Contract Renewal Quotes

a happy marriage can be a vexation, that it’s a contract best renewed and renewed again, even quietly and privately—even alone.

...The fact is that Dale and Grady had made a pact long before they ever came into this earthly existence. This is why so often there is one physical death that follows another. They are from the same soul family. They are so intertwined that they need to leave together. They are all returning home together.

I understand now that even a happy marriage can be a vexation, that it’s a contract best renewed and renewed again, even quietly and privately—even alone.

Every trauma provides an opportunity for authentic transformation. Trauma amplifies and evokes the expansion and contraction of psyche, body, and soul. It is how we respond to a traumatic event that determines whether trauma will be a cruel and punishing Medusa turning us into stone, or whether it will be a spiritual teacher taking us along vast and uncharted pathways. In the Greek myth, blood from Medusa’s slain body was taken in two vials; one vial had the power to kill, while the other had the power to resurrect. If we let it, trauma has the power to rob our lives of vitality and destroy it. However, we can also use it for powerful self-renewal and transformation. Trauma, resolved, is a blessing from a greater power.

Fasting clears away the thousand little things which quickly accumulate and clutter the body, mind and heart. It cuts through corrosion and renews our contract with God and Mother Earth.

Just as I never wondered what it was like for my mother to be a full-time, at-home mother, I never wondered then what it meant to be married. I took my parents’ union for granted. It was the simple solid fact upon which all four of our lives were built. Much later, my mother would tell me that every year when spring came and the air warmed up in Chicago, she entertained thoughts about leaving my father. I don’t know if these thoughts were actually serious or not. I don’t know if she considered the idea for an hour, or for a day, or for most of the season, but for her it was an active fantasy, something that felt healthy and maybe even energizing to ponder, almost as ritual. I understand now that even a happy marriage can be a vexation, that it’s a contract best renewed and renewed again, even quietly and privately—even alone. I don’t think my mother announced whatever her doubts and discontents were to my father directly, and I don’t think she let him in on whatever alternative life she might have been dreaming about during those times. Was she picturing herself on a tropical island somewhere? With a different kind of man, or in a different kind of house, or with a corner office instead of kids? I don’t know, and I suppose I could ask my mother, who is now in her eighties, but I don’t think it matters.

by exposing something I have seen to someone with eyes to see it differently from me, might spark some insights that would not have otherwise occurred to either of us. And

The poor are more isolated—economically, culturally, and socially—than they used to be in America.

It is a function of entrenched, intergenerational poverty that isolates too many lower-income Americans from even middle-class economic, cultural, and social opportunities and norms.

It is essential for us to recognize the childhood wounds associated with grief and to find our way back into the current moment. Only in the adult body will we be able to cultivate a mindful awareness of when to expand into the embrace of a friend or a loving community and when to contract into the sanctuary of our solitude, “as beautifully . . . coordinated as birdwings.

The second is that the American people tend to oppose whoever they see as the aggressor in the Culture Wars—whoever they see as trying to intrusively impose their values on other people and bullying everyone who disagrees.

However, society is only composed of weak persons and strong; well, if the pact must perforce displease both weak and strong, there is great cause to suppose it will fail to suit society, and the previously existing state of warfare must appear infinitely preferable, since it permitted everyone the free exercise of his strength and his industry, whereof he would discover himself deprived by a society's unjust pact which takes too much from the one and never accords enough to the other; hence, the truly intelligent person is he who, indifferent to the risk of renewing the state of war that reigned prior to the contract, lashes out in irrevocable violation of that contract, violates it as much and often as he is able, full certain that what he will gain from these ruptures will always be more important than what he will lose if he happens to be a member of the weaker class; for such he was when he respected the treaty; by breaking it he may become one of the stronger; and if the laws return him to the class whence he wished to emerge, the worst that can befall him is the loss of his life, which is a misfortune infinitely less great than that of existing in opprobrium and wretchedness. There are then two positions available to us: either crime, which renders us happy, or the noose, which prevents us from being unhappy. I ask whether there can be any hesitation, lovely Therese, and where will your little mind find an argument able to combat that one?

Americans were attached to a vague cultural conservatism mostly because of the seemingly broad consensus around it, rather than by deep personal commitment. As that consensus, like most forms of consensus in our national life, has frayed, their attachment has weakened. T

The upper management team had informed me that an employee that worked for me was a poor performer and would be terminated soon. This employee was clearly displaying mental health issues that were causing problems in the workplace. When I followed the company procedures and reported this to human resources, their response was to inform me that my contract would not be renewed and I would be immediately fired if anyone complained about me. This was my introduction to how mental health issues are handled in the USA.

I found no muse on Hyperion during those first years. For many, the expansion of distance because of limited transportation—EMVs were unreliable, skimmers scarce—and the contraction of artificial consciousness due to absence of datasphere, no access to the All Thing, and only one fatline transmitter—all led to a renewal of creative energies, a new realization of what it meant to be human and an artist. Or so I heard. No muse appeared. My verse continued to be technically proficient and dead as Huck Finn’s cat. I decided to kill myself.

Yes, if a memory, thanks to forgetfulness, has been unable to contract any tie, to forge any link between itself and the present, if it has remained in its own place, of its own date, if it has kept its distance, its isolation in the hollow of a valley or on the peak of a mountain, it makes us suddenly breathe an air new to us just because it is an air we have formerly breathed, an air purer than that the poets have vainly called Paradisiacal, which offers that deep sense of renewal only because it has been breathed before, inasmuch as the true paradises are paradises we have lost.

What was in New York?” “I had to sign a new contract. A Thin Blue Line was renewed for another season.” “Oh, that’s awesome!” I heard rumblings on a few of the news outlets that the show might get dropped. “I really hope you’re finally able to get a new partner. I don’t know why they keep pushing that story line. Tina is not a good match for Jimmy. Brody and I have been riding together for almost seven years, and I would punch myself in the face before I ever kissed him. The show needs to give Jimmy a woman who he saved or something. That would be an interesting plot. Also, your brother on the show has to stop sleeping with that model. Twitter went nuts when he went back to her. She’s a bitch.” Eli’s gaze shifts to mine, and he chuckles. “I thought you didn’t watch the show.” Crap. I did say that. I chew on my thumb and shrug. “I guess I’ve seen a few seasons.” I say the last word under my breath, hoping he didn’t catch it. “Seasons?” No such luck. “Whatever. It’s just to see how bad you butcher my job.” Eli shakes his head and grabs my hand. His fingers thread with mine and then he gently squeezes. “Sounds like you’re a little more invested than that.” “Fine,” I admit. “I watch it religiously." He brings my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles. “I knew you liked me.” I laugh and hit his chest with our entwined hands. “You’re crazy. I like your show, but seriously, tell the writers they need to clear that up.

the muscles in your feet. Then clench your calves, then thighs. Work the contractions up your body until every part of you is tight from the bottom to the top. Clench your stomach, your chest, fingers, biceps, and jaw. Tighten the muscles behind your ears and imagine all of this pressure that you’ve built up going out the top of your head like you were rolling out pizza dough. Whenever I do this I end up making all sorts of grunting noises and squint my face into awkward contortions. It feels like I’m going to pop. But I never have. Once you finally have to breathe, take in a half lungful of air and hold it for about 10 to 15 seconds. This is the recovery breath, and it feels awesome. Now start over from the beginning. Since your lungs start near empty, it won’t be possible to hold your breath as long as with the basic breathing technique. Aim to increase the amount that you hold your breath with each repetition. When I do it I start with

The third serious problem the culture of customer service as we know it creates is turning every profession into a customer service tool to generate profits. In doing so, we risk the loss of creativity, quality, and critical thinking in many walks of life. Nowhere is this risk clearer and more damaging than viewing students at different educational institutions as customers, and nowhere this trend has been happening more rapidly than at schools, colleges, and universities, especially at private institutions. There is severe damage done to creativity and critical thinking when all students want is an A, and in fact feel entitled to get it since they (or their parents) are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend elite schools. Many educators are under enormous pressure to give students grades they do not deserve in order to avoid receiving bad student evaluations (or to ensure getting good ones). This pressure is intensifying as academic jobs become increasingly contingent and precarious, where teaching staff are hired under short contracts only renewed based on so-called ‘performance,’ which is often measured by student evaluations and enrollment. When this happens, academic and intellectual compromises and corruption increase. Colleagues at elite American universities have been pressured to give students grades no lower than a B, with the explanation that this is what is ‘expected.’ Rampant grade inflation is unethical and unacceptable. Unfortunately, when graduate instructors resist professors’ instructions to fix grades by grading according to independent criteria of intellectual merit, they may be verbally chastised or worse, fired. This humiliation not only reinforces the norm of inflating grades, it also bolsters the power of the tenured professors who instruct their teaching assistants to do it.

I said to myself, This is going to be quick. I also thought: I’ll take the epidural now! Because the contractions were starting to demonstrate what the pain of birth is all about. The obstetrician came in. I smiled, ready for my shot. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” she said. “Your platelets are really, really low.” “Okay,” I said. I knew what platelets were-blood cells whose job it is to stop bleeding-but I had no idea why that was significant. “So, my epidural?” “You can’t have any medications.” “Come again?” “No drugs, no medications,” she said. “No epidural. I’ve called around to different anesthesiologists, and no one will touch you.” “No epidural?” “Nothing.” There are girls from third-world countries who do it with no drugs, I reminded myself. My mother elected for natural childbirth. How bad can it be? I got this. It started to hurt. I thought to myself, I am not going to cuss. Hell no! I am about to be a mother. I am bringing our baby into a positive environment and must be a good role model. Wow! The contractions built up quickly. My pristine vision of perfect, calm, quiet childbirth disappeared. A banshee snuck into the room and took over my body. Arrrgggh!!! No cursing! There was a rocking chair in the birth room. I went over and sat in it and began moving back and forth. Chris put on a CD by Enya that we’d brought to listen to: peaceful, pleasant music. I took a deep breath. Jeez, Louise! That one was a monster! Then, a breather. I’m doing goooooood! Breathe. Breathe… Wow! Then I said some other things. The banshee had a mind of her own. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I apologized to the nurses as I recovered from the surge of the contraction. “It’s okay,” said Chris. The pain surged again. Dang! Jiminy! And other things. Chris would watch the monitor. Suddenly he’d turn to look at me. “What?” I asked. “That was a strong one.” “Uh-huh.” The funny thing is, the stronger the contractions were on the monitor, the less they seemed to hurt. Maybe when things are really bad you focus more on being tough. Or perhaps my brain’s pain mechanism simply went on strike when the agony got too much.

At some point I tried willing things along, mentally focusing on a rapid delivery. That didn't work. I got up to walk around-walking is supposed to help you progress-then quickly got back in the chair. “Argh!!!!!” I groaned. And other stuff. The way I saw it, my baby should have been out by now, shaking hands with his dad and passing around cigars to the nurses. But he apparently had other plans. Labor continued very slowly. Very slowly. We were in that room for eighteen hours. That was a lot of contractions. And a lot of PG versions of curse words, along with the X-rated kind. I may have invented a whole new language. Somewhere around the twelve-hour mark, Chris asked if I’d mind if he changed the music, since our songs had been playing on repeat for what surely seemed like a millennium. “Sure,” I said. He switched to the radio and found a country station. That lasted a song or two. “I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I need Enya. I’m tuned in to it, and it calms me…ohhhhh!” “Okay. No problem,” he said calmly, though not quite cheerfully. I’m sure it was torture. Chris would take short breaks, walking out into the waiting room where both sides of our family were waiting to welcome their first grandchild and nephew. He’d look at his dad and give a little nod. “She’s okay,” he told everyone. Then he’d wipe a little tear away from his eye and walk back to me. Chris said later that watching me give birth was probably the most powerless feeling he’d ever had. He knew I was in pain and yet couldn’t do a whit about it. “It’s like watching your wife get stabbed and not being able to do anything to help.” But when he came into the room with me, his eyes were clear and he seemed confident and even upbeat. It was the thing he did when talking to me from the combat zone, all over again: he wasn’t about to do anything that would make me worry. I, on the other hand, made no secret of what I was feeling. An alien watermelon was ripping my insides out. And it hurt. Whoooh! Suddenly one of the contractions peaked way beyond where the others had been. Bubba had finally decided it was time to say hello to the world. I grabbed the side rail on the bed and struggled to remain conscious, if not exactly calm. Part of me was thinking, You should remember this, Taya. This is natural childbirth. This is beautiful. This is what God intended. You should enjoy this precious moment and remember it always. Another part of me was telling that part to shut the bleep up. I begged for mercy-for painkillers.

Refuge planets are stable, secure and isolated but require a subtle, more complicated approach.  Weary of homelessness and aware of the rarity of this opportunity, they scramble to find consensus.  The contract is very specific and non-negotiable.  One species is to be processed, while all others must be protected and mentored.  Terms are discussed and determined to be agreeable.  The merchant is notified, and the contract is executed.  Coordinates received, the Orbs are configured, mounted then launched.  With renewed hope, the entire fleet alters course.  They begin the seventy-three light-year journey to their new home.

understand now that even a happy marriage can be a vexation, that it’s a contract best renewed and renewed again, even quietly and privately—even alone. I

At the core of this unity was not just a common set of ideals, but also the notion of commonality itself as an ideal.

Americans were encouraged to understand their circumstances and their obligations in terms of their citizenship in a great nation managed by large, powerful institutions that would help them through the risks and instabilities of

Just as solidarity had an underside of repression, so liberalization had an underside of chaos;

Our problems are the troubles of a fractured republic, and the solutions we pursue will need to call upon the strengths of a decentralized, diffuse, diverse, dynamic nation. The

These begin in loving family attachments. They spread outward to interpersonal relationships in neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, religious communities, fraternal bodies, civic associations, economic enterprises, activist groups, and the work of local governments.

there are never simple or universal formulas for revitalizing a complex society.

the absence of easy answers is precisely a reason to empower a multiplicity of problem-solvers throughout our society, rather than hoping that one problem-solver in Washington gets it right. This

countless Americans of all parties and no party are practical, experienced experts in putting family, faith, and community first and helping one another in hard times. A

We should look for ways to thrive that are suited to the nation we have become and are still becoming.

There are only perches within society, and we can elevate our sights by considering how things might look from those of others.

In the absence of relief from their own resulting frustration, a growing number of voters opt for leaders who simply embody or articulate that frustration. This

To instruct democracy, if possible to reanimate its beliefs, to purify its mores, to moderate its movements, to substitute little by little an understanding of affairs for its inexperience, and knowledge of its true interests for its blind instincts; to adapt its government to time and place; to modify it according to circumstances and men—such is the first duty imposed on those who would guide society in our day.

both the social and the economic consequences of our growing diffusion have hit the poorest Americans as punishments and the wealthiest as rewards.

Low-income Americans’ potential for mobility is often impaired by family breakdown, cultural dysfunction, and the polarization of norms

it is far too difficult to rise out of poverty in America, and it was so even throughout most of what we have thought of as America’s postwar economic golden age. This

mobility agenda, whether advanced by the Right or the Left, must start with growth and build to the lifting of burdens, the clearing of paths, and the revitalization of American education.

The Constitution rejects the populist view that the people have the knowledge required to rule, and it rejects the technocratic view that a body of experts has the knowledge required to rule. Instead, it embodies the view that no one has the requisite knowledge, and that government should therefore be designed to force different groups in society to bargain and cooperate.

the end is not combatting inequality as such, but combatting immobility, and counteracting the isolation and estrangement of some Americans from the core institutions and relationships essential to building thriving lives. Our

Focusing on the right problem does not mean we have adequate solutions, of course.

Higher costs, lower value, and growing debt make for a bad deal, and families know that, but they are short on other options for upward mobility.

1. Fire them (in a nice way) Give them plenty of notice, and recommend other people that can do your job. Keep it short and sweet. You don’t have to justify why you made this decision, but you can add that it doesn’t fit into your business model at this time. It can go something like this… Tactful Client Dismissal Letter: Mr. Jones, I have decided it would be best if we did not renew your contract for next year. While I appreciate the opportunity to work with you, my business is moving towards a more automated model. I will not be able to handle your account the way you want or expect. Therefore, to ensure accounts success, I will be recommending three people who can replace me. Kind Regards, Liesha Petrovich 2.

The middle layers of society, where people see each other face to face, offer a middle ground between radical individualism and extreme centralization. Our political life need not consist of a recurring choice between having the federal government invade and occupy the middle layers of society or having isolated individuals break down the institutions that compose those layers. It can and should be an arena for attempting different ways of empowering those middle institutions to help our society confront its problems.

Imagine the future of work when brain monitoring becomes more ubiquitous if these laws and norms are not in place. After a banner year at the company, division manager Sue calls employee Pat to offer her a contract renewal with a 2 percent pay raise. Sue knows the company could easily afford and would be willing to pay up to 10 percent to retain her but hopes Pat will take less. Pat takes Sue’s call using her company-issued in-ear EEG earbuds. Pat keeps her voice even throughout the call so as not to give away her emotions and promises to follow up with Sue the next day. All the while, Sue has been watching Pat’s brain activity and decoding her emotional reaction to the news. Pat’s brain activity revealed joyfulness upon learning of the 2 percent pay raise and remained joyful throughout the day.97 The next day, Pat calls Sue and says that she was hoping for a bigger raise. But Sue can’t be bluffed; she knows that Pat was happy with the 2 percent raise; moreover, she now sees that Pat is fearful as she makes her request for a bigger one. Sue responds that 2 percent is the best the company can do, and Pat accepts the offer. Pat’s attempt to negotiate a better salary was over before it began. Even the staunchest freedom-of-contract libertarian would question the fairness of this negotiation.

the Korean idol industry was growing at a rapid pace, the issue of contract renewal in the seventh year became a drama that got everyone—the company, the group, as well as the fans—worked up. At the turn of the new millennium, large management companies like SM, YG, and JYP had all achieved a level of success that made failure of any of their debuted artists the exception. They therefore wanted to recontract their artists, even if that meant changing the conditions of the contract to a certain extent in order to benefit the artist. However, the artist may ask for even better conditions, and satisfaction with the financial terms is only the beginning. Even within a single group, each member may want different things depending on their personality, preferences, and style of working.

Most group members who were offered a contract renewal after seven years had been successful enough to have already achieved fame and fortune in their twenties. No matter how good the contract conditions were, they could very easily break away from the group and pursue a solo career, or even leave the entertainment industry entirely if they so chose. Or perhaps they had bad blood with the company or the other members and didn’t want to renew. This is why it is uncommon for all members of a successful idol group to renew their contracts. Their love for the fans aside, the members can’t help but consider their own lives before contract renewal.

2018, around two years before their contract was due to end, Big Hit Entertainment offered to re-sign the members. The company’s outlook was that, following the LOVE YOURSELF series, BTS would be able to do a worldwide stadium tour. Given that it was necessary to consider the schedule several years in advance, a decision needed to be made regarding contract renewal.

all seven members re-sign, but they also agreed to a seven-year contract, longer than their first contract, which had in fact ended up as five years. Considering that the period for renewed contracts is generally shorter than the first contract, this was a case almost unparalleled within the Korean idol industry.

Korean idol groups’ contract renewal is one of the most unusual things about the industry. As can be seen from BTS’s debut process, in the case of most Korean idol groups, their companies invest a huge amount of capital and people power in production. It is also the company’s job to bring together the members to form the group, and the members of course sign a contract with the company.

RM even called his parents in advance to let them know there might not be another album. If the members ended up not renewing their contracts, Jin explains, he had even been considering leaving the entertainment industry entirely:

I believe the populist insurgents, contrary to the impression given by prevailing media coverage, are largely correct about what has gone wrong, but, dangerously, know far less about how to make it right. I believe we should listen respectfully, to acknowledge that the populists have a valid point, that they are not just simpletons nor backwards, racist xenophobes. I believe it is time to reflect on what policies would restore some necessary balance, a renewed role for core government and a renegotiated, reinvigorated, social contract.

The challenge is that the demand in our lives increasingly exceeds our capacity. Think of capacity as the fuel that makes it possible to bring your skill and talent fully to life. Most of us take our capacity for granted, because for most of our lives we’ve had enough. What’s changed is that between digital technology and rising complexity, there’s more information and more requests coming at us, faster and more relentlessly than ever. Unlike computers, however, human beings aren’t meant to operate continuously, at high speeds, for long periods of time. Rather, we’re designed to move rhythmically between spending and renewing our energy. Our brains wave between high and low electrical frequencies. Our hearts beat at varying intervals. Our lungs expand and contract depending on demand. It’s not sufficient to be good at inhaling. Indeed, the more deeply you exhale, the calmer and more capable you become. Instead, we live linear lives, progressively burning down our energy reservoirs throughout the day. It’s the equivalent of withdrawing funds from a bank account without ever making a deposit. At some point, you go bankrupt. The good news is that we can influence the way we manage our energy. By doing so skillfully, you can get more done in less time, at a higher level of quality, in a more sustainable way. A couple of key scientific findings point the way. The first is that sleep is more important than food. You can go a week without eating and the only thing you’ll lose is weight. Give up sleep for even a couple of days and you’ll become completely dysfunctional. Even so, we’re all too willing to trade away an hour of sleep in the false belief that it will give us one more hour of productivity. In fact, even very small amounts of sleep deprivation take a significant toll on our cognitive capacity. The notion that some of us can perform adequately with very little sleep is largely a myth. Less than 2.5 percent of the population—that’s one in forty people—feels fully rested with less than seven to eight hours of sleep a night. The second key finding is that our bodies follow what are known as ultradian

When demand cycles increase or supplies drain low, the U.S. shale industry now sits there with the quickest tap to twist on. But when producers get “too enthusiastic” about oil prices and supplies glut, or when economics compress global demand, or when renewables partially displace fossil fuels, it will be the U.S. shale producer who will be forced to cut back. Now it's easier to see why the United States will have a much more difficult road to being energy independent: you can't rely on U.S. shale to get you there. No matter whether the oil market stays depressed for three months or three more years, the production numbers for the U.S. won’t ever be stable enough to make the United States independent of foreign oil. Only a consistently and reliably high market price can do that, something that the oil bust of 2014 proved is still hardly guaranteed. U.S. shale oil is first in line to be the supply source that must contract when the market demands it.

If Sam Goldwyn read the reviews of Dakota, he might have taken some satisfaction in Walter Brennan’s critical drubbing. Walter had decided not to renew his contract with the producer. The actor, mimicking Goldwyn’s accent, later joked that while under contract to the producer, he would be met with “Valter, you are the greatest actor in the vorld.” But fifteen minutes after the contract expired, he heard Goldwyn on a studio street talking to Ned Depinet, a movie executive: “You know, Ned, that Valter Brennan is the most overrated actor in the vorld.” Brennan told such stories with affection, concluding, “Well, that’s Sam for you, and I love him.” After all, Goldwyn had, in Brennan’s words, “protected me. I could still be doing bits if he hadn’t watched out for the kind of parts I played.

The Constitution rejects the populist view that the people have the knowledge required to rule, and it rejects the technocratic view that a body of experts has the knowledge required to rule. Instead, it embodies the view that no one has the requisite knowledge, and that government should therefore be designed to force different groups in society to bargain and cooperate. Restraining

The liberty we can truly recognize as liberty is achieved by the emancipation of the individual not just from coercion by others but also from the tyranny of his unrestrained desires. This

called upon personal recollections of a lost ideal, described that bygone time as possessing everything we now take ourselves to lack, and defined progress as a recovery of what that earlier age had to offer. It

an America in which each generation built something solid so that the next generation could build something better. But for many years now, our middle class has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered.4 Whatever

nostalgia characterizes the thinking of so many of our most able and important scholars, journalists, commentators, and social analysts that it poses a problem for our capacity for self-diagnosis.

The objects and the flavor of our national nostalgia are not random. They draw on the memories of a particular group of Americans who have exercised an extraordinary power over the nation’s self-image.

we will only be able to think clearly about what is beginning, and about how we can make the most of it, if we can pull ourselves away from lamentations for a lost youth. The

Rising generations of Americans will soon need to look around and build their own understanding of the present, and sense of the future,

we should consider how they came to be, how and why America has changed, and what this might mean for what America is becoming.

The pervasiveness and intensity of our nostalgia make it hard to achieve the kind of analytic distance that would allow us to address these questions seriously. That

We are living in a time of change, and therefore a time that is as much a beginning as an end.

Few of us, including me, would want to return there without major reforms,

prescriptions of these writers are nonetheless fundamentally backward looking, because their standard is a particular point in time.

it was not the paradise that some now suggest, and it was made possible by a set of circumstances—historical, social, economic, political, and cultural—that are no longer with us.

America needs to be careful not to let aging baby boomers define its outlook. We cannot afford to farm out our vision of the future to a retiring generation. We can already see some indications of where that will lead: our political, cultural, and economic conversations today overflow with the language of decay and corrosion, as if our body politic is itself an aging boomer looking back upon his glory days.

In a bid to save money and increase their flexibility in a changing economy, colleges are hiring fewer full-time faculty and more and more adjuncts. Adjuncts, hired semester by semester, depend on positive student evaluations at the end of the term to get their contracts renewed. One way to ensure a good evaluation is to be an easy grader.

By passing through alone, the LORD made a prophetic promise – that when this Covenant would later be broken by Abraham’s descendants, the LORD Himself (represented by the smoking furnace) would pay the price on the cross at Calvary so that the eternal Covenant could be renewed in the blood of Jesus.  As the original Covenant was between Abraham and God, and because Abraham didn’t break the terms of the covenant, God to this day honors that contract with Abraham in that He has promised to never forsake or destroy the genetic remnant of Abraham’s descendants through Isaac and Jacob.[40]

When I worked in high altitude astronomy, the worst sickness that I experienced was not at the 13,796 feet very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea Observatory (MKO) in Hawaii, it was at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Arizona at the much lower altitude of 6,875 feet. Due to my very high altitude experiences, I knew that this strange sickness was not primarily caused by altitude sickness and was most likely Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). After reporting various behavioral problems in all of the staff to the management team, my contract was not renewed, I was unable to legally protect the health and safety of the workers that I was responsible for, troubleshooting of this environmental problem stopped and I left in a sickened state for my next position before I could find the root cause.

Many Americans, including especially those in the most vulnerable economic situations, were becoming systematically detached (or dis-integrated) from those institutions,

the detachment from core institutions sent people searching for new kinds of connections and new sources of meaning and order better attuned to an individualist age.

We are uneasy. And unease leads men and women to seek change, to innovate, to build on the best that they have and to uproot the worst.

Our keen sense of our own unease does not mean that we are stuck, therefore. It means that we are already moving. But where, and how?

The concerns of vulnerable workers and the poor, and their particular susceptibility to the ill effects of the diffusing forces operating in our society and economy, therefore need to be front and center in our economic thinking. This

For twenty-first-century solutions to work, they must empower families and provide them with options.21

It is not a coincidence that we repeatedly find education and access to work at the core of the mobility dilemma in America.

But that ideal, put forward in the Declaration of Independence and pursued ever since in a variety of ways by Americans of all races, religions, and political persuasions, is most accessible when we allow the mediating layers of our culture and society to flourish. It is not a vision of radical individualism or of consolidated statism. It is a vision of the free society rooted in an understanding of liberty that depends upon our institutions of moral formation and on the kind of person they produce—the citizen fit for virtuous freedom. It is an ideal rooted in natural rights but put into practice by free men and women who are not merely natural but also social achievements. American citizenship is not simply the application of that shared ideal, of course.

There is an alternative to this perilous mix of over-centralization and hyper-individualism. It can be found in the intricate structure of our complex social topography and in the institutions and relationships that stand between the isolated individual and the national state. These begin in loving family attachments. They spread outward to interpersonal relationships in neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, religious communities, fraternal bodies, civic associations, economic enterprises, activist groups, and the work of local governments. They

The liberty we can truly recognize as liberty is achieved by the emancipation of the individual not just from coercion by others but also from the tyranny of his unrestrained desires.

This older idea of liberty requires not only that people be free to choose, but also that they be able to choose well.

In our time, in particular, many people are not only estranged from some of them but are denied the chance to encounter them.

progress of the ethic of diffusion and liberalization has meant growing estrangement from precisely these prerequisites for human flourishing, especially among the least advantaged Americans.

it will have to overcome a social vision that is by now deeply rooted and powerfully dominant among liberals: the idea that the only genuine liberty is individual liberty, and that the only legitimate authority is the authority of the national government. The

Institutions that channel social knowledge from below and address human needs at a personal level are more likely to adapt to problems and circumstances and to find solutions. That

our free society requires a flourishing private culture of moral formation for liberty, which

It is a vision of the free society rooted in an understanding of liberty that depends upon our institutions of moral formation and on the kind of person they produce—the citizen fit for virtuous freedom.

A culture of more ordered individualism was more valuable to people building from a foundation of stability than to those working to rise from entrenched disadvantage, or to overcome the burdens of broken homes and communities.

Over and over, the effects of America’s diffusion, and then of its efforts to adjust to that diffusion, seemed to reach the wealthy and advantaged as rewards, but hit the poor and disadvantaged as punishments.

How can we make the most of the opportunities afforded by the dynamism and the freedom set loose by America’s postwar diffusion while mitigating its costs and burdens, especially for the most vulnerable among us? In

Declines in social capital tend to be self-intensifying: as people come to have less in common with their fellow citizens, they find it more difficult to cooperate and identify with one another, which brings a further weakening of remaining social bonds.

So while some Americans continued to experience a significant recovery of social order and norms in the 1990s, others saw their estrangement from America’s core institutions intensify. Attachment

the process of replacing attachments to large, established institutions with attachments to smaller, more flexible, but less established networks—as a “narrowing of the radius of trust” and a “miniaturization of community.

the dissolution of our core institutions and the country’s increasing diversity drove people from large institutions to small ones, and from large communities to micro-networks, in search of homogeneity, commonality, and trust.22 That

This second, late twentieth-century wave hit a deconsolidating nation that was in no position to press new immigrants to adopt a cohesive American identity. The

Ironically, the individualism of late-century America, by weakening that instinct to digest and integrate new immigrants into a self-confident whole, created more coherent subgroups, and therefore less assimilation into a culture of individualism. The