty, human fervor? Are Christ's words insufficient, making it necessary to multiply merely human words? In such a unique and essential sacrifice, is there any need for such a display of imagination and subjective creativity? "In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words", Jesus warns us (Mt 6:7).

I pray that you must have peace within yourself. Have you seen yourself lately. You are always angry & busy fighting. You are fighting everything & fighting everyone. First you had valid good reasons why you should be fighting. Now you have excuses why you are fighting. I pray that you have peace within yourself. Its foreigners your fighting. After winning. It's racism war your fighting. After winning. It tribalism your fighting. After winning. Its culture vs religion war your fighting. After winning. Its gender war ,boys verses girls your fighting. After winning . Its girls against other girls (feminine war) & boys against other boys (muscular war) your fighting. After winning . Its your thoughts against your heart war your fighting. After winning . Its your feelings against spirituality war your fighting. After winning. its something else your fighting................ Money you have. Status you have. Job and friends you have. Pride and ego you have, but I pray you have peace. and I pray that you have inner peace. Some battles you fight them but the real war is within yourself.

What if we all stood equal in one another’s eyes and felt pride at our reflection? I speak of utopia and chance being ridiculed, but sitting in a village thousands of miles from everything, I will roll the dice. For one day only, maybe we could put aside our differences and come together in our sameness. For one day, we could see that past all the variations, we are all the same with similar hopes, dreams, fears, strengths, and weaknesses. For one day, we could stand together, not apart, and treat others as we would hope to be treated. History teaches us that day will never come. Our differences give us purpose—both good and bad. Some see it as an opportunity to strive for what they aren’t, while others take it to belittle those who frighten us. In the vein of my earlier appreciation for dancing, I would imagine a world where music defines us. The fall and rise of the tempo would dictate our moves, and our hearts and minds would sway to the beat. Each person would have a place on the stage, and every voice would be heard. The melodies would bridge our differences while celebrating our similarities. And at the end, we would be better for having danced together.

[L]et us imagine a mirror image of what is happening today. What if millions of white Americans were pouring across the border into Mexico, taking over parts of cities, speaking English rather than Spanish, celebrating the Fourth of July rather than Cinco de Mayo, sleeping 20 to a house, demanding bilingual instruction and welfare for immigrants, opposing border control, and demanding ballots in English? What if, besides this, they had high rates of crime, poverty, and illegitimacy? Can we imagine the Mexicans rejoicing in their newfound diversity? And yet, that is what Americans are asked to do. For whites to celebrate diversity is to celebrate their own declining numbers and influence, and the transformation of their society. For every other group, to celebrate diversity is to celebrate increasing numbers and influence. Which is a real celebration and which is self-deception? Whites—but only whites—must never take pride in their own people. Only whites must pretend they do not prefer to associate with people like themselves. Only whites must pretend to be happy to give up their neighborhoods, their institutions, and their country to people unlike themselves. Only whites must always act as individuals and never as members of a group that promotes shared interests. Racial identity comes naturally to all non-white groups. It comes naturally because it is good, normal, and healthy to feel kinship for people like oneself. Despite the fashionable view that race is a socially created illusion, race is a biological reality. All people of the same race are more closely related genetically than they are to anyone of a different race, and this helps explain racial solidarity. Families are close for the same reason. Parents love their children, not because they are the smartest, best-looking, most talented children on earth. They love them because they are genetically close to them. They love them because they are a family. Most people have similar feelings about race. Their race is the largest extended family to which they feel an instinctive kinship. Like members of a family, members of a race do not need objective reasons to prefer their own group; they prefer it because it is theirs (though they may well imagine themselves as having many fine, partly imaginary qualities). These mystic preferences need not imply hostility towards others. Parents may have great affection for the children of others, but their own children come first. Likewise, affection often crosses racial lines, but the deeper loyalties of most people are to their own group—their extended family.

Almost immediately after jazz musicians arrived in Paris, they began to gather in two of the city’s most important creative neighborhoods: Montmartre and Montparnasse, respectively the Right and Left Bank haunts of artists, intellectuals, poets, and musicians since the late nineteenth century. Performing in these high-profile and popular entertainment districts could give an advantage to jazz musicians because Parisians and tourists already knew to go there when they wanted to spend a night out on the town. As hubs of artistic imagination and experimentation, Montmartre and Montparnasse therefore attracted the kinds of audiences that might appreciate the new and thrilling sounds of jazz. For many listeners, these locations leant the music something of their own exciting aura, and the early success of jazz in Paris probably had at least as much to do with musicians playing there as did other factors. In spite of their similarities, however, by the 1920s these neighborhoods were on two very different paths, each representing competing visions of what France could become after the war. And the reactions to jazz in each place became important markers of the difference between the two areas and visions. Montmartre was legendary as the late-nineteenth-century capital of “bohemian Paris,” where French artists had gathered and cabaret songs had filled the air. In its heyday, Montmartre was one of the centers of popular entertainment, and its artists prided themselves on flying in the face of respectable middle-class values. But by the 1920s, Montmartre represented an established artistic tradition, not the challenge to bourgeois life that it had been at the fin de siècle. Entertainment culture was rapidly changing both in substance and style in the postwar era, and a desire for new sounds, including foreign music and exotic art, was quickly replacing the love for the cabarets’ French chansons. Jazz was not entirely to blame for such changes, of course. Commercial pressures, especially the rapidly growing tourist trade, eroded the popularity of old Montmartre cabarets, which were not always able to compete with the newer music halls and dance halls. Yet jazz bore much of the criticism from those who saw the changes in Montmartre as the death of French popular entertainment. Montparnasse, on the other hand, was the face of a modern Paris. It was the international crossroads where an ever changing mixture of people celebrated, rather than lamented, cosmopolitanism and exoticism in all its forms, especially in jazz bands. These different attitudes within the entertainment districts and their institutions reflected the impact of the broader trends at work in Paris—the influx of foreign populations, for example, or the advent of cars and electricity on city streets as indicators of modern technology—and the possible consequences for French culture. Jazz was at the confluence of these trends, and it became a convenient symbol for the struggle they represented.

Many other inhabitants of the city were similarly afflicted. Every day, more and more people took to saving time, and the more they did so, the more they were copied by others - even by those who had no real desire to join in but felt obligated to. Radio, television, and newspapers daily advertised and extolled the merits of new, time saving gadgets that would one day leave people free to live the 'right' kind of life. Walls and billboards were plastered with posters depicting scenes of happiness and prosperity. The real picture, however, was very different. Admittedly, timesavers were better dressed than the people who lived near the old amphitheater. They earned more money and had more to spend, but they looked tired, disgruntled and sour, and there was an unfriendly light in their eyes. They'd never heard the phrase, "Why not go and see Momo?' nor did they have anyone to listen to them in a way that would make them reasonable or conciliatory, let alone happy. Even had they known such a person, they would have been highly unlikely to pay him or her a visit unless the whole affair could be dealt with in five minutes flat, or they would have considered it a waste of time. In their view, even leisure time had to be used to the full, so as to extract the maximum of entertainment and relaxation with the minimum amount of delay. Whatever the occasion, whether solemn or joyous, timesavers could no longer celebrate it properly. Daydreaming they regarded almost as a criminal offense. What they could endure least of all, however, was silence, for when silence fell they became terrified by the realization of what was happening to their lives. And so, whenever silence threatened to descend, they made a noise. It wasn't a happy sound, of course, like the hubbub in a children's playground, but an angry ill tempered din that grew louder every day. It had ceased to matter that people should enjoy their work and take pride in it; on the contrary, enjoyment merely slowed them down. All that mattered was to get through as much work as possible in the shortest possible time, so notices to the effect were prominently displayed in every factory and office building. They read: TIME IS PRECIOUS - DON'T WASTE IT! or: TIME IS MONEY - SAVE IT! Last but not least, the appearance of the city itself changed more and more. Old buildings were pulled down and replaced with modern ones devoid of all the things that were now through superfluous. No architect troubled to design houses that suited the people who were to live in them, because that would have meant building a whole range of different houses. It was far cheaper, and above all, more time saving to make them identical. Huge modern housing developments sprang up on the city's outskirts - endless rows of multi-storied tenements as indistinguishable as peas in a pod. And because all the buildings looked alike, so of course, did the streets. [.....] People never seemed to notice that, by saving time, they were losing something else. No one cared to admit that life was becoming even poorer, bleaker, and more monotonous. The ones who felt this most keenly were the children, because no one had time for them any more. But time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. And the more people saved, the less they had.

I am the friendliest person in the world. I am the most enthusiastic person in the world. I am the most helpful person in the world. I will tell myself what I can do, not what I can't. I love to serve. I love to sell. I don't prejudge or put down anyone. I will take control of myself and my success. I will remember the good times as often as I can. I will ask for what I want. I will stick at it until I win, even if my ass falls off. Life may not be a blast right now, but look at all I've learned, and look where I can get with hard work. I will reinforce my decisions with positive thoughts, not negative second guesses. I will thank everyone for their help and never measure. I will ask before I tell. I will give with pride. I will be memorable. I will avoid arguments. I will not gripe or whine about my lot in life. Rather, I will celebrate all I have, all I love, and all I will learn. I will feel GREAT when I make a sale. I will earn more when I make the sale. I will celebrate my victories today. I am grateful for life and living. I will have a great time tomorrow. I will get over it in less than one minute and get back to enjoying life.

In order to discern whether something is worth that price, we must have a clear sense of what God is calling us to and what He is not; we also must trust that He’s working everything in our lives for good. This foundation gives us the clarity we need to align our decisions with the work that He’s already doing—even if that means saying no to good things. For me, this means seeking God through prayer, getting perspective from spiritual counselors, and identifying the clear signs of providence in my life, i.e., do minor details, opportunities, gifts, and timing seem to align, leading me toward a certain choice? I also ask myself the following questions: Does this opportunity fit my specific calling, or could anyone do it? Should someone else do it? Can I justify the time, effort, and energy? Is the exchange fair to everyone, especially to those who are closest to me? Do the people near me sense God calling me to this opportunity? Would I be disobedient to say no? Would I be saying yes for wrong reasons, like people pleasing, fear of missing out, greed, pride, or celebrity? Would I be saying no for wrong reasons, like laziness, insecurity, timidity, or fear of responsibility?

On January 8, 1959, Fidel made his grand entrance into Havana. With his son Fidelito at his side, he rode on top of a Sherman tank to Camp Columbia, where he gave the first of his long, rambling, difficult-to-endure speeches. It was broadcast on radio and television for the entire world to witness. For the Cubans it was what they had waited for! During the speech, smiling Castro asked Camilo Cienfuegos, “How am I doing?” and the catch phrase “Voy bien, Camilo” was born. The following Christmas the celebrations were exceptional and made up for the drab Christmas of 1958. There were great expectations on the part of the Cuban people, but most of these expectations would be shattered in the years to come. In the United States, people saw things differently. “Kangaroo trials” of Batista’s followers, ending with their executions, infuriated Americans who couldn’t believe what was happening on what they considered a happy island. Members of the U.S. Congress held formal hearings, interviewing exiled Cubans known as Batistianos. The result was that in the United States, people began to rally against Castro and in Cuba, people saw the United States as presumptuous and overbearing. Eisenhower treated Fidel with contempt and Nixon did not hide the fact that he disliked the Cuban leader. It was this combination of events that led Cuban-American relations into a diplomatic downhill spiral, from which the two countries have just now started to emerge. Without American backing, Cuba turned to Communism and looked to the Soviet Union for support. The results that followed should have been expected and were the consequences of American arrogance and Cuban misplaced pride.

Choose to consume technology ,but don’t be consumed by it. Most of us technology have already turned us into robots .We have no signs of being humans. We are heartless, We have no feelings, no shame, no remorse, no beliefs, no respect, no guilty conscious, no life, no sympathy, no care, no time , no morals, no culture, no religion , no faith. We don’t value others people. We cyber bully others and do disguising inhuman things for trends. Pride ourselves in destroying others lives, careers, education, relationship, marriage, future. The things we do for retweets, likes and comments are shocking. Choose to be a better human being than being a Bot.

The SS Deutschland was one of a group of four ships that included the SS Albert Ballin, on which my father had originally come to the United States. The other two were the SS Hamburg, and the SS New York. The Deutschland was launched during the Roaring Twenties on April 28, 1923, at the Blohm and Voss shipyard along the Elbe River in Hamburg. Nearly a year later after sea trials, she inaugurated her regular run to New York City. From the beginning, the ship was beset by problems, but was still considered the pride of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, a company with rich traditions that was founded in 1847. So, when the Deutschland left Hamburg for the first time on March 27, 1924, she moved slowly down the Elbe River past Blohm und Voss, the massive dockyard where she had been built. At the time of her maiden voyage, the entire city celebrated when the Deutschland headed down the Elbe River towards the North Sea. Other ships in the harbor fittingly saluted her by blowing their deep throaty whistles, as small craft such as tugboats and fireboats pumped frothy white streams of the brackish river water high into the air.

King Edmund of East Anglia is now remembered as a saint, as one of those blessed souls who live forever in the shadow of God. Or so the priests tell me. In heaven, they say, the saints occupy a privileged place, living on the high platform of God’s great hall where they spend their time singing God’s praises. Forever. Just singing. Beocca always told me that it would be an ecstatic existence, but to me it seems very dull. The Danes reckon their dead warriors are carried to Valhalla, the corpse hall of Odin, where they spend their days fighting and their nights feasting and swiving, and I dare not tell the priests that this seems a far better way to endure the afterlife than singing to the sound of golden harps. I once asked a bishop whether there were any women in heaven. “Of course there are, my lord,” he answered, happy that I was taking an interest in doctrine. “Many of the most blessed saints are women.” “I mean women we can hump, bishop.” He said he would pray for me. Perhaps he did.” ― Bernard Cornwell, The Last Kingdom 42 likes Like “The bards sing of love, they celebrate slaughter, they extol kings and flatter queens, but were I a poet I would write in praise of friendship.” ― Bernard Cornwell, The Winter King tags: friendship 40 likes Like “The preachers tell us that pride is a great sin, but the preachers are wrong. Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation... Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.” ― Bernard Cornwell, The Last Kingdom tags: preachers, pride, reputation, shield-wall 39 likes Like “I am no Christian. These days it does no good to confess that, for the bishops and abbots have too much influence and it is easier to pretend to a faith than to fight angry ideas. I was raised a Christian, but at ten years old, when I was taken into Ragnar’s family, I discovered the old Saxon gods who were also the gods of the Danes and of the Norsemen, and their worship has always made more sense to me than bowing down to a god who belongs to a country so far away that I have met no one who has ever been there. Thor and Odin walked our hills, slept in our valleys, loved our women and drank from our streams, and that makes them seem like neighbours. The other thing I like about our gods is that they are not obsessed with us. They have their own squabbles and love affairs and seem to ignore us much of the time, but the Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us. He makes rules, more rules, prohibitions and commandments, and he needs hundreds of black-robed priests and monks to make sure we obey those laws. He strikes me as a very grumpy god, that one, even though his priests are forever claiming that he loves us. I have never been so stupid as to think that Thor or Odin or Hoder loved me, though I hope at times they have thought me worthy of them.” ― Bernard Cornwell, Lords of the North

The city of New Orleans is also ironic. On a national scale, it consistently ranks first in both violent crime and in the number of city permits granted for public celebrations. It is a place that has known both slavery and brutal prejudice, and yet is vibrant with gays and transsexuals. It has been decimated, repeatedly, by plagues and battles and record-breaking storms and, rather than leave this place, the people of New Orleans instead take pride in the fact that the circumstances beset upon them are extraordinary and tragic. So, for anyone to act as if New Orleans is not the most interesting place in the world is, to a New Orleanian, uninteresting. For people to act as if New Orleans is anything other than its own planet, its own universe, is naïve.

First we devise the notion that this spec of cosmic gas and elements is the universe’s Disneyland. Then we further display our arrogance by declaring that this particular country on this spec of dust is beloved by some imaginary creator. We’re so engorged on national pride that we stop baseball games in the 7th inning just to sing a self-aggrandizing dirge celebrating how much the man in the sky loves us. We well up at songs, waving flags, and jets flying overhead spewing out red, white and blue smoke in a proud demonstration of patriotic flatulence. We get aroused over symbols but are too lazy or stupid to ponder the concepts they represent. Don

What would we do without our elders? Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles? They're the libraries and archives of our lives and society. Librarians and archives, like elders, reaffirm our sense of being, our purpose, and help inform who we are and how we interact within society. Who would we be to not take pride in them and take the time to make them as wonderful as possible? Rachel E. Winston

Soul food, it would seem, depends on an ineffable quality. It is a combination of nostalgia for and pride in the food of those who came before. In the manner of the Negro spiritual “How I Got Over,” soul food looks back at the past and celebrates a genuine taste palate while offering more than a nod to the history of disen-franchisement of blacks in the United States.

Motivate the Workforce. Have you identified each person’s “hot button” and focused on it? Do you work personal pride and shared purpose into most communications? Are you keeping your powder dry for those urgent moments when you may need it?   8. Embrace the Front Lines. Have you made your intent clear and empowered those around you to act? Do you regularly meet with those in direct contact with customers? Is everybody able to communicate their ideas and concerns to you?   9. Build Leadership in Others. Are all managers expected to build leadership among their subordinates? Does the company culture foster the effective exercise of leadership? Are leadership development opportunities available to most, if not all, managers? 10. Manage Relations. Is the hierarchy reduced to a minimum, and does bad news travel up? Are managers self-aware and empathetic? Are autocratic, egocentric, and irritable behaviors censured? 11. Identify Personal Implications. Do employees appreciate how the firm’s vision and strategy impact them individually? What private sacrifices will be necessary for achieving the common cause? How will the plan affect people’s personal livelihood and quality of work life? 12. Convey Your Character. Have you communicated your commitment to performance with integrity? Do those in the organization know you as a person, and do they appreciate your aspirations and your agendas? Have you been in the same room or at least on the same call with everybody who works with you during the past year? 13. Dampen Overoptimism and Excessive Pessimism. Have you prepared the organization for unlikely but extremely consequential events? Do you celebrate success but also guard against the by-products of excessive confidence? Have you paved the way not only for quarterly results but for long-term performance?

Scarce had the rubicund Apollo spread o’er the face of the broad spacious earth the golden threads of his bright hair, scarce had the little birds of painted plumage attuned their notes to hail with dulcet and mellifluous harmony the coming of the rosy Dawn, that, deserting the soft couch of her jealous spouse, was appearing to mortals at the gates and balconies of the Manchegan horizon, when the renowned knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, quitting the lazy down, mounted his celebrated steed Rocinante and began to traverse the ancient and famous Campo de Montiel;

Proud - Another thing that our generation is filled with is pride. I penned an entire chapter about the “pride” of the LGBT community in my previous book. Their pride is no different than that of Lucifer. Pride is rebellion against the LORD and His Will. To be proud is to be self-centered, and to take great pleasure in a certain aspect of your life - whether looks, accomplishments, or lifestyle. Your way is the right way, and you could care less what others have to say or for what God thinks. The LGBTQ movement is a perfect example of the pride of the devil, because in their proud attitude they actually celebrate their sin. They are more than happy to rebel against Almighty God, because they feel that they’re right and He’s wrong. A lot of them are well aware that His Word says the way they are living is morally wrong, but they just don’t care. As long as it makes them feel good, the opinion of their Creator takes a back seat. It’s about them, and only them. They remind me of Lucifer with his five “I”s. We read in Isaiah 14:12-14, he said, “I will... I will... I will... I will... I will...” He was so puffed up in pride that he even said he would “be like” God. The LORD rebuked him, and said, no... “you will be brought down to Hell.” We all know how things turned

Barbarism, thy name is Britain. In this day and age, if any societal structure is a revolting blot on the fabric of the democratic world, it's not Russia or North Korea, but the not-so-great Britain. The queen might have been a nice person, I don't know. But when a person is declared the supreme authority (head of state) of an entire people by birth, it's not something to take pride in, rather it's something to be ashamed of. Britain may mourn the death of the queen as a person, but no land deserves to be called civilized while mourning the death of a monarch. Let me put this into perspective. Almost every week a country celebrates independence from britain - if this doesn't tell you why the monarchy is the antithesis of everything that is civilized, nothing can. I wonder, they can throw a homeless man in jail for lifting a bread out of hunger, yet the empire walks free, even after raping, pillaging and looting from 90% of the world's countries! Where is the ICC (International Criminal Court) now, when one monarch after another sits on the throne, wielding the crown jewels encrusted with national treasures stolen from all over the globe!

The gay pride celebration is part of the USA culture.

How do you know if you’re part of a household? You are part of a household if there is someone who knows where you are today and who has at least some sense of how it feels to be where you are. You are part of a household if there is someone who moves more quietly when they know you are asleep. You are part of a household if someone would check on you if you did not awaken. You are part of a household if people know things about you that you do not know about yourself, including things that if you did know you would seek to hide. You are part of a household if others are close enough to see you and know you as well as, or better than, you know yourself. You are part of a household if you experience the conflict that is the inevitable companion of closeness—if someone else makes such demands on you that you sometimes fantasize about driving them out of your life. You are part of a household if you sometimes dream of running away, perhaps to a far country, so that you will not be so terribly well known. You are part of a household if your return from a long journey prompts a spontaneous celebration. You are part of a household if, when you avoid a party because of your anger, pride, guilt, or shame, someone notices and comes outside to plead with you to come in. This is the one thing we need more than any other: a community of recognition. While we must always insist that every human being is a person whether or not they are seen or treated as one by others, we also know that no human being can flourish as a person unless they are seen and treated as one. And for that, the household is the first and best place. We need a place where we cannot hide. We need a place where we cannot get lost. So much of the tragedy of the

Bloodline by Stewart Stafford Stuart Richards, 5,001st in line to the British throne, A distant cousin of the king but hitherto unknown, He dreamt of the crown and his fair queen's hand, But there was no baiting the hook unless he had a plan. He chose to eliminate the competition, stood before him, Through a dark celebration, they'd never know what hit them, He sent out invitations to the 5, 000 heirs, Promising vast feasting, with music and fanfare He built a fake house front with a door and a sign, That said: "Welcome to the party. Now, kindly form a line." Behind the door, there awaited a cliff face and a fall, A master of deception, his warm smile greeted them all. He stood at the front door with a charming bow, And, welcoming each guest, he said: "In you go now!" He watched them disappear as they stepped through the door, Counting steps to ascension, lemmings queued up for more. Backslapping himself, inner cackling at his scheme, Imagining himself as king - glory rained down, it seemed, But his Machiavellian plotting had a monstrous flaw, One thing he'd forgotten that greedy eyes never saw. The king was still alive, and he was not amused, He got wind of this plot and responded unconfused, He sent his guards to arrest him for sedition in a fury, They swept him off his feet, planting him before a jury. Put on trial for treason - the verdict was most guilty, Execution set, he had the neck to beg for mercy, But the king was not budging and barked: "Off with his head!" An Axeman's reverse coronation, he joined the fallen dead. Halting 2,986th in line to the British throne, A distant cousin of the king, headless spirit flown, In jealous craving, dispossessed as ruler of the land, Crowned pride came before a fallen plan. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

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

DisabilityPrideMonth isn't just a celebration; it's a jubilant parade of diversity, resilience, and jaw-dropping achievements from individuals who redefine what's possible every day. It's our time to tip our hats to their strengths, rally for inclusivity, and construct a world where everyone can dazzle. Let's shine a spotlight on their awe-inspiring stories, demolish the barriers holding them back, and sculpt a society where every talent is recognized and celebrated.

207, 2nd Floor, 3rd Main Rd, Chamrajpet, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560018 Call – +91 7022122121 VeeralokaBooks provides a diverse selection of books that capture the essence of this vibrant language and culture, serving as a beacon for those wishing to delve into the rich tapestry of Kannada literature. We discuss the significance of Kannada literature, VeeralokaBooks' diverse selection of genres and titles, the advantages of using this platform for your literary needs, and the simple ordering process in this article. Through VeeralokaBooks, come along with us on a journey to learn more about the richness and beauty of Kannada literature. Prologue to VeeralokaBooks VeeralokaBooks is your go-to objective for everything Kannada writing. VeeralokaBooks is a treasure trove for book lovers looking for authentic and diverse reading material. The company has a sincere desire to promote the richness of Kannada culture and language. Background of VeeralokaBooks VeeralokaBooks was established as a modest effort to connect Kannada readers with high-quality literature by a group of avid readers. VeeralokaBooks curates a hand-picked selection of Kannada books to satisfy every reader's preferences, ranging from traditional classics to contemporary bestsellers. VeeralokaBooks' mission and vision are to celebrate and protect the essence of Kannada literature. VeeralokaBooks strives to be a platform that honors the legacy of the Kannada language through its carefully curated collection, with the goal of inspiring a love of reading among Kannada-speaking communities worldwide. The Importance of Kannada Literature Because it reflects the customs, values, and philosophy of Karnataka, Kannada literature occupies a unique position in the cultural fabric of India. It is more important than just words on paper because it represents a legacy that has shaped generations of readers and writers. Cultural Importance Kannada literature not only enlightens, educates, and preserves Karnataka's rich cultural heritage, but it also entertains. Kannada literature reflects the society through its stories, poems, and plays, capturing the essence of Karnataka's traditions, beliefs, and goals. Linguistic Heritage The centuries-old Kannada language and literature represent the region's linguistic diversity and resilience. The fact that Kannada is one of the oldest Dravidian languages exemplifies the enduring spirit of its speakers and the value of storytelling in the preservation of heritage. A Wide Selection of Available Kannada Books VeeralokaBooks takes great pride in offering a wide selection of Kannada books that will please readers of all tastes. VeeralokaBooks has something for everyone, whether you like traditional tales or contemporary narratives, fiction or non-fiction. Selection of Fiction and Non-Fiction From gripping novels and insightful biographies to scholarly works and essays that provoke thought, VeeralokaBooks' collection spans genres so that readers can explore a wide range of Kannada literature topics and styles. Kannada books purchase VeeralokaBooks offers a mix of traditional and modern titles that encapsulate the evolution of the Kannada literary landscape, whether you're looking for the timeless charm of classical Kannada literature or the fresh perspectives of contemporary writers. Benefits of Kannada books purchase from VeeralokaBooks When you buy Kannada books from VeeralokaBooks, you not only get access to a high-quality selection of literature but also help preserve and promote the language and culture of Kannada. Quality Assurance VeeralokaBooks guarantees readers an enriching and satisfying reading experience with each purchase by ensuring that every book in its collection meets high quality standards, from content to printing. Supporting Local Authors and Publishers By purchasing Kannada books from VeeralokaBooks

207, 2nd Floor, 3rd Main Rd, Chamrajpet, Bengaluru, Karnataka-560018. +91 7022122121 Kannada books purchase is a beacon for fans of Kannada literature because it has a diverse selection of books that celebrate the Kannada language's beautiful language and rich cultural heritage. This article delves into the world of Veera Loka Books, looking at its mission, the significance of Kannada literature, the extensive selection of books available, the simple online purchase process, exciting promotions for book lovers, the effect of customer reviews, and the literary haven's plans for expansion. Join us on a journey through Veera Loka Books to understand the essence of Kannada literature. Introduction to Veera Loka Books About Veera Loka Books Veera Loka Books is a treasure trove for fans of Kannada literature that features a diverse selection of Kannada-language literary works. Veera Loka Books is a hub for book lovers looking for high-quality books, with a strong emphasis on promoting Kannada literature. Veera Loka Books' mission and vision are to preserve and promote Kannada culture and language through literature. Our goal is to make Kannada books available to readers all over the world and cultivate a deep appreciation for Karnataka's extensive literary heritage. The Cultural Significance of Kannada Literature Kannada literature is a vibrant reflection of Karnataka's rich cultural tapestry and highlights the language's beauty and diversity. It is essential to the preservation of the state's history and the development of a sense of pride among Kannadigas. Effect of Kannada Writing on Society Kannada writing has the ability to motivate, teach, and incite thought, molding cultural standards and values. It contributes to social change and progress by acting as a medium for expressing diverse viewpoints and challenging established ideologies. Wide Selection of Fiction and Non-Fiction Kannada Books Veera Loka Books offers a wide selection of Kannada books, from engaging fiction to instructive non-fiction. Our collection caters to all tastes and preferences, whether you're a fan of literary masterpieces or informative books. Themes and Genres Covered Veera Loka Books covers a wide range of Kannada literature, from gripping mysteries to historical epics that provoke thought. Our selection ensures that there is something for everyone, whether you are interested in science fiction, romance, or mythology. The Veera Loka Books website has user-friendly features that make browsing and searching for Kannada books a seamless experience. This makes the Kannada books purchase online purchase process as simple as possible. With just a few clicks, you can easily browse through our collection and filter by author or genre to find your next favorite book. Options for Ordering and Paying Veera Loka Books offers a variety of secure and convenient payment methods, making it easy to make a purchase. We guarantee a hassle-free transaction so you can enjoy your Kannada books without stress, regardless of whether you prefer credit card, debit card, or online payment gateways. Book Lovers' Discounts and Promotions Want to Save Money on Great Books? Veera Loka Books has your back with amazing deals and discounts that will make any bookworm happy. Deal Occasions and Extraordinary Offers From streak deals to occasional limits, Veera Loka Books knows how to get your perusing list arranged without begging to be spent. Keep an eye out for their exciting sales and special offers, which will have you buying Kannada gems quickly. Rewards and loyalty programs: Who doesn't like to be rewarded for being a loyal customer? With loyalty programs that make every purchase feel like a win, Veera Loka Books rewards bookworms. Just by being a part of the Veera Loka community, you'll get points, benefits, and even discounts only available to Veera Loka members.

COLOURS IN THE MIRROR One day my pride will outlive myself and whatever remains of its colours will be remembered by others - for I was always my true self. I live too little for things that make me dream & care too much for fears that sleep in between the fine lines of my weary mind - so write me gentle words, for it may break. My diversity should not be a mistake but a celebration of identity & guiding light to others who ache to leave the numbness of »pretending-to-be«. We are not broken mirrors that hurt the world by showing our true reflection; we are merely hearts used to rejection - yet, their words will only blur but not break our shine.

A Rare Commodity A man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor. PROVERBS 29:23 Humility isn’t a show we put on; in fact, if we think we’re humble, we’re probably not. And in our day of self-promotion, self-assertion, spotlighting “celebrities of the faith,” and magnifying the flesh, this quality—so greatly valued by the Lord Jesus—is a rare commodity indeed. . . . A truly humble person looks for opportunities to give himself freely to others rather than holding back, to release rather than hoarding, to build up rather than tearing down, to serve rather than being served, to learn from others rather than clamoring for the teaching stand. How blessed are those who learn this early in life. Hope Again

Cedar Capital Group Tokyo Review of Stats Shows Decrease in Mortality Rate in Construction Sites Cedar Capital Group in Tokyo Japan construction industry is one of the riskiest industries to work with. Not only do they have to deal with falling debris but workers also have to be aware of faulty wirings, defective equipment and weather warnings. Workers even sometimes have to lose their lives in the midst of construction. These circumstances are inevitable and precautions were already implemented even at the start of training. Yet, it cannot be denied that construction is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world today. Everywhere we go, we see buildings being built and establishments being constructed. We see new structures in developed nations. New York, America, Tokyo, Japan, Beijing, China and Seoul, South Korea are some of the leading cities which feature new construction projects almost everyday. Singapore is also not left behind. Considered as one of the most flourishing countries in the world, the little island-city has prided itself with new infrastructure projects and promise a thousand more to come. It came no surprise that the country’s journey towards urbanization was held liable for the deaths of hundreds of construction workers in the previous years. Just recently, though, Singapore has declared their concern on the number of fatalities there are in a construction project. If not of deaths, accidents resulting to fractures and minor and major injuries are also experienced in other neighboring countries. Cedar Capital Group in Tokyo Japan, one the distributor of heavy capital equipment in the country, reports to have dozens of death in the last 4 years of their operation. This, as they claim, is one of the reasons why there is a large scarcity in job application related to construction. Many companies are also faced with numerous complaints because of these deaths and injuries. According to further review, approximately one-quarter of the deaths result from exposure to hazardous substances which cause such disabling illnesses as cancer and cardiovascular, respiratory and nervous-system disorders. Analysts even warn that work-related diseases are expected to double by the year 2020 and that if improvements are not implemented now, exposures today will kill people by the year 2020. Surprisingly, though, while people are being troubled with the number of casualties in the construction sector, recent studies and statistics show fewer deaths in construction sector in the first half of the year. Specifically in Singapore, Manpower Ministry has announced only 8 death reports compared to the 17 deaths in 2014. Although this is not a reason to celebrate since there are still fatalities, Singapore’s Contractual Association stated that this is an improvement as it shows the effectiveness of the recent awareness programs and training seminars conducted across the island-city. The country aims to clear all fatalities for the next succeeding years.

Imagine That! As Manager of Entertainment Staffing, Gene Columbus knew how to create the kind of special events Disney does so well. But there was one event that stands out for him: “There are so many special events and productions to be proud of, but the one that sticks out in my mind was the twenty-fifth anniversary of Special Olympics. We kept adjusting the scope of the event so Disney could provide more experiences to the families attending the event, and as the producer I had to keep adjusting and working with my operational partners to find ways to reduce costs. Everyone worked hard to make it happen and I am sure many of those people share how proud they are for pulling this event off in such a grand scale with a small budget. As part of the program there was a drawing to select the Special Olympian to carry the torch to light the cauldron on stage, and this was done only hours before the big celebration. When the young man arrived at America Gardens stage in Epcot he was in a wheelchair, and as I briefed him he was very clear that he would not use his chair but would walk to the stage carrying the torch. I was so taken with this young man and his determination, and when that moment came he proudly stood up and began walking toward the stage. The audience jumped to their feet and you could see the joint emotion of the young man and this large audience. About halfway, it became apparent that he was having difficulties and was not going to make it, but his father came out of nowhere and grabbed his son before he fell and helped him to the stage. He did not take the torch as his son continued on his quest to light the cauldron. The moment the flame burned brightly the young man turned to the audience, with his father stepping backward to ensure the glory was for his son, and the brilliance of this young man’s smile and pride shined as brightly as the flame. I admit that tears were rolling down my cheek and each time I see the America Garden stage I have a flash of that very magical moment.

Saul blurted out, “Whose son are you, again?” Saul remembered that he had publicly promised to bestow great riches and honor on the family of the victorious warrior, as well as his daughter in marriage. But David was of such humble origins that Saul never could remember his father’s name. David said, “I am the son of your servant, Jesse, the Bethlehemite.” He was used to Saul’s bad memory, and had often joked with Jonathan about it. Saul said, “And which one is he again? He will be sad to know that you will not be returning to his house. For you, my gibborim, will be the new captain of my bodyguard.” In this moment, everyone knew that Yahweh had performed a miracle. But it was more than a miracle, it was an unveiling. More than a few persons now suspected the true reason for David’s anointing by Samuel; that the messiah of Israel had been revealed. Among them were Jonathan, Saul—and Nimrod. “Send the emissaries to disarm the Philistines,” said Saul. “We have a victory to celebrate.” He placed his hand on David’s shoulder and looked at him with pride. He was elated, and free of his fear and muddled thinking. The dark counselor had temporarily left him again.

As two former empires, both with distinct identities and a strong sense of national pride, there is an island mentality in Iran that feels strangely familiar, a perverse pleasure to be found in going it alone, not being bossed around. Neither nation is particularly comfortable with the idea of mucking in with its neighbours – Britain with its scepticism towards Europe and inflated sense of importance in the world; Iran, an island of Shi-ite Muslims surrounded by Sunnis, geographically in the Middle East but definitely not Arabs – always, defiantly, neither East nor West. But there were gentler similarities too; an appreciation of the absurd and a sense of humour that celebrates the subversive and the silly, a love of the outdoors and an illustrious history of mountaineering and climbing, the national penchant for picnics and a profound appreciation of nature. Even the strange formalised politeness of ta’arof reminded me of our own British rituals of insistence and refusal when passing through a doorway or our habit of apologising when bumped into by a stranger. And, of course, our mutual inability to do anything without a cup of tea.

But does contemptus mean 'contempt,' dear? Of course not. That would imply arrogance, superiority, pride. So much that we call worldly is actually just flawed or being seen through a cracked lens. Imperfect or imperfectly understood. Who are we to judge as contemptible a thing or person whose existence God sustains? Everything, however imperfect, has its purpose. No, Tony dear, contemptus mundi means 'detachment from the world,' seeing the world sub specie aeternitatis. Enduring or celebrating it, but never forgetting—even when it seems perfect and forever—that as the Bible says: 'all this shall pass like grass before the wind.

He likes reading," his parents had told their friends in the same awed tones they might have used to announce he'd been awarded the Victoria Cross. Peter did like reading. He'd read his way through the entire children's section of the Kilburn Library bu the time he was eight, a feat that might have been a source of pride and celebration but for the problem posed by his still being years off acquiring the coveted adult borrowing card. Thank God for Miss Talbot, who'd bitten her lip and straightened the library name badge on her lemon cardigan, and told him-a faint quiver of purpose enlivening her usually soft, smooth voice-that she would personally ensure he never ran out of things to read. She was a magician, as far as Peter was concerned. Decipherer of secret codes, master of index cards and Dewey decimal, opener of doors to wonderful places. Those afternoons in the library, breathing the stale sun-warmed dust of a thousand stories (accented by the collective mildew of a hundred years of rising damp), had been enchanted.

Find your uniqueness and embrace it with pride.

But it isn’t the fun of DIY invention, urban exploration, physical danger, and civil disorder that the Z-Boys enjoyed in 1976. It is fun within serious limits, and for all of its thrills it is (by contrast) scripted. And rather obedient. The fact that there are public skateparks and high-performance skateboards signals progress: America has embraced this sport, as it did bicycles in the nineteenth century. Towns want to make skating safe and acceptable. The economy has more opportunity to grow. America is better off for all of this. Yet such government and commercial intervention in a sport that was born of radical liberty means that the fun itself has changed; it has become mediated. For the skaters who take pride in their flashy store-bought equipment have already missed the Z-Boys’ joke: Skating is a guerrilla activity. It’s the fun of beating, not supporting, the system. P. T. Barnum said it himself: all of business is humbug. How else could business turn a profit, if it didn’t trick you with advertising? If it didn’t hook you with its product? This particular brand of humbug was perfected in the late 1960s, when merchandise was developed and marketed and sold to make Americans feel like rebels. Now, as then, customers always pay for this privilege, and purveyors keep it safe (and generally clean) to curb their liability. They can’t afford customers taking real risks. Plus it’s bad for business to encourage real rebellion. And yet, marketers know Americans love fun—they have known this for centuries. And they know that Americans, especially kids, crave autonomy and participation, so they simulate the DIY experience at franchises like the Build-A-Bear “workshops,” where kids construct teddy bears from limited options, or “DIY” restaurants, where customers pay to grill their own steaks, fry their own pancakes, make their own Bloody Marys. These pay-to-play stores and restaurants are, in a sense, more active, more “fun,” than their traditional competition: that’s their big selling point. But in both cases (as Barnum knew) the joke is still on you: the personalized bear is a standardized mishmash, the personalized food is often inedible. As Las Vegas knows, the house always wins. In the history of radical American fun, pleasure comes from resistance, risk, and participation—the same virtues celebrated in the “Port Huron Statement” and the Digger Papers, in the flapper’s slang and the Pinkster Ode. In the history of commercial amusement, most pleasures for sale are by necessity passive. They curtail creativity and they limit participation (as they do, say, in a laser-tag arena) to a narrow range of calculated surprises, often amplified by dazzling technology. To this extent, TV and computer screens, from the tiny to the colossal, have become the scourge of American fun. The ubiquity of TV screens in public spaces (even in taxicabs and elevators) shows that such viewing isn’t amusement at all but rather an aggressive, ubiquitous distraction. Although a punky insurgency of heedless satire has stung the airwaves in recent decades—from equal-opportunity offenders like The Simpsons and South Park to Comedy Central’s rabble-rousing pundits, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert—the prevailing “fun” of commercial amusement puts minimal demands on citizens, besides their time and money. TV’s inherent ease seems to be its appeal, but it also sends a sobering, Jumbotron-sized message about the health of the public sphere.

Standing up on the deck just a minute ago, I realized why men and women who have been to war yearn to reunite. Not to tell stories or look at old pictures. Not to laugh or weep. Comrades gather because we long to be with those who once acted their best, who suffered and sacrificed, who were stripped raw, right down to their humanity. I didn’t pick you. You were delivered here by fate. But I know you in a way I know no other. I have never given anyone such trust. As long as I have memory I will think of you all every day and I’m sure that when I leave this world, my last thought will be of you, my family.” A chorus of shouts went up and glasses and bottles were raised high. I tossed down the rum and it seemed to ignite a fire in me. “That’s more words than I’ve ever heard you say at one time,” Stockwell said as he poured me another. “Hi Travis. Is this fine Navy rum of your doing?” “Deuce told me how you sea faring types liked to celebrate, so I thought I’d do what I could to help. Have a nice nap?” “You must be getting old,” a

They who shared none of my defeats should take no pride in celebrating my successes.

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I am not a cheerleader nor do I celebrate mediocrity.  Neither should you.  You are your own motivator.  Expect more from yourself.  I laid out my plan, what I do to improve.  Now all it takes is you to apply yourself and your blood, sweat, and vomit just like any other athlete who you ever looked up to has.  No one will do it for you and you will not improve just because you think you deserve it.  No worthy accomplishment is easy.  Make a choice and make a stand that there are no more excuses for not getting better.  Train in the heat, cold, rain or whatever the conditions may be.  Take responsibility for your actions.  If you fail, it is your fault.  If you succeed then it is because you did it.  Take pride in that.  Earn it.

Needing attention is a p-p-powerful force in the world, isn't it?" "Absolutely. Most people would think of it as a very natural need. Almost a right." "By 'natural' you mean 'm-m-morally neutral'?" "Touché." "Without God, people find it very hard to know who they are or why they exist. But if others pay attention to them, praise them, write about them, discuss them, they think they've found the answers to both questions." "If they don't believe in God, you can't blame them." "True, dear. But it still makes for an empty, unhappy person." ... "Are you saying, Father Joe, that in the matter of motives, or even morally, there's not ultimately much difference between me and my targets?" "I'm afraid not, dear. If the result is that you only have a personality other people shape. If you really exist only in other people's minds." "I think you've just described celebrity." "I've just described pride, dear.