“
By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a disservice both to them and to ourselves. . . . We fail to recognize that we could go and do likewise. —CHARLES V. WILLIE
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
But then Klaudia's lips curled ino a conniving smile."Actually, Aria, I'm going to fuck your boyfriend. Tonight."
Aria started at her. It felt like Klaudia had just punched her in the throat. "Excuse me?"
Klaudia scooted closer to Aria. "I'm going to fuck your boyfried," she said again -in textbook-perfect English. "Tonight. And there's nothing you can do about it.
”
”
Sara Shepard (Twisted (Pretty Little Liars, #9))
“
Customer: Do you have any medical textbooks?
Bookseller: Sorry, no. They go out of date so quickly we don't stock them, but I can order one in for you.
Customer: I'm not worried about it being in date.
Bookseller: Does your university not request you have a specific edition?
Customer: Oh, I'm not a medical student. I just want to learn how to do stitches.
Bookseller: ... Right.
Customer: Do you have a book on sewing instead?
”
”
Jen Campbell (Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops)
“
I do my precalc homework, and then when I'm done I actually sit with the textbook for like three hours and try to understand what I just did. That's the kind of weekend it is--the kind where you have so much time you go past the answers and start looking into the ideas.
”
”
John Green (Will Grayson, Will Grayson)
“
By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a disservice both to them and to ourselves. . . . We fail to recognize that we could go and do likewise. —CHARLES V. WILLIE3
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
The kitchen was the bivouac of an insurgent army. Every surface had been colonised
by objects that had nothing to do with cooking: a rotating globe, illustrations
ripped from anatomy textbooks, toy Ambassador taxis from
India, an obsolete desktop computer, a shelf of floppy disks, miscellaneous
handwritten missives stuffed into folders. Making a cup of
coffee was a philosophical manoeuvre. You had to take a position.
You had to ask yourself, what is coffee? Why is it consumed? How far
would I go for a cup?
”
”
Jeet Thayil (The Book of Chocolate Saints)
“
Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long run, however complicated it looks, really means something like, 'I pointed the telescope to such and such a part of the sky at 2:20 a.m. on January 15th and saw so-and-so,' or, 'I put some of this stuff in a pot and heated it to such-and-such a temperature and it did so-and-so.' Do not think I am saying anything against science: I am only saying what its job is.
And the more scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with me that this is the job of science--and a very useful and necessary job it is too. But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes--something of a different kind--this is not a scientific question. If there is 'Something Behind,' then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientists do not usually make them. It is usually the journalists and popular novelists who have picked up a few odds and ends of half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them. After all, it is really a matter of common sense. Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, 'Why is there a universe?' 'Why does it go on as it does?' 'Has it any meaning?' would remain just as they were?
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
“
The day passed.
People had butchered my name, teachers hadn’t known what the hell to do with me, my math teacher looked at my face and gave a five-minute speech to the class about how people who don’t love this country should just go back to where they came from and I stared at my textbook so hard it was days before I could get the quadratic equation out of my head.
Not one of my classmates spoke to me, no one but the kid who accidentally assaulted my shoulder with his bio book.
I wished I didn’t care.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (A Very Large Expanse of Sea)
“
<..> Reading makes you see with clearer eyes and understand the world better. When you do that , you become stronger - the feeling you associate with success. But at the same time with pain. Within the pages, there's much suffering, beyond that we've gone through in our finite experience of life. You'll read about suffering you didn't know existed. Having experienced their pain through words, it becomes a lot harder to focus on pursuing individual happiness and success. Reading makes you deviate further from the textbook definition of success because books don't make us go ahead of or above anyone else; they guide us to stand alongside others. <...>
<..> We become more compassionate. To read is to see things from someone else's perspective, and that naturally leads you to stop and look out for other people, rather than chase after success in the rat race. If more people read, I think the world would become a better place.
”
”
Hwang Bo-Reum (Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop)
“
Museums tell stories so much better than textbooks do. And that's what history is, isn't it? It's just a really big story. That's what makes it important. And museums get that. Textbooks don't.
”
”
Katherine Locke (Out Now: Queer We Go Again!)
“
Irma looked around her bedroom desperately. Her eyes fell on the stack of schoolbooks lying on top of her vanity table. Homework! Homework trumped everything! Irma dived toward the desk and scooped up a couple of textbooks.
"I want to do my homework!" she wailed. "I have to study. Send Leafy instead of me!" Irma pointed to her pet turtle.
"Your turtle is not going on a date with Martin Tubbs!
”
”
Elizabeth Lenhard (The Last Tear (W.I.T.C.H. Chapter Books, #5))
“
Ms. Terwilliger didn’t have a chance to respond to my geological ramblings because someone knocked on the door. I slipped the rocks into my pocket and tried to look studious as she called an entry. I figured Zoe had tracked me down, but surprisingly, Angeline walked in.
"Did you know," she said, "that it’s a lot harder to put organs back in the body than it is to get them out?"
I closed my eyes and silently counted to five before opening them again. “Please tell me you haven’t eviscerated someone.”
She shook her head. “No, no. I left my biology homework in Miss Wentworth’s room, but when I went back to get it, she’d already left and locked the door. But it’s due tomorrow, and I’m already in trouble in there, so I had to get it. So, I went around outside, and her window lock wasn’t that hard to open, and I—”
"Wait," I interrupted. "You broke into a classroom?"
"Yeah, but that’s not the problem."
Behind me, I heard a choking laugh from Ms. Terwilliger’s desk.
"Go on," I said wearily.
"Well, when I climbed through, I didn’t realize there was a bunch of stuff in the way, and I crashed into those plastic models of the human body she has. You know, the life size ones with all the parts inside? And bam!" Angeline held up her arms for effect. "Organs everywhere." She paused and looked at me expectantly. "So what are we going to do? I can’t get in trouble with her."
"We?" I exclaimed.
"Here," said Ms. Terwilliger. I turned around, and she tossed me a set of keys. From the look on her face, it was taking every ounce of self-control not to burst out laughing. "That square one’s a master. I know for a fact she has yoga and won’t be back for the rest of the day. I imagine you can repair the damage—and retrieve the homework—before anyone’s the wiser.”
I knew that the “you” in “you can repair” meant me. With a sigh, I stood up and packed up my things. “Thanks,” I said.
As Angeline and I walked down to the science wing, I told her, “You know, the next time you’ve got a problem, maybe come to me before it becomes an even bigger problem.”
"Oh no," she said nobly. "I didn’t want to be an inconvenience."
Her description of the scene was pretty accurate: organs everywhere. Miss Wentworth had two models, male and female, with carved out torsos that cleverly held removable parts of the body that could be examined in greater detail. Wisely, she had purchased models that were only waist-high. That was still more than enough of a mess for us, especially since it was hard to tell which model the various organs belonged to.
I had a pretty good sense of anatomy but still opened up a textbook for reference as I began sorting. Angeline, realizing her uselessness here, perched on a far counter and swing her legs as she watched me. I’d started reassembling the male when I heard a voice behind me.
"Melbourne, I always knew you’d need to learn about this kind of thing. I’d just kind of hoped you’d learn it on a real guy."
I glanced back at Trey, as he leaned in the doorway with a smug expression. “Ha, ha. If you were a real friend, you’d come help me.” I pointed to the female model. “Let’s see some of your alleged expertise in action.”
"Alleged?" He sounded indignant but strolled in anyways.
I hadn’t really thought much about asking him for help. Mostly I was thinking this was taking much longer than it should, and I had more important things to do with my time. It was only when he came to a sudden halt that I realized my mistake.
"Oh," he said, seeing Angeline. "Hi."
Her swinging feet stopped, and her eyes were as wide as his. “Um, hi.”
The tension ramped up from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds, and everyone seemed at a loss for words. Angeline jerked her head toward the models and blurted out. “I had an accident.”
That seemed to snap Trey from his daze, and a smile curved his lips. Whereas Angeline’s antics made me want to pull out my hair sometimes, he found them endearing.
”
”
Richelle Mead (The Fiery Heart (Bloodlines, #4))
“
I couldn’t go on living like this. I had to become successful. “I want to change the world, and do something valuable and beautiful. I want people to remember me before I’m dead, and then more afterward.” And at this juncture I was finally willing to do whatever it was going to take to bring that about—up to and including giving up drugs. From that moment on, I really did take things, in the textbook rehab fashion, one day at a time. An
”
”
Russell Brand (My Booky Wook)
“
The information he did not get was formal information. The data. The details. The options. The analysis. He didn’t do PowerPoint. For anything that smacked of a classroom or of being lectured to—“professor” was one of his bad words, and he was proud of never going to class, never buying a textbook, never taking a note—he got up and left the room.
”
”
Michael Wolff (Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House)
“
A step further. Creationism. If you want to go in so deep as to ignore all of the advances and hard facts that SCIENCE and LEARNING have provided us in the field of biological evolution and instead profess that the creation story, written by men from their holy visions, about how the Christian deity spinning the world together out of the void in the magic of Genesis describes the true origin of the universe, that is your business. Terrific. It’s a cool story, don’t get me wrong; I love magic. Check out Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, which won a Newbery Medal. For the record, I don’t believe the book of Genesis ever won one of those. You and your fellow creationists profess belief in a magical story. You are welcome to do so. Sing and chant, and eat crackers and drink wine that you claim are magically infused with the blood and flesh of your church’s original grand wizard, the Prince of Peace. I personally think that’s just a touch squirrelly, but that’s your business, not mine. You will not be punished for those beliefs in our nation of individual freedoms. But I do think the vast majority of your fellow Americans would appreciate it, kind creationists, if you silly motherfuckers would keep that bullshit out of our schools. Your preferred fairy tales have no place in a children’s classroom or textbook that professes to be teaching our youngsters what is REAL. Jesus Christ, it’s irrefutably un-American, people!
”
”
Nick Offerman (Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living)
“
Do not oversleep and miss the school bus-
you'll be late.
That's a habit teachers generally
don't appreciate.
Never tell your friends at school
that you still wet your bed.
They are sure to tease you,
and you'll wish that you were dead.
Never call your teacher a name
when she's not near you.
Teachers' ears are excellent,
so they can always hear you.
Do not read a textbook when your hands
aren't clean-it's tricky
to separate the pages when the pages
get real sticky.
When you go out for a team
it's always wise to practice.
When you are a substitute,
the bench can feel like cactus.
Do not copy homework from a friend
who is a dummy.
If you do, I'm sure that you
will get a grade that's crummy.
And if your report card's bad,
don't blame it on your buddy.
Kiss up to your parents quick,
or they might make you study.
”
”
Bruce Lansky
“
My old professor, meanwhile, was stunned by the normalcy of the day around him. Shouldn't the world stop? Don't they know what has happened to me?
But the world did not stop, it took no notice at all
Morrie's doctors guessed he had two years left. Morrie knew it was less.
But my old professor had made a profound decision, one he began to construct the day he came out of the doctor's office with a sword hanging over his head. Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? he had asked himself.
He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying.
Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.
Morrie would walk that final bridge between life and death, and narrate the trip.
”
”
Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie)
“
We shall need all the anti-slavery feeling in the country, and more; you can go home and try to bring the people to your views, and you may say anything you like about me, if that will help. . . . When the hour comes for dealing with slavery, I trust I will be willing to do my duty though it cost my life. —ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO ABOLITIONIST UNITARIAN MINISTERS, 18624 PERHAPS THE MOST telling criticism Frances FitzGerald made in her 1979 survey of American history textbooks, America Revised, was that they leave out ideas.
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
We know what you are thinking. It is not girls who need lessons in how to talk on the telephone.
We are experts at it.
Some of us could even medal in it.
The problem is the boys. And they need to shape up.
True, true, true.
However.
The boys are not going to shape up. They are not going to read magazines or informational textbooks such as this one that tell them how to talk to girls on the telephone. And they are not going to magically figure out how to converse either. It is a demonstrated fact that even bona fide boyfriends such as Finn and Jackson and Kaleb are hit with paralyzing stupidity and boringness on the telephone, and you, my girlfriends, you are the only ones who can do anything about it.
Some tried-and-true tips
1. No feelings. Not if you can possibly avoid it. Feelings in person only.
2. No long silences. The male of the species hates long silences. If he is silent, say, “I gotta go, I’ll see you later.” And hang up. This is mysterious and alluring. And if it is not, at least you don’t have any more awkwardness.
3. Some people will tell you that you shouldn’t call guys, you should wait for them to call you. Hello? This is the twenty-first century. We can call them.
4. But have a reason. Don’t call “just to talk,” because they have nothing to talk about. Have a story to tell them, or ask if they watched some TV show just now, or ask about homework, or make a plan for the weekend.
”
”
E. Lockhart (The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them (Ruby Oliver, #2))
“
Scared?”
Terrified. “Of you? Nah. If you grow claws, I might get my sword, but I’ve fought you in your human shape.” It took all my will to shrug. “You aren’t that impressive.”
He cleared the distance between us in a single leap. I barely had time to jump to my feet. Steel fingers grasped my left wrist. His left arm clasped my waist. I fought, but he outmuscled me with ridiculous ease, pulling me close as if to tango.
“Curran! Let . . . “
I recognized the angle of his hip but I could do nothing about it. He pulled me forward and flipped me in a classic hip-toss throw. Textbook perfect. I flew through the air, guided by his hands, and landed on my back. The air burst from my lungs in a startled gasp. Ow.
“Impressed yet?” he asked with a big smile.
Playing. He was playing. Not a real fight. He could’ve slammed me down hard enough to break my neck. Instead he had held me to the end, to make sure I landed right.
He leaned forward a little. “Big bad merc, down with a basic hip toss. In your place I’d be blushing.”
I gasped, trying to draw air into my lungs.
“I could kill you right now. It wouldn’t take much. I think I’m actually embarrassed on your behalf. At least do some magic or something.”
As you wish. I gasped and spat my new power word. “Osanda.” Kneel, Your Majesty.
He grunted like a man trying to lift a crushing weight that fell on his shoulders. His face shook with strain. Ha-ha. He wasn’t the only one who got a boost from a flare.
I got up to my feet with some leisure. Curran stood locked, the muscles of his legs bulging his sweatpants. He didn’t kneel. He wouldn’t kneel. I hit him with a power word in the middle of a bloody flare and it didn’t work. When he snapped out of it, he would probably kill me.
All sorts of alarms blared in my head. My good sense screamed, Get out of the room, stupid! Instead I stepped close to him and whispered in his ear, “Still not impressed.”
His eyebrows came together, as a grimace claimed his face. He strained, the muscles on his hard frame trembling with effort. With a guttural sigh, he straightened.
I beat a hasty retreat to the rear of the room, passing Slayer on the way. I wanted to swipe it so bad, my palm itched. But the rules of the game were clear: no claws, no saber. The second I picked up the sword, I’d have signed my own death warrant.
He squared his shoulders. “Shall we continue?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
He started toward me. I waited, light on my feet, ready to leap aside. He was stronger than a pair of oxen, and he’d try to grapple. If he got ahold of me, it would be over. If all else failed, I could always try the window. A forty-foot drop was a small price to pay to get away from him.
Curran grabbed at me. I twisted past him and kicked his knee from the side. It was a good solid kick; I’d turned into it. It would’ve broken the leg of any normal human.
“Cute,” Curran said, grabbed my arm, and casually threw me across the room. I went airborne for a second, fell, rolled, and came to my feet to be greeted by Curran’s smug face. “You’re fun to play with. You make a good mouse.”
Mouse?
“I was always kind of partial to toy mice.” He smiled. “Sometimes they’re filled with catnip. It’s a nice bonus.”
“I’m not filled with catnip.”
“Let’s find out.”
He squared his shoulders and headed in my direction. Houston, we have a problem. Judging by the look in his eyes, a kick to the face simply wouldn’t faze him.
“I can stop you with one word,” I said.
He swiped me into a bear hug and I got an intimate insight into how a nut feels just before the nutcracker crushes it to pieces. “Do,” he said.
“Wedding.”
All humor fled his eyes. He let go and just like that, the game was over.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Burns (Kate Daniels, #2))
“
Ella?” Cinder asked when things got quiet. “Are you there?” He sounded hesitant. “Welcome to my life,” I said with a sigh of defeat. “Sorry about that.” “It’s okay.” It was definitely not okay. I was so humiliated. It was a miracle I wasn’t crying. I think that was only because I was still in so much shock. “Look, thanks for giving me your phone number, but maybe this is a bad time.” My dad scrambled to his feet, waving his hands at me. “No! You don’t have to end your call. We’ll give you some privacy.” He glanced at both Jennifer and Juliette. “Won’t we, ladies?” His blatant desperation for me to talk to someone—even a stranger from the Internet—was as embarrassing as Anastasia’s outburst. Even worse, Jennifer was just as bad. “Of course! You go ahead and talk to your boyfriend, Ella,” she squealed. “We can keep an eye on you from the kitchen. I have to get dinner started anyway.” While I was busy dying from her use of the word boyfriend, she hopped off the elliptical. She hurried to catch up to my dad, seeming more than happy to finish her workout early. As they started up the steps, they both turned back to Juliette, who had sprawled out on the couch instead of getting up. “I was here first,” Juliette said in response to their expectant looks. “There’s no way I’m going anywhere near the upstairs with Ana in the mood she’s in, and I really don’t care about Ella’s love life. Besides, she’s not supposed to be alone, anyway. What if she tries to throw herself off the balcony or something?” Was there anyone in the world that didn’t feel the need to humiliate me? I glared at Juliette, and she just waved a pair of earbuds at me and shoved them in her ears. “I’ll turn the volume up.” My dad and Jennifer both gave me such hopeful looks that I couldn’t argue anymore. I rolled my eyes and made my way over to the armchair my father had been lounging in. Once Dad and Jennifer were gone, I glanced over at the couch. Juliette was already doing what she did best—ignoring me. She was bobbing her head along with her music as she read out of a textbook. I doubted she could hear me, but I spoke softly anyway, just in case. “Cinder? Are you still there?” “I didn’t realize upping our relationship to phone buddies would come with a boyfriend title. Does that mean if we ever meet in person, we’ll have to get married?” Surprised, I burst into laughter. Juliette glanced at me with one raised eyebrow, but went back to her textbook without saying anything.
”
”
Kelly Oram (Cinder & Ella (Cinder & Ella, #1))
“
I am Hannah fucking Kabbah. I go to the supermarket every week without a shopping list. I once memorised an entire psychology textbook the day before an exam after realising I'd been revising the wrong module for weeks. And guess what? I got an A. I spent the first few years of my professional life keeping multiple toddlers alive. Do you know how hard it is to keep toddlers alive, Ms. Chai Latte? It's really fucking hard. And I was good at it. I do not get things wrong. I do not make mistakes. I do not fuck up FUCKING CHAI LATTES. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?
This is what Hannah thought. But what she said was...
Oh. Wait. Shit.
”
”
Talia Hibbert (Untouchable (Ravenswood #2))
“
Morrie's doctors guessed he had two years left. Morrie knew it was less.
But my old professor had made a profound decision, one he began to construct the day he came out of the doctor's office with a sword hanging over his head. Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? he had asked himself.
He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying.
Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.
Morrie would walk that final bridge between life and death, and narrate the trip.
”
”
Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie)
“
Amy found out she had cancer not long after finishing Textbook, and she called me. She knew that in the years after my book The Fault in Our Stars was published, I’d come to know many young people who were gravely ill, and she wanted to know if I had advice for her. I told her what I think is true—that love survives death. But she wanted to know how young people react to death. How her kids would. She wanted to know if her kids and her husband would be okay, and that ripped me up. Although I’m usually quite comfortable talking with sick people, with my friend I found myself stumbling over words, overwhelmed by my own sadness and worry. They won’t be okay, of course, but they will go on, and the love you poured into them will go on. That’s what I should’ve said. But what I actually said, while crying, was, “How can this be happening? You do so much yoga.” In my experience, dying people often have wonderful stories of the horrible things healthy people say to them, but I’ve never heard of anybody saying something as stupid as, “You do so much yoga.” I hope that Amy at least got some narrative mileage out of it. But I also know I failed her, after she was there for me so many times. I know she forgives me—present tense—but still, I desperately wish I could’ve said something useful. Or perhaps not said anything at all. When people we love are suffering, we want to make it better. But sometimes—often, in fact—you can’t make it better. I’m reminded of something my supervisor said to me when I was a student chaplain: “Don’t just do something. Stand there.
”
”
John Green (The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet)
“
Considering how many fools can calculate, it is surprising that it should be thought either a difficult or a tedious task for any other fool to learn how to master the same tricks.
Some calculus-tricks are quite easy. Some are enormously difficult. The fools who write the textbooks of advanced mathematics - and they are mostly clever fools - seldom take the trouble to show you how easy the easy calculations are. On the contrary, they seem to desire to impress you with their tremendous cleverness by going about it in the most difficult way.
Being myself a remarkably stupid fellow, I have had to unteach myself the difficulties, and now beg to present to my fellow fools the parts that are not hard. Master these thoroughly, and the rest will follow. What one fool can do, another can.
”
”
Silvanus Phillips Thompson (Calculus Made Easy)
“
Generally we think of white supremacist views as having their origins with the unlettered, underprivileged, poorer-class whites. But the social obstetricians who presided at the birth of racist views in our country were from the aristocracy: rich merchants, influential clergymen, men of medical science, historians and political scientists from some of the leading universities of the nation. With such a distinguished company of the elite working so assiduously to disseminate racist views, what was there to inspire poor, illiterate, unskilled white farmers to think otherwise?
Soon the doctrine of white supremacy was imbedded in every textbook and preached in practically every pulpit. It became a structural part of the culture. And men then embraced this philosophy, not as the rationalization of a lie, but as the expression of a final truth.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?)
“
OK, now imagine two little Jimmies in a pack on your pack, or, better still, something inert but weighty, something that doesn’t want to be lifted, that makes it abundantly clear to you as soon as you pick it up that what it wants is to sit heavily on the ground—say, a bag of cement or a box of medical textbooks—in any case, forty pounds of profound heaviness. Imagine the jerk of the pack going on, like the pull of a down elevator. Imagine walking with that weight for hours, for days, and not along level asphalt paths with benches and refreshment booths at thoughtful intervals but over a rough trail, full of sharp rocks and unyielding roots and staggering ascents that transfer enormous amounts of strain to your pale, shaking thighs. Now tilt your head back until your neck is taut, and fix your gaze on a point two miles away. That’s your first climb. It’s 4,682 steep feet to the top, and there are lots more like it. Don’t tell me that seven miles is not far. Oh, and here’s the other thing. You don’t have to do this. You’re not in the army. You can quit right now. Go home. See your family. Sleep in a bed.
”
”
Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail)
“
Even male children of affluent white families think that history as taught in high school is “too neat and rosy.” 6 African American, Native American, and Latino students view history with a special dislike. They also learn history especially poorly. Students of color do only slightly worse than white students in mathematics. If you’ll pardon my grammar, nonwhite students do more worse in English and most worse in history.7 Something intriguing is going on here: surely history is not more difficult for minorities than trigonometry or Faulkner. Students don’t even know they are alienated, only that they “don’t like social studies” or “aren’t any good at history.” In college, most students of color give history departments a wide berth. Many history teachers perceive the low morale in their classrooms. If they have a lot of time, light domestic responsibilities, sufficient resources, and a flexible principal, some teachers respond by abandoning the overstuffed textbooks and reinventing their American history courses. All too many teachers grow disheartened and settle for less. At least dimly aware that their students are not requiting their own love of history, these teachers withdraw some of their energy from their courses. Gradually they end up going through the motions, staying ahead of their students in the textbooks, covering only material that will appear on the next test. College teachers in most disciplines are happy when their students have had significant exposure to the subject before college. Not teachers in history. History professors in college routinely put down high school history courses. A colleague of mine calls his survey of American history “Iconoclasm I and II,” because he sees his job as disabusing his charges of what they learned in high school to make room for more accurate information. In no other field does this happen. Mathematics professors, for instance, know that non-Euclidean geometry is rarely taught in high school, but they don’t assume that Euclidean geometry was mistaught. Professors of English literature don’t presume that Romeo and Juliet was misunderstood in high school. Indeed, history is the only field in which the more courses students take, the stupider they become. Perhaps I do not need to convince you that American history is important. More than any other topic, it is about us. Whether one deems our present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we arrived at this point. Understanding our past is central to our ability to understand ourselves and the world around us. We need to know our history, and according to sociologist C. Wright Mills, we know we do.8
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
The Creation of Human Beings From Water
Allah created every [living] creature from water. Some of them go on
their bellies, some of them on two legs, and some on four. Allah creates
whatever He wills. Allah has power over all things. (Qur'an, 24:45)
Do those who disbelieve not see that the heavens and the Earth were
sewn together and then We unstitched them and that We made from
water every living thing? So won't they believe? (Qur'an, 21:30)
And it is He Who created human beings from water and then gave them
relations by blood and marriage. Your Lord is All-Powerful. (Qur'an,
25:54)
When we look at the verses concerned with the creation of human
beings and living things, we clearly see evidence of a miracle. One such
miracle is of the creation of living things from water. It was only possible
for people to come by that information, clearly expressed in those
verses, hundreds of years afterwards with the invention of the microscope.
Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an
165
The words "Water is the main component
of organic matter. 50-90% of the
weight of living things consists of water"
appear regularly in encyclopaedias.
Furthermore, 80% of the cytoplasm (basic cell
material) of a standard animal cell is described
as water in biology textbooks. The analysis of
cytoplasm and its appearance in textbooks took
place hundreds of years after the revelation of the
Qur'an. It is therefore impossible for this fact, now
accepted by the scientific community, to have been
known at the time the Qur'an was revealed. Yet, attention
was drawn to it in the Qur'an 1,400 years
before its discovery.
”
”
Harun Yahya (Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an)
“
Winslow wants you to learn this"- he waved a few sheets of stapled pages- "and that." He pointed to the book in my lap. Fifty French Conversations. It was one of our textbooks. I'd stopped at the seventeenth: Mon hamster a mange trop de fromage. Il a mal au ventre maintenant. "The rest is the Bainbridge Method."
"You have a method?"
"Patented and proven."
I waved the book. "Does it include greedy, cheese-guzzling hamsters with stomachaches?"
He nodded. "Absolutely.French conversations is nothing without rodents and cheese.Is there something shameful in your past involving either?"
"Not that I can think of off the top of my head."
"Tant pis."
"And that means...?"
"Fuhgeddaboudit," he translated, grinning.
I sighed. "Do people make Russian jokes in your presence?"
"How do you get five Russians to agree on anything?"
"How?" I asked.
"Shoot four of them."
I thought for a sec. "I'm not sure that's funny."
"No," Alex said. "People don't tell many Russian jokes in my presence."
"I should start my three things, huh?"
"Yeah.That would be good."
I did some speedy translating in my head. "Je n'ai jamais lu Huckleberry Finn, Beloved, ou Moby-Dick."
"Ella,no one has read Moby-Dick. The French was passable, but as far as revelations go,that sucked."
"Ah, but there's a part deux. All three of those books were required reading last year in my American lit class. I used SparkNotes."
"You're kidding, right?"
"See?" I daintily brushed Dorito crumbs from my fingertips. "Changes your perception of me, doesn't it?"
"No,I mean, 'That's a revelation?' You can do better than that."
"Maybe," I agreed, "but it's still early in the game.
”
”
Melissa Jensen (The Fine Art of Truth or Dare)
“
Equal protection under the law is not a hard principle to convince Americans of. The difficulty comes in persuading them that it has been violated in particular cases, and of the need to redress the wrong. Prejudice and indifference run deep. Education, social reform, and political action can persuade some. But most people will not feel the sufferings of others unless they feel, even in an abstract way, that 'it could have been me or someone close to me'. Consider the astonishingly rapid transformation of American attitudes toward homosexuality and even gay marriage over the past decades. Gay activism brought these issues to public attention but attitudes were changed during tearful conversations over dinner tables across American when children came out to their parents (and, sometimes, parents came out to their children). Once parents began to accept their children, extended families did too, and today same-sex marriages are celebrated across the country with all the pomp and joy and absurd overspending of traditional American marriages. Race is a wholly different matter. Given the segregation in American society white families have little chance of seeing and therefore understanding the lives of black Americans. I am not black male motorist and never will be. All the more reason, then, that I need some way to identify with one if I am going to be affected by his experience. And citizenship is the only thing I know we share. The more differences between us are emphasized, the less likely I will be to feel outrage at his mistreatment.
Black Lives Matter is a textbook example of how not to build solidarity. There is no denying that by publicizing and protesting police mistreatment of African-Americans the movement mobilized supporters and delivered a wake-up call to every American with a conscience. But there is also no denying that the movement's decision to use this mistreatment to build a general indictment of American society, and its law enforcement institutions, and to use Mau-Mau tactics to put down dissent and demand a confession of sins and public penitence (most spectacularly in a public confrontation with Hillary Clinton, of all people), played into the hands of the Republican right.
As soon as you cast an issue exclusively in terms of identity you invite your adversary to do the same. Those who play one race card should be prepared to be trumped by another, as we saw subtly and not so subtly in the 2016 presidential election. And it just gives that adversary an additional excuse to be indifferent to you. There is a reason why the leaders of the civil rights movement did not talk about identity the way black activists do today, and it was not cowardice or a failure to be "woke". The movement shamed America into action by consciously appealing to what we share, so that it became harder for white Americans to keep two sets of books, psychologically speaking: one for "Americans" and one for "Negroes". That those leaders did not achieve complete success does not mean that they failed, nor does it prove that a different approach is now necessary. No other approach is likely to succeed. Certainly not one that demands that white Americans agree in every case on what constitutes discrimination or racism today. In democratic politics it is suicidal to set the bar for agreement higher than necessary for winning adherents and elections.
”
”
Mark Lilla (The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics)
“
I could have been someone from the book if you’d told me in advance.”
“Yes, well, today you’d make a really great Moaning Myrtle.”
Peter gives me a blank look, and disbelieving, I say, “Wait a minute…have you never read Harry Potter?”
“I’ve read the first two.”
“Then you should know who Moaning Myrtle is!”
“It was a really long time ago,” Peter says. “Was she one of those people in the paintings?”
“No! And how could you stop after Chamber of Secrets? The third one’s the best out of the whole series. I mean, that’s literally crazy to me.” I peer at his face. “Do you not have a soul?”
“Sorry if I haven’t read every single Harry Potter book! Sorry I have a life and I’m not in the Final Fantasy club or whatever that geek club is called--”
I snatch my wand back from him and wave it in his face. “Silencio!”
Peter crosses his arms. Smirking, he says, “Whatever spell you just tried to cast on me, it didn’t work, so I think you need to go back to Hogwarts.” He’s so proud of himself for the Hogwarts reference, it’s kind of endearing.
Quick like a cat I pull down his mask, and then I put one hand over his mouth. With my other hand I wave my wand again. “Silencio!” Peter tries to say something, but I press my hand harder. “What? What was that? I can’t hear you, Peter Parker.”
Peter reaches out and tickles me, and I laugh so hard I almost drop my wand. I dart away from him but he pounces after me, pretend shooting webs at my feet. Giggling, I run away from him, further down the hall, dodging groups of people. He gives chase all the way to chem class. A teacher screams at us to slow down, and we do, but as soon as we’re around the corner, I’m running again and so is he.
I’m breathless by the time I’m in my seat. He turns around and shoots a web in my direction, and I explode into giggles again and Mr. Meyers glares at me. “Settle down,” he says, and I nod obediently. As soon as his back is turned, I giggle into my robe. I want to still be mad at Peter, but it’s just no use.
Halfway through class he sends me a note. He’s drawn spiderwebs around the edges. It says, I’ll be on time tomorrow. I smile as I read it. Then I put it in my backpack, in my French textbook so the page won’t crease or crumble. I want to keep it so when this is over, I can have something to look at and remember what it was like to be Peter Kavinsky’s girlfriend. Even if it was all just pretend.
”
”
Jenny Han (To All the Boys I've Loved Before (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #1))
“
I’d known him just ten days, and it had just left his mouth in an unexpected whisper. It had been purely instinctive, it seemed--something entirely unplanned. He clearly hadn’t planned to say those words to me that night; that wasn’t the way he operated. He was a man who had a thought and acted on it immediately, as evidenced by his sweet, whispery phone calls right after our dates. He spent no time at all calculating moves; he had better things to do with his time. When we held each other on that chilly spring night and his feelings had come rushing to the surface, he’d felt no need to slap a filter over his mouth. It had come out in a breath: I love you. It was as if he had to say it, in the same way air has to escape a person’s longs. It was involuntary. Necessary. Natural.
But as beautiful and warm a moment as it was, I froze on the spot. Once I realized it had been real--that he’d actually said the words--it seemed too late to respond; the window had closed, the shutters had clapped shut. I responded in the only way my cowardice would allow: by holding him tighter, burying my face deeper into his neck, feeling equal parts stupid and awkward. What is your problem? I asked myself. I was in the midst of what was possibly the most romantic, emotionally charged moment of my life, in the embrace of a man who embodied not only everything I’d ever understood about the textbook definition of lust, but everything I’d ever dreamed about in a man. He was a specimen--tall, strong, masculine, quiet. But it was much more than that. He was honest. Real. And affectionate and accessible, quite unlike J and most of the men I’d casually dated since I’d returned home from Los Angeles months earlier. I was in a foreign land. I didn’t know what to do.
I love you. He’d said it. And I knew his words had been sincere. I knew, because I felt it, too, even though I couldn’t say it. Marlboro Man continued to hold me tightly on that patio chair, undeterred by my silence, likely resting easily in the knowledge that at least he’d been able to say what he felt.
“I’d better go home,” I whispered, suddenly feeling pulled away by some imaginary force. Marlboro Man nodded, helping me to my feet. Holding hands, we walked around his house to my car, where we stopped for a final hug and a kiss or two. Or eight. “Thanks for having me over,” I managed.
Man, I was smooth.
“Any time,” he replied, locking his arms around my waist during the final kiss. This was the stuff that dreams were made of. I was glad my eyes were closed, because they were rolled all the way into the back of my head. It wouldn’t have been an attractive sight.
He opened the door to my car, and I climbed inside. As I backed out of his driveway, he walked toward his front door and turned around, giving me his characteristic wave in his characteristic Wranglers. Driving away, I felt strange, flushed, tingly. Burdened. Confused. Tortured. Thirty minutes into my drive home, he called. I’d almost grown to need it.
“Hey,” he said. His voice. Help me.
“Oh, hi,” I replied, pretending to be surprised. Even though I wasn’t.
“Hey, I…,” Marlboro Man began. “I really don’t want you to go.”
I giggled. How cute. “Well…I’m already halfway home!” I replied, a playful lilt to my voice.
A long pause followed.
Then, his voice serious, he continued, “That’s not what I’m talking about.
”
”
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
“
To dig into the fundamentals, you’ll need to learn both the particulars of that system, and some of the science behind it. Sometimes you’ll need to break out the manual or textbook, go online, and get support from someone who knows more about whatever you’re working on than you do.
”
”
Nat Greene (Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers)
“
Hell’s bells, Kravos,” I muttered, sitting up again. “Do they produce a Cliched Lines Textbook for Villains or something? Go for broke. Tell me that since you’re going to kill me anyway, you might as well reveal your secret plan.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, #3))
“
Jokes,” the voice hissed. “Jokes will not save you now.” “Hell’s bells, Kravos,” I muttered, sitting up again. “Do they produce a Cliched Lines Textbook for Villains or something? Go for broke. Tell me that since you’re going to kill me anyway, you might as well reveal your secret plan.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, #3))
“
Work out example problems yourself, without looking at the solutions. (If you have to peek partway through, after you finish the problem, go back and do the whole problem again.) Try to recall the key points from a book, article, or paper. Look away and see if you can recall the key idea or ideas. If what you’re reading is difficult, it’s best to pause and try to recall after each page of what you’re reading. Formulate your own questions about the material. Take practice tests, preferably under time pressure that simulates the actual time constraints of the test. Find ways to re-explain key ideas from your notes or textbook in simpler terms, as if you’re explaining them to a child. Work with others, either another person or a small group—meet and discuss the concepts, give mini-lectures, and compare approaches.
”
”
Barbara Oakley (Learn Like a Pro: Science-Based Tools to Become Better at Anything)
“
There is one final step we must take. Our walls, they have to go. We have revised our textbooks and renamed our holidays to acknowledge the harms of colonization. We have begun the work of removing marble statues and changing street signs in recognition of the horrors of slavery. But do we not act as modern-day segregationists when we mobilize to block an affordable housing complex in our neighborhood? Do we not colonize the future when we reserve spaces there for our children while denying other children a fair shot? By deconcentrating poverty in schools and communities, integration blunts its sting. Simply moving poor families to high-opportunity neighborhoods, without doing anything to increase their incomes, improves their lives tremendously. Even if they remain below the poverty line, they become less “poor” in the sense that their exposure to crime drops, and their mental health improves, and their children flourish in school. Studies have found that each year that poor children spend in a high-opportunity neighborhood increases their income in adulthood—so much so that younger siblings experience bigger gains than their older brothers and sisters because of the additional years spent in a safer and more prosperous place.[1]
”
”
Matthew Desmond (Poverty, by America)
“
are really divine opportunities to inject the presence of the kingdom. But there has to be a long-term invasion by the covert, a subtle invading of the system so we have the Daniels and Joshuas in their place. These people are making decisions and gaining the hearts of the kings. For example, the school system is a really difficult area or has been thought to be. Most closed heavens for the believer are between the ears. Because we have thought that schools have been an impossible realm to invade, we are combative when we try to get involved. We want to remove a teacher, we want to get rid of a textbook, and we want to get our people on the board. Instead, let’s go in as servants, not as rulers. We don’t go in to run things; we go in to help. We go in to make the principal look like a genius. The teachers and principals, what do they want?
”
”
Bill Johnson (Discovering Your Purpose: A Short Interview with Bill Johnson)
“
The motivation to ditch that textbook isn’t only—or even mostly—driven by a desire to go paperless or create technology-powered lessons; it’s about purpose. What do you want to do with the powerful platform you’ve been given?
”
”
Matt Miiller (Ditch That Textbook: Free Your Teaching and Revolutionize Your Classroom)
“
Every place you go, every person you meet, every job you have is a chance to gain greater clarity in your self-education. Life is the classroom, and if you are paying attention, you can recognize the daily lessons available. Each day is a new page in a textbook you never complete, and as you sit in the student’s seat, you realize the apprenticeship has already begun.
”
”
Jeff Goins (The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do)
“
I can’t study in the library because every person who walks by, I have to raise my head from the textbook and evaluate them as potential threats. I can’t sit in the middle of the library. I sit in the corner with my back to the wall, with good lines of sight and proximity to an exit. I’m completely paranoid now. I don’t carry a firearm here only because it’s illegal to do so in Illinois. I know that’s not normal. But I’ve seen so many lives snatched from seemingly nowhere. I learned from that. I’m not going to be a victim.
”
”
Kent Russell (I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son)
“
Oh yeah. You totally look like a banjo-strumming softie,” says Christina.
“Really?”
“No. Not at all, actually. Just…let me fix it, okay?”
She rummages in her bag for a few seconds and pulls out a small box. In it are different-sized tubes and containers that I recognize as makeup, but wouldn’t know what to do with.
We are in my parents’ house. It was the only place I could think of to go to get ready. Christina has no reservations about poking around--she already discovered two textbooks wedged between the dresser and the wall, evidence of Caleb’s Erudite leanings.
“Let me get this straight. So you left the Dauntless compound to get ready for war…and took your makeup bag with you?”
“Yep. Figured it would be harder for anyone to shoot me if they saw how devastatingly attractive I was,” she says, arching an eyebrow. “Hold still.”
She takes the cap off a black tube about the size of one of my fingers, revealing a red stick. Lipstick, obviously. She touches it to my mouth and dabs it until my lips are covered in color. I can see it when I purse them.
“Has anyone ever talked to you about the miracle of eyebrow tweezing?” she says, holding up a pair of tweezers.
“Get those away from me.”
“Fine.” She sighs. “I would take out the blush, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the right color for you.”
“Shocking, considering we’re so similar in skin tone.”
“Ha-ha,” she says.
By the time we leave, I have red lips and curled eyelashes, and I’m wearing a bright red dress. And there’s a knife strapped to the inside of my knee. This all makes perfect sense.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Insurgent (Divergent, #2))
“
I’m in agreement with you now about the not-watching part,” she said.
Jane and Mr. Nobley walked back to the house in silence, the air around them thick, dragging with awkwardness. Witnessing confessions of love and first kisses can be enchanting when you’re with someone comfortable, someone you’ve already had that kiss with, and can laugh about it and feel cozy and remember your own first moment. Seeing it with Mr. Nobley was like having a naked-in-public dream.
“It’s only natural to confuse truth and fantasy as they play parts in a theatrical,” said Jane. “They start to feel as their characters would.”
“True. Which is one reason why I was hesitant to engage in this frivolity. I do not think pretending something can make it real.”
“I find it a little alarming that we agree on something. But do you think, in their case anyway, do you think those feelings could run deeper?”
Mr. Nobley stopped. He looked at her. “I wondered the same.”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“It’s more than possible. They reside in compatible stations in life, they have like minds, their sentiments seem suited to each other.”
“You sound like a textbook on matrimony. I’m talking about love, Mr. Nobley. Despite falling in love over a script, do you think they have a chance?”
Mr. Nobley frowned and rubbed his sideburns briskly with the back of his fingers. “I…I knew Captain East in the past when he loved another woman. Her changes, her cruelty broke him. He was a shell for some time. If you had asked me last month if another woman’s attentions could make him a whole man again, I would have said that no man can recover from such a wound, that he will never be able to trust a woman again, that romantic love is not air or water and one can live without it. But now…” He breathed out. He had not looked away from her. “Now I do not know. Now I almost begin to think, yes. Yes.”
“Yes,” she repeated. The moon hung in the sky just over his shoulder, peering as though listening in, breathless for what was next.
“Miss Erstwhile.”
“Yes?”
He looked at the sky, he took several breaths as if trying to locate the right words, he briefly shut his eyes. “Miss Erstwhile, do you--”
Captain East and Miss Heartwright passed by, walking close without touching. Mr. Nobley watched them, his frown deepening, then he looked back over his shoulder at nothing.
What? What?! Jane wanted to yell.
“Shall we go inside?”
He offered his arm. She felt dumped-on-her-rear disappointment, but she took his arm and pretended she was just fine. Soon the warm safety of roof and walls cut off the luscious strangeness of night in the garden. Servants scurried, candles blazed, the preparations for the play were lively and unconcerned with a moment in the park.
Without another word, Mr. Nobley left her alone, his jacket still around her shoulders. It smelled like gardens.
”
”
Shannon Hale (Austenland (Austenland, #1))
“
An Alpha and its wolf should be as one, thinking and acting as a single unit.” She brushed her hair from her eyes and stepped out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. After scanning the area, she turned right and began to stroll down the street. He fell into step beside her. “You know, you sound like a textbook sometimes.” “A textbook? What do you mean?” “An Alpha should do this. An Alpha should do that.” “An Alpha needs to know its—” “There you go again. Don’t you ever just talk?” He scowled at her. She cast a glare his way before focusing her eyes straight ahead. “I’ve no idea what you mean.” “It’s like you’ve been…indoctrinated.” It irritated him, bringing back memories of a particularly annoying roommate named Quinten, at the Academy. The guy had read textbooks aloud every night until Damien had finally pitched him out the window. “My grandfather trained me for this role from a young age. If you’re going to be an Alpha, you have to act like one. Follow the rules day in and day out. It’s not a nine-to-five job, you know.” Barely,
”
”
Nicky Charles (Betrayed: Book Two - The Road to Redemption (Law Of The Lycans #6))
“
Ms. Anvers, I’m tired of hearing you regurgitate your junior year Ethics in Journalism textbook. We need to do this if we’re going to stop him.
”
”
Gregg Andrew Hurwitz (The Tower)
“
the foster-to-adopt experience is not one of those times where trying to skate by with a bare minimum of knowledge is going to cut it. There are just too many decisions, too many forks in the road, too many implications to not be on top of your game. And really, this is probably one thing in life where you DO want to be on top of your game. It’s a crazy enough situation when you know what you’re doing! Not having an understanding of the system, the politics, or the twists and turns would be maddening at least and at most, could result in you making a bad decision or a mistake that has long term consequences on your life and the life of your child. So I hate to break it to you if you thought you’d picked up your last textbook back in school, but there are several steps along the way where you’ll need to do some research in order to ensure that things go as smoothly as possible.
”
”
William Gregory (Adopting Through Foster Care: Lessons & Reflections From our Journey Through the Maze)
“
From the Bridge” by Captain Hank Bracker
Behind “The Exciting Story of Cuba”
It was on a rainy evening in January of 2013, after Captain Hank and his wife Ursula returned by ship from a cruise in the Mediterranean, that Captain Hank was pondering on how to market his book, Seawater One. Some years prior he had published the book “Suppressed I Rise.” But lacking a good marketing plan the book floundered. Locally it was well received and the newspapers gave it great reviews, but Ursula was battling allergies and, unfortunately, the timing was off, as was the economy.
Captain Hank has the ability to see sunshine when it’s raining and he’s not one easily deterred. Perhaps the timing was off for a novel or a textbook, like the Scramble Book he wrote years before computers made the scene. The history of West Africa was an option, however such a book would have limited public interest and besides, he had written a section regarding this topic for the second Seawater book. No, what he was embarking on would have to be steeped in history and be intertwined with true-life adventures that people could identify with.
Out of the blue, his friend Jorge suggested that he write about Cuba. “You were there prior to the Revolution when Fidel Castro was in jail,” he ventured. Laughing, Captain Hank told a story of Mardi Gras in Havana. “Half of the Miami Police Department was there and the Coca-Cola cost more than the rum. Havana was one hell of a place!” Hank said. “I’ll tell you what I could do. I could write a pamphlet about the history of the island. It doesn’t have to be very long… 25 to 30 pages would do it.” His idea was to test the waters for public interest and then later add it to his book Seawater One.
Writing is a passion surpassed only by his love for telling stories. It is true that Captain Hank had visited Cuba prior to the Revolution, but back then he was interested more in the beauty of the Latino girls than the history or politics of the country. “You don’t have to be Greek to appreciate Greek history,” Hank once said. “History is not owned solely by historians. It is a part of everyone’s heritage.” And so it was that he started to write about Cuba. When asked about why he wasn’t footnoting his work, he replied that the pamphlet, which grew into a book over 600 pages long, was a book for the people. “I’m not writing this to be a history book or an academic paper. I’m writing this book, so that by knowing Cuba’s past, people would understand it’s present.” He added that unless you lived it, you got it from somewhere else anyway, and footnoting just identifies where it came from.
Aside from having been a ship’s captain and harbor pilot, Captain Hank was a high school math and science teacher and was once awarded the status of “Teacher of the Month” by the Connecticut State Board of Education. He has done extensive graduate work, was a union leader and the attendance officer at a vocational technical school. He was also an officer in the Naval Reserve and an officer in the U.S. Army for a total of over 40 years. He once said that “Life is to be lived,” and he certainly has. Active with Military Intelligence he returned to Europe, and when I asked what he did there, he jokingly said that if he had told me he would have to kill me.
The Exciting Story of Cuba has the exhilaration of a novel. It is packed full of interesting details and, with the normalizing of the United States and Cuba, it belongs on everyone’s bookshelf, or at least in the bathroom if that’s where you do your reading. Captain Hank is not someone you can hold down and after having read a Proof Copy I know that it will be universally received as the book to go to, if you want to know anything about Cuba!
Excerpts from a conversation with Chief Warrant Officer Peter Rommel, USA Retired, Military Intelligence Corps, Winter of 2014.
”
”
Hank Bracker (The Exciting Story of Cuba: Understanding Cuba's Present by Knowing Its Past)
“
Psychotherapy…is rarely as straightforward as textbooks and case reports usually seem to imply…Practicing psychotherapy is a difficult—if also rewarding—way to earn a living. It is no profession for the individual who likes certainty, predictability, or a fairly constant sense that one knows what one is doing. There are few professions in which feeling stupid or stymied is as likely to be part of one’s ordinary professional day, even for those at the pinnacle of their field. Indeed, I would loathe to refer a patient to any therapist who declared that s/he almost always felt effective and clear about what was going on.
”
”
Paul Wachtel
“
Psychotherapy…is rarely as straightforward as
textbooks and case reports usually seem to
imply…Practicing psychotherapy is a difficult—if
also rewarding—way to earn a living. It is no
profession for the individual who likes certainty,
predictability, or a fairly constant sense that one knows what one is doing. There are few professions in which feeling stupid or stymied is as likely to be part of one’s ordinary professional day, even for those at the pinnacle of their field. Indeed, I would be loathe to refer a patient to any therapist who declared that s/he almost always felt effective and clear about what was going on.
”
”
Wachtel
“
This conversation, which is obviously going nowhere, mimics many I had with economists at the time. Although it is never stated explicitly as an assumption in an economics textbook, in practice economic theory presumes that self-control problems do not exist.
”
”
Richard H. Thaler (Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics)
“
But at the heart of it all we must take our noses out of textbooks and delve into the Book to gain God’s perspective of raising and educating a child. We must become more concerned with their souls than their brains. A child’s smarts can help them go places in life, but the character reflected from their soul is what will determine whether or not they do anything significant once they get there.
”
”
Lysa TerKeurst (Am I Messing Up My Kids?: ...and Other Questions Every Mom Asks)
“
In April 1977, Rivest, Shamir and Adleman spent Passover at the house of a student, and had consumed significant amounts of Manischewitz wine before returning to their respective homes some time around midnight. Rivest, unable to sleep, lay on his couch reading a mathematics textbook. He began mulling over the question that had been puzzling him for weeks—is it possible to build an asymmetric cipher? Is it possible to find a one-way function that can be reversed only if the receiver has some special information? Suddenly, the mists began to clear and he had a revelation. He spent the rest of that night formalizing his idea, effectively writing a complete scientific paper before daybreak. Rivest had made a breakthrough, but it had grown out of a yearlong collaboration with Shamir and Adleman, and it would not have been possible without them. Rivest finished off the paper by listing the authors alphabetically; Adleman, Rivest, Shamir. The next morning, Rivest handed the paper to Adleman, who went through his usual process of trying to tear it apart, but this time he could find no faults. His only criticism was with the list of authors. “I told Ron to take my name off the paper,” recalls Adleman. “I told him that it was his invention, not mine. But Ron refused and we got into a discussion about it. We agreed that I would go home and contemplate it for one night, and consider what I wanted to do. I went back the next day and suggested to Ron that I be the third author. I recall thinking that this paper would be the least interesting paper that I will ever be on.” Adleman could not have been more wrong. The system, dubbed RSA (Rivest, Shamir, Adleman) as opposed to ARS, went on to become the most influential cipher in modern cryptography.
”
”
Simon Singh (The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography)
“
When expectations, theory, and reality diverge, that’s when the vibes get really weird. Economic theory is the perfect example of this. There is a gap between what textbooks say is going to happen and what companies actually end up doing. Economics is known as the dismal science, but it really should be known as the dismal art. Most stock valuation models are an educated guess about the future; most economic theory is measurable, but on the basis of loose facts. As the English author Hilary Mantel wrote in a 2017 Guardian piece on facts, history, and truth, “Evidence is always partial. Facts are not truth, though they are part of it—information is not knowledge. And history is not the past—it is the method we have evolved of organising our ignorance of the past. It’s the record of what’s left on the record.
”
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Kyla Scanlon (In This Economy?: How Money & Markets Really Work)
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The day before I'm supposed to be meeting Caroline for a drink, I develop all the text-book symptons of a crush: nervous stomach, long periods spent daydreaming, an inability to remember what she looks like. I can bring back the dress and the boots, and I can see a fringe, but her face is a blank, and I fill it in with some anonymous rent-a-cracker details - pouty red lips, even though it wax her well-scrubbed english clever-girl look that attracted me to her in the first place; almond-shaped eyes, even though she was wearing sunglasses most of the time; pale, perfect skin, even though I know there'll be an initial twinge of disappointment - this is what all that internal fuss is about? - and then I'll find something to get excited about again: the fact that she's turned up at all, a sexy voice, intelligence, wit, something. And between the second and the third meeting a whole new set of myths will be born.
This time, something different happens, though. It's the daydreaming that does it. I'm doing the usual thing - imagining in tiny detail the entire course of the relationship, from first kiss, to bed, to moving in together, to getting married (in the past I have even organized the track listing of the party tapes), to how pretty she'll look when she's pregnant, to names of children - until suddenly I realize that there's nothing left to actually, like, happen. I've done it all, lived through the whole relationship in my head. I've watched the film on fast-forward; I know the whole plot, the ending, all the good bits. Now I've got to rewind and watch it all over again in real time, and where's the fun in that?
And fucking... when it's all going to fucking stop? I'm going to jump from rock to rock for the rest of my life until there aren't any rocks left? I'm going to run each time I get itchy feet? Because I get them about once a quarter, along with the utilities bills... I've been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.
”
”
Nick Hornby (High Fidelity)
“
Shad Darshan And finally, Buddhism. Buddha says everything is
going to end. Do not worry about disease, because
disease is going to end. H ave patience. Buddhist
philosophy says there is suffering and a simple way to
go beyond suffering is to have patience, to give time for
samprapti to eradicate itself. That is what Buddhism
has given to Ayurveda.
”
”
Vasant Dattatray Lad (Textbook of Ayurveda. A history and philosophy of Ayurveda)
“
Given the obvious “will to power” (as Friedrich Nietzsche called it) of the human race, the enormous energy put into its expression, the early emergence of hierarchies among children, and the childlike devastation of grown men who tumble from the top, I’m puzzled by the taboo with which our society surrounds this issue. Most psychology textbooks do not even mention power and dominance, except in relation to abusive relationships. Everyone seems in denial. In one study on the power motive, corporate managers were asked about their relationship with power. They did acknowledge the existence of a lust for power, but never applied it to themselves. They rather enjoyed responsibility, prestige, and authority. The power grabbers were other men.
Political candidates are equally reluctant. They sell themselves as public servants, only in it to fix the economy or improve education. Have you ever heard a candidate admit he wants power? Obviously, the word “servant” is doublespeak: does anyone believe that it’s only for our sake that they join the mudslinging of modern democracy? Do the candidates themselves believe this? What an unusual sacrifice that would be. It’s refreshing to work with chimpanzees: they are the honest politicians we all long for. When political philosopher Thomas Hobbes postulated an insuppressible power drive, he was right on target for both humans and apes. Observing how blatantly chimpanzees jockey for position, one will look in vain for ulterior motives and expedient promises.
I was not prepared for this when, as a young student, I began to follow the dramas among the Arnhem chimpanzees from an observation window overlooking their island. In those days, students were supposed to be antiestablishment, and my shoulder-long hair proved it. We considered power evil and ambition ridiculous. Yet my observations of the apes forced me to open my mind to seeing power relations not as something bad but as something ingrained. Perhaps inequality was not to be dismissed as simply the product of capitalism. It seemed to go deeper than that. Nowadays, this may seem banal, but in the 1970s human behavior was seen as totally flexible: not natural but cultural. If we really wanted to, people believed, we could rid ourselves of archaic tendencies like sexual jealousy, gender roles, material ownership, and, yes, the desire to dominate.
Unaware of this revolutionary call, my chimpanzees demonstrated the same archaic tendencies, but without a trace of cognitive dissonance. They were jealous, sexist, and possessive, plain and simple. I didn’t know then that I’d be working with them for the rest of my life or that I would never again have the luxury of sitting on a wooden stool and watching them for thousands of hours. It was the most revelatory time of my life. I became so engrossed that I began trying to imagine what made my apes decide on this or that action. I started dreaming of them at night and, most significant, I started seeing the people around me in a different light.
”
”
Frans de Waal (Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are)
“
Fortunately, the metamorphosis came too late to permit me to go back to graduate school. And thus I escaped indoctrination. Whatever I learned about developmental psychology and social psychology, I learned on my own. I was an outsider looking in, and that has made all the difference. I did not buy
into the assumptions of the academic establishment. I was not indebted to their granting agencies. And, once I had given up writing textbooks, I was not required to perpetuate the status quo by teaching the received gospel to a bunch of credulous college students. I gave up writing textbooks because one day it suddenly occurred to me that many of the things I had been telling those credulous college students were wrong.
”
”
Judith Rich Harris (The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do)
“
Minimize, or tone down, other compositional elements in order to bring attention to the focal point. Backgrounds can be made lighter or darker in value, crisper or softer in focus, or textured or not textured, to lend support to where you want the eye to go.
”
”
Shelly Dax (The Tattoo Textbook: Escape the Grind, Do What You Love, and Launch Your Kick-Ass Tattoo Career)
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You can always go back after a tattoo has healed and add additional dark, but you can’t take it away once in the skin (short of tattoo removal). Thus, it is helpful to err on the side of too light when you are new to tattooing and let your client know to come back for a follow-up visit to adjust levels and possibly build up color.
”
”
Shelly Dax (The Tattoo Textbook: Escape the Grind, Do What You Love, and Launch Your Kick-Ass Tattoo Career)
“
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
카톡►ppt33◄ 〓 라인►pxp32◄ 홈피는 친추로 연락주세요
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
엠빅스판매,엠빅스가격,엠빅스구입,엠빅스구매,엠빅스파는곳,엠빅스팝니다,엠빅스구입방법,엠빅스구매방법,엠빅스판매사이트
We're here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?
발기부족으로 삽입시 조루증상 그리고 여성분 오르가즘늦기지 못한다 또한 페니션이 작다고 느끼는분들 이쪽으로 보세요
팔팔정,구구정,비닉스,센트립,네노마정,프릴리지,비맥스,비그알엑스 등 아주 많은 좋은제품들 취급하고 단골님 모시고 있는곳입니다.원하실경우 언제든 연락주세요
The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.
아무런 말없이 한번만 찾아주신다면 뒤로는 계속 단골될 그런 자신 있습니다.저희쪽 서비스가 아니라 제품에대해서 자신있다는겁니다
팔팔정,구구정,네노마정,프릴리지,비맥스,비그알엑스,엠빅스,비닉스,센트립 등 많은 제품 취급합니다
확실한 제품만 취급하는곳이라 언제든 연락주세요
Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.
I want to put a ding in the universe.
Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is better than two doubles.
Just like a boxer, we, too come face to face with many opponents in the arena of life—problems and difficulties. The bad news is, we don’t really know when our bouts with these opponents occur—no posters and promotional TV commercials; no pre-fight Press Conference and weigh in to make sure that we measure up to our opponent; and there is no Pay Per View coverage.
Here are several reasons why you should train yourself for success like a champion boxer!
You don’t practice in the arena, that’s where your skills and your abilities are evaluated. This also means that you don’t practice solving problems and developing yourself when problems occur, you prepare yourself to face them long before you actually face them.
Talent is good but training is even better. Back in college, one of my classmates in Political Science did not bring any textbook or notebook in our classes; he just listened and participated in discussions. What I didn’t understand was how he became a magna cum laude! Apparently, he was gifted with a great memory and analytical skills. In short, he was talented.
”
”
엠빅스파는곳 via2.co.to 카톡:ppt33 엠빅스가격 엠빅스후기 엠빅스지속시간 엠빅스복용법 엠빅스구매방법
“
Jeez.” Daniella eyed her textbook with an expression of disgust. “Why does everything with the myths have to do with sex?” “Not every myth has to do with sex,” I argued, pushing myself off the wall so I could properly look Daniella in the eye. “A lot of it does,” Jade said, jumping on the bandwagon. “What about all the animals that gods turned into so they could have sex with mortals? Swans and bulls and eagles.” “That was just Zeus,” I corrected with a disgusted frown. “Then there was the sex cloud!” Jade continued. With a vigor, she yanked Beth’s textbook out of her hand and flipped through. She found her page and held up a picture of a centaur. “Ixion had sex with the Hera-shaped cloud and formed the centaurs.” “Or when Aphrodite cursed that one chick to fall in love with her dad,” Bethany said with clenched teeth and a wrinkled nose. “Everything with Aphrodite has to do with sex,” I reasoned unthinkingly. “True story,” Jade said pointedly. “Didn’t she impregnate a girl?” “She didn’t, but she caused a bear to impregnate a follower of Artemis. Her children turned out to be cannibals until Zeus turned them into birds,” I blurted out, unconsciously correcting my friend about the myth. “I don’t think that’s going to be on the test,” Daniella said skeptically. “That’s it!” Beth said with a triumphant slam of her book. “When in doubt, just write sex. You have a fifty-fifty chance of being right. Why did the Trojan war start? Sex! Why did Hercules complete his twelve tasks? Sex! How did Odysseus win Athena’s favor? Sex!
”
”
Simon Archer (Forge of the Gods (Forge of the Gods, #1))
“
Dear Teachers,
I hope your school year is going pretty well. I hope your classes are not causing you too much trouble and your families are doing well. You might be wondering why you are tagged to this post and what this is all about. It’s Teachers’ Day, the day for being thankful to our teachers. Some of you I had over a decade ago, some of you might not even remember who the heck I am. But if you’re reading this, this is my way of officially thanking you. For what? Let me explain.
To the ones who made me love learning as a whole – If you are an elementary school teacher, this goes out to you. You are the reason I am where I am today. If it weren’t for your hard work and dedication to teaching me and every other student what you know, my future would not be as bright as it is now. I chose to go to college because somewhere along the line, you taught me that education is important and I have to strive to help others by educating myself. This is not always easy, but you helped me understand that willingness to learn is one of the most important aspects of a person. For that, I am forever grateful for you and everything you have done for me and so many others.
To the ones who helped me find my passions– Writing, training, and helping people are what I love. No matter what I have been through in my life, everything goes back to the fact that in the future, I want to help people and I want to change the world. Writing and creating training programs are what make that happen. It made me realize that in the future, I don’t just want a shiny car, big bungalow, and other material items. I want something that sticks with people for all time – and what better way to do that than to become a writer and write for those who can't write for themselves? Shout out to those teachers who helped me find my passion, and maybe even made an effort to help me pursue it as well.
To the ones who taught me more than the textbooks – you honestly saved me. You taught me that learning isn’t always about getting 100s on every test and being the perfect student. You helped me realize that a part of learning means making mistakes. You taught me that brushing yourself off, getting back up, and trying again is essential to get anywhere in this world. I grew up being the smart kid who never had to study and when the going got tough, I didn’t always know how to respond. You helped me with my problem solving skills and fixing things that needed fixing. This isn’t necessarily always talking about school, but life in general. You taught me that my value was not depicted by my score on a test, but rather who I was as a person. It is hard to put into words, but some of you honestly are the reason I am here today – succeeding in my first semester of college, off to university before I know it. Thank you so much.
To the ones who didn’t know I could talk – I’m sorry I didn’t speak up more in your class. Many of you knew I had a lot to say, but knew I did not know how to say it or how to get the thoughts out. I promise you, even though you could not hear it, I am thankful for you - thankful that you did not force me out of my comfort zone. I know that may not sound like much, but when you have as much of a fear of speaking out as I do, that is such a big deal. Thank you for working with me and realizing that someone does not need to speak in order to have knowledge in their mind. Thank you for not basing my intelligence on my ability to present that information. It means a lot more than you will ever realize.
To the ones who don’t know why you made this list – Congratulations. Somewhere along the way, you impacted me in a way I felt was worth acknowledging you for. Maybe you said something in class that resonated with me and changed my outlook on a situation, or life in general. Maybe you just asked me if I was okay after class one day. If you’re sitting there scratching your head, wondering how you changed my life, please just know you did.
”
”
Nitya Prakash
“
I remember the time on the school bus back before anyone could drive, Jenny bet me a dollar, to put my hand down her jeans to prove she wears thong undies. Saying that I am such a baby, for not knowing, that’s how that all started, she felt like she had to teach me everything. Anyways back then I was still where Mickey Mouse Briefs and did even think about what was underneath. She beat me to feel that she was not a virgin, that she was all open and smooth, unlike me at the time. I didn’t even shave my legs yet. So, I did, I went for it. The rush here was touching a girl inappropriately, with everyone looking, and hoping the driver didn’t see.
I’ll never forget Danny Hover looking over the site with Andrea Doeskin smelling, like little perv’s, and Shy saying- ‘Oh my God’- snickering at the fact, from the set accordingly. Yeah, it’s that kind of rush I get, over and over being with them. Just like Jenny got Liv fixed up with Dilco, it’s all about the rush in the end. Jenny can be a hell of a lot of fun, and it’s that fun that keeps me coming back for more, the same way Liv and Maddie do, and other girls keep trying to be like us, it’s all about the craziness. I don’t know why but when I am with them- I want to be so naughty! I remember Marcel smacking my butt, just to be cute, every time he would see me in the hallways of a school. -Yeah, he’s weird, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him as I was- well… doing me. Yet Ray’s photo was looking at me on my nightstand.
~*~
In my bed, I snap the bright light off when I hear my little sis coming down the hall, everyone goes back to being fuzzy, like I’m not looking at my room but only at a blurry photo of my room that was taken with a shaky hand incorrectly and nothing match up with the real thing. My sis went into the bathroom next door to tinkle, so I snapped on my nightlight, and then that light modifies everything, so it looks somewhat ordinary again. If my sis sees my light on from the crack at the bottom of my door, she will come bursting in. I have learned to keep it as dark as I can when I hear her coming run down the hallway. I love her, yet I want my privacy.
All at once it comes back to me, like a hangover rush all my blood starts going back up into my head: the party, my sis getting laid, the argument with Ray, falling to Marcel, all the sex, all the drinking, and drugs, it’s all thumping hard in my brain, like my covered button was a few moments ago, on cam. I am still lying here uncovered, with everything still out in the open.
‘Kellie!’ My door swings open, hammering the door handle against my wall, and sis comes bolting across my room, jumping in my bed, pacing over my textbook's notebooks, love notes, and pills of dirty tops and bottoms and discarded jeans, I panic thinking my Victoria’s Secret Heritage Pink nighty way over there on the floor, where I thought it off and left it the night before. Yet it’s not liked my sis has not seen me naked before… but is wired when this happens.
Something is not right, something seems very wrong and oggie; something skirts the edges of my memory, but then it is gone as my head pounds and sis is bouncing on my bed on top of me, throwing her arms and legs around my nude torso.
Saying- ‘So what are you going to show me today?’ I am thinking to myself- girl you already got it down, doing what you’re doing now, I don’t need to teach you anything. Kellie- she is so hot… (Oh God not in that way, she’s- my sis.) She is like a little furnace with her worth coming from her tiny body. It’s not too long before her nighty rides up, and I can see it all in my face like she wants to be just like me, and then she starts asking her questions.
”
”
Marcel Ray Duriez (Nevaeh Dreaming of you Play with Me)
“
Despite the previously mentioned strategies, you may still find yourself having difficulties getting started on tasks. The sorts of tasks on which you continue to procrastinate are likely those for which you view even these small steps as being somewhat boring or painful, such as various chores, academic tasks (e.g., reading textbooks, writing assignments), or administrative tasks of adult life (e.g., dealing with taxes, finances).
These and other tasks trigger negative thoughts and feelings for you that also interfere with follow-through, even on initial steps. A way to get started on these tasks is to define in strict, behavioral steps the smallest behaviors that are required to start the task. These initial behaviors may not involve actually completing the task, but they are necessary steps and help you to “touch” a task rather than keeping it at arm’s length.
This approach is meant to help you break down tasks into their strict behavioral steps, akin to a recipe for cooking. You may say, “I do not know how to cook” or “I cannot do it.” However, once you follow the specific steps, including “get saucepan out of cupboard,” “fill with water,” etc., you are now engaged in the task rather than being cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally removed from it. It is an interesting exercise to see how other tasks that are typically avoided can be broken down into steps, such as a phone call (“pick up phone receiver, enter the nine-digit phone number, wait for answer, converse in my native language . . .”) or going to the gym (“stand up, go to room and find workout clothes, put in gym bag, . . .”).
”
”
J. Russell Ramsay (The Adult ADHD Tool Kit)
“
In the end, Francie goes off to college, and I do not know if I must make of this a triumph. Is it a given, then, that all her dreams will come true? I can never go to college, I know. They censor the word out of our textbooks. Education, they say, leads to nothing good. This is because education—and college—is the first step out of Williamsburg, the first on the path to promiscuity that Zeidy always promised me was an endless loop of missteps that distanced a Jew so far from God as to put the soul into a spiritual coma. Yes, education could kill my soul, I know that, but where did Francie go, I wonder, after college, and did she ever come back? Can you ever really leave the place you come from? Isn’t it best to stay where you belong, rather than risk trying to insert yourself somewhere else and failing?
”
”
Deborah Feldman (Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots)