Hard Target Quotes

I threw the baseball I held after all. Not hard and it didn’t even hit him but it almost did. His eyes went wide with surprise. “So you weren’t really offering me a target?” He gave a small laugh. “I didn’t think you’d take me up on it.

I want the peace in knowing that is wasn’t for lack of hustling that I missed a target for my dream. I want to know that the one thing in my control was under control.

If you are not working towards something, your life will end with nothing.

Writing is hard…It gets harder when it becomes your career, your job, because it’s no longer a hobby, it’s no longer a manuscript hidden in your desk drawer. It becomes a platform from which the world can judge you. Your soul becomes target practice, and the critics hold the arrows.

I work so hard for profits because my dreams are expensive.

The following ten throws went a variety of places. I never hit the target, but I was getting closer. Isabella was laughing so hard she wrote "Please stop can't breathe" in the dirt with her finger.

Women are no more important than any other potential victims, but we are the primary targets of the messages and myths that sustain rape culture. We’re the ones asked to change our behavior, limit our movements, and take full responsibility for the prevention of sexual violence in society.

Addie, please." More tears dripped down her cheeks. "Don't be so hard." "Oh, please," I muttered...and that was as far as I got. 'You broke my heart' were the words that had risen to my mouth, but I couldn't say them. That was what you said to a boyfriend, a lover, not your best friend. She'd laugh. And I'd had enough of being laughed at. I'd worked hard to get to a place where it didn't happen anymore, where I didn't move through life like a walking target, where it was just me and my paints and brushes and my big empty bed every night. "You weren't a good friend," I said instead.

If you’re not afraid of working hard, self-reliance comes easy!

Coordination' occurred with astonishing speed, even in sectors of life not directly targeted by specific laws, as Germans willingly placed themselves under the sway of Nazi rule, a phenomenon that became known as Selbtsgleichschaltung, or 'self-coordination.' Change came to Germany so quickly and across such a wide front that German citizens who left the country for business or travel returned to find everything around them altered, as if they were characters in a horror movie who come back to find that people who once were their friends, clients, patients, and customers have become different in ways hard to discern.

As a rule reading fiction is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it. I need resistance to celebrate!

I fire again and again, and none of the bullets come close. "Statistically speaking," the Erudite boy next to me-his name is Will-says, grinning at me, "you should have hit the target at least once by now, even by accident." He is blond, with shaggy hair and a crease between his eyebrows. "Is that so," I say without inflection. "Yeah," he says. "I think you're actually defying nature." I grit my teeth and turn toward the target, resolving to at least stand still. If I can't muster the first task they give us,how will I ever make it through stage one? I squeeze the trigger,hard, and this time I'm ready for the recoil.It makes my hand jump back,but my feet stay planted.A bullet hole appears at the edge of the target,and I raise an eyebrow at Will. "So you see,I'm right.The stats don't lie," he says. I smile a little.

A certain man who was learning archery faced the target with two arrows in his hand. But his instructor said, ' A beginner ought never to have a second arrow; for as long as he relies upon the other, he will be careless with his first one. At each shot he ought to think that he is bound to settle it with this particular shaft at any cost.' Doubtless he would not intentionally act foolishly before his instructor with one arrow, when he has but a couple. But, though he may not himself realize that he is being careless, his teacher knows it. You should bear this advice in mind on every occasion. (In the same way) he who follows the path of learning thinks confidently in the evening that the morning is coming, and in the morning that the evening is coming, and that he will then have plenty of time to study more carefully ; less likely still is he to recognize the waste of a single moment. How hard indeed is it to do a thing at once-now, the instant that you think of it !

Think of them. Heads up, eyes on the target. Running. Full speed. Gravity be damned. Toward that thick layer of glass that is the ceiling. Running, full speed, and crashing. Crashing into that ceiling and falling back. Crashing into it and falling back. Into it and falling back. Woman after woman. Each one running and each one crashing. And everyone falling. How many women had to hit that glass before the first crack appeared? How many cuts did they get, how many bruises? How hard did they have to hit the ceiling? How many women had to hit that glass to ripple it, to send out a thousand hairline fractures? How many women had to hit that glass before the pressure of their effort caused it to evolve from a thick pane of glass into just a thin sheet of splintered ice? So that when it was my turn to run, it didn’t even look like a ceiling anymore. I mean, the wind was already whistling through—I could always feel it on my face. And there were all these holes giving me a perfect view to the other side. I didn’t even notice the gravity, I think it had already worn itself away. So I didn’t have to fight as hard. I had time to study the cracks. I had time to decide where the air felt the rarest, where the wind was the coolest, where the view was the most soaring. I picked my spot in the glass and I called it my target. And I ran. And when I finally hit that ceiling, it just exploded into dust. Like that.

I used to pinch those pages closed when I read the book to keep from having to see Joan [of Arc] fail. But now I love that picture. I love it so much. I love how Joan kept going right up to the end. It reminds me that sometimes defeat is the price of taking action. If you do something, you become a target. People want to take you down. That's a risk. But it's better to do too much, better to try to hard, better to have a crisis of faith and get thrown and climb back up on your horse and keep riding, than to see something wrong in the world and not do anything at all.

Photojournalism has frequently been lambasted for being the product of circumstance. In fact rarely are any of these images considered in terms of their composition and semantic intent. They are merely news, a happy intersection of event and opportunity. It hardly helps that photographs in general also take only a fraction of a second to acquire. It is incredible how so many people can constantly misread speed to mean ease. This is certainly most common where photography is concerned. However simply because anyone can buy a camera, shutter away, and then with a slightly prejudiced eye justify the product does not validate the achievement. Shooting a target with a rifle is accomplished with similar speed and yet because the results are so objective no one suggests that marksmanship is easy.

deflating. Then empty. His diaphragm relaxed. He counted to three and squeezed the trigger. The British-made AWM bucked hard against his shoulder, the report dampened by the suppressor. Recovering from the recoil, he found his target in the sphere of magnification, still crouched on a flat-topped boulder on the floor of the canyon. Damn. He’d missed. It was a longer shot than he normally took, and so many

it is hard to be angry or defensive with someone who seems to agree with your opinions and tastes. Charmers may appear to be weaker than their targets but in the end they are the more powerful side because they have stolen the ability to resist.

Find a target. Know where your influence is heading towards. Find out those who will be interested in what you do and “why”. Now work hard to answer the question “why?

the disability rights movement is almost unified in opposing assisted suicide—precisely because disabled people know they are the prime targets of the death movement.

A bunker, truck, trolls, all the same, a hard target.

Suddenly I know just what I’m going to do. Something that will blow anything Peeta did right out of the water. I go over to the knot-tying station and get a length of rope. I start to manipulate it, but it’s hard because I’ve never made this actual knot myself. I’ve only watched Finnick’s clever fingers, and they moved so fast. After about ten minutes, I’ve come up with a respectable noose. I drag one of the target dummies out into the middle of the room and, using some chinning bars, hang it so it dangles by the neck. Tying its hands behind its back would be a nice touch, but I think I might be running out of time. I hurry over to the camouflage station, where some of the other tributes, undoubtedly the morphlings, have made a colossal mess. But I find a partial container of bloodred berry juice that will serve my needs. The flesh-colored fabric of the dummy’s skin makes a good, absorbent canvas. I carefully finger paint the words on its body, concealing them from view. Then I step away quickly to watch the reaction on the Gamemakers’ faces as they read the name on the dummy. *SENECA CRANE.*

Just as much as it does you. Reach under the table, Autumn. I’m hard now, but I can guarantee it has nothing to do with the knife in my hand. The only difference between you and I is that I’m willing to admit to it, whereas you attempt to cloak yourself in modesty and morality. We are nothing more than animals; meat, organisms that operate on instinct and desire. Some of us are brave enough to admit to our depravities, while others openly criticize it, but secretly hide inside the safety of their homes to explore the world they are too scared to admit attracts them.

Are you tired? Are you feeling that you will not be able to reach your destination? Then all you have to remember is that those who reached their far and hard destinations also felt the same way on their way! Knowing what others felt will give you a great power to complete your journey!

Dominic, with the powerful aura, got under my skin before I had a chance to ward him off and now I’m screwed. Even more now I know his taste and how hard he feels against the soft, wet parts of me.

The number of innocents killed by Leftist movements dwarfs the numbers killed by any other movement in a comparable period of time at any time in history, and certainly in the modern world. The Church, a favorite target of the Left, hardly competes. For example, in its nearly five hundred years of existence the Inquisition killed approximately five thousand people. And that ended more than five hundred years ago, when barbarity was the norm.

I want to tell you a story. I'm going to ask you all to close your eyes while I tell you the story. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to yourselves. Go ahead. Close your eyes, please. This is a story about a little girl walking home from the grocery store one sunny afternoon. I want you to picture this little girl. Suddenly a truck races up. Two men jump out and grab her. They drag her into a nearby field and they tie her up and they rip her clothes from her body. Now they climb on. First one, then the other, raping her, shattering everything innocent and pure with a vicious thrust in a fog of drunken breath and sweat. And when they're done, after they've killed her tiny womb, murdered any chance for her to have children, to have life beyond her own, they decide to use her for target practice. They start throwing full beer cans at her. They throw them so hard that it tears the flesh all the way to her bones. Then they urinate on her. Now comes the hanging. They have a rope. They tie a noose. Imagine the noose going tight around her neck and with a sudden blinding jerk she's pulled into the air and her feet and legs go kicking. They don't find the ground. The hanging branch isn't strong enough. It snaps and she falls back to the earth. So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck and drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge. Pitch her over the edge. And she drops some thirty feet down to the creek bottom below. Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she's white.

Normal people assume that SJWs are inclined to take on their ideological opponents, people like me. But the truth is that although they certainly don't like those they invariably label “right-wing extremists”, for the most part they leave us alone because we are impervious to their influence. Oh, they will certainly complain about us, take advantage of any tactical missteps on our part, and block us on Twitter, but they very seldom make the sort of concerted effort that one saw in the hounding of Brendan Eich or the metaphorical stoning of Dr. James Watson because they know their efforts will largely be futile. Instead, they prey on the naïve and the unsuspecting. They prey on the moderates, the middle-grounders, and the fence-sitters. They prey on people like you: good, decent individuals who try to treat everyone fairly and who can't even imagine having done anything that anyone could possibly find objectionable. Why? Because soft targets are always easier to destroy than hard ones.

Most people want to be seduced. If they resist your efforts, it is probably because you have not gone far enough to allay their doubts—about your motives, the depth of your feelings, and so on. One well-timed action that shows how far you are willing to go to win them over will dispel their doubts. Do not worry about looking foolish or making a mistake—any kind of deed that is self-sacrificing and for your targets’ sake will so overwhelm their emotions, they won’t notice anything else. Never appear discouraged by people’s resistance, or complain. Instead, meet the challenge by doing something extreme or chivalrous. Conversely, spur others to prove themselves by making yourself hard to reach, unattainable, worth fighting over.

To sin. To miss the mark ... We try and we fail, like archers who aim for the target but fall short of the mark. When you are older and have swum out into the stream of life, you'll see- there are no 'good' people, little girl. We're all trying and failing, trying too hard and failing too often. Remember that. We shouldn't judge too harshly, in the end, the sins of others ... Sometimes I think the only things we have in common with one another are our shortcomings.

A’ight, so what do you think it means?” “You don’t know?” I ask. “I know. I wanna hear what YOU think.” Here he goes. Picking my brain. “Khalil said it’s about what society feeds us as youth and how it comes back and bites them later,” I say. “I think it’s about more than youth though. I think it’s about us, period.” “Us who?” he asks. “Black people, minorities, poor people. Everybody at the bottom in society.” “The oppressed,” says Daddy. “Yeah. We’re the ones who get the short end of the stick, but we’re the ones they fear the most. That’s why the government targeted the Black Panthers, right? Because they were scared of the Panthers?” “Uh-huh,” Daddy says. “The Panthers educated and empowered the people. That tactic of empowering the oppressed goes even further back than the Panthers though. Name one.” Is he serious? He always makes me think. This one takes me a second. “The slave rebellion of 1831,” I say. “Nat Turner empowered and educated other slaves, and it led to one of the biggest slave revolts in history.” “A’ight, a’ight. You on it.” He gives me dap. “So, what’s the hate they’re giving the ‘little infants’ in today’s society?” “Racism?” “You gotta get a li’l more detailed than that. Think ’bout Khalil and his whole situation. Before he died.” “He was a drug dealer.” It hurts to say that. “And possibly a gang member.” “Why was he a drug dealer? Why are so many people in our neighborhood drug dealers?” I remember what Khalil said—he got tired of choosing between lights and food. “They need money,” I say. “And they don’t have a lot of other ways to get it.” “Right. Lack of opportunities,” Daddy says. “Corporate America don’t bring jobs to our communities, and they damn sure ain’t quick to hire us. Then, shit, even if you do have a high school diploma, so many of the schools in our neighborhoods don’t prepare us well enough. That’s why when your momma talked about sending you and your brothers to Williamson, I agreed. Our schools don’t get the resources to equip you like Williamson does. It’s easier to find some crack than it is to find a good school around here. “Now, think ’bout this,” he says. “How did the drugs even get in our neighborhood? This is a multibillion-dollar industry we talking ’bout, baby. That shit is flown into our communities, but I don’t know anybody with a private jet. Do you?” “No.” “Exactly. Drugs come from somewhere, and they’re destroying our community,” he says. “You got folks like Brenda, who think they need them to survive, and then you got the Khalils, who think they need to sell them to survive. The Brendas can’t get jobs unless they’re clean, and they can’t pay for rehab unless they got jobs. When the Khalils get arrested for selling drugs, they either spend most of their life in prison, another billion-dollar industry, or they have a hard time getting a real job and probably start selling drugs again. That’s the hate they’re giving us, baby, a system designed against us. That’s Thug Life.

One reason she had been as successful an assassin had always been her attention to detail, but the weeks of using the cream to maintain her disguise as the hapless dock technician, were taking their toll. Details slipped her mind occasionally, and concentrating was sometimes hard. She’d used the time she had available to study her target, learn his mannerisms and speech pattern, food and clothing preferences. Most of this possible with the right programs and access to the dock AI system. Those hours ‘at work’ in the Fabrication Unit had been well spent, and supplemented by frequenting places where she could observe him. The lack of her usual team of ‘daemons’ had created a number of difficulties, and though she wondered how Security had managed to take them down so quickly, she didn’t waste time worrying over it. Now she knew who he associated with, and his sexuality—all of it vital if she was to escape detection in such a high profile role.

He makes love to me then, like only Naz can, alternating between slow and deep and rough and hard, sending me into a tailspin. It's a breath-catching, skin-slapping, soul-capturing kind of love. The man owns me. He consumes me. Every part of me was made for every part of him. It's the kind of love I can't imagine ever living without. It's raw, and real, and it's ours. It's ours. It goes on forever. Life flashes before my eyes. We're old and gray and happy. We're happy. Nothing is going to get in our way now.

I matched him glare for glare and refused to back down. I’d learnt that much, working with the guys we recruited for protection work. Forget your average heavy…we used the elite. Ex-commandos used to living behind enemy lines on nothing more than fresh air and dung beetles, and who could zero in on a target using mouse farts three miles away.

In American and European politics, “them” is often an immigrant hoping to come inside—the Mexican or Central American migrant hoping to enter the United States or the Middle Eastern/North African Muslim refugee hoping to live in Germany, France, Britain, or Sweden. In poorer countries, especially those with borders drawn by colonizers, “them” is often the ethnic, religious, or sectarian minorities with roots that are older than the borders themselves. Think of Muslims in India, in western China, or in the Caucasus region of Russia. Sunni Muslims in Iraq or Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia. Think of Christians in Egypt or Kurds in Turkey. Think of Chinese and other ethnic minorities in Indonesia and Malaysia. There are many more examples. These groups become easy targets when times are hard and a politician looks to make a name for himself at their expense.

Ultimately, classroom teachers are the targets of this anger, as they are the public face of the education system. As a group, teachers work very hard with limited resources. They are called upon to equalize the inequities our society creates, and to offer not just equal educational opportunities, but equal educational outcomes to all children.

....I'd rather travel in Cargo-nanoships than a Bullet-train to reach my target.

It only takes one person to change your life for the better: YOU. Develop yourself to be excellent for success, by working hard and smart. Make success your chosen target.

Most people thought that training animals was about obedience and control. But in reality, the center of any search and rescue training program was play. For the dog, searching was a game. Animals who had a strong play drive would keep playing indefinitely—through ice and snow, over hard terrain, for hours upon hours—until the game was won. Until they found their target.

We tend to imagine rapists, like terrorists, as an omnipresent and often unidentifiable threat, everywhere and nowhere at once. Since we don't know exactly who will strike or when, we agree that the best we can do is try to avoid victimhood. We put pressure on potential targets to volunteer for safety rituals, that create the illusion of security, while quietly eroding our freedom.

You are of course right, Yanis. These targets that they insist on can’t work. But, you must understand that we have put too much into this programme. We cannot go back on it. Your credibility depends on accepting and working within this programme.2 So, there I had it. The head of the IMF was telling the finance minister of a bankrupt government that the policies imposed upon his country couldn’t work. Not that it would be hard to make them work. Not that the probability of them working was low. No, she was acknowledging that, come hell or high water, they couldn’t work. With

As part of that administrative process, Butler decided to look at every single target in the SIOP, and for weeks he carefully scrutinized the thousands of desired ground zeros. He found bridges and railways and roads in the middle of nowhere targeted with multiple warheads, to assure their destruction. Hundreds of nuclear warheads would hit Moscow—dozens of them aimed at a single radar installation outside the city. During his previous job working for the Joint Chiefs, Butler had dealt with targeting issues and the damage criteria for nuclear weapons. He was hardly naive. But the days and weeks spent going through the SIOP, page by page, deeply affected him. For more than forty years, efforts to tame the SIOP, to limit it, reduce it, make it appear logical and reasonable, had failed. “With the possible exception of the Soviet nuclear war plan, this was the single most absurd and irresponsible document I had ever reviewed in my life,” General Butler later recalled. “I came to fully appreciate the truth . . . we escaped the Cold War without a nuclear holocaust by some combination of skill, luck, and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.

Hey, did you hear about Brad Miller?” he asked, already forgetting about the Lissie conversation. “He got his car taken away for getting another speeding ticket. Of course he tried to tell his parents it was a setup.” Violet laughed. “Yeah, because the police have nothing better to do than to plan a sting operation targeting eleventh-grade idiots.” She was more than willing to go along with this diversion from conversations about Jay and his many admirers. Jay laughed too, shaking his head. “You’re so cold-hearted,” he said to Violet, shoving her a little but playing along. “How’s he supposed to go cruising for unsuspecting freshmen and sophomores without a car? What willing girl is going to ride on the handlebars of his ten-speed?” “I don’t see you driving anything but your mom’s car yet. At least he has a bike,” she said, turning on him now. He pushed her again. “Hey!” he tried to defend himself. “I’m still saving! Not all of us are born with a silver spoon in our mouths.” They were both laughing, hard now. The silver spoon joke had been used before, whenever one of them had something the other didn’t. “Right!” Violet protested. “Have you seen my car?” This time she shoved him, and a full-scale war broke out on the couch. “Poor little rich girl!” Jay accused, grabbing her arm and pulling her down. She giggled and tried to give him the dreaded “dead leg” by hitting him with her knuckle in the thigh. But he was too strong, and what used to be a fairly even matchup was now more like an annihilation of Violet’s side. “Oh, yeah. Weren’t you the one”—she gasped, still giggling and thrashing to break free from his suddenly way-too-strong grip on her, just as his hand was almost at the sensitive spot along the side of her rib cage—“who got to go to Hawaii . . .” She bucked beneath him, trying to knock him off her. “. . . for spring break . . . last . . .” And then he startled to tickle her while she was pinned beneath him, and her last word came out in a scream: “YEAR?!” That was how her aunt and uncle found them.

Perpetrators increasingly are the ones to call the police, threaten legal action, send lawyer letters, or threaten or seek restraining orders as part and parcel of their agenda of blame and unilateral control. It is an agenda designed to avoid by any means necessary having to examine their own behavior, history, or participation in the Conflict. Actively violent and truly abusive people are hard to convict, and innocent people are convicted of crimes every day. At the same time a targeted victim may rarely be convicted and incarcerated based on exclusively harassing uses of the law, but the stigma, the anxiety, the expense and fear caused by cynical manipulation of police, lawyers, and courts can be the punitive, avoidant goal. The state’s protective machine becomes an additional tool of harassment.

People target advertisers because they’re tired of their hard-won consumer dollars going to pay sexists and racists and homophobes who got those jobs, at least partially, by coasting on the privileges and benefit of the doubt conferred by sexism and racism and homophobia.

Then he swoops. And I’m lost. He kisses me like he’s starving and I realize in the space between reality where my brain isn’t fogged up by a sexy Italian, that he’s hungry for me. He’s waited for me. He’s declaring his intentions for me. It’s hard to breathe when we part and I have no doubt how wet I am. Just a kiss from Dominic can ruin my panties. He rains his lips all over my face, holding the side of my head as he does. I’m all the way up on my toes, reaching for him, needing more of that intoxication he’s giving out like confetti.

The U.S. Supreme Court found openly anti-black ordinances unconstitutional in 1917 in Buchanan v. Warley, but sundown towns and suburbs nevertheless acted as if they had the power to be formally all-white until at least 1960; informally, some communities have never given up this idea. The federal government was hardly likely to enforce Buchanan v. Warley until after World War II; on the contrary, it was busily creating all-white suburbs itself until then. After 1917, most sundown suburbs resorted to restrictive covenants. Covenants were usually private, part of the deed one signed when buying from the developer. Like the Great Retreat, restrictive covenants first targeted Chinese Americans in the West, originating in California in the 1890s, and then spread to the East, where Jews and blacks were targeted for exclusion.

There are two different types of time. Chronos time is what we live in. It’s regular time. It’s one minute at a time, staring down the clock until bedtime time. It’s ten excruciating minutes in the Target line time, four screaming minutes in time-out time, two hours until Daddy gets home time. Chronos is the hard, slow-passing time we parents often live in. Then there’s Kairos time. Kairos is God’s time. It’s time outside of time. It’s metaphysical time. Kairos is those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a few of those moments each day, and I cherish them.

By the time I entered high school, I already felt like damaged goods. Injured by my father’s absence, roughed-up by my mother’s hard love, and too meek to stand up for myself, I was a ripe target. After two men in positions of authority—one from school and one from church—molested me, I fell

I know what she is talking about. Namely, everything I refused to talk about, in court: what it is like to know that you are a target, because of the color of your skin. What it means to work hard, to be an impeccable employee, and have none of that make a difference in the face of prejudice.

A plank is a luxury to a drowning person. It becomes the best option to reach the shore, but it’s hardly noticed from the shore; sales leads are like planks we don’t know the use till we have nothing to use, we miss many small ones while targeting the big ones, remember! It takes many planks to build a boat.

The Battle of Good and Evil Polytheism gave birth not merely to monotheist religions, but also to dualistic ones. Dualistic religions espouse the existence of two opposing powers: good and evil. Unlike monotheism, dualism believes that evil is an independent power, neither created by the good God, nor subordinate to it. Dualism explains that the entire universe is a battleground between these two forces, and that everything that happens in the world is part of the struggle. Dualism is a very attractive world view because it has a short and simple answer to the famous Problem of Evil, one of the fundamental concerns of human thought. ‘Why is there evil in the world? Why is there suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people?’ Monotheists have to practise intellectual gymnastics to explain how an all-knowing, all-powerful and perfectly good God allows so much suffering in the world. One well-known explanation is that this is God’s way of allowing for human free will. Were there no evil, humans could not choose between good and evil, and hence there would be no free will. This, however, is a non-intuitive answer that immediately raises a host of new questions. Freedom of will allows humans to choose evil. Many indeed choose evil and, according to the standard monotheist account, this choice must bring divine punishment in its wake. If God knew in advance that a particular person would use her free will to choose evil, and that as a result she would be punished for this by eternal tortures in hell, why did God create her? Theologians have written countless books to answer such questions. Some find the answers convincing. Some don’t. What’s undeniable is that monotheists have a hard time dealing with the Problem of Evil. For dualists, it’s easy to explain evil. Bad things happen even to good people because the world is not governed single-handedly by a good God. There is an independent evil power loose in the world. The evil power does bad things. Dualism has its own drawbacks. While solving the Problem of Evil, it is unnerved by the Problem of Order. If the world was created by a single God, it’s clear why it is such an orderly place, where everything obeys the same laws. But if Good and Evil battle for control of the world, who enforces the laws governing this cosmic war? Two rival states can fight one another because both obey the same laws of physics. A missile launched from Pakistan can hit targets in India because gravity works the same way in both countries. When Good and Evil fight, what common laws do they obey, and who decreed these laws? So, monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: to argue that there is a single omnipotent God who created the entire universe – and He’s evil. But nobody in history has had the stomach for such a belief. Dualistic

When most people had to hunt, a minor genetic variation in your ability to focus attention was hardly a problem, and may even have been an advantage [enabling a hunter to maintain his focus on multiple and simultaneous targets, for instance]. When most people have to make it through high school, the same variation can become a life-altering disease.

Then, there was a sudden, sharp pain in the bum and everything went dizzy, then dark. A poison peppermint dart had been shot into his muscular buttocks from afar. Later, in recollection, Kid Christmas had to admit that bending over to lick the lollipop fence post with his musculus bumulus high in the air was an easy red target, something very hard to miss.

PR *is* a shrewd, rough game. It's learning to psychologically manipulate, play on people's greed and vanity. Convincing a target audience to buy products and services they neither need nor want. Profiting from making them spend hard-earned money and feeling happy about doing it. Smiling as they empty their wallets. It's devious exploitation, taking advantage of the human psyche, and I'm good at it. Very good.

The Misunderstood Social Butterfly   Like manipulative mothers, scheming co-workers act nice toward their intended target and present themselves as a victim. These schemers make themselves seem misunderstood and victimized to gain their target’s trust. The unwitting target then makes it his or her job to cover for the “victim,” making sure that the “victim” is protected from others.   This forms an exclusive bond between the two parties, with the manipulator effectively cutting off the target’s contact with other employees by painting them in a bad light. The target then becomes the manipulator’s personal pep squad, leaving the employee emotionally and mentally drained.   Typically, the person being manipulated in this type of relationship at work is someone who is hard working, trusting, and unfortunately, often times easy prey to a manipulator. The manipulator sees the victim as the person who is always working late and the person who always “tries to do the right thing”. The manipulator, conversely, often times is the one leaving early, skating by day-to-day, but occasionally has enough “golden opportunities” with the boss to make themselves the “favored employees”. Nearly always a gregarious and outgoing person, these manipulative people can be true terrors to those whom they manipulate.

See!” she snapped at him. “You men are all brutish. You force your strength and will on us as if we matter for naught and then you wonder why we don’tlike ”—she spat the word at him—“you. Really? Is it any wonder? Why would any woman want to subject herself to the male ego? Why?” She looked down at his body as a sudden heat came into her gaze that made him instantly nervous. “Sure, you’re a handsome beastie with kissable lips when they’re not bleeding. You’re fair in form with big, bulging—” He actually cringed in fear of the word “cock” coming out of her mouth again, but luckily she averted her thoughts as her gaze met his. For the first time the despair left her voice. “Your eyes are so beautiful.” She ran one finger over his brow, making him instantly hard for her. “Did you know that?” Then the gloomy tone returned as she dropped her hand from his face. “Of course you do. You’re a worthless man. Just like all the others.” “Yeah,” Blaise teased. “You’re worthless, Varian. And what on him bulges again, Merewyn?” Varian glared at the mandrake, who merely continued to laugh at him. “Everything. His arms, his legs, his—” “Enough, Merewyn,” Varian said from between clenched teeth. “Well, you do bulge. I’ve seen it.” “We’ve all seen it,” Merrick said, his voice filled with humor, “And it’s sickening.” Varian glared at the triplets, especially the ferret, who was laughing and rolling around his brother’s neck. “When she is over this, I’m going to kill all of you.” Merewyn let out a long-suffering sigh. “Of course you will. That’s what men do. They destroy everything. Everything. Because you’re all worthless whoremongers.” Varian winced at her choice of words. “Whoremongers?” Blaise repeated with a laugh. “Yes. You all go out with your giant lances, spearing anything you can find. Nailing your targets against trees and walls, while you gallop from field to field, bragging over your conquests, uncaring of who you’ve hurt while you quest for more glory.” “Good gods,” Merrick said, his face horrified. “Is she speaking of what I think she is?” “Do you mean warmongers?” Varian asked her. “No! Whoremongers. All of you.” She looked over at the triplets. “Especially them.

THE CIA’S THREAT reporting about bin Laden surged that spring to levels the Counterterrorist Center had rarely seen. Tenet thought the threat intelligence from intercepts and human agents was as frightening as he had ever witnessed. Cofer Black said later that he became convinced in the spring that al Qaeda was about to strike hard. He could not tell where, but it seemed to him that the Arabian peninsula and Israel were the most likely targets.

If there’s one lesson I learned early on during the decades I’ve spent in this business, it’s that of all the qualities that distinguish a hard target from everyone else, among the most important is self-control. Yes, you have to be able to think like the opposition, which enables you to spot the ambush. And yes, you have to be able to take immediate, violent action in case—oops—your ability to spot the ambush fails. And yes, sentiment is a weakness. But fundamental to the rest is self-control. Because if you’re not in control of yourself, someone else is, most likely an enemy, and in my business, an enemy isn’t someone who wants the promotion you’re after, or who covets your corner office, or who wants to beat you on the tennis court or golf course or display a better car in his driveway. In my business, an enemy is someone determined to end your life, and probably with the means to bring it about.

It is very hard to break armored infantry groups without artillery or machines,” Darrow explained as if detailing how to clean a rifle. “So you don’t target them. You target their psyche. You target their groupthink. “First you send in a man like Sev or Valdir with their best ghouls—that’s what we call them. If you can’t plant the ghouls ahead of time, they should sneak deep as possible into the enemy ranks before hunkering down. “Then you kill a scout on the outskirts. Badly. The more screaming the better. That’ll draw curiosity and a heavy squad. The squad will investigate. If you can, make them disappear in silence. You want the rest of them using their imagination. You want the commander wondering if he should send another squad, maybe even a century. “Then you confirm their worst fear. Give them a death chant—we carry recordings when we don’t have Obsidians. You want anticipation. You want them preparing to face a known fear, physically, mentally. That’s when your ghouls awaken and start killing the command chain. “Then you have your main force close in silence at a fast pace and hit them as hard as you possibly can. Groups can hold a line together. Groups will make last stands. But alone, rarely. It’s very hard for the human mind to accept dying alone. No matter their number, if you summon enough chaos they will feel alone. Especially with anonymity, especially in the dark. Once the first breaks, the rest will feel like they have permission to follow.

An investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee revealed that “more than a dozen American utility companies reported ‘daily,’ ‘constant,’ or ‘frequent’ attempted cyber-attacks ranging from phishing to malware infection to unfriendly probes. One utility reported that it had been the target of more than 10,000 attempted cyber attacks each month.” The report concluded that foreign governments, criminals, and random hackers were all hard at work either planning or attempting to take down the grid.

Complicating the idea that race and class are distinctly separate rather than intertwined will be hard work. It involves piercing a million thought bubbles currently dominating conversations about class in this country. It means irritating politicians and commentators, and it means calling their story of a white working class besieged by selfish and ungrateful immigrants exactly what they are – hate-mongering nonsense. Divide and rule serves no useful purpose in the politics of class solidarity, neither does it work particularly well in lifting people out of poverty. We know that targeted policies aimed at eradicating class inequalities will also go some way in challenging race inequalities, because so many black households are low income. But we can’t be naive enough to believe that those in power are in any way interested in piercing their power for the sake of a fairer society. And although working-class white and BME people have lots in common, we need to remember that although the experiences are very similar, they are also very different.

First, there is hardly an innocent app; if it’s not tracking you now, it may be doing so in the next week or month: “There is an entire industry based upon these trackers, and apps identified as ‘clean’ today may contain trackers that have not yet been identified. Tracker code may also be added by developers to new versions of apps in the future.” Second is that even the most innocent-seeming applications such as weather, flashlights, ride sharing, and dating apps are “infested” with dozens of tracking programs that rely on increasingly bizarre, aggressive, and illegible tactics to collect massive amounts of behavioral surplus ultimately directed at ad targeting. For example, the ad tracker FidZup developed “communication between a sonic emitter and a mobile phone. . . .” It can detect the presence of mobile phones and therefore their owners by diffusing a tone, inaudible to the human ear, inside a building: “Users installing ‘Bottin Gourmand,’ a guide to restaurants and hotels in France, would thus have their physical location tracked via retail outlet speakers as they move around Paris.

Circus tricks ain’t much use when you’re the King’s Champion.” She shifted her gaze to him, but kept positioned toward the target. “You’d be better off on your back, learning tricks useful to a woman. In fact, I can teach you some tonight, if you’d like.” He laughed, and Cain joined with him. Celaena gripped the hilt of a dagger so hard that it hurt. “Don’t listen to them,” Nox murmured. He tossed another dagger, missing the bull’s-eye again. “They wouldn’t know the first thing to do with a woman, even if one walked stark naked into their bedroom.

Stop staring at Kevin so much. You're making me fear for your life over here." "What do you mean?" "Andrew is scary territorial of him. He punched me the first time I said I'd like to get Kevin too wasted to be straight." Nicky pointed at his face, presumably where Andrew had decked him. "So yeah, I'm going to crush on safer targets until Andrew gets bored of him. That means you, since Matt's taken and I don't hate myself enough to try Seth. Congrats." "Can you take the creepy down a level?" Aaron asked. "What?" Nikcy asked. "He said he doesn't swing, so obviously he needs a push." "I don't need a push," Neil said. "I'm fine on my own." "Seriously, how are you not bored of your hand by now?" "I'm done with this conversation," Neil said. "This and every future variation of it. [...]" The stadium door slammed open as Andrew showed up at last. He swept them with a wide-eyed look as if surprised to see them all there. "Kevin wants to know what's taking you so long. Did you get lost?" "Nicky's scheming to rape Neil," Aaron said. "There are a couple flaws in his plan he needs to work out first, but he'll get there sooner or later." [...] "Wow, Nicky," Andrew said. "You start early." "Can you really blame me?" Nicky glanced back at Neil as he said it. He only took his eyes off Andrew for a second, but that was long enough for Andrew to lunge at him. Andrew caught Nicky's jersey in one hand and threw him hard up against the wall. [...] "Hey, Nicky," Andrew said in stage-whisper German. "Don't touch him, you understand?" "You know I'd never hurt him. If he says yes-" "I said no." "Jesus, you're greedy," Nicky said. "You already have Kevin. Why does it-" He went silent, but it took Neil a moment to realize why. Andrew had a short knife pressed to Nicky's Jersey. [...] Neil was no stranger to violence. He'd heard every threat in the book, but never from a man who smiled as bright as Andrew did. Apathy, anger, madness, boredom: these motivators Neil knew and understood. But Andrew was grinning like he didn't have a knife point where it'd sleep perfectly between Nicky's ribs, and it wasn't because he was joking. Neil knew Andrew meant it. If Nicky so much as breathed wrong right now, Andrew would cut his lungs to ribbons, any and all consequences be damned. Neil wondered if Andrew's medicine would let him grieve, or if he'd laugh at Nicky's funeral too. Then he wondered if a sober Andrew would act any different. Was this Andrew psychosis or his medicine? Was he flying too high to understand what he was doing, or did his medicine only add a smile to Andrew's ingrained violence? [...] Andrew let go of Nicky and spun away. [...] Aaron squized Nicky's shoulder on his way out. Nicky looked shaken as he stared after the twins, but when he realized Neil was watching him he rallied with a smile Neil didn't believe at all. "On second thought, you're not my type after all,” Nicky said [...]. "Don't let him get away with things like that." Nicky considered him for a moment, his smile fading into something small and tired. "Oh, Neil. You're going to make this so hard on yourself. Look, [...] Andrew is a little crazy. Your lines are not his lines, so you can get all huff and puff when he tramps across yours but you'll never make him understand what he did wrong. Moreover, you'll never make him care. So just stay out of his way." "He's like this because you let him get away with it," Neil said. [...] "That was my fault. [...] I said something I shouldn't have, and got what I deserved.

He smiled then, a slow smile that sent the blood racing through her veins. Lora felt the throbbing inside her intensify until she was sure she would not be able to stand it another second as he slowly, oh, so slowly, lowered his head. His target was her left breast. Lora felt his hot mouth close on the straining nipple, felt him tug the crest of her breast into his mouth to rub it with the rough wet surface of his tongue, and cried out in a frenzy of need. And in that instant he took her. She climaxed at once as he squeezed inside, enormous and hard and fiery hot and filling her to bursting.

Coordination” occurred with astonishing speed, even in sectors of life not directly targeted by specific laws, as Germans willingly placed themselves under the sway of Nazi rule, a phenomenon that became known as Selbstgleichschaltung, or “self-coordination.” Change came to Germany so quickly and across such a wide front that German citizens who left the country for business or travel returned to find everything around them altered, as if they were characters in a horror movie who come back to find that people who once were their friends, clients, patients, and customers have become different in ways hard to discern.

There were many factors that made a handgun either accurate or not accurate. The velocity of the round and the length of the barrel were the most important, aided or not by aerodynamic subtleties like the degree of spin imparted by the rifling grooves, which either worked well or didn’t, depending on the bullet. Precision of manufacture was influential, with careful machining of quality metal much preferred over casting from leftover slag. Not that anything much mattered at seven feet. A pore to the left or a wrinkle to the right was immaterial. The human face was a big enough target, generally hard to miss at close quarters, and the man-on-first’s was no exception.

There’s a soft totalitarianism coming into play,” Michael Steele professed. He spent two years leading the GOP as chairman of the Republican National Committee. “Modern-day conservatism meant lower taxes, less government, free markets. What we are witnessing now is a deconstruction of that.… I think the rational side is losing, if not having already lost. “For a party that’s all sensitive about the Left canceling them, they do a pretty good job of canceling their own,” he added. “That’s why the hammer came down so hard on Liz Cheney—to send a message of fear. No one wants to be targeted the way she’s been targeted, which makes this period we are in perhaps the most dangerous.

For years, the suspicion that Mr. Putin has a secret fortune has intrigued scholars, industry analysts, opposition figures, journalists and intelligence agencies but defied their efforts to uncover it. Numbers are thrown around suggesting that Mr. Putin may control $40 billion or even $70 billion, in theory making him the richest head of state in world history. For all the rumors and speculation, though, there has been little if any hard evidence, and Gunvor has adamantly denied any financial ties to Mr. Putin and repeated that denial on Friday. But Mr. Obama’s response to the Ukraine crisis, while derided by critics as slow and weak, has reinvigorated a 15-year global hunt for Mr. Putin’s hidden wealth. Now, as the Obama administration prepares to announce another round of sanctions as early as Monday targeting Russians it considers part of Mr. Putin’s financial circle, it is sending a not-very-subtle message that it thinks it knows where the Russian leader has his money, and that he could ultimately be targeted directly or indirectly. “It’s something that could be done that would send a very clear signal of taking the gloves off and not just dance around it,” said Juan C. Zarate, a White House counterterrorism adviser to President George W. Bush who helped pioneer the government’s modern financial campaign techniques to choke off terrorist money.

Dotcom believes one of the reasons he was targeted was his support for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. He says he was compelled to reach out to the site after US soldier Bradley Manning leaked documents to it. The infamous video recording of the Apache gunship gunning down a group of Iraqis (some of whom, despite widespread belief to the contrary, were later revealed to have been armed), including two Reuters journalists, was the trigger. “Wow, this is really crazy,” Dotcom recalls thinking, watching the black-and-white footage and hearing the operators of the helicopter chat about firing on the group. He made a €20,000 donation to Wikileaks through Megaupload’s UK account. “That was one of the largest donations they got,” he says. According to Dotcom, the US, at the time, was monitoring Wikileaks and trying better to understand its support base. “My name must have popped right up.” The combination of a leaking culture and a website dedicated to producing leaked material would horrify the US government, he says. A willing leaker and a platform on which to do it was “their biggest enemy and their biggest fear . . . If you are in a corrupt government and you know how much fishy stuff is going on in the background, to you, that is the biggest threat — to have a site where people can anonymously submit documents.” Neil MacBride was appointed to the Wikileaks case, meaning Dotcom shares prosecutors with Assange. “I think the Wikileaks connection got me on the radar.” Dotcom believes the US was most scared of the threat of inspiration Wikileaks posed. He also believes it shows just how many secrets the US has hidden from the public and the rest of the world. “That’s why they are going after that so hard. Only a full transparent government will have no corruption and no back door deals or secret organisations or secret agreements. The US is the complete opposite of that. It is really difficult to get any information in the US, so whistleblowing is the one way you can get to information and provide information to the public.

It may be hard to hear, but victim thinking is actually self-centered. If you’re stuck in a victim mindset, you feel one down, helpless, and at the mercy of others. From this place you perceive yourself as the target of unfortunate events and other people. You may interpret random events as being about your exceptionally bad luck or as a sign that other people are out to get you. You become “terminally unique” in your outlook and you may even become paranoid. When you take on the role of victim as an identity or a badge of honor, you are actively participating in your victimization and disowning your authentic personal power. “You are only a victim for a nanosecond.” —Pia Mellody

Holy hell. All Michaels saw was a tall, walking Adonis. Decked out in leather except for the tight, black shirt hugging his thick chest. As he got closer his eyes appeared dark and mysterious, he seemed to keep his eyes on target but take in everything around him too. People watched him, but didn’t engage him. It was obvious he wasn’t a criminal because of the gold badge hanging around his neck, but damn he looked like he was on his way to kick someone’s ass. Moving through the precinct like he was the Captain. Confident and sure. He wasn’t frowning but he damn sure wasn’t smiling or giving off an approachable vibe. Michaels stood and swallowed hard. Jesus. The man had to be six-foot-three, maybe -four. Taller than his own six one. It was all the hair. Oh, my damn. That beard, that looked course but possibly soft to touch. Damn, he hoped so. Trimmed neatly with a smattering of grays, at least five to six inches of hair beneath his chin. Enough to pull. Shit. “We all thought you loved yourself, Michaels,” Day said, out of nowhere, watching along with everyone else as the bounty hunter approached. Michaels frowned at his Lieutenant. It really was not the fuckin’ time.  Day’s eyes bugged and Michaels turned back just in time to see what everyone else did as Judge reached for the door. Day leaned toward God and hissed, “Why the fuck is he bringing a horse into our office?

Haven’t even fucked her yet and she’s shuddering under my touch. It’s in this moment that I know I’m done waiting. Done waiting for her to fully come to me. I’m over being patient. Gabriella is going to be mine in every way I can have her. “You can walk away from this right now. Today. I will allow it. You’re tired and I prefer you get some decent rest if you won’t get it here.” “Allow?” My hand circles around the front of her throat, unable to not touch her in any way that I can. I feel like a beggar needing water who’s just been handed a jug. All I want to do is roam over her skin and memorize how every silky inch feels. I know my touch is possessive and out of fucking order, seeing as only hours ago she was still treating me as her boss only. But she made that switch when she turned up, didn’t she? She can’t take that back now. “Yes, allow. I gave you time to come to me. Here you are, Gabriella. Now you can put us in my hands.” She blinks and I feel the pulse in her delicate throat start to jump. What she doesn’t do is move out from under my hands. I feel as though she’s gifted me a prize. So close to her, her scent is arresting, she smells fucking good, lickable. She sucks her lower lip between her teeth and I want to bite it hard. “What… what does that even mean?” “It means you can no longer deny what we are, cara. It’s time for me to make the decisions in how we proceed from here. No more waiting.” “What are we?” “An explosion.

Dominic, with the powerful aura, got under my skin before I had a chance to ward him off and now I’m screwed. Even more now I know his taste and how hard he feels against the soft, wet parts of me. Dominic just introduced me to the most dangerous man in New York. Fuck. Fuck. Clarity pours over me. Does this mean Dominic is a member of the mafia after all? Only it wasn’t only a little kiss, was it? I’m sexually frustrated and Dom is standing there with his hands in his tailored pants pockets, aroused. The bulge is unmistakable. “Gabriella…” God, I’m wet too. If I rub my thighs together, I’ll feel how much. He’s hard, I’m wet… it’s a match made in heaven. “Gabriella…” he says again, thick and tarnished as I look him up and down. “Yeah?” “I said you’re too far away,” he murmurs, cutting his dark gaze my way. Stirring me. “Come here to me, cara.” he hooks two fingers with a motion and smirks like a devil with the key to all my desires. I swear my belly bottoms out as my feet carry me forward. Unable to refuse the invisible rope he has around my waist, pulling me closer. “Bossy aren’t you?” “I am your boss.” “I don’t think you want to remind me of that.” He hums and the rumble hurtles down between my thighs. How does he do that? Turn me on with just a noise. “I guess you’d like it if I called you sir, wouldn’t you?” His eyes flare and then darken, he drops his chin to his chest. “Do you really wish to turn me on right this moment?” Oh, fuck. Do I? I do. Yeah, I really do.

Take your hands off my sister!" The lieutenant's head swiveled toward the owner of the surly voice, and met with a hard fist. He stumbled and bumped into another brawling twosome, slacking his grip on Willie's legs. Seizing the advantage, she aimed a well-placed kick, and this time connected with her intended target. Rider grabbed his crotch and lurched forward in pain, dropping the little hellion on top of her brother. Like cats, the girl and her sibling were on their feet, weaving a zigzag escape through the mayhem. Rider quickly regained his balance and swore, "Damn, I should have known the little rebel had a brother." Still cupping his privates and cursing the air blue, he watched brother and sister disappear. "Someday, freckle face, someday.

The agent carrying the team’s nonlethal rifle raised it and fired. The projectile that launched down the aisle and wrapped itself around Bellamy’s legs was nicknamed Silly String, but there was nothing silly about it. A military technology invented at Sandia National Laboratories, this nonlethal “incapacitant” was a thread of gooey polyurethane that turned rock hard on contact, creating a rigid web of plastic across the back of the fugitive’s knees. The effect on a running target was that of jamming a stick into the spokes of a moving bike. The man’s legs seized midstride, and he pitched forward, crashing to the floor. Bellamy slid another ten feet down a darkened aisle before coming to a stop, the lights above him flickering unceremoniously to life.

REQUIREMENTS TO BE GREAT AT RUNNING HR What kind of person should you look for to comprehensively and continuously understand the quality of your management team? Here are some key requirements:   World-class process design skills Much like the head of quality assurance, the head of HR must be a masterful process designer. One key to accurately measuring critical management processes is excellent process design and control.   A true diplomat Nobody likes a tattletale and there is no way for an HR organization to be effective if the management team doesn’t implicitly trust it. Managers must believe that HR is there to help them improve rather than police them. Great HR leaders genuinely want to help the managers and couldn’t care less about getting credit for identifying problems. They will work directly with the managers to get quality up and only escalate to the CEO when necessary. If an HR leader hoards knowledge, makes power plays, or plays politics, he will be useless.   Industry knowledge Compensation, benefits, best recruiting practices, etc. are all fast-moving targets. The head of HR must be deeply networked in the industry and stay abreast of all the latest developments.   Intellectual heft to be the CEO’s trusted adviser None of the other skills matter if the CEO does not fully back the head of HR in holding the managers to a high quality standard. In order for this to happen, the CEO must trust the HR leader’s thinking and judgment.   Understanding things unspoken When management quality starts to break down in a company, nobody says anything about it, but super-perceptive people can tell that the company is slipping. You need one of those.

Snowden called the NSA ‘self-certifying’. In the debate over who ruled the internet, the NSA provided a dismaying answer: ‘We do.’ The slides, given to Poitras and published by Der Spiegel magazine, show that the NSA had developed techniques to hack into iPhones. The agency assigned specialised teams to work on other smartphones too, such as Android. It targeted BlackBerry, previously regarded as the impregnable device of choice for White House aides. The NSA can hoover up photos and voicemail. It can hack Facebook, Google Earth and Yahoo Messenger. Particularly useful is geo-data, which locates where a target has been and when. The agency collects billions of records a day showing the location of mobile phone users across the world. It sifts them – using powerful analytics – to discover ‘co-travellers’. These are previously unknown associates of a target. Another

It had been obvious to me from a young age that my parents didn’t like one another. Couples in films and on television performed household tasks together and talked fondly about their shared memories. I couldn’t remember seeing my mother and father in the same room unless they were eating. My father had “moods.” Sometimes during his moods my mother would take me to stay with her sister Bernie in Clontarf, and they would sit in the kitchen talking and shaking their heads while I watched my cousin Alan play Ocarina of Time. I was aware that alcohol played a role in these incidents, but its precise workings remained mysterious to me. I enjoyed our visits to Bernie’s house. While we were there I was allowed to eat as many digestive biscuits as I wanted, and when we returned, my father was either gone out or else feeling very contrite. I liked it when he was gone out. During his periods of contrition he tried to make conversation with me about school and I had to choose between humoring and ignoring him. Humoring him made me feel dishonest and weak, a soft target. Ignoring him made my heart beat very hard and afterward I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. Also it made my mother cry. It was hard to be specific about what my father’s moods consisted of. Sometimes he would go out for a couple of days and when he came back in we’d find him taking money out of my Bank of Ireland savings jar, or our television would be gone. Other times he would bump into a piece of furniture and then lose his temper. He hurled one of my school shoes right at my face once after he tripped on it. It missed and went in the fireplace and I watched it smoldering like it was my own face smoldering. I learned not to display fear, it only provoked him. I was cold like a fish. Afterward my mother said: why didn’t you lift it out of the fire? Can’t you at least make an effort? I shrugged. I would have let my real face burn in the fire too. When he came home from work in the evening I used to freeze entirely still, and after a few seconds I would know with complete certainty if he was in one of the moods or not. Something about the way he closed the door or handled his keys would let me know, as clearly as if he yelled the house down. I’d say to my mother: he’s in a mood now. And she’d say: stop that. But she knew as well as I did. One day, when I was twelve, he turned up unexpectedly after school to pick me up. Instead of going home, we drove away from town, toward Blackrock. The DART went past on our left and I could see the Poolbeg towers out the car window. Your mother wants to break up our family, my father said. Instantly I replied: please let me out of the car. This remark later became evidence in my father’s theory that my mother had poisoned me against him.

All the women, white or black or brown, who woke up like this, who came before me in this town. Think of them. Heads up, eyes on the target. Running. Full speed. Gravity be damned. Toward that thick layer of glass that is the ceiling. Running, full speed, and crashing. Crashing into that ceiling and falling back. Crashing into it and falling back. Into it and falling back. Woman after woman. Each one running and each one crashing. And everyone falling. How many women had to hit that glass before the first crack appeared? How many cuts did they get, how many bruises? How hard did they have to hit the ceiling? How many women had to hit that glass to ripple it, to send out a thousand hairline fractures? How many women had to hit that glass before the pressure of their effort caused it to evolve from a thick pane of glass into just a thin sheet of splintered ice? So that when it was my turn to run, it didn’t even look like a ceiling anymore.

During the war in the Persian Gulf, massive bombing attacks became "efforts." Thousands of "weapons systems" or "force packages" "visited a site." These "weapons systems" "hit" "hard" and "soft targets." During their "visits," these "weapons systems" "degraded," "neutralized," "attrited," "suppressed," "eliminated," "cleansed," "sanitized," "impacted," "decapitated" or "took out" targets. A "healthy day of bombing" was achieved when more enemy "assets" were destroyed than expected. If the "weapons systems" didn't achieve "effective results" during their first "visit," a "damage assessment study" determined whether the "weapons systems" would "revisit the site." Women, children or other civilians killed or wounded during these "visits," and any schools, hospitals, museums, houses or other "non-military" targets that were blown up, were "collateral damage," which is the undesired damage or casualties produced by the effects from "incontinent ordnance" or "accidental delivery of ordnance equipment.

Hey, did you hear about Brad Miller?" he asked, already forgetting about the Lissie conversation. "He got his car taken away for getting another speeding ticket. Of course he tried to tell his parents that it was a setup." Violet laughed. "Yeah, because the police have nothing better to do than to plan a sting operation targeting eleventh-grade idiots." She was more than willing to go along with this diversion from conversations about Jay and his many admirers. Jay laughed too, shaking his head. "You're so cold-hearted," he said to Violet, shoving her a little but playing along. "How's he supposed to go cruising for unsuspecting freshman and sophomores without a car? What willing girl is going to ride on the handlebars of his ten-speed?" "I don't see you driving anything but your mom's car yet. At least he has a bike," she said, turning on him now. He pushed her again. "Hey!" he tried to defend himself. "I'm still saving! Not all of us are born with a silver spoon in our mouths." They were both laughing, hard now. The silver spoon joke had been used before, whenever one of them had something the other one didn't. "Right!" Violet protested. "Have you seen my car?" This time she shoved him, and a full-scale war broke out on the couch. "Poor little rich girl!" Jay accused, grabbing her arm and pulling her down. She giggled and tried to give him the dreaded "dead leg" by hitting him with her knuckle in the thigh. But he was too strong, and what used to be a fairly even matchup was now more like an annihilation of Violet's side. "Oh, yeah. Weren't you the one"-she gasped, still giggling and thrashing to break free from his suddenly way-too-strong grip on her, just as his hand was almost at the sensitive spot along the side of her rib cage-"who got to go to Hawaii..." She bucked beneath him, trying to knock him off her. "...For spring break...last..." And then he started to tickle her while she was pinned beneath him, and her last word came out in a scream: "...YEAR?!" That was how her aunt and uncle found them. Violet never heard the key in the dead bolt, or the sound of the door opening up. And Jay was just as ignorant of their arrival as she was. So when they were caught like that, in a mass of tangled limbs, with Jay's face just inches from hers, as she giggled and squirmed against him, it should have meant they were going to get in trouble. And if it had been any other teenage boy and girl, they would have. But it wasn't another couple. It was Violet and Jay...and this was business as usual for the two of them. Even her aunt and uncle knew that there was no possibility they were doing anything they shouldn't. The only reprimand they got was her aunt shushing them to keep it down before they woke the kids. After Jay left, Violet took the thirty dollars that her uncle gave her and headed out. As she drove home, she tried to ignore the feelings of frustration she had about the way her aunt and uncle had reacted-or rather hadn't reaction-to finding her and Jay together on the couch. For some reason it made her feel worse to know that even the grown-ups around them didn't think there was a chance they could ever be a real couple.

At the same time, surveillance will change the very nature of insurance. Insurance is an industry, traditionally, that draws on the majority of the community to respond to the needs of an unfortunate minority. In the villages we lived in centuries ago, families, religious groups, and neighbors helped look after each other when fire, accident, or illness struck. In the market economy, we outsource this care to insurance companies, which keep a portion of the money for themselves and call it profit. As insurance companies learn more about us, they’ll be able to pinpoint those who appear to be the riskiest customers and then either drive their rates to the stratosphere or, where legal, deny them coverage. This is a far cry from insurance’s original purpose, which is to help society balance its risk. In a targeted world, we no longer pay the average. Instead, we’re saddled with anticipated costs. Instead of smoothing out life’s bumps, insurance companies will demand payment for those bumps in advance. This undermines the point of insurance, and the hits will fall especially hard on those who can least afford them.

She says you're different, you know," he continues, turning back around to continue slicing his tomatoes. "I've been trying to see it… to see what she sees… but you don't seem any different to me." I want to tell him it's because he's not looking hard enough, but that's a lie and I know it. The problem is, he's looking harder than Karissa is. She thinks I'm different because she wants me to be. And I'm trying to be. But I'm still me. I can't be anybody but me. At some point, every part of me became every part of that. The life isn't just something I lived… it was how I survived. It infused itself into every one of my cells, infecting every mitochondrion. It's in my blood and my bones, and unless you drain me dry and rip me to pieces, you'll never rid me of all of it. It's like expecting a man to survive without a beating heart in his chest. Expecting him to breathe without lungs. Expecting him to fight when he has no reason to live. It's like expecting a man to still be a man after taking away everything that makes him who he is. I can be good to her. I might even be good for her. But that doesn't mean I'm good.

I still have no choice but to bring out Minerva instead.” “But Minerva doesn’t care about men,” young Charlotte said helpfully. “She prefers dirt and rocks.” “It’s called geology,” Minerva said. “It’s a science.” “It’s certain spinsterhood, is what it is! Unnatural girl. Do sit straight in your chair, at least.” Mrs. Highwood sighed and fanned harder. To Susanna, she said, “I despair of her, truly. This is why Diana must get well, you see. Can you imagine Minerva in Society?” Susanna bit back a smile, all too easily imagining the scene. It would probably resemble her own debut. Like Minerva, she had been absorbed in unladylike pursuits, and the object of her female relations’ oft-voiced despair. At balls, she’d been that freckled Amazon in the corner, who would have been all too happy to blend into the wallpaper, if only her hair color would have allowed it. As for the gentlemen she’d met…not a one of them had managed to sweep her off her feet. To be fair, none of them had tried very hard. She shrugged off the awkward memories. That time was behind her now. Mrs. Highwood’s gaze fell on a book at the corner of the table. “I am gratified to see you keep Mrs. Worthington close at hand.” “Oh yes,” Susanna replied, reaching for the blue, leatherbound tome. “You’ll find copies of Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom scattered everywhere throughout the village. We find it a very useful book.” “Hear that, Minerva? You would do well to learn it by heart.” When Minerva rolled her eyes, Mrs. Highwood said, “Charlotte, open it now. Read aloud the beginning of Chapter Twelve.” Charlotte reached for the book and opened it, then cleared her throat and read aloud in a dramatic voice. “’Chapter Twelve. The perils of excessive education. A young lady’s intellect should be in all ways like her undergarments. Present, pristine, and imperceptible to the casual observer.’” Mrs. Highwood harrumphed. “Yes. Just so. Hear and believe it, Minerva. Hear and believe every word. As Miss Finch says, you will find that book very useful.” Susanna took a leisurely sip of tea, swallowing with it a bitter lump of indignation. She wasn’t an angry or resentful person, as a matter of course. But once provoked, her passions required formidable effort to conceal. That book provoked her, no end. Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom for Young Ladies was the bane of sensible girls the world over, crammed with insipid, damaging advice on every page. Susanna could have gleefully crushed its pages to powder with a mortar and pestle, labeled the vial with a skull and crossbones, and placed it on the highest shelf in her stillroom, right beside the dried foxglove leaves and deadly nightshade berries. Instead, she’d made it her mission to remove as many copies as possible from circulation. A sort of quarantine. Former residents of the Queen’s Ruby sent the books from all corners of England. One couldn’t enter a room in Spindle Cove without finding a copy or three of Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom. And just as Susanna had told Mrs. Highwood, they found the book very useful indeed. It was the perfect size for propping a window open. It also made an excellent doorstop or paperweight. Susanna used her personal copies for pressing herbs. Or occasionally, for target practice. She motioned to Charlotte. “May I?” Taking the volume from the girl’s grip, she raised the book high. Then, with a brisk thwack, she used it to crush a bothersome gnat. With a calm smile, she placed the book on a side table. “Very useful indeed.

If you’re hoping for a good meal, you’ve come to the wrong place. Miss Cameron has already attempted to sacrifice herself on the altar of domesticity this morning, and we both narrowly escaped death from her efforts. I’m cooking supper,” he finished, “and it may not be much better.” “I’ll try my hand at breakfast,” the vicar volunteered good-naturedly. When Elizabeth was out of earshot, Ian said quietly, “How badly is the woman hurt?” “It’s hard to say, considering that she was almost too angry to be coherent. Or it might have been the laudanum that did it.” “Did what?” The vicar paused a moment to watch a bird hop about in the rustling leaves overhead, then he said, “She was in a rare state. Quite confused. Angry, too. On the one hand, she was afraid you might decide to express your ‘tender regard’ for Lady Cameron, undoubtedly in much the way you were doing it when I arrived.” When his gibe evoked nothing but a quirked eyebrow from his imperturbable nephew, Duncan sighed and continued, “At the same time, she was equally convinced that her young lady might try to shoot you with your own gun, which I distinctly understood her to say the young lady had already tried to do. It is that which I feared when I heard the gunshots that sent me galloping up here.” “We were shooting at targets.” The vicar nodded, but he was studying Ian with an intent frown. “Is something else bothering you?” Ian asked, noting the look. The vicar hesitated, then shook his head slightly, as if trying to dismiss something from his mind. “Miss Throckmorton-Jones had more to say, but I can scarcely credit it.” “No doubt it was the laudanum,” Ian said, dismissing the matter with a shrug. “Perhaps,” he said, his frown returning. “Yet I have not taken laudanum, and I was under the impression you are about to betroth yourself to a young woman named Christina Taylor.” “I am.” His face turned censorious. “Then what excuse can you have for the scene I just witnessed a few minutes ago?” Ian’s voice was clipped. “Insanity.” They walked back to the house, the vicar silent and thoughtful, Ian grim. Duncan’s untimely arrival had not bothered him, but now that his passion had finally cooled he was irritated as hell with his body’s uncontrollable reaction to Elizabeth Cameron. The moment his mouth touched hers it was as if his brain went dead. Even though he knew exactly what she was, in his arms she became an alluring angel.

DAY 137 Laser Tag “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” ROMANS 8:31 A few years ago my daughter was invited to a laser tag birthday party. She was little, and the laser tag vest and gun were huge, which made it hard for her to play. The first time through, she didn’t do well at all. She was an easy target for the more experienced players, and she got shot—a lot! She was pretty discouraged, but before the next round started, one of the dads handed me a vest and said, “Go get ’em, Dad.” I got the message. I followed close behind my daughter and picked off any kids foolish enough to come near her. By the end of the round, the kids knew that she was no longer an easy target. Her daddy was there, and he was not to be messed with. It was awesome. Her score that round vastly improved, bringing a big smile to her face. When we go into the arena alone, it’s easy to get picked on, singled out, and told that we are destined to fail. But when we go into battle with our heavenly Father’s protection and covering, everything changes. Not only do we have a chance to stay alive, we have a guaranteed win. PRAYER Thank you, Father, for fighting for me, keeping me safe, and helping me come through as a victor. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Am I to assume the Valerie I was introduced to earlier was the Valerie of our greenhouse notes?” He realized his mistake the instant her eyes clouded over and she glanced in the direction he’d looked. “Yes.” “Shall I ask Willington to clear his ballroom so you have the requisite twenty paces? Naturally, I’ll stand as your second.” Elizabeth drew a shaky breath, and a smile curved her lips. “Is she wearing a bow?” Ian looked and shook his head. “I’m afraid not.” “Does she have an earring?” He glanced again and frowned. “I think that’s a wart.” Her smile finally reached her eyes. “It’s not a large target, but I suppose-“ “Allow me,” he gravely replied, and she laughed. The last strains of their waltz were dying away, and as they left the dance floor Ian watched Mondevale making his way toward the Townsendes, who’d returned to the ballroom. “Now that you’re a marquess,” Elizabeth asked, “will you live in Scotland or in England?” “I only accepted the title, not the money or the lands,” he replied absently, watching Mondevale. “I’ll explain everything to you tomorrow morning at your house. Mondevale is going to ask you to dance as soon as we reach the Townsendes, so listen closely-I’m going to ask you to dance again later. Turn me down.” She sent him a puzzled look, but she nodded. “Is there anything else?” she asked when he was about to relinquish her to her friends. “There’s a great deal else, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.” Mystified, Elizabeth turned her attention to Viscount Mondevale. Alex watched the byplay between Elizabeth and Ian but her mind was elsewhere. While the couple danced, Alex had told her husband exactly what she thought of Ian Thornton who’d first ruined Elizabeth’s reputation and now deceived her into thinking he was still a man of very modest means. Instead of agreeing that Thornton was completely without principles, Jordan had calmly insisted that Ian intended to set matters aright in the morning, and then he’d made her, and his grandmother, promise not to tell Elizabeth anything until Ian had been given the opportunity to do so himself. Dragging her thoughts back to the ballroom, Alex hoped more than anything that Ian Thornton would do nothing more to hurt her good friend. By the end of the evening a majority of the guests at the Willington ball had drawn several conclusions: first, that Ian Thornton was definitely the natural grandson of the Duke of Stanhope (which everyone claimed to have always believed); second, that Elizabeth Cameron had very probably rebuffed his scandalous advances two years ago (which everyone claimed to have always believed); third, that since she had rejected his second request for a dance tonight, she might actually prefer her former suitor Viscount Mondevale (which hardly anyone could really believe).

Rider cursed, ducked another blow, threw one of his own, and then bent down, hoisting the scrappy little female, none too gently, over his shoulder. "This is no place for you, girl, even if this whole mess is your fault." "My fault!" screamed Willie, dangling upside down. "You're the one who had to go and open his big mouth!" She beat on his back as he dodged brawlers, and headed for safe ground. "Dammit, put me down, you overgrown ox. You're gonna make me miss the fight!" As she screeched and kicked in a most unladylike manner,her small feet barely missed his vunerable groin. Raising his hand to smack her bottom, Rider found it suddenly immobilized by a fierce grip. "Take your hands off my sister!" The lieutenant's head swiveled toward the owner of the surly voice, and met with a hard fist. He stumbled and bumped into another brawling twosome, slacking his grip on Willie's legs. Seizing the advantage,she aimed a well-placed kick,and this time connected with her intended target. Rider grabbed his crotch and lurched forward in pain, dropping the little hellion on top of her brother. Like cats, the girl and her sibling were on their feet,weaving a zigzag escape through the mayhem. Rider quickly regained his balance and swore, "Damn,I should have known the little rebel had a brother." Still cupping his privates and cursing the air blue, he watched brother and sister disappear. "Someday, freckle face, someday.

Chubby: A regular-size person who could lose a few, for whom you feel affection. Chubster: An overweight, adorable child. That kid from Two and a Half Men for the first couple of years. Fatso: An antiquated term, really. In the 1970s, mean sorority girls would call a pledge this. Probably most often used on people who aren’t even really fat, but who fear being fat. Fatass: Not usually used to describe weight, actually. This deceptive term is more a reflection of one’s laziness. In the writers’ room of The Office, an upper-level writer might get impatient and yell, “Eric, take your fat ass and those six fatasses and go write this B-story! I don’t want to hear any more excuses why the plot doesn’t make sense!” Jabba the Hutt: Star Wars villain. Also, something you can call yourself after a particularly filling Thanksgiving dinner that your aunts and uncles will all laugh really hard at. Obese: A serious, nonpejorative way to describe someone who is unhealthily overweight. Obeseotron: A nickname you give to someone you adore who has just stepped on your foot accidentally, and it hurts. Alternatively, a fat robot. Overweight: When someone is roughly thirty pounds too heavy for his or her frame. Pudgy: See “Chubby.” Pudgo: See “Chubster.” Tub o’ Lard: A huge compliment given by Depression-era people to other, less skinny people. Whale: A really, really mean way that teen boys target teen girls. See the following anecdote.

It doesn’t matter what they think. Dance with me.” He took her hand, and for the first time in a long while, she felt safe. He pulled her to the center of the floor and into the motions of the dance. Ronan didn’t speak for a few moments, then touched a slim braid that curved in a tendril along Kestrel’s cheek. “This is pretty.” The memory of Arin’s hands in her hair made her stiffen. “Gorgeous?” Ronan tried again. “Transcendent? Kestrel, the right adjective hasn’t been invented to describe you.” She attempted a light tone. “What will ladies do, when this kind of exaggerated flirtation is no longer the fashion? We shall be spoiled.” “You know it’s not mere flirtation,” Ronan said. “You’ve always known.” And Kestrel had, it was true that she had, even if she hadn’t wanted to shake the knowledge out of her mind and look at it, truly see it. She felt a dull spark of dread. “Marry me, Kestrel.” She held her breath. “I know things have been hard lately,” Ronan continued, “and that you don’t deserve it. You’ve had to be so strong, so proud, so cunning. But all of this unpleasantness will go away the instant we announce our engagement. You can be yourself again.” But she was strong. Proud. Cunning. Who did he think she was, if not the person who mercilessly beat him at every Bite and Sting game, who gave him Irex’s death-price and told him exactly what to do with it? Yet Kestrel bit back her words. She leaned into the curve of his arm. It was easy to dance with him. It would be easy to say yes. “Your father will be happy. My wedding gift to you will be the finest piano the capital can offer.” Kestrel glanced into his eyes. “Or keep yours,” he said hastily. “I know you’re attached to it.” “It’s just…you are very kind.” He gave a short, nervous laugh. “Kindness has little to do with it.” The dance slowed. It would end soon. “So?” Ronan had stopped, even though the music continued and dancers swirled around them. “What…well, what do you think?” Kestrel didn’t know what to think. Ronan was offering everything she could want. Why, then, did his words sadden her? Why did she feel like something had been lost? Carefully, she said, “The reasons you’ve given aren’t reasons to marry.” “I love you. Is that reason enough?” Maybe. Maybe it would have been. But as the music drained from the air, Kestrel saw Arin on the fringes of the crowd. He watched her, his expression oddly desperate. As if he, too, were losing something, or it was already lost. She saw him and didn’t understand how she had ever missed his beauty. How it didn’t always strike her as it did now, like a blow. “No,” Kestrel whispered. “What?” Ronan’s voice cut into the quiet. “I’m sorry.” Ronan swiveled to find the target of Kestrel’s gaze. He swore. Kestrel walked away, pushing past slaves bearing trays laden with glasses of pale gold wine. The lights and people blurred in her stinging eyes. She walked through the doors, down a hall, out of the palace, and into the cold night, knowing without seeing or hearing or touching him that Arin was at her side.

All the women, white or black or brown, who woke up like this, who came before me in this town. Think of them. Heads up, eyes on the target. Running. Full speed. Gravity be damned. Toward that thick layer of glass that is the ceiling. Running, full speed, and crashing. Crashing into that ceiling and falling back. Crashing into it and falling back. Into it and falling back. Woman after woman. Each one running and each one crashing. And everyone falling. How many women had to hit that glass before the first crack appeared? How many cuts did they get, how many bruises? How hard did they have to hit the ceiling? How many women had to hit that glass to ripple it, to send out a thousand hairline fractures? How many women had to hit that glass before the pressure of their effort caused it to evolve from a thick pane of glass into just a thin sheet of splintered ice? So that when it was my turn to run, it didn’t even look like a ceiling anymore. I mean, the wind was already whistling through—I could always feel it on my face. And there were all these holes giving me a perfect view to the other side. I didn’t even notice the gravity, I think it had already worn itself away. So I didn’t have to fight as hard. I had time to study the cracks. I had time to decide where the air felt the rarest, where the wind was the coolest, where the view was the most soaring. I picked my spot in the glass and I called it my target. And I ran. And when I finally hit that ceiling, it just exploded into dust. Like that. My sisters who went before me had already handled it. No cuts. No bruises. No bleeding. Making it through the glass ceiling to the other side was simply a matter of running on a path created by every other woman’s footprints. I just hit at exactly the right time in exactly the right spot. So I’m breaking my family’s rule today. This is a trophy for participation. And I am beyond honored and proud to receive it. Because this? Was a group effort. Thank you to all the women in this room. Thank you to all the women who never made it into this room. And thank you to all the women who will hopefully fill a room one hundred times this size when we are all gone. You are all an inspiration.

If Nixon set out to be the man who redefined the Republican political center in the post–New Deal, post–Fair Deal age, he did not, nor did any other young Republican politician, dare campaign by suggesting a return to the America that had existed before the New Deal. The phrase “creeping socialism” was about as close as they got to attacking the New Deal on its domestic reforms. Rather, the catchphrases were about a need to return to Americanism. It was better to attack Communism and speak of domestic treason than it was to be specific about reversing the economic redistribution of the New Deal. In fact, Nixon’s essential response to all issues was to raise the specter of Communism: “The commies,” Nixon told the Chicago Tribune’s Seymour Korman during his harsh 1950 senatorial campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, “don’t like it when I smash into Truman for his attempted cover-up of the Hiss case ... but the more the commies yell, the surer I am that I’m waging an honest American campaign.” He was, he liked to say, the number one target of the Communists in America. In those early campaigns, he was, it seemed, a man who needed an enemy and who seemed almost to feel that he functioned best when the world was against him. Such men, almost surely, eventually do get the enemies they so desperately want. If the leaders of a nation as powerful as the United States needed, above all, personal confidence—Oliver Wendell Holmes once said of the young Franklin Roosevelt that he had a third-rate intellect but a first-rate temperament—Nixon was ill-prepared for his long journey in American politics. Emotional strength and self-confidence were missing from him. Everything with Nixon was personal. When others disagreed with him, it was as if they wanted to strip away his hard-won veneer of success and reduce him to the unhappy boy he had once been. In political terms that had bitter consequences: He would lash out at others in attacks that seemed to go far beyond the acceptable norms of partisanship; if others struck back at him, he saw himself as a victim. Just beneath the surface of this modern young politician was a man who, in Bob Taft’s phrase, seemed “to radiate tension and conflict.” He was filled with the resentments of class one would have expected in a New Deal Democrat.

It's possible to see how much the brand culture rubs off on even the most sceptical employee. Joanne Ciulla sums up the dangers of these management practices: 'First, scientific management sought to capture the body, then human relations sought to capture the heart, now consultants want tap into the soul... what they offer is therapy and spirituality lite... [which] makes you feel good, but does not address problems of power, conflict and autonomy.'¹0 The greatest success of the employer brand' concept has been to mask the declining power of workers, for whom pay inequality has increased, job security evaporated and pensions are increasingly precarious. Yet employees, seduced by a culture of approachable, friendly managers, told me they didn't need a union - they could always go and talk to their boss. At the same time, workers are encouraged to channel more of their lives through work - not just their time and energy during working hours, but their social life and their volunteering and fundraising. Work is taking on the roles once played by other institutions in our lives, and the potential for abuse is clear. A company designs ever more exacting performance targets, with the tantalising carrot of accolades and pay increases to manipulate ever more feverish commitment. The core workforce finds itself hooked into a self-reinforcing cycle of emotional dependency: the increasing demands of their jobs deprive them of the possibility of developing the relationships and interests which would enable them to break their dependency. The greater the dependency, the greater the fear of going cold turkey - through losing the job or even changing the lifestyle. 'Of all the institutions in society, why let one of the more precarious ones supply our social, spiritual and psychological needs? It doesn't make sense to put such a large portion of our lives into the unsteady hands of employers,' concludes Ciulla. Life is work, work is life for the willing slaves who hand over such large chunks of themselves to their employer in return for the paycheque. The price is heavy in the loss of privacy, the loss of autonomy over the innermost workings of one's emotions, and the compromising of authenticity. The logical conclusion, unless challenged, is capitalism at its most inhuman - the commodification of human beings.

You may find this hard to believe, Mr. Pinter," she went on defensively, "but some men enjoy my company. They consider me easy to talk to." A ghost of a smile touched his handsome face. "You're right. I do find that hard to believe." Arrogant wretch. "All the same, there are three men who might consider marrying me, and I could use your help in securing them." She hated having to ask him for that, but he was necessary to her plan. She just needed one good offer of marriage, one impressive offer that would show Gran she was capable of gaining a decent husband. Gran didn't believe she could, or she wouldn't be holding to that blasted ultimatum. If Celia could prove her wrong, Gran might allow her to choose a husband in her own good time. And if that plan didn't work, Celia would at least have a man she could marry to fulfill Gran's terms. "So you've finally decided to meet Mrs. Plumtree's demands," he said, his expression unreadable. She wasn't about to let him in on her secret plan. Oliver might have employed him, but she was sure Mr. Pinter also spied for Gran. He would run right off and tell her. "It's not as if I have a choice." Bitterness crept into her tone. "In less than two months, if I remain unmarried, my siblings will be cut off. I can't do that to them, no matter how much I resent Gran's meddling." Something that looked oddly like sympathy flickered in his gaze. "Don't you want to marry?" "Of course I want to marry. Doesn't every woman?" "You've shown little interest in it before," he said skeptically. That's because men had shown little interest in her. Oh, Gab's friends loved to stand about with her at balls and discuss the latest developments in cartridges, but they rarely asked her to dance, and if they did, it was only to consult her on rifles. She'd tried flirting, but she was terrible at it. It seemed so...false. So did men's compliments, the few that there were. It was easier to laugh them off than to figure out which ones were genuine, easier to pretend to be one of the lads. She secretly wished she could find a man she could love, who would ignore the scandals attached to he family's name and indulge her hobby of target shooting. One who could shoot as well as she, since she could never respect a man who couldn't hit what he aimed at. I'll bet Mr. Pinter knows his way around a rifle.

Now this might sound strange to you, Serafina Pekkala, but I know the man better than any wife could know him, better than a mother. He’s been my master and my study for nigh on forty years. I can’t follow him to the height of his thought any more than I can fly, but I can see where he’s a-heading even if I can’t go after him. No, it’s my belief he turned away from a rebellion against the Church not because the Church was too strong, but because it was too weak to be worth the fighting.” “So…what is he doing?” “I think he’s a-waging a higher war than that. I think he’s aiming a rebellion against the highest power of all. He’s gone a-searching for the dwelling place of the Authority Himself, and he’s a-going to destroy Him. That’s what I think. It shakes my heart to voice it, ma’am. I hardly dare think of it. But I can’t put together any other story that makes sense of what he’s doing.” Serafina sat quiet for a few moments, absorbing what Thorold had said. Before she could speak, he went on: “ ’Course, anyone setting out to do a grand thing like that would be the target of the Church’s anger. Goes without saying. It’d be the most gigantic blasphemy, that’s what they’d say. They’d have him before the Consistorial Court and sentenced to death before you could blink. I’ve never spoke of it before and I shan’t again; I’d be afraid to speak it aloud to you if you weren’t a witch and beyond the power of the Church; but that makes sense, and nothing else does. He’s a-going to find the Authority and kill Him.” “Is that possible?” said Serafina. “Lord Asriel’s life has been filled with things that were impossible. I wouldn’t like to say there was anything he couldn’t do. But on the face of it, Serafina Pekkala, yes, he’s stark mad. If angels couldn’t do it, how can a man dare to think about it?” “Angels? What are angels?” “Beings of pure spirit, the Church says. The Church teaches that some of the angels rebelled before the world was created, and got flung out of heaven and into hell. They failed, you see, that’s the point. They couldn’t do it. And they had the power of angels. Lord Asriel is just a man, with human power, no more than that. But his ambition is limitless. He dares to do what men and women don’t even dare to think. And look what he’s done already: he’s torn open the sky, he’s opened the way to another world.

What you’re saying makes no sense. At least, it doesn’t make sense to lower spatial dimensions as a weapon. In the long run, that’s the sort of attack that would kill the attacker as well as the target. Eventually, the side that initiated attack would also see their own space fall into the two-dimensional abyss they created.” Nothing but silence. After a long while, Cheng Xin called out, “Dr. Guan?” “You’re too … kind-hearted,” Guan Yifan said softly. “I don’t understand—” “There’s a way for the attacker to avoid death. Think about it.” Cheng Xin pondered and then said, “I can’t figure it out.” “I know you can’t. Because you’re too kind. It’s very simple. The attacker must first transform themselves into life forms that can survive in a low-dimensional universe. For instance, a four-dimensional species can transform itself into three-dimensional creatures, or a three-dimensional species can transform itself into two-dimensional life. After the entire civilization has entered a lower dimension, they can initiate a dimensional strike against the enemy without concern for the consequences.” Cheng Xin was silent again. “Are you reminded of anything?” Yifan asked. Cheng Xin was thinking of more than four hundred years ago, when Blue Space and Gravity had stumbled into the four-dimensional fragment. Yifan had been a member of the small expedition that conversed with the Ring. Did you build this four-dimensional fragment? You told me that you came from the sea. Did you build the sea? Are you saying that for you, or at least for your creators, this four-dimensional space is like the sea for us? More like a puddle. The sea has gone dry. Why are so many ships, or tombs, gathered in such a small space? When the sea is drying, the fish have to gather into a puddle. The puddle is also drying, and all the fish are going to disappear. Are all the fish here? The fish responsible for drying the sea are not here. We’re sorry. What you said is really hard to understand. The fish that dried out the sea went onto land before they did this. They moved from one dark forest to another dark forest. “Is it worth it to pay such a price for victory in war?” Cheng Xin asked. She could not imagine how it was possible to live in a world of one fewer dimension. In two-dimensional space, the visible world consisted of a few line segments of different lengths. Could anyone who was born in three-dimensional space willingly live in a thin sheet of paper with no thickness? Living in three dimensions must be equally confining and unimaginable for those born to a four-dimensional world. “It’s better than death,” said Yifan. While

I have come, my lovely,” Roddy said with his usual sardonic grin as he swept her a deep bow, “in answer to your urgent summons-and, I might add,-“ he continued, “before I presented myself at the Willingtons’, exactly as your message instructed.” At 5’10”, Roddy Carstairs was a slender man of athletic build with thinning brown hair and light blue eyes. In fact, his only distinguishing characteristics were his fastidiously tailored clothes, a much-envied ability to tie a neckcloth into magnificently intricate folds that never drooped, and an acid wit that accepted no boundaries when he chose a human target. “Did you hear about Kensington?” “Who?” Alex said absently, trying to think of the best means to persuade him to do what she needed done. “The new Marquess of Kensington, once known as Mr. Ian Thornton, persona non grata. Amazing, is it not, what wealth and title will do?” he continued, studying Alex’s tense face as he continued, “Two years ago we wouldn’t have let him past the front door. Six months ago word got out that he’s worth a fortune, and we started inviting him to our parties. Tonight he’s the heir to a dukedom, and we’ll be coveting invitations to his parties. We are”-Roddy grinned-“when you consider matters from this point of view, a rather sickening and fickle lot.” In spite of herself, Alexandra laughed. “Oh, Roddy,” she said, pressing a kiss on his cheek. “You always make me laugh, even when I’m in the most dreadful coil, which I am now. You could make things so very much better-if you would.” Roddy helped himself to a pinch of snuff, lifted his arrogant brows, and waited, his look both suspicious and intrigued. “I am, of course, your most obedient servant,” he drawled with a little mocking bow. Despite that claim, Alexandra knew better. While other men might be feared for their tempers or their skill with rapier and pistol, Roddy Carstairs was feared for his cutting barbs and razor tongue. And, while one could not carry a rapier or a pistol into a ball, Roddy could do his damage there unimpeded. Even sophisticated matrons lived in fear of being on the wrong side of him. Alex knew exactly how deadly he could be-and how helpful, for he had made her life a living hell when she came to London the first time. Later he had done a complete turnabout, and it had been Roddy who had forced the ton to accept her. He had done it not out of friendship or guilt; he had done it because he’d decided it would be amusing to test his power by building a reputation for a change, instead of shredding it. “There is a young woman whose name I’ll reveal in a moment,” Alex began cautiously, “to whom you could be of great service. You could, in fact, rescue her as you did me long ago, Roddy, if only you would.” “Once was enough,” he mocked. “I could hardly hold my head up for shame when I thought of my unprecedented gallantry.” “She’s incredibly beautiful,” Alex said. A mild spark of interest showed in Roddy’s eyes, but nothing stronger. While other men might be affected by feminine beauty, Roddy generally took pleasure in pointing out one’s faults for the glee of it. He enjoyed flustering women and never hesitated to do it. But when he decided to be kind he was the most loyal of friends.

gave up on the idea of creating “socialist men and women” who would work without monetary incentives. In a famous speech he criticized “equality mongering,” and thereafter not only did different jobs get paid different wages but also a bonus system was introduced. It is instructive to understand how this worked. Typically a firm under central planning had to meet an output target set under the plan, though such plans were often renegotiated and changed. From the 1930s, workers were paid bonuses if the output levels were attained. These could be quite high—for instance, as much as 37 percent of the wage for management or senior engineers. But paying such bonuses created all sorts of disincentives to technological change. For one thing, innovation, which took resources away from current production, risked the output targets not being met and the bonuses not being paid. For another, output targets were usually based on previous production levels. This created a huge incentive never to expand output, since this only meant having to produce more in the future, since future targets would be “ratcheted up.” Underachievement was always the best way to meet targets and get the bonus. The fact that bonuses were paid monthly also kept everyone focused on the present, while innovation is about making sacrifices today in order to have more tomorrow. Even when bonuses and incentives were effective in changing behavior, they often created other problems. Central planning was just not good at replacing what the great eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith called the “invisible hand” of the market. When the plan was formulated in tons of steel sheet, the sheet was made too heavy. When it was formulated in terms of area of steel sheet, the sheet was made too thin. When the plan for chandeliers was made in tons, they were so heavy, they could hardly hang from ceilings. By the 1940s, the leaders of the Soviet Union, even if not their admirers in the West, were well aware of these perverse incentives. The Soviet leaders acted as if they were due to technical problems, which could be fixed. For example, they moved away from paying bonuses based on output targets to allowing firms to set aside portions of profits to pay bonuses. But a “profit motive” was no more encouraging to innovation than one based on output targets. The system of prices used to calculate profits was almost completely unconnected to the value of new innovations or technology. Unlike in a market economy, prices in the Soviet Union were set by the government, and thus bore little relation to value. To more specifically create incentives for innovation, the Soviet Union introduced explicit innovation bonuses in 1946. As early as 1918, the principle had been recognized that an innovator should receive monetary rewards for his innovation, but the rewards set were small and unrelated to the value of the new technology. This changed only in 1956, when it was stipulated that the bonus should be proportional to the productivity of the innovation. However, since productivity was calculated in terms of economic benefits measured using the existing system of prices, this was again not much of an incentive to innovate. One could fill many pages with examples of the perverse incentives these schemes generated. For example, because the size of the innovation bonus fund was limited by the wage bill of a firm, this immediately reduced the incentive to produce or adopt any innovation that might have economized on labor.