Difference Maker Quotes

Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through you. Always be kinder than necessary.

You have two choices in life...Choice one is to be the same and be like everyone else...Choice two is to be yourself and be a difference-maker.

On an important decision one rarely has 100% of the information needed for a good decision no matter how much one spends or how long one waits. And, if one waits too long, he has a different problem and has to start all over. This is the terrible dilemma of the hesitant decision maker.

Dare to be different. Represent your maker well and you will forever abide in the beautiful embrace of his loving arms.

The sum of all your thoughts comprises your overall attitude.

Capturing the beauty of the conversion of the water into wine, the poet Alexander Pope said, "The conscious water saw its Master and blushed." That sublime description could be reworked to explain each one of these miracles. Was it any different in principle for a broken body to mend at the command of its Maker? Was it far-fetched for the Creator of the universe, who fashioned matter out of nothing, to multiply bread for the crowd? Was it not within the power of the One who called all the molecules into existence to interlock them that they might bear His footsteps?

You don’t have to wake up at 4am just because a few CEO’s are doing that. Different people are creative at different times of the day.

The difference is simple: happy people look at their lives and see a series of choices. Miserable people see only a series of sacrifices.

The true novelist is one who understands the work as a continuous poem, is a myth-maker, and the wonder of the art resides in the endless different ways of telling a story.

I told him that I believe all things in nature bear the mark of their Maker. The eagle, the owl, and the wind. We sat silently for a long moment, understanding that we are not so different really.

Imagine if all the car makers in the world were to sit down together to design one extremely simple, embellishment-free, functional car that was made from the most environmentally-sustainable materials, how cheap to buy and humanity-and-Earth-considerate that vehicle would be. And imagine all the money that would be saved by not having different car makers duplicating their efforts, competing and trying to out-sell each other, and overall how much time that would liberate for all those people involved in the car industry to help those less fortunate and suffering in the world. Likewise, imagine when each house is no longer designed to make an individualised, ego-reinforcing, status-symbol statement for its owners and all houses are constructed in a functionally satisfactory, simple way, how much energy, labour, time and expense will be freed up to care for the wellbeing of the less fortunate and the planet.

In life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve? The essence of man is imperfection. Know that you're going to make mistakes. The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. Wake up and realize this: Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success. Achievers are given multiple reasons to believe they are failures. But in spite of that, they persevere. The average for entrepreneurs is 3.8 failures before they finally make it in business. When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic. Procrastination is too high a price to pay for fear of failure. To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway. Forget motivation. Just do it. Act your way into feeling, not wait for positive emotions to carry you forward. Recognize that you will spend much of your life making mistakes. If you can take action and keep making mistakes, you gain experience. Life is playing a poor hand well. The greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside. Why worry about things you can't control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you? Handicaps can only disable us if we let them. If you are continually experiencing trouble or facing obstacles, then you should check to make sure that you are not the problem. Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living. Embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward. Everything in life brings risk. It's true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don't try anything new. The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure — and actually fail — the greater your chances of success. If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you're not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve. The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get. Determining what went wrong in a situation has value. But taking that analysis another step and figuring out how to use it to your benefit is the real difference maker when it comes to failing forward. Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action. The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying? Commitment makes you capable of failing forward until you reach your goals. Cutting corners is really a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline. Successful people have learned to do what does not come naturally. Nothing worth achieving comes easily. The only way to fail forward and achieve your dreams is to cultivate tenacity and persistence. Never say die. Never be satisfied. Be stubborn. Be persistent. Integrity is a must. Anything worth having is worth striving for with all your might. If we look long enough for what we want in life we are almost sure to find it. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail. The next time you find yourself envying what successful people have achieved, recognize that they have probably gone through many negative experiences that you cannot see on the surface. Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.

He enjoyed the lying and the fooling of those around him. It made him feel in control, like his true self was not here, just somewhere else, arriving but never quite present. Never quite awake.

From the intellectual point of view an abyss may exist between a great mathematician and his boot maker, but from the point of view of character the difference is most often slight or non-existent

From now on the value of your life is wholly determined by you. Keep this sword close and remember, when a man learns to kill others he also learns how to die. And therefore, how to live.

In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class; every hour carries its new challenge. When you pass the inn at the end of the village you leave your favourite whimsy behind you; for you will meet no one who can share it. We listen to eloquent speaking, read books and write them, settle all the affairs of the universe. The dumb village multitudes pass on unchanging; the feel of the spade in the hand is no different for all our talk: good seasons and bad follow each other as of old. The dumb multitudes are no more concerned with us than is the old horse peering through the rusty gate of the village pound. The ancient map-makers wrote across unexplored regions, 'Here are lions.' Across the villages of fishermen and turners of the earth, so different are these from us, we can write but one line that is certain, 'Here are ghosts.' ("Village Ghosts")

Death has only one hand glove... so it takes away the body, but leaves behind the impacts. Difference makers live twice; in body and in impacts... The former is temporal but the later lasts long!

When a book leaves its author's desk it changes. Even before anyone has read it, before eyes other than its creator's have looked upon a single phrase, it is irretrievably altered. It has become a book that can be read, that no longer belongs to its maker. It has acquired, in a sense, free will. It will make its journey through the world and there is no longer anything the author can do about it. Even he, as he looks at its sentences, reads them differently now that they can be read by others. They look like different sentences. The book has gone out into the world and the world has remade it.

You may think novelists always have fixed plans to which they work, so that the future predicted by Chapter One is always inexorably the actuality of Chapter Thirteen. But novelists write for countless different reasons: for money, for fame, for reviewers, for parents, for friends, for loved ones; for vanity, for pride, for curiosity, for amusement: as skilled furniture makers enjoy making furniture, as drunkards like drinking, as judges like judging, as Sicilians like emptying a shotgun into an enemy's back. I could fill a book with reasons, and they would all be true, though not true of all. Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is. Or was. This is why we cannot plan. We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live.

There are three categories of people exist in the world; “the wanters”, “the wishers” and “the makers.

So cheer up Beloved; for your God is able, He is the maker of all things.

But with respect to religion itself, without regard to names, and as directing itself from the universal family of mankind to the divine object of adoration, it is man bringing to his maker the fruits of his heart; and though these fruits may differ from each other like the fruits of the earth, the grateful tribute of everyone is accepted.

People who make great impact are well remembered due to the empty seats that remain after their death. It takes time to fill the empty seats that are left unoccupied by people who walked great in great footprints.

I was going to say the words that could have made a difference but then I saw you You were least interested to know You didn’t even bother to see the truth in my eyes I had to leave darling I had to I had no intention to end things like this But this was written It was in our fate They say, “When you end up remember there’s a new beginning waiting for you somewhere” I’ll look for that new beginning To search for a new commencing With a promise that this time I won’t look backward.

...That's the difference between backpackers and holiday makers. The former can't help but invite hassle whilst the latter pay to escape it.

To the cowards, change is a want; to the weak, change is a wish; but to the brave, change is a must. People who put change ahead of all things are those who make a difference!

Day by day begin to stand out. Be a difference maker. Fitting in with the crowd is robbing you of your destiny.

A problem is something you can do something about. If you can't do something about it, then it's not a problem. It's a predicament. That means it's something that must be coped with, endured.

Focus on your work. Do what you're great at. Don't compare yourself to others and or waste time criticizing the lives and work of others. Do what matters most to you and make a difference doing that.

The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind—creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers.

Psalm 139 is not a psalm about me, fearfully and wonderfully made. It is a psalm about my Maker, fearful and wonderful. It is a psalm to inspire awe.

Time can play all sorts of tricks on you. In the blink of an eye, babies appear in carriages, coffins disappear into the ground, wars are won and lost, and children transform, like butterflies, into adults. That's what happened to me. Once upon a time, I was a boy named Hugo Cabret, and I desperately believed that a broken automaton would save my life. Now that my cocoon has fallen away and I have emerged as a magician named Professor Alcofrisbas, I can look back and see that I was right. The automaton my father discovered did save me. But now I have built a new automaton. I spent countless hours designing it. I made every gear myself, carefully cut every brass disk, and fashioned every bt of machinery with my own hands. When you wind it up, it can do something I'm sure no other automaton in the world can do. It can tel you the incredible story of Georges Melies, his wife, their goddaughter, and a beloved clock maker whose son grew up to be a magician. The complicated machinery inside my automaton can produce one-hundred and fifty-eight different pictures, and it can wrote, letter, by letter, an entire book, twenty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-nine words. These words. THE END

There’s a difference between being wed and being married. We were wed today, but I want our lives entangled, until they are seamless. Until the line between us blurs to nothing.” I

The emotion you continually feed is the one that will dominate your life.

we often place too much emphasis on making decisions and too little on managing the decisions we've already made.

Anyone can criticize or accept praise, but initiating a positive exchange is a hallmark of a difference maker.

Our emotions are different but we have them. We never cast a cold eye on life or death. Don't misunderstand our seeming serenity. After all, we live in a world of perfect trust in The Maker, and we are keenly aware that humans often do not, and we feel an active sorrow for them.

He that will not set himself proudly at the top of all things, but will consider the immensity of this fabric, and the great variety that is to be found in this little and inconsiderable part of it which he has to do with, may be apt to think that, in other mansions of it, there may be other and different intelligent beings, of whose faculties he has as little knowledge or apprehension as a worm shut up in one drawer of a cabinet hath of the senses or understanding of a man; such variety and excellency being suitable to the wisdom and power of the Maker. -- 1690

I remember how the fire roared to life in front of the captain, so sudden and sure. Any wolf-girl would have marveled at such a fire, easily as impressive as the work of our best fire-makers. We would have called it power, magic. They called it piety. But what is the difference, if both fires burn just as bright?

Go wherever the narrow way passes. If possible, go wherever there seems to be no way and create a way.

Failure isn't failure if you do better the next time.

most people overrate decision making, and they underrate decision managing.

Enlightenment writer and philosopher Voltaire likened life to a game of cards. Players must accept the cards dealt to them. However, once they have those cards in hand, they alone choose how they will play them. They decide what risks and actions to take.

The latent abundance of your inner most resources matters less. What matter most is the impact you can make with your inner resources and the distinctive footprints you can leave with what is within you. The excuse not to dare is there for everybody. When you see so many people crowded at the entrance, think of the roofing and if the roofing is too high, think of the next door and if the next door is not penetrable, create a door within the wall.

Here’s to the misfits and foolish ones who think differently. They’re not fond of simplicity. They live unconventionally existing at a different level of intensity. They add elasticity and flexibility to what’s inflexibly rigid, bringing warmth to the frigid systems of existence. You can hate them acidicly, discredit their credibility or even oppose them ritualistically. Look down on them cynically, say they became great accidentally, rain on them torrentially or see brilliance academically. You can look and see density or see a lovely symphony. About the only thing you can’t do is disqualify their eligibility. Because they change history. Everything in existence moves them restlessly on to destiny backed by infinity. Their spirit is immensity, they overcome resiliently and follow their hearts existentially. Though they may be misunderstood until the next century, we see their opponents’ adrenaline as only minimally convincing, simply for a time because in them there’s a tendency for the divine to visit earth coincidentally. And while others may see misfits and foolishness we see wisdom and genius because the ones crazy enough to think they can live and love limitlessly are the ones who actually do.

If our bodies were different, though, our metaphors would be different, as Olaf Stapledon showed in Star Maker. Crabs walk sideways, for instance. If crabs could talk, they would undoubtedly describe progress in difficult negotiations as sidling toward agreement and express the hope for a better future by saying their best days are still beside them. Our bodies prime our metaphors, and our metaphors prime how we think and act.

Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers. God isn’t offended by your biggest dreams or boldest prayers. He is offended by anything less. If your prayers aren’t impossible to you, they are insulting to God. Prayers are prophecies. They are the best predictors of your spiritual future. Who you become is determined by how you pray. Ultimately, the transcript of your prayers becomes the script of your life. The greatest tragedy in life is the prayers that go unanswered because they go unasked. God does not answer vague prayers. The more specific your prayers are, the more glory God receives. Most of us don’t get what we want because we quit praying. We give up too easily. We give up too soon. We quit praying right before the miracle happens. If you don’t take the risk, you forfeit the miracle. Take a step of faith when God gives you a vision because you trust that the One who gave you the vision is going to make provision. And for the record, if the vision is from God, it will most definitely be beyond your means. We shouldn’t seek answers as much as we should seek God. If you seek answers you won’t find them, but if you seek God, the answers will find you. If your plans aren’t birthed in prayer and bathed in prayer, they won’t succeed. Are your problems bigger than God, or is God bigger than your problems? Our biggest problem is our small view of God. That is the cause of all lesser evils. And it’s a high view of God that is the solution to all other problems. Because you know He can, you can pray with holy confidence. Persistence is the magic bullet. The only way you can fail is if you stop praying. 100 percent of the prayers I don’t pray won’t get answered. Where are you most proficient, most sufficient? Maybe that is precisely where God wants you to trust Him to do something beyond your ability. What we perceive as unanswered prayers are often the greatest answers. Our heavenly Father is far too wise and loves us far too much to give us everything we ask for. Someday we’ll thank God for the prayers He didn’t answer as much or more than the ones He did. You can’t pray for open doors if you aren’t willing accept closed doors, because one leads to the other. Just as our greatest successes often come on the heels of our greatest failures, our greatest answers often come on the heels of our longest and most boring prayers. The biggest difference between success and failure, both spiritually and occupationally, is your waking-up time on your alarm clock. We won’t remember the things that came easy; we’ll remember the things that came hard. It’s not just where you end up that’s important; it’s how you get there. Goal setting begins and ends with prayer. The more you have to circle something in prayer, the more satisfying it is spiritually. And, often, the more glory God gets. I don’t want easy answers or quick answers because I have a tendency to mishandle the blessings that come too easily or too quickly. I take the credit or take them for granted. So now I pray that it will take long enough and be hard enough for God to receive all of the glory. Change your prayer approach from as soon as possible to as long as it takes. Go home. Lock yourself in your room. Kneel down in the middle of the floor, and with a piece of chalk draw a circle around yourself. There, on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a revival within that chalk circle.

There is no ready vocabulary to describe the ways in which artists become artists, no recognition that artists must learn to be who they are (even as they cannot help being who they are.) We have a language that reflects how we learn to paint, but not how we learn to paint our paintings. How do you describe the [reader to place words here] that changes when craft swells to art? "Artists come together with the clear knowledge that when all is said and done, they will return to their studio and practice art alone. Period. That simple truth may be the deepest bond we share. The message across time from the painted bison and the carved ivory seal speaks not of the differences between the makers of that art and ourselves, but of the similarities. Today these similarities lay hidden beneath urban complexity -- audience, critics, economics, trivia -- in a self-conscious world. Only in those moments when we are truly working on our own work do we recover the fundamental connection we share with all makers of art. The rest may be necessary, but it's not art. Your job is to draw a line from your art to your life that is straight and clear.

The world is waiting for you, never give up on your dream(s). Arise and make an impact, there are people who are just waiting for your story which will give them a turn around in their lives. It can be the message of the gospel, motivation, inspiration, etc. You need to spread that message, you CAN'T KEEP it to yourself. I dare you to Make a Difference

Their greatest fear is you may step forward without fear. Because your courage may become contagious.

One of the reasons that problem solving is so difficult is that we are often too close to the problems to truly understand them.

God wonderfully made you different; you must make a wonderful difference !

don't be affected by the ideologies of others because no one can be someone else, be yourself, the real you is a winner

When someone says “Managers are decision makers,” they are not talking about master strategists, for a master strategist is a designer.

Your attitude colors every aspect of your life. It is like the mind's paintbrush.

You are a change maker and nothing should clean this notice off the boards of your heart!

Anyone can be a difference maker.

Difference makers know how to work loose, to model, fine-tune, and play with ideas before they execute them to find changes that are likely to succeed.

Our task as historians is to make past conflicts live again; not to lament the verdict or to wish for a different one. It bewildered me when my old master A. F. Pribram, a very great historian, said in the nineteen-thirties: 'It is still not decided whether the Habsburg monarchy could have found a solution for its national problems.' How can we decide about something that did not happen? Heaven knows, we have difficulty enough in deciding what did happen. Events decided that the Habsburgs had not found a solution for their national problems; that is all we know or need to know. Whenever I read the phrase: 'whether so-and-so acted rightly must be left for historians to decide', I close the book; the writer has moved from history to make-believe.

Ohh,' said the girl with a sad tilt of her head. It was a response Sejal would hear a lot in the following weeks and which she would eventully come to understand meant, 'Ohh, India, that must be so hard for you, and I know because I read this book over the summer called The Fig Tree (which is actually set in Pakistan but I don't realize there's a difference) about a girl whose parents sell her to a sandal maker because everyone's poor and they don't care about girls there, and I bet that's why you're in our country even, and now everyone's probably being mean to you just because of 9/11, but not me although I'll still be watching you a little too closely on the bus later because what if you're just here to kill Americans?' There was a lot of information encoded in that one vowel sound, so Sejal missed most of it at first.

I was young at Myna, that first time. When had the change come? He had retreated to here, to Collegium, to spin his awkward webs of intrigue and to lecture at the College. Then, years on, the call had come for action. He had gone to that chest in which he stored his youth and found that, like some armour long unworn, it had rusted away. He tried to tell himself that this was not like the grumbling of any other man who finds the prime of his life behind him. I need my youth and strength now, as never before. A shame that one could no husband time until one needed it. All his thoughts rang hollow. He was past his best and that was the thorn that would not be plucked from his side. He was no different from any tradesman or scholar who, during a life of indolence, pauses partway up the stairs to think, This was not so hard, yesterday.

These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good. They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that turn which Reason approves, and which Feeling, perhaps too often opposes: they certainly make a difference in the general tenor of a life, and enable it to be better regulated, more equable, quieter on the surface; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall. As to what lies below, leave that with God. Man, your equal, weak as you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence: take it to your Maker--show Him the secrets of the spirit He gave--ask Him how you are to bear the pains He has appointed--kneel in His presence, and pray with faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous weakness, for patience in extreme need. Certainly, at some hour, though perhaps not at your hour, the waiting hours will stir; in some shape, though perhaps not the shape you dreamed, which your heart loved, and for which it bled, the healing herald will descend.

Perfume makers know that, owing to genetic differences in how we experience fragrances, about half the people who inhale jasmine will think of honey, and the other half, unfortunately, will think of urine. They’re both right.

Undoubtedly the novel has means of its own—language not the image is its material, its intimate effect on the isolated reader is not the same as that of a film on the crowd in a darkened cinema—but precisely for these reasons the differences in aesthetic structure make the search for equivalents an even more delicate matter, and thus they require all the more power of invention and imagination from the film-maker who is truly attempting a resemblance. One

As a leader, you will see things you may never like to see; yours is to correct those things so that next time you open your eyes, you will see better things you wish to be seeing always. Leaders learn to right the wrong of society.

THE Gospel of Christ not only differs from all other systems of religion in the superior excellence of the truths it reveals, but also in the directions it gives for the propagation of its doctrines. Other systems seek to advance themselves by invoking the aid of the secular power, and by forcing men, against their convictions, to accept a theory repugnant to their views. They have thus succeeded in thronging their temples with hypocritical worshippers, bound to tlieir altars through fear and slavish dread. These systems, in order to maintain themselves, find it necessary to proscribe and persecute all who differ from them, either in their articles of belief or mode of worship. But the Gospel of Christ, though it is the infallible truth of God, expressly prohibits a resort to any such measures for its advancement. It not only teaches its adherents to utterly abandon the use of carnal weapons for its propagation, but it also charges them not to proscribe those who may differ in their views or mode of worship. This principle is directly expressed in the text and its connection. The teaching of the Saviour has been violated, however, even by his professed followers; and, in the name of the meek and lowly Jesus, men have gone forth with proscription, oppression, and persecution, to advance their own opinions, and crush out that liberty of thought, and those rights of conscience vouchsafed to man by his Maker, and the free exercise of which is alone compatible with his personal accountability.

That might be good news for rationalists—maybe we can think carefully whenever we believe it matters? Not quite. Tetlock found two very different kinds of careful reasoning. Exploratory thought is an “evenhanded consideration of alternative points of view.” Confirmatory thought is “a one-sided attempt to rationalize a particular point of view.”13 Accountability increases exploratory thought only when three conditions apply: (1) decision makers learn before forming any opinion that they will be accountable to an audience, (2) the audience’s views are unknown, and (3) they believe the audience is well informed and interested in accuracy.

on this role almost exclusively inside the family and primarily only with the borderline or narcissist. Often Caretakers are very independent, good decision makers, competent, and capable on their own when not in a relationship with a borderline or narcissist. It is almost as if the Caretaker lives in two different worlds with two different sets of behaviors, rules, and expectations, one set with the BP/NP and another with everyone else. You may even hide your caretaking behaviors from others and try to protect other family members from taking on caretaking behavior, much like child abuse victims try to protect siblings from being abused.

That was so-Gryffin always has so much pain. That you can take it away like that - it's almost like magic." Chase shrugged in the dark. "Kindness is a form of magic," he said. "So everyone should be capable of at least a little. Good night. See you in the morning." And he nodded to me and strode off. Kindness is a form of magic. Then magic had sprinkled itself across me many times, when I had not noticed its fey sparkle. I had been used to thinking of my life as bleak and full of darkness, but for the first time it occurred to me how often a stranger had stepped forward to offer me comfort and assistance, no matter how briefly. Ian Shelby. Sarah Parmer. Aylre the Safe-Keeper. The man who had stopped Carlon from beating me in the streets. Chase Beerin. They had been kind to me; most had, in different ways, been kind to Gryffin as well. Looked at that way, my life was a weave of brightness laid over a trembling black, a scrap of midnight velvet spangled with many jewels. I had another thought as I stood there, trying desperately to understand a completely altered view of my existence. Someday I might be the one to offer kindness to someone else in grim and dire circumstances. Someday I might be the one with wealth or knowledge or strength or power that could be used to alleviate another person's distress. Such a thought had literally never crossed my mind before. More than once I had been saved. Someday I might save someone else in return.

It’s the same here as it is on earth—you’ve got to earn a thing, square and honest, before you enjoy it.  You can’t enjoy first and earn afterwards.  But there’s this difference, here: you can choose your own occupation, and all the powers of heaven will be put forth to help you make a success of it, if you do your level best.  The shoe-maker on earth that had the soul of a poet in him won’t have to make shoes here.

I don’t presume to grasp Aboriginal knowledge fully. It comes from a way of knowing the earth—an epistemology—different from that of my own culture. It speaks of being attuned to the blooming of the bitterroot, the running of the salmon, the cycles of the moon. Of knowing that we are tied to the land—the trees and animals and soil and water—and to one another, and that we have a responsibility to care for these connections and resources, ensuring the sustainability of these ecosystems for future generations and to honor those who came before. Of treading lightly, taking only what gifts we need, and giving back. Of showing humility toward and tolerance for all we are connected to in this circle of life. But what my years in the forestry profession have also shown me is that too many decision-makers dismiss this way of viewing nature and rely only on select parts of science. The impact has become too devastating to ignore. We can compare the condition of the land where it has been torn apart, each resource treated in isolation from the rest, to where it has been cared for according to the Secwepemc principal of k̓wseltktnews (translated as “we are all related”) or the Salish concept of nə́c̓aʔmat ct (“we are one”). We must heed the answers we’re being given.

Prologue: Above the Line Playbook Leadership isn’t a difference maker. It is the difference maker. Leadership is much more than simply declaring what you want and then getting angry if you don’t get it. A leader is someone who earns trust, sets a clear standard, and then equips and inspires people to meet that standard. Be true to who you are. Talk straight and demand accountability. Run toward problems. If you ignore them, they only get worse. Work to get better every day. Staying the same gets you nowhere. Savor the journey. Every day. You only get to do it once.

It seems to me, dear sister, that you still think the important thing is to become like everybody else. In reality, the important thing is to become different from the others, to discover your uniqueness. You're a rebel by birth, but that doesn't mean much. Your own rebellion is still ahead of you.

Classic Ballet, Keep away, keep building your creaky fairy castles, keep cloning clones and meaningless manners, hang on to your beanstalk ballerinas and their midget male shadows, run yourself out of business with your tons of froufrou and costly clattery toe shoes that ruin all chances for illusions of lightness, keep on crowding the minds of blind balletomanes who prefer dainty poses to the eloquent strength of momentum, who have forgotten or never known the manings of gesture, who would nod their noses to barefoot embargos ("so grab me" spelt backwards). Continue to repolish your stiff technique and to ignore a public that hungers for something other than a bag of tricks and the empty-headedness of surface patterns. Just keep it up, keep imitating yourself, and, , go grow your own dance makers. Come on, don't keep trying to filter modern ones through your so-safe extablishment. We're to be seen undiluted, undistorted, not absorbed by your hollow world like blood into a sponge. Yours truly, A Different Leaf on Our Family Tree

That stuff Jesus warned us to beware of, the yeast of the Pharisees, is so infectious today in the camps of both liberals and conservatives. Conservatives stand up and thank God that they are not like the homosexuals, the Muslims, the liberals. Liberals stand up and thank God that they are not like the war makers, the yuppies, the conservatives. It is a similar self-righteousness, just with different definitions of evildoing. It can paralyze us in judgment and guilt and rob us of life. Rather than separating ourselves from everyone we consider impure, maybe we are better off just beating our chests and praying that God would be merciful enough to save us from this present ugliness and to make our lives so beautiful that people cannot resist that mercy.

Religious faith—for all its problems, despite its maddening tendency to replicate ungrace—lives on because we sense the numinous beauty of a gift undeserved that comes at unexpected moments from Outside. Refusing to believe that our lives of guilt and shame lead to nothing but annihilation, we hope against hope for another place run by different rules. We grow up hungry for love, and in ways so deep as to remain unexpressed we long for our Maker to love us.

We need original thinkers, provocateurs, and people who care. We need marketers who can lead, salespeople able to risk making a human connection, passionate change makers willing to be shunned if it is necessary for them to make a point. Every organization needs a linchpin, the one person who can bring it together and make a difference.

The lesson of history, then, is that even as institutions and policy makers improve, there will always be a temptation to stretch the limits. Just as an individual can go bankrupt no matter how rich she starts out, a financial system can collapse under the pressure of greed, politics, and profits no matter how well regulated it seems to be.

Our past, present, and future lives are all lived out at the same time, even though they seem to be taking place in different places and times

Your attitude colors every aspect of your life. It is like the mind’s paintbrush.

Show the world you are not here to just pass through. Leave great footprints wherever you pass and be remembered for the change you initiated.

When you are called for a great duty because you have been given a great ability, do your very best to leave great footprints no matter what!

There's a world of difference between a person who has a big problem and a person who makes a problem big.

The way you look like can attract others to surround you, this is not built by behaving commonly but only becoming the real you can give you a different image

The problems around us are not as crucial as the people.

You will be remembered for making a difference, and not for being the owner of fleets of cars.

Leaders are lovers of change. Without change, growth is static. To lead, you have to appreciate change; else change will depreciate you!

People cannot perform in a way inconsistent with the way they see themselves.

When it comes to the thing you love to do, the thing you were made to do, aim high. The odds matter little. Whether you fall down along the way matters little.

successful people make right decisions early and manage those decisions daily.

Journaling is the difference between learning and remembering. It's also the difference between forgetting and fulfilling our goals.

It's not evil that separates Earth and Ingo; it's difference. But there are plenty who want to make evil out of difference.

Surely a number of such people want to do the right thing, are well-intentioned, but just as surely some do not act from creditable intentions. Some of our elites…professors, journalists, makers of motion pictures and television entertainment, et al.…delight in nihilism and destruction as much as do the random killers in our cities. Their weapons are just different.

People are stupid at times, but guess what - so are you - so am I. So, let's accept each other's stupidity and fill in for each other's weaknesses - let's stand next to each other and become the strength to each other.

Museum architectural search committees have invariably included the Kimbell in their international scouting tours of exemplary art galleries (a practice pioneered by Velma Kimbell, the founder’s widow, in 1964). Those groups no doubt respond to the Kimbell with suitable reverence, but given the buildings they later commissioned, many post-Bilbao museum patrons obviously wanted something quite different. The disparity between Kahn’s museums and recent examples of that genre parallels the discrepancy he saw between postwar Modernism and ancient Classicism: “Our stuff looks tinny compared to it.” At a time when commercial values are systematically corrupting the museum - one of civilized society’s most elevating experiences - the example of Kahn, among the most courageous and successful architectural reformers of all time, seems more relevant and cautionary than ever.

It’s the difference between utility and virtue. Many policy makers now think of education in functional terms. It’s about learning skills that will help students find employment—such as using a word processor or spreadsheet. Yet what about helping people to figure out the meaning of life? Or become good people? Or make a difference to others? Is education for a stage in life, completed once we find jobs, or should it be a lifelong pursuit?

Frame the spiritual journey as a stark good-vs.-evil battle of warring sides long enough and you’ll eventually see the Church and those around you in the same way too. You’ll begin to filter the world through the lens of conflict. Everything becomes a threat to the family; everyone becomes a potential enemy. Fear becomes the engine that drives the whole thing. When this happens, your default response to people who are different or who challenge you can turn from compassion to contempt. You become less like God and more like the Godfather. In those times, instead of being a tool to fit your heart for invitation, faith can become a weapon to defend yourself against the encroaching sinners threatening God’s people—whom we conveniently always consider ourselves among. Religion becomes a cold, cruel distance maker, pushing from the table people who aren’t part of the brotherhood and don’t march in lockstep with the others.

...with the unblinking assumption, that science has cornered the market on truth and there's not much room for discussion. Undeterred, we carried on. The basket makers had given us the prerequisites of the scientific method: observation, pattern, and a testable hypothesis. That sounded like science to me. So we began by setting up experimental plots in the meadows to ask the plants the question "Do these two different harvest methods contribute to decline" And then we tried to detect their answer.

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given then to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.

different forms. “The verbal intercourse of these raven-beings of the planet Saturn is somewhat like our own. But their way of speaking is the most beautiful I have ever heard. “It can be compared to the music of our best singers when with all their being they sing in a minor key. “And as for the quality of their relations with each other—I don’t even know how to describe it. It can be known only by existing among them and having the experience oneself. “All that can be said is that these bird-beings have hearts exactly like those of the angels nearest our Endless Maker and Creator. “They exist strictly according to the ninth commandment of our Creator: ‘Consider everything belonging to another as if it were your own, and so treat it.’ “Later, I must certainly tell you in more detail about those three-brained beings who arise and exist on the planet Saturn, since one of my real friends during the whole period of my exile in that solar system was a being of that planet, who had the exterior coating of a raven and whose name was Harharkh.

One of the big differences between economics and politics is that politicians are not forced to pay attention to the consequences that will come after the next elections. An elected official, whose policies keep the electorate happy until Election Day, has a good chance of being reelected, even if those policies have disastrous consequences for years to come. There is no 'present value' for making political decision makers today take into account future consequences, when those consequences will come after the elections.

Furthermore, theory that is based on the assumption that the participants coolly and “rationally” calculate their advantages according to a consistent value system forces us to think more thoroughly about the meaning of “irrationality.” Decision-makers are not simply distributed along a one-dimensional scale that stretches from complete rationality at one end to complete irrationality at the other. Rationality is a collection of attributes, and departures from complete rationality may be in many different directions. Irrationality can imply a disorderly and inconsistent value system, faulty calculation, an inability to receive messages or to communicate efficiently; it can imply random or haphazard influences in the reaching of decisions or the transmission of them, or in the receipt or conveyance of information; and it sometimes merely reflects the collective nature of a decision among individuals who do not have identical value systems and whose organizational arrangements and communication systems do not cause them to act like a single entity.

Faith is a key that unlocks the treasure house of God that is stocked with answered prayers. Faith is a conduit that carries the presence and power of God right into the midst of his people. Faith is a difference-maker, a future-shaper, a bondage-breaker, a Kingdom-mover.

It is not that the historian can avoid emphasis of some facts and not of others. This is as natural to him as to the mapmaker, who, in order to produce a usable drawing for practical purposes, must first flatten and distort the shape of the earth, then choose out of the bewildering mass of geographic information those things needed for the purpose of this or that particular map. My argument cannot be against selection, simplification, emphasis, which are inevitable for both cartographers and historians. But the map-maker's distortion is a technical necessity for a common purpose shared by all people who need maps. The historian's distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial or national or sexual. Furthermore, this ideological interest is not openly expressed in the way a mapmaker's technical interest is obvious ("This is a Mercator projection for long-range navigation-for short-range, you'd better use a different projection"). No, it is presented as if all readers of history had a common interest which historians serve to the best of their ability. This is not intentional deception; the historian has been trained in a society in which education and knowledge are put forward as technical problems of excellence and not as tools for contending social classes, races, nations. To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to de-emphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves- unwittingly-to justify what was done. My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)-that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly. The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks)-the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress-is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders. It is as if they, like Columbus, deserve universal acceptance, as if they-the Founding Fathers, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, the leading members of Congress, the famous Justices of the Supreme Court-represent the nation as a whole. The pretense is that there really is such a thing as "the United States," subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a "national interest" represented in the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decisions of the courts, the development of capitalism, the culture of education and the mass media.

Decision makers find that asking what-would-it-take questions gives them more, better, and different Macro Tactics from which to choose. As a result, they put themselves and their organizations in stronger positions to achieve their Desired Outcome and they avoid costly and preventable mistakes

Most of the time, we have to be strong, we must not show our fragility. We’ve known that since the schoolyard. There is always a fragile bit of us, but we keep it very hidden. Yet Venetian glass doesn’t apologise for its weakness. It admits its delicacy; it is confident enough to demand careful treatment; it makes the world understand it could easily be damaged. It’s not fragile because of a deficiency, or by mistake. It's not as if its maker was trying to make it tough and hardy and then - stupidly - ended up with something a child could snap, or that would be shattered by clumsy mishandling. It is fragile and easily harmed as the consequence of its search for transparency and refinement and its desire to welcome sunlight and candle light into its depths. Glass can achieve wonderful effects but the necessary price is fragility. Some good things things have to be delicate - the dish says: ‘I am delightful, but if you knock me about I’ll break, and that’s not my fault.’ It is the duty of civilisation to allow the more delicate forms of human activity to thrive; to create environments where it is OK to be fragile. And we know, really, that it is not glass which most needs this care, it is ourselves. It’s obvious the glass could easily be smashed, so it makes you use your fingers tenderly; you have to be careful how you grasp the stem. It teaches us that moderation is admirable, and elegant, not just a tedious demand. It tells us that being careful is glamorous and exciting - even fashionable. It is a moral tale about gentleness, told by means of a drinking vessel. This is training for the more important moments in life when moderation will make a real difference to other people. Being mature - and civilised - means being aware of the effect of one’s strength on others.

But Unix had a serious shortcoming: No common version existed. Over the years different versions of Unix had proliferated like weeds, so that an application written for one would not run unmodified on another. While DOS presented a single target to consumers, applications writers and computer makers, Unix did not.

In 2012, Spanish researchers released a study that looked at 464,411 popular recordings around the world between 1955 and 2010 and found the difference between new hits and old hits wasn’t more complicated chord structures. Instead, it was new instrumentation bringing a fresh sound to “common harmonic progressions.

What we want, what we need, what we must have are indispensable human beings. We need original thinkers, provocateurs, and people who care. We need marketers who can lead, salespeople able to risk making a human connection, passionate change makers willing to be shunned if it is necessary for them to make a point. Every organization needs a linchpin, the one person who can bring it together and make a difference. Some organizations haven't realized this yet, or haven't articulated it, but we need artists. Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done. That would be you.

Much of the difference between those who promote process goals and those who promote outcome goals seems to reflect differences in how they conceive what knowledge is, and whether relevant knowledge is concentrated in a few or widely diffused among the many. Such knowledge includes knowledge of costs. Whatever the amount of socially consequential information that is known to surrogate decision-makers, no given decision-maker is likely to know more than a small fraction of what is necessary to know, in order to make the best decisions for a whole society. That can be a much more serious problem when prescribing outcome goals than when prescribing process goals.

For those of you who test negative to gluten sensitivity or who have never had problems with gluten and love your pancakes and pizza, let me share the following: Research shows that modern wheat is capable of producing more than 23,000 different proteins, any one of which could trigger a potentially damaging inflammatory response.13

With respect to what are called denominations of religion, if every one is left to judge of its own religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is wrong; but if they are to judge of each other's religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is right; and therefore all the world is right, or all the world is wrong. but with respect to religion itself, without regard to names, and as directing itself from the universal family of mankind to the Divine object of all adoration, it is man bringing to his Maker the fruits of his heart; and though those fruits may differ from each other like the fruits of the earth, the grateful tribute of every one is accepted.

In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities ; people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class; every hour carries its new challenge. When you pass the inn at the end of the village you leave your favourite whimsy behind you; for you will meet no one who can share it. We listen to eloquent speaking, read books and write them, settle all the affairs of the universe. The dumb village multitudes pass on unchanging; the feel of the spade in the hand is no different for all our talk: good seasons and bad follow each other as of old. The dumb multitudes are no more concerned with us than is the old horse peering through the rusty gate of the village pound. The ancient map-makers wrote across unexplored regions, ‘Here are lions.’ Across the villages of fishermen and turners of the earth, so different are these from us, we can write but one line that is certain, ‘Here are ghosts.

Our culture is based on will—the will to be, to become, to achieve, to fulfill—therefore, in each one of us there is always the entity who is trying to change, control, alter that which he observes. But is there a difference between that which he observes and himself, or are they one? This is a thing that cannot be merely accepted. It must be thought of, gone into with tremendous patience, gentleness, hesitancy, so that the mind is no longer separated from that which it thinks, so that the observer and the observed are psychologically one. As long as I am psychologically separate from that which I perceive in myself as envy, I try to overcome envy; but is that ‘I’, the maker of effort to overcome envy, different from envy? Or are they both the same, only the ‘I’ has separated himself from envy in order to overcome it because he feels envy is painful, and for various other reasons? But that very separation is the cause of envy. Perhaps you are not used to this way of thinking, and it is a little bit too abstract. But a mind that is envious can never be tranquil because it is always comparing, always trying to become something which it is not; and if one really goes into this problem of envy radically, profoundly, deeply, one must inevitably come upon this problem—whether the entity that wishes to be rid of envy is not envy itself. When one realizes that it is envy itself that wants to get rid of envy, then the mind is aware of that feeling called envy without any sense of condemning or trying to get rid of it. Then from that the problem arises: Is there a feeling if there is no verbalization? Because the very word envy is condemnatory, is it not? Am I saying too much all at once? Is there a feeling of envy if I don’t name that feeling? By the very naming of it, am I not maintaining that feeling? The feeling and the naming are almost simultaneous, are they not? And is it possible to separate them so that there is only a sense of reaction without naming? If you really go into it, you will find that when there is no naming of that feeling, envy totally ceases—not

The actual consumers of knowledge are the children—who can’t pay, can’t vote, can’t sit on the committees. Their parents care for them, but don’t sit in the classes themselves; they can only hold politicians responsible according to surface images of “tough on education.” Politicians are too busy being re-elected to study all the data themselves; they have to rely on surface images of bureaucrats being busy and commissioning studies—it may not work to help any children, but it works to let politicians appear caring. Bureaucrats don’t expect to use textbooks themselves, so they don’t care if the textbooks are hideous to read, so long as the process by which they are purchased looks good on the surface. The textbook publishers have no motive to produce bad textbooks, but they know that the textbook purchasing committee will be comparing textbooks based on how many different subjects they cover, and that the fourth-grade purchasing committee isn’t coordinated with the third-grade purchasing committee, so they cram as many subjects into one textbook as possible. Teachers won’t get through a fourth of the textbook before the end of the year, and then the next year’s teacher will start over. Teachers might complain, but they aren’t the decision-makers, and ultimately, it’s not their future on the line, which puts sharp bounds on how much effort they’ll spend on unpaid altruism . . .

It is the simplest phrase you can imagine,” Favreau said, “three monosyllabic words that people say to each other every day.” But the speech etched itself in rhetorical lore. It inspired music videos and memes and the full range of reactions that any blockbuster receives online today, from praise to out-of-context humor to arch mockery. Obama’s “Yes, we can” refrain is an example of a rhetorical device known as epistrophe, or the repetition of words at the end of a sentence. It’s one of many famous rhetorical types, most with Greek names, based on some form of repetition. There is anaphora, which is repetition at the beginning of a sentence (Winston Churchill: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields”). There is tricolon, which is repetition in short triplicate (Abraham Lincoln: “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people”). There is epizeuxis, which is the same word repeated over and over (Nancy Pelosi: “Just remember these four words for what this legislation means: jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs”). There is diacope, which is the repetition of a word or phrase with a brief interruption (Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”) or, most simply, an A-B-A structure (Sarah Palin: “Drill baby drill!”). There is antithesis, which is repetition of clause structures to juxtapose contrasting ideas (Charles Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”). There is parallelism, which is repetition of sentence structure (the paragraph you just read). Finally, there is the king of all modern speech-making tricks, antimetabole, which is rhetorical inversion: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” There are several reasons why antimetabole is so popular. First, it’s just complex enough to disguise the fact that it’s formulaic. Second, it’s useful for highlighting an argument by drawing a clear contrast. Third, it’s quite poppy, in the Swedish songwriting sense, building a hook around two elements—A and B—and inverting them to give listeners immediate gratification and meaning. The classic structure of antimetabole is AB;BA, which is easy to remember since it spells out the name of a certain Swedish band.18 Famous ABBA examples in politics include: “Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.” —Benjamin Disraeli “East and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust each other.” —Ronald Reagan “The world faces a very different Russia than it did in 1991. Like all countries, Russia also faces a very different world.” —Bill Clinton “Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.” —George W. Bush “Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights.” —Hillary Clinton In particular, President John F. Kennedy made ABBA famous (and ABBA made John F. Kennedy famous). “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind,” he said, and “Each increase of tension has produced an increase of arms; each increase of arms has produced an increase of tension,” and most famously, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Antimetabole is like the C–G–Am–F chord progression in Western pop music: When you learn it somewhere, you hear it everywhere.19 Difficult and even controversial ideas are transformed, through ABBA, into something like musical hooks.

To call Wienrich and Boettcher 'chocolate makers' was like calling Leonard of Quirm 'a decent painter who also tinkered with things', or Death 'not someone you'd want to meet every day'. It was accurate, but it didn't tell the whole story. For one thing, they didn't make, they created. There's an important difference. Up to ten Dollars a pound, usually.

Along the way I kept running across wonderful bits of information about the women - virtually always women - who produced these textiles and about the values that different societies put on the products and their makers. When I talked about my work, people seemed especially eager for these vignettes, stories that told of women's lives thousands of years ago.

I don't really believe that people can predict the future,' he admitted. 'People predict the future every day, Stenwold Maker,' she replied, studying the rainbow carefully as the glass panels shifted slightly on the creaking wooded framework. 'If you drop a stone, you may predict that it shall fall. If you know a man to be dishonest, you may predict that he will cheat you. If you know one army is better trained and led, you may predict that it will win the battle.' He could not help smiling at that. 'But that is different. That is using knowledge already gained about the world to guess at the most likely outcome.' 'And that is also predicting the future, Stenwold Maker,' she said. 'The only difference is your source of knowledge. Everything that happens has a cause, which same cause has itself a cause. It is a chain stretching into the most distant past, and forged by necessity, inclination, bitter memories, the urge of duty. Nothing happens without a reason. Predicting the future does not require predestination, Stenwold Maker. It only requires a world where one thing will most likely lead to another.

People can call you many different things, but you are not what people call you. You are what you answer to. They can call you slow, lazy, too old. That’s all right. Just don’t answer to it. Answer to “victorious,” “talented,” “history maker.” If you’ll do this, I believe and declare, today is going to be a turning point. The bondages from the past are no longer going to have any effect on you.

Today, as then, many effective strategies are more designs than decisions—are more constructed than chosen. In these cases, doing strategy is more like designing a high-performance aircraft than deciding which forklift truck to buy or how large to build a new factory. When someone says “Managers are decision makers,” they are not talking about master strategists, for a master strategist is a designer.

For her, being an American was loathing America, but loving America was something he could not let go of any more than he could let go of loving his father and his mother, any more than he could have let go of his decency. How could she "hate" this country when she had no conception of this country? How could a child of his be so blind as to revile the "rotten system" that had given her own family every opportunity to succeed? To revile her "capitalist" parents as though their wealth were the product of anything other than the unstinting industry of three generations. The men of three generations, including even himself, slogging through the slime and stink of a tannery. The family that started out in a tannery, at one with, side by side with, the lowest of the low - now to her "capitalist dogs." There wasn't much difference and she knew it, between hating America and hating them. He loved the America she hated and blamed for everything that was imperfect in life and wanted violently to overturn, he loved the "bourgeois values" she hated and ridiculed and wanted to subvert, he loved the mother she hated and had all but murdered by doing what she did. Ignorant fucking bitch! The price they had paid! Why shouldn't he tear up this Rita Cohen letter? They were back! The sadistic mischief-makers with their bottomless talent for antagonism who had extorted from him the Audrey Hepburn scrapbook, the stuttering diary, and the ballet shoes, these delinquent young brutes calling themselves "revolutionaries" who had so viciously played with his hopes five years back had decided the time had again rolled around to laugh at Swede Levov.

If all this is true, then it is to the creative artists that we should naturally turn for an exposition of what is meant by those credal formulae which deal with the nature of the Creative Mind. Actually, we seldom seem to consult them in the matter. Poets have, indeed, often communicated in their own mode of expression truths identical with the theologians' truths; but just because of the difference in the modes of expression, we often fail to see the identity of the statements. The artist does not recognise that the phrases of the creeds purport to be observations of fact about the creative mind as such, including his own; while the theologian, limiting the application of the phrases to the divine Maker, neglects to inquire of the artist what light he can throw upon them from his own immediate apprehension of truth.

There is nothing God loves more than keeping promises, answering prayers, performing miracles, and fulfilling dreams. That is who He is. That is what He does. And the bigger the circle we draw, the better, because God gets more glory. The greatest moments in life are the miraculous moments when human impotence and divine omnipotence intersect – and they intersect when we draw a circle around the impossible situations in our lives and invite God to intervene. I promise you this: God is ready and waiting. So while I have no idea what circumstances you find yourself in, I’m confident that you are only a prayer away from a dream fulfilled, a promise kept, or a miracle performed. It is absolutely imperative at the outset that you come to terms with this simple yet life-changing truth: God is for you. If you don’t believe that, then you’ll pray small timid prayers; if you do believe it, then you’ll pray big audacious prayers. And one way or another, your small timid prayers or bid audacious prayers will change the trajectory of your life and turn you into two totally different people. Prayers are prophecies. They are best predictors of your spiritual future. Who you become is determined by how you pray. Ultimately, the transcript of your prayers becomes the script of your life.

When the week begins, think of how you will end it. When the week ends, think of how you did begin it. Start your week with joy. Smile at the storms in the week and though they might be so strong, be stronger than ever. Disregard disadvantages regardless of the situation and see 'this - advantage'. Don't be easily irritated by people or the actions of people; you harm your own emotions by doing so. Pardon people for their mistakes and do not give a precious thinking time to the mistakes of other. Life is all about learning lessons; only learn the lessons of life in every situation of life you meet. There is nothing so noble than working to please your solemn Maker. Think of the distinctive footprint you must live and leave. Know who your are; be who you are. Know what you want; live for what you want. Focus on the mission and don't lose focus of the vision. Enjoy a great week!

... the Scripture is like one big, unbroken story about people who decided to follow God and ended up failing almost as much as they succeeded. After God told Abraham that he was going to have millions of kids, the old man literally laughed in God's face. Jacob was a lying cheat before he met God at Bethel. And he was a lying cheat afterward too. These are two of Israel's greatest patriarchs. Moses was a murderer, a doubter, an excuse-maker. he was chosen to lead God's people out of slavery. David was "a man after God's own heart." But he was also an adulterer. His son, Solomon, was the wisest man who ever lived. But he had hundreds of wives. And Jesus' disciples were all flawed in their own way - from Thomas, the doubter, to Peter, the hothead. With such a long list of people who both followed God and stumbled constantly, why would we assume our experiences would be any different?

Our goal should be to make decision makers internalize the full consequences of their decisions, rather than prevent them from making decisions altogether [...] But we tend to reform under the delusion that the regulated institutions and the markets they operate in are static and passive, and that the regulatory environment will not vary with the cycle. Ironically, faith in draconian regulation is strongest at the bottom of the cycle, when there is little need for participants to be regulated. By contrast, the misconception that markets will govern themselves is most widespread at the top of the cycle, at the point of maximum danger to the system. We need to acknowledge these differences and enact cycle-proof regulation, for a regulation set against the cycle will not stand. To have a better chance of creating stability throughout the cycle--of being cycle-proof--new regulations should be comprehensive, nondiscretionary, contingent, and cost-effective.

It is the presence of salt throughout France, along with either cows, goats, or sheep, that has made it the notoriously ungovernable land of 265 kinds of cheese. French cheese makers were trying to be neither difficult nor original. They were all trying to preserve milk in salt so they could have a way of keeping it as a food supply. But with different traditions and climates, the salted curds came out 265 different ways. At one time, there were probably more variations than that.

The Maker of all, the Designer, the Creator, the Beginning, was with her. He would not let her go, no matter the extent to which His plan differed from hers. There, in the midst of shouts, screams, blood, and smoke, Red understood. You never leave my side. In her finite humanity, she often forgot the Beginning was infinite. He was God. He was in control. Nothing that happened occurred without His knowledge. And nothing would ever occur that was not within His plan. I understand now.

Our formless consciousness is like a sphere with many, many spokes leading outwards from its central core. Each of these spokes connects into the vertical time continuum through forms, and these forms—human or otherwise—feed the formless consciousness with insights about the different reality membranes in which it has form. In this way, the forms of the formless bring it awareness of different reality membranes, which in turn is processed by the formless and passed on through the unification force to God.

The blessings of salvation are for every soul. Nothing but his own choice can prevent any man from becoming a partaker of the promise in Christ by the gospel. Caste is hateful to God. He ignores everything of this character. In His sight the souls of all men are of equal value. He “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us.” Without distinction of age, or rank, or nationality, or religious privilege, all are invited to come unto Him and live. “Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference.” “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free.” “The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the Maker of them all.” “The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Acts 17:26, 27;

It is often said that a strategy is a choice or a decision. The words “choice” and “decision” evoke an image of someone considering a list of alternatives and then selecting one of them. There is, in fact, a formal theory of decisions that specifies exactly how to make a choice by identifying alternative actions, valuing outcomes, and appraising probabilities of events. The problem with this view, and the reason it barely lightens a leader’s burden, is that you are rarely handed a clear set of alternatives. In the case at hand, Hannibal was certainly not briefed by a staff presenting four options arranged on a PowerPoint slide. Rather, he faced a challenge and he designed a novel response. Today, as then, many effective strategies are more designs than decisions—are more constructed than chosen. In these cases, doing strategy is more like designing a high-performance aircraft than deciding which forklift truck to buy or how large to build a new factory. When someone says “Managers are decision makers,” they are not talking about master strategists, for a master strategist is a designer.

The Beatles were particularly prominent examples, and Dylan’s central position in rock history is rooted in that brief period when he and the Beatles were running neck and neck. He released Bringing It All Back Home in the spring of 1965, Highway 61 Revisited that summer, and Blonde on Blonde a year later. Rubber Soul, the first Beatles album conceived as a cohesive artistic statement, was released in December 1965, followed by Revolver seven months later. In commercial terms the Beatles were in a different league: on the American market, they released four LPs of new material in 1965 and two in 1966, and each spent more than five weeks at number one on Billboard’s album chart, while Dylan would not have a number one album until the mid-1970s. But they were evolving from teen-pop hit-makers into mature, thoughtful artists, with Dylan as their acknowledged model. McCartney recalled playing him a tape of their new songs when he came through London in the spring of 1966: “He said, ‘O I get it, you don’t want to be cute anymore!’ That summed it up. . . . The cute period had ended. It started to be art.

I hope I have now made it clear why I thought it best, in speaking of the dissonances between fiction and reality in our own time, to concentrate on Sartre. His hesitations, retractations, inconsistencies, all proceed from his consciousness of the problems: how do novelistic differ from existential fictions? How far is it inevitable that a novel give a novel-shaped account of the world? How can one control, and how make profitable, the dissonances between that account and the account given by the mind working independently of the novel? For Sartre it was ultimately, like most or all problems, one of freedom. For Miss Murdoch it is a problem of love, the power by which we apprehend the opacity of persons to the degree that we will not limit them by forcing them into selfish patterns. Both of them are talking, when they speak of freedom and love, about the imagination. The imagination, we recall, is a form-giving power, an esemplastic power; it may require, to use Simone Weil's words, to be preceded by a 'decreative' act, but it is certainly a maker of orders and concords. We apply it to all forces which satisfy the variety of human needs that are met by apparently gratuitous forms. These forms console; if they mitigate our existential anguish it is because we weakly collaborate with them, as we collaborate with language in order to communicate. Whether or no we are predisposed towards acceptance of them, we learn them as we learn a language. On one view they are 'the heroic children whom time breeds / Against the first idea,' but on another they destroy by falsehood the heroic anguish of our present loneliness. If they appear in shapes preposterously false we will reject them; but they change with us, and every act of reading or writing a novel is a tacit acceptance of them. If they ruin our innocence, we have to remember that the innocent eye sees nothing. If they make us guilty, they enable us, in a manner nothing else can duplicate, to submit, as we must, the show of things to the desires of the mind. I shall end by saying a little more about La Nausée, the book I chose because, although it is a novel, it reflects a philosophy it must, in so far as it possesses novel form, belie. Under one aspect it is what Philip Thody calls 'an extensive illustration' of the world's contingency and the absurdity of the human situation. Mr. Thody adds that it is the novelist's task to 'overcome contingency'; so that if the illustration were too extensive the novel would be a bad one. Sartre himself provides a more inclusive formula when he says that 'the final aim of art is to reclaim the world by revealing it as it is, but as if it had its source in human liberty.' This statement does two things. First, it links the fictions of art with those of living and choosing. Secondly, it means that the humanizing of the world's contingency cannot be achieved without a representation of that contingency. This representation must be such that it induces the proper sense of horror at the utter difference, the utter shapelessness, and the utter inhumanity of what must be humanized. And it has to occur simultaneously with the as if, the act of form, of humanization, which assuages the horror. This recognition, that form must not regress into myth, and that contingency must be formalized, makes La Nausée something of a model of the conflicts in the modern theory of the novel. How to do justice to a chaotic, viscously contingent reality, and yet redeem it? How to justify the fictive beginnings, crises, ends; the atavism of character, which we cannot prevent from growing, in Yeats's figure, like ash on a burning stick? The novel will end; a full close may be avoided, but there will be a close: a fake fullstop, an 'exhaustion of aspects,' as Ford calls it, an ironic return to the origin, as in Finnegans Wake and Comment c'est. Perhaps the book will end by saying that it has provided the clues for another, in which contingency will be defeated, ...

All the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been the inventions of those who had occasion to use the machines. Many improvements have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of the machines, when to make them became the business of a peculiar trade; and some by that of those who are called philosophers or men of speculation, whose trade it is not to do anything, but to observe everything; and who, upon that account, are often capable of combining together the powers of the most distant and dissimilar objects. In the progress of society, philosophy or speculation becomes, like every other employment, the principal or sole trade and occupation of a particular class of citizens. Like every other employment too, it is subdivided into a great number of different branches, each of which affords occupation to a peculiar tribe or class of philosophers; and this subdivision of employment in philosophy, as well as in every other business, improves dexterity, and saves time. Each individual becomes more expert in his own peculiar branch, more work is done upon the whole, and the quantity of science is considerably increased by it.

These things may sound trivial, but they are signs of adjustment in our human aspect of life. We are just your average family. I’m happy to report we’re all saved by grace and living in His power. Because of the unique culture we live in, we face different struggles in this earthly journey. It is always fun to sit back and marvel at how God will work out each of the situations that distract us from fellowship with Him. These distractions can strengthen us in our walk if we allow God to take hold. Or, they can keep us away from our source of life and strength: God, our maker.

Be inspired; you have seen another day! Smile; you have another chance! Take a step; you can do it again! Move; you can't continue like this! Do something for that is all life is about! Impact makers take steps. Impact makers face challenges. Impact makers overcome challenges. Each day is a new day to have a different view of the real purpose why we live. Each day is another chance to add take a step towards a great end. Each day is another day to choose courage or fear! Each day is another moment of time to dare tactically or to do anything! When you wake up, do something! Make each day count!

In other words, the VMPFC, in healthy people, integrates many pieces of information gained from experience (e.g., many samples from the different decks) and translates that information into an emotional signal that gives the decision maker good advice about what to do. And once again, this advice, this gut feeling, may precede any conscious awareness of what’s good or bad and why. This explains why people with VMPFC damage make disastrous real-life decisions, despite their good performance on standard laboratory reasoning tests. They “know,” but they don’t “feel,” and feelings are very helpful.

To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving, the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth part of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and combination of their different operations.

Accountability-focused evaluators report independently to decision makers charged with making sure that resources are spent on what they’re supposed to be spent on. In contrast, for vision-and-values-driven social innovators the highest form of accountability is internal. Are we walking the talk? Are we being true to our vision? Are we dealing with reality? Are we connecting the dots between here-and-now reality and our vision? And how do we know? What are we observing that’s different, that’s emerging? These become internalized questions, asked ferociously, continuously, because they want to know.

It is one of the ironies of antiracism that we must identify racially in order to identify the racial privileges and dangers of being in our bodies. Latinx and Asian and African and European and Indigenous and Middle Eastern: These six races—at least in the American context—are fundamentally power identities, because race is fundamentally a power construct of blended difference that lives socially. Race creates new forms of power: the power to categorize and judge, elevate and downgrade, include and exclude. Race makers use that power to process distinct individuals, ethnicities, and nationalities into monolithic races.

About the Maker you know?” I nodded and said that we called him the Outsider. “A good name for him that is. Outside him we keep, into our hearts we don’t let him come. “When everything he’s got made, he got to paint. First the water. Easy it is. Then the ground, all the rocks. A little harder it gets. Then sky and trees. Grass harder than you think it is, the little brush he had got to use, and paint so when the wind blows the color changes, and different colors for different kinds. Then dogs and greenbucks, all the different animals. Birds and flowers going to be tough they are. This he knows. So for the last them he leaves.” I

That is, “Yes” is nothing without “How.” Asking “How,” knowing “How,” and defining “How” are all part of the effective negotiator’s arsenal. He would be unarmed without them.         ■    Ask calibrated “How” questions, and ask them again and again. Asking “How” keeps your counterparts engaged but off balance. Answering the questions will give them the illusion of control. It will also lead them to contemplate your problems when making their demands.         ■    Use “How” questions to shape the negotiating environment. You do this by using “How can I do that?” as a gentle version of “No.” This will subtly push your counterpart to search for other solutions—your solutions. And very often it will get them to bid against themselves.         ■    Don’t just pay attention to the people you’re negotiating with directly; always identify the motivations of the players “behind the table.” You can do so by asking how a deal will affect everybody else and how on board they are.         ■    Follow the 7-38-55 Percent Rule by paying close attention to tone of voice and body language. Incongruence between the words and nonverbal signs will show when your counterpart is lying or uncomfortable with a deal.         ■    Is the “Yes” real or counterfeit? Test it with the Rule of Three: use calibrated questions, summaries, and labels to get your counterpart to reaffirm their agreement at least three times. It’s really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.         ■    A person’s use of pronouns offers deep insights into his or her relative authority. If you’re hearing a lot of “I,” “me,” and “my,” the real power to decide probably lies elsewhere. Picking up a lot of “we,” “they,” and “them,” it’s more likely you’re dealing directly with a savvy decision maker keeping his options open.         ■    Use your own name to make yourself a real person to the other side and even get your own personal discount. Humor and humanity are the best ways to break the ice and remove roadblocks.

formulas as easy as possible, I’ve simplified my recommendation to just five core probiotic species that are widely available: Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus brevis, Bifidobacterium lactis, and Bifidobacterium longum. Different strains provide different benefits, but these are the ones that will, as we’ve been discussing since the beginning of the book, best support brain health in these ways: • Fortifying the intestinal lining and reducing gut permeability • Reducing LPS, the inflammatory molecule that can be dangerous if it reaches the bloodstream • Increasing BDNF, the brain’s growth hormone • Sustaining an overall balance to crowd out any

I am one man, but I am still a man. I sure can't do everything, but I can, at least, do something. I can't possibly be everywhere in the world where there is need, but I am at the moment somewhere there is, at least, one need. I can't change everyone around me, but I can change me, by changing my perspectives. It is obvious I cannot reach the whole world, but I know I can reach one person at a time. I am not just one man; I am a man that is empowered to make the difference to my world. So, I have stopped complaining that I am in the minority. I just go ahead and do what I can where I am to touch the world one person at a time. Doesn't the bible say, 'one shall chase a thousand'?

Duck calls remind me of how God uses people to make Himself known. Like duck calls, people are all a bit different and are dependent on their maker and designer for their individualism in life. Duck calls and their unique individual sounds breathe life into decoys that are essentially dead. Likewise, God uses different people with unique perspectives to illustrate His existence and shout out the message of eternal life through Jesus Christ. The audible sound that each mallard hen makes is virtually the same; however, the tone and cadence are unique. Similarly, the Gospel message is the same yesterday, today, and forever, yet the perspective and life experience are different and unique for each person relaying it.

Why the difference behind the fierce cries of outrage at pay differentials in business, and the passing over in silence of far greater pay differentials in sports and entertainment? One possible explanation is that business owners and managers have roles in which they can be replaced by political decision-makers, who in turn can impose the kinds of policies preferred by those who imagine that their own superior wisdom or virtue entitles them to dictate to others. But professional athletes and entertainers have roles that obviously cannot be taken over by politicians or bureaucrats. So there would be no point in trying to discredit highly paid people in sports or entertainment, or to arouse public outrage against them.

Pioneered in Iraq, for-profit relief and reconstruction has already become the new global paradigm, regardless of whether the original destruction occurred from a preemptive war, such as Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon, or a hurricane. With resource scarcity and climate change providing a steadily increasing flow of new disasters, responding to emergencies is simply too hot an emerging market to be left to the nonprofits—why should UNICEF rebuild schools when it can be done by Bechtel, one of the largest engineering firms in the U.S.? Why put displaced people from Mississippi in subsidized empty apartments when they can be housed on Carnival cruise ships? Why deploy UN peacekeepers to Darfur when private security companies like Blackwater are looking for new clients? And that is the post-September 11 difference: before, wars and disasters provided opportunities for a narrow sector of the economy—the makers of fighter jets, for instance, or the construction companies that rebuilt bombed-out bridges. The primary economic role of wars, however, was as a means to open new markets that had been sealed off and to generate postwar peacetime booms. Now wars and disaster responses are so fully privatized that they are themselves the new market; there is no need to wait until after the war for the boom—the medium is the message. One distinct advantage of this postmodern approach is that in market terms, it cannot fail. As a market analyst remarked of a particularly good quarter for the earnings of the energy services company Halliburton, “Iraq was better than expected.”31 That was in October 2006, then the most violent month of the war on record, with 3,709 Iraqi civilian casualties.32 Still, few shareholders could fail to be impressed by a war that had generated $20 billion in revenues for this one company.33 Amid the weapons trade, the private soldiers, for-profit reconstruction and the homeland security industry, what has emerged as a result of the Bush administration’s particular brand of post-September 11 shock therapy is a fully articulated new economy. It was built in the Bush era, but it now exists quite apart from any one administration and will remain entrenched until the corporate supremacist ideology that underpins it is identified, isolated and challenged.

There are countless differences between the lives of people with money and people without. One is this: without the means to pay experts, it’s necessary to evolve a complex system of useful amateurs. When Charlie’s dad got what the doctor told him was a skin cancer, he drank a fifth of Maker’s Mark and asked a butcher friend to cut a divot out of his shoulder, because there was no way he could afford a surgeon. When Charlie’s friend’s cousin got married, they asked Mrs. Silva from three blocks over to make their wedding cake, because she loved to bake and had fancy pastry pipping doodads. And if the buttercream was a little grainy or one of the layers was a bit overbaked, well it was still sweet and just as tall as a cake in a magazine, and it only cost the price of supplies.

Imaginary Lives Imaginary Lives is a thought experiment I have adapted from two important career-change thinkers, Julia Cameron and John Williams, which aims to take your ideas a stage closer towards specific job options.55 It’s simple but potentially powerful. • Imagine five parallel universes, in each of which you could have a whole year off to pursue absolutely any career you desired. Now think of five different jobs you might want to try out in each of these universes. Be bold in your thinking, have fun with your ideas and your multiple selves. Your five choices might be food photographer, member of parliament, tai chi instructor, social entrepreneur running a youth education project, and wide-achieving Renaissance generalist. One person I know who did this activity – a documentary film maker who was having doubts about her career – listed massage therapist, sculptor, cellist, screen-play writer, and owner of her own bar on a tiny, old-fashioned Canarian island. Now come back down to earth and look hard at your five choices. Write down what it is about them that attracts you. Then look at them again, and think about this question: • How does each career measure up against the two motivations in the previous activity that you chose to prioritize in the future? If you decided, for instance, that you want a combination of making a difference and high status, check whether your five imaginary careers might provide them. The point is to help you think more deeply about exactly what you are looking for in a career, the kind of experiences that you truly desire.

Interestingly, the drunkard-genius is a valorised trope when the imbiber of spirits is from among the upper castes. T.R. Mahalingam, the flautist, is a classic example of someone who was an alcoholic but whose drunkenness is spoken of with much affection. His genius eclipsed everything else, they would say. But Somu, the undisputed champion among woodcrafters, would never be given that leeway—his drunkenness is a defect born of his caste. This hypocrisy of the upper castes, and those aspiring to be like them, is insufferable. Arulraj from the Thanjavur family had a different interpretation. ‘If they (his father and uncles) had extra money, they would head straight to the liquor store. Immediately, their mood would change.’ He was speaking in the context of how the older generation unquestioningly accepted their social status and the way they were treated. Alcoholism could also have been an escape from reality.

A sobering denouement had to come...exponential growth is a potent delusion-maker, and in 1999, 10 years after the Nikkei’s peak, I was thinking about the Japanese experience as we were waiting to claim our rental car at San Francisco airport. Silicon Valley was years into its first dotcom bubble, and even with advance reservations people had to wait for the just-returned cars to get serviced and released again into the halting traffic on the clogged Bayshore freeway. Mindful of the Japanese experience, I was thinking that every year after 1995 might be the last spell of what Alan Greenspan famously called irrational exuberance, but it was not in 1996 or 1997 or 1998. And even more so than a decade earlier, there were many economists ready to assure American investors that this spell of exponential growth was really different, that the old rules do not apply in the New Economy where endless rapid growth will readily continue.

As we walk through Savignio, the copper light of dusk settling over the town's narrow streets, we stop anyone we can find to ask for his or her ragù recipe. A retired policeman says he likes an all-pork sauce with a heavy hit of pancetta, the better for coating the pasta. A gelato maker explains that a touch of milk defuses the acidity of the tomato and ties the whole sauce together. Overhearing our kitchen talk below, an old woman in a navy cardigan pokes her head out of a second-story window to offer her take on the matter: "I only use tomatoes from my garden- fresh when they're in season, preserved when it gets cold." Inspired by the Savignio citizenry, we buy meat from the butcher, vegetables and wine from a small stand in the town's piazza, and head to Alessandro's house to simmer up his version of ragù: two parts chopped skirt steak, one part ground pancetta, the sautéed vegetable trio, a splash of dry white wine, and a few canned San Marzano tomatoes.

Be fearless. Be tenacious. Go after what you want. Be a leader. Take control. Don't like how things are managed? Change the status quo. Be a disruptor. Galvanize, inspire, lead, get results. Stand resolute in the face of critics, detractors, naysayers. Their no is your yes. Make a difference. Change the narrative. Be a monumental success and a paradigm for forward, sometimes unorthodox, always creative thinking. This is what makes you a trailblazer, a standard bearer and history maker!! Oh, unless you are a powerful, black woman (or simply a WOMAN)with a voice that moves the needle. Then, you are a troublemaker, angry, stupid, menopausal, looking for attention? Women don't owe anyone an apology or explanation for being everything those part of an unevolved faction of society believes is only reserved for men. Work with us and be great, or get out of our way so we can continue what we started a lifetime ago. Proud of you Stacey Abrams and of all women who refuse to be relegated to a status of mediocrity. "Still, I rise!

A new form of lying has emerged in recent times. This is what Arendt calls “image-making,” where factual truth is dismissed if it doesn’t fit the image. The image becomes a substitute for reality. All such lies harbor an element of violence: organized lying always tends to destroy whatever it has decided to negate. The difference between the traditional political lie and the modern lie is the difference between hiding something and destroying it. We have recently seen how fabricated images can become a reality for millions of people, including the image-maker himself. We have witnessed this in the 2016 American presidential election. Despite the obvious falsity of his claims, the president insists that the crowd at his inauguration was the largest in history; despite the fact that he did not receive a majority of votes, he insists that this was because millions of fraudulent votes were cast; and despite the evidence that Russians interfered with the presidential election, the president claims that the “suggestion” that there was Russian interference is just a devious way of calling his legitimacy into question. The real danger here is that an image is created that loyal followers want to believe regardless of what is factually true. They are encouraged to dismiss anything that conflicts with the image as “fake news” or the conspiracy of elites who want to fool them. What Arendt wrote more than a half a century ago might have been written yesterday. “Contemporary history is full of instances in which tellers of factual truth were felt to be more dangerous, and even more hostile, than the real opponents” (Arendt 1977: 255). Arendt was not sanguine that tellers of factual truth would triumph over image-makers. Factual truth-telling is frequently powerless against image-making and can be defeated in a head-on clash with the powers that be. Nevertheless, she did think that ultimately factual truth has a stubborn power of its own. Image-makers know this, and that is why they seek to discredit a free press and institutions where there is a pursuit of impartial truth.

Lt. Gen. Zinni has distilled his experiences in a talk on “twenty lessons learned”that feels like a modern appendix to the Small Wars Manual. The earlier you go in, the better, he argues. Start planning as early as possible, and coordinate it with organizations like the United Nations and private relief groups. Assess the differences between your views of the situation and theirs. Coordinate everything, but decentralize execution. Know the culture. “Who makes decisions in this culture? What is the power of religious leaders? Of political people? Of professionals?”Zinni argues that this is probably where the American military fails most often, as it unconsciously seeks the levers of power that exist in its own society. “Truly, the decision makers are at the back of the tent. You have to find them.”Restart a key institution, probably the police, as soon as possible. But don’t offer well-intentioned help, such as extensive medical care, that you can’t sustain. Don’t set high expectations. “Don’t make enemies, but if you do, don’t treat them gently.

In the movie La La Land, Mia has to put on a brave face at auditions, then put on her best clothes and go out on the town with the little money she could scrounge up, trying to find a way to meet the difference-makers in Hollywood. Even when she was about ready to give up, she ultimately came back for one more reading, the one that made her a big star. Almost every Hollywood actor who is successful today has a real-life story like that. Their goal was the same as everyone in the business world: to land a big fish. People noticed Natalie Portman and John Wayne the way they eventually noticed Mia. No one would have bought what she was selling if she hadn’t presented herself like a winner, even when she was on the verge of moving back into her parents’ place in Boulder City. My mom will tell you I wanted to be a millionaire by seven years old. It was always on my mind. So from day one of my business career I acted the part. I had no money but I dressed like a professional. I wore a suit, which was the thing to do back then. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was pressed and clean. Bottom line is, if you’re shooting for the moon, you better act like an astronaut.

This neo-liberal establishment would have us believe that, during its miracle years between the 1960s and the 1980s, Korea pursued a neo-liberal economic development strategy. The reality, however, was very different indeed. What Korea actually did during these decades was to nurture certain new industries, selected by the government in consultation with the private sector, through tariff protection, subsidies and other forms of government support (e.g., overseas marketing information services provided by the state export agency) until they 'grew up' enough to withstand international competition. The government owned all the banks, so it could direct the life blood of business-credit. Some big projects were undertaken directly by state-owned enterprises-the steel maker, POSCO, being the best example-although the country had a pragmatic, rather than ideological, attitude to the issue of state ownership. If private enterprises worked well, that was fine; if they did not invest in important areas, the government had no qualms about setting up state-owned enterprises (SOEs); and if some private enterprises were mismanaged, the government often took them over, restructured them, and usually (but not always) sold them off again.

Youth and death have always been an intoxicating combination for the myth makers left amongst the living. And dangerous, even violent, self-loathing has long been an essential ingredient in the fires of transformation. When the "new self" burns to life, the twins of great control *and* recklessness are immutably linked. It's what makes life interesting. The high tension between those two forces often makes a performer fascinating and fun to watch, but also a white-cross highway marker. Here, many who've come this way have burned out hard or died. The rock death cult is well loved and chronicled in literature and music, but in practice, there ain't much in it for the singer and his song, except a good life unlived, lovers and children left behind, and a six-foot-deep hole in the ground. The exit in a blaze of glory is bullshit. Now, if you're not one of the handful of music revolutionaries—and I was not—you naturally set your sights on something different. In a transient field, I was suited for the long haul. I had years of study behind me; I was physically built to endure and by disposition was not an edge dweller. I was interested in what I might accomplish over a lifetime of music making, so assumption number one is you are going to keep breathing. In my business, the above case studies prove, no matter who you are, that's not as easy as it sounds.

Evidence of police working for the insurgent Zetas was startling, but would soon become depressingly typical in Mexico. Time and time again, federal troops rolled into cities and accused local police of being deeply entwined with gangsters. Officers no longer just turned a blind eye on smuggling, but worked as kidnappers and assassins in their own right, a grave fragmentation of the state. To aggravate this problem, many federal officers were also found working for gangsters, normally different factions of the Sinaloa Cartel. So as federal troops rounded up Zetas, observers asked whom they were serving: the public or Sinaloan capos? These revelations underline a central problem in the Mexican Drug War. The PRI years featured a delicate dance of corruption; in the democratic years, it turned to a corrupt dance of death. In the old days, police officers were rotten, but at least they worked together. In democracy, police work for competing mafias and actively fight each other. Gangsters target both good police who get in their way and bad police who work for their rivals. For policy makers it becomes a Gordian knot. Added to this thorny issue of corruption is a more fundamental problem of drug-law enforcement. Every time you arrest one trafficker, you are helping his rival. In this way, when the federal police stormed Zetas safe houses, they were scoring victories for Sinaloans, whether they liked it or not. Arrests did not subdue violence, but only inflamed it.

You've had hot coffee before, and in the hands of a skilled maker, coffee can be amazing. But the fact is that coffee is one of the hardest things to get right in the world. Even with great beans and a great roast and great equipment, a little too much heat, the wrong grind, or letting things go on too long will produce a cup of bitterness. Coffee's full of different acids, and depending on the grind, temperature, roast, and method, you can "overextract" the acids from the beans, or overheat them and oxidize them, producing that awful taste you get at donut shops and Starbucks. But there is Another Way. If you make coffee in cold water, you only extract the sweetest acids, the highly volatile flavors that hint at chocolate and caramel, the ones that boil away or turn to sourness under imperfect circumstances. Brewing coffee in cold water sounds weird, but in fact, it's just about the easiest way to make a cup (or a jar) of coffee. Just grind coffee -- keep it coarse, with grains about the size of sea salt -- and combine it with twice as much water in an airtight jar. Give it a hard shake and stick it somewhere cool overnight (I used a cooler bag loaded with ice from ice camp and wrapped the whole thing in bubble wrap for insulation). In the morning, strain it through a colander and a paper coffee filter. What you've got now is coffee concentrate, which you can dilute with cold water to taste -- I go about half and half. If you're feeling fancy, serve it over ice.

I consider myself a student of colours and shades and hues and tints. Crimson lake, burnt umber, ultramarine … I was too clumsy as a child to paint with my moistened brush the scenery that I would have liked to bring into being. I preferred to leave untouched in their white metallic surroundings my rows of powdery rectangles of water-colours, to read aloud one after another of the tiny printed names of the coloured rectangles, and to let each colour seem to soak into each word of its name or even into each syllable of each word of each name so that I could afterwards call to mind an exact shade or hue from an image of no more than black letters on a white ground. Deep cadmium, geranium lake, imperial purple, parchment … after the last of our children had found employment and had moved out of our home, my wife and I were able to buy for ourselves things that had previously been beyond our means. I bought my first such luxury, as I called it, in a shop selling artists’ supplies. I bought there a complete set of coloured pencils made by a famous maker of pencils in England: a hundred and twenty pencils, each stamped with gold lettering along its side and having at its end a perfectly tapered wick. The collection of pencils is behind me as I write these words. It rests near the jars of glass marbles and the kaleidoscope mentioned earlier. None of the pencils has ever been used in the way that most pencils are used, but I have sometimes used the many-striped collection in order to confirm my suspicion as a child that each of what I called my long-lost moods might be recollected and, perhaps, preserved if only I could look again at the precise shade or hue that had become connected with the mood – that had absorbed, as it were, or had been permeated with, one or more of the indefinable qualities that constitute what is called a mood or a state of feeling. During the weeks since I first wrote in the earlier pages of this report about the windows in the church of white stone, I have spent every day an increasing amount of time in moving my pencils to and fro among the hollow spaces allotted to them in their container. I seem to recall that I tried sometimes, many years ago, to move my glass marbles from place to place on the carpet near my desk with the vague hope that some or another chance arrangement of them would restore to me some previously irretrievable mood. The marbles, however, were too variously coloured, and each differed too markedly from the other. Their colours seemed to vie, to compete. Or, a single marble might suggest more than I was in search of: a whole afternoon in my childhood or a row of trees in a backyard when I had wanted back only a certain few moments when my face was brushed by a certain few leaves. Among the pencils are many differing only subtly from their neighbours. Six at least I might have called simply red if I had not learned long ago their true names. With these six, and with still others from each side of them, I often arrange one after another of many possible sequences, hoping to see in the conjectured space between some or another unlikely pair a certain tint that I have wanted for long to see.

Within My Power By Forest E. Witcraft (1894 - 1967), a scholar, teacher, and Boy Scout Executive and first published in the October 1950 issue of Scouting magazine. I am not a Very Important Man, as importance is commonly rated. I do not have great wealth, control a big business, or occupy a position of great honor or authority. Yet I may someday mould destiny. For it is within my power to become the most important man in the world in the life of a boy. And every boy is a potential atom bomb in human history. A humble citizen like myself might have been the Scoutmaster of a Troop in which an undersized unhappy Austrian lad by the name of Adolph might have found a joyous boyhood, full of the ideals of brotherhood, goodwill, and kindness. And the world would have been different. A humble citizen like myself might have been the organizer of a Scout Troop in which a Russian boy called Joe might have learned the lessons of democratic cooperation. These men would never have known that they had averted world tragedy, yet actually they would have been among the most important men who ever lived. All about me are boys. They are the makers of history, the builders of tomorrow. If I can have some part in guiding them up the trails of Scouting, on to the high road of noble character and constructive citizenship, I may prove to be the most important man in their lives, the most important man in my community. A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different, because I was important in the life of a boy.

AS SHE HEALED, the women changed tactics and stopped their berating. Now they brought their embroidery and crocheting, and finally they used Ethel Fordham’s house as their quilting center. Ignoring those who preferred new, soft blankets, they practiced what they had been taught by their mothers during the period that rich people called the Depression and they called life. Surrounded by their comings and goings, listening to their talk, their songs, following their instructions, Cee had nothing to do but pay them the attention she had never given them before. They were nothing like Lenore, who’d driven Salem hard, and now, suffering a minor stroke, did nothing at all. Although each of her nurses was markedly different from the others in looks, dress, manner of speech, food and medical preferences, their similarities were glaring. There was no excess in their gardens because they shared everything. There was no trash or garbage in their homes because they had a use for everything. They took responsibility for their lives and for whatever, whoever else needed them. The absence of common sense irritated but did not surprise them. Laziness was more than intolerable to them; it was inhuman. Whether you were in the field, the house, your own backyard, you had to be busy. Sleep was not for dreaming; it was for gathering strength for the coming day. Conversation was accompanied by tasks: ironing, peeling, shucking, sorting, sewing, mending, washing, or nursing. You couldn’t learn age, but adulthood was there for all. Mourning was helpful but God was better and they did not want to meet their Maker and have to explain a wasteful life. They knew He would ask each of them one question: “What have you done?” (122-123)

Ask calibrated “How” questions, and ask them again and again. Asking “How” keeps your counterparts engaged but off balance. Answering the questions will give them the illusion of control. It will also lead them to contemplate your problems when making their demands. ■​Use “How” questions to shape the negotiating environment. You do this by using “How can I do that?” as a gentle version of “No.” This will subtly push your counterpart to search for other solutions—your solutions. And very often it will get them to bid against themselves. ■​Don’t just pay attention to the people you’re negotiating with directly; always identify the motivations of the players “behind the table.” You can do so by asking how a deal will affect everybody else and how on board they are. ■​Follow the 7-38-55 Percent Rule by paying close attention to tone of voice and body language. Incongruence between the words and nonverbal signs will show when your counterpart is lying or uncomfortable with a deal. ■​Is the “Yes” real or counterfeit? Test it with the Rule of Three: use calibrated questions, summaries, and labels to get your counterpart to reaffirm their agreement at least three times. It’s really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction. ■​A person’s use of pronouns offers deep insights into his or her relative authority. If you’re hearing a lot of “I,” “me,” and “my,” the real power to decide probably lies elsewhere. Picking up a lot of “we,” “they,” and “them,” it’s more likely you’re dealing directly with a savvy decision maker keeping his options open. ■​Use your own name to make yourself a real person to the other side and even get your own personal discount. Humor and humanity are the best ways to break the ice and remove roadblocks.

The situation gets still more concerning. As Chapter Six argues, two important factors that are frequently assumed to be constants in the traditional security dilemma models are in fact variables in cybersecurity. In most other security dilemma discussions, each actor sees the moves of its potential adversaries and must determine the intentions behind those moves. In cybersecurity, the distribution of information is vastly more asymmetric, which increases risk and uncertainty for decision-makers. With proper tradecraft, many actions, including the development of powerful capabilities and the launching of significant intrusions, often remain out of view to others. Thus, unlike in many historical and theoretical textbook cases, in cyber operations not only must states potentially fear what they see, but they must potentially fear what they do not see as well. Defensive-minded intrusions that resolve this uncertainty thus seem still more appealing. Similarly, in the traditional security dilemma model there is almost always some status quo of shared expectations. This implicit or formal consensus of behavior provides significant guidance about which activities the involved parties consider normal and non-threatening. The potential for escalation in this model occurs only when this shared vision of normalcy breaks. In cybersecurity, however, there is only a nascent status quo. Without a common conception of appropriate national behavior, the probability of dangerous misinterpretation increases. Building on these five steps to the argument, the final two chapters of the book are somewhat different in kind. Chapter Seven pauses to consider three objections to the cybersecurity dilemma logic and how they might constrain the argument.

People who love are different from everybody else. People who feel are more fortunate than all. Rich men who buy and grab up things are just moving them around. They have bought these things with money, which they can never own. A mother with life in her womb is the one who is truly wealthy. A newborn in the arms is beyond oil in one palm and pure gold in the other. Father says that there is no God, so that I might worship him. But something is moving in the atmosphere… Not for viewing, but for sensing and being changed by. That I can feel. I am certain. My first love was the sky. Who created that? My second love was my mother’s eyes that revealed a reflection of me. My father had a house of great beauty built for us all. But who created the mind, the memory, and the imagination? I’d sit in the soil surrounded with no walls just to talk to that ONE, even without words… Diamonds are lovely, but sound is lovelier. Roller coasters are thrilling. My clitoris clothed in my vagina is more, more, more. Why turn on the lights when we can lie under the glare of the moon? Why listen to the call for war when we can make love? He wants revolution, but I want passion revolving in my soul. A man invented the fan, but who created the wind and caressed it into a breeze Then converted it into a storm? A cloud holds the water, yet both clouds and water were created. Impress me not with castles, cars, or clothes. I’d rather meet the Maker of rain— But would be content with simply being showered while lying in the grass Facing a darkened sky pregnant with thunder and leaking lightning. My husband asks me, Do you love me? So gently, I answer him. “I love the Creator of life. This is why I can love you.” Yet everywhere that I see and feel a trace of the Creator, the Light of life, There is so much love in it for me.

The free market system of capitalism enhances freedom in three ways. Traditionally freedom of exchange has been seen as a basic form of individual freedom, with which it would be wrong to interfere, and in this sense is a basic, negative freedom like the freedom of speech, assembly, the press, or conscience. Gerald Gaus, a liberal defender of the morality of markets, summarizes the liberal case for freedom in capitalism: “classical liberalism embraces market relations because (but not, of course, only because) they (1) are essentially free, (2) respect the actual choices of individuals, and (3) legitimately express different individuals’ rational decisions about the proper choice between competing ends, goods, and values.”98 Market freedom is necessary to respect individuals as free choosers and designers of their own “experiments in living,” as Mill famously puts it.99 Free markets also have positive aspects, however, in providing opportunities by increasing persons’ material wealth in order to choose things that they value. Another aspect of the positive freedom that markets promote is the freedom of persons to develop their autonomy as decision makers, and to find opportunities to escape from oppressive traditional roles. Markets also promote a third, more controversial, sense of freedom in that they allow persons to interact in mutually beneficial ways even when they do not know each other or have any other traditional reason to care about the other. I call this sense of freedom “social freedom.” In each of these ways – negative, positive, and social – markets have much, and in some cases even more, to offer to women, as women have been more confined by traditional roles to a constrained family life, deprived of a fair distribution of benefits and burdens of family life, and treated as second-class citizens in their communities. While capitalism has already, as we have seen, brought great advances in the realm of negative and positive liberties, capitalism’s ability to destruct the old and create new forms of community offer a vision of freedom that is yet to be fulfilled.

In the late afternoon he was standing by a tent run by a trapper-merchant from Oregon, an Englishman named Haversham, the only man at the rendezvous in European dress, and Haversham asked, “Care for a cup of tea?” It had been a long time since McKeag had drunk tea and he said, “Don’t mind if I do.” The Englishman had two china cups and a small porcelain pot. Washing the cups with steaming water, he took down a square brown tin, opened the top carefully and placed a small portion of leaves in the pot. To McKeag they bore no visible difference from the tea leaves his mother had used, but when Haversham poured him a cup and he took his first sip, an aroma unlike any he had ever known greeted him. He sniffed it several times, then took a deep taste of the hot tea. It was better than anything he had previously tasted, better even than whiskey. What did it taste like? Well, at first it was tarry, as if the person making the tea had infused by mistake some stray ends of well-tarred rope. But it was penetrating too, and a wee bit salty, and very rich and lingering. McKeag noticed that its taste dwelled in the mouth long after that of an ordinary tea. It was a man’s tea, deep and subtle and blended in some rugged place. “What is it?” he asked. Haversham pointed to the brown canister, and McKeag said, “I can’t read.” Haversham indicated the lettering and the scene of tea-pickers in India. “Lapsang souchong,” he said. “Best tea in the world.” Impulsively McKeag asked, “You have some for sale?” “Of course. We’re the agents.” It was a tea, Haversham explained, blended in India especially for men who had known the sea. It was cured in a unique way which the makers kept secret. “But smoke and tar must obviously play a part,” he said. It came normally from India to London, but the English traders in Oregon imported theirs from China. “How long would a can like that last?” McKeag asked, cautiously again. “It’ll keep forever … with the top on.” “I mean, how many cups?” “I use it sparingly. It would last me a year.” “I’ll take two cans,” McKeag said, without asking the price. It was expensive, and as he tucked his small supply of coins back into his belt, Haversham explained, “The secret in making good lapsang souchong lies in heating the cup first. Heat it well. Then the flavor expands.” McKeag hid the canisters at the bottom of his gear, for he knew they were precious.

(these are my highlighted parts of the book) Not human, thought Maura, as the hairs stood up on the back of her neck. My god, what have I brought back from the dead? This poor woman's already died once. Let's not have it happen again. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give to the court in the case now in hearing shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Corpses have woken up in morgues. Old graves have been dug up, and they have found claw marks inside the coffin lids. People are so terrified of the possibility that some casket makers sell coffins equipped with emergency transmitters to call for help. Just in case you're buried alive. The resurrection of Christ wasn't a true resurrection. It was merely a case of premature burial. When they ask you to play a child, it means they want you to be scared. They want you to scream. They enjoy it if you bleed. It's not strength, Mila. It's hate. That's what keeps you alive. Duplex rounds are designed to inflict maximum damage. In marines, we call them "torso meat tags" because they're useful for identifying your corpse. In a blast, there's a good chance you'd lose your extremities. So a lot of soldiers choose to get their tattoos on their chest or back. The world is evil, Mila, and there's no way to change it. The best you can do is to stay alive...and not be evil. You're worse tan a whore. You don't just sell out yourself. You'd sell out anyone else. But these bars look different; these are not to trap people in; they are meant to keep people out. Come on baby. Stop being so goddamn stubborn. Help your mama out! Some babies are born screamers. They refuse to be ignored. God put mothers on this earth for a reason. Now, I'm not saying it takes a village to raise a kid. But it sure does help to have a grandma. Human. A02/B00/C02(7cm)/D42 Scalp hair. Slightly curved, shaft is seven centimeters, pigment is medium red. Reality's a bitch, ain't it? And so am I. Whenever there are big boys playing with a lot of money, you can bet sex comes into it. When I open my eyes again, I see more of Anja peeking out from the sand. The curve of her hip bone, the brown shaft of her thigh. The desert has decided to give her up, and now she is re-emerging from the earth. Nothing that happened to you was your fault. Whatever those men did to you - whatever they made you do - they forced on you. It was done to your body. It has nothing to do with your soul. Your soul, Mila, is still pure.

The Honourable Lady confuses the American people with American policy.... It is the very generosity of the American people which makes it possible for their policy-makers to confuse the trick them into believing that American is the God-father of the world. That is nonsense, and the American people should know it. If they don't get to know it, then the continuation of their present policy will make them the most despised people on earth. I know the Americans are generous. I know American policy is 'generous'. But there you have two different things. What the policy-makers expect in return for their dollar bounty is political co-operation against Russia and any other nation they like to call Red! I would remind the Honourable Lady that it is their anti-Red benevolence that is universal. In China, American capital is still spending more to create the military dictatorship of Chiang Kai-Shek than it did to assist China against Japan. With so many other nations in Europe and Asia broken by the war, American assistance with money and machinery almost means life itself. For national existence however, American policy has a price. It offers unconditional money, machinery, and arms to any nation that will denounce Russian and Communism and pronounce American as the God of all free nations. Even in defeated Italy, Germany, and Japan, American policy supports any sect that is anti-Red and anti-Russian. There is no end to this white American morality, it has its wide wide arms across the globe, its long fingers in every nation, and its loud voice in every ear,... Why talk about Russia!... If we must talk here about interference by one nation in another's affairs, let us talk of this American interference in every nation's affairs. Is there a nation on the face of the earth to-day except Russian and her so-called satellites which can hold up its head and say it is independent of the American dollar? We are all on our knees, and we won't admit it. Our American masters do not need arms and occupation; capital is enough. Capital is enough to strangle the earth if only it has the support of its victims. We are asked to support it—to bring others to their knees: France, Jugo-slavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, all of Eastern Europe, Greece, Turkey and Iran. The world over, we are asked to replace so-called Communism with the dollar. That dollar means governorship by those who will sell themselves and their nation for a smell of wealth and a grip of power. Such men are international. American has no monopoly on evil and stupid men. American simply has the wealth for bigger evil. The rest of us follow her according to our own evil and our own stupidity. British policy to-day is as bad as America's despite our Socialist Government.

There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. It is a simple task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are many and profound: choosing the right bread for instance. The Sandwich Maker had spent many months in daily consultation and experiment with Grarp the baker and eventually they had between them created a loaf of exactly the consistency that was dense enough to slice thinly and neatly, while still being light, moist and having that fine nutty flavour which best enhanced the savour of roast Perfectly Normal Beast flesh. There was also the geometry of the slice to be refined: the precise relationships between the width and height of the slice and also its thickness which would give the proper sense of bulk and weight to the finished sandwich: here again, lightness was a virtue, but so too were firmness, generosity and that promise of succulence and savour that is the hallmark of a truly intense sandwich experience. The proper tools, of course, were crucial, and many were the days that the Sandwich Maker, when not engaged with the Baker at his oven, would spend with Strinder the Tool Maker, weighing and balancing knives, taking them to the forge and back again. Suppleness, strength, keenness of edge, length and balance were all enthusiastically debated, theories put forward, tested, refined, and many was the evening when the Sandwich Maker and the Tool Maker could be seen silhouetted against the light of the setting sun and the Tool Maker’s forge making slow sweeping movements through the air trying one knife after another, comparing the weight of this one with the balance of another, the suppleness of a third and the handle binding of a fourth. Three knives altogether were required. First there was the knife for the slicing of the bread: a firm, authoritative blade which imposed a clear and defining will on a loaf. Then there was the butter-spreading knife, which was a whippy little number but still with a firm backbone to it. Early versions had been a little too whippy, but now the combination of flexibility with a core of strength was exactly right to achieve the maximum smoothness and grace of spread. The chief amongst the knives, of course, was the carving knife. This was the knife that would not merely impose its will on the medium through which it moved, as did the bread knife; it must work with it, be guided by the grain of the meat, to achieve slices of the most exquisite consistency and translucency, that would slide away in filmy folds from the main hunk of meat. The Sandwich Maker would then flip each sheet with a smooth flick of the wrist on to the beautifully proportioned lower bread slice, trim it with four deft strokes and then at last perform the magic that the children of the village so longed to gather round and watch with rapt attention and wonder. With just four more dexterous flips of the knife he would assemble the trimmings into a perfectly fitting jigsaw of pieces on top of the primary slice. For every sandwich the size and shape of the trimmings were different, but the Sandwich Maker would always effortlessly and without hesitation assemble them into a pattern which fitted perfectly. A second layer of meat and a second layer of trimmings, and the main act of creation would be accomplished.

Not long ago, after I had spoken on the subject of biblical worship at a large metropolitan church, one of the elders wrote to me to ask how I would try to get across my main points to children (fourth to sixth graders, approximately ages ten to twelve). He was referring in particular to things I had said about Romans 12:1–2. I responded by saying that kids of that age do not absorb abstract ideas very easily unless they are lived out and identified. The Christian home, or the Christian parent who obviously delights in corporate worship, in thoughtful evangelism, in self-effacing and self-sacrificing decisions within the home, in sacrificial giving for the poor and the needy and the lost—and who then explains to the child that these decisions and actions are part of gratitude and worship to the sovereign God who has loved us so much that he gave his own Son to pay the price of our sin—will have far more impact on the child’s notion of genuine worship than all the lecturing and classroom instruction in the world. Somewhere along the line it is important not only to explain that genuine worship is nothing more than loving God with heart and soul and mind and strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves, but also to show what a statement like that means in the concrete decisions of life. How utterly different will that child’s thinking be than that of the child who is reared in a home where secularism rules all week but where people go to church on Sunday to “worship” for half an hour before the sermon. “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Ps 95:6–8).

Both in Cuba and in the United states, the word 'freedom' comes up frequently in describing Cuba's history and current realities. It's a word that incorporates many different meanings. US policy makers tend to use it to refer to freedom for private enterprise, while for Cuban policy makers it generally means freedom from U.S interference.

Sextus [Empericus] identifies three different types of philosophy. There are Dogmatists, who think that they know the truth. There are Academic Sceptics, who think the truth can never be known. Then there are Sceptics, who retain an open mind, not thinking truth is yet discovered, but prepared to accept that it might be.

It’s a difference maker. Research says this will take about 66 days. Whether it takes you a few weeks or a few months, stick with it until it becomes your routine. If you’re not serious about learning the Success Habit, you’re not serious about getting extraordinary results.

Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are merely used for that man’s own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of others. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships these qualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no difference as to the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is shown. It makes no difference whether such a man’s force and ability betray themselves in a career of money-maker or politician, soldier or orator, journalist or popular leader. If the man works for evil, then the more successful he is the more he should be despised and condemned by all upright and far-seeing men. To judge a man merely by success is an abhorrent wrong; and if the people at large habitually so judge men, if they grow to condone wickedness because the wicked man triumphs, they show their inability to understand that in the last analysis free institutions rest upon the character of citizenship, and that by such admiration of evil they prove themselves unfit for liberty.

The blueprint of exploration has an overarching intention: you are not the recipients of divine labor and meticulous training only to ensure that you may enjoy endless bliss and eternal ease. There is a purpose of transcendent service concealed beyond the horizon of the present universe age. If I designed you to take you on an eternal excursion into nirvana, I certainly would not construct your entire universe into one vast and intricate training school, requisition a substantial branch of my creation as teachers and instructors, and then spend ages upon ages piloting you, one by one, through this enormous universe school of experiential learning. The furtherance of the system of human progression is cultivated by my will for the explicit purpose to merge the human species with other species from different universes. As it is my nature to be seven-fold, there are seven universes that comprise my body. Within each of these, a species of a particular DNA template is cast forth and is nurtured by Source Intelligence to explore its material universe. Each of these species is sent forth from the Central Race into the universe that was created to unveil its potential and seed vision. Your species will converge with six other species in a distant future that will reunite my body as the living extension of known creation. While this may seem so distant as to have no relevance to your time, it is vital for you to understand the scope of your purpose. You can think of these seven species as the limbs of my body rejoined to enable me/us total functionality within the grand universe. This is my purpose and therefore your own as well.

Andrea Smith explains that “the pro-life versus pro-choice paradigm reifies and masks the structures of white supremacy and capitalism that undergird the reproductive choices that women make.” As Smith and other activists and scholars detail, the language of choice presents women more as consumers than citizens, opening the door for some women to be cast as bad decision makers and for some choices to be deemed bad or inappropriate. Moreover, the language of choice fails to take into account how different women have different access to different choices; it removes from analysis the conditions under which women and families make decisions about reproduction.

Today, although many such strikes continue—the Walmart strike of 2012, for example—many industrial work sites have been moved offshore to Mexico, China, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Other forms of social conflict have arisen in different theaters. One theater animates the politics of the left. It focuses on conflict in the private sector between the very richest 1 percent and the rest of America. Occupy Wall Street has such a focus. It is not between owner and worker over a higher wage or shorter hours of work. It is between haves and have-nots, the ever-more-wealthy 1 percent and the other 99 percent of Americans. What feels unfair to Occupy activists is not simply unfair recompense for work (the multi-million dollar bonuses to hedge fund managers alongside the $8.25 hourly rate for Walmart clerks) but the absence of tax policies that could help restore America as a middle-class society. For the right today, the main theater of conflict is neither the factory floor nor an Occupy protest. The theater of conflict—at the heart of the deep story—is the local welfare office and the mailbox where undeserved disability checks and SNAP stamps arrive. Government checks for the listless and idle—this seems most unfair. If unfairness in Occupy is expressed in the moral vocabulary of a “fair share” of resources and a properly proportioned society, unfairness in the right’s deep story is found in the language of “makers” and “takers.” For the left, the flashpoint is up the class ladder (between the very top and the rest); for the right, it is down between the middle class and the poor. For the left, the flashpoint is centered in the private sector; for the right, in the public sector. Ironically, both call for an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.

Exalt Mountain was one of China’s five sacred peaks, and in its popular sense, Exalt-Mountain Ancestor refers to the mountain as a deity. But given the cosmological ways Tu Fu describes Exalt Mountain, it’s clear he sees something quite different. That mountain cosmology begins here in this poem with Changemaker, which also sounds like a kind of deity. But it is in fact Tao, that generative existence-tissue that is the maker of change. In gazing at the mountain, Tu Fu is gazing at a dramatic manifestation of the wild Taoist Cosmos; he sees Exalt Mountain as a center-point where space stretches endlessly away north and south, where the divine beauty of all existence is condensed into a single dramatic sight by Changemaker Tao. But changemaker, the Tao, is not separate from the mountains. Instead the mountain is an intensification or distillation of Tao.

But be warned, a lot of classic deal makers will think your approach is softheaded and weak. Just ask former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. A few years ago during a speech at Georgetown University, Clinton advocated, “showing respect, even for one’s enemies. Trying to understand and, insofar as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view.

The Pseudo-Dionysius’s God makes His impression on matter as (to borrow a metaphor from the author’s later admirers) a signet ring presses into a blob of hot wax. The signet lifts away and moves on; only the wax seal is left. Yet the impression that gives the seal shape and meaning still carries the trace of its original maker. That trace is a symbol, not because it stands for another thing, but because it is that thing in a different form—just as the world reveals God’s handiwork in a material form rather than His (and Plato’s) immaterial Forms.

It goes without saying that this method of communal parking duties would be an impossibility in a country where stealing was common. If they tried this in South Africa, for example, everyone’s car would be stolen every day and it would end up as some sort of car roulette. Everyone would have a different car every day. In Libya, stealing is punishable by death, or something nearly as extreme, like leg removal. (I had better Google that.)

The Twelve Healers and Other Remedies: “Take no notice of the disease. Think only of the outlook on life of the one in distress. The same disease may have different effects [varying states of mind or moods] on different people; it is these effects that need treatment, because they guide to the real cause … as one becomes well by gaining increased happiness and interest in life, the disease goes, having been cast off by the increase in health. Health and disease are caused by how we think, how we feel within ourselves. Health and disease are the consolidation of mental attitude.

May I not hoard wealth, nor be foolish in my use of it. A meaningless life is a grievous evil because it is separation from You who are goodness itself. Let my words to You be few and sincere – for the more the words, the less the meaning. Father, every day with You is a better day. May You grant me the inheritance, shelter and life of Your wisdom. All I do is in Your hands. Perhaps it is making a difference or perhaps I am chasing the wind. You alone know. So, whatever I do, I will do to the best of my abilities. Let me not be dismayed about whether my efforts are recognised on this earth, for You see all that I do. I pray and hope that my wisdom will not be spoilt by folly and experimentation. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for giving me calmness and self-control. Let me not dig myself a pit with my own actions and words. I cannot understand Your work and Your ways, O God, maker of all things. But I understand that I can trust You and that You delight in walking alongside me. So I will not watch my circumstances, but will draw near to listen to You. I sowed my seed at work and at home, not knowing if I would succeed, but knowing You are there for me. Prepare me for days of darkness, for there is no dark that You do not give light to, no matter how dim the light seems. Let the days of my life honour You; let me fear You and keep Your commandments; let me enter into the joy of Your grace; let me do Your will; until my spirit returns to You who gave it. Amen

Folks in the holler are a bit different. They look the same as most southerners, but they have big grit, tons of fight, and the kind of pride that comes from decades of self-reliance. They don’t like city folk, opportunists, or trouble-makers.

Your goal in risk analysis should always be to make sure that whatever the decision is, you have done your best to keep the decision maker well-informed about the probabilities of different outcomes.

if spiritual forces operate in a different sphere to the rule of law and human rights, then democratic politics is failing to deal with a fundamental problem in people’s lives and after-lives. the repercussions of AIDS for the moral cosmology are profound indeed. the secular frameworks of epidemiology and public policy will not by themselves be enough to make sense of the virus and epidemic. we need to develop and deploy metaphors that speak to the social world, constructed around moral imaginings which are impacted by AIDS and which in turn constrain social capabilities to respond to AIDS. we should also be alert to the fact that scholars and policy makers themselves are unable to think about the crisis that is AIDS without using language and imagery borrowed from another realm of human experience. how we think about the AIDS epidemic becomes its own reality. yet we must not lose sight of the virus and the disease. (…) AIDS represents the ordinary workings of biology, not an irrational or diabolical plague with moral meaning. HIV transmission is preventable and medication is available that can extend a healthy life for those living with HIV. science can triumph, given resources, policies and the right social and political context.

if I had to skill somebody up to get them to be a better decision-maker, quitting is the primary skill I would choose, because the option to quit is what allows you to react to that changing landscape. Any decision is, of course, made under some degree of uncertainty, stemming from two different sources, most of our decisions being subject to both.

The distinction between you and me lies in the ability to discern the authenticity amidst the imitation.

Take the limits off God and take the limits off yourself. Who says you can’t do something great, who says you can’t start your own business, who says you can’t get well? God is calling you to be a trendsetter, a difference-maker, a barrier-breaker.

Setbacks and disappointments can make life seem meaningless. The way to overcome this feeling is to get busy helping out by making a difference in some way to take the focus off of yourself. 

race is fundamentally a power construct of blended difference that lives socially. Race creates new forms of power: the power to categorize and judge, elevate and downgrade, include and exclude. Race makers use that power to process distinct individuals, ethnicities, and nationalities into monolithic races.

Innovations are happening in conventional schooling. Some people will read the chapters to come and respond that their own children’s schools are incorporating evidence-based changes, making them more like Montessori schools—eliminating grades, combining ages, using a lot of group work, and so on. One could take the view that over the years, conventional schooling has gradually been discovering and incorporating many of the principles that Dr. Montessori discovered in the first half of the 20th century. However, although schooling is changing, those changes are often relatively superficial. A professor of education might develop a new reading or math program that is then adopted with great fanfare by a few school systems, but the curricular change is minute relative to the entire curriculum, and the Lockean model of the child and the factory structure of the school environment still underlie most of the child’s school day and year. “Adding new ‘techniques’ to the classroom does not lead to the developmental of a coherent philosophy. For example, adding the technique of having children work in ‘co-operative learning’ teams is quite different than a system in which collaboration is inherent in the structure” (Rogoff, Turkanis, & Bartlett, 2001, p. 13). Although small changes are made reflecting newer research on how children learn, particularly in good neighborhood elementary schools, most of the time, in most U.S. schools, conventional structures predominate (Hiebert, 1999; McCaslin et al., 2006; NICHD, 2005; Stigler, Gallimore, & Hiebert, 2000), and observers rate most classes to be low in quality (Weiss, Pasley, Smith, Banilower, & Heck, 2003). Superficial insertions of research-supported methods do not penetrate the underlying models on which are schools are based. Deeper change, implementing more realistic models of the child and the school, is necessary to improve schooling. How can we know what those new models should be? As in medicine, where there have been increasing calls for using research results to inform patient treatments, education reform must more thoroughly and deeply implement what the evidence indicates will work best. This has been advocated repeatedly over the years, even by Thorndike. Certainly more and more researchers, educators, and policy makers are heeding the call to take an evidence-based stance on education. Yet the changes made thus far in response to these calls have not managed to address to the fundamental problems of the poor models. The time has come for rethinking education, making it evidence based from the ground up, beginning with the child and the conditions under which children thrive. Considered en masse, the evidence from psychological research suggests truly radical change is needed to provide children with a form of schooling that will optimize their social and cognitive development. A better form of schooling will change the Lockean model of the child and the factory structure on which our schools are built into something radically different and much better suited to how children actually learn.

The most fundamental objection to Gamow’s scheme is that it does not distinguish between the direction of a sequence; that is, between Thr. Pro. Lys. Ala. and Ala. Lys. Pro. Thr…. There is little doubt that Nature makes this distinction, though it might be claimed that she produces both sequences at random, and that the “wrong” ones—not being able to fold up—are destroyed. This seems to me unlikely. That observation, made in passing, was the first acknowledgment of a theoretical question that is still unanswered: in general terms, what does the cell do with information it possesses on the DNA—and some organisms possess some DNA sequences in thousands of copies—that it does not use to code for proteins? This difficulty brings us face-to-face with one of the most puzzling features of the DNA structure—the fact that it is non-polar, due to the dyads at the side; or put another way, that one chain runs up while the other runs down. It is true that this only applies to the backbone, and not to the base sequence, as Delbrück has emphasized to me in correspondence. This may imply that a base sequence read one way makes sense, and read the other way makes nonsense. Another difficulty is that the assumptions made about which diamonds are equivalent are not very plausible…. [Gamow’s idea] would not be unreasonable if the amino acid could fit on to the template from either side, into cavities which were in a plane, but the structure certainly doesn’t look like that. The bonds seem mainly to stick out perpendicular to the axis, and the template is really a surface with knobs on, and presents a radically different aspect on its two sides…. What, then are the novel and useful features of Gamow’s ideas? It is obviously not the idea of amino acids fitting on to nucleic acids, nor the idea of the bases sequence of the nucleic acids carrying the information. To my mind Gamow has introduced three ideas of importance: (1) In Gamow’s scheme several different base sequences can code for one amino acid…. This “degeneracy” seems to be a new idea, and, as discussed later, we can generalise it. (2) Gamow boldly assumed that code would be of the overlapping type…. Watson and I, thinking mainly about coding by hypothetical RNA structures rather than by DNA, did not seriously consider this type of coding. (3) Gamow’s scheme is essentially abstract. It originally paid lip service to structural considerations, but the position was soon reached when “coding” was looked upon as a problem in itself, independent as far as possible of how things might fit together…. Such an approach, though at first sight unnecessarily abstract, is important. Finally it is obvious to all of us that without our President the whole problem would have been neglected and few of us would have tried to do anything about it.

The conclusion is inescapable: Crick in Cambridge and Brenner in Johannesburg were thinking well ahead of the biochemical pack. But then, about fifteen minutes later in that same discussion, Walter Sampson Vincent, an instructor in anatomy from the State University of New York at Syracuse, got up to report some experiments with the RNA of unfertilized egg cells of starfish. “Both Dr. Borsook and Dr. Zamecnik have suggested that there should be two RNA fractions in the cell, with differing characteristics,” Vincent said. He had found the same thing himself, and proceeded to tell how, at length. His biological specimens—starfish eggs—were unfamiliar; his methods were the well-known ones of Torbjörn Caspersson and Jean Brachet (he had spent a year with Brachet as a postdoc); and worse than that, late in such a meeting, when scientist after scientist has risen to talk about his experiments, however tenuously related to the chief topic, the audience gets numb and drifts away. Vincent’s data suggested, he said in conclusion, that the nucleus contained two classes of RNA, “one a soluble, metabolically very active, fraction, representing only a small portion of the total.” His last words were about that fraction: “One exciting implication of the active, or labile, form would be that it is involved in the transfer of nuclear ‘information’ to the synthetic centers of the cytoplasm.” This astonishing suggestion went unnoticed.

The Mask,” Rhys murmured, “the Harp, and the Crown.” Nesta had a feeling none of them were good. Feyre frowned at her mate. “They’re different from the objects of power in the Hewn City? What can they do?” Nesta had tried her best to forget that night she and Amren had gone to test her so-called gift against the hoard within those unhallowed catacombs. The objects had been half-imprisoned in the stone itself: knives and necklaces and orbs and books, all shimmering with power. None of it pleasant. For the Dread Trove to be worse than what she’d witnessed … “The Mask can raise the dead,” Amren answered for Rhys. “It is a death mask, molded from the face of a long-forgotten king. Wear it and you may summon the dead to you, command them to march at your will. The Harp can open any door, physical or otherwise. Some say between worlds. And the Crown …” Amren shook her head. “The Crown can influence anyone, even piercing through the mightiest of mental shields. Its only flaw is that it requires close physical proximity to initially sink its claws into a victim’s mind. But wear the Crown, and you could make your enemies do your bidding. Could make a parent slaughter their child, aware of the horror but unable to stop themselves.” “And these things were lost?” Nesta demanded. Rhys threw her a frown. “Those who possessed them grew careless. They were lost in ancient wars, or to treachery, or simply because they were misplaced and forgotten.” “What does it have to do with the Cauldron?” Nesta pushed. “Like calls to like,” Feyre murmured, looking to Amren, who nodded. “Because the Trove was Made by the Cauldron, so might the Trove find its Maker.” She angled her head. “Briallyn was Made, though. Can’t she track the Cauldron herself?” Amren drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. “The Cauldron aged Briallyn to punish her.” A glance at Nesta. “Or punish you, I suppose.

Benzer and I talked one afternoon in the spring of 1971, at Caltech, where he had moved six years before. His office was small, bright with daylight, crowded with bookshelves and files all stowed with a mariner’s sort of compulsive comfortable neatness. On a shelf was a photograph, enormously enlarged, of nerve connections in the eye of a fly. Benzer was medium dark, medium short, as neat and compact as the room. He was wearing a lightweight tan cardigan over a shirt and tie. The photo, he said, was an electron micrograph: he was presently mapping the genetics of mutations that affected the nervous systems—the behavior—of fruit flies. Half a dozen of the early molecular biologists were then moving into neurobiology; Benzer brought out a cartoon that one of them had sketched, a jokey ancestral tree with the faces of molecular neurobiologists pasted in according to the organisms they were working with. “It’s a new phase,” he said. “I feel that, y’know, when I came into molecular biology it was a pioneering science. But when a science becomes a discipline, which is essentially true of molecular biology now, when you can buy a textbook, take a course— There’s no question there are many surprises left … but a field to work in, to me personally, when it becomes a discipline, becomes less attractive. I find it more fun to be striking out in something which is more on the amorphous side. Which was true of molecular biology when I started. Another thing that becomes unpleasant is the redundancy of effort, a number of people doing the same thing—so that even when you make a discovery, six different guys discover it in the same week. You begin to feel that if it’s five guys instead of six guys it doesn’t make any difference. But still, my change was not so much to escape from that, as just following my own interests; I’ve got interested in behavior and I want to look at it.