No Roster Quotes

I'm never going to accomplish anything; that's perfectly clear to me. I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.

My baseball team is called the I Ams. Just me and my clones on the roster. We’re devastating. Well, at least I am.


The Lord accomplishes great things through weak people...What is required of His people is an obedient spirit, not a roster of tremendous gifts and abilities.

Or, God, maybe this was just life. For everyone on the planet. Maybe the Survivor's Club wasn't something you "earned," but simply what you were born into when you came out of your mother's womb. Your heartbeat put you on the roster and then the rest of it was just a question of vocabulary: the nouns and verbs used to describe the events that rocked your foundation and sent you flailing were not always the same as other people's, but the random cruelties of disease and accident, and the malicious focus of evil men and nasty deeds, and the heartbreak of loss with all its stinging whips and rattling chains... At the core, it was all the same.

It was hard to live through the early 1940s in France and not have the war be the center from which the rest of your life spiraled. Marie-Laure still cannot wear shoes that are too large, or smell a boiled turnip, without experiencing revulsion. Neither can she listen to lists of names. Soccer team rosters, citations at the end of journals, introductions at faculty meetings – always they seem to her some vestige of the prison lists that never contained her father’s name.

Number one on the roster was a boy, everything began with the boys, and that felt like the right, natural thing. Boys lined up first, boys led every procession no matter where they were headed, boys gave their presentations first, and boys had their homework checked first while the girls quietly waited their turn, bored, sometimes relieved that they weren’t going first, but never thinking this was a strange practice. Just as we never question why men’s national registry numbers begin with a “1” and women’s begin with a “2.

You trying to get added to my roster?” “Nah. I’m trying to clear that motherfucker.

Jerry Seinfeld once remarked that today’s athletes churn through the rosters of sports teams so rapidly that a fan can no longer support a group of players. He is reduced to rooting for their team logo and uniforms: “You are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city.

Because the floor numbers were listed next to the names and phone extensions of committee personnel, it was possible to calculate roughly who worked in proximity to whom. And by transposing telephone extensions from the roster and listing them in sequence, it was even possible to determine who worked for whom.

I keep collecting books I know I'll never, never read; My wife and daughter tell me so, And yet I never heed. "Please make me," says some wistful tome, "A wee bit of yourself." And so I take my treasure home, And tuck it in a shelf. And now my very shelves complain; They jam and over-spill. They say: "Why don't you ease our strain?" "Some day," I say, "I will." So book by book they plead and sigh; I pick and dip and scan; Then put them back, distressed that I Am such a busy man. Now, there's my Boswell and my Sterne, my Gibbon and Defoe; To savor Swift I'll never learn, Montaigne I may not know. On Bacon I will never sup, For Shakespeare I've no time; Because I'm busy making up These jingly bits of rhyme. Chekov is caviar to me, While Stendhal makes me snore; Poor Proust is not my cup of tea, And Balzac is a bore. I have their books, I love their names, And yet alas! they head, With Lawrence, Joyce and Henry James, My Roster of Unread. I think it would be very well If I commit a crime, And get put in a prison cell And not allowed to rhyme; Yet given all these worthy books According to my need, I now caress with loving looks, But never, never read." (from, Book Lover)

Kissing booth? - Stella Keeping tabs on me? - Chet Hard not to. when they wrote your name on the roster, girls within a ten mile radius swooned and fainted flat on their backs. -Stella But not you? - Chet I don't kiss friends - Stella

Is there any way to check and see if Nick and Daisy were ever at Hecate? They must have had different names or you'd remember them." I don't know why I was holding out hope that Dad would be all, "Why, yes, let me check the Hecate Enrollment Roster 9000 computer database." Those lists were probably written on pieces of parchment with quill feathers.

I’d hate to be responsible for removing one of Ephemeral’s star players from the roster. I’ll stay as far away from Coop as possible.” I dot the sentiment with an impish grin. “Hello,” a familiar voice booms from behind the counter. “Cooper!” I jump a little at the sight of him. Shit.

the scarred face of a clone, the features an echo of so many faces from Vader’s past. Rex. Cody. Fives. Echo. The roster of names moved through Vader’s mind, each of them a trigger for a memory, each of them a ghost from his past.

When Herschel saw Flamsteed’s “star” drift against the background stars, he announced—operating under the unwitting assumption that planets were not on the list of things one might discover—that he had discovered a comet. Comets, after all, were known to move and to be discoverable. Herschel planned to call the newfound object Georgium Sidus (“Star of George”), after his benefactor, King George III of England. If the astronomical community had respected these wishes, the roster of our solar system would now include Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and George.

Whoever challenged the racial hierarchy was marked a potential victim of the mob. The endless roster of the dead came to include every sort of insurgent—from the owners of successful Black businesses and workers pressing for higher wages to those who refused to be called “boy” and the defiant women who resisted white men’s sexual abuses. Yet public opinion had been captured, and it was taken for granted that lynching was a just response to the barbarous sexual crimes against white womanhood.

Victories are a byproduct of a larger vision. It begins with a question: How much do we owe one another? Each coach's and player's individual answer is one of the building blocks of The Streak. De La Salle separates itself from the competition because everyone from the head coach to the least accomplished player on the roster is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to be their absolute best.

First item in the crew roster is given name, so I'll input 'Skippy'. Second item is surname-" "The Magnificent." "Really?" "It is entirely appropriate, Joe." "Oh, uh huh, because that's what everyone calls you," I retorted sarcastically, rolling my eyes. Not wanting to argue with him, I typed in 'TheMagnificent'. "Next question is your rank, this file is designed for military personnel." "I'd like 'Grand Exalted Field Marshall El Supremo'." "Right, I'll type in 'Cub Scout'. Next question-" "Hey! You jerk-" "-is occupational specialty." "Oh, clearly that should be Lord God Controller of All Things." "I'll give you that one, that is spelled A, S, S, H, O, L, E. Next-" "Hey! You shithead, I should-" "Age?" I asked. "A couple million, at least. I think." "Mentally, you're a six year old, so that's what I typed in." "Joe, I just changed your rank in the personnel file to 'Big Poopyhead'." Skippy laughed. "Five year old. You're a five year old." "I guess that's fair," he admitted. "Sex? I'm going to select 'n/a' on that one for you," I said. "Joe, in your personnel file, I just updated Sex to 'Unlikely'." "This is not going well, Skippy." "You started it!" "That was mature. Four year old, then. Maybe Terrible Twos." "I give up," Skippy snorted. "Save the damned file and we'll call it even, Ok?" "No problem. We should do this more often, huh?" "Oh, shut up.

The kid gets called up to the Oilers when Steinberg breaks his foot halfway through the season. And he's a kid: eighteen, baby-faced, smaller than everyone else on the roster at 5'8" and clearly determined to make up for it.

Dr. Harold Shipman, the victims were men and women, some in hospitals, some living at home, who were part of his patient roster.5 He murdered several hundred patients (the exact number will never be known)-mostly with opiates.

There were always men who looked beyond the dimensions of their own society- and while they may have been called fools or criminals in their time they are the roster of great men as far as the record of human history is concerned- and visualized something which can be called universally human and which is not identical with what a particular society assumes human nature to be. There were always men who were bold and imaginative enough to see beyond the frontiers of their own existence.

There were no rules when it came to writing, he said. Take a close look at the lives of poets and novelists, and what you wound up with was unalloyed chaos, an infinite jumble of exceptions. That was because writing was a disease, Tom continued, what you might call an infection or influenza of the spirit, and therefore it could strike anyone at any time. The young and the old, the strong and the weak, the drunk and the sober, the sane and the insane. Scan the roster of the giants and semi-giants, and you would discover writers who embraced every sexual proclivity, every political bent, and every human attribute — from the loftiest idealism to the most insidious corruption. They were criminals and lawyers, spies and doctors, soldiers and spinsters, travelers and shut-ins.

Fine,” Vanto said. The musculature of his throat relaxes partially, but not fully. “Personally, I’d be a lot more concerned about him, but that’s up to you. But I’m still the bottom man on the roster. Why do you even care about me?” “You are my translator. You hold my words in your hand, and their meanings. A misjudged translation will confuse or anger. A deliberate error could lead to death.

It was a nightmare. Have you ever thrown a party and tried to get EXACTLY three dozen specifically qualified people to attend? Even if they RSVP, half of them never show up, right? And if enough people don’t show up, you can’t throw the party. So you have to recruit random people at the last minute who you’ve never met before to fill up the roster. And they turn out to be greedy eleven-year-olds from Estonia, who you’re FORCED to keep around in order to limp through the evening’s festivities, and . . . yeah. Just typing all that out gave me stress flashbacks.

With the managed care movement of the 1980s and 1990s, insurance companies cut costs and reduced what services they’d pay for. They required that patients give up their longtime physicians for those on a list of approved providers. They negotiated lower fees with doctors. To make up the difference, primary care docs had to fit more patients into a day. (A Newsweek story claimed that to do a good job a primary care doctor ought to have a roster of eighteen hundred patients. The average load today is twenty-three hundred, with some seeing up to three thousand.)

Derek Lowe and Curt Schilling were veterans when Boston won the 2004 World Series, but they were quick to recognize Johnny Pesky by name—and for good reason. Pesky last played for Boston in 1952, but his close ties to the organization since his career ended in 1954 are legendary. His presence was so great, among rookies and veterans alike, that Lowe and Schilling understood that the championship belonged to Pesky just as much as it did to the guys on the playoff roster.

The one project-staff member on the duty roster not yet accounted for is the head of security, Michael Mace.

It’s not strength that makes the hero. It’s weakness. It’s the crack in the armor.

Comics are full of wounded people whose pain makes them stronger.

There’s a crack in our armor, and no fixing it. But Iron Man is proof that even broken hearts can still beat strong.

maybe the reason I wanted to solve everyone else’s problems is that there wasn’t anything I could do about my own.

the groundbreakers in many sciences were devout believers. Witness the accomplishments of Nicolaus Copernicus (a priest) in astronomy, Blaise Pascal (a lay apologist) in mathematics, Gregor Mendel (a monk) in genetics, Louis Pasteur in biology, Antoine Lavoisier in chemistry, John von Neumann in computer science, and Enrico Fermi and Erwin Schrodinger in physics. That’s a short list, and it includes only Roman Catholics; a long list could continue for pages. A roster that included other believers—Protestants, Jews, and unconventional theists like Albert Einstein, Fred Hoyle, and Paul Davies—could fill a book.

Hartwell’s hockey skills are on a different planet, and I think I might be a little bit in love with her. I’ve never seen anyone play like that, and I have no fucking clue how she’s not already on an NHL roster.

I was ripe for the first escapist avenue that came my way. I will forever be grateful that it came in the form of books. When my world became too much to handle alone, I always had a way out. Even if only for a little while.

There wasn’t a single teetotaler “among the world’s really great men,” Stoll wrote; on the contrary, he said, the roster of wine-loving giants ran from Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Columbus, Dickens, Lincoln, and Bismarck, not to mention Verdi, Wagner, and Admiral Dewey.

Worthy Self, You are not just a “play thing” or an option on anyone’s roster. You are not disposable or unimportant. You are worthy of time, gentleness and adoration. Please do not settle or worry. Timing is everything and there is a love waiting especially for you. Be patient, Self

A very small percentage of those in the church stand behind a pulpit or sport certain kinds of identifiable clothing. The actual leadership roster of the church includes disciples ministering in every arena of life, in business, law, medicine, education, the arts, sciences, government, and religion. The objective of Jesus’s church-growth strategy was not to build a single, behemoth social institution with a limited set of ordained authorities. Instead, his Spirit was to be poured out on all flesh to effect a widening, deepening base of influence within every nation, worldview, and social institution.

Imager isn’t set up yet,” Prof said. “So we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. Mizzy, you’re low man on the team roster. You get scribe duties.” She hopped up from her chair and actually seemed excited by the prospect. She took a marker and wrote Reckoner Super Plan for Killing Regalia at the top of the sheet. Each i was dotted with a heart.

The sixth principle rounds out the roster of our innate aptitudes: whenever possible, we should take measures to re-socialize the information we think about. We learned earlier in this book that the continual patter we carry on in our heads is in fact a kind of internalized conversation. Likewise, many of the written forms we encounter at school and at work—from exams and evaluations, to profiles and case studies, to essays and proposals—are really social exchanges (questions, stories, arguments) put on paper and addressed to some imagined listener or interlocutor. As we’ve seen, there are significant advantages to turning such interactions at a remove back into actual social encounters.

The most compelling and dangerous villains in life and literature aren’t so terribly obvious—it’s the ones who might try to do good, before fate deals them one too many blows. The ones who continue to believe, even in their darkest moments, that their motives are pure—that any destruction they cause to the ones they genuinely love is unavoidable.

To each memorable image you attach a thought, a label, a category, a piece of the cosmic furniture, syllogisms, an enormous sorites, chains of apothegms, strings of hypallages, rosters of zeugmas, dances of hysteron proteron, apophantic logoi, hierarchic stoichea, processions of equinoxes and parallaxes, herbaria, genealogies of gymnosophists—and so on, to infinity.

I’m never going to accomplish anything; that’s perfectly clear to me. I’m never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more. I don’t amount to the powder to blow me to hell. I’ve turned out to be nothing but a bit of flotsam.

around 90 percent of major infrastructure projects worldwide go over budget (by an average of 28 percent) in part because managers focus on the details of their project and become overly optimistic. Project managers can become like Kahneman’s curriculum-building team, which decided that thanks to its roster of experts it would certainly not encounter the same delays as did other groups.

Number one on the roster was a boy, everything began with the boys, and that felt like the right, natural thing. Boys lined up first, boys led every procession no matter where they were header, boys gave their presentations first, and boys had their homework checked first while the girls quietly waited their turn, bored, sometimes relieved that they weren't going first, but never thinking this was a strange practice.

The roster of Nobel laureates... is cluttered with mediocre writers who have neither elegance nor depth, readability nor relevance: lauded during their lifetimes, they died, I’m sure, convinced the had substantially advanced their languages. Your Miss Dickinson died equally convinced no one would ever read a word she wrote; and she is one of the most luminous poets your country has produced. An artist simply cannot trust any public emblem of merit.

But in an age of selfishness and cynicism, when empathy and generosity seem to be in short supply, it’s enough in the real world just to be a good guy, someone who doesn’t battle supervillains but who simply goes out of his or her way to make the world a slightly more decent place. Superheroes take the good and bad we can do and just magnify it to larger-than-life perspectives. Still, we find inspiration in them, just like we have since storytelling began.

I had to wait in the lobby while Rene pretended to find my name on the roster of fighters. “Fools,” she said, flipping through the pages. “Is that a description of your team’s intelligence or your need to amuse?” “It’s our motto.” “Hmmm . . .” She pretended to leaf through paperwork. “You like screwing with me, don’t you?” She offered me a mordant smile. “Just doing my job properly. Like you told me.” She’d keep me waiting for a while. I should’ve kissed Curran before I left. What did I have to lose anyway?

And so, as the passengers drifted off to sleep to the rhythmic clicking of steel wheels against rail, little did they dream that, riding in the car at the end of their train, were six men who represented an estimated one-fourth of the total wealth of the entire world. This was the roster of the Aldrich car that night: Nelson W. Aldrich, Republican "whip" in the Senate, Chairman of the National Monetary Commission, business associate of J.P. Morgan, father-in-law to John D. Rockefeller, Jr.; Abraham Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury; Frank A. Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank of New York, the most powerful of the banks at that time, representing William Rockefeller and the international investment banking house of Kuhn, Loeb & Company; Henry P. Davison, senior partner of the J.P. Morgan Company; Benjamin Strong, head of J.P. Morgan's Bankers Trust Company;1 6. Paul M. Warburg, a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company, a representative of the Rothschild banking dynasty in England and France, and brother to Max Warburg who was head of the Warburg banking consortium in Germany and the Netherlands.2

your team is ranked first? congratulations and big deal. maintaining a top position is far easier than starting over from the gutters. kevin is doing that right now. he’s facing entirely new schools and learning to play with his less dominant hand. when he masters it, and he will, he’ll be better than you could ever have made him. do you know why? it’s not just his natural talent. it’s because he’s with us. there are only ten foxes this year. that’s one sub for every position. think about it. last night we played blackenridge. they have twenty-seven people on their roster. they can burn through players as fast as they want because they have a pile of replacements. we don’t have that luxury. we have to hold our ground on our own.” “you didn’t hold your ground, you lost. your school is the laughingstock of the ncaa. you’re a team with no concept of teamwork.” “lucky for you. if we were a unified front, you wouldn’t have a chance against us.” “you cannot last and your unfounded arrogance is offensive to everyone who actually earned a spot in first class. everyone knows the only reason palmetto qualified for this division is because of your coach.” “funny, i’m pretty sure that’s how edgar allan qualified.” - neil & riko

consider trying to forgive him yet again. He did his part, so I returned to our home in Virginia that summer of 2010. I wasn’t hopeful, but I didn’t have the strength to end our marriage—or to save it. We attended counseling together for a while, but the conversations reached dead ends. Nonetheless, Robert attempted to rebuild our connection. He wasn’t staying out all night. He helped with the kids and seemed committed to fixing the broken bond between us. Before we knew it, training camp was starting again and he would once again be competing for a spot on the roster. The coaching staff had experienced some changes,

Somehow Jason and I ended up on the very last seat. Maybe everyone else was just too tired to walk that far. Jason put his arm around me and drew me up against his side. Once the coach called the roster and everyone was accounted for, we headed home. It was really dark on the bus. It didn’t seem as windy. Maybe because Jason was holding me close. Then he kissed me. A really long, slow, deep kiss. A kiss that made me see fireworks. When he pulled back, I could see him grinning, even in the darkness. “I love the flavor of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.” “You know where you can always get a taste,” I said. He kissed me again.

a tragic roster of activists and innocents had died for the crime of being black or supporting blacks in their state. There was Willie Edwards Jr., the truck driver forced off a bridge to his death by four Klansmen in Montgomery. There was William Lewis Moore, the man from Baltimore shot and killed in Attalla while trying to walk a letter denouncing segregation 385 miles to the governor of Mississippi. There were four young girls, Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, killed by the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. There was thirteen-year-old Virgil Lamar Ware, shot to death on the handlebars of his brother’s bicycle in the same city. There was Jimmie Lee Jackson, beaten and shot by state troopers in Marion while he tried to protect his mother and grandfather during a protest. There was the Reverend James Reeb, the Unitarian minister beaten to death in Selma. There was Viola Gregg Liuzzo, shot by Klansmen while trying to ferry marchers between Selma and Montgomery. There was Willie Brewster, shot to death while walking home in Anniston. There was Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a seminarian registering black voters who was arrested for participating in a protest and then shot by a deputy sheriff in Hayneville. There was Samuel Leamon Younge Jr., murdered by a gas station owner after arguing about segregated restrooms.

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.

Top Choices of Metroid Prime 2 Rom And, once you're at the local game store, have a peak at their used section. Nearly all the initial theme and game play will be preserved intact within this 24-Meg cart, together with some new characteristics which are certain to blow away all of the hardcore metroid fanatics everywhere. Just head over to the website and hunt for the sport you desire. Fortunately for you, your preceding pal Casey is here to assist you outside. If you are not able to accomplish this, the boss will regain hitpoints and you have got to fight. All the original weapons are here plus a completely different roster! The most obvious positive about buying a hard copy of a game is it could be shared with other folks.

Within Room 40 itself, however, management of day-to-day operations fell largely, if informally, to Cdr. Herbert Hope, recruited in November 1914 to bring naval expertise to the interpretation of intercepted messages. His savvy was badly needed, for the group’s staff were not navy officers but civilians recruited for their skill at mathematics and German and whatever else it was that made a man good at breaking codes and ciphers. The roster came to include a pianist, a furniture expert, a parson from northern Ireland, a wealthy London financier, a past member of the Scottish Olympic hockey team, and a dapper operative named C. Somers Cocks, who, according to one early member, William F. Clarke, was “chiefly remarkable for his spats.

So was a brochure entitled “How Prohibition Would Affect California,” an unmistakable example of Stoll’s high-stepping jauntiness. There wasn’t a single teetotaler “among the world’s really great men,” Stoll wrote; on the contrary, he said, the roster of wine-loving giants ran from Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Columbus, Dickens, Lincoln, and Bismarck, not to mention Verdi, Wagner, and Admiral Dewey. How he knew what he claimed to know about the drinking habits of his Hall of Fame was unclear, but it set up the punch line: “What names can the prohibitionists show to compare with those above?” the brochure asked. “Has there ever been a prohibitionist who was a really great man . . . unless it be Mohammed, the first prohibitionist?

Abundance and scarcity In a society where value is created by the manufacture of goods or the allocation of limited resources, it’s not a surprise that organizations seek scarcity. We hesitate to share, because if I give you this, then I don’t have it any more. We erect barriers and create rules to make it difficult for some people to have access to these limited resources. While we don’t set out to become miserly, it’s an economic instinct, because what’s yours is no long mine. Even though we give lip service to sharing when kids show up for kindergarten classes, most of school is organized around the same ideas. We rank students, we cut players from the roster, we grade on a curve. Success, we teach, is scarce. Our new economy, though, is based on abundance, the abundance that comes from ideas and access. If I benefit when everyone knows my idea, then the more people I give the idea to, the better we all do. If I benefit when I earn a reputation leading, connecting and creating positive change, then I’ll benefit if I can offer these insights to anyone who can benefit from them. With an abundance mindset, we intentionally create goods that can be shared. It’s not based on our traditional factory-based economy, but it works now (in fact, it’s just about all that works)… engaging with the mesh, building communities that benefit from sharing resources instead of destroying them is a strategy that scales. With an abundance mindset, we create ideas and services that do better when people share.

That is probably the single phrase that a lot of Jerusalem rests upon: the persistent illusion of transience. The buildings that we love have been pulled down, the people that we loved have gone, you don’t get anything decent on a Saturday night on the telly any more, they don’t make Spangles . . . all of this roster of loss that is our lives, it doesn’t matter. It’s all fine. It’s all back down the road. You’ll probably be experiencing it again, and again, because there’s nowhere else for your consciousness to go. ‘This means that you should never do anything that you can’t live with eternally, which I think is a good rule for life. It also means that Heaven and Hell exist. They’re just not places that are elsewhere. They are here now. They are your life.

They were flying back from a big show in London, the whole roster on the plane. The story goes that much alcohol was consumed and things quickly got uncomfortable: Hennig and Scott Hall went wild with some shaving cream; Dustin Rhodes awkwardly serenaded his ex-wife, Terri; the legendary wrestler turned booker Michael “P.S.” Hayes got punched out by JBL and later, after he had fallen asleep, had his ponytail chopped off by Sean Waltman; Ric Flair paraded in front of a flight attendant in nothing but his sequined ring robe; and, to top it all off, Hennig challenged collegiate wrestling star (and WWE golden boy) Brock Lesnar to a Greco-Roman wrestling match that ended when Lesnar tackled Hennig into the exit door, and they were pulled apart just before they jeopardized the flight.

We have followed the general practice in referring to the nominative form as a "case" among four other cases. However, some modern grammarians have developed an account which goes back to Aristotle and according to which the term "noun" ('onoma') should be reserved for the nominative form, which names ('onomazein') simply, with no indication of a relation to other elements in the sentence. From its base (or "upright" or "straight" -- 'orthe', 'eutheia') form and function, a noun may undergo a "fall" ('ptosis', Latin 'casus', whence English 'case') or "inclination" ('klisis', from 'klino') towards other elements within the sentence. The roster of such fallings off is called a 'declension'. Although it is convenient to include the nominative form among the "cases," we shall occasionally refer to the other four as the 'oblique' cases.

[...]a man and a boy, side by side on a yellow Swedish sofa from the 1950s that the man had bought because it somehow reminded him of a zoot suit, watching the A’s play Baltimore, Rich Harden on the mound working that devious ghost pitch, two pairs of stocking feet, size 11 and size 15, rising from the deck of the coffee table at either end like towers of the Bay Bridge, between the feet the remains in an open pizza box of a bad, cheap, and formerly enormous XL meat lover’s special, sausage, pepperoni, bacon, ground beef, and ham, all of it gone but crumbs and parentheses of crusts left by the boy, brackets for the blankness of his conversation and, for all the man knew, of his thoughts, Titus having said nothing to Archy since Gwen’s departure apart from monosyllables doled out in response to direct yes-or-nos, Do you like baseball? you like pizza? eat meat? pork?, the boy limiting himself whenever possible to a tight little nod, guarding himself at his end of the sofa as if riding on a crowded train with something breakable on his lap, nobody saying anything in the room, the city, or the world except Bill King and Ken Korach calling the plays, the game eventless and yet blessedly slow, player substitutions and deep pitch counts eating up swaths of time during which no one was required to say or to decide anything, to feel what might conceivably be felt, to dread what might be dreaded, the game standing tied at 1 and in theory capable of going on that way forever, or at least until there was not a live arm left in the bullpen, the third-string catcher sent in to pitch the thirty-second inning, batters catnapping slumped against one another on the bench, dead on their feet in the on-deck circle, the stands emptied and echoing, hot dog wrappers rolling like tumbleweeds past the diehards asleep in their seats, inning giving way to inning as the dawn sky glowed blue as the burner on a stove, and busloads of farmhands were brought in under emergency rules to fill out the weary roster, from Sacramento and Stockton and Norfolk, Virginia, entire villages in the Dominican ransacked for the flower of their youth who were loaded into the bellies of C-130s and flown to Oakland to feed the unassuageable appetite of this one game for batsmen and fielders and set-up men, threat after threat giving way to the third out, weak pop flies, called third strikes, inning after inning, week after week, beards growing long, Christmas coming, summer looping back around on itself, wars ending, babies graduating from college, and there’s ball four to load the bases for the 3,211th time, followed by a routine can of corn to left, the commissioner calling in varsity teams and the stars of girls’ softball squads and Little Leaguers, Archy and Titus sustained all that time in their equally infinite silence, nothing between them at all but three feet of sofa;

The bottom line is that not only are NBA players outlandishly tall, they are also preposterously long, even relative to their stature. And when an NBA player does not have the height required to fit into his slot in the athletic body types universe, he nearly always has the arm span to make up for it. In the post–Big Bang of body types era, whether with height or reach, almost no player makes the NBA without a functional size that is typical for his position and often on the fringe of humanity. Only two players from a 2010–11 NBA roster with available official measurements have arms shorter than their height. One is J. J. Redick, the Milwaukee Bucks guard who is 6'4" with a 6'3¼" arm span, downright Tyrannosaurus rex-ian in the NBA.* The other is now-retired Rockets center Yao Ming. But at a height just over 7'5", Yao, whose gargantuan parents were brought together for breeding purposes by the Chinese basketball federation, fit into his niche just fine.

At a young age, Evan would listen in on his father’s long legal calls, which he credits for giving him early business exposure that helped develop his critical thinking and business accumen. He can often become obsessed with ideas, hungrily learning everything he can about them at a rapid pace. Evan is constantly curious and is learning and getting better at being a CEO very quickly. But his two superpowers are (1) his ability to get inside his users’ heads and think like a teenage girl and (2) his knack for attracting brilliant, powerful mentors. Evan loves picking other people’s brains over a walk or a meal. Over the years he has attracted an A-list roster of mentors, including SoftBank’s Nikesh Arora, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Google’s Eric Schmidt. He doesn’t just limit these brain dumps to tech luminaries, though, as he often walks and chats with fashion designers, politicians, documentary filmmakers, and other intriguing peers. Often, these impressive people will come speak to Team Snapchat at their Venice headquarters.

Christ. Study the roster. Study everybody’s photos,” she said. “Where’s the packing list for Earl?” Et cetera, et cetera . . . That spring, the gallery was putting up Ping Xi’s first solo show—“Bowwowwow”—and Natasha was up in arms about every little detail. She probably would have fired me sooner had she not been so busy. I tried to feign interest and mask my horror whenever Natasha talked about Ping Xi’s “dog pieces.” He had taxidermied a variety of pure breeds: a poodle, a Pomeranian, a Scottish terrier. Black Lab, Dachshund. Even a little Siberian husky pup. He’d been working on them for a long time. He and Natasha had grown close since his cum paintings had sold so well. During the installation, I overheard one of the interns whispering to the electrician. “There’s a rumor going around that the artist gets the dogs as puppies, raises them, then kills them when they’re the size he wants. He locks them in an industrial freezer because that’s the most humane way to euthanize them without compromising the look of the animal. When they thaw, he can get them into whatever position he wants.

The poetry reading promoted an anthology celebrating the varied voices of the United States. The evening's readers represented several races and ethnicities, a kind of attention to inclusivity I admired. But a few days before my flight, I found out that I was the roster's only woman. I brought this to the attention of the event coordinators, and they said it was too late to correct the lack of gender equity. As a concession, they said that I and the other readers should make a point of reading others' poems to that end. When I joined the seven male readers at the venue, the organizers reminded us of our time limit and suggested I read first. I read my poem from the anthology, as well as one poem each by two other women: a wry, pointed poem by Jane Mead and a focused, hopeful poem by Audre Lorde. I kept to the specified time limit. Then I sat down. Like an obedient girl. The men at the podium, every one, read over their times. They read their own poems from the anthology. Then they read others. Not others as in other people's - women's - poems, which was the idea conveyed to me. No. These men read other poems of their own. I'd flown to New York to read a single poem of my own and watch men drown out my voice and the voices of all the other women in the book.

FOLKSBIENE, an impoverished, frail Yiddish theater company in constant danger of annihilation, had outlasted all the giants. The year of Schwartz's death the little troupe moved into the Forward building, guaranteeing it a permanent home with four walls and a roof, plus heat in the winter, fans in the summer, and best of all, continuing subsidies from the newspaper and the Workmen's Circle. Sporadically, other Yiddish productions would take place in New York, but they were one-shots, musicals, and charity fund-raisers. Ensconced in their new place, Folksbiene managers claimed that theirs was the oldest continuously operating Yiddish theater in the world. As proof, all past productions were listed year by year, ranging all the way back to 1915. It was an impressive roster. Among the authors included were Sholem Aleichem, Leon Kobrin, and both Singer brothers, Israel Joshua and Isaac Bashevis; also the Russians Alexander Pushkin and Maxim Gorki; and such American authors as Theodore Dreiser, Eugene O'Neill, Sherwood Anderson, and Clifford Odets. It didn't matter how well attended those shows were, or how well acted, or the duration of their runs. The point was that the Folksbiene had survived, just as the Jewish people had survived. Together, they were the keepers of the flame. It was a very small candle in a very big city.

I got back to the vehicles and spotted Ashley Voss right away. She was standing there waiting with her rucksack, ready to go. I walked up to her, smiled, and said, “Hey, what’s up? I’m Noah.” “Hi. I’m Ashley,” she said without much emotion. “Cool. Are you excited to come to our area?” I flashed her a grin. After a brief pause she said, “Yeah, the medics can use a female.” She was acting like a professional and I was acting more like someone standing at a bar trying to buy her a drink. As if that couldn’t be more awkward, right at that moment my radio squawked loudly, “Hey, can somebody get me that female medic’s roster number? I need it before we head out.” It was Jerry, ruining my game. I leaned over and hit the button and said a little too proudly, “I’ve got the female medic with me now. I will get that for you.” And before I could ask her what it was, Jerry came back over the radio, “Galloway. You’re with the female. Why am I not surprised?” Ashley gave me her roster number, and I sent it back to Jerry. I turned to Ashley and said, “I’m not a player, just wanted to know more about you.” She didn’t look that convinced. We got in the trucks and drove back. At the potato plant all the guys started sniffing this girl out like a bunch of hound dogs. One of the guys ran and grabbed her rucksack for her and carried it into the medic station, like he was a bellhop.

But my point applies to a broader audience. Indulge me in one more thought experiment, a familiar one: You will be stranded on a desert island, and you can take just 10 books and 10 music CDs. What do you choose? My prediction is that even people who don’t listen to classical music regularly will take Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. Even people who haven’t picked up Shakespeare in years will take the collected works of Shakespeare. When we want something we can go back to again and again, we choose the same giants that the experts choose. My proposition about the literature, music, and visual arts of the last half century is that hardly any of it has enough substance to satisfy, over time. The post-1950 West has unquestionably produced some wonderful entertainments, and I do not mean wonderful slightingly. The Simpsons is wickedly smart, Saving Private Ryan is gripping, Groundhog Day is a brilliant moral fable. The West’s popular culture is for my money the only contemporary culture worth patronizing, with its best stories more compelling and revealing than the ones written by authors who purport to write serious novels, and its best popular music with more energy and charm than anything the academic composers turn out. It is a mixed bag, with the irredeemably vulgar side by side, sometimes intermingled, with the wittiest and most thoughtful work. But the quality is often first-rate—as well it might be. The people producing the best work include some who in another age could have been a Caravaggio or Brahms or Racine, and perhaps dozens of others good enough to have made their way onto the roster of significant figures. Why not be satisfied with wonderful entertainments?

SOME OF THE WOMEN YOU WILL MEET on these pages, you will already know. Some you’ll know by name, and others, including some of the very best, you may never have heard of. Frankly, some of these women have careers that deserve a book-length treatment all their own. I’m thinking, in particular, of Nathalie Baye, Sandrine Bonnaire, Isabelle Huppert, Agnès Jaoui, Sandrine Kiberlain, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Karin Viard. In any case, over the course of this book, you will come to know their best work and that of their colleagues. It is a striking thing, the sheer vastness of the working talent, a roster that includes but is hardly limited to names such as Isabelle Adjani, Fanny Ardant, Josiane Balasko, Emmanuelle Béart, Leïla Bekhti, Monica Bellucci, Juliette Binoche, Élodie Bouchez, Isabelle Carré, Amira Casar, Marion Cotillard, Marie-Josée Croze, Emmanuelle Devos, Marina Foïs, Sara Forestier, Cécile de France, Catherine Frot, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Julie Gayet, Marie Gillain, Marina Hands, Mélanie Laurent, Virginie Ledoyen, Valérie Lemercier, Sophie Marceau, Chiara Mastroianni, Anna Mouglalis, Géraldine Pailhas, Charlotte Rampling, Natacha Régnier, Brigitte Roüan, Ludivine Sagnier, Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathilde Seigner, Audrey Tautou, Sylvie Testud, Kristin Scott Thomas and Elsa Zylberstein. Some of these women are renowned for their beauty (Béart, Bellucci, Binoche, Marceau). But many others are beautiful in ways that elude analysis. They are warm or electric or magnetic or so idiosyncratic that your eyes immediately go to them. They are beautiful like the actresses of an earlier Hollywood generation, like Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert or Olivia de Havilland. In the 1930s, Busby Berkeley’s chorus lines were filled with women who were prettier, and yet these ladies became objects of cinematic fantasy. Obviously, they had some requisite base level of good looks, but what pushed them into the realm of beauty was something else, something inside them, something to do with their essential being. And yet . . . what happens if a culture or an industry isn’t interested in a woman’s essential being? Stanwyck and her exalted colleagues would have been nothing in such an environment, just as many American actresses today are going through entire careers without ever showing what’s inside of them.

Gentile’s office in downtown Las Vegas, I got on the elevator and turned around and there was a TV camera. It was just the two of us in the little box, me and the man with the big machine on his shoulder. He was filming me as I stood there silent. “Turn the camera off,” I said. He didn’t. I tried to move away from him in the elevator, and somehow in the maneuvering he bumped my chin with the black plastic end of his machine and I snapped. I slugged him, or actually I slugged the camera. He turned it off. The maids case was like a county fair compared with the Silverman disappearance, which had happened in the media capital of the world. It had happened within blocks of the studios of the three major networks and the New York Times. The tabloids reveled in the rich narrative of the case, and Mom and Kenny became notorious throughout the Western Hemisphere. Most crimes are pedestrian and tawdry. Though each perpetrator has his own rap sheet and motivation and banged-up psyche, the crime blotter is very repetitive. A wife beater kills his wife. A crack addict uses a gun to get money for his habit. Liquor-store holdups, domestic abuse, drug dealer shoot-outs, DWIs, and so on. This one had a story line you could reduce to a movie pitch. Mother/Son Grifters Held in Millionaire’s Disappearance! My mother’s over-the-top persona, Kenny’s shady polish, and the ridiculous rumors of mother-son incest gave the media a narrative it couldn’t resist. Mom and Kenny were the smart, interesting, evil criminals with the elaborate, diabolical plan who exist in fiction and rarely in real life. The media landed on my life with elephant feet. I was under siege as soon as I returned to my office after my family’s excursion to Newport Beach. The deluge started at 10 A.M. on July 8, 1998. I kept a list in a drawer of the media outlets that called or dropped by our little one-story L-shaped office building on Decatur. It was a tabloid clusterfuck. Every network, newspaper, local news station, and wire service sent troops. Dateline and 20/20 competed to see who could get a Kimes segment on-air first. Dateline did two shows about Mom and Kenny. I developed a strategy for dealing with reporters. My unusual training in the media arts as the son of Sante, and as a de facto paralegal in the maids case, meant that I had a better idea of how to deal with reporters than my staff did. They might find it exciting that someone wanted to talk to them, and forget to stop at “No comment.” I knew better. So I hid from the camera crews in a back room, so there’d be no pictures, and I handled the calls myself. I told my secretary not to bother asking who was on the line and to transfer all comers back to me. I would get the name and affiliation of the reporter, write down the info on my roster, and

Meanwhile, U.S. Navy officials were grappling with their own problems. The American fleet that vanquished Imperial Japan and helped storm the shores of Fortress Europe did not exist anymore. From a wartime high of 3.3 million men and women, the U.S. Navy roster plummeted to 491,663 by December 1946.8

Mayeroff lists a number of elements necessary to be a good caregiver, attributes that are just as necessary to be a good employee or manager. His roster includes knowledge, patience, adaptability to different rhythms, honesty, courage, trust, humility, and hope.

the visibility of the international art world citizenry augments Dakar’s visibility as a site in the growing roster of cities comprising the global art scene.

paled on the bizarre-o-meter, however, compared with what happened on September 30, 1983, when the roster of the Chicago Blitz and the roster of the Arizona Wranglers were traded for each other. Yes, traded for each other. It was, unofficially, the largest singular professional sports transaction of all time. Wrote

Greg, I’m sorry, but you’re not on the roster this time.” “I’m NEVER on the roster. That’s what I’m trying to tell you! Three years I’ve been on this ship, and now once have I ever been on a landing party.” “Of course you haven’t,” “Dr. Nambue said. “You’re a DENTIST.

By some quirk of fate, I had been chosen—along with five others—as a candidate to be the next equerry to the Princess of Wales. I knew little about what an equerry actually did, but I did not greatly care. I already knew I wanted to do the job. Two years on loan to the royal household would surely be good for promotion, and even if it was not, it had to be better than slaving in the Ministry of Defense, which was the most likely alternative. I wondered what it would be like to work in a palace. Through friends and relatives I had an idea it was not all red carpets and footmen. Running the royal family must involve a lot of hard work for somebody, I realized, but not, surely, for the type of tiny cog that was all I expected to be. In the wardroom of the frigate, alongside in Loch Ewe, news of the signal summoning me to London for an interview had been greeted with predictable ribaldry and a swift expectation that I therefore owed everybody several free drinks. Doug, our quiet American on loan from the U.S. Navy, spoke for many. He observed me in skeptical silence for several minutes. Then he took a long pull at his beer, blew out his mustache, and said, “Let me get this straight. You are going to work for Princess Di?” I had to admit it sounded improbable. Anyway, I had not even been selected yet. I did not honestly think I would be. “Might work for her, Doug. Only might. There’re probably several smooth Army buggers ahead of me in the line. I’m just there to make it look democratic.” The First Lieutenant, thinking of duty rosters, was more practical. “Whatever about that, you’ve wangled a week ashore. Lucky bastard!” Everyone agreed with him, so I bought more drinks. While these were being poured, my eye fell on the portraits hanging on the bulkhead. There were the regulation official photographs of the Queen and Prince Philip, and there, surprisingly, was a distinctly nonregulation picture of the Princess of Wales, cut from an old magazine and lovingly framed by an officer long since appointed elsewhere. The picture had been hung so that it lay between the formality of the official portraits and the misty eroticism of some art prints we had never quite got around to throwing away. The symbolic link did not require the services of one of the notoriously sex-obsessed naval psychologists for interpretation. As she looked down at us in our off-duty moments the Princess represented youth, femininity, and a glamour beyond our gray steel world. She embodied the innocent vulnerability we were in extremis employed to defend. Also, being royal, she commanded the tribal loyalty our profession had valued above all else for more than a thousand years, since the days of King Alfred. In addition, as a matter of simple fact, this tasty-looking bird was our future Queen. Later, when that day in Loch Ewe felt like a relic from another lifetime, I often marveled at the Princess’s effect on military people. That unabashed loyalty symbolized by Arethusa’s portrait was typical of reactions in messhalls and barracks worldwide. Sometimes the men gave the impression that they would have died for her not because it was their duty, but because they wanted to. She really seemed worth it.

Let’s go back to what happened at the ballpark,” I said, “because I’m still not getting it.” He sighed. “Look, he tells me he’s got a thing for you. I back off. He gets you. And now he’s making moves on Tiffany. What’s up with that? I know you like him. He’s a nine point five and I’m a six--” “No!” I reached out, covered his hand with mine. “Dani, I saw your roster that night at Ben and Jerry’s, when it fell out of your bag. I unfolded it, shouldn’t have, but I did. I saw the hottie scores--” “No. I mean, yes, I gave you a six, but I did it because I wanted to give you a ten.” He shook his head. “That makes no sense.” “I was trying to convince myself you weren’t a ten, because it’s a lot harder living with a guy you’re attracted to than it is living with one you’re not.” “Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You gave me a six because you liked me, and you thought it would make you stop liking me?” “I thought it would be weird liking a guy who was living in my house. And I sorta promised Mom I wouldn’t do that. Really like the guy who was living here. Only I do.

The team always sold programs for a buck at the games. Inside were the stats on each Rattler. There was also a roster of the visiting team, but they didn’t include their stats. I guess the general consensus was: Who cares? They’re not our guys. Ragland was pretty loyal to its team.

Dani, I saw your roster that night at Ben and Jerry’s, when it fell out of your bag. I unfolded it, shouldn’t have, but I did. I saw the hottie scores--” “No. I mean, yes, I gave you a six, but I did it because I wanted to give you a ten.” He shook his head. “That makes no sense.” “I was trying to convince myself you weren’t a ten, because it’s a lot harder living with a guy you’re attracted to than it is living with one you’re not.” “Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You gave me a six because you liked me, and you thought it would make you stop liking me?

We’d given Mac a nine point five, but only because Bird said we couldn’t give every guy a ten. I hadn’t scored Jason yet. He deserved a ten. No question. But officially scoring him as the hottest of the hot would make me uncomfortable living with him. After all, I wasn’t really supposed to be noticing him. A six. I could easily live with a six. Still, I felt like I was betraying him when I wrote the score on my roster. “Shortstop is cute,” I said. I glanced at the lineup. Chase Parker. “I can’t tell at this distance,” Bird said. “I wish they had these guys’ pictures on the roster.” “They’ll have them in the program on Tuesday.” The team always sold programs for a buck at the games. Inside were the stats on each Rattler. There was also a roster of the visiting team, but they didn’t include their stats. I guess the general consensus was: Who cares? They’re not our guys. Ragland was pretty loyal to its team.

The church is not merely a roster of individuals who pray privately; it is a congregation that ought to pray together.

I don't really care. The whole division can hate me. The whole roster can hate me. The whole of America can hate me. I only need one American to love me. And that's Mr. Benjamin Franklin. As long as he loves me, I am good.

Is it because I worked on Sundays and didn't keep the Sabbath holy? Broke one of Your ten commandments? I had no choice. The call roster was drawn, the calls had to be done. Who was I not to work on a Sunday when everyone else does? Jesus' disciples picked wheat on the Sabbath, and He defended them. Why didn't He defend me? Is it because I'm not good enough? You say You love us all the same, but You don't, You love others differently, You love others more. Why didn't You defend me, Jesus?

Brown had too many quality players for the thirty-three-man roster. Rather than waive them to other teams in the AAFC, he devised a secret plan with owner McBride by which several players who had been cut would land jobs with the Zone/Yellow Cab Co., with schedules arranged so that they could report to League Park in Cleveland, where the Browns practiced. Thus was born the “taxi squad” in pro football.

It’s a funny thing, strength. People call you strong, when all you’ve really had the strength to do was keep breathing and putting one foot in front of the other.

Dampen Overoptimism and Excessive Pessimism. Counter the hubris of success, focus attention on latent threats and unresolved problems, and protect against taking unwarranted risks; at the same time, bolster confidence in coming back from downturns and setbacks. Build a Diverse Top Team. Leaders need to take final responsibility, but leadership is also a team sport best played with an able and varied roster of those collectively capable of resolving the key challenges. Place Common Interest First. In setting strategy, communicating vision, and reaching decisions, common purpose comes first, personal self-interest last. Think Like a CEO. Work through what a company CEO—or even a country’s president or top leader—would expect of you at that moment, and bring that expectation into your actions.

So, what is it that makes an ‘open conspiracy’ open, as in placed there in plain sight for everyone to see? Larry Hecht explains: “what makes the ‘open conspiracy’ open, is not the laying out of some secret master plan, not the revealing of the membership roster of some inner sanctum of the rich and powerful, which the typical deluded populist supposes to be the secret to power in the world. It is, rather, the understanding that ideas, philosophy and culture, control history. What constitutes a conspiracy, for good or evil, is a set of ideas which embody a concept of what it is to be human, and a conception of man’s role in universal history.

troop-to-task roster

How Good Deeds Conquered an Empire Humanly speaking, no one would have thought it possible to bring the nations to the worship of God through simple good deeds. How on earth could “good deeds” change a realm as mighty as the Roman Empire, let alone the whole world? As unlikely as it may have sounded at the time, Jesus’ call to be the light of the world was taken seriously by his disciples. They devoted themselves to quite heroic acts of godliness. They loved their enemies, prayed for their persecutors and cared for the poor wherever they found them. We know that the Jerusalem church set up a large daily food roster for the destitute among them—no fewer than seven Christian leaders were assigned to the management of the program (Acts 6:1—7). The apostle Paul, perhaps the greatest missionary/evangelist ever, was utterly devoted to these kinds of good deeds. In response to a famine that ravaged Palestine between AD 46—48 Paul conducted his own decade-long international aid program earmarked for poverty-stricken Palestinians. Wherever he went, he asked the Gentile churches to contribute whatever they could to the poor in Jerusalem.23 Christian “good deeds” continued long after the New Testament era. We know, for instance, that by AD 250 the Christian community in Rome was supporting 1,500 destitute people every day.24 All around the Mediterranean churches were setting up food programs, hospitals and orphanages. These were available to believers and unbelievers alike. This was an innovation. Historians often point to ancient Israel as the first society to introduce a comprehensive welfare system that cared for the poor and marginalised within the community. Christians

A glimmer of hope just isn’t enough,” Wally said. “You have to expect it. You have to know in your heart that you have earned your spot on a major league roster.

Maybe the Survivors’ Club wasn’t something you “earned,” but simply what you were born into when you came out of your mother’s womb. Your heartbeat put you on the roster and then the rest of it was just a question of vocabulary: The nouns and verbs used to describe the events that rocked your foundation and sent you flailing were not always the same as other people’s, but the random cruelties of disease and accident, and the malicious focus of evil men and nasty deeds, and the heartbreak of loss with all its stinging whips and rattling chains . . . at the core, it was all the same. And there was no opt-out clause in the club’s bylaws—unless you offed yourself. The essential truth of life, he was coming to realize, wasn’t romantic and took only two words to label: Shit. Happens.

What’s a night with her cost?” Briggs grins. “There is no night with her. You have to get on her roster. It’s like a country club membership.

Rizzo had been Bud’s favorite player on the current roster.

during the three decades following the war.50 Whoever challenged the racial hierarchy was marked a potential victim of the mob. The endless roster of the dead came to include every sort of insurgent—from the owners of successful Black businesses and workers pressing for higher wages to those who refused to be called “boy” and the defiant women who resisted white men’s sexual abuses. Yet public opinion had been captured, and it was taken for granted that lynching was a just response to the barbarous sexual crimes against white womanhood.

​“Many,” sighed Ashuri, “and from various faculties. A considerable number of them are not even registered at the university. They come to register, and I ignore the fact that they are not on the roster. This year, I closed registration after seventy-five students had signed up, but in reality over a hundred attended each lecture. For purely selfish reasons, because of my age, I suppose, I refused to accept any more. I have found lately that Kabbalah has shown signs of a resurgence of interest. As a result, many charlatans earn a fine living from it.” ​Elijah remembered that he was really on his way to the library. He parted from Prof. Ashuri in his normal awkward, hesitant and apologetic manner, thanking her profusely no less than three times; he would even have bowed down to her if that was what would have enabled him to expedite his exit. However, Prof. Ashuri had one more important observation to make. ​“I hope that your interest in the Kabbalah will not infect you with that dreaded disease...” she smiled. ​“What disease do you mean?” ​“Kabbalistic literature is generally divided into three major streams. The first and most important one is the cosmological, mission-oriented one. Here we find a direct line between ourselves and the Master of the Universes, by way of His influence on all the intermediate worlds. Note the term, ‘Master of the Universes’ in the plural. In this view, there are mutual influences, going from the upper worlds to us, and from us to the upper worlds. All the commandments and all the proper intentions and all the prayers are ultimately aimed at mending those spheres, which were damaged at the time of the Creation. In the language of the Kabbalah, this means repairing those vessels which were broken. ​“The second stream is Kabbalistic-prophetic. It is an attempt to attain what is known as cleaving to God and to achieve spiritual elevation. This can be accomplished by internal meditation, which includes reciting the Holy Names, internal and external purification, combining sacred letters and repeating them over and over, singing and moving the head, and breathing techniques. This can unite one with the higher worlds. One who does this properly can reach the level of prophecy. There are even books with detailed instructions on how to actually accomplish this and how to ascend to a higher spiritual level. I often hear of students who have embarked on such a course, and it is, indeed, a disease.” ​“Don’t worry about me. And what about the third stream?” ​“The third stream is the one which has elicited the most criticism. It is referred to as Practical Kabbalah. By that, we mean people who use the Kabbalah for their own personal purposes, as a way to exploit the secret knowledge to which they have access in order to control nature and man’s fate. Practical Kabbalah appeals directly to supernatural forces and sometimes even makes them solve the problems of the one calling upon them. These include attempts to foretell the future, to converse with the dead, to heal the sick, to banish evil spirits and the evil eye, and of course to acquire wealth, respect, and/or the love of a man or a woman. That, too, is a dangerous game to play.” Prof. Ashuri laughed, but Elijah could not tell whether or not she was serious.

On the contrary, the more excellence we have on the team, the more we accomplish. The more we accomplish, the more we grow. The more we grow, the more positions we add to our roster. The more positions we add, the more space there is for high-performing talent.

Oh yeah, apparently, I’m a bottom now. Add that to the ‘about me’ section of the Rays team roster website.

Asylum Records became a power base for David Geffen, with one of the best artist rosters in the business. It became the home label for what was to be known as the California sound. Elliot continued running the management company, most of whose artists recorded on Asylum, whose corporate philosophy was “benevolent protectionism.” The record company was different from other labels and was proud of its noninterference with the private and artistic lives of its artists, who in turn looked to David Geffen and company to insulate and protect them from the shocks and insults of commercially oriented sales and marketing types, aggressive promotion men, and demanding producers. The opening lineup at Asylum included Jackson Browne, the Eagles, and Joni Mitchell, with Linda Ronstadt joining shortly after. In 1974, the legendary Bob Dylan would leave Columbia and release two Top 10 albums with the company before returning to his original label. That didn’t matter to David. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young were Atlantic artists and they were doing quite nicely, thank you very much. Besides,

English and half Nigerian, Stacey had never set foot outside the United Kingdom. Her tight black hair was cut short and close to her head following the removal of her last weave. The smooth caramel skin suited the haircut well. Stacey’s work area was organised and clear. Anything not in the labelled trays was stacked in meticulous piles along the top edge of her desk. Not far behind was Detective Sergeant Bryant who mumbled a ‘Morning, Guv,’ as he glanced into The Bowl. His six foot frame looked immaculate, as though he had been dressed for Sunday school by his mother. Immediately the suit jacket landed on the back of his chair. By the end of the day his tie would have dropped a couple of floors, the top button of his shirt would be open and his shirt sleeves would be rolled up just below his elbows. She saw him glance at her desk, seeking evidence of a coffee mug. When he saw that she already had coffee he filled the mug labelled ‘World’s Best Taxi Driver’, a present from his nineteen-year-old daughter. His filing was not a system that anyone else understood but Kim had yet to request any piece of paper that was not in her hands within a few seconds. At the top of his desk was a framed picture of himself and his wife taken at their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. A picture of his daughter snuggled in his wallet. DS Kevin Dawson, the third member of her team, didn’t keep a photo of anyone special on his desk. Had he wanted to display a picture of the person for whom he felt most affection he would have been greeted by his own likeness throughout his working day. ‘Sorry I’m late, Guv,’ Dawson called as he slid into his seat opposite Wood and completed her team. He wasn’t officially late. The shift didn’t start until eight a.m. but she liked them all in early for a briefing, especially at the beginning of a new case. Kim didn’t like to stick to a roster and people who did lasted a very short time on her team. ‘Hey, Stacey, you gonna get me a coffee or what?’ Dawson asked, checking his mobile phone. ‘Of course, Kev, how’d yer like it: milk, two sugars and in yer lap?’ she asked sweetly, in her strong Black Country accent.

Wellington, examining the roster of officers assigned to him for the 1810 campaign in Portugal, said, “I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names, he trembles as I do.