Mock The Week Quotes

There are so many impatient people in the world. It seems everyone wants something right this second. We don't want to wait in lines, we get fidgety when our food takes too long to cook, and we have no tolerance whatsoever for anyone who holds us up from doing anything we want to do the moment we want to do it. I'm bothered right now that I'm having to wait till the end of this sentence to see what word I end up on. On, who knew? It's particularly hard to wait for things that are days or weeks or even months away. Calendars mock you, clocks pester you, and the rotation of the earth seems to slow by at least forty percent. I suppose, however, that if you were preparing to take over the world and you needed one final piece to fall into place, but that piece had to be slowly dragged over the dirt so it didn't die, that would be really hard to wait for. I'd feel sorry for whoever that happened to, but then again they were trying to take over the world and all. So please, no sympathy for Azure.

You see, there is a major downfall to living in a tourist town. You guessed it, the constant turnover of new people. You cannot really connect with anyone because no one is ever here for more than two weeks every year, if they comeback at all. The intruders never thought about what happens once they leave. ~ Stella

Roses are red, Violettes are bllue, Valentines day is consumerous crap,now don't you have ironing to do" Unlikely thing to read in a valentines day card

The tremendous leisure industry that has arisen in the last few generations has been designed to help fill free time with enjoyable experiences. Nevertheless, instead of using our physical and mental resources to experience flow, most of us spend many hours each week watching celebrated athletes playing in enormous stadiums. Instead of making music, we listen to platinum records cut by millionaire musicians. Instead of making art, we go to admire paintings that brought in the highest bids at the latest auction. We do not run risks acting on our beliefs, but occupy hours each day watching actors who pretend to have adventures, engaged in mock-meaningful action.

My father toasted me mockingly with his glass. "Then eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die." "Next week," Hades interrupted. Zeus glowered at him. "Yes, obviously, but I was using a metaphor." "No," his brother replied. "You were paraphrasing. Badly.

bottom half of the page had descended into a doodle of a tiny man giving the middle finger to a giant, angry eagle with razor-sharp talons. Beneath it, the caption: To Mock a Killing Bird. Sadly, this was the best idea I’d had in weeks.

In a few short weeks, mock-marital status had ceased to be something to aspire to, and had become a cause for scorn. At seventeen, we were becoming as embittered and as unromantic as our parents.

Are you fucking someone else?” “We haven’t spoken in weeks.” I grit my teeth. “I haven’t seen you in weeks, and this is the first thing you ask me? How about, ‘Hello, Gillian. It’s been a long time since we last spoke. How are you?’” “Hello, Gillian.” He mocks me, locking his eyes on mine. “It’s been a long time since we last spoke. How are you?” He doesn’t give me a chance to answer. “Are you fucking someone else?

Give me time,” she said mockingly. “That’s the anthem of the married man. Give me time while I make my excuses, give me time while I sort out my head. Just another week, just another decade, just till my wife understands. Be reasonable, give me time, just till my children grow up, give me time. And what do you suppose time will give to me?

No,” he mocks, “I just like to come in a few times a week to gather petals for my bubble bath.

Magnus, his silver mask pushed back into his hair, intercepted the New York vampires before they could fully depart. Alec heard Magnus pitch his voice low. Alec felt guilty for listening in, but he couldn’t just turn off his Shadowhunter instincts. “How are you, Raphael?” asked Magnus. “Annoyed,” said Raphael. “As usual.” “I’m familiar with the emotion,” said Magnus. “I experience it whenever we speak. What I meant was, I know that you and Ragnor were often in contact.” There was a beat, in which Magnus studied Raphael with an expression of concern, and Raphael regarded Magnus with obvious scorn. “Oh, you’re asking if I am prostrate with grief over the warlock that the Shadowhunters killed?” Alec opened his mouth to point out the evil Shadowhunter Sebastian Morgenstern had killed the warlock Ragnor Fell in the recent war, as he had killed Alec’s own brother. Then he remembered Raphael sitting alone and texting a number saved as RF, and never getting any texts back. Ragnor Fell. Alec felt a sudden and unexpected pang of sympathy for Raphael, recognizing his loneliness. He was at a party surrounded by hundreds of people, and there he sat texting a dead man over and over, knowing he’d never get a message back. There must have been very few people in Raphael’s life he’d ever counted as friends. “I do not like it,” said Raphael, “when Shadowhunters murder my colleagues, but it’s not as if that hasn’t happened before. It happens all the time. It’s their hobby. Thank you for asking. Of course one wishes to break down on a heart-shaped sofa and weep into one’s lace handkerchief, but I am somehow managing to hold it together. After all, I still have a warlock contact.” Magnus inclined his head with a slight smile. “Tessa Gray,” said Raphael. “Very dignified lady. Very well-read. I think you know her?” Magnus made a face at him. “It’s not being a sass-monkey that I object to. That I like. It’s the joyless attitude. One of the chief pleasures of life is mocking others, so occasionally show some glee about doing it. Have some joie de vivre.” “I’m undead,” said Raphael. “What about joie de unvivre?” Raphael eyed him coldly. Magnus gestured his own question aside, his rings and trails of leftover magic leaving a sweep of sparks in the night air, and sighed. “Tessa,” Magnus said with a long exhale. “She is a harbinger of ill news and I will be annoyed with her for dumping this problem in my lap for weeks. At least.” “What problem? Are you in trouble?” asked Raphael. “Nothing I can’t handle,” said Magnus. “Pity,” said Raphael. “I was planning to point and laugh. Well, time to go. I’d say good luck with your dead-body bad-news thing, but . . . I don’t care.” “Take care of yourself, Raphael,” said Magnus. Raphael waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder. “I always do.

Virtue, though often mocked and ridiculed, is as beautiful as wickedness is ugly. Self-denial curiously spawns joyful happiness, while selfishness and arrogance produce desperation and obsession. Being faithful to duty brings great fulfillment, while following unchecked passions eventually leads us to despise ourselves. And the greatest truth of all: There is no higher end, no more glorious life, no better aim, than to live in the fear and favor of Almighty God.

On the eleventh day, it finally stopped raining. Musashi chafed to be out in the open, but it was another week before they were able to return to work under a bright sun. The field they had so arduously carved out of the wilderness had disappeared without a trace; in its place were rocks, and a river where none had been before. The water seemed to mock them just as the villagers had. Iori, seeing no way to reclaim their loss, looked up and said, “This place is beyond hope. Let’s look for better land somewhere else.” “No,” Musashi said firmly. “With the water drained off, this would make excellent farmland. I examined the location from every angle before I chose it.” “What if we have another heavy rain?” “We’ll fix it so the water doesn’t come this way. We’ll lay a dam from here all the way to that hill over there.” ‘That’s an awful lot of work.” “You seem to forget that this is our dōjō. I’m not giving up a foot of this land until I see barley growing on it.” Musashi carried on his stubborn struggle throughout the winter, into the second month of the new year. It took several weeks of strenuous labor to dig ditches, drain the water off, pile dirt for a dike and then cover it with heavy rocks. Three weeks later everything was again washed away. “Look,” Iori said, “we’re wasting our energy on something impossible. Is that the Way of the Sword?” The question struck close to the bone, but Musashi would not give in. Only a month passed before the next disaster, a heavy snowfall followed by a quick thaw. Iori, on his return from trips to the temple for food, inevitably wore a long face, for the people there rode him mercilessly about Musashi’s failure. And finally Musashi himself began to lose heart. For two full days and on into a third, he sat silently brooding and staring at his field. Then it dawned on him suddenly. Unconsciously, he had been trying to create a neat, square field like those common in other parts of the Kanto Plain, but this was not what the terrain called for. Here, despite the general flatness, there were slight variations in the lay of the land and the quality of the soil that argued for an irregular shape. “What a fool I’ve been,” he exclaimed aloud. “I tried to make the water flow where I thought it should and force the dirt to stay where I thought it ought to be. But it didn’t work. How could it? Water’s water, dirt’s dirt. I can’t change their nature. What I’ve got to do is learn to be a servant to the water and a protector of the land.” In his own way, he had submitted to the attitude of the peasants. On that day he became nature’s manservant. He ceased trying to impose his will on nature and let nature lead the way, while at the same time seeking out possibilities beyond the grasp of other inhabitants of the plain. The snow came again, and another thaw; the muddy water oozed slowly over the plain. But Musashi had had time to work out his new approach, and his field remained intact. “The same rules must apply to governing people,” he said to himself. In his notebook, he wrote: “Do not attempt to oppose the way of the universe. But first make sure you know the way of the universe.

Thank you for asking. Of course one wishes to break down on a heart-shaped sofa and week into one's lace handkerchief, but I am somehow managing to hold it together. After all, I still have a warlock contact." Magnus inclined his head with a slight smile. "Tessa Gray," said Raphael. "Very dignified lady. Very well-read. I think you know her?" Magnus made a face at him. "It's not being a sass-monkey that I object to. That I like. It's the joyless attitude. One of the chief pleasures of life is mocking others, so occasionally show some glee about doing it. Have some joie de vivre." "I'm undead," said Raphael. "What about joie de unvivre?" Raphael eyed him coldly. Magnus gestured his own question aside, his rings and trails of leftover magic leaving a sweep of leftover magic leaving a sweep of sparks in the night air, and sighed. "Tessa," Magnus said with a long exhale. "She is a harbinger of ill news and I will be annoyed with her for dumping this problem in my lap for weeks. At least." "What problem? Are you in trouble?" asked Raphael. "Nothing I can't handle," said Magnus. "Pity," said Raphael. "I was planning to point and laugh. Well, time to go. I'd say good luck with your dead-body bad-news thing, but ... I don't care." "Take care of yourself, Raphael," said Magnus. Raphael waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder. "I always do.

After graduation I probably won’t see any of these people again.” I throw him a hurt look. “Hey! What about me?” “Not you. You’re coming to visit me in New York.” “Ooh! Yes, please.” “Sarah Lawrence is so close to the city. I’ll be able to go to Broadway shows whenever I want. There’s an app for same-day student tickets.” He gets a faraway look in his eyes. “You’re so lucky,” I say. “I’ll take you. We’ll go to a gay bar, too. It’ll be amazing.” “Thank you!” “But everybody else I can take or leave.” “We still have Beach Week,” I remind him, and he nods. “For the rest of our lives, we’ll always have Beach Week,” he says mockingly, and I throw a hair tie at him.

Do you want to know what finally changed things for me?” “What?” My voice is barely above a whisper. Dappled sunlight falls across his face, highlighting his flushed cheeks. “I met someone. She’s about five-six, golden brown hair, devastating smile. The kind that warms you from the inside out. And she made me so mad. Not two weeks after I started the job, she called to grill me about a story I posted on Facebook. She insisted I edit it because I didn’t get the wording right.” He adopts a mock falsetto voice. “ ‘It isn’t the “Panama Canal” cruise. It’s “Panama Canal and the Wonders of Azuero.” Fix it, please.’ ” My muscles go limp and my knees nearly buckle. Because he’s talking about me. “Finally, someone who wasn’t walking on eggshells. She actually snapped at me, and it was like she snapped me out of my fog. I may have been unnecessarily combative after that, just to get a rise out of her, but I started to feel again. Irritation, at first, but then more. After a while, I began getting out of the house. Seeing a therapist. Playing hockey. I adopted Winnie—best decision ever. I actually started looking forward to waking up in the morning.” Graeme steps closer, but I’m glued to the spot. Heat sizzles through my veins when he reaches up to run his knuckles along my cheek. “And staff meeting Thursdays? They became my favorite day of the week. Because I got to see her face.” My heart is hammering and my lungs seize. The sound of guests approaching rumbles closer, but I don’t look away. I swallow past the lump that’s lodged in my throat. “After this cruise, they’re my favorite day of the week too.” Reaching up, I run my fingers lightly along the hand that’s cupping my cheek. Graeme’s eyes widen and his lips part. Gathering every ounce of resolve I can muster, I step away just as Nikolai and Dwight crest a nearby hill. We continue through the highlands, fastening our platonic coworker facades into place. But an unspoken understanding hangs in the space between us, heavy and undeniable… This just went way past any bet.

Leave all the ‘wise men to mock it or tolerate.’ Let them reach the moon or the stars, they are all dead. Nothing lives outside of man. Man is the living soul, turning slowly into a life-giving Spirit. But you cannot tell it except in a parable or metaphor to excite the mind of man to get him to go out and prove it. Leave the good and evil and eat of the Tree of Life. Nothing in the world is untrue if you want it to be true. You are the truth of everything that you perceive. ‘I am the truth, and the way, the life revealed.’ If I have physically nothing in my pocket, then in Imagination I have MUCH. But that is a lie based on fact, but truth is based on the intensity of my imagination and then I will create it in my world. Should I accept facts and use them as to what I should imagine? No. It is told us in the story of the fig tree. It did not bear for three years. One said, ‘Cut it down, and throw it away.’ But the keeper of the vineyard pleaded NO’! Who is the tree? I am the tree; you are the tree. We bear or we do not. But the Keeper said he would dig around the tree and feed it ‘or manure it, as we would say today’ and see if it will not bear. Well I do that here every week and try to get the tree ‘you’ me to bear. You should bear whatever you desire. If you want to be happily married, you should be. The world is only response. If you want money, get it. Everything is a dream anyway. When you awake and know what you are creating and that you are creating it that is a different thing. The greatest book is the Bible, but it has been taken from a moral basis and it is all weeping and tears. It seems almost ruthless as given to us in the Gospel, if taken literally. The New Testament interprets the Old Testament, and it has nothing to do with morals. You change your mind and stay in that changed state until it unfolds. Man thinks he has to work himself out of something, but it is God asleep in you as a living soul, and then we are reborn as a life-giving spirit. We do it here in this little classroom called Earth or beyond the grave, for you cannot die. You can be just as asleep beyond the grave. I meet them constantly, and they are just like this. Same loves and same hates. No change. They will go through it until they finally awake, until they cease to re-act and begin to act. Do not take this story lightly which I have told you tonight. Take it to heart. Tonight when you are driving home enact a scene. No matter what it is. Forget good and evil. Enact a scene that implies you have what you desire, and to the degree that you are faithful to that state, it will unfold in your world and no power can stop it, for there is no other power. Nothing is independent of your perception of it, and this goes for that great philosopher among us who is still claiming that everything is independent of the perceiver, but that the perceiver has certain powers. It is not so. Nothing is independent of the perceiver. Everything is ‘burned up’ when I cease to behold it. It may exist for another, but not for me. Let us make our dream a noble one, for the world is infinite response to you, the being you want to be. Now let us go into the silence.

Violet couldn’t help it—she giggled. Just a little. It was just too much. The whole thing. Jay trying to trick her into revealing her feelings for him. Grady trying to kiss her last night. And then this . . . now . . . she and Jay cuddled up together on her bed . . . making out. It was crazy. “You think that’s funny, huh?” He seemed a little bent that she was laughing at him. “Joke’s on me, I guess,” she said, serious now. “I get to sit at home, while you and Lissie Adams go to Homecoming.” She tried to sound like it was no big deal, but the truth was that it strung more than she wanted it to. Jay reached up and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. He pulled her toward him, staring her in the eye as they closed the distance between them. Violet felt an agonizing thrill at just being so near him again. “I called her last night to candle after I dropped you off.” His voice was thick and husky, giving her chills. “I told her I was going to the dance with you instead.” Violet thought her heart was going to burst. It was exactly what she’d wanted to hear for weeks, maybe even for months. But she wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily for his devious little game. “Sorry,” she offered with mock sincerity. “I have a date already. Besides, I don’t remember you asking me.” He narrowed his eyes at her, as if daring her to argue the point. “I’m your date. Grady can go to hell, for all I care. Maybe Lissie’ll go with him and he can paw on her all night.

Jay showed up after school with a bouquet of flowers and an armful of DVDs, although Violet couldn’t have cared less about either . . . he was all she wanted. She couldn’t help the electric thrill of excitement she felt when he came strolling in, grinning at her foolishly as if he hadn’t seen her in weeks rather than hours. He scooped her up from the couch and dropped her onto his lap as he sat down where she had been just a moment before. He was careful to arrange her ankle on a neatly stacked pile of pillows beside him. He stubbornly refused to hide his affection for her, and if Violet hadn’t known better she would have sword that he was going out of his way to make her self-conscious in her own home. Fortunately her parents were giving them some space for the time being, and they were left by themselves most of the time. “Did you miss me?” he asked arrogantly as he gently brushed his lips over hers, not bothering to wait for an answer. She smiled while she kissed him back, loving the topsy-turvy feeling that her stomach always got when he was so close to her. She wound her arms around his neck, forgetting that she was in the middle of the family room and not hidden away in the privacy of her bedroom. He pulled away from her, suddenly serious. “You know, we didn’t get much time alone yesterday. And I didn’t get a chance to tell you . . .” Violet was mesmerized by the thick timbre of his deep voice. She barely heard his words but rather concentrated on the fluid masculinity of his tone. “I feel like I’ve waited too long to finally have you, and then yesterday . . . when . . .” He stopped, seemingly at a loss, and he tried another approach. His hand stroked her cheek, igniting a response from deep within her. “I can’t imagine living without you,” he said, tenderly kissing her forehead, his warm breath fanning her brow. He paused thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again. “I love you, Violet. More than I ever could have imagined. And I don’t want to lose you . . . I can’t lose you.” It was her turn to look arrogant as she glanced up at him. “I know,” she stated smugly, shrugging her shoulder. He shoved her playfully but held on to her tightly so that she never really went anywhere. “What do you mean, ‘I know’? What kind of response is that?” His righteous indignation bordered on comical. He pulled her down into his arms so that his face was directly above hers. “Say it!” he commanded. She shook her head, pretending not to understand him. “What? What do you want me to say?” But then she giggled and ruined her baffled façade. He teased her with his mouth, leaning down to kiss her and then pulling away before his lips ever reached hers. He nuzzled her neck tantalizingly, only to stop once she responded. She wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to pull him closer, frustrated by his mocking ambush of her senses. “Sat it,” he whispered, his breath warm against her neck. She groaned, wanting him to put her out of her misery. “I love you too,” she rasped as she clung to him. “I love you so much . . .” His mouth moved to cover hers in an exhausting kiss that left them both breathless and craving more than they could have. Violet collapsed into his arms, gathering her wits and hoping that no one walking in on them anytime soon.

instead of using our physical and mental resources to experience flow, most of us spend many hours each week watching celebrated athletes playing in enormous stadiums. Instead of making music, we listen to platinum records cut by millionaire musicians. Instead of making art, we go to admire paintings that brought in the highest bids at the latest auction. We do not run risks acting on our beliefs, but occupy hours each day watching actors who pretend to have adventures, engaged in mock-meaningful action.

I told her I was going to the dance with you instead." Violet thought her heart was going to burst. It was exactly what she'd wanted to hear for weeks, maybe even for months. But she wasn't about to let him off the hook that easily for his devious little game. "Sorry," she offered with mock sincerity. "I have a date already. Besides, I don't remember you asking me." He narrowed his eyes at her, as if daring her to argue the point. "I'm your date. Grady can go to hell, for all I care. Maybe Lissie'll go with him and he can paw on her all night." They were nose to nose, and mouth to mouth. Violet was intrigued by this side of him...the confident, no-nonsense side, refusing to take no for an answer. She leaned forward and sighed as her lips barely brushed against his. "Fine," she exhaled in sham defeat. "I'll go to the dance with you...on one condition." His lips moved into a smile right against hers. "Anything." She gazed into his eyes as she licked her lips, purposely touching his lower lip with her tongue. That simple contact released a million nervous butterflies within the pit of her stomach. "Tell me what you and my dad were talking about.

How long were you standing there?" "Long enough to know you will be leaving soon. I thought I should speak to you. I didn't think you would come to tell me. Would you have?" "No. I wouldn't have expected you to care. You followed me?" "Like a lovesick swain. Wherever you go, there am I. Haven't you noticed these past weeks?" "I have seen you drinking and mocking with your jaded friends and your latest paramour on your arms. Or is it still Castlemaine? Have you no self-respect?" "No. None." He shrugged. "Love is war, and feigned disinterest my armor. You wear yours too, love. It is sad I know.

before he went back to helping the boy. Missing from the Warrior tent were Kalona and Aurox. For obvious reasons, Thanatos had decided the Tulsa community wasn’t ready to meet either of them. I agreed with her. I wasn’t ready for … I mentally shook myself. No, I wasn’t going to think about the Aurox/Heath situation now. Instead I turned my attention to the second of the big tents. Lenobia was there, keeping a sharp eye on the people who clustered like buzzing bees around Mujaji and the big Percheron mare, Bonnie. Travis was with her. Travis was always with her, which made my heart feel good. It was awesome to see Lenobia in love. The Horse Mistress was like a bright, shining beacon of joy, and with all the Darkness I’d seen lately, that was rain in my desert. “Oh, for shit’s sake, where did I put my wine? Has anyone seen my Queenies cup? As the bumpkin reminded me, my parents are here somewhere, and I’m going to need fortification by the time they circle around and find me.” Aphrodite was muttering and pawing through the boxes of unsold cookies, searching for the big purple plastic cup I’d seen her drinking from earlier. “You have wine in that Queenies to go cup?” Stevie Rae was shaking her head at Aphrodite. “And you’ve been drinkin’ it through a straw?” Shaunee joined Stevie Rae in a head shake. “Isn’t that nasty?” “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Aphrodite quipped. “There are too many nuns lurking around to drink openly without hearing a boring lecture.” Aphrodite cut her eyes to the right of us where Street Cats had set up a half-moon display of cages filled with adoptable cats and bins of catnip-filled toys for sale. The Street Cats had their own miniature version of the silver and white tents, and I could see Damien sitting inside busily handling the cash register, but except for him, running every aspect of the feline area were the habit-wearing Benedictine nuns who had made Street Cats their own. One of the nuns looked my way and I waved and grinned at the Abbess. Sister Mary Angela waved back before returning to the conversation she was having with a family who were obviously falling in love with a cute white cat that looked like a giant cottonball. “Aphrodite, the nuns are cool,” I reminded her. “And they look too busy to pay any attention to you,” Stevie Rae said. “Imagine that—you may not be the center of everyone’s attention,” Shaylin said with mock surprise. Stevie Rae covered her giggle with a cough. Before Aphrodite could say something hateful, Grandma limped up to us. Other than the limp and being pale, Grandma looked healthy and happy. It had only been a little over a week since Neferet had kidnapped and tried to kill her, but she’d recovered with amazing quickness. Thanatos had told us that was because she was in unusually good shape for a woman of her age. I knew it was because of something else—something we both shared—a special bond with a goddess who believed in giving her children free choice, along with gifting them with special abilities. Grandma was beloved of the Great Mother,

A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another. The child I once was read constantly and hardly spoke, because she was ambivalent about the merits of communication, about the risks of being mocked or punished or exposed. The idea of being understood and encouraged, of recognizing herself in another, of affirmation, had hardly occurred to her and neither had the idea that she had something to give others. So she read, taking in words in huge quantities, a children’s and then an adult’s novel a day for many years, seven books a week or so, gorging on books, fasting on speech, carrying piles of books home from the library.

I don’t fight old men,” he said. That was strange. No one had ever called me old before. I remember laughing, but there was shock behind my laughter. Weeks before, talking with Æthelflaed, I had mocked her because she was staring at her face in a great silver platter. She was worried because she had lines about her eyes and she had responded to my mockery by thrusting the plate at me, and I had looked at my reflection and seen that my beard was gray. I remember staring at it as she laughed at me, and I did not feel old even though my wounded leg could be treacherously stiff. Was that how people saw me? As an old man? Yet I was forty-five years old that year, so yes, I was an old man.

I got up to get another glass of water when Zac asked from his spot still at the stove, breaking up the two pounds of ground beef he’d added to the vegetables. “Vanny, were you gonna want me to help you with your draft list again this year?” I groaned. “I forgot. My brother just messaged me about it. I can’t let him win again this year, Zac. I can’t put up with his crap.” He raised his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I got you. Don’t worry about it.” “Thank—what?” Aiden had his glass halfway to his mouth and was frowning. “You play fantasy football?” he asked, referring to the online role-playing game that millions of people participated in. Participants got to build imaginary teams during a mock draft, made up of players throughout the league. I’d been wrangled into playing against my brother and some of our mutual friends about three years ago and had joined in ever since. Back then, I had no idea what the hell a cornerback was, much less a bye week, but I’d learned a lot since then. I nodded slowly at him, feeling like I’d done something wrong. The big guy’s brow furrowed. “Who was on your team last year?” I named the players I could remember, wondering where this was going and not having a good feeling about it. “What was your defensive team?” There it went. I slipped my hands under the counter and averted my eyes to the man at the stove, cursing him silently. “So you see…” The noise Zac tried to muffle was the most obvious snicker in the world. Asshole. “Was I not on your team?” I gulped. “So you see—” “Dallas wasn’t your team?” he accused me, sounding… well, I didn’t know if it was hurt or outraged, but it was definitely something. “Ahh…” I slid a look at the traitor who was by that point trying to muffle his laugh. “Zac helped me with it.” It was the thump that said Zac’s knees hit the floor. “Look, it isn’t that I didn’t choose you specifically. I would choose you if I could, but Zac said Minnesota—” “Minne-sota.” Jesus, he’d broken the state in two. The big guy, honest to God, shook his head. His eyes went from me to Zac in… yep, that was outrage. Aiden held out his hand, wiggling those incredibly long fingers. “Let me see it.” “See what?” “Your roster from last year.” I sighed and pulled my phone out of the fanny pack I still had around my waist, unlocking the screen and opening the app. Handing it over, I watched his face as he looked through my roster and felt guilty as hell. I’d been planning on choosing Dallas just because Aiden was on the team, but I really had let Zac steer me elsewhere. Apparently, just because you had the best defensive end in the country on your team, didn’t mean everyone else held up their end of the bargain. Plus, he’d missed almost the entire season. He didn’t have to take it so personally.

He laughs and launches into a tale about the first time he ever can across one of my mother’s paintings. It was an alumni display at the Lalverton Conservatory, and it was the most gorgeous, haunting thing he’d ever seen. “I had nightmares about it for weeks,” he concludes, shaking his head. I snort. “Oh, me too.” “You did?” “The shadowy, possessed ballerinas in the branches? I couldn’t walk anywhere near a tree for at least a month.” He looked at me, his eyebrows raised almost like he’s surprised, and then he lets out a laugh, deep and low. “Let’s get one thing straight about this portrait you’re doing for me,” he says, holding up a warning finger. “No ballerinas.” “Oh come on. Not even a little one?” I just put my lower lip in a mock plea.

He made a gesture I can't describe: 'Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality--there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand? Here is the truth --actual heroism receives no queues up to see it. No one is interested.' He paused again and smiled in a way that was not one bit self-mocking. True heroism is you, alone, in a designated work space. True heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care--with no one there to see or cheer. This is the world. Just you and the job, at your desk. You and the return, you and the cash-flow data, you and the inventory protocol, you and the depreciation schedules, you and the numbers.' His tone was wholly matter-of-fact.

She had several books she'd been wanting to read, but instead she sprawled out on the couch surrounded by pillows and blankets, and spent the hours flipping channels between Judge Judy, The People's Court, Maury, and Jerry Springer, and rounded out her afternoon with Dr. Phil and Oprah. All in all, it was a complete waste of a day. At least until school got out. Jay showed up after school with a bouquet of flowers and an armful of DVDs, although Violet couldn't have card less about either...he was all she wanted. She couldn't help the electric thrill of excitement she felt when he came strolling in, grinning at her foolishly as if he hadn't seen her in weeks rather than hours. He scooped her up from the couch and dropped her onto his lap as he sat down where she had been just a moment before. He was careful to arrange her ankle on a neatly stacked pile of pillows beside him. He stubbornly refused to hide his affection for her, and if Violet hadn't known better she would have sworn that he was going out of his way to make her self-conscious in her own home. Fortunately her parents were giving them some space for the time being, and they were left by themselves most of the time. "Did you miss me?" he asked arrogantly as he gently brushed his lips over hers, not bothering to wait for an answer. She smiled while she kissed him back, loving the topsy-turvy feeling that her stomach always got when he was so close to her. She wound her arms around his neck, forgetting that she was in the middle of the family room and not hidden away in the privacy of her bedroom. He pulled away from her, suddenly serious. "You know, we didn't get much time alone yesterday. And I didn't get a chance to tell you..." Violet was mesmerized by the thick timbre of his deep voice. She barely heard his words but rather concentrated on the fluid masculinity of his tone. "I feel like I've waited too long to finally have you, and then yesterday...when..." He stopped, seemingly at a loss, and then he tried another approach. His hand stroked her cheek, igniting a response from deep within her. "I can't imagine living without you," he said, tenderly kissing her forehead, his warm breath fanning her brow. He paused thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again. "I love you, Violet. More than I ever could have imagined. And I don't want to lose you...I can't lose you." It was her turn to look arrogant as she glanced up at him. "I know," she stated smugly, shrugging her shoulder. He shoved her playfully but held on to her tightly so that she never really went anywhere. "What do you mean, 'I know'? What kind of response is that?" His righteous indignation bordered on comical. He pulled her down into his arms so that his face was directly above hers. "Say it!" he commanded. She shook her head, pretending not to understand him. "What? What do you want me to say?" But then she giggled and ruined her baffled façade. He teased her with his mouth, leaning down to kiss her and then pulling away before his lips ever reached hers. He nuzzled her neck tantalizingly, only to stop once she responded. She wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to pull him closer, frustrated by his mocking ambush of her senses. "Say it," he whispered, his breath warm against her neck. She groaned, wanting him to put her out of her misery. "I love you too," she rasped as she clung to him. "I love you so much..." His mouth moved to cover hers in an exhausting kiss that left them broth breathless and craving more than they could have. Violet collapsed into his arms, gathering her wits and hoping that no one walked in on them anytime soon.

The former South African archbishop Desmond Tutu used to famously say, “We are prisoners of hope.” Such a statement might be taken as merely rhetorical or even eccentric if you hadn’t seen Bishop Tutu stare down the notorious South African Security Police when they broke into the Cathedral of St. George’s during his sermon at an ecumenical service. I was there and have preached about the dramatic story of his response more times than I can count. The incident taught me more about the power of hope than any other moment of my life. Desmond Tutu stopped preaching and just looked at the intruders as they lined the walls of his cathedral, wielding writing pads and tape recorders to record whatever he said and thereby threatening him with consequences for any bold prophetic utterances. They had already arrested Tutu and other church leaders just a few weeks before and kept them in jail for several days to make both a statement and a point: Religious leaders who take on leadership roles in the struggle against apartheid will be treated like any other opponents of the Pretoria regime. After meeting their eyes with his in a steely gaze, the church leader acknowledged their power (“You are powerful, very powerful”) but reminded them that he served a higher power greater than their political authority (“But I serve a God who cannot be mocked!”). Then, in the most extraordinary challenge to political tyranny I have ever witnessed, Archbishop Desmond Tutu told the representatives of South African apartheid, “Since you have already lost, I invite you today to come and join the winning side!” He said it with a smile on his face and enticing warmth in his invitation, but with a clarity and a boldness that took everyone’s breath away. The congregation’s response was electric. The crowd was literally transformed by the bishop’s challenge to power. From a cowering fear of the heavily armed security forces that surrounded the cathedral and greatly outnumbered the band of worshipers, we literally leaped to our feet, shouted the praises of God and began…dancing. (What is it about dancing that enacts and embodies the spirit of hope?) We danced out of the cathedral to meet the awaiting police and military forces of apartheid who hardly expected a confrontation with dancing worshipers. Not knowing what else to do, they backed up to provide the space for the people of faith to dance for freedom in the streets of South Africa.

Life became harsh for Marius. To eat his coats and watch was nothing. He chewed the inexpressible cud of bitterness–a horrible thing, which includes days without bread, sleepless nights, evenings without a candle, a hearth without a fire, weeks without labor, a future without hope, a coat out at the elbows, an old hat that makes young girls laugh, the door found shut in your face at night because you have not paid your rent, the insolence of the porter and the landlord, the jibes of neighbors, humiliations, outraged self-respect, any drudgery acceptable, disgust, bitterness, prostration–Marius learned how one swallows all these things and how they are often the only things one has to swallow. At that time of life, when man has need of pride, because he has need of love, he felt mocked because he was badly dressed and ridiculed because he was poor. At the age when youth swells the heart with an imperial pride, he more than once dropped his eyes to his worn out boots, and experienced the undeserved shame and poignant blushes of poverty. Wonderful and terrible trial, from which the feeble come out infamous, from which the strong come out sublime. Crucible into which destiny casts a man whenever she desires a scoundrel or a demigod.

Camille heard the rustle of grass. She opened one eye and saw Oscar settling down beside her. “We can spare a few minutes,” he said. She sat up and cradled her knees in her arms. He plucked a blade of grass and commenced peeling it down the center. They heard the Australian snoring from his spot a few yards away, completely hidden in a blanket of green. “I guess we can spare more than a few minutes.” Oscar smiled and met her gaze, holding it a moment. She suddenly realized how horrible she must look-her hair, her clothes, her skin. “Do you miss him?” he asked, not seeming to notice any of those things. Camille uprooted a purple flower and a white daisy near it. “Of course I do. But I’m hoping with the stone I won’t have to very long.” “Not your father, Camille. Randall.” She took a deep breath, shocked she hadn’t thought of her fiancé for so long. How many days had it been? A full week, maybe more. “Oh. Well…I suppose I do.” Oscar raised an eyebrow and laughed at her clear lack of conviction. Camille shrugged. “What? A lot has happened and right now getting back to San Francisco isn’t something I’m concerned about.” Oscar nodded and chewed on the tip of his blade of grass. “It’s not that Randall isn’t a perfectly good man,” she said, fiddling with the flowers in her hands. The roots crumbled dirt onto her lap. “He’s kind and caring and handsome and an excellent businessman.” Oscar continued to nod. “And he’ll make a fine husband, I’m sure,” she added, knowing he really was all those things. If only all of them combined could make up for what she didn’t feel while with him. “I’m sure,” Oscar repeated. Had he been mocking her? She thought she had caught a trace of sarcasm. All this talk about Randall had her itching. “Why do you ask?” “Just wondered if you missed home,” Oscar answered and threw the mangled blade of grass behind him. “Do you?” she asked, ashamed to her Oscar know how little she desired to return. He thought for a moment, tugging up another switch of grass and rolling it between his fingers. “No,” he answered with stark certainty. “I have everything I’d miss right here.” Every inch of Camille’s body smoldered under Oscar’s gentle, and so very forward, gaze. He’d miss her. She looked into his gray-blue eyes, rimmed by thick, honey-colored lashes-had they always been so full? The bridge of his nose crooked to the left slightly, perhaps broken in a fight after he’d moved from her father’s carriage house to a small apartment along the San Francisco harbor front. She’d never noticed the charming imperfection before. She watched as his eyes traveled over her own features, touching on the wound by her temple and settling on the heart-shaped fullness of her lips. Oscar held his piercing stare. “We probably won’t arrive home in time for your wedding.

Lady Rose, you grow lovelier every time I see you.” Had it been a stranger who spoke she might have been flustered, but since it was Archer, Grey’s younger brother, she merely grinned in response and offered her hand. “And your eyesight grows poorer every time you see me, sir.” He bowed over her fingers. “If I am blind it is only by your beauty.” She laughed at that, enjoying the good-natured sparkle in his bright blue eyes. He was so much more easy-natured than Grey, so much more full of life and flirtation. And yet, the family resemblance could not be denied even if Archer’s features were a little thinner, a little sharper. How would Grey feel if she found a replacement for him in his own brother? It was too low, even in jest. “Careful with your flattery, sir,” she warned teasingly. “I am trolling for a husband you know.” Archer’s dark brows shot up in mock horror. “Never say!” Then he leaned closer to whisper. “Is my brother actually fool enough to let you get away?” Rose’s heart lurched at the note of seriousness in his voice. When she raised her gaze to his she saw only concern and genuine affection there. “He’s packing my bags as we speak.” He laughed then, a deep, rich sound that drew the attention of everyone on the terrace, including his older brother. “Will you by chance be at the Devane musicale next week, Lord Archer?” “I will,” he remarked, suddenly sober. “As much as it pains me to enter that viper’s pit. I’m accompanying Mama and Bronte. Since there’s never been any proof of what she did to Grey, Mama refuses to cut the woman. She’s better than that.” Archer’s use of the word “cut” might have been ironic, but what a relief knowing he would be there. “Would you care to accompany Mama and myself as well?” He regarded her with a sly smile. “My dear, Lady Rose. Do you plan to use me to make my brother jealous?” “Of course not!” And she was honest to a point. “I wish to use your knowledge of eligible beaux and have you buoy my spirits. If that happens to annoy your brother, then so much the better.” He laughed again. This time Grey scowled at the pair of them. Rose smiled and waved. Archer tucked her hand around his arm and guided her toward the chairs where the others sat enjoying the day, the table before them laden with sandwiches, cakes, scones, and all kinds of preserves, cream, and biscuits. A large pot of tea sat in the center. “What are you grinning at?” Grey demanded as they approached. Archer gave his brother an easy smile, not the least bit intimidated. “Lady Rose has just accepted my invitation for both she and her dear mama to accompany us to the Devane musicale next week.” Grey stiffened. It was the slightest movement, like a blade of grass fighting the breeze, but Rose noticed. She’d wager Archer did too. “How nice,” he replied civilly, but Rose mentally winced at the coolness of his tone. He turned to his mother. “I’m parched. Mama, will you pour?” And he didn’t look at her again.

If administration actions are not to mock its own rhetoric, the President must now take the lead in mobilizing public opinion behind a new resolve to meet the crisis in our cities. He should now put before Congress a National Emergency Public Works and Reconstruction bill aimed at building housing for homeless victims of the riot-torn ghettos, repairing damaged public facilities, and in the process generating maximum employment opportunities for unskilled and semiskilled workers. Such a bill should be the first step in the imperative reconstruction of all our decaying center cities. Admittedly, the prospects for passage of such a bill in the present Congress are dismal. Congressmen will cry out that the rioters must not be re-warded, thereby further penalizing the very victims of the riots. This, after all, is a Congress capable of defeating a meager $40 million rat extermination program the same week it votes $10 million for an aquarium in the District of Columbia! But the vindictive racial meanness that has descended upon this Congress, already dominated by the revived coalition of Republicans and Dixiecrats, must be challenged—not accommodated. The President must go directly to the people, as Harry Truman did in 1948. He must go to them, not with slogans, but with a timetable for tearing down every slum in the country. There can be no further delay. The daydreamers and utopians are not those of us who have prepared massive Freedom Budgets and similar programs. They are the smugly "practical" and myopic philistines in the Congress, the state legislatures, and the city halls who thought they could sit it out. The very practical choice now before them and the American people is whether we shall have a conscious and authentic democratic social revolution or more tragic and futile riots that tear our nation to shreds.

Then the girl gestured to her scarred face and said, “She did this to me.” It was an effort to keep seated, to keep from leaping down the stairs to slit Lysandra’s throat. But Evangeline went on, “I cried when my mother sold me to Clarisse. Cried and cried. And I think Lysandra had annoyed the mistress that day, because they gave me to her as an acolyte, even though she was weeks away from paying her debts. That night, I was supposed to begin training, and I cried so hard I made myself sick. But Lysandra—she cleaned me up. She told me that there was a way out, but it would hurt, and I would not be the same. I couldn’t run, because she had tried running a few times when she was my age, and they had found her and beat her where no one could see.” She had never known—never wondered. All those times she had sneered at and mocked Lysandra while they’d grown up … Evangeline continued, “I said I’d do anything to get out of what the other girls had told me about. So she told me to trust her—and then gave me these. She started shouting loud enough for the others to come running. They thought she cut me out of anger, and said she’d done it to keep me from being a threat. And she let them believe it. Clarisse was so mad that she beat Lysandra in the courtyard, but Lysandra didn’t cry—not once. And when the healer said my face couldn’t be fixed, Clarisse made Lysandra buy me for the amount I would have cost if I had been a full courtesan, like her.” Aelin had no words. Evangeline said, “That’s why she’s still working for Clarisse, why she’s still not free and won’t be for a while. I thought you should know.” Aelin wanted to tell herself not to trust the girl, that this could be part of Lysandra and Arobynn’s plan, but … but there was a voice in her head, in her bones, that whispered to her, over and over and over, each time clearer and louder: Nehemia would have done the same.

IN BERLIN, JOSEPH GOEBBELS contemplated the motivation behind Churchill’s broadcast, and its potential effect. He kept careful watch on the evolving relationship between America and Britain, weighing how his propagandists might best influence the outcome. “The battle over intervention or non-intervention continues to rage in the USA,” he wrote in his diary on Monday, April 28, the day after the broadcast. The outcome was hard to predict. “We are active to the best of our ability, but we can scarcely make ourselves heard against the deafening Jew-chorus. In London they are placing all their last hopes in the USA. If something does not happen soon, then London is faced with annihilation.” Goebbels sensed mounting anxiety. “Their great fear is of a knock-out blow during the next weeks and months. We shall do our best to justify these fears.” He instructed his operatives on how best to use Churchill’s own broadcast to discredit him. They were to mock him for saying that after he visited bombed areas, he came back to London “not merely reassured but even refreshed.” In particular, they were to seize on how Churchill had described the forces he had transferred from Egypt to Greece to confront the German invasion. Churchill had said: “It happened that the divisions available and best suited to this task were from New Zealand and Australia, and that only about half the troops who took part in this dangerous expedition came from the Mother Country.” Goebbels leapt on this with glee. “Indeed, it so happened! It invariably ‘so happens’ that the British are in the rear; it always so happens that they are in retreat. It so happened that the British had no share in the casualties. It so happened that the greatest sacrifices during the offensive in the West were made by the French, the Belgians and the Dutch. It so happened that the Norwegians had to provide cover for the British flooding back from Norway.

The tremendous leisure industry that has arisen in the last few generations has been designed to help fill free time with enjoyable experiences. Nevertheless, instead of using our physical and mental resources to experience flow, most of us spend many hours each week watching celebrated athletes playing in enormous stadiums. Instead of making music, we listen to platinum records cut by millionaire musicians. Instead of making art, we go to admire paintings that brought in the highest bids at the latest auction. We do not run risks acting on our beliefs, but occupy hours each day watching actors who pretend to have adventures, engaged in mock-meaningful action. This vicarious participation is able to mask, at least temporarily, the underlying emptiness of wasted time. But it is a very pale substitute for attention invested in real challenges. The flow experience that results from the use of skills leads to growth; passive entertainment leads nowhere. Collectively we are wasting each year the equivalent of millions of years of human consciousness. The energy that could be used to focus on complex goals, to provide for enjoyable growth, is squandered on patterns of stimulation that only mimic reality. Mass leisure, mass culture, and even high culture when only attended to passively and for extrinsic reasons—such as the wish to flaunt one’s status—are parasites of the mind. They absorb psychic energy without providing substantive strength in return. They leave us more exhausted, more disheartened than we were before. Unless a person takes charge of them, both work and free time are likely to be disappointing. Most jobs and many leisure activities—especially those involving the passive consumption of mass media—are not designed to make us happy and strong. Their purpose is to make money for someone else. If we allow them to, they can suck out the marrow of our lives, leaving only feeble husks. But like everything else, work and leisure can be appropriated for our needs. People who learn to enjoy their work, who do not waste their free time, end up feeling that their lives as a whole have become much more worthwhile. “The future,” wrote C. K. Brightbill, “will belong not only to the educated man, but to the man who is educated to use his leisure wisely.

The first signal of the change in her behavior was Prince Andrew’s stag night when the Princess of Wales and Sarah Ferguson dressed as policewomen in a vain attempt to gatecrash his party. Instead they drank champagne and orange juice at Annabel’s night club before returning to Buckingham Palace where they stopped Andrew’s car at the entrance as he returned home. Technically the impersonation of police officers is a criminal offence, a point not neglected by several censorious Members of Parliament. For a time this boisterous mood reigned supreme within the royal family. When the Duke and Duchess hosted a party at Windsor Castle as a thank you for everyone who had helped organize their wedding, it was Fergie who encouraged everyone to jump, fully clothed, into the swimming pool. There were numerous noisy dinner parties and a disco in the Waterloo Room at Windsor Castle at Christmas. Fergie even encouraged Diana to join her in an impromptu version of the can-can. This was but a rehearsal for their first public performance when the girls, accompanied by their husbands, flew to Klosters for a week-long skiing holiday. On the first day they lined up in front of the cameras for the traditional photo-call. For sheer absurdity this annual spectacle takes some beating as ninety assorted photographers laden with ladders and equipment scramble through the snow for positions. Diana and Sarah took this silliness at face value, staging a cabaret on ice as they indulged in a mock conflict, pushing and shoving each other until Prince Charles announced censoriously: “Come on, come on!” Until then Diana’s skittish sense of humour had only been seen in flashes, invariably clouded by a mask of blushes and wan silences. So it was a surprised group of photographers who chanced across the Princess in a Klosters café that same afternoon. She pointed to the outsize medal on her jacket, joking: “I have awarded it to myself for services to my country because no-one else will.” It was an aside which spoke volumes about her underlying self-doubt. The mood of frivolity continued with pillow fights in their chalet at Wolfgang although it would be wrong to characterize the mood on that holiday as a glorified schoolgirls’ outing. As one royal guest commented: “It was good fun within reason. You have to mind your p’s and q’s when royalty, particularly Prince Charles, is present. It is quite formal and can be rather a strain.

I stopped struggling, going limp in his arms. He reached around us and shoved the door closed, spinning around and facing us toward the kitchen. “I was trying to make you breakfast.” It took a moment for his words and their meaning to sink in. I stared dumbfounded across the room and past the island. There was smoke billowing up from the stove and the window above the sink was wide open. Bowls and spoons littered the island and there was a carton of eggs sitting out. He was trying to cook. He was really bad at it. I started to laugh. The kind of laugh that shook my shoulders and bubbled up hysterically. My heart rate was still out of control, and I took in a few breaths between laughs to try and calm it down. He said something, but I couldn’t hear him because the fire alarm was still going off. I had no doubt half the neighborhood was now awake from the sound. He didn’t bother to put me down, instead hauling me along with him, where he finally set me down, dragged a chair over near the alarm, and climbed up to remove the battery. The noise cut off and the kitchen fell silent. “Well, shit,” he said, staring at the battery in his hand. A giggle escaped me. “Does this always happen when you cook?” He shrugged. “The only time I ever cook is when it’s my turn at the station.” His forehead creased and a thoughtful look came over his face. “The guys are never around when it’s my night to cook. Now I know why.” He snagged a towel off the counter and began waving away the rest of the lingering smoke. I clicked on the vent fan above the stove. There was a pan with half a melted spatula, something that may or may not have once been eggs, and a muffin tin with half-burned, half-raw muffins (how was that even possible?). “Well, this looks…” My words faltered, trying to come up with something positive to say. “Completely inedible?” he finished. I grinned. “You did all this for me?” “I figured after a week of hospital food, you might like something good. Apparently you aren’t going to find that here.” I had the urge to hug him. I kept my feet planted where they were. “Thank you. No one’s ever ruined a pan for me before.” He grinned. “I have cereal. Even I can’t mess that up.” I watched as he pulled down a bowl and poured me some, adding milk. He looked so cute when he handed me the bowl that I lifted the spoon and took a bite. “Best cereal I ever had.” “Damn straight.” I carried it over to the counter and sat down. “After we eat, would you mind taking me to my car? I hope it’s still drivable.” “What about the keys?” “I have a security deposit box at the bank. I keep my spare there in case I ever need them.” “Pretty smart.” “I have a few good ideas now and then.” “Contrary to the way it looks, I do too.” “Thank you for trying to make me breakfast. And for the cereal.” He walked over to the stove and picked up the ruined pan. “You died with honor,” he said, giving it a mock salute. And then he threw the entire thing into the trashcan. I laughed. “You could have washed it, you know.” He made a face. “No. Then I might be tempted to use it again.

I hate like hell to go, especially with things still so up in the air between us.” Liv was watching him from the bed. “Nothing’s up in the air. You’re determined to keep me and I’m determined to go.” His face darkened. “You’re not so damn determined when I have you in the bathing pool.” Liv felt a heated blush creep into her cheeks but she refused to back down. “Be that as it may, what I say or do in the, uh, in the heat of passion doesn’t change how I feel.” A look that was almost despair crossed over his chiseled features. “Damn it, Olivia, can’t you admit to yourself that you feel for me what I feel for you? Can’t you just try to imagine having a life here with me on the ship?” “I could…if I didn’t already have a life waiting for me back on Earth.” She sighed. “Look, let’s not fight about this right now. You have to go, fine. I’ll manage okay on my own here.” To be honest she was looking forward to a reprieve from the constant lust she felt while being cooped up with him in close quarters. He frowned. “I shouldn’t be leavin’ you alone during our claiming period. If I hadn’t had a direct order from my CO—” “It’s okay, really. I’ll find something to keep me occupied. I’ll try the translator and read one of your books. And I can work the wave well enough to make my own lunch without burning a finger off now.” “All right, fine.” He looked slightly mollified. “But whatever you do, stay in the suite. Don’t leave for any reason.” “Yes, sir!” She gave him a mocking salute. “To hear is to obey, oh my lord and master.” “Lilenta…” He sighed. “This is for your safety. I’m not trying to order you around for the hell of it.” “No, you just want to make my decisions for me. Stay here, don’t go there. Live the rest of your life on the ship instead of ever seeing your loved ones on Earth again. Why should this be any different?” Liv knew an edge of bitterness had crept into her voice but she couldn’t seem to help it. Baird scowled. “In time you’ll see that this is best. The only way I can protect you is to keep you close to me.” “Funny how much being protected feels like being owned.” “I thought you didn’t want to fight.” “You started it.” Liv knew it sounded childish but she didn’t care. He ran a hand through his hair. “Damn it, Olivia…” Then he shook his head, as though sensing the futility of any argument. He pointed a finger at her instead. “I’m going but I’ll be back tonight in time for the start of our tasting week.” “You…I’m surprised you want to…to do anything at all.” Liv worked hard to keep the tremble out of her voice but didn’t quite succeed. He raised an eyebrow. “You mean with you trying to pick a fight at every opportunity and generally resisting me every step of the way? I have news for you, Lilenta, none of that affects the way I feel for you—the way I need you—one bit.” He walked over to the bed where she was sitting on the edge and pulled her to her feet. “I still want you more than any other woman I’ve ever seen. Still need to be inside you, bonding you to me, making you mine,” he growled softly, pulling her close. “Baird, stop it!” She wanted to beat against his broad chest in protest but she somehow found herself melting against him instead. “Don’t you want to give me a kiss goodbye?” There was a flicker of bitter amusement in his golden eyes. “No, I guess you don’t. Too bad.” Leaning down, he took her lips in a rough yet tender kiss that took Liv’s breath away.

RICHARD SHERMAN The Legion of Boom’s fearless leader also considers himself a master satirist, especially after using his weekly media face time to perform a skit. He mocked the NFL for being an organization run by hypocrites who fined Marshawn Lynch for not talking to the media. Roger Goodell & Co. are hypocrites on any number of levels. Sherman fits right in. He is well-paid, has loaded up on endorsements and has a Super Bowl ring. All this good fortune is a result of him being associated with the NFL. It has absolutely nothing to do with his satirical skills.

Priorities—there are a handful of rules, some of which don’t change much like the core values of the firm and the long-term Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) and others that change every quarter and every week, what I call the Top 5 and Top 1 of 5. It’s the balance of short term and long term. 2. Data—in order to know if you’re acting consistent to your priorities you need feedback in terms of real time data. There are key metrics within the business that you want to measure over an extended period of time, called Smart Numbers; and there are metrics that provide a short-term laser focus on an aspect of the business or someone’s job called a Critical Number. It’s the balance of short term and long term. 3. Rhythm—until your people are “mocking” you, you’ve not repeated your message enough. A well-organized set of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual meetings keep everyone aligned and accountable. And the agendas for each provide the necessary balance between the short term and long term.

If we look at society today, if we look at the challenge of a country becoming more godless by the week, if we look at laws being passed that mock any form of morality — ​instead of lamenting and protesting, wouldn’t it be better for us to plead with God to visit his people?

THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST “Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons” (Mark 16:9). I would never have orchestrated the Resurrection the way the Lord chose to do it. After escaping the tomb I would have appeared to Herod or Pilate and gloated about how impotent were their soldiers, seal, and stone to prevent me from rising. I would have dared Herod to fetch the purple robe and crown of thorns if he had the audacity to mock me again. Or at least I would have appeared to the high priest and leaders who condemned me and made them squirm and shake in their sandals. I would have watched the blood drain from their faces as they pondered the terrible truth that they had condemned and executed their long-awaited Messiah. If I were producing the Resurrection, I would at least have Jesus initially appear to the disciples or perhaps to His mother, Mary. But Jesus chose to pass by all these logical options; -185- He first revealed Himself to a social outcast. Jesus deliberately waited until Peter, John, and even His own mother had left the garden area to bestow on a formerly demon-possessed prostitute, saved by grace, the highest honor ever to be granted any mortal. Why? Why is it that the first words spoken by Jesus after His resurrection were to Mary, and yet this is the last time she appears in the Sacred Record? To highlight and underscore the truth that He came to seek and save the lost. To remind us that if He can transform, save, and commission a meek and weak girl named Mary—well, then, there is hope for each one of us.

Several years after she obtained the patent for her game, and finding it difficult to support herself on the $10 a week she was earning as a stenographer, Magie staged an audacious stunt mocking marriage as the only option for women; it made national headlines. Purchasing an advertisement, she offered herself for sale as a “young woman American slave” to the highest bidder. Her ad said that she was “not beautiful, but very attractive,” and that she had “features full of character and strength, yet truly feminine.

Don’t give him space,” he growled. “What?” “Don’t give him space,” he repeated the words I had heard clearly the first time. “Ian.” “Nerissa,” he mocked my tone as he always did. “I really think I should.” “And I really think you shouldn’t.” “What is another week?” “It’s another week for him to talk himself out of being happy! Hug him, kiss him, and back his ass into a corner until he gives in. I love my brother and he needs to stop being so stubborn. You already have the girls won over! You just need him.

Really, Gareth, His Grace was not unkind to me. He gave me a huge amount of money —" "I don't care what he gave you, you traveled three thousand miles to get here, and what does he damn well do? Pays you off like some — some creditor or something!  You, who ought to be treated as a member of our family, not a piece of unwanted baggage!  I cannot forgive him, Juliet. Do not ask it of me!" "I'm not asking it of you, but surely you can swallow your pride just for one night, if only for the sake of your niece." He stared at her, furious. "Er ... daughter," she corrected, lamely. Through his teeth he gritted, "We are not staying at de Montforte House or Blackheath Castle or any of Lucien's other estates, and I'll hear no more about it!"  He made a fist and pressed it to his forehead, trying to keep his temper under control even as Perry made a noise of impatient disgust and Charlotte's endless screaming threatened to drown out all thought, all sanity. Perry chose the wrong moment to be sarcastic. "Well done, my friend. You have just succeeded in showing your unsuspecting bride that there is indeed another side to you. Were you beginning to think your new lord was all syrupy sweetness, Lady Gareth?" Gareth's patience broke, and with a snarl, he went for his sword. Juliet grabbed his arm just in time. "Stop it, the both of you!  Really, Lord Brookhampton — must you antagonize him so?" Perry touched a forefinger to his chest. "Me?" "Yes, you!  The two of you are acting like a pair of brawling schoolboys!"  She pushed Gareth's hand away from its sword hilt and faced him with flashing eyes. "Charlotte and I have had enough. Either take us to de Montforte House or wash your hands of us, but I'm not going to stand here watching you two bicker while she screams London down around our ears!" Gareth stared at her in shock. And Perry, raising his brows at this sudden display of fire, merely reached into his coat and pulled out his purse.  He tossed it casually to Gareth. "Here," he said. "There's enough in there to buy yourselves room and board somewhere for a week, by which time maybe you'll have come to your senses. Consider it my wedding present."  He mounted his horse and touched his hat to Juliet. "Good day, Lady Gareth."  He gave Gareth a look of mocking contempt. "I wish the two of you many hours of marital bliss." And then, to Juliet's dismay, he turned and trotted off, leaving her standing on the pavement with a screaming baby and a husband who — it was growing alarmingly clear — was ill-equipped to take care of either of them.  

The nerve of him. How dare he imply that she might try and manipulate a scientific study. “Now it’s your turn to listen, Mr. Mayor. I don’t give a damn about your political ambitions, or your plans for Coral Beach,” she hissed. “They mean nothing to me. The only thing I care about is the condition of this town’s reef. You managed to get one thing right, though. I do have a good reputation. It’s excellent, actually. Say one thing to defame it, and I will sink your political career faster than the Titanic.” Incensed, Lily shoved the car door open and scrambled out. Sean’s opened in tandem. His words carried over the sound of doors slamming, one after the other. “I always think it’s great to clear the air like this. Must admit, I’m looking forward to these next few weeks. Diving with a world-renowned scientist. Hey, maybe I’ll even drop by the lab; we could do an experiment together, just for old times’ sake. Wouldn’t that be fun, Lily?” Lily glared at his smiling face. Her most fervent wish was that they might already be in the water. So she could drown him. As if he could read her mind, Sean shook his head. “Shame on you, Lily,” he cheerfully mocked. “Now, let’s see a big, happy smile for your Granny May.

As I said, there are many examples of Hollywood openly and gleefully mocking Christianity. But it’s not the open and gleeful mocking that’s really a problem. It’s easy enough to avoid watching a show where Satan is a crime fighter. What’s far more dangerous is the show or film that embeds nihilistic and hedonistic themes in a story line that never directly touches on anything religious or spiritual. And this describes the vast majority of the content churned out by Hollywood on a weekly basis. We Christians sit and absorb it into our minds and souls, rarely stopping to question the messages we are receiving. We tell ourselves that all the time spent watching TV or binging Netflix is just an “escape,” an opportunity to “turn our brains off” and “relax” for a while. The problem is that we are always escaping. Our brains spend most of the day in the “off” position. And in this submissive, malleable state, we are utterly susceptible to whatever ideas or messages Hollywood wants to feed us. Television is a passive experience, which makes it the perfect medium for shaping minds. The unresisting mind is most easily shaped. Especially an unresisting mind that does not realize it is being shaped. We begin to act like the people we see on TV, dress like them, speak like them, think like them; we adopt their viewpoints and priorities. We do all of this without noticing it. Five or six or seven hours a day watching TV, thirty-five or forty hours a week, two thousand hours a year, year after year—after a while, we cannot distinguish our real lives from the fantasy world we enter through the screen.

as usual, I received several heartfelt anonymous messages. “You’re not funny, you cock,” “Why are you such a smug shit?”, “Just seen you on a repeat of Mock the Week, I wish you would die.” That sort of thing. But then I get that every day – all comedians do (apart from the funny non-smug ones who are already dead). In fact, everybody does; that’s one of the joys of the internet age.

The last few weeks had demonstrated that we were literally irreplaceable as workers, but any criminal incident turned the whole community into outlaws. A strange kind of outlaw: the bananas I had been unloading had been grown by Filipinos in Mindanao, transported on ships with Filipino crews, and handled by Filipinos in the docks of Yokohama. The only thing we didn't do with these outsize, uniform, intensely cultivated, tasteless fruit was eat them. We despised them. We used to mock the Japanese for eating them – the favorite fruit of monkeys! ("Underground in Japan")

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Maybe we should change plans. I feel a fever coming on.” She looked over at him. “Oh really?” He nodded and gave her a serious look. “Yes. I think I need to call and tell them I’ll be in bed for a week. It’s bad. Want to play nurse?” She pulled her hand free and pinched his arm. “Stop. There’s no going back now. We’re doing this. Plus, you’re going to be fine. I’m here to run interference. They’ll be much more likely to take jabs at me than you.” His expression darkened. “I’m not going to let them insult you, Liv. That’s a deal breaker.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Let ’em. After the week I had, I can deal with whatever they throw at me.” He lowered the radio. “You do seem oddly calm about all this. You remember my dad, right?” “Vividly.” “So is it just the sex relaxing you or something else?” He sent her a look of mock concern. “Have you been drinking? Eating mushrooms? Dropping acid?” “Not exactly.” She took a breath and looked forward. “Worse.” “Worse than dropping acid? I’m not even sure what that would be. Meth? Toad licking?” She grimaced. “Ew, gross. Not as bad as licking toads.” “Well, that’s a relief. We did just kiss.” “I quit my job.” “You—” The car jerked to a halt, the tires screeching as he almost missed a stop sign. “What?” She bit her lip and glanced his way. “Yes. That look on your face. That’s basically what I’ve been feeling inside since I walked out of work last night.” He stared at her, green eyes searching. “You’re just telling me this now? Liv…” She shrugged. “I was going to lead with that, but then you had to go and be all hot and seductive. I just quit my job is kind of a mood killer. Plus, I’m…okay about it.

Suddenly the door opens and Pete rushes in. He’s all smiles and he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a cigar made of bubble gum. “We’re pregnant!” he yells. Friday grins and runs to him. He catches her against him and he swings her around. “So happy for you two,” she says and she kisses Pete’s cheek. “Is Reagan with you?” She looks over his shoulder. “Nah, she’s at home puking her guts out.” He laughs. “Nasty stuff, that morning sickness.” “And you left her alone while she’s sick?” Friday slugs him on the arm. “Actually, she threw me out.” He starts to mock her voice. “If you don’t get the fuck out of my face, I’m going to drop-kick you into the middle of next week.” He laughs. “She probably even meant it. Usually when she’s pissed at me, she threatens my balls. So I’m pretty sure she didn’t want me around watching her heave. Plus, I wanted to come and check on Josh. Is he here?” Friday points toward the rear of the shop and Pete goes in that direction. “I can’t believe he was allowed to breed,” I say quietly. “He’s going to make a wonderful father.

We should probably get some things out of the way,” I say, wincing as the words come out of my mouth. “Like dinner?” he says. He fills my plate with food. “Yeah, let’s get dinner out of the way.” He grins. He jabs his fork toward my plate. “Eat.” “But I feel like there’s this thing between us.” He nods and takes a bite of his chicken. He chews with one eye closed, and watches me with the other. After he swallows, he says, “There’s definitely something between us.” He takes another bite of his dinner. “But…” I sniff the dinner in front of me. My mouth is watering. But I’m afraid to take a bite. “But what?” “But while I’m here, I think it’s best if you go on with life as normal.” He looks around the room. “This is my normal life.” He points to his shin. “I’m injured, remember? No training for me. No football.” He makes a motion that encompasses his apartment. “This is my life.” He reaches over and squeezes my good hand. “I’m really glad you’re here. I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks.” “Why?” I want to bite it back right away, but can’t. He chokes on his food. “Why what?” he asks when he can finally get a breath. “Why have you been trying to talk to me?” “I missed you.” “You don’t even know me.” “Whose fault is that?” I sigh. “Sam…” He mocks me. “Peck…

She knelt and began gathering up the dirty cups, plates, and silverware she’d dropped with the tray. The movements of her hands were quick and jerky, but she went still when she saw a pair of scuffed black boots come to a stop directly in front of her, and her temper swelled anew. These rascals had been harassing her with their exuberant mischief all morning, and she was through turning the other cheek. She rose slowly to her feet and sighed as she felt the pins in her once-tidy hair give way, sending the silver-gold tresses tumbling down over her shoulders. Crows of amusement rose all around her as she set her hands on her hips and raised her chin. The eyes that gazed down at her were just the color of maple sugar and shadowed by the brim of a dusty blue field hat banded in gold braid. A gloved hand reached up to remove the hat, revealing a thatch of golden-brown hair. “On behalf of the United States Army, ma’am,” a deep voice said with barely contained amusement, “I’d like to apologize for these men.” Lily reminded herself that the soldiers from nearby Fort Deveraux kept the hotel dining room in business, and that without them she wouldn’t have a job. Nevertheless, she was near the end of her patience. “They would seem to be boys,” she answered pointedly, “rather than men.” The barb brought a chorus of howls, whistles, and cries of mock despair. The man looking down at Lily—a major, judging by his insignia—grinned rather insolently, showing teeth as white as the keys on a new piano. “They’ve been on patrol for two weeks, ma’am,” he explained with elaborate cordiality, apparently choosing to ignore her comment on their collective bad manners. Something about the curve of his lips made Lily feel as though the room had done a half spin. She reached out to steady herself by gripping the back of a chair. “I fail to see how that gives them the right to behave like circus gorillas.” The major’s grin intensified, half blinding Lily. “Of course, you’re right,” he said. Every word that came out of his mouth was congenial. So why did she feel that he was making fun of her? Lily found herself looking at the button-down panel on the front of his shirt and wondering about the chest beneath it. Was it as broad and muscled as it appeared, covered in a downy mass of maple hair? With a toss of her head she shook off the unwelcome thought and knelt to finish gathering the crockery.

Suppose boredom is a backstairs to liberation — insignificant, and so often overlooked. No one who has not known its higher degrees can claim to have lived. Not the Relative Boredom of long waiting at junctions for railway connections on the way to visit friends—or the rashly accepted week-end with acquaintances—the reviewing of a dull book. In such Relative Boredom the "wasting-of-time"-feeling only heightens the enjoyment of the coming escape, the anticipation of which sustains us meanwhile. Absolute Boredom is rather the pain of nausea, it is the loss of one's livelihood as for the pianist who loses his hands, the unsatiable desire for what we know makes us sick, it is the Great Drought, the "Carnal physic for the sick soul", the Dark Night of the Soul after the climbing of Mount Carmel, it is the pillar of salt, the exile from the land which is no more, the Sin against the Holy Ghost, the break-up of patterns, the horror that waits alone in the night, the entry into the desert where Death mocks by serving one one's daily food and one cannot bear hut to keep the darkness of one's own shadow before one for the very brightness of the light that reveals the universal emptiness. Do not try to turn back now — here in the desert perhaps there are doors open—in the cool woods they are overgrown, and in the busy cities they have built over them.

.."So you know everything now." Julian raised an eyebrow. "I can't believe that," he drawled. "There are no more secrets, no more illicit little plots percolating in your devious mind? You'll have to forgive me if I find that hard to credit, Violette." "Oh, there's one more secret," she said dully. "But only one, and you might as well know it. I love you. I love you so much it hurts. And I'll never love anyone else in the same way"..."There ,now," she said. That's all of it. I've tricked you and I've used you. I've lied to you, and rearranged your life to suit my own purposes. I forced you to leave Spain, and I'm the illegitimate daughter of a Penhallan and a robber baron. But I love you with my heart and soul, and I'd give my last drop of blood if you ever needed it." ..."But of course you won't ever need it, so I'll go now. And you need never fear that our paths will cross again." Turning from him, she began to walk back across the sand. "You omitted to mention puking all over my boots in that catalog of wrongs," Julian said. ..."I suppose you're entitled to that," she said. "Entitled to mock. Why should you believe in my love? Anyway, it's a poor thing. I know it can't excuse or make up what I've done to you." "Dear God," he said. "I'm assuming this extraordinary show of humility was brought on by that drug Penhallan gave you. I trust it's effect isn't permanent." ..."Oh you despicable bastard! You are an unmitigated cur!" She swooped down, grabbed a handful of sand, and threw it at him. Darting sideways, she picked up the empty cognac bottle. It flew through the air and caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder... ... Diabillo ! Virago! Termagant!" Julian taunted, grinning as he ducked one of Gabriel's boots. "Espadachin! Brute! Bully! Unchivalrous pig!" she hurled back.. ...He'd fought the knowledge ..he'd been fighting it for weeks..and now he'd lost the battle. She was a lawless, manipulative, illegitimate half-breed, no possible wife for a St Simon, and he didn't give a damn.

My Own Then let them point my every tear, And let them mock and moan; Another week, another year, And I’ll be with my own Who slumber now by night and day In fields of level brown; Whose hearts within their breasts were clay Before they laid them down.

The funny thing is, the closer it gets, the more it looks like a piano." Frankie Boyle, Mock the Week, "Unlikely Last Words

I saw her walking past my house every week. She kept getting bigger and bigger. It was like she was mocking me. It was so unfair. All the people who work here are poor, uneducated, and illegal. The only thing they’re good at is cleaning toilets and getting pregnant. Nobody would miss her,

Rhys kept starting at the table as he said, 'I didn't know. That you were with Tamlin. That you were staying at the Spring Court. Amarantha sent me that day after the Summer Solstice because I'd been so successful on Calanmai. I was prepared to mock him, maybe pick a fight. But then I got into that room, and the scent was familiar, but hidden... And then I saw the plate, and felt the glamour, and... There you were. Living in my second-most enemy's house. Dining with him. Reeking of his scent. Looking at him like... Like you loved him.' The whites of his knuckles showed. 'And I decided that I had to scare Tamlin. I had to scare you, and Lucien, but mostly Tamlin. Because I saw how he looked at you, too. So what I did that day...' His lips were pale, tight. 'I broke into your mind and held it enough that you felt it, that it terrified you, hurt you. I made Tamlin beg- as Amarantha had made me beg, to show him how powerless he was to save you. And I prayed my performance was enough to get him to send you away. Back to the human realm, away from Amarantha. Because she was going to find you. If you broke that curse, she was going to find you and kill you. 'But I was so selfish- I was so stupidly selfish that I couldn't walk away without knowing your name. And you were looking at me like I was a monster, so I told myself it didn't matter, anyway. But you lied when I asked. I knew you did. I had your mind in my hands, and you had the defiance and foresight to lie to my face. So I walked away from you again. I vomited my guts up as soon as I left.' My lips wobbled, and I pressed them together. 'I checked back once. To ensure you were gone. I went with them the day they sacked the manor- to make my performance complete. I told Amarantha the name of that girl, thinking you'd invented it. I had no idea... I had no idea she'd sent her cronies to retrieve Clare. But if I admitted my lie...' He swallowed hard. 'I broke into Clare's head when they brought her Under the Mountain. I took away her pain, and told her to scream when expected to. So they... they did those things to her, and I tried to make it right, but... After a week, I couldn't let them do it. Hurt her like that anymore. So while they tortured her, I slipped into her mind again and ended it. She didn't feel any pain. She felt none of what they did to her, even at the end. But... But I still see her. And my men. And the others that I killed for Amarantha.' Two tears slid down his cheeks, swift and cold. He didn't wipe them away as he said, 'I thought it was done after that. With Clare's death. Amarantha believed you were dead. So you were safe, and far away, and my people were safe, and Tamlin had lost, so... It was done. We were done. But then... I was in the back of the throne room that day the Attor brought you in. And I have never known such horror, Feyre, as I did when I watched you make that bargain. Irrational, stupid terror- I didn't know you. I didn't even know your name. But I thought of those painter's hands, the flowers I'd seen you create. And how she'd delight in breaking your fingers apart. I had to stand and watch as the Attor and its cronies beat you. I had to watch the disgust and hatred on your face as you looked at me, watched me threaten to shatter Lucien's mind. And then- then I learned your name. Hearing you say it... it was like an answer to a question I'd been asking for five hundred years.

EBB: As I recall, “Cell Block Tango” was a very difficult number to write. It’s not so much a song as a musical scene for six women, and each has to tell her personal story in the course of a musical refrain that keeps repeating. It was difficult because each of the stories had to be entertaining and also meaningful. Each one had to be of a length that didn’t go on too long and run the risk of being boring. We kept rewriting and rewriting those stories that the women told to go with the refrain— He had it coming He had it coming He only had himself to blame. If you’d have been there If you’d have seen it I betcha would have done the same! KANDER: When Gwen was sick during Chicago, Liza took over for eight weeks and she came close to making the show a hit. EBB: She did all of Gwen’s blocking. KANDER: She learned that show in a week. EBB: I guess I should confess this. I had been with Liza in California, and when we were on our way back to New York on the plane, when I knew Liza was going to do Chicago, I was egging her on to get little things back into the show that I lost during my collaboration with Fosse. I desperately wanted “My Own Best Friend” to be a song just for Roxie. That was the way it was originally supposed to be done. But Bobby took that song and added Chita as Velma. He had them at the edge of the stage, obviously mocking the high-end cabaret singers with their phony Oh-look-at-me attitude. He hated songs like— KANDER: “I Did It My Way.” EBB: And “I Gotta Be Me.” He hated them.

Rex Stout, creator of orchid-loving detective Nero Wolfe, achieved a new wave of popularity on this amusing series. Axis shortwave broadcasts were monitored by a staff of linguists at the CBS listening station; what were considered the most outrageous lies were then typed into a weekly log of about 30,000 words. Stout would read this, select up to 150 items he found most interesting, and give them to Sue Taylor White (who had given up a job writing soap operas to do war work) for researching. The most entertaining lies, as well as those lending themselves to what Time called Stout’s “lunch-counter sarcasm,” were used on the air. The lies were read rapid-fire by an announcer, often in mock German or Japanese accents, and were just as quickly countered by Stout. When it was claimed that all the best American baseball players were German, Stout’s reply was typical: “They’ve got the facts, no getting away from it. Take the six leading batters in the major leagues—Williams, Gordon, Wright, Reiser, Lombardi, Medwick. Some bunch of Germans. Also the great German prizefighter, Joe Louis.

You must be new to DSI.” “Graduated two weeks ago. What gave me away?” I mimic her smile. “The fresh, handsome face, or the fact that I didn’t slip a knife out of my belt when I walked in, wary of you getting funny ideas?” She raises her hands in a mocking gesture of peace. “Both, if you must know. New Crows always have this air of undue confidence hanging around them. Think they can take on the magic world with a .45 and a few fake magic rings, defeat the big bad monsters, play the valiant knights. But they learn real quick, most of them, the truth of the matter. That—” “The world of monsters and mayhem can’t be controlled by mortal hands.” My voice drops two octaves. “Don’t mistake my inexperience for naïveté, witch.” The woman shifts backward a step, and I sense a stream of magic building in her palms. A faint aura forms around her hands, an earthy green hue. A sign she’s preparing to attack. I respond by activating my beggar rings with a simple mental command, Build. My fingers begin to grow warm as the rings absorb the energy in the air around me. There’s a bit more than usual—a consequence of being in the presence of a magic user

The New York press mercilessly mocked Tilton’s screed. The World headlined its tirade “The Queen of Quacks” and Tilton’s words “hideous rubbish.” Harper’s Weekly hooted: “If apples are wormy this year, and grapes mildew, and duck’s eggs addle… it may all be ascribed to the unhallowed influence of Mr. Tilton’s Life of Victoria Woodhull.

To me, we had to infuse the subconscious of every reporter and every insider that Mike’s victory was so inevitable that predicting—or trying to bring about—anything else would only make them look foolish. This was a campaign where perception not only had to shape reality, it had to control it. That started with a plan that produced some derision but ultimately succeeded, especially with the reporters mocking us for it. It seemed a little crazy at the time: an endorsement every single day, seven days a week, from the day we launched the campaign in late March through Election Day. It didn’t matter who the endorser was: Sometimes it meant global figures like Al Gore, Colin Powell, or Bono, and sometimes it was hyperlocal organizations like the Korean Grocers Association. What mattered was that it never, ever stopped—that every single day, the big, bad, overwhelmingly powerful Bloomberg campaign machine was sweeping up support from every corner of the city.

In the weeks following my arrest, many of my family members were rounded up by the military as a form of collective punishment for what I had done and for the global attention it had garnered. In a single night, six of my relatives were arrested in predawn raids. Israel’s notoriously racist far-right defense minister justified the arrests by saying, “Dealing with Tamimi and her family has to be severe, exhaust all legal measures and generate deterrence.” And so, the occupation forces continued to target and punish my relatives. It got so bad that some of the parents, with the help of local activists, organized teach-ins to prepare the youth in the village for arrest, blindfolding them to simulate the experience. They also carried out mock interrogations and educated them about their rights.

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I met Chris at the Student Union. We both used to study there between our 9:30 and 11:30 classes. I had seen him on campus before. He was always wearing this yellow sweatshirt and giant headphones. The kind of headphones that say, “I may not take my clothes seriously. I may not have brushed or even washed my hair today. But I pronounce the word ‘music’ with a capital ‘M.’ Like God.” So I had noticed him before. He had Eddie Vedder hair. Ginger brown, tangly. He was too thin (much thinner than he is now), and there were permanent smudges under his eyes. Like he was too cool to eat or sleep. I thought he was dreamy. I called him Headphone Boy. I couldn’t believe my luck when I realized we studied in the Union at the same time. Well, I studied. He would pull a paperback out of his pocket and read. Never a textbook. Sometimes, he’d just sit there with his eyes closed, listening to music, his legs all jangly and loose. He gave me impure thoughts. (...) There we were. In the Student Union. He always sat in the corner. And I always sat one row across from him, three seats down. I took to leaving my 9:30 class early so I could primp and be in my spot looking casual by the time he sauntered in. He never looked at me – or anyone else, to my relief – and he never took off his headphones. I used to fantasize about what song he might be listening to… and whether it would be the first dance at our wedding… and whether we’d go with traditional wedding photography or black and white… Probably black and white, magazine style. There’d be lots of slightly out-of-focus, candid shots of us embracing with a romantic, faraway look in our eyes. Of course, Headphone Boy already had a faraway look in his eyes, which my friend Lynn attributed to “breakfast with Mary Jane.” This started in September. Sometime in October, one of his friends walked by and called him “Chris.” (A name, at last. “Say it loud and there’s music playing. Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.”) One Tuesday night in November, I saw him at the library. I spent the next four Tuesday nights there, hoping it was a pattern. It wasn’t. Sometimes I’d allow myself to follow him to his 11:30 class in Andrews Hall, and then I’d have to run across campus to make it to my class in the Temple Building. By the end of the semester, I was long past the point of starting a natural, casual conversation with him. I stopped trying to make eye contact. I even started dating a Sig Ep I met in my sociology class. But I couldn’t give up my 10:30 date with Headphone Boy. I figured, after Christmas break, our schedules would change, and that would be that. I’d wait until then to move on. All my hope was lost. And then… the week before finals, I showed up at the Union at my usual time and found Chris sitting in my seat. His headphones were around his neck, and he watched me walk toward him. At least, I thought he was watching me. He had never looked at me before, never, and the idea made my skin burn. Before I could solve the problem of where to sit, he was talking to me. He said, “Hey.” And I said, “Hi.” And he said, “Look…” His eyes were green. He kind of squinted when he talked. “I’ve got a 10:30 class next semester, so… we should probably make other arrangements.” I was struck numb. I said, “Are you mocking me?” “No,” he said, “I’m asking you out.” “Then, I’m saying yes.” “Good..,” he said, “we could have dinner. You could still sit across from me. It would be just like a Tuesday morning. But with breadsticks.” “Now you’re mocking me.” “Yes.” He was still smiling. “Now I am.” And that was that. We went out that weekend. And the next weekend. And the next. It was wildly romantic.

Arik had already gone two weeks longer than usual for this haircut because of an overseas business trip. Time to get back to his highest priority. “How long until Dominic is back?” “A week, maybe two. I told him to take his time. Granddad doesn’t often take time off, and he’s getting up there in years.” A few weeks? He’d look like a wildebeest if he waited that long. “That’s no good. I need a cut. Are there any male barbers available?” “Afraid to let a girl touch your precious hair?” She smirked. “I can peek at the schedule and see if we can squeeze you in this afternoon.” “I don’t have time to come back. I need it done now.” Usually when he used the word now, people jumped to do his bidding. She, on the other hand, shook her head. “Not happening, unless you’ve changed your mind and are willing to let me cut it.” “You’re a hairdresser.” “Exactly.” “I want a barber.” “Same thing.” Said the girl without a Y chromosome. “I think I’ll wait.” Arik turned away from her, only to freeze as she muttered, “Pussy.” If she only knew how right she was. But, of course, she didn’t mean the feline version. Pride made him pivot back. “You know what. On second thought, you may cut my hair.” “How gracious of you, Your Majesty.” She sketched him a mock bow. Not funny, even if accurate. He glared in reply. “I see someone’s too uptight for a sense of humor.” “I greatly enjoy comedy, when I hear it.” “Sorry if my brand of sarcasm is too simple for you to understand, big guy. Now, if you’re done, sit down so we can get this over with and send you and your precious hair back to your office.

One American political figure saw Russia for the growing menace that it was and was willing to call Putin out for his transgressions. During President Obama’s reelection campaign, Mitt Romney warned of a growing Russian strategic threat, highlighting their role as “our number one geopolitical foe.”[208] The response from President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and other Democrats was not to echo his sentiment, but actually to ridicule Romney and support the Russian government. President Obama hurled insults, saying Romney was “stuck in a Cold War mind warp” [209] and in a nationally televised debate mocked the former governor, saying “the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back…” [210] When asked to respond to Romney’s comment, Secretary Clinton refused to rebuke the over-the-top and false Obama campaign attacks. Instead, she delivered a message that echoed campaign talking points arguing that skepticism of Russia was outdated: “I think it’s somewhat dated to be looking backwards,” she said, adding, “In many of the areas where we are working to solve problems, Russia has been an ally.”[211] A month after Secretary Clinton’s statement on Romney, Putin rejected Obama’s calls for a landmark summit.[212] He didn’t seem to share the secretary’s view that the two countries were working together. It was ironic that while Obama and Clinton were saying Romney was in a “Cold War mind warp,”[213] the Russian leader was waging a virulent, anti-America “election campaign” (that’s if you can call what they did in Russia an “election”). In fact, if anyone was in a Cold War mind warp, it was Putin, and his behavior demonstrated just how right Romney was about Russia’s intentions. “Putin has helped stoke anti-Americanism as part of his campaign emphasizing a strong Russia,” Reuters reported. “He has warned the West not to interfere in Syria or Iran, and accused the United States of ‘political engineering’ around the world.”[214] And his invective was aimed not just at the United States. He singled out Secretary Clinton for verbal assault. Putin unleashed the assault Nov. 27 [2011] in a nationally televised address as he accepted the presidential nomination, suggesting that the independent election monitor Golos, which gets financing from the United States and Europe, was a U.S. vehicle for influencing the elections here. Since then, Golos has been turned out of its Moscow office and its Samara branch has come under tax investigation. Duma deputies are considering banning all foreign grants to Russian organizations. Then Putin accused U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of sending a signal to demonstrators to begin protesting the fairness of the Dec. 4 parliamentary elections.[215] [Emphasis added.] Despite all the evidence that the Russians had no interest in working with the U.S., President Obama and Secretary Clinton seemed to believe that we were just a Putin and Obama election victory away from making progress. In March 2012, President Obama was caught on a live microphone making a private pledge of flexibility on missile defense “after my election” to Dmitry Medvedev.[216] The episode lent credence to the notion that while the administration’s public unilateral concessions were bad enough, it might have been giving away even more in private. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Putin didn’t abandon his anti-American attitudes after he won the presidential “election.” In the last few weeks of Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, Putin signed a law banning American adoption of Russian children,[217] in a move that could be seen as nothing less than a slap in the face to the United States. Russia had been one of the leading sources of children for U.S. adoptions.[218] This disservice to Russian orphans in need of a home was the final offensive act in a long trail of human rights abuses for which Secretary Clinton failed to hold Russia accountable.

In a 16-episode series titled “Clan of the Fiery Cross,” the writers pitted the Man of Steel against the men in white hoods. As the storyline progressed, the shows exposed many of the KKK’s most guarded secrets. By revealing everything from code words to rituals, the program completely stripped the Klan of its mystique. Within two weeks of the broadcast, KKK recruitment was down to zero. And by 1948, people were showing up to Klan rallies just to mock them.

The roar of the Twenties was only the faintest of echoes in those vast and empty hills—a mocking echo to Hill Country farmers who read of Coolidge Prosperity and the reduction in the work week to forty-eight hours and the bright new world of mass leisure, while they themselves were still working the seven-day-a-week, dawn-to-dark schedule their fathers and grandfathers had worked; a mocking echo to Hill Country housewives who read of the myriad new labor-saving devices (washing machines, electric irons, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators) that had “freed” the housewife. Even if they had been able to afford such devices, they would not have been able to switch them on since the Hill Country was still without electricity.

I made a sticky mock ambrosia cake from honey and apples, to be served by one of the prettiest slaves, dressed as a handmaiden to Venus. I hoped when people left they would be raving about both the atmosphere and the food. "I came to go over the menu," Apicius said, jolting me out of my thoughts. He was like an eager child just given a fresh plum. Sotas settled on a stool near the door and raised a hand in greeting. "Of course. I can make a variety of dishes and cut them up for easy sampling. I wanted to start with roasted hyacinth bulbs, some soft cheese drenched in raisin wine with bread, and slices of sow's udder with garum and lovage. I thought we could serve the Lucanian sausage I made earlier this week. And remember my hard egg mice with the almond ears and the clove eyes? I think those might go over well." "Perfect! The mice will delight the ladies!

Babson, the “prophet of loss,” as he was now nicknamed, was derided up and down Wall Street, mocked even by BusinessWeek for his “Babsonmindedness.

There are innumerable ways creative selection can become bogged down, since this working method must be applied consistently over a period of time to yield results. Consequently, our success was as much about what we didn’t do as what we did. Mostly we avoided falling into any of the typical product development traps common in Silicon Valley and that, I expect, occur often in other kinds of creative organizations and businesses. For example, we didn’t take two-hour coffee breaks or hold daylong offsite confabs to talk about projects without examples to ground the discussion—we didn’t have lengthy discussions about whose imaginary puppy was cuter. We didn’t shuffle around printed specifications or unchanging paper mock-ups for weeks on end, waiting for an epiphany that would jump us directly from an early-stage concept to a complete product design, hoping we could somehow flip the ratio of inspiration to perspiration Thomas Edison spoke about, the relationship between the time it takes to get an idea and the amount of hard work it takes to transform that idea into something real.

All right, class!” Miss Dupree motioned for silence. “You’ve had several weeks now to come up with your topics. Just a reminder: I want these projects to be socially oriented. Something that will get you involved in this town. Something to help you learn more about your community and the neighbors you share it with. I want to see some original ideas, people. Something creative and--” “Gage wants to know more about his neighbor, Miss Dupree.” On Miranda’s left, a girl in black clothes and heavy black eye makeup stretched languidly in her seat. “The one who keeps getting undressed at night with the curtains open and the lights on.” In mock horror, Parker swung around in his chair. “Hey! You and Ashley are Gage’s neighbors!” “I meant the house behind him,” the girl said calmly. Clutching his chest, Parker gasped. “Gage! You pervert! That’s Mrs. Falconi--she’s ninety-six years old!” This time the laughter reached hysteria. Miranda saw the girl give a slow, catlike smile, while a boy near the window--Gage, she supposed--blushed furiously and shook his head. “Roo, stop it!” Ashley hissed, but she couldn’t quite hold back a delighted grin. “Why do you always have to embarrass him?” The other girl shrugged, obviously pleased with herself. “Because it’s so easy. And he’s so cute when he’s embarrassed.” “All right, people, all right!” Clearing her throat, Miss Dupree struggled to keep her own amusement in check. “Thank you, Roo, for that fascinating bit of information. And should any of us notice a pervert lurking outside our windows tonight, we can all rest easily now, knowing it’s only Gage.” The class went wild. Poor Gage went redder.

There was once an artistically talented teenager who felt unrequited love for a girl in his art class. It so happened that his beloved’s artwork was particularly bad, so bad, in fact, that it was often quietly mocked. One day the boy overheard two classmates laughing about how bad her artwork was. But just then she entered the room, and they quickly changed the subject. After a couple of minutes, the two classmates started playing a cruel game where they praised her for her artistic abilities. She protested, but the classmates kept insisting that she had real talent and should think about exhibiting something in the end-of-year art show. A week later she pulled the lovelorn boy to one side and asked for some advice about a painting. He jumped at the chance to talk with her, and while the work was terrible, he praised it profusely. To his horror, the praise he lavished on it convinced her to enter the painting in the school art exhibition. Because of his love, he didn’t want her to be humiliated, so the day before the show he went into the room holding all the submissions and stole her painting along with a couple of others. Once the theft was discovered, the art teacher quickly worked out who was guilty and pulled the boy out of class. Before suspending him, the teacher asked why he’d stolen the paintings. “That’s easy,” replied the boy. “I wanted to win the prize and so stole the best work.” News quickly spread around the school that the girl had created a masterpiece that might have won the prize if allowed to compete.

In the fall, he briefly flew to Northern California to attend his father’s funeral and also spent six weeks training at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico, one of ten thousand Marines training for an amphibious “mock assault” on Onslow Beach, North Carolina.

Kennedy drew as his chief lesson from the Bay of Pigs affair never to trust the experts, especially the generals and the CIA planners who had all but promised success. But this lesson he could have learned by heeding Ike’s warning, proffered just weeks before, that “in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” Kennedy had mocked the old asshole then; he was not laughing now.