Champion Celebration Quotes

Not long ago, the city patrols would have arrested him on sight. Now, he’s leaving the Republic as their champion, to be celebrated and remembered for a lifetime.

I don't know where this pressure came from. I can't blame my parents because it has always felt internal. Like any other parent, my mother celebrated the A grades and the less-than-A grades she felt there was no need to tell anybody about. But not acknowledging the effort that ended in a less than perfect result impacted me as a child. If I didn't win, then we wouldn't tell anyone that I had even competed to save us the embarrassment of acknowledging that someone else was better. Keeping the secret made me think that losing was something to be ashamed of, and that unless I was sure I was going to be the champion there was no point in trying. And there was certainly no point to just having fun.

He was some sort of boxing champion," she told me the night she took me out to celebrate my graduation. "He was always punching someone in the nose." "Macho," I said. "No," she said. "It was the clarity of expression that appealed to him.

As royalty, celebrities and the rich have always known, a smile is the most subtle and satisfying way of shitting on the inferior.

Today’s champions of globalization are so busy celebrating the wondrous wealth and the charming artifacts of food and music produced by international interchange that they have little time for the plight of the invisible underclass that helps make it happen.

There were two monsters sharing this planet with us when I was a boy, however, and I celebrate their extinction today. They were determined to kill us, or at least to make our lives meaningless. They came close to success. They were cruel adversaries, which my little friends the beavers were not. Lions? No. Tigers? No. Lions and tigers snoozed most of the time. The monsters I will name never snoozed. They inhabited our heads. They were the arbitrary lusts for gold, and, God help us, for a glimpse of a little girl’s underpants.

Celebrities, champions, the rich and powerful would not exist in your reality if they didn't have inferior people to compare themselves to.

It is better to be a king in the jungle and be celebrated than to be an unknown champion where you’d not be afforded the kind of respect you deserve.

A champion understands that it’s fine to savor an experience when it’s positive, to remember it, to celebrate it.

Join Us, We Will Train You, We Will Make You a Champion, We Will Celebrate You, University of Dr.PSJKumar

He had a point. The planet was being destroyed by manufacturing processes, and what was being manufactured was lousy, by and large. Then Trout made a good point, too. 'Well,' he said, 'I used to be a conservationist. I used to weep and wail about people shooting bald eagles with automatic shotguns from helicopters and all that, but I gave it up. There's a river in Cleveland which is so polluted that it catches fire about once a year. That used to make me sick, but I laugh about it now. When some tanker accidentally dumps its load in the ocean and kills millions of birds and billions of fish, I say, 'More power to Standard Oil' or whoever it was that dumped it.' Trout raised his arms in celebration. 'Up your ass with Mobil gas,' he said... 'I realized,' said Trout, 'that God wasn't any conservationist, so for anybody else to be one was sacrilegious and a waste of time. You ever see one of His volcanoes or tornadoes or tidal waves? Anybody ever tell you about the Ice Ages he arranges for every half-million years? How about Dutch Elm disease? There's a nice conservation measure for you. That's God, not man. Just about the time we got our rivers cleaned up, he'd probably have the whole galaxy go up like a celluloid collar...

and leader? It was the worst time of Neymar Jr’s young life, but he put on a brave face. He had to stay positive, for the sake of the nation. ‘It’s a very difficult time for me,’ he told the fans in a video, ‘but the dream is not over yet. I’m confident that my teammates will win and become champions. We, the Brazilian people, will be celebrating soon!

Through middle and high school, I was the undefeated national debate champion. The bullies left me alone, not for fear of my growing physical threat, but for fear that my words might tear their heart to ribbons. I found weaknesses in their sensibilities as simply as feeling for space between ribs, and then I'd slide silver-tongued daggers into the tender flesh of their self-esteem.

win. I thought the bureaucrats who had overseen the Emergency Rental Assistance program deserved a parade. They had to settle for scattered applause. When the ERA program was sputtering in the unsteady early days, it seemed that everyone was writing and tweeting about it. Later, when the rollout was working, it was ignored. Because journalists and pundits and social influencers did not celebrate the program, ERA garnered few champions in Washington. Elected leaders learned that they could direct serious federal resources to fighting evictions, make a real dent in the problem, and reap little credit for it. So, the Emergency Rental Assistance program became a temporary program, and we returned to normal, to a society where seven eviction filings are issued every minute.[31] Imagine if we had met the results of the ERA program with loud cheers. Imagine if we had taken to social media and gushed over what a difference it had made. Imagine if newspapers had run headlines that read, “Biden Administration Passes Most Important Eviction Prevention Measure in American History.” Imagine if we’d worked together to ensure that the low eviction regime established during the pandemic became the new normal. But we chose to shrug instead. Poor renters in the future will pay for this, as will the Democratic Party, incessantly blamed for having a “messaging problem” when perhaps the matter is that liberals have a despondency problem: fluent in the language of grievance and bumbling in the language of repair. Meaningful, tangible change had arrived, and we couldn’t see it. When we refuse to recognize what works, we risk swallowing the lie that nothing does.

And I *know* I wrote in the above that I hate biographies and reviews that focus on the psychological, surface detail, especially when they pertain to women writers, because I think it’s really about the cult of the personality, which is essentially problematic, and I think simplistically psychologizing which biographies are so wont to do is really problematic, and dangerous, especially when dealing with complicated women who just by being writers at a certain time and age were labelled as nonconformist, or worse, hysterical or ill or crazy, and I think branding these women as femme fatales is all so often done. And I know in a way I’m contributing to this by posting their bad-ass photos, except hopefully I am humanizing them and thinking of them as complicated selves and intellects AND CELEBRATING THEM AS WRITERS as opposed to straight-up objectifying. One particular review long ago in Poetry that really got my goat was when Brian Phillips used Gertrude Stein’s line about Djuna Barnes having nice ankles as an opener in a review of her poetry, and to my mind it was meant to be entirely dismissive, as of course, Stein was being as well. Stein was many important revolutionary things to literature, but a champion of her fellow women writers she was not. They published my letter, but then let the guy write a reply and scurry to the library and actually read Nightwood, one of my all-time, all-times, and Francis Bacon’s too, there’s another anecdote. And it’s burned in my brain his response, which was as dismissive and bourgeois as the review. I don’t remember the exact wordage, but he concluded by summing up that Djuna Barnes was a minor writer. Well, fuck a duck, as Henry Miller would say. And that is how the canon gets made.

BLACK WINGS At the same Olympics, staged by Hitler to consecrate the superiority of his race, the star that shone brightest was black, a grandson of slaves, born in Alabama. Hitler had no choice but to swallow the bitter pill, four of them actually: the four gold medals that Jesse Owens won in sprinting and long jump. The entire world celebrated those victories of democracy over racism. When the champion returned home, he received no congratulations from the president, nor was he invited to the White House. He returned to the usual: he boarded buses by the back door, ate in restaurants for Negroes, used bathrooms for Negroes, stayed in hotels for Negroes. For years, he earned a living running for money. Before the start of baseball games he would entertain the crowd by racing against horses, dogs, cars, or motorcycles. Later on, when his legs were no longer what they had been, Owens took to the lecture circuit. He did pretty well there, praising the virtues of religion, family, and country.

We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly-spawning class of human beings who should never have been born at all.1 —Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization In 2009, Hillary Clinton came to Houston, Texas, to receive the Margaret Sanger award from Planned Parenthood. Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood and the award is its highest prize. In receiving the award, Hillary said of Sanger, “I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision. I am really in awe of her. There are a lot of lessons we can learn from her life and the cause she launched and fought for and sacrificed so greatly.”2 What was Margaret Sanger’s vision? What was the cause to which she devoted her life? Sanger is known as a champion of birth control, of providing women with the means to avoid unwanted pregnancies. But the real Margaret Sanger was very different from how she’s portrayed in Planned Parenthood brochures. The real Margaret Sanger did not want women in general to limit their pregnancies. She wanted white, wealthy, educated women to have more children, and poor, uneducated, black women to have none. “Unwanted” for Sanger didn’t mean unwanted by the mother—it meant unwanted by Sanger. Sanger’s influence contributed to the infamous Tuskegee experiments in which poor blacks were deliberately injected with syphilis without their knowledge. Today the Tuskegee Project is falsely portrayed as an example of southern backwardness and American bigotry; in fact, it was a progressive scheme carried out with the very eugenic goals that Margaret Sanger herself championed. In 1926, Sanger spoke to a Women’s Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey about her solution for reducing the black birthrate. She also sponsored a Negro Project specifically designed, in her vocabulary, to get rid of “human beings who should never have been born.” In one of her letters Sanger said, “We do not want word to get out that we are trying to exterminate the Negro population.”3 The racists loved it; other KKK speaking invitations followed. Now it may seem odd that a woman with such views would be embraced by Planned Parenthood—even odder that she would be a role model for Hillary Clinton. Why would they celebrate Sanger given her racist philosophy? In

As a country, as a people, have we changed? On the surface we might appear to have done so, but underneath I think we are still the same. Our change is measurable, but not significant. We remain bent on destroying ourselves. We still kill each other with alarming frequency and for foolish reasons, and we begin the killing at a younger age. We have much to celebrate, but we live in fear and doubt. We are pessimistic about our own lives and the lives of our children. We trust almost no one. “It is the same everywhere. We are a people under siege, walled away from each other and the world, trying to find a safe path through the debris of hate and rage that collects around us. We drive our cars as if they were weapons. We use our children and our friends as if their love and trust were expendable and meaningless. We think of ourselves first and others second. We lie and cheat and steal in little ways, thinking it unimportant, justifying it by telling ourselves that others do it, so it doesn’t matter if we do it, too. We have no patience with the mistakes of others. We have no empathy for their despair. We have no compassion for their misery. Those who roam the streets are not our concern; they are examples of failure and an embarrassment to us. It is best to ignore them. If they are homeless, it is their own fault. They give us nothing but trouble. If they die, at least they will provide us with more space to breathe.” His smile was bitter. “Our war continues, the war we fight with one another, the war we wage against ourselves. It has its champions, good and bad, and sometimes one or the other has the stronger hand. Our place in this war is often defined for us. It is defined for many because they are powerless to choose. They are homeless or destitute. They are a minority of sex or race or religion. They are poor or disenfranchised. They are abused or disabled, physically or mentally, and they have forgotten or never learned how to stand up for themselves.

Understanding Metro's history may illuminate today's debates. To conservatives who decry Metro's expense--around $10 billion in nominal dollars--this book serves as a reminder that Metro was never intended to be the cheapest solution to any problem, and that it is the product of an age that did not always regard cheapness as an essential attribute of good government. To those who celebrate automobile commuting as the rational choice of free Americans, it replies that some Americans have made other choices, based on their understanding that building great cities is more important than minimizing average commuting time. This book may also answer radicals who believe that public funds should primarily--or exclusively--serve the poor, which in the context of transportation means providing bus and rail transit for the carless while leaving the middle class to drive. It suggests that Metro has done more for inner-city African Americans than is generally understood. And to those hostile to public mega-projects as a matter of principle, it responds that it may take a mega-project to kill a mega-project. Had activists merely opposed freeways, they might as well have been dismissed as cranks by politicians and technical experts alike. By championing rapid transit as an equally bold alternative, they won allies, and, ultimately, victory. Most important, this book recalls the belief of Great Society liberals that public investments should serve all classes and all races, rather than functioning as a last resort. These liberals believed, with Abraham Lincoln, that 'the legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves--in their separate, and individual capacities.' This approach justifies the government's role in rail not as a means of distributing wealth, but as an agent for purchasing rapid transit--a good that people collectively want but cannot collectively buy through a market.

The success of Liverpool Football Club is no one-man affair. We are a team. We are a working-class team! We have no room for individuals. No room for stars. For fancy footballers or for celebrities. We are workers. A team of workers. A team of workers on the pitch and a team of workers off the pitch. On the pitch and off the pitch. Every man in our organisation, every man in our team. He knows the importance of looking after the small things, he knows how the small things add up to the important things. From the chairman to the groundsman, every man is a cog has functioned perfectly. In the team. Every man has given one hundred per cent. For the team. And so the team has won. The team are champions, a team of champions. We are all a team of champions! We are all a team.

Just because it’s all he’s capable of doesn’t mean it’s enough for you, and just because he gives what he’s capable of doesn’t make him great. This is exaggeration of the worst kind and it will set you up for a fall. Ever seen someone settle? It’s because they decide that something is better than nothing, but that something may be very insubstantial. It’s like you’re saying “Wow! Look at how much of a limited contribution is coming from a limited man!”, which is like celebrating the obvious and championing mediocrity.

I have realized in Every struggle to achieve A good thing in life, You'll meet opposition. Don't be daunted, Stay determined and focussed And somehow you'd get To your destination. Obstructions are only Artificial walls that Are hammered down By your doggedness. You have to prove You have resilience Before you finally Can cruise to success. And don't be surprised That success brings Everyone wanting To hop into your bus – They would hug, hail And cheer; everyone would Celebrate you, of course. Everything you do, Do it well and this Would bring you every Single friend and fan. In everyone is the streak of A champion: we step out With our talent to further Our fabulous plan.

Have you ever wished to be a celebrity? Or how about an athletic champion? Did you ever fantasize about being wealthy, famous, powerful, or superior to other people in any way? The desire to put yourself above others is the root of all evil.

When Donald Trump's crude comments about women surfaced during his presidential campaign, these progressive university folk were among the first to criticize him. The same people who tell their students anything goes when it comes to sex acted offended in order to score political points. I'm not defending his comments--not at all--but since when did they care about the adverse [e]ffects of objectifying women? Why should Trump's comments come as a surprise when many of those same professors champion "sex weeks" on their respective campuses, replete with seminars that include porn stars and even prostitutes as guest speakers? Doesn't the feigned shock expressed by the progressive Left seem just a bit disingenuous when we know as empirical fact this same faculty has no compunction at all about using similar vulgar language in their classes and would quickly belittle and shout down any "prudish" conservative such as me who tried to say otherwise? Everything, from their celebration of The Vagina Monologues to the cover of Cosmo to the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated and nearly every beer commercial known to man, unapologetically portrays females as literal objects of sport to be enjoyed first and foremost for their body parts. So why the feigned outrage over Trump's comments?

While Margaret Sanger was an avid eugenicist, today Planned Parenthood celebrates her as a champion of “choice.” One is hard pressed to find references to eugenics in Planned Parenthood brochures featuring Sanger’s pioneering role in the organization. This is all part of the big lie; the real Sanger opposed choice. As we have seen, she demanded that rich, educated, and “fit” populations must have more children and poor, uneducated, and “unfit” populations must have fewer children. Sanger, like Hitler, believed that reproductive choices must serve the larger interests of society and the species. If

What I know in my soul is that the prejudice, inequality, and broken systems that do exist are wrong and dangerous. As Americans, they anger and shame so many of us. Personally, I can’t just sit on a couch and watch the news, or run a company, while society erupts, or walk into some form of retirement and be still. On the sidelines is not where most of us want to be. We must see beyond what’s in front of us. We must reimagine the promise of America. How? By using empathy to try to understand, raising our voices to condemn darkness, and casting our votes to choose the kind of leadership we want our grandchildren to grow up with. But we must also use our hard skills and resources to craft a better reality for ourselves, our neighbors and those with whom we share this land. We can protest but also plan. Search for the truth and share it broadly. Listen to others, and blend ideas. Criticize, but also create. It’s time to commit to a deeper level of shared accountability—to neighbor as well as to stranger, and to self. Americans will always have differences, because that is the nature of the republic we have created. But we owe our children a less divisive America, just as many of our parents fought for a less divided country than the one they inherited. It is time for all of us to elevate the best of ourselves. It is time to climb, and to reclaim the high ground. To do so we must make a choice, one that we have made before. It is a choice between renewal or decline. Our country has a history of renewal at moments when we’ve faced decline, but we also know that renewing our nation’s honor is not a forgone conclusion. The future is not going to bend toward America because we’re American. We’re going to have to bend it ourselves, nudge it, move it. At every turn, let us choose to replace meanness with kindness; pettiness with significance; hate with love; gridlock with compromise; complaints with creative solutions. As a nation, we must be tough but not at the expense of one another. So let us also champion and celebrate those with strength of character—the upstanders among us—because there are so many whose daily intentions and actions echo the heroism of the past, who strive for honesty in the present, and who are already reimagining the promise of America, and will do so for years to come. Above all, let us choose to believe in each other because now and always—we are in this together.

If you are a power broker and have reached a certain level of prominence in our society, you should be using your influence and platform to champion public service and advocacy efforts in your community.

person anywhere in Europe would have had a solid grounding in the classics. Certainly the coiner of addict did. Is it an exaggeration to say that Latin and Greek were known quantities in households with more books than a lone family bible? Probably, but if a member of such a household completed any kind of undergraduate or postgraduate work, there would have been significant accumulated exposure to the classical languages, and the cultures they represented, and their stories, their myths and their legends. Obviously old Gabriel Fallopius knew all that stuff. Certainly Friedrich Sertürner knew all about the Greek god of dreams. (And was probably ready to argue for forty-five minutes why it was indeed dreams, not sleep.) In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, anyone educated in Germany as a pharmacist would have known that kind of thing. Which meant Felix Hoffmann did, too. So why did he call it heroin? Even before I learned it was so, I always vaguely assumed ‘hero’ was ancient Greek. It just sounded right. I further vaguely assumed even in modern times the word might signify something complicated, central and still marginally relevant in today’s Greek heritage. Naively I assumed I was proved right, the first time I came to New York, in 1974. I ate in Greek diners with grand and legacy-heavy names like Parthenon and Acropolis, and from Greek corner delis, some of which had no name at all, but every single establishment had ‘hero sandwiches’ on the menu. This was partly simple respect for tradition, I thought, like the blue-and-white take-away coffee cups, and also perhaps a cultural imperative, a ritual genuflection, but probably most of all marketing, as if to say, eat this mighty meal and you too could be a legend celebrated for millennia. Like Wheaties, the breakfast of champions. But no. ‘Hero’ was a simple phonetic spelling in English of the Greek word ‘gyro’. It was how New Yorkers said it. A hero sandwich was a gyro sandwich, filled with street-meat thinly carved from a large wad that rotated slowly against a source of heat. Like the kebab shops we got in Britain a few years later. Central to modern culture, perhaps, but not to ancient heritage. Even

The CrossFit community celebrates strong women and powerful performances, helping to reinforce a new paradigm in which being a strong woman is inspiring and impressive. It’s become popular to be capable in your own body.

Reconciliation is not a magic word that we can trot out whenever we need healing or inspiration. Deep down, I think we know this is true, because our efforts to partake of an easy reconciliation have proved fruitless in the world. Too often, our discussions of race are emotional but not strategic, our outreach work remains paternalistic, and our ethnic celebrations fetishize people of color. Many champions of racial justice in the Church has stopped using the term altogether, because it has been so watered down from its original potency. In their book Radical Reconciliation, Curtiss DeYoung and Allan Boesak unpack why this happens. They write, "reconciliation is revolutionary, that is, oriented to structural change." Which means, reconciliation can never be apolitical. Reconciliation chooses sides, and the side is always justice. This is why white American churches remain so far from experiencing anything resembling reconciliation. The white Church considers power its birthright rather than its curse. And so, rather than seeking reconciliation, they stage moments of racial harmony that don't challenge the status quo. They organize worship services where the choir of two racially different churches sing together, where a pastor of a different race preaches a couple times a year, where they celebrate MLK but don't acknowledge current racial injustices. Acts like these can create beautiful moments of harmony and goodwill, but since they don't change the underlying power structure of the organization, it would be misleading to call them acts of reconciliation. Even worse, when they're not paired with greater change, diversity efforts can have the opposite of their intended effect. They keep the church feeling good, innocent, maybe even progressive, allt he while preserving the roots of injustice.

Meanwhile, biological men in women’s clothing have increasingly encroached on celebrity, sports, and politics. TIME magazine’s “Woman of the Year” Caitlyn Jenner, the first “female” four-star admiral in the Commissioned Corps Rachel Levine and the NCAA “female” swimming champion Lia Thomas are all lauded as examples of female achievement, despite their radically distinct hormonal baselines, higher testosterone levels, and greater physical strength, especially in the upper body.

The only Hitler of Germany was one who adopted the way of atrocities and cruelties for a limited period; he was evil-minded, whereas every leader of Israel was and is characteristically similar to Hitler for several decades of victimising; despite that, they are not evil characters. The Western states eliminated Hitler, but those countries supported and perpetuated the leaders of Israel, and still, they remain on such distinctive policies; it is the worst hypocrisy in human history. Virtually, it will be a self-suicidal move of the Muslim world, especially the Arab States, as religiously, politically, morally, and principally, to recognize Israel, ignoring the Palestinians, in the presence of the United Nations resolutions. Indeed, Israel exists; however, it is an unreal reality as the concept and context of the real validity of Palestinians. Factually, recognition of Israel by the Muslim States and Arab dictators means a license of hegemony, allowing Israel to dominate the Muslim world. The Muslims of the world absolutely will never agree with it and dismiss such a move of Arab dictators. The tiny democracy of the world, Israel seems as an authority upon the United Nations since it does what it wants. Israel is not afraid nor frightened; its state is just the warmonger and the hate-sponsor within humanity. Israel is the creation of the West, supported by the West, and licensed to kill by the West; the Muslim rulers expect a fruitful solution from them; I realize it is an endless stupidity. Spirit of Palestine *** If you do not understand The international law that You constituted yourself If you do not obey and respect Your laws and resolutions We have the right to defend our land By our way, by all means, Whether you call it terrorism Or something else For us, It is the fight for freedom You cannot accept the truth We cannot accept the lies Truth always prevails We will never surrender Nor yield to the evil And genocide forces We are the spirit of Palestine Long live Palestine, Long live Palestine At every cost. Palestine Never Disappears *** They stole Palestine Our land and then our homes They threw us out At gunpoint For our determination And rights We throw the stones They trigger bullets The champions of human rights Watch that, Clapping and cheering As like it is a football match And the football referee is Israel However, Palestine will never disappear Never; never; never We will fight without fear Until we recover and have that Palestine is Crying *** Under the flames of the guns Palestine is crying The Arab world is cowardly silent, West and the rest of the world, Deliberately ignoring justice Even also they are criminally denying Whereas Palestinians are dying If there are no weapons: There will be neither terrible wars Nor criminal deaths, nor tensions Manufacture oxygen of life expectations It is a beautiful destination For all destinations I wish I could fragrance peace and love In the minds and hearts of two Generations of two real brothers. Day Of Mourning, Not Mother’s Day *** A lot of Mothers of Palestine are crying And burying their children, who became The victim of Israel’s cruelty Those mothers have no children To celebrate their Mother’s Day It is a Day of Mourning for those mothers Not Mother’s Day Oh, Palestine, cry, cry, not on Israel But on Muslims who are dead sleeping. Ahed Tamimi Of Palestine The Voice Of Freedom *** You can trigger bullets Upon those, Who stay determined You can shoot Or place under house arrest Hundreds of thousands As such Ahed Tamimi However, You cannot stop The voices, for the freedom And Self-determination You will hear In every second, minute Every hour, every day Until you understand And realize, Voices of the human rights

Minimalism is countercultural. We live in a world that idolizes celebrities. They are photographed for magazines, interviewed on the radio, and recorded for television. Their lives are held up as the gold standard and are envied by many. People who live minimalist lives are not championed by the media in the same way. They don't fit into the consumerist culture promoted by the corporations and politicians. Yet, they live a life that is attractive and inviting. While most people are chasing after success, glamour, and fame, minimalism calls out to us with a smaller, quieter, calmer voice. It invites us to slow down, consume less, but enjoy more. And when we meet someone living a simplified life we often recognize we have the chasing the wrong things all along.

Now that you understand the key players in ecosystems, here are the key principles of building an ecosystem. They are similar to the principles of creating a community discussed in chapter 8, “The Art of Evangelizing.” CREATE SOMETHING WORTHY OF AN ECOSYSTEM. Once again, the key to evangelism, sales, presentations, and now ecosystems is a great product. In fact, if you create a great product, you may not be able to stop an ecosystem from forming. By contrast, it’s hard to build an ecosystem around crap. DESIGNATE A CHAMPION. Many employees would like to help build an ecosystem, but who wakes up every day with this task at the top of her list of priorities? Another way to look at this is, “Who’s going to get fired if an ecosystem doesn’t happen?” Ecosystems need a champion—an identifiable hero—within the company to carry the flag for the community. DON’T COMPETE WITH THE ECOSYSTEM. If you want people or organizations to take part in your ecosystem, then you shouldn’t compete with them. For example, if you want people to create apps for your product, then don’t sell (or give away) apps that do the same thing. It was hard to convince companies to create a Macintosh word processor when Apple was giving away MacWrite. CREATE AN OPEN SYSTEM. An “open system” means that there are minimal requirements to participating and minimal controls on what you can do. A “closed system” means that you control who participates and what they can do. Either can work, but I recommend an open system because it appeals to my trusting, anarchic personality. This means that members of your ecosystem will be able to write apps, access data, and interact with your product. I’m using software terminology here, but the point is to enable people to customize and tweak your product. PUBLISH INFORMATION. The natural complement of an open system is publishing books and articles about the product. This spreads information to people on the periphery of a product. Publishing also communicates to the world that your startup is open and willing to help external parties. FOSTER DISCOURSE. The definition of “discourse” is “verbal exchange.” The key word is “exchange.” Any company that wants an ecosystem should foster the exchange of ideas and opinions. This means your website should provide a forum where people can engage with other members as well as your employees. This doesn’t mean that you let the ecosystem run your company, but you should hear what members have to say. WELCOME CRITICISM. Most organizations feel warm and fuzzy toward their ecosystem as long as the ecosystem says nice things, buys their products, and never complains. The minute that the ecosystem says anything negative, however, many organizations freak out and get defensive. This is dumb. A healthy ecosystem is a long-term relationship, so an organization shouldn’t file for divorce at the first sign of discord. Indeed, the more an organization welcomes—or even celebrates—criticism, the stronger its bonds to its ecosystem become. CREATE A NONMONETARY REWARD SYSTEM. You already know how I feel about paying people off to help you, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t reward people in other ways. Things as simple as public recognition, badges, points, and credits have more impact than a few bucks. Many people don’t participate in an ecosystem for the money, so don’t insult them by rewarding them with it.

1. I DO SOLEMNLY RESOLVE to embrace my current season of life and will maximize my time in it. I will resist the urge to hurry through or circumvent any portion of my journey but will live with a spirit of contentment. 2. I WILL CHAMPION God’s model for womanhood in the face of a postfeminist culture. I will teach it to my daughters and encourage its support by my sons. 3. I WILL ACCEPT and celebrate my uniqueness, and will esteem and encourage the distinctions I admire in others. 4. I WILL LIVE as a woman answerable to God and faithfully committed to His Word. 5. I WILL SEEK to devote the best of myself, my time, and my

Poetry Doesn't Have to be Poetry Poetry doesn't have to be poetry. It doesn't need rigid form or have to rhyme; it doesn't have to incorporate onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, simile or metaphor; it definately ain't gotta have no good grammar or spellin' (but it doesn't hurt). If your words champion truth; if your words fight for freedom of expression; if your words take an ethical stand on what matters to you; if your words reveal gratitude to God, country or family, if your words celebrate love or grieve loss ~ then your words ring true and it is poetry to my ears. As truth, you can expect it will be met with colossal resistance. Expect that speaking the truth will have as hard a time of it as anything else of value in our fucking shallow society.

1. I DO SOLEMNLY RESOLVE to embrace my current season of life and will maximize my time in it. I will resist the urge to hurry through or circumvent any portion of my journey but will live with a spirit of contentment. 2. I WILL CHAMPION God’s model for womanhood in the face of a postfeminist culture. I will teach it to my daughters and encourage its support by my sons. 3. I WILL ACCEPT and celebrate my uniqueness, and will esteem and encourage the distinctions I admire in others. 4. I WILL LIVE as a woman answerable to God and faithfully committed to His Word. 5. I WILL SEEK to devote the best of myself, my time, and my talents to the primary roles the Lord has entrusted to me in this phase of my life. 6. I WILL BE a woman who is quick to listen and slow to speak. I will care about the concerns of others and esteem them more highly than myself. 7. I WILL FORGIVE those who have wronged me and reconcile with those I have wronged. 8. I WILL NOT TOLERATE evil influences even in the most justifiable form, in myself or my home, but will embrace and encourage a life of purity. 9. I WILL PURSUE justice, love mercy, and extend compassion toward others. 10. I WILL BE FAITHFUL to my husband and honor him in my conduct and conversation in order to bring glory to the name of the Lord. I will aspire to be a suitable partner for him to help him reach his God-given potential. 11. I WILL DEMONSTRATE to my children how to love God with all their hearts, minds, and strength, and will train them to respect authority and live responsibly. 12. I WILL CULTIVATE a peaceful home where everyone can sense God’s presence not only through acts of love and service but also through the pleasant and grateful attitude with which I perform them. 13. I FULLY RESOLVE to make today’s decisions with tomorrow’s impact in mind. I will consider my current choices in light of those who will come after me.

Everything was now upside down. What they had once known as right, they now saw as outdated, intolerant, and immoral. And what they had once known as immoral, they now championed and celebrated as sacred. They had transformed themselves into the enemies of the God they had once worshiped and the faith they had once followed, until the very mention of His name was banned from their public squares. And yet in spite of all this, He was merciful and called to them, again and again.

Now, he’s leaving the Republic as their champion, to be celebrated and remembered for a lifetime.

Amber Samuels is a distinguished principal celebrated for her transformational leadership at Gray Middle School, centered on student welfare. With 25 years in education, including 18 as a science educator, she champions students' needs.

In The Enigma of Diversity, sociologist Ellen Berry explains how those who champion a flat conception of diversity have “redefined racial progress for the post-civil rights era, from a legal fight for equal rights to a celebration of cultural difference as a competitive advantage” in which everyone (theoretically) wins.24 More pointedly, the late political scientist Lee Ann Fujii reminds us that the lack of genuine diversity “maintains a racialized way of seeing the world. This lens of default Whiteness is assumed to be neutral, unraced, and ungendered, and therefore ‘scientifically’ sound. But Whiteness is anything but.”25 Finally, legal scholar Nancy Leong details how institutions commodify racial diversity for their own benefit, defining, in her analysis, racial capitalism as “the process of deriving social and economic value from the racial identity of another person.”26

We lost ourselves in a bubble of family and celebrations, which carried on over to lunch the next day. It meant that Tom and I returned to Boulder on 1 May full of the joys and ready to take on anything.

You know,” I said as we trudged homeward, “this is an important occasion, and not just because of this great discovery. According to my calculations, tomorrow will be our second anniversary on the island “ “Is this really true?” Elizabeth asked. “I can hardly believe so much time has passed.” “It is true, my dear,” I said. Think of all of the adventures that we have had and that we are safe, well-fed and happy. I am going to declare tomorrow a special day of celebration.” “You mean that we are going to have a party?” cried Francis, jumping for joy. “Oh, I can hardly wait!” Actually, Francis did not have long to wait, for when the morning dawned, Elizabeth and I had the entire day’s festivities planned. Greeting my sons on the lawn beneath Falcon’s Nest, I said, “For the past two years, you boys have been practicing wrestling, running, swimming, shooting and horseback riding here on the island. Now, we are going to determine the champions of these feats.” So, the competitions began, with Elizabeth cheering the boys and Turk and Flora running alongside them. Unquestionably, the highlight of the day was the horseback-riding event. Fritz mounted Lightfoot and Ernest rode Grizzle, but they were no match for Jack’s skillful handling of the wild buffalo. A practiced groom could not have managed a thoroughbred horse with more grace and ease. “Jack, my boy,” I boomed, “I hereby declare you the winner of this contest.” “No, Papa.” interrupted Francis. “You haven’t seen what I can do yet.” Francis rode into the arena, mounted on his young buffalo bull, Broumm, which was just four months old. Elizabeth had made a saddle of kangaroo skin and stirrups that adjusted to Francis’s little legs.

Reinhard Heydrich was born March 7, 1904 in Halle on the Saale. Fear and excessive caution were foreign to him, the greatest sportsman of the SS, a bold fencer, rider, pentathlon champion, and swimmer. With courage and energy he defended himself and shot twice at his attackers, though he had been gravely wounded. He has transmitted synthesis virtues to his sons, who honor his blood and heritage. His wife and children prosthesis deserve our attention and loving care. His memory will aid us when we have tasks to carry out for the leader and the Reich. He wants to be our companion in good times and bad. Therefore, he will be present when we are celebrating with our comrades. he wants to be with his old comrades: Weitzel, Moder, Herrmann, Mülverstedt, Stahlecker, and many others.

Celebrate your life every day. What a gift it is! The present is all we have. Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is just a dream. Take your life by the horns and ride it like the champion of your life. One time around. Make it count all the way to the winner's circle.

In a world that thrives on diversity, the LGBTQ+ community stands as a testament to the beauty of authenticity and the strength of the human spirit. We are a tapestry of vibrant colors, interwoven with the threads of love, courage, and resilience. Our existence is not defined by societal norms but by the unwavering belief that love knows no boundaries. In embracing our true selves, we challenge the confines of convention and rewrite the narrative of what it means to be human. We are the bold pioneers who refuse to be silenced, forging paths of acceptance and equality for future generations. Through every step we take, we paint a brighter tomorrow, where love is celebrated in all its forms. Our community is a symphony of voices, harmonizing in a chorus of authenticity. From every corner of the globe, we rise above prejudice and discrimination, demanding recognition, respect, and the right to love freely. We are the embodiment of resilience, turning adversity into opportunity, and transforming hate into understanding. In our journey, we find solace in unity. We stand shoulder to shoulder, a collective force that cannot be ignored. We are family, friends, and allies, bound by compassion and a shared commitment to creating a world where everyone is embraced for who they are. Our pride radiates like a beacon, illuminating the path towards a society that celebrates diversity and champions equality. We are the architects of change, dismantling the walls of ignorance and prejudice. With every act of love and every act of defiance, we redefine the boundaries of possibility. So let the world bear witness to the kaleidoscope of love that we embody. Let our colors shine unapologetically, guiding others towards a future where acceptance is the norm. Together, we will continue to paint the world with the brushstrokes of compassion, understanding, and love, leaving a legacy of inclusivity that will endure for generations to come. In a world that can sometimes be gray, let us be the vibrant hues that light up the sky, reminding all that love has no limits, and the LGBTQ+ community is a testament to the infinite power of the human heart.

That term was key to Truman –The Free World. The term emerged during the Second World War to refer to the countries that fought against fascism, although many of those countries – such as Britain and France -held colonies where they maintained authoritarian regimes. The United States government of Truman weaponized the term through a massive campaign of psychological warfare, which included Truman’s Campaign of Truth of 1950 and the celebrated publication of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), which made the case for the identity of fascism and communism. These were totalitarian and unfree ideologies, while Western liberalism was identical to freedom. The ‘Free World’ was the world led by the United States. What the US champions is freedom; its adversaries are the forces of unfreedom.

Forging Mettle In popular depictions of Musashi’s life, he is portrayed as having played a part in the decisive Battle of Sekigahara on October 21, 1600, which preceded the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. A more likely hypothesis is that he was in Kyushu fighting as an ally of Tokugawa Ieyasu under Kuroda Yoshitaka Jōsui at the Battle of Ishigakibaru on September 13, 1600. Musashi was linked to the Kuroda clan through his biological birth family who were formerly in the service of the Kodera clan before Harima fell to Hideyoshi.27 In the aftermath of Sekigahara, Japan was teeming with unemployed warriors (rōnin). There are estimates that up to 500,000 masterless samurai roamed the countryside. Peace was tenuous and warlords sought out skilled instructors in the arts of war. The fifteen years between Sekigahara and the first siege of Osaka Castle in 161528 was a golden age for musha-shugyō, the samurai warrior’s ascetic walkabout, but was also a perilous time to trek the country roads. Some rōnin found employment as retainers under new masters, some hung up their swords altogether to become farmers, but many continued roving the provinces looking for opportunities to make a name for themselves, which often meant trouble. It was at this point that Musashi embarked on his “warrior pilgrimage” and made his way to Kyoto. Two years after arriving in Kyoto, Musashi challenged the very same Yoshioka family that Munisai had bettered years before. In 1604, he defeated the head of the family, Yoshioka Seijūrō. In a second encounter, he successfully overpowered Seijūrō’s younger brother, Denshichirō. His third and last duel was against Seijūrō’s son, Matashichirō, who was accompanied by followers of the Yoshioka-ryū school. Again, Musashi was victorious, and this is where his legend really starts to escalate. Such exploits against a celebrated house of martial artists did not go unnoticed. Allies of the Yoshioka clan wrote unflattering accounts of how Musashi used guile and deceit to win with dishonorable ploys. Meanwhile, Musashi declared himself Tenka Ichi (“Champion of the Realm”) and must have felt he no longer needed to dwell in the shadow of his father. On the Kokura Monument, Iori wrote that the Yoshioka disciples conspired to ambush Musashi with “several hundred men.” When confronted, Musashi dealt with them with ruthless resolve, one man against many. Although this representation is thought to be relatively accurate, the idea of hundreds of men lying in wait was obviously an exaggeration. Several men, however, would not be hard to believe. Tested and triumphant, Musashi was now confident enough to start his own school. He called it Enmei-ryū. He also wrote, as confirmed by Uozumi, his first treatise, Heidōkyō (1605), to record the techniques and rationale behind them. He included a section in Heidōkyō on fighting single-handedly against “multiple enemies,” so presumably the third duel was a multi-foe affair.

Saad Jalal, a beacon of wellness, champions healthy eating habits that transcend the mundane. His philosophy centers on nourishing the body with nutrient-dense, delicious choices. Through personalized guidance, Saad empowers individuals to forge sustainable lifestyles, fostering not just physical health but a profound sense of well-being. With a wealth of knowledge and an unwavering commitment to holistic nourishment, Saad Jalal Toronto - inspires a paradigm shift towards mindful eating, proving that health and indulgence can harmoniously coexist. Join the journey with Saad, and embrace a life where every meal is a celebration of vitality and balance.

I did not understand that I was 'championing' multiculturalism simply by depicting it, or by describing it as anything other than incipient tragedy. At the same time I don't think I ever was quite naive enough to believe, even at twenty-one, that racially homogeneous societies were necessarily happier or more peaceful than ours simply by virtue of their homogeneity. After all, even a kid half my age knew what the ancient Greeks did to each other, and the Romans, and the seventeenth-century British, and the nineteenth-century Americans. My best friend during my youth--now my husband--is himself from Northern Ireland, an area where people who look absolutely identical to each other, eat the same food, pray to the same God, read the same holy book, wear the same clothes and celebrate the same holidays have yet spent four hundred years at war over a relatively minor doctrinal difference they later allowed to morph into an all-encompassing argument over land, government and national identity. Racial homogeneity is no guarantor of peace, any more than racial heterogeneity is fated to fail.

The Japanese story “Ten Jugs of Wine” exemplifies the difference between just being together on a team and working together as a real team. In the tale, ten old men decide to celebrate the New Year with a big crock of hot sake. Since none of them can provide for all, they each agree to bring one jug of wine for the large heating bowl. On the way to his wine cellar, each old man thinks, “My wine is too valuable to share! No one will know. It’ll never show. It’ll still be fine. I’ll bring a jug of water instead of the wine.” And so when they gather with the jugs they brought, all ten men pour the contents of their jugs ceremoniously into the big bowl and then look sheepishly at one another as they heat and pour hot water for all.

One of the most recognizable and celebrated Americans alive, the former 26th president of the United States, the hero of San Juan Hill and the daring leader of the legendary Rough Riders. The Republican progressive who as president broke the industrial trusts, regulated the railroads, set aside 230-million acres for national parks and forests and preserves, and who had fought to give the workingman “a Square Deal” through his eight years in the White House. This was T.R., the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize recipient who brokered the end of the Russo-Japanese War and who championed the seemingly impossible dream of cutting a canal through Panama to connect the mighty oceans. The historian, writer and naturalist whose death-defying adventures in the jungles of Africa and South America had captivated the country.

But, the young man said, this tape was being made for a celebration, for history. Was it possible, the technician asked Mr. Aaron, for him to show a little more joy? Perhaps a smile would be good. Henry looked at the man and delivered a line that, in the face of Bonds, would forever make him the people’s champion.

Tribute: Nelson Mandela Tonight, I salute not the sun. Tonight, I salute not the stars. Tonight, I laud a hero. Tonight, I extol a legend. Tonight, I hail Nelson Mandela. "He came from the sky," some say. "He came from the stars," others claim. "He came from Heaven," many declare. "He came from God," all affirm. Madiba, you are my teacher. Madiba, you are my elder. You are my father. You are my hero. I won't break even if they imprison me. I won't shake even if they threaten me. I won't weep even if they kill me. I won't yield even if they assassinate me. You are our symbol of courage. You are our emblem of hope. You are our model of faith You are our paragon of love. You are our champion. You are our hero. You are our legend. We fight for you. We suffer for you. We are even prepared to die for you. You opened our eyes. You opened our ears. You opened our minds. You opened our hearts. How sharp your mind was. How strong your heart was. How pure your soul was. You were a fox, you were a lion, but you were also a dove. Long live Madiba, Africa remembers you! Long live Madiba, Africa honors you! Long live Madiba, Africa celebrates you! Long live Madiba, the world loves you!!!

As Angela Davis has explained, if we accept uncritically the notion that prisons offer an answer, and that all we must do is improve our so-called justice systems, we evade the 'responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.' Our ultimate goal-if we truly aim to overcome our nation's habit of constructing enormous systems of racial and social control-cannot simply be to reduce the number of people behind bars. We must strive to create a nation in which caging people en masse-digitally or literally-and stripping them of basic civil and human rights for the rest of their lives is not only unnecessary but unthinkable. . . . The important question, however, is whether we want to celebrate as 'progress' any development that might reflect the morphing or evolution of the system, rather than its demise. Human rights champion Bryan Stevenson has observed that 'slavery didn't end; it evolved.' Today, we can see, in real time, the system of mass incarceration evolving before our eyes, as enormous investments are made in immigrant detention centers and digital prisons, and as growing numbers of white people become collateral damage in a war that was declared with black people in mind.

Other acts that were precursors of the Wild West were a July 4 commemoration in Deer Trail, Colorado, in which one Emil Gardenshire was crowned "Champion Bronco Buster of the Plains," and another Fourth of July celebration in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1872, featuring the riding of an unruly steer. And certainly Cody's buffalo hunt with Grand Duke Alexis was a harbinger of things to come, as were his hunting trips with General Sheridan, James Gordon Bennett and their friends, as well as the Earl of Dunraven. All that was needed, then, was to put the right elements together. Cody realized that he needed to earn a lot of money to launch a big show, and he was too proud to ask his wealthy friends for funds. Then, in the spring of 1882, he met Nate Salsbury, when they both were playing in New York. Salsbury, who later became Cody's partner, claimed to have thought of the idea of the Wild West when returning from a tour of Australia with the Salsbury Troubadours in 1876. On the boat he had discussed the merits of Australian jockeys in comparison with American cow-boys and Mexican vaqueros with J. B. Gaylord, an agent for the Cooper and Bailey Circus. As a result, said Salsbury, "I began to construct a show in my mind that would embody the whole subject of horsemanship and before I went to sleep I had mapped out a show that would be constituted of elements that had never before been employed in concerted effort in the history of the show business." In the end, of course, Buffalo Bill's Wild West went well beyond horsemanship to embody features of the West that had not been part of Salsbury's plan. Several years later Salsbury "decided that such an entertainment must have a well known figure head to attract attention and thus help to quickly solve the problem of advertising a new idea. After careful consideration of the plan and scope of the show I resolved to get W.F. Cody as my central figure." When the two men finally met,

Men don’t have a reason any more. No one wants us. Why should they? What can we do? We have no job, no home to go to. It’s been taken away. Small wonder then that all that is left for us is to turn in upon ourselves, to clutch at the few things that give us meaning, hope. Money is one thing. Football is another. Football with money does it big time. But football is made up by men like us now, not like men of my father’s years. They have no idea who they are, where they are meant to go either. Call it sport. There was sport to it once, where sport was the point. The point now? What is the point, exactly, of this beautiful game? See them on the pitch, biting each other, pulling at each other’s shirts, kicking and scratching, flying tackles, jabs in the elbow, feigning injuries, bellowing obscenities at the ref: see them later, off the pitch, urinating in hotel plant pots, wrecking Indian takeaways, abusing shop owners, brawling in night clubs, gang-banging under-age groupies, punching unwilling women in the face; see them beating their wives, breaking their girlfriends’ arms, standing outside their ghastly houses with their Doric columns and Lamborghinis, driving to each other’s hideous celebrity-strewn weddings. Be worthless now, that’s all you can be. The age of the bully is upon us.

Democratic machine.[*15] In decades that followed, women began to enter gang life, but most, like their male counterparts, were bruisers and not businesspeople. “Among the ladies, Gallus Mag, Sadie the Goat, Hell-Cat Maggie, Battle Annie…and Euchre Kate Burns, whom a newspaper called the ‘champion heavyweight female brick hurler’ of Hell’s Kitchen, were all specialists in election day mayhem,” a historian has written: Gallus Mag, who supported her skirt with suspenders,[*16] was a mean six-foot female who, armed with a pistol and a club, was employed as a bouncer at a dive called the Hole-in-the-Wall. Sadie the Goat, a prostitute and all around rough-and-tumble fighter, ran with the Charlton Street Gang, a group of river pirates. She won her nickname by the way she would lower her head and butt like a goat in a fight…. Hell-Cat Maggie looked like an enraged tiger. Her teeth were filed to points and over her fingers she wore sharp brass spikes. Even the bravest of men lost their poise when she charged screaming into a polling place. (In a celebrated fight, she bit off the ear of Sadie the Goat.) The huge and violent Battle Annie, “the sweetheart of Hell’s Kitchen,” was a terrifying bully. She commanded a gang of ferocious Amazons called the Battle Row Ladies Social and Athletic Club.

1. Like a star in the darkness of the night, Benedict of Nursia brilliantly shines a glory not only to Italy but of the whole Church. Whoever considers his celebrated life and studies in the light of the truth of history, the gloomy and stormy times in which he lived, will without doubt realize the truth of the divine promise which Christ made to the Apostles and to the society He founded: "I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." At no time in history does this promise lose its force; it is verified in the course of all ages flowing, as they do, under the guidance of divine Providence. But when enemies assail the Christian name more fiercely, when the fateful barque of Peter is tossed about more violently and when everything seems to be tottering with no hope of human support, it is then that Christ is present, bondsman, comforter, source of supernatural power, and raises up fresh champions to protect Catholicism, to restore it to its former vigor, and give it even greater increase under the inspiration and help of heavenly grace.

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