“
Mistresses, have you ever noticed that when we disagree with a male – I hesitate to say ‘man’ – or find ourselves in a position over males, the first comment they make is always about our reputations or our monthlies?”
One of the new women snorted. Others snickered.
Kel looked at the man, who was momentarily speechless. “If I disagree with you, should I place blame on the misworkings of your manhood? Or do I refrain from so serious an insult” – she made a face – “far more serious, of course, than your hint that I am a whore. Because my mother taught me courtesy, I only suggest that my monthlies will come long after your hair has escaped your head entirely.
”
”
Tamora Pierce (Lady Knight (Protector of the Small, #4))
“
Kid says to me, "You play baseball? What position? Left out?" and gets a big laugh from the rest of the class. Kid is only one person out of 6.792 billion humans on this planet. This planet is only one-eighth of the solar system, whose sun is one of two billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Put it that way, the comment loses it's importance.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (House Rules)
“
An incomplete list:
No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. No more films, except rarely, except with a generator drowning out half the dialogue, and only then for the first little while until the fuel for the generators ran out, because automobile gas goes stale after two or three years. Aviation gas lasts longer, but it was difficult to come by.
No more screens shining in the half-light as people raise their phones above the crowd to take pictures of concert stages. No more concert stages lit by candy-colored halogens, no more electronica, punk, electric guitars.
No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one's hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite.
No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light; no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. No more airplanes, no more requests to put your tray table in its upright and locked position – but no, this wasn't true, there were still airplanes here and there. They stood dormant on runways and in hangars. They collected snow on their wings. In the cold months, they were ideal for food storage. In summer the ones near orchards were filled with trays of fruit that dehydrated in the heat. Teenagers snuck into them to have sex. Rust blossomed and streaked.
No more countries, all borders unmanned.
No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup. No more spacecraft rising up from Cape Canaveral, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from Vandenburg, Plesetsk, Tanegashima, burning paths through the atmosphere into space.
No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.
”
”
Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven)
“
Never give anybody permission to disturb your peace.
Always ignore negative comment.
Dwell on positive thoughts and occupied your mind with songs of praise.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
Mistresses, have you ever noticed that when we disagree with a male- I hesitate to say 'man'- or find ourselves in a position over males, the first comment they make is always about our reputations or our monthlies?
”
”
Tamora Pierce
“
I know it doesn't mean anything, but I am not immune to my female conditioning, the sense that when a man makes a positive comment about my appearance, I am doing something right.
”
”
Anna Dorn (Exalted)
“
I decided that many of Bear’s stories and comments shared a general drift. They advised against fearing all of creation. But not because it is always benign, for it is not. It will, with certainty, consume us all. We are made to be destroyed. We are kindling for the fire, and our lives will stand as naught against the onrush of time. Bear’s position, if I understood it, was that refusal to fear these general terms of existence is an honorable act of defiance.
”
”
Charles Frazier (Thirteen Moons)
“
Now, a quick praise caveat: commenting on what’s happening inside a child, or a child’s process and not product, orients a child to gaze back in instead of out. Comments like, “You’re working so hard on that project,” or “I notice you’re using different colors in this drawing, tell me about this,” or “How’d you think to make that?”—these support the development of confidence, because instead of teaching your child to crave positive words from others, we teach them to notice what they’re doing and learn more about themself.
”
”
Becky Kennedy (Good Inside: A Practical Guide to Resilient Parenting Prioritizing Connection Over Correction)
“
If someone is snarky or critical, I no longer try to “buff them up,” send love, or try to explain my position. If the comment is nasty or a put-down, I just delete it. If it happens again, I simply press “ban user.
”
”
Christiane Northrup (Dodging Energy Vampires: An Empath’s Guide to Evading Relationships That Drain You and Restoring Your Health and Power)
“
many of Bear’s stories and comments shared a general drift. They advised against fearing all of creation. But not because it is always benign, for it is not. It will, with certainty, consume us all. We are made to be destroyed. We are kindling for the fire, and our lives will stand as naught against the onrush of time. Bear’s position, if I understood it, was that refusal to fear these general terms of existence is an honorable act of defiance.
”
”
Charles Frazier (Thirteen Moons)
“
The realms of dating, marriage, and sex are all marketplaces, and we are the products. Some may bristle at the idea of people as products on a marketplace, but this is an incredibly prevalent dynamic. Consider the labor marketplace, where people are also the product. Just as in the labor marketplace, one party makes an offer to another, and based on the terms of this offer, the other person can choose to accept it or walk. What makes the dating market so interesting is that the products we are marketing, selling, buying, and exchanging are essentially our identities and lives.
As with all marketplaces, every item in stock has a value, and that value is determined by its desirability. However, the desirability of a product isn’t a fixed thing—the desirability of umbrellas increases in areas where it is currently raining while the desirability of a specific drug may increase to a specific individual if it can cure an illness their child has, even if its wider desirability on the market has not changed.
In the world of dating, the two types of desirability we care about most are:
- Aggregate Desirability: What the average demand within an open marketplace would be for a relationship with a particular person.
- Individual Desirability: What the desirability of a relationship with an individual is from the perspective of a specific other individual.
Imagine you are at a fish market and deciding whether or not to buy a specific fish:
- Aggregate desirability = The fish’s market price that day
- Individual desirability = What you are willing to pay for the fish
Aggregate desirability is something our society enthusiastically emphasizes, with concepts like “leagues.” Whether these are revealed through crude statements like, “that guy's an 8,” or more politically correct comments such as, “I believe she may be out of your league,” there is a tacit acknowledgment by society that every individual has an aggregate value on the public dating market, and that value can be judged at a glance. When what we have to trade on the dating market is often ourselves, that means that on average, we are going to end up in relationships with people with an aggregate value roughly equal to our own (i.e., individuals “within our league”). Statistically speaking, leagues are a real phenomenon that affects dating patterns. Using data from dating websites, the University of Michigan found that when you sort online daters by desirability, they seem to know “their place.” People on online dating sites almost never send a message to someone less desirable than them, and on average they reach out to prospects only 25% more desirable than themselves.
The great thing about these markets is how often the average desirability of a person to others is wildly different than their desirability to you. This gives you the opportunity to play arbitrage with traits that other people don’t like, but you either like or don’t mind. For example, while society may prefer women who are not overweight, a specific individual within the marketplace may prefer obese women, or even more interestingly may have no preference. If a guy doesn’t care whether his partner is slim or obese, then he should specifically target obese women, as obesity lowers desirability on the open marketplace, but not from his perspective, giving him access to women who are of higher value to him than those he could secure within an open market.
”
”
Malcolm Collins (The Pragmatist's Guide to Relationships)
“
One morning last week He gave me an assignment: for one day I was to go on a "fast" from criticism. I was not to criticize anybody about anything. Into my mind crowded all the usual objections, "But then what happens to value judgments? You yourself, Lord, spoke of 'righteous judgment.' How could society operate without standards and limits?" All such resistance was brushed aside, "Just obey Me without questioning: an absolute fast on any critical judgments for this day." ...Barbed comments about certain world leaders were suppressed. In our talkative family no one seemed to notice. Bemused, I noticed that my comments were not missed. The federal government, the judicial system, and the institutional church could somehow get along without my penetrating observations. ...That afternoon, a specific, positive vision for this life was dropped into my mind with God's unmistakable hallmark on it-joy. Ideas began to flow in a way I had not experienced in years. My critical nature had not corrected a single one of the multitudinous things I found fault with. What it had done was stifle my creativity-in prayer, in relationships, perhaps even in writing-ideas that He wanted to give me.
”
”
Catherine Marshall (A Closer Walk)
“
As CEO, you should have an opinion on absolutely everything. You should have an opinion on every forecast, every product plan, every presentation, and even every comment. Let people know what you think. If you like someone’s comment, give her the feedback. If you disagree, give her the feedback. Say what you think. Express yourself. This will have two critically important positive effects: Feedback won’t be personal in your company. If the CEO constantly gives feedback, then everyone she interacts with will just get used to it. Nobody will think, “Gee, what did she really mean by that comment? Does she not like me?” Everybody will naturally focus on the issues, not an implicit random performance evaluation. People will become comfortable discussing bad news. If people get comfortable talking about what each other are doing wrong, then it will be very easy to talk about what the company is doing wrong. High-quality company cultures get their cue from data networking routing protocols: Bad news travels fast and good news travels slowly. Low-quality company cultures take on the personality of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wiz: “Don’t nobody bring me no bad news.
”
”
Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers—Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship)
“
One morning last week He gave me an assignment: for one day I was to go on a "fast" from criticism. I was not to criticize anybody about anything. Into my mind crowded all the usual objections, "But then what happens to value judgments? You yourself, Lord, spoke of 'righteous judgment.' How could society operate without standards and limits?" All such resistance was brushed aside, "Just obey Me without questioning: an absolute fast on any critical judgments for this day." ...Barbed comments about certain world leaders were suppressed. In our talkative family no one seemed to notice. Bemused, I noticed that my comments were not missed. The federal government, the judicial system, and the institutional church could somehow get along without my penetrating observations. ...That afternoon, a specific, positive vision for this life was dropped into my mind with God's unmistakable hallmark on it-joy. Ideas began to flow in a way I had not experienced in years. My critical nature had not corrected a single one of the multitudinous things I found fault with. What it had done was stifle my creativity-in prayer, in relationships, perhaps even in writing-ideas that He wanted to give me.
”
”
Catherine Marshall (Something More : In Search of a Deeper Faith)
“
Human beings remember "firsts"- the first time something happens, or the begining of an experience- and we tend to remember "lasts" as well. So when you are about to make a critical/negative delivery , start your criticism with a positive begining, it will affect the rest of the experience. Start by giving them solid ground to stand by expressing the fact that you value them and they matter. Once they are reassured of their own worth, people will accept your comments far more easily and they'll get less defensive.
”
”
Olivia Fox Cabane (The Charisma Myth: How to Engage, Influence and Motivate People)
“
Your vile and bitter diatribes only serve to show how vile and bitter you must be.
”
”
C.S. Woolley
“
I knew my worth, and I embraced what others thought of as eccentricities, and keeping a positive mindset had gotten me far in life. So why had I let some random’s ignorant comments get in my head?
”
”
Ella Frank (Dare You (Dare to Try, #1))
“
2-Make eye contact. When someone is speaking, keep your eyes on him or her at all times. If someone makes a comment, turn and face that person.
3-During discussions, respect other students’ comments, opinions, and ideas. When possible, make statements like, “I agree with John, and I also feel that…” or “I disagree with Sarah. She made a good point I feel that…” or “I think Victor made an excellent observation, and it made me realize…”
4-If you win or do well at something, do not brag. If you lose, do not show anger. Instead, say something like, “I really enjoyed the competition, and I look forward to playing you again,” or “good game,” or don’t say anything at all. To show anger or sarcasm, such as “I wasn’t playing hard anyway” or “You really aren’t that good,” shows weakness.
5-“When you cough or sneeze or burp, it is appropriate to turn your head away from others and cover your mouth with the full part of your hand. Using a fist is not acceptable. Afterward, you should say, “Excuse me.”
6- “Do not smack your lips, tsk, roll your eyes, or show disrespect with gestures.”
7-“Always say thank you when I give you something.
8-“Surprise others by performing random acts of kindness. Go our of your way to do something surprisingly kind and generous for someone at least once a month.”
9-“You will make every effort to be as organized as possible.”
10-"Quickly learn the name of other teachers in the school and greet them by saying things like, "Good morning Mrs. Graham," or "Good afternoon Ms. Ortiz.
11-"When we go on field trips, we will meet different people. When I introduce you to people, make sure that you remember their names. Then, when we are leaving, make sure to shake their hands and thank them, mentioning their names as you do so."
12-“If you approach a door and someone is following you, hold the door. If the door opens by pulling, pull it open, stand to the side, and allow the other person
13-to pass through it first, then you can walk through. If the door opens by pushing, hold the door open after you push through."
"Be positive and enjoy life. Some things just aren't worth getting upset over. Keep everything in perspective and focus on the good in your life.
”
”
Ron Clark
“
I resolutely refuse to believe that the state of Edward's health had anything to do with this, and I don't say this only because I was once later accused of attacking him 'on his deathbed.' He was entirely lucid to the end, and the positions he took were easily recognizable by me as extensions or outgrowths of views he had expressed (and also declined to express) in the past. Alas, it is true that he was closer to the end than anybody knew when the thirtieth anniversary reissue of his Orientalism was published, but his long-precarious condition would hardly argue for giving him a lenient review, let alone denying him one altogether, which would have been the only alternatives. In the introduction he wrote for the new edition, he generally declined the opportunity to answer his scholarly critics, and instead gave the recent American arrival in Baghdad as a grand example of 'Orientalism' in action. The looting and destruction of the exhibits in the Iraq National Museum had, he wrote, been a deliberate piece of United States vandalism, perpetrated in order to shear the Iraqi people of their cultural patrimony and demonstrate to them their new servitude. Even at a time when anything at all could be said and believed so long as it was sufficiently and hysterically anti-Bush, this could be described as exceptionally mendacious. So when the Atlantic invited me to review Edward's revised edition, I decided I'd suspect myself more if I declined than if I agreed, and I wrote what I felt I had to.
Not long afterward, an Iraqi comrade sent me without comment an article Edward had contributed to a magazine in London that was published by a princeling of the Saudi royal family. In it, Edward quoted some sentences about the Iraq war that he off-handedly described as 'racist.' The sentences in question had been written by me. I felt myself assailed by a reaction that was at once hot-eyed and frigidly cold. He had cited the words without naming their author, and this I briefly thought could be construed as a friendly hesitance. Or as cowardice... I can never quite act the stern role of Mr. Darcy with any conviction, but privately I sometimes resolve that that's 'it' as it were. I didn't say anything to Edward but then, I never said anything to him again, either. I believe that one or two charges simply must retain their face value and not become debauched or devalued. 'Racist' is one such. It is an accusation that must either be made good upon, or fully retracted. I would not have as a friend somebody whom I suspected of that prejudice, and I decided to presume that Edward was honest and serious enough to feel the same way. I feel misery stealing over me again as I set this down: I wrote the best tribute I could manage when he died not long afterward (and there was no strain in that, as I was relieved to find), but I didn't go to, and wasn't invited to, his funeral.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
“
People must have affirmation and praise in order to maintain a high level of performance. Withholding negative or critical comments is not nearly as important as giving positive input through compliments and praise.
”
”
John C. Maxwell (Be a People Person: Effective Leadership Through Effective Relationships)
“
Some readers may have noticed an icy little missive from Noam Chomsky ["Letters," December 3], repudiating the very idea that he and I had disagreed on the "roots" of September 11. I rush to agree. Here is what he told his audience at MIT on October 11:
I'll talk about the situation in Afghanistan.... Looks like what's happening is some sort of silent genocide.... It indicates that whatever, what will happen we don't know, but plans are being made and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the next—in the next couple of weeks.... very casually with no comment.... we are in the midst of apparently trying to murder three or four million people.
Clever of him to have spotted that (his favorite put-down is the preface 'Turning to the facts...') and brave of him to have taken such a lonely position. As he rightly insists, our disagreements are not really political.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens
“
Daphne turned to Simon with an amused expression. “I can’t quite decide if she is being terribly polite or exquisitely rude.”
“Exquisitely polite, perhaps?” Simon asked mildly.
She shook her head. “Oh, definitely not that.”
“The alternative, of course, is—”
“Terribly rude?” Daphne grinned and watched as her mother looped her arm through Lord Railmont’s, pointed him toward Daphne so that he could nod his good-bye, and led him from the room.
And then, as if by magic, the remaining beaux murmured their hasty farewells and followed suit.
“Remarkably efficient, isn’t she?” Daphne murmured.
“Your mother? She’s a marvel.”
“She’ll be back, of course.”
“Pity. And here I thought I had you well and truly in my clutches.”
Daphne laughed. “I don’t know how anyone considered you a rake. Your sense of humor is far too superb.”
“And here we rakes thought we were so wickedly droll.”
“A rake’s humor,” Daphne stated, “is essentially cruel.”
Her comment surprised him. He stared at her intently, searching her brown eyes, and yet not really knowing what it was he was looking for.
There was a narrow ring of green just outside her pupils, the color as deep and rich as moss. He’d never seen her in the daylight before, he realized.
“Your grace?” Daphne’s quiet voice snapped him out of his daze.
Simon blinked. “I beg your pardon.”
“You looked a thousand miles away,” she said, her brow wrinkling.
“I’ve been a thousand miles away.” He fought the urge to return his gaze to her eyes. “This is entirely different.”
Daphne let out a little laugh, the sound positively musical. “You have, haven’t you? And here I’ve never even been past Lancashire. What a provincial I must seem.”
He brushed aside her remark. “You must forgive my woolgathering. We were discussing my lack of humor, I believe?”
“We were not, and you well know it.
”
”
Julia Quinn (The Duke and I (Bridgertons, #1))
“
That’s the true mark of a champion—forgetting the last victory and preparing for the next one. And that one comment should be on every coach’s wall: The first job that we have today is putting yesterday aside to be remembered later. (Tony LaRussa, World Series Champion 2011)
”
”
Bob Knight (The Power of Negative Thinking: An Unconventional Approach to Achieving Positive Results)
“
UN-Impressives
• Lying.
• Bragging.
• Gossiping.
• Cursing and using foul language.
• Making self-deprecating comments.
• Regularly expressing worry and anxiety.
• Criticizing and condemning people and situations.
• Demonstrating a lack of emotional intelligence or compassion.
”
”
Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
“
Seen through the lens of human perception, cycles are often viewed as less symmetrical than they are. Negative price fluctuations are called “volatility,” while positive price fluctuations are called “profit.” Collapsing markets are called “selling panics,” while surges receive more benign descriptions (but I think they may best be seen as “buying panics”; see tech stocks in 1999, for example). Commentators talk about “investor capitulation” at the bottom of market cycles, while I also see capitulation at the top, when previously prudent investors throw in the towel and buy.
”
”
Howard Marks (Mastering The Market Cycle: Getting the odds on your side)
“
Discovering a note in the mending basket, Phoebe plucked it out and unfolded it. She instantly recognized West's handwriting.
Unemployed Feline Seeking Household Position
To Whom It May Concern,
I hereby offer my services as an experienced mouser and personal companion. References from a reputable family to be provided upon request. Willing to accept room and board in lieu of pay. Indoor lodgings preferred.
Your servant,
Galoshes the Cat
Glancing up from the note, Phoebe found her parents' questioning gazes on her. "Job application," she explained sourly. "From the cat."
"How charming," Seraphina exclaimed, reading over her shoulder.
"'Personal companion,' my foot," Phoebe muttered. "This is a semi-feral animal who has lived in outbuildings and fed on vermin."
"I wonder," Seraphina said thoughtfully. "If she were truly feral, she wouldn't want any contact with humans. With time and patience, she might become domesticated."
Phoebe rolled her eyes. "It seems we'll find out."
The boys returned from the dining car with a bowl of water and a tray of refreshments. Galoshes descended to the floor long enough to devour a boiled egg, an anchovy canapé, and a spoonful of black caviar from a silver dish on ice. Licking her lips and purring, the cat jumped back into Phoebe's lap and curled up with a sigh.
"I'd say she's adjusting quite well," Seraphina commented with a grin, and elbowed Phoebe gently. "One never knows who might rise above their disreputable past.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels, #5))
“
Change Your Thoughts and Watch Your Actions Change. When you hear your inner voice throwing critical comments, become cognizant of when they occur. Exchange the negative banter with a specific, positive thought. Over time, you’ll notice the inner critic shows up less and less replaced by positive thoughts (and action).
”
”
Lisa A. Mininni
“
Hitler’s style of leadership functioned precisely because of the readiness of all his subordinates to accept his unique standing in the party, and their belief that such eccentricities of behaviour had simply to be taken on board in someone they saw as a political genius. ‘He always needs people who can translate his ideologies into reality so that they can be implemented,’ Pfeffer is reported as stating. Hitler’s way was, in fact, not to hand out streams of orders to shape important political decisions. Where possible, he avoided decisions. Rather, he laid out – often in his diffuse and opinionated fashion – his ideas at length and repeatedly. These provided the general guidelines and direction for policy-making. Others had to interpret from his comments how they thought he wanted them to act and ‘work towards’ his distant objectives. ‘If they could all work in this way,’ Hitler was reported as stating from time to time, ‘if they could all strive with firm, conscious tenacity towards a common, distant goal, then the ultimate goal must one day be achieved. That mistakes will be made is human. It is a pity. But that will be overcome if a common goal is constantly adopted as a guideline.’ This instinctive way of operating, embedded in Hitler’s social-Darwinist approach, not only unleashed ferocious competition among those in the party – later in the state – trying to reach the ‘correct’ interpretation of Hitler’s intentions. It also meant that Hitler, the unchallenged fount of ideological orthodoxy by this time, could always side with those who had come out on top in the relentless struggle going on below him, with those who had best proven that they were following the ‘right guidelines’. And since only Hitler could determine this, his power position was massively enhanced.
”
”
Ian Kershaw (Hitler)
“
The Democratic party in Louisiana just continued to move father and farther away from basic American values and farther away from the voters of Louisiana. And much farther away from me. So I just couldn’t take it anymore. And recently, there was some comments made in the Senate, the comments were that if anyone opposes what we frequently call Obamacare, if anyone opposes it, they do so only because the President is an African-American, and therefore, that position is racist. My mother, who’s 103 years old, called me on the telephone when she heard that. She said ‘Boy, I don’t want you to be involved in anything like that. I hope you disassociated yourself from that’ and I was on the verge of doing it anyway, and that was just the last straw,
”
”
Elbert Guillory
“
All women are competitors, and sisters most of all. Ladies are perpetually jockeying for position, sizing themselves up against their peers. I can’t tell you how often I’m enjoined to comment on which lady is the prettiest, the wittiest, the most accomplished, the lightest on her feet. And who solicits these opinions? Always women, never men. Men could not care less. About those comparisons, at least.
”
”
Tessa Dare (A Week to Be Wicked (Spindle Cove, #2))
“
J’ai toujours voulu un lecteur qui soit engagé, j’ai toujours cherché à le bousculer, à le déranger. » Je ne cherche ni à distraire ni à installer les lecteurs dans une position confortable parce que, en tant que lectrice, ce n’est pas ce que j’aime en littérature. J’aime, quand je referme un livre, me sentir presque mal, en tout cas perturbée. Avoir le sentiment que ça a changé quelque chose. Donc, c’est ce que je recherche quand
”
”
Leïla Slimani (Comment j'écris)
“
Together they would sift through the details of their children’s lives, rejoicing over the positives and reflecting on the areas that needed more prayer. They would laugh at the funny things the grandchildren said and comment about how fast they were growing up. Elizabeth would remind him that all of life went far too fast, and John would agree. The evening would fade, the sun would set, and they’d have the night to share each other’s company.
”
”
Karen Kingsbury (Fame (Firstborn, #1))
“
Russian commentators welcomed this development, viewing it as a positive shift in the global correlation of power and as an appropriate response to America’s sponsorship of NATO’s expansion. Some even sounded gleeful that the Sino-Russian alliance would give America its deserved comeuppance. However, a coalition allying Russia with both China and Iran can develop only if the United States is shortsighted enough to antagonize China and Iran simultaneously.
”
”
Zbigniew Brzeziński (The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives)
“
Ancestrales est bien plus fort que le leur. Il va falloir jouer serré si elles veulent sauver leur peau. — Comment est-ce que c’est possible ? demande Icy d’une voix blanche. — L’Arbre de Vie devrait être mort ! Lysliss essaie d’attraper le bourgeon magique avec ses doigts crochus, elle a l’intention de le détruire. Mais la douleur qu’elle ressent alors est tellement forte qu’elle doit le lâcher. — Maintenant, je la sens. L’énergie positive est sur Éraklyon. J’en suis
”
”
Anonymous (Winx - Le roman du film 2 - Winx Club 3D Aventure Magique !)
“
Frederic Morrow, adviser to the Commerce Department and later the first Black man to hold an executive position at the White House, commented that most of the white secretaries in the office steno pool refused to work for him, even as he was routinely insulted and sidelined by the administration supposedly soliciting his opinion. He would go on to become the first Black vice president of Bank of America and write several books, including Black Man in the White House. Claire’s other employer, Senator
”
”
Kate Quinn (The Briar Club)
“
William’s weekend with his friends, Geoffrey and Maggie, was turning out to be neither restful nor enjoyable. Things could have been worse, of course: there must be weekends during which the hosts’ house burns to the ground, one of the guests murders another, the hostess is arrested in extradition proceedings or the guests are all poisoned by the inclusion of death’s cap mushrooms in the stew. Such weekends must be very difficult indeed, not least because of the wording of the thank-you letters that one would have to write. The disaster, whatever it was, could hardly be ignored, but must be referred to tactfully in the letter, and always set in proper perspective. Thus, in the case of the mushroom poisoning, one would comment on how the other courses of the meal were delicious; in the case of the hostess’s arrest, one would say something comforting about the ability of defence lawyers in the jurisdiction to which she was being extradited—and so on, mutatis mutandis, trying at all times to be as positive as possible.
”
”
Alexander McCall Smith (A Conspiracy of Friends (Corduroy Mansions, #3))
“
Extremism will generate both positive and negative reactions, or “engagements.” Facebook measures engagement by the number of clicks, “likes,” shares, and comments. This design feature—or flaw, if you care about the quality of knowledge and debate—ensures that the most inflammatory material will travel the farthest and the fastest. Sober, measured accounts of the world have no chance on Facebook. And when Facebook dominates our sense of the world and our social circles, we all potentially become carriers of extremist nonsense
”
”
Siva Vaidhyanathan (Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy)
“
King and Malcolm X were often portrayed as antagonists, in part because of Malcolm’s vitriol and because of comments attributed to King in a 1965 Playboy magazine interview conducted by Alex Haley. But the recent discovery of Haley’s unedited interview transcript shows that King was not as critical as Playboy made him sound. The magazine quoted King saying of Malcolm: “He is very articulate, as you say, but I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views … I have often wished that he would talk less of violence, because violence is not going to solve our problem. And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery demagogic oratory in the black ghettoes, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.” Here’s what King actually said. PLAYBOY: Dr. King, what is your opinion of Negro extremists who advocate armed violence and sabotage?
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Jonathan Eig (King: A Life)
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Those who occupy managerial positions in the media, or gain status within them as commentators, belong to the same privileged elites, and might be expected to share the perceptions, aspirations, and attitudes of their associates, reflecting their own class interests as well. Journalists entering the system are unlikely to make their way unless they conform to these ideological pressures, generally by internalizing the values; it is not easy to say one thing and believe another, and those who fail to conform will tend to be weeded out by familiar mechanisms.
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Noam Chomsky (Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies)
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In 2010, on the ABC’s 7.30 program, he made the bizarre qualification that what he said spontaneously couldn’t be taken as his formal position: ‘In the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. Which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth [are] those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.’ In a comment that wasn’t off-the-cuff, Abbott was exempting himself from being held to his own words – a privilege he never gave prime minister Julia Gillard.
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Aaron Patrick (Credlin & Co.: How the Abbott Government Destroyed Itself)
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AN INCOMPLETE LIST: No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. No more films, except rarely, except with a generator drowning out half the dialogue, and only then for the first little while until the fuel for the generators ran out, because automobile gas goes stale after two or three years. Aviation gas lasts longer, but it was difficult to come by. No more screens shining in the half-light as people raise their phones above the crowd to take photographs of concert stages. No more concert stages lit by candy-colored halogens, no more electronica, punk, electric guitars. No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one’s hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite. No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light; no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. No more airplanes, no more requests to put your tray table in its upright and locked position—but no, this wasn’t true, there were still airplanes here and there. They stood dormant on runways and in hangars. They collected snow on their wings. In the cold months, they were ideal for food storage. In summer the ones near orchards were filled with trays of fruit that dehydrated in the heat. Teenagers snuck into them to have sex. Rust blossomed and streaked. No more countries, all borders unmanned. No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup. No more spacecraft rising up from Cape Canaveral, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from Vandenburg, Plesetsk, Tanegashima, burning paths through the atmosphere into space. No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.
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Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven)
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Transcendental generosity is generally misunderstood in the study of the Buddhist scriptures as meaning being kind to someone who is lower than you. Someone has this pain and suffering and you are in a superior position and can save them—which is a very simple-minded way of looking down on someone. But in the case of the bodhisattva, generosity is not so callous. It is something very strong and powerful; it is communication.
Communication must transcend irritation, otherwise it will be like trying to make a comfortable bed in a briar patch. The penetrating qualities of external color, energy, and light will come toward us, penetrating our attempts to communicate like a thorn pricking our skin. We will wish to subdue this intense irritation and our communication will be blocked.
Communication must be radiation and receiving and exchange. Whenever irritation is involved, then we are not able to see properly and fully and clearly the spacious quality of that which is coming toward us, that which is presenting itself as communication. The external world is immediately rejected by our irritation which says, “no, no, this irritates me, go away.” Such an attitude is the complete opposite of transcendental generosity.
So the bodhisattva must experience the complete communication of generosity, transcending irritation and self-defensiveness. Otherwise, when thorns threaten to prick us, we feel that we are being attacked, that we must defend ourselves. We run away from the tremendous opportunity for communication that has been given to us, and we have not been brave enough even to look to the other shore of the river. We are looking back and trying to run away.
Generosity is a willingness to give, to open without philosophical or pious or religious motives, just simply doing what is required at any moment in any situation, not being afraid to receive anything. Opening could take place in the middle of a highway. We are not afraid that smog and dust or people’s hatreds and passions will overwhelm us; we simply open, completely surrender, give. This means that we do not judge, do not evaluate. If we attempt to judge or evaluate our experience, if we try to decide to what extent we should open, to what extent we should remain closed, the openness will have no meaning at all and the idea of paramita, of transcendental generosity, will be in vain. Our action will not transcend anything, will cease to be the act of a bodhisattva.
The whole implication of the idea of transcendence is that we see through the limited notions, the limited conceptions, the warfare mentality of this as opposed to that. Generally, when we look at an object, we do not allow ourselves to see it properly. Automatically we see our version of the object instead of actually seeing the object as it is. Then we are quite satisfied, because we have manufactured or own version of the thing within ourselves. Then we comment on it, we judge, we take or reject; but there is on real communication going on at all.
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, p.167, Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche
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Chögyam Trungpa
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New Rule: If you're going to have a rally where hundreds of thousands of people show up, you may as well go ahead and make it about something. With all due respect to my friends Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, it seems that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you'd side with the sane and the reasonable--and not try to pretend the insanity is equally distributed in both parties. Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts; the other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance's sake, that the left is just as violent and cruel as the right, that unions are just as powerful as corporations, that reverse racism is just as damaging as racism. There's a difference between a mad man and a madman.
Now, getting more than two hundred thousand people to come to a liberal rally is a great achievement that gave me hope, and what I really loved about it was that it was twice the size of the Glenn Beck crowd on the Mall in August--although it weight the same. But the message of the rally as I heard it was that if the media would just top giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan, and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side. Forgetting that Obama tried that, and found our there are no moderates on the other side.
When Jon announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is "dominated" by people on the right who believe Obama's a socialist, and by people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job. But I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama's socialist? All of them. McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin...all of them. It's now official Republican dogma, like "Tax cuts pay for themselves" and "Gay men just haven't met the right woman."
As another example of both sides using overheated rhetoric, Jon cited the right equating Obama with Hitler, and the left calling Bush a war criminal. Except thinking Obama is like Hitler is utterly unfounded--but thinking Bush is a war criminal? That's the opinion of Major General Anthony Taguba, who headed the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib.
Republicans keep staking out a position that is farther and farther right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle. Which now is not the middle anymore. That's the reason health-care reform is so watered down--it's Bob Dole's old plan from 1994. Same thing with cap and trade--it was the first President Bush's plan to deal with carbon emissions. Now the Republican plan for climate change is to claim it's a hoax.
But it's not--I know because I've lived in L.A. since '83, and there's been a change in the city: I can see it now. All of us who live out here have had that experience: "Oh, look, there's a mountain there." Governments, led my liberal Democrats, passed laws that changed the air I breathe. For the better. I'm for them, and not the party that is plotting to abolish the EPA. I don't need to pretend both sides have a point here, and I don't care what left or right commentators say about it, I can only what climate scientists say about it.
Two opposing sides don't necessarily have two compelling arguments. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on that mall in the capital, and he didn't say, "Remember, folks, those southern sheriffs with the fire hoses and the German shepherds, they have a point, too." No, he said, "I have a dream. They have a nightmare. This isn't Team Edward and Team Jacob."
Liberals, like the ones on that field, must stand up and be counted, and not pretend we're as mean or greedy or shortsighted or just plain batshit at them. And if that's too polarizing for you, and you still want to reach across the aisle and hold hands and sing with someone on the right, try church.
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Bill Maher (The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass)
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When we inspect the dreary index of his reading which Miss Ramsay most usefully gives us, we recoil.3 No man of Donne’s ability and attainments ever seems to have read more positive rubbish. But the lists themselves are interesting reading, and provide a pertinent comment on Miss Ramsay’s thesis. For we remark at once, how large a part of this reading is in authors contemporary, or nearly so. True, as a thorough theologian, he was familiar with the fathers of the church, and with the most important of the mediaeval philosophers; but so, as Miss Ramsay herself says, was Hooker, and Miss Ramsay does not go so far as to say that Hooker’s conception of the universe was mediaeval.
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T.S. Eliot (The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry)
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Islamic tradition does not recognize such presumptuous and conceited preoccupation as "reviewing", which is now widely practised among scholars who regard highly this legacy of the Western tradition modern scholarship. a Muslim scholar, with the work of another before him, would either - according to Islamic tradition - refute it (radd), or elaborate it further in commentary (sharh) as the occasion demands. there is no such thing as "reviewing" it, whether the "review" is termed as such or as any other term which describes it. If there are petty mistakes they turn a blind eye to them; if there are obscurities they explain them in commentary - they polish a positive work and make it shine.
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Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas (Comments on the Re-Examination of Al-Raniri's Hujjatu'l-Siddiq: A Refutation)
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Grigory understands the power of the unspoken. To progress is to become fluent in the language. His rise in stature increased its pace when Grigory noticed that people in positions of power could hold almost an entire conversation with only a few simple words. He gained influence by understanding what his older, more junior colleagues did not: that power lurks in silences, in whispered conversations in the corner of a room, in contained gestures: a dip of the head, a pat of the forearm. It has often struck him that the most powerful men he has met also have the greatest range of physical articulations, a vital ability in a sphere where a misinterpreted comment can end even the most celebrated of careers.
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Darragh McKeon (All That Is Solid Melts Into Air)
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They then praise me for traits I don’t think I even have. Amiable presence? Hah! Lady of legends? OK, that sounds pretty cool. But righteous? Honourable? Composed? Did they just grab a dictionary and choose a bunch of positive words? And calling me polite, the girl who talks with her mouth full, the girl who speaks her mind at the worst moments, the girl who has no intention of hiding when she’s bored, annoyed or offended in order to respect the other person? Well, they’ll soon realise that polite was far from the truth. I’m not exactly impolite towards them, but I hate phoneys, and I have being phoney, too. Somehow, though, my upfront comments only spawn more of these exaggerated compliments: ‘What a sincere girl!’ and ‘We need a Pulsar of such boldness.
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Giselle Simlett (Girl of Myth and Legend (The Chosen Saga #1))
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Gulag Archipelago brings to a logical conclusion what was outlined first in August, 1914. The book is the manifesto of a vicious enemy of the Russian people. We read on page 277: 'There is a simple truth, but it must be suffered and lived through: in war it is not victories but defeats that must be blessed. For it is governments that need victories, the people need defeats... The Victory of the Russian troops at Poltava brought nothing but misfortune to Russia: two centuries of great strain, ruin and slavery, and more wars... We are so used to being proud of our victory over Napoleon that we leave out a very important thing: it is because of that victory that the emancipation of peasants did not take place half a century earlier, it is because of this victory that the Russian tsar, whose position became much stronger than before, managed to smash the Decembrists. (As for the French. they could not possibly have occupied Russia).' This monstrous hodgepodge needs no other comment but this: that in making this admission of hatred for everything that is sacred to a Russian, the slanderer has exposed himself. The above-quoted passage may be regarded as a kind of introduction to Solzhenitsyn's treatment of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people (1941-1945). It is hard to believe, but he is genuinely sorry that we won a victory in the life-and-death struggle with Nazism and saved humanity from Nazi enslavement. The Soviet people rejoiced in the victory which finally came on May 9, 1945, but for Solzhenitsyn 'that wearisome spring with its music of Victory marches became the spring of retribution for my generation.' (A. Solzhenitsyn. Gulag Archipelago, Paris, 1973, pp. 244)
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Nikolai N. Yakovlev (Solzhenitsyn's Archipelago of Lies)
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Above the doors it reads, ELIZEBETH SMITH FRIEDMAN, PIONEER OF INTELLIGENCE-LED POLICING. These things happened for two reasons: because women went looking for Elizebeth’s ghost, and because her ghost was making noise in the archives. She was there inside the Marshall Library, rattling the doors of the vault, and she was in the “government tombs,” the National Archives, where her records from the Invisible War were finally declassified. The ghost also cried out from unexpected places. Three of the index cards in William’s collection contain brief, verifiably true comments about how J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI took credit for feats of spycatching actually performed by Elizebeth and the coast guard. These comments were obviously written by Elizebeth—William wasn’t in a position to know. Each card is a knife slipped between the ribs of Hoover, Elizebeth’s patient revenge.
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Jason Fagone (The Woman Who Smashed Codes)
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Many people take this as evidence of duplicity or cynicism. But they don’t know what it’s like to be expected to make comments, almost every working day, on things of which they have little or no reliable knowledge or about which they just don’t care. They don’t appreciate the sheer number of things on which a politician is expected to have a position. Issues on which the governor had no strong opinions, events over which he had no control, situations on which it served no useful purpose for him to comment—all required some kind of remark from our office. On a typical day Aaron might be asked to comment on the indictment of a local school board chairman, the ongoing drought in the Upstate, a dispute between a power company and the state’s environmental regulatory agency, and a study concluding that some supposedly crucial state agency had been underfunded for a decade. Then there were the things the governor actually cared about: a senate committee’s passage of a bill on land use, a decision by the state supreme court on legislation applying to only one county, a public university’s decision to raise tuition by 12 percent. Commenting on that many things is unnatural, and sometimes it was impossible to sound sincere. There was no way around it, though. Journalists would ask our office about anything having remotely to do with the governor’s sphere of authority, and you could give only so many minimalist responses before you began to sound disengaged or ignorant or dishonest. And the necessity of having to manufacture so many views on so many subjects, day after day, fosters a sense that you don’t have to believe your own words. You get comfortable with insincerity. It affected all of us, not just the boss. Sometimes I felt no more attachment to the words I was writing than a dog has to its vomit.
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Barton Swaim (The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics)
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The irony is that scientists are much less certain about what they say than politicians, policy makers, and pundits. The certainty of the kind you see in the face of a politician declaiming on tax increases or hear in the voice of a commentator condemning or endorsing a foreign policy decision, or the certainty you detect in the words of an op-ed writer pontificating on one thing or another—I used to think that they arrived at their certainty after considering an issue in great depth and finding that the evidence fell overwhelmingly in favor of a specific position. You must think me naïve ever to have thought this way. But I did. I used to think that a good argument was the midwife to certainty. If, as I now believe, it is the wish that fathers the thought, then certainty is the lingering imprint of a wish on thoughts and arguments, like DNA retained in progeny, acting invisibly but with visible effects.
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Zia Haider Rahman (In the Light of What We Know)
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It might be useful here to say a word about Beckett, as a link between the two stages, and as illustrating the shift towards schism. He wrote for transition, an apocalyptic magazine (renovation out of decadence, a Joachite indication in the title), and has often shown a flair for apocalyptic variations, the funniest of which is the frustrated millennialism of the Lynch family in Watt, and the most telling, perhaps, the conclusion of Comment c'est. He is the perverse theologian of a world which has suffered a Fall, experienced an Incarnation which changes all relations of past, present, and future, but which will not be redeemed. Time is an endless transition from one condition of misery to another, 'a passion without form or stations,' to be ended by no parousia. It is a world crying out for forms and stations, and for apocalypse; all it gets is vain temporality, mad, multiform antithetical influx.
It would be wrong to think that the negatives of Beckett are a denial of the paradigm in favour of reality in all its poverty. In Proust, whom Beckett so admires, the order, the forms of the passion, all derive from the last book; they are positive. In Beckett, the signs of order and form are more or less continuously presented, but always with a sign of cancellation; they are resources not to be believed in, cheques which will bounce. Order, the Christian paradigm, he suggests, is no longer usable except as an irony; that is why the Rooneys collapse in laughter when they read on the Wayside Pulpit that the Lord will uphold all that fall.
But of course it is this order, however ironized, this continuously transmitted idea of order, that makes Beckett's point, and provides his books with the structural and linguistic features which enable us to make sense of them. In his progress he has presumed upon our familiarity with his habits of language and structure to make the relation between the occulted forms and the narrative surface more and more tenuous; in Comment c'est he mimes a virtually schismatic breakdown of this relation, and of his language. This is perfectly possible to reach a point along this line where nothing whatever is communicated, but of course Beckett has not reached it by a long way; and whatever preserves intelligibility is what prevents schism.
This is, I think, a point to be remembered whenever one considers extremely novel, avant-garde writing. Schism is meaningless without reference to some prior condition; the absolutely New is simply unintelligible, even as novelty. It may, of course, be asked: unintelligible to whom? --the inference being that a minority public, perhaps very small--members of a circle in a square world--do understand the terms in which the new thing speaks. And certainly the minority public is a recognized feature of modern literature, and certainly conditions are such that there may be many small minorities instead of one large one; and certainly this is in itself schismatic. The history of European literature, from the time the imagination's Latin first made an accommodation with the lingua franca, is in part the history of the education of a public--cultivated but not necessarily learned, as Auerbach says, made up of what he calls la cour et la ville. That this public should break up into specialized schools, and their language grow scholastic, would only be surprising if one thought that the existence of excellent mechanical means of communication implied excellent communications, and we know it does not, McLuhan's 'the medium is the message' notwithstanding. But it is still true that novelty of itself implies the existence of what is not novel, a past. The smaller the circle, and the more ambitious its schemes of renovation, the less useful, on the whole, its past will be. And the shorter. I will return to these points in a moment.
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Frank Kermode (The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction)
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DR. KING: Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettoes, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence can achieve nothing but negative results. Those who are fired up in the audiences go home and face the same unchanged conditions; what is left but for them to become bitter, disillusioned and cynical. The extremist leaders who offer a call to arms are invariably unwilling to lead what they themselves know would certainly end in bloody, chaotic total failure. The struggle of the Negro in America, to be successful, must be waged with positive efforts that are kept strictly within the framework of our democratic society. This means reaching and moving the large groups of people necessary—of both races—to activate sufficiently the conscience of a nation. It is this effort that the S.C.L.C. attempts to achieve through the program which we call creative non-violent direct-action. PLAYBOY: Dr. King, would you care to comment upon the articulate former Black Muslim, Malcolm X?
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Jonathan Eig (King: A Life)
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CIT INTERNATIONAL OFFERS NINE techniques of nonverbal communication (for example, “Maintain limited eye contact . . . and . . . a neutral facial expression”; “Minimize body movements such as excessive gesturing, pacing, fidgeting or weight shifting”; “Place your hands in front of your body in an open and relaxed position”) and fifteen for verbal de-escalation (for example, “Remember that there is no content except trying to calmly bring the level of arousal down to a safer place”; “Do not get loud or try to yell over a screaming person”; “Do not be defensive even if comments or insults are directed at you”; “Be very respectful even when firmly setting limits”; “Do not try to argue or convince”; “Explain limits and rules in an authoritative, firm, but respectful tone”). The long list of tips and techniques ends with this pearl: “There is nothing magical about talking someone down. You are simply transferring your own sense of calm and respectful, clear limit setting to the agitated person.”13
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Norm Stamper (To Protect and Serve: How to Fix America's Police)
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Which mirror now, Ms. Lane?” He glanced around the white room, scanning the ten mirrors.
“Fourth from the left. Jericho.” I was sick of him calling me Ms. Lane. I picked myself up off the white floor. Once again the Silver had spit me out with entirely too much enthusiasm, and I didn’t even have the stones on me. I didn’t have anything but the spear in my holster, a protein bar, two flashlights, and a bottle of Unseelie in my pockets.
“You don’t have the right to call me Jericho.”
“Why? Because we haven’t been intimate enough? I’ve had sex with you in every possible position, killed you, fed you my blood in the hopes that it would bring you back to life, crammed Unseelie into your stomach, and tried to rearrange your guts. I’d say that’s pretty personal. How much more intimate do we have to get for you to feel comfortable with me calling you Jericho? Jericho.”
I expected him to pounce on the sex-in-every-possible-position comment, but he only said. “You fed me your—”
I pushed into the mirror, cutting him off. Like the first one, it resisted me, then grabbed me and squirted me out on the other side.
His voice preceded his arrival. “You bloody fool, do you never stop to consider the consequences of your actions?” He barreled out of the mirror behind me.
“Of course I do,” I said coolly. “There’s always plenty of time to consider the consequences. After I’ve screwed up.”
“Funny girl, aren’t you, Ms. Lane?”
“Sure am. Jericho. It’s Mac. I’m Mac. No more fake formality between us. Get with the program or get the hell out of here.”
His dark eyes flared. “Big talk. Ms. Lane. Try to enforce it.” Challenge burned in his gaze.
I sauntered toward him. He watched me coldly and I was reminded of the other night, when I’d pretended to be coming on to him, because I was angry. He thought I was doing it again. I wasn’t. Being in the White Mansion with him was doing something strange to me. Unraveling all my inhibitions, as if these walls had no tolerance for lies, or within them there was no need.
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Karen Marie Moning (Shadowfever (Fever, #5))
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Professor A. H. Maslow, for example, has conducted a series of researches into extremely healthy people that have led him to conclude that health and optimism are far more positive principles in human psychology than Freud would ever have admitted.
Man is a slave to the delusion that he is a passive creature, a creature of circumstance; this is because he makes the mistake of identifying himself with his limited everyday consciousness, and is unaware of the immense forces that lie just beyond the threshold of consciousness. But these forces, although he is unaware of them on a conscious level, are still a far more active influence in his life than any external circumstances. Freudian psychology, for all its achievements, has made a twofold error: it has tried to anatomize the human mind as a pathologist would dissect a corpse, and it has limited its researches to sick human beings. Sick men talk about their illness far more than healthy people talk about their health; in fact, healthy people are usually too absorbed in living to bother with self-revelation. Psychology has consequently been inclined to divide the world into sick people and “normal” people, regarding occasional super-normality as the exception; Maslow has shown that super-normality is a great deal commoner than would be supposed; in fact as common as sub-normality. Ordinarily healthy people often experience a sense of intense life-affirmation (which Maslow calls “peak experiences”); and examination of peak experiences has led Maslow to conclude that the evolutionary drive (which is so clear in art and philosophy) is as basic a part of human psychology as the Freudian libido or the Adlerian will to self-assertion.
— Colin Wilson, “‘Six Thousand Feet Above Men and Time‘: Remarks on Nietzsche and Kierkegaard” (1965)
(Wilson C. “Six Thousand Feet Above Men and Time”: Remarks on Nietzsche and Kierkegaard // Stanley C. (Ed.). Colin Wilson: Collected Essays on Philosophers. — Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016. Pp. 110–111.)
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Colin Wilson (Comments on Boredom/Evolutionary Humanism and the New Psychology: two unpublished essays (Colin Wilson Studies))
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As Schopenhauer writes in the second volume, commenting on the ending of the first: 'it is in keeping with this that, when my teaching reaches its highest point, it assumes a negative character, and so ends with a negation.' But Schopenhauer's point is that this is a relative nothing, not an absolute nothing: it is a nothing that might yet be something, if seen from a different perspective: 'Now it is precisely here that the mystic proceeds positively, and therefore, from this point, nothing is left but mysticism'.
Mysticism: the knowledge of the incommunicable: the great foe of Enlightenment philosophers from Bayle to Kant. Surely, if mysticism begins where philosophy ends, Schopenhauer's point must be: so much the worse for mysticism. But while it is true that Schopenhauer sees mysticism and philosophy as incommensurable in principle, nevertheless, as Young points out, Schopenhauer evaluates mysticism positively. Not only do the last words of the first volume leave open a space for mystical knowledge by the relativity of nothingness - but in the second volume, Schopenhauer also points to the wide agreement of mystical experience across different cultures and traditions. Hence, against the common interpretations of Schopenhauer as nihilist or 'absolute pessimist', Young argues that such readings are 'insensitive to the intense theological preoccupation that permeates, particularly, Book IV'. According to Young, Schopenhauer's concept of resignation is not purely negative, but also oriented towards some darkly intuited positive element: an existence of another kind. When Schopenhauer says that the saintly ascetic achieves redemption, he is speaking of an other-wordly state, and that is why he opposes Stoic ataraxia, which, being a this-worldly solution, leads away from salavation, rather than towards it. In Young's view, therefore, not only does Schopenhauer accept a 'field of illuminism' or mysticism - but 'it is upon the veridicality of mystical insight into another, ecstatic world, a world relative to which this one is a mere "dream", that, for Schopenhauer, our only chance of "salvation" depends.
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Mara Van Der Lugt (Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering)
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Okay, so I shouldn't have fucked with her on the introduction thing. Writing nothing except, Saturday night. You and me. Driving lessons and hot sex ... in her notebook probably wasn't the smartest move. But I was itching to make Little Miss Perfecta stumble in her introduction of me. And stumbling she is.
"Miss Ellis?"
I watch in amusement as Perfection herself looks up at Peterson. Oh, she's good. This partner of mine knows how to hide her true emotions, something I recognize because I do it all the time.
"Yes?" Brittany says, tilting her head and smiling like a beauty queen.
I wonder if that smile has ever gotten her out of a speeding ticket.
"It's your turn. Introduce Alex to the class."
I lean an elbow on the lab table, waiting for an introduction she has to either make up or fess up she knows less than crap about me. She glances at my comfortable position and I can tell from her deer-in-the-headlights look I've stumped her.
"This is Alejandro Fuentes," she starts, her voice hitching the slightest bit. My temper flares at the mention of my given name, but I keep a cool facade as she continues with a made-up introduction. "When he wasn't hanging out on street corners and harassing innocent people this summer, he toured the inside of jails around the city, if you know what I mean. And he has a secret desire nobody would ever guess."
The room suddenly becomes quiet. Even Peterson straightens to attention. Hell, even I'm listening like the words coming out of Brittany's lying, pink-frosted lips are gospel.
"His secret desire," she continues, "is to go to college and become a chemistry teacher, like you, Mrs. Peterson."
Yeah, right. I look over at my friend Isa, who seems amused that a white girl isn't afraid of giving me smack in front of the entire class.
Brittany flashes me a triumphant smile, thinking she's won this round. Guess again, gringa.
I sit up in my chair while the class remains silent.
"This is Brittany Ellis," I say, all eyes now focused on me. "This summer she went to the mall, bought new clothes so she could expand her wardrobe, and spent her daddy's money on plastic surgery to enhance her, ahem, assets."
It might not be what she wrote, but it's probably close enough to the truth. Unlike her introduction of me.
Chuckles come from mis cuates in the back of the class, and Brittany is as stiff as a board beside me, as if my words hurt her precious ego. Brittany Ellis is used to people fawning all over her and she could use a little wake-up call. I'm actually doing her a favor. Little does she know I'm not finished with her intro.
"Her secret desire," I add, getting the same reaction as she did during her introduction, "is to date a Mexicano before she graduates."
As expected, my words are met by comments and low whistles from the back of the room.
"Way to go, Fuentes," my friend Lucky barks out.
"I'll date you, mamacita, " another says.
I give a high five to another Latino Blood named Marcus sitting behind me just as I catch Isa shaking her head as if I did something wrong. What? I'm just having a little fun with a rich girl from the north side.
Brittany's gaze shifts from Colin to me. I take one look at Colin and with my eyes tell him game on. Colin's face instantly turns bright red, resembling a chile pepper. I have definitely invaded his territory.
”
”
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
“
You’ll see the day, ten years from now, when Adolf Hitler will occupy precisely the same position in Germany that Jesus Christ has now. —REINHARD HEYDRICH One sometimes hears that Hitler was a Christian. He was certainly not, but neither was he openly anti-Christian, as most of his top lieutenants were. What helped him aggrandize power, he approved of, and what prevented it, he did not. He was utterly pragmatic. In public he often made comments that made him sound pro-church or pro-Christian, but there can be no question that he said these things cynically, for political gain. In private, he possessed an unblemished record of statements against Christianity and Christians. Especially early in his career, Hitler wished to appear as a typical German, so he praised the churches as bastions of morality and traditional values. But he also felt that, in time, the churches would adapt to the National Socialist way of thinking. They would eventually be made into vessels for Nazi ideology, so it little served his purposes to destroy them. It would be easier to change what already existed and benefit from whatever cultural cachet they possessed. 166
”
”
Eric Metaxas (Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy)
“
La violence au sein du couple profite de la fragilité de la position des femmes dans al société. Se référant aux travaux de sa consœur américaine Sandra Lee Bartky, la philosophe Camille Froidevaux-Metterie parle de la honte comme « structurellement féminine ». Elle la définit comment un « sentiment permanent d'inadéquation par lequel les femmes se sentent imparfaites, inférieures ou diminuées, ce qui permet aux mécanismes de la domination masculine de perdurer ». Ainsi, « la honte devient un véritable mode d'être-au-monde féminin qui fait le lit de la violence conjugale et des féminicides ». Il ne s'agit surtout pas de prétendre que, par leur manque de confiance en elles, les femmes susciteraient les mauvais traitements qu'elles subissent : nous reprocher un conditionnement qui nous dessert reviendrait à nous infliger une double peine. Les seuls responsables des violences sont ceux qui les commettent et la culture qui les y autorise - culture que nous allons tenter d'étudier ici. Mais de même qu'on peut rappeler haut et fort que la seule cause du viol, c'est le violeur, tout en enseignant l'autodéfense physique, on peut chercher à développe une forme d'autodéfense psychologique. (p. 102)
”
”
Mona Chollet (Réinventer l'amour: Comment le patriarcat sabote les relations hétérosexuelles)
“
And as he watched, the first powerful four-legged lion stepped into the clearing. The male animal shook the snow from its dark, flowing mane, tilted its head and roared into the night.
Another call followed, and yet another. And as Dane watched, Lawe and Rule moved warily from their positions, edging back to the limo as he threw the doors open and allowed the two Breeds to slide inside the warmth of the car.
Rye didn't bother to get out and enter the back through a door. He slid over the seat positioned behind the driver's area and stared back at Dane in surprise.
"There's a lot of fucking lions out there," he commented uncomfortably.
They were screaming into the night now, spurred by the animal Dane could swear he could feel heading this way.
Another animal stepped in. A lioness, her scream echoing through the night as the lions surrounded the cabin.
A dozen fully grown, enraged creatures, following one simple command. To protect Mercury's mate.
Dane let a smile tip his lips as he opened the small bar set in the center of the seat and pulled free the whiskey and glasses.
"Looks like the night just got interesting, my friends," he drawled, pouring the alcohol. "I say we enjoy the show while we can."
Ria's mate was coming for her.
”
”
Lora Leigh
“
Harper walked over to her reception desk. “What’s with the Tyson look-alikes out there? I almost couldn’t get in here.”
Pixie frowned. “Better go ask your boy-o. Famous rock star in the house.” Pixie accentuated her comment with the poke of her pen.
Jeez, he was huge. And built. And shirtless. Okay, enough staring. Well, maybe just for another second. Trent was leaning over the guy, and she could tell from the wide-reaching spread of purple transfer lines that he was just beginning a sleeve on the other man’s lower arm. The guy in the chair might well be a rock star— although Harper would never admit she had no clue who he was— but he was wincing. Harper could totally feel for him.
Trent was in his usual position— hat on backward, gloves on, and perched on a stool.
Harper approached them nervously. The big guy’s size and presence were a little intimidating.
“I don’t bite.” Oh God. He was talking to her.
“Excuse me?”
He sucked air in between clenched teeth. “I said I don’t bite. You can come closer.” His blue eyes were sparkling as he studied her closely.
Trent looked up. “Hey, darlin’,” he said, putting the tattoo machine down and reaching for her hand. “Dred, this is my girl, Harper. Harper, this is Dred Zander from the band Preload. He’s one of the other judges I told you about.”
Wow. Not that she knew much about the kind of music that Trent listened to, but even she had heard of Preload. That certainly explained the security outside.
Dred reached out his hand and shook hers. “Nice to meet you, Harper. And a pity. For a minute, I thought you were coming over to see me.”
“No,” Harper exclaimed quickly, looking over at Trent, who was grinning at her. “I mean, no, I was just bringing Trent some cookies.” Holy shit. Was she really that lame? It was like that moment in Dirty Dancing when Baby told Johnny she carried a watermelon.
Dred turned and smiled enigmatically at Trent. “I see what you mean, man.”
“Give.” Smiling, Trent held out his hand. Reaching inside her bag, she pulled out the cookies and handed the container to him.
“Seriously, dude, she’s the best fucking cook on the planet.” Trent paused to take a giant bite. “You got to try one,” he mumbled, offering the container over.
Harper watched, mortified, as a modern-day rock legend bit into one of her cookies.
Dred chewed and groaned. “These are almost as good as sex.”
Harper laughed.
“Not quite,” Trent responded, giving her a look that made her burn. “You should try her pot roast. Could bring a grown man to his knees.
”
”
Scarlett Cole (The Strongest Steel (Second Circle Tattoos, #1))
“
A famous American Freudian, commenting on a paper I had read, reported that he just had returned from Moscow. There, he said, he had found a lower frequency of neurosis as compared with the United States. He added that this might be traced to the fact that in Communist countries, as he felt, people are more often confronted with a task to complete. 'This speaks in favor of your theory,' he concluded, 'that meaning direction and task orientation are important in terms of mental health.' A year later, some Polish psychiatrists asked me to give a paper on logotherapy, and when I did so I quoted the American psychoanalyst. 'You are less neurotic than the Americans because you have more tasks to complete,' I told them. And they smugly smiled. 'But do not forget,' I added, 'that the Americans have retained their freedom also to choose their tasks, a freedom which sometimes seems to me to be denied to you.' They stopped smiling. How fine it would be to synthesize East and West, to blend tasks with freedom. Freedom then could fully develop. It really is a negative concept which requires a positive complement. And the positive complement is responsibleness. [...] Freedom threatens to degenerate into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. I like to say that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast should be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.
”
”
Viktor E. Frankl (The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy)
“
The Zuma system resembled a medieval state in which the king or mafia don was owed fealty by mighty barons who paid him tribute and gave him political and military support if needed. Within their own baronies, the barons were almost absolute rulers, exacting tribute from those beneath them and exercising powers of patronage over lower-level appointments. Normally speaking, the king would not interfere with their administration though he did exercise powers of taxation over the whole populace. Only if a baron or his underlings exacted so much tribute as to cause a peasants’ revolt or create major scandal within the kingdom, would the king be forced to act – though naturally, any sign that a baron was no longer loyal to the king would trigger more severe action. The heart of the system was KwaZulu-Natal. Although the ANC there was just as prone to factional feuding as anywhere else, when it came to the crunch it would be bound to support the first Zulu president not only out of tribal loyalty but because of the rich rewards of patronage the province received as a result of its central position. With KwaZulu-Natal effectively sewn up, together with Free State and Mpumalanga, Zuma was invulnerable. Many commentators failed to understand this and, the wish being father to the thought, frequently speculated that the ANC might grow weary of the incessant cloud of scandal which hung over Zuma and decide to eject him, as it had ejected Mbeki. In fact this was quite impossible while the whole weight of tribal loyalty and
”
”
R.W. Johnson (How Long will South Africa Survive? (2nd Edition): The Crisis Continues)
“
In 1969 the Khmer Rouge numbered only about 4,000. By 1975 their numbers were enough to defeat the government forces. Their victory was greatly helped by the American attack on Cambodia, which was carried out as an extension of the Vietnam War. In 1970 a military coup led by Lon Nol, possibly with American support, overthrew the government of Prince Sihanouk, and American and South Vietnamese troops entered Cambodia.
One estimate is that 600,000 people, nearly 10 per cent of the Cambodian population, were killed in this extension of the war. Another estimate puts the deaths from the American bombing at 1000,000 peasants. From 1972 to 1973, the quantity of bombs dropped on Cambodia was well over three times that dropped on Japan in the Second World War.
The decision to bomb was taken by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and was originally justified on the grounds that North Vietnamese bases had been set up in Cambodia. The intention (according to a later defence by Kissinger’s aide, Peter W. Rodman) was to target only places with few Cambodians: ‘From the Joint Chiefs’ memorandum of April 9, 1969, the White House selected as targets only six base areas minimally populated by civilians. The target areas were given the codenames BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER, SUPPER, SNACK, and DESSERT; the overall programme was given the name MENU.’ Rodman makes the point that SUPPER, for instance, had troop concentrations, anti-aircraft, artillery, rocket and mortar positions, together with other military targets.
Even if relatively few Cambodians were killed by the unpleasantly names items on the MENU, each of them was a person leading a life in a country not at war with the United States. And, as the bombing continued, these relative restraints were loosened.
To these political decisions, physical and psychological distance made their familiar contribution. Roger Morris, a member of Kissinger’s staff, later described the deadened human responses:
Though they spoke of terrible human suffering reality was sealed off by their trite, lifeless vernacular: 'capabilities', 'objectives', 'our chips', 'giveaway'. It was a matter, too, of culture and style. They spoke with the cool, deliberate detachment of men who believe the banishment of feeling renders them wise and, more important, credible to other men… They neither understood the foreign policy they were dealing with, nor were deeply moved by the bloodshed and suffering they administered to their stereo-types.
On the ground the stereotypes were replaced by people. In the villages hit by bombs and napalm, peasants were wounded or killed, often being burnt to death. Those who left alive took refuge in the forests. One Western ob-server commented, ‘it is difficult to imagine the intensity of their hatred to-wards those who are destroying their villages and property’. A raid killed twenty people in the village of Chalong. Afterwards seventy people from Chalong joined the Khmer Rouge.
Prince Sihanouk said that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger created the Khmer Rouge by expanding the war into Cambodia.
”
”
Jonathan Glover (Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century)
“
DR. KING: Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettoes, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence can achieve nothing but negative results. Those who are fired up in the audiences go home and face the same unchanged conditions; what is left but for them to become bitter, disillusioned and cynical. The extremist leaders who offer a call to arms are invariably unwilling to lead what they themselves know would certainly end in bloody, chaotic total failure. The struggle of the Negro in America, to be successful, must be waged with positive efforts that are kept strictly within the framework of our democratic society. This means reaching and moving the large groups of people necessary—of both races—to activate sufficiently the conscience of a nation. It is this effort that the S.C.L.C. attempts to achieve through the program which we call creative non-violent direct-action. PLAYBOY: Dr. King, would you care to comment upon the articulate former Black Muslim, Malcolm X? DR. KING: I have met Malcolm X, but circumstances didn’t enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views, as I understand them. He is very articulate, as you say. I don’t want to seem to sound as if I feel so self-righteous, or absolutist, that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. But I know that I have so often felt that I wished that he would talk less of violence, because I don’t think that violence can solve our problem. And in his litany of expressing the despair of the Negro, without offering a positive, creative approach, I think that he falls into a rut sometimes.
”
”
Jonathan Eig (King: A Life)
“
In all these battles the Labour right has enormous reserves of political power. The Parliamentary Labour Party is overwhelmingly hostile to Jeremy Corbyn. Of the 232 Labour MPs no more than 20 can be relied on to back him. Back bench revolts, leaks, and public attacks by MPs opposed to the leadership are likely to be frequent.
Some Labour left wingers hope that the patronage that comes with the leader’s position will appeal to the careerism of the right and centre MPs to provide Jeremy with the support he lacks. No doubt this will have some effect, but it will be limited. For a start it’s a mistake to think that all right wingers are venal. Some are. But some believe in their ideas as sincerely as left wingers believe in theirs.
More importantly, the leading figures of the Labour right should not be seen as simply part of the Labour movement. They are also, and this is where their loyalty lies, embedded in the British political establishment. Commentators often talk as if the sociological dividing line in British politics lies between the establishment (the heads of corporations, military, police, civil service, the media, Tory and Liberal parties, etc, etc) on the one hand, and the Labour Party as a whole, the unions and the left on the other. But this is not the case. The dividing line actually runs through the middle of the Labour Party, between its right wing leaders and the left and the bulk of the working class members.
From Ramsey MacDonald (who started on the left of the party) splitting Labour and joining the Tory government in 1931, to the Labour ‘Gang of Four’ splitting the party to form the SDP in 1981, to Neil Kinnock’s refusal to support the 1984-85 Miners Strike, to Blair and Mandelson’s neo-conservative foreign policy and neoliberal economic policy, the main figures of the Labour right have always put their establishment loyalties first and their Labour Party membership second. They do not need Jeremy Corbyn to prefer Cabinet places on them because they will be rewarded with company directorships and places in the Lords by the establishment.
Corbyn is seen as a threat to the establishment and the Labour right will react, as they have always done, to eliminate this threat. And because the Labour right are part of the establishment they will not be acting alone. Even if they were a minority in the PLP, as the SDP founders were, their power would be enormously amplified by the rest of the establishment. In fact the Labour right today is much more powerful than the SDP, and so the amplified dissonance from the right will be even greater.
This is why the argument that a Corbyn leadership must compromise with the right in the name of unity is so mistaken. The Labour right are only interested in unity on their terms. If they can’t get it they will fight until they win. If they can’t win they would rather split the party than unite with the left on the left’s terms.
When Leon Trotsky analysed the defeat of the 1926 General Strike it was the operation of this kind of ‘unity’ which he saw as critical in giving the right the ability to disorganise the left. The collapse of the strike came, argued Trotsky, when the government put pressure on the right wing of the Labour movement, who put pressure on the left wing of the movement, who put pressure on the Minority Movement (an alliance of the Labour left and the Communist Party). And the Minority Movement put pressure on the CP…and thus the whole movement collapsed.
To this day this is the way in which the establishment transmits pressure through the labour movement. The only effective antidote is political and organisational independence on the far left so that it is capable of mobilising beyond the ranks of the Labour Party and trade union bureaucracy. This then provides a counter-power pushing in the opposite direction that can be more powerful than the pressure from the right.
”
”
John Rees
“
I’m sorry, I should have realized you’d be hungry. If you let me give you intravenous fluids, it would help.” The moment she put the glass down, she retreated to her computer desk.
He ignored her comment. Why do you not feed? The question was asked casually, curiously. His black eyes were thoughtful as he studied her.
From her position of safety across the room, Shea watched him. The weight of his gaze alone broke her concentration, took her breath away. She was feeling far too possessive of this patient. She had no right to tangle her life around his. It was frightening that she was reacting so uncharacteristically to him. She had always felt aloof, remote, detached from people and things around her. Her analytical mind simply computed facts. But right now, she could think only of him, his pain and suffering, the way his eyes watched her, half-closed, sexy. Shea nearly jumped out of her skin. Where had that thought come from?
Knowing she wouldn’t want to think he was reading her mind at that precise moment, Jacques did the gentlemanly thing and pretended merely a casual interest. It was nice to know she found him sexy. Smugly he lay back with his eyes closed, long lashes dark against his washed-out complexion.
Despite the fact that his eyes were closed, Shea felt as though he witnessed every move she made. “You rest while I shower and change my clothes.” Her hands went to her hair in a futile effort to tidy the wild thickness of it.
His eyes remained closed, his breathing relaxed. I can feel your hunger, your need for blood nearly as great as my own. Why would you attempt to hide this from me? With sudden insight he let out his breath. Or is it that you are hiding from your own needs? That is it--you do not realize it is your hunger, your need.
The gentleness in his flooded her body with unexpected heat. Furious that he could be right, she stalked into the bathroom, shrugged off her robe, and allowed the warm shower to cascade over her head.
His laughter was low and taunting. You think to escape me, little red hair? I live in you as you live in me.
Shea gasped, whirled around, grabbed frantically for a towel. It took a moment to realize he was still in the other room.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
“
The First Amendment protects our freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to practice religion, to peacefully assemble, and the right to petition the government. This is true tolerance as defined by our founding documents. This is the right of all American citizens. Does the right of free speech end on college campuses of higher learning? Does it end when you step into a designated "safe space" at your local university? Does it end if your choice of words is construed to be a "trigger warning" when you walk into a classroom?
The answer obviously should be no. Unfortunately, the answer today on most college campuses is yes. And take this warning seriously: it won't end there.
The commentator Andrew Sullivan has noted the student anti-free-speech movement "manifests itself . . . almost as a religion". He continues:
"It posits a classic orthodoxy through which all of human experience is explained--and through which all speech must be filtered. Its version of original sin is the power of some identity groups over others. To overcome this sin, you need first to confess, i.e., "check your privilege", and subsequently live your life and order your thoughts in a way that keeps this sin at bay. This sin goes so deep into your psyche, especially if you are white or male or straight, that a profound conversion is required.
It operates as a religion in one other critical dimension: If you happen to see the world in a different way, if you're a liberal or libertarian or even, gasp, a conservative, if you believe that a university is a place where any idea, however loathsome, can be debated and refuted, you are not just wrong, you are immoral . . . your heresy is a direct threat to others, and therefore needs to be extinguished. You can't reason with heresy. You have to ban it".
Ironically, Christians, and others committed to the free expression of ideas, are the ones who are often accused of trying to force our beliefs on others. But that's not the case. Because we believe in objective truth, we believe reason and a robust exchange of ideas, with good, healthy debate can guide us to the truth. It is the radical Left that denies objective truth and therefore always relies on forced compliance and fascist tactics.
”
”
Everett Piper (Not a Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth)
“
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.
”
”
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
“
I might know a way we could repay that debt.” Everything inside Darius sharpened at that comment, just like it did when he stumbled across an idea for a new experiment. “Oh?” he asked, trying to keep his voice casual. “The young lady drew me aside after she returned from her luncheon today. She made an odd request.” Darius recalled their earlier run-in at the pond. Odd didn’t begin to describe it—him stalking her through the grass in his sodden clothes and bare feet. She’d handled herself with plenty of spirit, though, and he’d thought they’d left on good terms. “I did have words with her this morning,” he admitted, though it seemed like forever ago now, with all that had happened since. “Her request did not pertain to you, sir. At least, not directly.” Darius arched a brow. “What did it pertain to?” Wellborn was always serious, but something in the man’s expression made the back of Darius’s neck prickle. “Miss Greyson requested, if anyone came to Oakhaven asking after a young woman matching her description, that I not reveal her presence here. Also, that I make her aware of the situation at once.” Darius fell back against the worktable. He grabbed the edge to steady himself. “She’s in some kind of trouble.” Wellborn dipped his chin in agreement. “It seems a logical conclusion. I’d thought to discuss the matter with you later this evening.” “Thank you for bringing it to my attention,” Darius said, ironically slipping into the same formality he had chided Wellborn for earlier. However, when a man lost his equilibrium, he tended to resort to old habits to regain his footing. “I found her phrasing of the request a bit odd.” A contemplative look came over the butler’s face. Darius mentally reviewed Wellborn’s account, analyzing each section as he would one of his journal articles until a hypothesis formed. “She’s more concerned over someone recognizing her appearance than her name.” Wellborn nodded. “That is the impression I gained.” Interesting. It seemed his new secretary might have accepted the position under false pretenses. Well, a false name, at least. Not that it mattered. The woman had proved herself more than capable. Her name didn’t matter. “Let’s adhere to her wishes for now. With one deviation.” Darius pushed up from the table and braced his legs apart, as if preparing for battle. “If anyone comes looking for her, inform me first. She deserves our protection, Wellborn. I intend to see that she gets it.
”
”
Karen Witemeyer (Full Steam Ahead)
“
Behavioral compliments include comments like:
•I appreciate how organized you are for our meetings. It makes it easy to get the work done.
•It must have taken a lot of courage to change careers during your peak of success. I really admire that.
•You have an amazing amount of determination. I think it’s remarkable that you set aside time to successfully train for a marathon.
Congratulations.
•I know you are nervous about this procedure; it’s great that you made yourself show up.
•You certainly look at the bright side of things; it is a pleasure to work with you.
prevent pregnant pauses with preparation.
•You manage to run such an organized home, even with four children!
”
”
Debra Fine (The Fine Art of Small Talk: How to Start a Conversation, Keep It Going, Build Networking Skills and Leave a Positive Impression!)
“
You would expect, in a time of uncertainty, a landscape crowded with frauds and con artists peddling positive formulas for happiness, love, sex, good health, and better government. You would expect, too, the most trivial assertions to be attended with much noise and thunder: absent authority, every message must be shouted to have a hope of being heard. Stridency will infect every mode of communication, but will be most disruptive of political rhetoric. Just to keep an audience, politicians and commentators will have to scream louder and take more aggressive positions than the competition.
”
”
Martin Gurri (The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium)
“
With regard to Senator Strom Thurmond's attack on my morality, I have no comment. By religious training and fundamental philosophy, I am disinclined to to put myself in the position of having to defend my own moral character. Questions in this area should properly be directed to those who have entrusted me with my present responsibilities.
”
”
Bayard Rustin (Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin)
“
Unlike the intellectual, the statesman or politician could not afford to operate from a position of absolutes. The real world was contradictory, unpredictable, untamable, tragic. Morgenthau was fond of a comment of Goethe’s “that the one who acts is always unjust and that nobody has justice but the one who observes.
”
”
Barry Gewen (The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World)
“
The criminalization of black and Latina women includes persisting images of hypersexuality that serve to justify sexual assaults against them both in and outside of prison. Such images were vividly rendered in a Nightline television series filmed in November 1999 on location at California's Valley State Prison for Women. Many of the women interviewed by Ted Koppel complained that they received frequent and unnecessary pelvic examinations, including when they visited the doctor with such routine illnesses as colds. In an attempt to justify these examinations, the chief medical officer explained that women prisoners had rare opportunities for "male contact," and that they therefore welcomed these superfluous gynecological exams. Although this officer was eventually removed from his position as a result of these comments, his reassignment did little to alter the pervasive vulnerability of imprisoned women to sexual abuse.
”
”
Angela Y. Davis (Are Prisons Obsolete?)
“
Best Ideas and Tips for Career Growth and Development
In case you're thinking about how you will get where you need to be in your career, there are some basic advances you can take that will assist you in making your own professional development. Similarly, as with all endeavors, you should be clear about your course when you make your own career development plan. You don't take an excursion without knowing where you need to wind up. You additionally don't have to excessively confound this undertaking.
For profession improvement wanting to be compelling, extend your perspective on advancement and that of your representatives. An outside instructional course isn't the best way to create workers. Worker advancement is an incredible idea yet it isn't without issues. The best plans save the duty regarding finish unequivocally on the shoulders of representatives. Something else, if a worker doesn't finish their advancement openings, the individual in question may decide to put the fault on the board, which is counter-profitable for the entirety of the included gatherings.
Certain issues and articulations exist that you would need to maintain a strategic distance from as you and the workers who report to you make plans and strategies for career development.
Best Ideas for Career Growth and Development
1. Analyze your skills by yourself
Experience the expected set of responsibilities detail by detail and rate your present condition of aptitudes, training, or experience to what is recorded. Your rating framework can be as straightforward as 1-10, with 10 an ideal match and one being totally absent. As you rate, make notes about your manner of thinking for future reference.
When you have finished this activity, distinguish the entirety of the things where there is anyplace from a decent measure to a considerable measure of improvement that is required. Search for shared characteristics and cluster those all together. You will find that there will be subjects for your holes.
2. Change Job If or Whenever You Want
You may likewise need to have numerous methods of amplifying your range of abilities to add profundity to it. A model is in the event that you need to move to a venture the board position, you might need to get confirmation and furthermore request venture duties. At first, these might be little, which are fine; they will offer you a chance to develop and learn. Also, you may need to inquire about different approaches to get what it takes you have to develop in your profession.
You can't anticipate to what extent or how much work you should do so as to build up the expertise at the level you need, however, you do have command over the move you make to begin. Follow along. You have to focus on your career development plan at least two times every year. This will permit you to remain concentrated on your advance and help you to remember subsequent stages.
3. Growth Takes Time: But not for Everyone
Some portion of the explanation we presume development is such a high need when you search for an occupation is on the grounds that you weren't getting development and improvement at your last one.
You can totally change occupations at regular intervals to fulfill your longing for development. In any case, that despite everything leaves an extensive timeframe when you're not developing once you sink into work and before you move onto the following one.
Here are some of the plan and strategies for career development, if you have any doubt, let us know in the comment section.
Can also check:
Things which is Important for student to get success
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Messar
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Coach Valvano told me that my goal should be to walk out of the interview with “no negatives.” Every comment, phrase, or story must be positive, and I had to be prepared to talk only about things that put me in the best light. No matter what the topic, it was my job to turn every answer into a response that highlighted my strong points. Like his point guard, who controlled the court, or my middle linebacker, who controlled our defense, I had to control the interview. He taught me that if they asked a question that I couldn’t answer, then I shouldn’t answer it but instead find a way to turn the question to something I could talk about comfortably, positively, and honestly. He explained the importance of being disciplined in that setting and avoiding any and all negative thoughts. If I spoke with positivity and confidence, it would be evident that I believed in myself, and that belief was what the interviewer would be looking for.
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Pete Carroll (Win Forever: Live, Work, and Play Like a Champion)
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A recent experiment nicely demonstrates the power of random first moves to generate cascades.6 Researchers worked with a website that aggregates advice on restaurants and other services. Users post comments, and other users add an up- or down-vote. In their experiment, the website randomly chose a small fraction of comments and gave them one artificial up-vote as soon as they were posted. They also randomly chose another small batch to get a down-vote. The positive up-vote significantly increased the probability that the next user also gave an up-vote, by 32 percent. After five months, the comments that had received one single artificial up-vote at the beginning were much more likely to get a top grade than those that got a single down-vote. The influence of that original nudge persisted and grew, despite the fact that the posts had been viewed a million times.
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Abhijit V. Banerjee (Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems)
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NetReputation's unparalleled business reputation management and branding offerings provide your business the tools and technology to control the conversation and compel customers to action.
A comprehensive business reputation solution from NetReputation allows you to:
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Removing harmful info and building a positive, enduring online reputation takes time, strategy and dedication. Sometimes, restoring your online reputation may even seem impossible, testing your patience and your limits as you scramble to make things right.
But with a trusted, industry-leading reputation management firm like NetReputation, you have dedicated customer-focused ORM experts on your side - professionals with the experience and knowhow to repair online damage fast and put your image back where it belongs: in your hands.
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NetReputation
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What to do to be an Expert in Freelancing?
What is Freelancing? We already know that, Now let's see What to do to be an Expert in Freelancing -
Things to do for Self Development:
Get positive feedback from clients by practicing what you are good at, and finding work that matches your skills.
This is the key to your improvement and the first step to success. When you start to succeed, choose the opportunities that work best for you. Use the time appropriately and fully.
Some of the processes of Self-Presentation after Self-Development are discussed below -
Process of Introducing Yourself:
1. Enhance your profile and build your portfolio with accurate information about yourself.
2. Create your own signature that will identify you in your work.
3. Always use your own photo and signature for original work.
4. Run your own campaign. For example: commenting on others' posts, making full use of social sites, keeping in touch with others, doing service work, teaching others, participating in various seminars, and distributing leaflets or posters.
Showing Professionalism:
How to express or calculate that you are a professional? There are many ways, by which you can easily express that you are a professional entrepreneur or employee. The ways are:
1. Professionals never work for free, so before starting a job, you must be sure about the remuneration.
2. Professionals don't work on balance, if you want to show professionalism you must pay in cash or promise to pay half in advance and the rest at the end of the job.
3. A professional never lacks any research or communication for his work.
Win the Client's Heart:
There are thousands of freelancers in front of a client for a job, but only one gets the job. The person who got the job got it because he presented himself in the client's mind.
Mistakes to Avoid:
Only humans are fallible. It is natural for people to make mistakes, but if people can't learn from those mistakes then it is better not to make such mistakes.
The Mistakes are:
1. Failure to identify oneself.
2. Show Engagement.
3. Lack of communication with the client etc.
Being Punctual:
It is wise to do the work on time. Never leave work. Because if you leave work, the amount of work will increase and not decrease. Therefore, it is better to do the work of time in time and move towards the formation of life by being respectful of time.
So, if the above tasks are done or followed correctly, achieving success as a freelancer is just a saying. To make yourself a successful and efficient freelancer, the importance and importance of the above topics is immense.
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Bhairab IT Zone
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A 360 written report is a good mechanism for annual feedback. But avoid anonymity and numeric ratings, don’t link results to raises or promotions, and open up comments to anyone who is ready to give them. Live 360 dinners are another effective process. Set aside several hours away from the office. Give clear instructions, follow the 4A feedback guidelines, and use the Start, Stop, Continue method with roughly 25 percent positive, 75 percent developmental—all actionable and no fluff.
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Reed Hastings (No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention)
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new insight into out-of-body experiences (OBEs) has emerged from Swiss neurologist Olaf Blanke’s research on epileptic seizures. Searching for the source of a female patient’s epilepsy, Dr. Blanke used electrodes to map her brain, pairing brain areas with the functions each controlled. When he stimulated the angular gyrus, part of the TPJ, the patient had a spontaneous OBE. She reported to Blanke that she was looking down on herself from above. Blanke discovered that each time he stimulated that area, his patient would go into an OBE. Blanke theorizes that in the flood of information entering the TPJ, neural pathways in epileptics might get crossed, leading to a momentary release from the borders of one’s body. In meditation, this is a side effect of deliberate practice. A similar mechanism might be at work in near-death experiences (NDEs). Physician Melvin Morse, MD, had this thoughtful comment on the relationship of these brain states to objective reality: “Simply because religious experiences are brain-based does not automatically lessen or demean their spiritual significance. Indeed, the findings of neurological substrates to religious experiences can be argued to provide evidence for their objective reality.” By activating this hub of emotional intelligence, meditation upgrades a whole host of positive qualities, including altruism, adaptability, empathy, language skills, self-awareness, conscientiousness, and emotional balance.
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Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
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Lately, I've used this technique with the hate that comes at me online. Most people in my position don't read negative comments or emails. The have someone else screen and then erase them. I see hate as just another fuel source. I see the beauty and power in it, and I never let it go to waste. When the negative comments come it, and they always do, I capture them in a screenshot and speak them into my microphone. In 2021, I posted an image of my swollen left knee, which inspired a flood of negative comments...
They were trying to salt my wounds. They wanted me to feel the sting, which I did, and hoped it would bring me down even further. It didn't. I loved those comments. I loved them so much I made a mixtape. I printed them all out, recorded myself saying each one, and then I looped that bitch. Whenever I have a bad day, I listen to it. Sometimes I walk around the house savoring it in full stereo. p63
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David Goggins (Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within)
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Lately, I've used this technique with the hate that comes at me online. Most people in my position don't read negative comments or emails. The have someone else screen and then erase them. I see hate as just another fuel source. I see the beauty and power in it, and I never let it go to waste. When the negative comments come in, and they always do, I capture them in a screenshot and speak them into my microphone. In 2021, I posted an image of my swollen left knee, which inspired a flood of negative comments...
They were trying to salt my wounds. They wanted me to feel the sting, which I did, and hoped it would bring me down even further. It didn't. I loved those comments. I loved them so much I made a mixtape. I printed them all out, recorded myself saying each one, and then I looped that bitch. Whenever I have a bad day, I listen to it. Sometimes I walk around the house savoring it in full stereo. p63
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David Goggins (Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within)
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How cool could it have been if, when my parents received news of my blindness, their first gut reaction could have been something like, “Oh, then she’ll be just like my old friend from high school!” Instead of facing gloomy scenarios or the pitying comments of others, my parents would have been prepared, with positive associations to someone who shared my disability.
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Arielle Silverman (Just Human: The Quest for Disability Wisdom, Respect, and Inclusion)
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I, for one, am not pro-sex. I am not sex-positive or sex-negative. I am pro-pleasure, which does not need to include sex at all, and I am pro-sexual choice—real choice. It is not enough to say that everyone should only do what they want. That’s a bromide that anyone can parrot and it ignores the ways that society pressures us to want certain things. Back it up. Show us examples of powerful, enviable women who are openly indifferent to sex, secure in that decision, and not constantly challenged by others. Don’t reinforce the new charmed circle with comments about how polyamory is more evolved than monogamy, or look down on vanilla sex. Stop assuming that sexual behavior must be linked to political belief or that horniness is an interesting personality trait. That’s closer to what I mean by real choice.
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Angela Chen (Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex)
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the decreasing demands in other areas were as important, and probably more so, for reducing the commitment of Catholics. As lannaccone (1994, p. 1204) has commented, the Catholic church "managed to arrive at a remarkable, 'worst of both worlds' position-discarding cherished distinctiveness in the areas of liturgy, theology, and life-style, while at the same time maintaining the very demands that its members and clergy are least willing to accept.
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Roger Finke (The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy)
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The interval between the first and second wars in Iraq (1991 and 2003) has seen a remarkable shift from Clausewitz to Sun Tzu in the discourse about contemporary warfare. Clausewitz enjoyed an undreamed of renaissance in the USA after the Vietnam War and seemed to have attained the status of master thinker. On War enabled many theorists to recognize the causes of America’s traumatic defeat in Southeast Asia, as well as the conditions for gaining victory in the future. More recently, however, he has very nearly been outlawed. The reason for this change can be found in two separate developments. Firstly, there has been an unleashing of war and violence in the ongoing civil wars and massacres, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, in the secessionist wars in the former Yugoslavia, and in the persistence of inter-communal violence along the fringes of Europe’s former empires. These developments seemed to indicate a departure from interstate wars, for which Clausewitz’s theory appeared to be designed, and the advent of a new era of civil wars, non-state wars, and social anarchy. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War seemed to offer a better understanding of these kinds of war, because he lived in an era of never-ending civil wars.
Secondly, the reason for the change from Clausewitz to Sun Tzu is connected with the ‘revolution in military affairs’. The concepts of Strategic Information Warfare (SIW) and fourth generation warfare have made wide use of Sun Tzu’s thought to explain and illustrate their position. The ‘real father’ of ‘shock and awe’ in the Iraq War of 2003 was Sun Tzu, argued one commentator in the Asia Times. Some pundits even claimed triumphantly that Sun Tzu had defeated Clausewitz in this war, because the US Army conducted the campaign in accordance with the principles of Sun Tzu, whereas the Russian advisers of the Iraqi army had relied on Clausewitz and the Russian defence against Napoleon’s army in 1812. The triumphant attitude has long been abandoned.
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Andreas Herberg-Rothe (Clausewitz's Puzzle: The Political Theory of War)
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LEVEL TWO VIOLATION SERIOUSNESS SENTENCE PRINCIPAL’S COMMENTS DITCHING ELVIN HISTORY According to a report from the gnomes, Keefe was found hiding near the Leapmaster during the morning session. 1 out of 10 Warning issued. I let Keefe off with a warning because he’s never caused problems before. (He also did extraordinarily well on his midterms.) He’s a year younger than his peers, so occasional moments of immaturity are natural—but I gave him a lecture on setting a positive example and he looked inspired when he returned to his session. —Dame Alina VIOLATION SERIOUSNESS SENTENCE PRINCIPAL’S COMMENTS DITCHING THE UNIVERSE According to a report from the gnomes, Keefe was found napping near the main amphitheater during afternoon session. 2 out of 10 Note sent home. Clearly the warning I gave Keefe yesterday wasn’t enough, so I sent a note to Candleshade to apprise his parents of the situation. Lord Cassius assured me he’d correct the problem. —Dame Alina VIOLATION SERIOUSNESS SENTENCE PRINCIPAL’S COMMENTS DISRUPTING STUDY HALL According to a report from Sir Bubu, Fitz Vacker began emitting gaseous noises and had to race to the bathroom. Keefe then took credit for slipping Gurgle Gut into Fitz’s lunch. Fitz didn’t seem upset. He claimed it was a prank (instead of a case of bullying). But the other prodigies were thoroughly distracted. 4 out of 10 One detention assigned. Perhaps allowing Keefe to skip Level One was a mistake—though his Mentors claim he continues to excel in their sessions. Still, that doesn’t excuse disrespectful behavior! I reminded Keefe that he could end up expelled if he continues down this path—and asked Elwin to make tomorrow’s detention particularly unpleasant to serve as a wake-up call. Elwin said he’ll have the prodigies refill vials of pooka pus, which should make Keefe regret his recent life choices. —Dame Alina VIOLATION SERIOUSNESS SENTENCE PRINCIPAL’S
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Shannon Messenger (Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8.5))
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VIOLATION SERIOUSNESS SENTENCE PRINCIPAL’S COMMENTS DISRUPTING DETENTION According to a report from Lady Cadence, Keefe and Sophie Foster were repeatedly caught talking during detention and earned extra punishment. 2 out of 10 One additional detention assigned. I’m not a fan of Lady Cadence’s attitude toward her position as a Foxfire Mentor. But she’s volunteered to supervise the majority of the year’s detentions. And given the punishments she’s planning (I hear today’s involved curdleroots!), I think she may be able to curtail Keefe’s behavior. —Dame Alina VIOLATION SERIOUSNESS SENTENCE PRINCIPAL’S COMMENTS DISRUPTING STUDY HALL According to a report from Sir Rosings, Keefe was talking to Sophie Foster and Dex Dizznee—and when Sir Rosings warned them to stop, Keefe threatened to fill Sir Rosings’s desk with sparkly poop. Punishment was assigned to all three prodigies. 2 out of 10 One additional detention assigned. I suppose I should be concerned about how many detentions Keefe has accrued in his first week of sessions. But… I can’t bring myself to care. I think something is going on with Alden Vacker. His children have been absent all week and there was some sort of commotion at the Opening Ceremonies. But every time I’ve asked the Council for information, they’ve denied my request. —Dame Alina
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Shannon Messenger (Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8.5))
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Roll out the welcome mat, Isaiah had written as his only comment on the forwarded email from the Asteri’s imperial secretary announcing the new positions. “They’re not bad,” Hunt said, staring blankly at the revelers now gathering around a Fae male doing a keg stand in the corner. “That’s the problem.” Bryce’s brows bunched as she scanned the email. “Ephraim—he currently shares Rodinia with Jakob. Yeah, he seems decent enough. But he’s going to northern Pangera. Who … Oh. Who the Hel is Celestina?” Hunt frowned. “She’s stayed out of the spotlight. She oversees Nena—population, like, fifty. She has one legion under her command. One. She doesn’t even have a triarii. The legion is literally controlled by the Asteri—all watchdogs for the Northern Rift. She’s a figurehead.” “Big promotion, then.” Hunt grunted. “Everything I’ve heard about her sounds unusually nice.” “No chance it’s true?” “Where Archangels are concerned? No.” He crossed his arms. Fury said from the couch, “For what it’s worth, Athalar, I haven’t heard anything bad, either.” Juniper asked, “So this is promising, right?” Hunt shook his head. This wasn’t a conversation to have in public, but he said, “I can’t figure out why the Asteri would appoint her here, when she’s only handled a small territory until now. She must be their puppet.
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Sarah J. Maas (House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City, #2))
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At pretty much every blogging job I’ve ever had, I’ve been told (by male managers) that the reason is money. It would be a death sentence to moderate comments and block the IP addresses of chronic abusers, because it “shuts down discourse” and guts traffic. I’ve heard a lot of lectures about the importance of neutrality. Neutrality is inherently positive, I’m told—if we start banning trolls and shutting down harassment, we’ll all lose our jobs. But no one’s ever shown me any numbers that support that claim, that harassment equals jobs. Not that I think traffic should trump employee safety anyway, but I’d love for someone to prove to me that it’s more than just a cop-out.
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Lindy West (Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman)
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I try to start by sprinkling the ground with a few light positive comments and words of appreciation. Then I ease into the feedback with “a few small suggestions.” As I’m giving the feedback, I add words like “minor” or “possibly.” Then I wrap up by stating that “This is just my opinion, for whatever it is worth,” and “You can take it or leave it.” The elaborate dance is quite humorous from a German’s point of view. We’d be much more comfortable just stating Das war absolut unverschämt (“that was absolutely shameless”). But it certainly gets my desired results!
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Erin Meyer (The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business)
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You are adept at turning even the most positive comment into a negative.
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Lucinda Riley (The Shadow Sister (The Seven Sisters #3))
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Never give anybody permission to disturb your peace. Always ignore negative comments. Dwell on positive thoughts and occupy your mind with songs of praise.
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Lailah Gifty Akita
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It was amazing how complex the domino effect was. One small comment or event could transform the world in ways unknown. There were positive and negative ways to address situations that could alter things for the better or worse—like inspiring the man to love himself a little more and strive to improve his condition.
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Zoiy G. Galloay (The Royal Matchmaking Competition: Princess Qloey (RMC, #1))
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Thomas Edison is legendary for learning from his failures. So much so that he refused to even call them failures. In the 1890s, for example, Edison and his team were trying to develop a nickel-iron battery. Over the course of about six months, they created more than nine thousand prototypes that all failed. When one of his assistants commented that it was a shame they hadn’t produced any promising results, Edison said, “Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.” This was how Edison looked at the world—as a scientist, an inventor, and a businessman. It was this kind of positive mindset, this sort of brilliant reframing of failure, that led Edison to the invention of the lightbulb barely a decade earlier and to the thousand other patents issued to him by the time he died.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger (Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life)
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When you find yourself giving someone the once-over and making a critical comment, counter it with a positive observation. Genuinely compliment others.
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Susan Albers (Eating Mindfully: How to End Mindless Eating and Enjoy a Balanced Relationship with Food)
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I have absolutely no fantasies about romance. It hasn’t factored into any of my future plans for years. Years. So I feel just a little bit bad for Laura even as I’m annoyed by her backhanded comments, and I don’t let myself get angry. I can’t get angry—at least I can’t show it. My position is far too tenuous here. From this point on, my primary goals are as follows. Make Jimmy happy to the best of my ability. Secure a safe and mostly comfortable space for myself in the world. And not get on anyone’s bad side who might be in the position to affect my first two goals.
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Claire Kent (Homestead (Kindled, #7))
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In a study conducted in 2004, researchers found that romantic relationships were higher in commitment, satisfaction, trust, and intimacy—and lower in daily conflict—when partners validated each other’s good fortune.[3] No real surprise there, though, right? That’s what you’d expect. What researchers were surprised to find, however, was that passive–constructive responses (e.g., “That’s nice. Guess what happened to me today!”) had the same correlation with negative relationship outcomes as active destructive responses (e.g., “You got promoted? Say goodbye to sleep!”). In other words, responding to someone’s excitement with an obvious lack of interest, even if your comment is positive, may be just as harmful as responding with a negative, discouraging comment.
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Michael S. Sorensen (I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships)
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the comment piece was full of Hancockisms – a word that if it ever made a dictionary would be defined as: noun – Bold, positive claims with a large dollop of wishful thinking, which turn out to be mostly untrue.
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Jonathan Calvert (Failures of State: The Inside Story of Britain’s Battle with Coronavirus)
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Search books that will compete with your book and read the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Read what people like but also focus on what they don’t like. What do they want that is a bit different and missing from existing books? I’m not looking for haters; I’m looking for people who provide constructive ideas. For example, while doing research for a client writing a book on handling cancer treatments, I noticed a competing book had several comments that said the book was great but neglected the emotional aspect of dealing with cancer. This helped us advise her that there was an opportunity to position her book with more of an emotional component.
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Julie Broad (Self-Publish & Succeed: The No Boring Books Way to Writing a Non-Fiction Book that Sells)
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Each day, I noticed Coach sent us off with a positive comment. “It’s a great day to work together toward our goals,” he’d say after we’d gathered for the workout. On a particularly windy day, it would be: “What a great day to challenge and shape our perseverance.” Sometimes his words were simple—“Okay, let’s go”—and it was his upbeat, let’s-get-it-done inflection that set the tone for the workout.
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Deena Kastor (Let Your Mind Run: A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory)
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« Les femmes aussi sont violentes, au moins psychologiquement » ; tel est l'argument classiquement utilisé pour nier la dimension de genre des violences au sein du couple. Il suggère que les victimes chercheraient les coups en maltraitant émotionnellement leur compagnon, en visant là où ça fait mal, au point de le faire sortir de ses gonds. Or il existe d'autres situations où les hommes peuvent subir des brimades et des humiliations, à commencer par le travail. Pour autant, les coups infligés à un supérieur hiérarchique, un contremaître ou un patron ne sont pas un fléau social, et nous ne tenons pas un décompte d'homicides dont ceux-ci seraient régulièrement victimes. Pourquoi serait-il possible de réfréner ses pulsions dans le contexte professionnel, et pas face à une femme ? Et, plus largement, pourquoi les hommes seraient-ils les seuls à ne pas pouvoir se maîtriser quand ils subissent un affront ou une humiliation ? Ce préjugé empêche aussi de voir les nombreux cas où la violence physique est exercée de manière froide et réfléchie. Par ailleurs, cette image des femmes comme des créatures à la parole venimeuse, capables de faire du mal de façon sournoise, comme on jette un mauvais sort, me rappelle la défiance à l'égard de la parole féminine qui se manifestait à l'époque des chasses aux sorcières. Quoi qu'il en soit, évoquer l'oppression subie dans une très grande majorité des cas par des femmes au sein du couple n'implique pas qu'elles seraient pour leur part incapables de la moindre violence, physique ou psychique. Cependant, du fait qu'elles sont structurellement en position de faiblesse, que la société autorise et favorise la violence chez les hommes et la décourage chez elles, le plus probable est que ces actes ou ces paroles restent dérisoires, et essentiellement réactifs ou défensifs. (p. 106-107)
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Mona Chollet (Réinventer l'amour: Comment le patriarcat sabote les relations hétérosexuelles)
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He told me to stay positive and to make only positive comments, such as “God loves me.” “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose,” based on Romans 8:28. “God, I trust You!” And “God is good.
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Joyce Meyer (The Answer to Anxiety: How to Break Free from the Tyranny of Anxious Thoughts and Worry)
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A. Change negative self thoughts to positive self thoughts. Stop the self criticism. Life is hard enough, be kind to yourself. Become aware of just how often you make negative comments about yourself that lessen your self esteem. At the end of each day make a Note of the negative comments you made about yourself and make a promise to eliminate these from your thoughts. You know the ones, ’why am I so stupid?’ ‘I just knew I’d get that wrong.’ ‘this is such an ugly dress, shirt’, ‘I’m so fat’, you get the picture. Get rid of these self hurtful thoughts. B. Change your language and you will change how you feel about you! Try this activity. Replace the word ‘try’ with ‘I will do that’; Replace ‘I can’t’ with ‘I can’; Replace ‘I should’ with ‘I will do that’ C. Get Fit! Start an exercise program. Start small but start. The better you look the better you feel about yourself. Check with your doctor or health care provider. D. An Act of Kindness. Try this. You’ll feel good and so will others and it’s contagious. Surprise your secretary, co-worker or friend with a morning coffee, muffin or homemade treat. Treat your kids to a surprise dessert. Leave a note of kind words on a loved one’s pillow. Mail an invite for a lunch/dinner date to friend/partner/spouse. Smile at a senior on the street or grocery store. Email/phone/write a note to a friend or family member you haven’t seen for awhile. E. Take Action Anxiety and fear can keep you from moving forward and cause you to be unsatisfied with yourself. Try this. Next time you have a task to complete, no matter how small, create an action plan. Write down the answers to What, When, How. Now do it! Successfully completing tasks is a great self esteem builder. You feel good when you complete actions, no matter how small. F. Personal Affirmations Practiced daily personal affirmation can increase Self Esteem. Check here.
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Phyllis Reardon (Life Coaching Activities & Powerful Questions)
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Frederic Morrow, adviser to the Commerce Department and later the first Black man to hold an executive position at the White House, commented that most of the white secretaries in the office steno pool refused to work for him, even as he was routinely insulted and sidelined by the administration supposedly soliciting his opinion. He would go on to become the first Black vice president of Bank of America and write several books, including Black Man in the White House. Claire’s other employer, Senator Margaret Chase Smith from Maine, is an equally impressive historical figure. A lone voice to speak out on the Senate floor against McCarthy, she delivered the famous Declaration of Conscience outlining four basic principles of Americanism: the right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, to protest, and to hold independent thought. An enraged McCarthy did his best to destroy her, but she outlasted him, remaining a senator until 1973. It was remarked that if a man had delivered the Declaration of Conscience, he would have been the next president. Arlene
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Kate Quinn (The Briar Club)
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CULTIVATING A “YES” STATE OF MIND: HELPING KIDS BE RECEPTIVE TO RELATIONSHIPS If we want to prepare kids to participate as healthy individuals in a relationship, we need to create within them an open, receptive state, instead of a closed, reactive one. To illustrate, here’s an exercise Dan uses with many families. First he’ll tell them he’s going to repeat a word several times, and he asks them just to notice what it feels like in their bodies. The first word is “no,” said firmly and slightly harshly seven times, with about two seconds between each “no.” Then, after another pause, he says a clear but somewhat gentler “yes” seven times. Afterward, clients often say that the “no” felt stifling and angering, as if they were being shut down or scolded. In contrast, the “yes” made them feel calm, peaceful, even light. (You might close your eyes now and try the exercise for yourself. Notice what goes on in your body as you or a friend says “no” and then “yes” several times.) These two different responses—the “no” feelings and the “yes” feelings—demonstrate what we mean when we talk about reactivity versus receptivity. When the nervous system is reactive, it’s actually in a fight-flight-freeze response state, from which it’s almost impossible to connect in an open and caring way with another person. Remember the amygdala and the other parts of your downstairs brain that react immediately, without thinking, whenever you feel threatened? When our entire focus is on self-defense, no matter what we do, we stay in that reactive, “no” state of mind. We become guarded, unable to join with someone else—by listening well, by giving them the benefit of the doubt, by considering their feelings, and so on. Even neutral comments can transform into fighting words, distorting what we hear to fit what we fear. This is how we enter a reactive state and prepare to fight, to flee, or even to freeze. On the other hand, when we’re receptive, a different set of circuits in the brain becomes active. The “yes” part of the exercise, for most people, produces a positive experience. The muscles of their face and vocal cords relax, their blood pressure and heart rate normalize, and they become more open to experiencing whatever another person wants to express. In short, they become more receptive. Whereas reactivity emerges from our downstairs brain and leaves us feeling shut down, upset, and defensive, a receptive state turns on the social engagement system that involves a different set of circuits of the upstairs brain that connects us to others, allowing us to feel safe and seen.
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Daniel J. Siegel (The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind)
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Good or bad, positive or negative, there is no comment more insulting to a poet than one displaying that you have not properly read and considered the things they wrote.
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Jasper Sole
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When asked to comment on the results, UCLA researcher Beatrice Golomb said, “Regarding statins as preventive medicines, there are a number of individual cases in case reports and case series where cognition is clearly and reproducibly adversely affected by statins.”30 Golomb further added that various studies have demonstrated that statins either negatively affected cognition or were neutral, and that no trial has ever shown a positive outcome.
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David Perlmutter (Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers)
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Andy and I also had private meetings with Dr. Henderson. In this setting we could confidentially divulge personal issues. The day of my individual meeting with the Professor, he made sure I was satisfied with my Valet's performance. He asked about Andy’s handling of different situations throughout our assignment. He wanted to know whether or not Andy performed his Valet duties to the best of his abilities. Of course I provided an excellent account of Andy's conduct and mentioned that he handled every situation with excellent skill, understanding and positivity. My comments were a report card on his performance which would be presented, officially, to the Bahriji and E.R.O.S. Board of Directors.
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Young (Initiation (A Harem Boy's Saga Book 1))
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Trump added that he’d bought the building so cheaply the contract barred him from revealing its price, and Moore commented that it was “amazing” that Donald had found “something positive” in the article or in the whole situation at 100 Central Park South. “Sell, Donald,” Moore urged. “Sell at $30 million. Please, make your money. Take your money. Make your huge profit and just go away. It’s not personal, but people will always be afraid living with you as a landlord.” “Well, you know,” Donald
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Wayne Barrett (Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Deals, the Downfall, the Reinvention)
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L'élimination scolaire passe souvent par l'autoélimination, et par la revendication de celle-ci comme s'il s'agissait d'un choix : la scolarité longue, c'est pour les autres, ceux "qui ont les moyens" et qui se trouvent être les mêmes que ceux à qui "ça plaît". Le champ des possibles -- et même celui des possibles simplement envisageables, sans parler de celui des possibles réalisables -- est étroitement circonscrit par la position de classe. C'est comme s'il y avait une étanchéité presque totale entre les mondes sociaux. Les frontières qui séparent ces mondes définissent, à l'intérieure de chacun d'eux, des perceptions radicalement différentes de c qu'il est imaginable d'être et de devenir, de ce à quoi on peut aspirer ou non : on sait que, ailleurs, il en va autrement, mais cela se passe dans un univers inaccessible et lointain, et l'on ne se sent donc ni exclu ni même privé de quoi que ce soit lorsqu'on n'a pas accès à ce qui constitue dans ces régions sociales éloignées la règle tout aussi évidente. C'est l'ordre des choses, voilà tout. Et l'on ne voit pas comment fonctionne cet ordre, car cela nécessiterait de pouvoir se regarder soi-même de l'extérieur, d'adopter une vue en surplomb sur sa propre vie et sur celle des autres. Il faut être passé, comme ce fut mon cas, d'un côté à l'autre de la ligne de démarcation pour échapper à l'implacable logique de ce qui va de soi et apercevoir la terrible injustice de cette distribution inégalitaire des chances et des possibles. Cela n'a guère changé, d'ailleurs : l'âge de l'exclusion scolaire s'est déplacé, mais la barrière sociale entre les classes reste la même. (p. 51)
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Didier Eribon (Returning to Reims)
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L'accès aux fonctions dont on a été écarté est justifié dans une analyse en termes de genre : c'est simplement la mise en œuvre d'une politique non discriminatoire, et une politique non discriminatoire peut et dois passer par l'action positive, ce qu'on appelle parfois discrimination inverse. Peu importe comment on la nomme : il s'agit dans tous les cas d'une action correctrice d'une discrimination passée dont l'effet se fait encore sentir, et correctrice des discriminations présentes, de jure ou de facto, qui empêchent certaines personnes, en raison ed leur appartenance de groupe, d'avoir des chances égales. Telle est la philosophie de l'action positive, là où elle est pratiquée. Telle est la philosophie de l'ONU, pour laquelle une action positive correctrice ne peut être considérée comme une discrimination - doctrine qui contredit le Conseil constitutionnel français ainsi que le dernier arrêté de la Cour européenne ; mais les conventions internationales l'emportent sur les lois nationales et sur les décisions européennes, et on peut donc espérer que l'ordre sera mis dans la maison France et la maison Europe. (p. 59)
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Christine Delphy (Classer, dominer: Qui sont les "autres" ?)
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Most of the lunchtime involves me dealing with my classmates and their funny comments about me falling asleep in class. This may take a long time to live down. The rest of the day passes quickly and I happily escape school to rush home. Home! My mom, whom I call Mrs. Absolutely Positive, greets me as I enter the lounge room. “I bet you had a marvelous day at school, another fulfilling step on your life of learning,” she gushes. Now you know where her nickname came from! She means well but her constant positiveness sometimes collides with my reality of being an almost cool girl.
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Bill Campbell (My New Buddy (Diary of an Almost Cool Girl #4))
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The rise of right-wing media also affected Republican officeholders. During the Obama administration, Fox News commentators and right-wing radio personalities almost uniformly adopted a “no compromise” position, viciously attacking any Republican politician who broke with the party line.
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Steven Levitsky (How Democracies Die)
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Why is the person coming to see you now? What does he or she want? Ask and listen. 2. What is your sense of how important the client’s goal(s) may be? 3. Be welcoming. Offer a cup of coffee. Look for what you can genuinely appreciate and comment positively about, even something simple, and for other ways to help the client feel welcome. 4. How does the person think you might be able to help? Provide the client with some sense of what to expect. 5. Offer hope. Explain what you do and how it may help. Present a positive and honest picture of changes that others have made and of the efficacy of the services you can offer.
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William R. Miller (Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change (Applications of Motivational Interviewing))
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Business Cards
“Do you attend events where business cards are exchanged in a networking environment? My friend Brian Haugen is a networking ninja. His gregarious personality and love for people have enabled him to easily win friends and influence people. He has a lot of tips, but one of his best is regarding how to best handle business cards.
When I asked him for his thoughts on being an effective networker, he shared that there is an art to how to receive someone’s business card with respect and interest. He continued by saying, “When someone hands you their card, take a moment to hold it, read it, repeat their name and then make a comment or ask a question. And make notes on their card to help you remember the exchange.”
This small action communicates you are genuinely interested and want to remember them.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
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studies have been done to confirm this. Harvard Business Review wrote an article[2] stating that the ideal praise to criticism ratio in relationships is 5 to 1—five positive comments for every negative one.
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Brian Keephimattracted (F*CK Him! - Nice Girls Always Finish Single)
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Devoir prouver sa valeur est un piège sans fond, car plus on cherche à prouver sa valeur, plus on la minimise. Imaginez un chirurgien vous disant : « Je vais vous prouver que je sais opérer ! ». Vous vous sauvez en courant, n’est-ce pas ? Vous êtes quelqu’un de bien et de capable. Vous n’avez rien à prouver à personne à ce sujet. Faites simplement ce que vous avez à faire. Paradoxalement, plus vous serez convaincu de votre valeur, plus les autres en seront convaincus aussi. Une image de soi positive permet de croire en ses qualités et de se projeter positivement dans l’avenir.
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Christel Petitcollin (Je pense trop : comment canaliser ce mental envahissant)
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La reconstruction de l’estime de soi commence par une validation de toutes ses réussites, petites ou grandes. Puis il faut réapprendre à se parler avec amitié, au lieu de se dénigrer. Enfn, s’obliger à se traiter soi-même avec le même respect que celui qu’on sait accorder à autrui. L’équité et la justice ne sont-elles pas vos valeurs ? Chaque couche de confance en soi alimente les autres. Plus on s’aime, plus on va avoir une image de soi positive et une facilité à valider ses réussites. ça marche aussi dans l’autre sens. Plus on apprend à valider ses réussites, plus on va positiver l’image de soi et pouvoir s’aimer.
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Christel Petitcollin (Je pense trop : comment canaliser ce mental envahissant)
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The reason for the displeasure at Corey’s position as an on-air political commentator was partly because he was being paid simultaneously by CNN and the Trump campaign. Nearly two years earlier, when Corey had taken the job as Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, he had asked for and was given a three-month severance package in his contract. When Don Jr. fired him, his severance was extended to six months, through December 2016. Considering he was making twenty grand a month as Trump’s campaign manager,
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Corey R. Lewandowski (Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency)
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commenting on why those once in power write memoirs, ‘is a substitute for the authority they once commanded by virtue of their position but now miss.
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Sanjaya Baru (The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh)
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Meeting and Greeting
1. Use eye contact and smiling as your first contact with others. In doing so, you can scout out the friendly, approachable strangers in the room and feel immediately more at ease.
2. Be the first to say hello. Stay calm if you are left alone to mingle—large parties, forgetful hosts, and friendly guests make this situation inevitable.
3. Introduce yourself to others. Offer your hand and say: “Hello. My name is . . .”
4. As you shake hands, repeat the person’s name. “Nice to meet you, Jack.” This will help imprint the name in your own mind.
5. Make an extra effort to remember names and use them in conversation: “Don’t you agree, Jim?” This makes people feel special.
6. Go out of your way to meet new people. They may feel as out of place as you do: “Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met yet, I’m . . . “ or “I don’t know a soul.”
7. Ask neutral questions that are easy to answer to convey the message that you’d like to get to know this person better.
8. Be prepared to say something interesting about what you do—but in small doses. No one wants to hear you talk exclusively about yourself.
9. Communicate a sense of enthusiasm about the event at hand or life in general. Focus on the positive.
10. Look for passing comments that could open up a whole topic of conversation. “The New York subways were a real experience for this country boy” could lead to a discussion of childhood on the farm, adjusting to city life, public transportation. . . . Clothes, jewelry, and accessories also make excellent conversation pieces. It’s up to you to take the conversational ball and run with it, but be sure to pass it back to your teammate from time to time.
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Jonathan Berent
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The Ekarv method, named after Margareta Ekarv of the Swedish Postal Museum, is a proven set of guidelines, the effectiveness of which has been substantiated by research and has been widely adopted.
1. Use simple language to express complex ideas.
2. Use normal spoken word order.
3. One main idea per line, the end of the line coinciding with the natural end of the phrase. "The robbers were sentenced to death by hanging" is short and to the point.
4. Lines of about 45 letters; text broken into short paragraphs of four or five lines.
5. Use the active form of verbs and state the subject early in the sentence.
6. Avoid: subordinate clauses, complicated constructions, unnecessary adverbs, hyphenating words and the end of lines.
7. Read texts aloud and note natural pauses.
8. Adjust wording and punctuation to reflect the rhythm of speech.
9. Discuss texts with colleagues and consider their comments.
10. Pin draft texts in their final positions to assess affect.
11. Continually reverse and refine the wording.
12. Concentrate the meaning to an "almost poetic level".
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Philip Hughes (Exhibition Design)
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A Role Model for Managers of Managers Gordon runs a technical group with seven managers reporting to him at a major telecommunications company. Now in his late thirties, Gordon was intensely interested in “getting ahead” early in his career but now is more interested in stability and doing meaningful work. It’s worth noting that Gordon has received some of the most positive 360 degree feedback reports from supervisors, direct reports, and peers that we’ve ever seen. This is not because Gordon is a “soft touch” or because he’s easy to work for. In fact, Gordon is extraordinarily demanding and sets high standards both for his team and for individual performance. His people, however, believe Gordon’s demands are fair and that he communicates what he wants clearly and quickly. Gordon is also very clear about the major responsibility of his job: to grow and develop managers. To do so, he provides honest feedback when people do well or poorly. In the latter instance, however, he provides feedback that is specific and constructive. Though his comments may sting at first, he doesn’t turn negative feedback into a personal attack. Gordon knows his people well and tailors his interactions with them to their particular needs and sensitivities. When Gordon talks about his people, you hear the pride in his words and tone of voice. He believes that one of his most significant accomplishments is that a number of his direct reports have been promoted and done well in their new jobs. In fact, people in other parts of the organization want to work for Gordon because he excels in producing future high-level managers and leaders. Gordon also delegates well, providing people with objectives and allowing them the freedom to achieve the objectives in their own ways. He’s also skilled at selection and spends a great deal of time on this issue. For personal reasons (he doesn’t want to relocate his family), Gordon may not advance much further in the organization. At the same time, he’s fulfilling his manager-of-managers role to the hilt, serving as a launching pad for the careers of first-time managers.
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Ram Charan (The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company (Jossey-Bass Leadership Series Book 391))
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He comes to a stop, plants one foot on the ground firmly, and uses his other foot to kick start his bike. He revs the throttle back a few times and looks over at me with complete excitement in his eyes as he kicks the start back into place. He nods his head back over his shoulder. “Hop on behind me and wrap your arms around my waist. You’re going to want to scoot close up against me and hold on tight, but not so tight that I can’t move freely.” I step up beside him and he reaches out his hand for me to take hold as I throw my leg up and over the seat. I scoot forward enough that my center is pressed tightly up against his rear end, and wrap my arms around his waist. Even if we didn’t move any further than this position right here, I would be a very happy girl. Adam lets out a laugh. “Even though I’m really enjoying you being this close, you might need to scoot yourself back just a bit so you can actually lean and move with me. Having you’re coochie pressed against my body has crossed my mind, but it might have to wait until later. Right now, you’re just going to manage pushing me forward.” My cheeks feel like they are on fire and my mouth drops open. I release my arms from around Adam’s waist and scoot back on the seat. “Did you just call my woman parts a coochie, and should I even ask about the wait until later comment?” I’m not going to tell him right now, but with that one simple sentence Adam has gotten me very worked up, in a very good way. Adam looks back over his shoulder and I can tell he’s smiling by the look in his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t sure what type of girl you were as far as vagina terminology goes? Coochie seemed like a safe word, but I have many options you can choose from that you might prefer. There is always the common pussy and cunt terms, then there are the more original ones like; cockpit, mud flaps, love tunnel, bone cave, meat massager, theme park, dick mitten….” I start shaking my head back and forth. “Ok, Ok, I got it. Coochie will do for now, I guess, and I will give it some more thought later as to a term I more prefer. I don’t think we need to keep talking about this right now if you plan on actually showing me why I should be your biggest fan and you my favorite rider out at the races. This is just a big distraction instead.” Adam reaches back and places his hand on my knee. “Maybe it’s a major part of making you my biggest fan as well as showing you that I’m meant to be your favorite rider. It can wait, though. Hold on and we can head on out toward the field.” I grab back hold of Adam and keep my coochie slid back further on the seat this time. “That might be a very strong incentive, Adam, for us both. I agree. Oh and you forgot to mention; purple people penis eater, honey pot, poody tat, stop-n-pop….” Adam releases my leg and grabs back hold of the handle. “Ok, you’re right; we will continue this conversation later on.
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Joan Duszynski (In The Now (In The Moments, #2))
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Obama wasn’t wrong to criticize Bush’s policies, but he was wrong to put the blame on “shred[ding] regulations.” More important, Obama didn’t mention the Fed’s culpability in the crisis, nor the way government guarantees of banks—explicit and implicit—drove banks to engage in the massively risky behavior that created the crisis. Of course, Obama wasn’t in a position to critique government guarantees of banks—he was supporting Bush’s TARP. I pick on Obama only as one example of the conventional wisdom that blames all economic problems on insufficient regulation. Hundreds of commentators and politicians said the free market was the cause, and that government would be the solution. The problem with our banking system has not been too little regulation, but too much. To curb excessive risk taking, we do need more “adult supervision,” as Obama put it, but that supervision should come not from government officials, but from creditors and customers. So, the big-government types are correct that our financial system is dysfunctional, and that this dysfunction is the key destabilizing factor in our economy. But the solution isn’t more regulation, or even “smarter regulation.” To fix our financial sector and make our economy more stable, we need something far more drastic: an actual free market. Government needs to stop telling banks what to do and stop bailing them out when they fail. No regulator will ever be as effective as the threat of failure.
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Peter Schiff (The Real Crash: America's Coming Bankruptcy: How to Save Yourself and Your Country)
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If a bully mocks you, just think about your positive values compared to the bully and ignore his or her harsh comments.
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Saaif Alam
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He tore his mouth from her eager lips to whisper, “Juliet…ah, sweeting…”
Only he had ever called her sweeting. “Morgan…” she whispered back.
He froze. Jerking back from her, he stared uncomprehending into her eyes. Then his face drained of heat as suddenly as hot iron dunked in water. He dropped his hands from her. “What the devil am I doing? I must be mad…”
Pivoting away, he leaned over to brace his fists on the table. His shoulders shook from the force of his sharp, heavy breaths.
“Morgan?” She stepped forward to lay her hand on his back.
He flinched at her touch. “Don’t ever call me that again. Call me Sebastian or Lord Templemore, but never Morgan. I’m not him!” He whirled to face her once more. His haunted eyes gleamed in the dimness, and his features were twisted into anger. “I think I’ve proved that sufficiently.”
His denial struck a dagger to her heart, and she began to tremble. Surely, he didn’t mean to continue in his lies after what they’d just shared. How could he? “Please, Morgan, don’t-“
“I’m not Morgan!” He glanced away. “I’m not.” Only his shaky hand shoving his beautiful, thick hair from his face belied his seeming control. “And another thing: no woman ruined by a man waits two years to hunt him down when her family is spoiling for vengeance. She doesn’t hide the truth from them, and she doesn’t come in secret to accuse her supposed debaucher.”
His gaze swung back to her as he dropped his voice. “She certainly doesn’t let him kiss her intimately. Your encounter with my brother wasn’t ‘wicked’ at all, was it? This was merely another of your little tests.”
He did mean to deny it all! Of all the infernal, dastardly-
“But now you should realize,” he went on, twisting the dagger, “that your attempts to paint me the villain are pointless. I’m not the man you seek. You’ll never prove I am.”
If she’d had one of his horrible weapons in her hand right now, he’d be dead for certain. That he could stand here and kiss her with such passion, then deny that it meant anything, deny their entire past together, while she still tasted him on her lips…
Very well, she could play that game. Lord knows she’d seen enough games played in society to manage one of her own. If that’s what it took to make him confess the truth. “You’re right. It was a test. But you passed.”
Her sudden change of tactic made him eye her with suspicion. “I did?”
“Certainly. First, by your reaction to my calling you Morgan. And second, because you kiss nothing like him.”
“You mean because he didn’t kiss you intimately.”
“No. Because he put more feeling into it. Like the rogue he was, Morgan kissed with great abandon.” She’d die before she admitted that his lordship had gone the same. If he could deceive her without remorse, he deserved this. “Of course, that’s to be expected of a reckless adventurer. His sort excel at inflaming women’s passions. Whereas you-“ She broke off, as if the rest were perfectly obvious.
He gazed at her mulishly. “Whereas I what?”
“You’re a gentleman, of course. You’re much too proper to kiss recklessly, and certainly you’d never attempt to inflame a woman’s passion.”
“You can’t tell me that my brother kissed you with more passion, for I know otherwise. His kiss was-“ He broke off, realizing his error too late. “You’ve already said that his kisses were perfectly chaste.”
Aha! Finally she’d pierced his infernal armor. She hadn’t told him there’d been only one kiss; he’d slipped up already. Let him believe she’d given up her suspicions-it would lull him into lowering his guard. She’d use his own arrogance against him, batter his pride at every opportunity with “perfectly innocent” comments about the past.
She shrugged. “Chaste? Well, that’s a different matter entirely. His kiss may have been ‘chaste,’ as you put it, but it was still thrilling.” She could hardly suppress her smile at the lovely effect her words had on Lord Templemore. He looked positively offended.
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Sabrina Jeffries (After the Abduction (Swanlea Spinsters, #3))
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Oh, so if we look at the picture we can tell which word makes sense.” Then, rather than praising them, she offers a comment that positions them powerfully: “Thanks for teaching us that.
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Peter H. Johnston (Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives)
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The Christian controlled by fear might conclude that the less consistently he follows Jesus, the fewer demonic attacks he will have to endure. Once again, the logic works, but the motivation is disgraceful. Ultimately, fear motivates this type of thinking, and fear is a terrible motivator for a person who understands that if God is for you, it doesn’t really matter who is against you (Romans 8:31). Why should a Christian believe a lie that implies Satan has more power to attack than God has power to protect? Don’t get involved in spiritual warfare. If you do, they will get you. Don’t buy the lie. Even if this type of comment is popular and spoken sincerely, fear is still its motivation. We must remember when discussing spiritual warfare that we are on the side that has ultimately won the war, not the side that lost. One result of victory in Christ Jesus over Satan and his demons is that Christians should live life as victors, not victims (Romans 8). Our position right now is that we are seated in heaven with Jesus, far above all rule and authority (Ephesians 2:6). Our master, Jesus, has already defeated Satan (Ephesians 1:18–23; Colossians 2:15; 1 John 3:8). As long as we are identified with Jesus, we do not have to fear a defeated enemy (Luke 10:18–20; Hebrews 2:14; 1 Peter 5:6–9).
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Karl I. Payne (Spiritual Warfare: Christians, Demonization and Deliverance)
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Realizing I ought to be circulating as well, I turned--and found myself confronted by the Marquis of Shevraeth.
“My dear Countess,” he said with a grand bow. “Please bolster my declining prestige by joining me in this dance.”
Declining prestige? I thought, then out loud I said, “It’s a tartelande. From back then.”
“Which I studied up on all last week,” he said, offering his arm.
I took it and flushed right up to my pearl-lined headdress. Though we had spoken often, of late, at various parties, this was the first time we had danced together since Savona’s ball, my second night at Athanarel. As we joined the circle I sneaked a glance at Elenet. She was dancing with one of the ambassadors.
A snap of drums and a lilting tweet caused everyone to take position, hands high, right foot pointed. The musicians reeled out a merry tune to which we dipped and turned and stepped in patterns round one another and those behind and beside us.
In between measures I stole looks at my partner, bracing for some annihilating comment about my red face, but he seemed preoccupied as we paced our way through the dance. The Renselaeuses, completely separate from Remalna five hundred years before, had dressed differently, just as they had spoken a different language. In keeping, Shevraeth wore a long tunic that was more like a robe, colored a sky blue, with black and white embroidery down the front and along the wide sleeves. It was flattering to his tall, slender form. His hair was tied back with a diamond-and-nightstar clasp, and a bluefire gem glittered in his ear.
We turned and touched hands, and I realized he had broken his reverie and was looking at me somewhat quizzically. I had been caught staring.
I said with as careless a smile as I could muster, “I’ll wager you’re the most comfortable of the men here tonight.”
“Those tight waistcoats do look uncomfortable, but I rather like the baldrics,” he said, surveying my brother, whom the movement of the dance had placed just across from us.
At that moment Bran made a wrong turn in the dance, paused to laugh at himself, then hopped back into position and went on. Perhaps emboldened by his heedless example, or inspired by the unusual yet pleasing music, more of the people on the periphery who had obviously not had the time, or the money, or the notion of learning the dances that went along with the personas and the clothes, were moving out to join. At first tentative, with nervously gripped fans and tense shoulders here and there betraying how little accustomed to making public mistakes they were, the courtiers slowly relaxed.
After six or seven dances, when faces were flushed and fans plied in earnest, the first of my mime groups came out to enact an old folktale. The guests willingly became an audience, dropping onto waiting cushions.
And so the evening went. There was an atmosphere of expectation, of pleasure, of relaxed rules as the past joined the present, rendering both slightly unreal.
I did not dance again but once, and that with Savona, who insisted that I join Shevraeth and Elenet in a set. Despite his joking remarks from time to time, the Marquis seemed more absent than merry, and Elenet moved, as always, with impervious serenity and reserve. Afterward the four of us went our ways, for Shevraeth did not dance again with Elenet.
I know, because I watched.
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Sherwood Smith (Court Duel (Crown & Court, #2))
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Outer influences and distractions Consider the power of external influences to condition your life experience. Spend a day watching how what you encounter impacts your attitude and spirit. Pay attention to what is usually mere background noise. Probe all sights, sounds, and touches as life swirls about. Listen to the radio carefully. Study the comments on talk shows. Listen to popular music lyrics and rhythms. Pay attention to words and worldview, tones and timbre. What and how do you feel as a result? Watch people at a shopping mall. How many appear trim and in vibrant health? How many look happy? What are people wearing and how are they groomed? What does their appearance suggest about your community’s values? Does the appearance of others affect how you feel? Chat with coworkers. What comes up about the economy, government, and company management? Suggest changes in attitudes and actions for more happiness or productivity. What kind of responses do they give you? Look at Internet discussions and news. What is the tone and logic of the posts? Does the commenters’ passion reflect their intellectual depth and degree of knowledge? How many stories are negative and how many are positive? Could any of the negative stories be written with a positive spin and still remain true? How do you feel about what you observe? Is it possible that even if you had not been paying close attention, those experiences out on the margin of awareness might have affected your mood or attitude?
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Stephen K. Hayes (Heart of Light, Blade of Thunder)
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You can just follow the instructions below: Start with a personal anecdote, maybe a funny story for instance. Move on to an observation about the weather. Give a positive comment about the flavour/ odour of the coffee/ water. Proceed to question them about they think about the news item. Once you’ve rain checked these topics, the next thing to do is make a note of the time. If
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Jack Steel (Communication: Critical Conversation: 30 Days To Master Small Talk With Anyone: Build Unbreakable Confidence, Eliminate Your Fears And Become A Social Powerhouse – PERMANENTLY)
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I expected Candy to pick a different rental house. The little yellow one always gets positive comments from broads. Instead, she chose the blocky, brick house. It’s the kind of house I’d have picked. Like the fuckwit I’ve become, I take her choice as a sign that she and I are made for each other. “Why
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Bijou Hunter (Junkyard Dog (White Horse, #1))
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Nobody else can be a better critic of yours than your enemy, who hates you to the core.
He will speculate your work minutely to find out your mistakes to let you down, the more he lets you down, the more you will excel.
And your true victory will be the day he praises your work.
The only condition is, you have to be negatively positive and positively negative to provide the comments and compliments, a space in your heart and mind, respectively.
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Himmilicious
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Many Americans wonder why Robert Kennedy took no action against Lyndon Johnson if he suspected the vice president’s complicity in the murder of his brother. In fact, we now know that Johnson was concerned that Robert Kennedy would object to his immediate ascendancy to the presidency. The very fact that Johnson would worry about something so constitutionally preordained virtually proved Johnson’s fear that Kennedy would see through his role in the murder. I now believe that Johnson’s call to Robert Kennedy to obtain the wording of the presidential oath was an act of obsequiousness to test Kennedy as well as an opportunity to twist the knife in Johnson’s bitter rival. We now know that the “oath” aboard Air Force One was purely symbolic; the US Constitution elevates the vice president to the presidency automatically upon the death of the president. Johnson’s carefully arranged ceremony in which he insisted that Jackie Kennedy be present was to put his imprimatur and that of the Kennedys, on his presidency. Additionally, Judge Sarah T. Hughes, who administered the oath, had recently been blocked from elevation on the federal bench by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. This impediment would be removed under President Lyndon Johnson. Robert Kennedy knew his brother was murdered by a domestic conspiracy and, at a minimum, suspected that Lyndon Johnson was complicit. Kennedy would tell his aide Richard Goodwin, “there’s nothing I can do about it. Not now.”86 In essence, Kennedy understood that with both the FBI and the Justice Department under the control of Lyndon Johnson and Kennedy nemesis J. Edgar Hoover, there was, indeed, nothing he could do immediately. While numerous biographers describe RFK as being shattered by the murder of his brother, Robert Kennedy was not so bereaved that it prevented him from seeking to maneuver his way onto the 1964 ticket as vice president. Indeed, RFK had Jackie Kennedy call Johnson to lobby for Bobby’s selection. Johnson declined, far too cunning to put Bobby in the exact position that he had maneuvered John Kennedy into three years previous. Robert Kennedy knew that only by becoming president could he avenge his brother’s death. After lukewarm endorsements of the Warren Commission’s conclusions between 1963 and 1968, while campaigning in the California primary, RFK would be asked about his brother’s murder. In the morning, he mumbled half-hearted support for the Warren Commission conclusions but asked the same question that afternoon he would tell a student audience in Northern California that if elected he would reopen the investigation into his brother’s murder. Kennedy’s highly regarded press secretary Frank Mankiewicz would say he was “shocked” by RFK’s comment because he had never said anything like it publicly before. Mankiewicz and Robert Kennedy aide Adam Walinsky would ultimately conclude that JFK had been murdered by a conspiracy, but to my knowledge, neither understood the full involvement of LBJ. Only days after Robert Kennedy said he would release all the records of the Kennedy assassination, the New York Senator would be killed in an assassination eerily similar to his brother’s, in which there are disputes, even today, about the number of shooters and the number of shots. The morning after Robert Kennedy was murdered a distraught Jacqueline Kennedy called close friend New York socialite Carter Burden, and said “They got Bobby, too,” leaving little doubt that she recognized that the same people who killed her husband also killed her brother in law.87
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Roger Stone (The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ)
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In their important masterpiece entitled When the Earth Nearly Died, Allan and Delair write: In Europe immense herds of diverse animals utterly vanished off the face of the earth for no obvious biological reason Coincident with this dreadful slaughter upon the land was the deposition of myriads of contemporary marine shells, and the stranding at great elevations of marine mammals, porpoises, walruses and seals In Siberia, the picture is everywhere one of appalling disorder, carnage and wholesale destruction, with countless animals and plants frozen in positions of death ever since the day they perished. As a result, their remains are amazingly fresh-looking and are frequently indistinguishable from those of animals and plants that have died mere weeks ago The magnitude of the biological extinctions achieved by the Deluge almost transcends the imagination. It annihilated literally billions of biological units of both sexes and every age indiscriminately. Only incredibly powerful flood waters operating world-wide could have achieved such results, and only a flood produced by the means previously suggested could have operated globally They comment on the preposterous Ice Age theories of their predecessors. Although these theories hold little water, they are accepted by supposedly intelligent people. ...it is astonishing that such an unscientific explanation ever came to be formulated, yet in a short time both it and the concept of immense thick ice-sheets descending from a hypothetical northern mountain system, to cover all of northern and eastern North America and western and northern Eurasia, was enthusiastically embraced...as virtually established fact The evidence is perfectly unambiguous. Along with the removal of an “Ice Age” like that which has been hitherto commonly envisaged, the evidence suggests that there is something seriously amiss with the last phases of standard geological chronology Evidence thus converges from numerous directions to support the conclusion that, on the testimony of radio-carbon and other dating techniques, immense physical and climatic changes occurred on earth some 11,000 years or so ago – when an Ice Age that probably never existed came to an end, and an apparently uniformitarian regime was abruptly terminated The gigantic worldwide tectonic disturbances of the ‘late Pleistocene’ times occurred almost simultaneously on a nearly unimaginable scale – precisely what could be expected from a powerful external influence but not from the ‘Ice Age’ conditions conventionally believed to have existed then They note the change in the magnetic fields that occurred during the cataclysmic period of Earth’s recent history: Significantly, a drop in the strength of the earth’s magnetic field appears to have occurred sometime between 13,750 and 12,350 years ago...attended by various other important changes, including earthquakes, vulcanism, water table fluctuations and large scale climatic variations. Of these, severe earthquakes in particular may even induce axial wobble, and polarity reversals
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Michael Tsarion (Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation)
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The counterargument posits that, by presenting all the raping and whoring so casually, Martin is commenting on women and powerlessness, perhaps even making an ironic point: women are the ultimate outsiders. Their complete and vicious degradation is so commonplace that almost no one in Westeros notices. For the majority of characters—including Tyrion, who usually has a keen eye for fellow outcasts, and even many of the other women in the cast—the nonstop violence against women is mostly invisible, barely even worth a mention.
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James Lowder (Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire)
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by the Draft Committee. The present text makes clear exactly what the Council affirmed and denied. Obviously, those who signed the articles do not necessarily concur in every interpretation advocated by the commentary. Not even the members of the Draft Committee are bound by this, and perhaps not even Dr. Sproul, since his text underwent certain editorial revisions. However, this commentary represents an effort at making clear the precise position of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy as a whole.
In the editing process, we strove to take account of the comments that were forwarded to us. In some cases, we could not concur with those who made comments,
and therefore the
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R.C. Sproul (Can I Trust The Bible? (Crucial Questions, #2))
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In one of his essays William Placher comments on a time when the theological use of the Bible presupposed a deep knowledge of what the Bible says.1 The example he serves up is from the final pages of Calvin’s Institutes, where the Reformer thinks through the issue of what Christians should do if they find themselves under a wicked ruler. Placher notes that Calvin reflects on Daniel and Ezekiel regarding the need to obey even bad rulers; he weighs the command to serve the king of Babylon in Jeremiah 27. He quotes from the Psalms, and he cites Isaiah to the effect that the faithful are urged to trust in God to overcome the unrighteous. On the other hand, he evenhandedly notes episodes in Exodus and Judges “where people serve God by overthrowing the evil rulers,” and texts in 1 Kings and Hosea where God’s people are criticized for being obedient to wicked kings. He cites Peter’s conclusion before Gamaliel, according to Acts: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). From these and other biblical passages, he proceeds to weave nuanced conclusions. We should disobey what governement mandates if it violates our religious obligations. By contrast, Christians should not normally go around starting revolutions. But those who are in positions of authority should deploy that authority to deal with those who exploit others. Even violent revolutionaries may in mysterious ways perform the will of God, though of course they may be called to judgment on account of their evil. Placher then comments: My point is not to defend all of Calvin’s conclusions, or even all of his method, but simply to illustrate how immersion in biblical texts can produce a very complex way of reflecting within a framework of biblical authority, compared to which most contemporary examples look pretty simple-minded. We can’t “appeal to the Bible” in a way that’s either helpful or faithful without beginning to do theology. Theology begins to put together a way of looking as a Christian at the world in all its variety, a language that we share as Christians and that provides a context rich enough for discussing the complexities of our lives. Absent such a shared framework, we can quote passages at each other, but the only contexts in which we can operate come from the discourses of politics and popular culture.2
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D.A. Carson (The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism)
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Do you think I could win?"
"It matter not what I believe. Only what you believe."
Maracose's comment made Brett think of the Jedi master, Yoda, in Star Wars. But he was determined to win and would try, no, not just try, but he think only positively about the outcome. He would survive the trials.
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Terry Spear (Phantom Fae (The World of Fae, #7))
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Kant’s position is extremely subtle – so subtle, indeed, that no commentator seems to agree with any other as to what it is.
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Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey)
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Antisthenes was a Homeric exegete, commenting on both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Comparing him to Socrates, Epictetus recorded in his Discourses that Antisthenes thought that the basis of education was the study of names. A logician who reflected on the relationship among beauty, truth and language, Antisthenes posited that contradicting was a logical impossibility,12 arguing that nothing can be said except with the proper logos and that there is but a single logos for each thing;
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Richard E. McDorman (Language and the Ancient Greeks and On the Decipherment of Linear B (A Pair of Essays)
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Graff’s shipmate Jim Shaw wrote to his wife, Jane, of the new perspective on life the experience of battle had given them. “We hate the petty bickering of politics.… We hate the disunity between labor and capital. We look with a sort of contemptuous tolerance on such organizations as the USO. We eye askance and critically the opinions aired by the press. As for the ‘military commentators’ who learn their strategy out of books, we writhe in disgust at their positive statements as to how the actual combat should be carried on.… After the war is over the fighting man is going to demand a kind of peace and a kind of government that will be some slight remuneration for the blood and toil and anguish of the war.
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James D. Hornfischer (Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal)
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Senator Warren questions SEC chair on broker reforms 525 words By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Elizabeth Warren said Friday that the Labor Department should press ahead with brokerage industry reforms, and not be deterred by the Securities and Exchange Commission's plans to adopt its own separate rules. President Barack Obama, with frequent Wall Street critic Warren at his side, last month called on the Labor Department to quickly move forward to tighten brokerage standards on retirement advice, lending new momentum to a long-running effort to implement reforms aimed at reducing conflicts of interest and "hidden fees." But that effort could be complicated by a parallel track of reforms by the SEC, whose Chair Mary Jo White on Tuesday said she supported moving ahead with a similar effort to hold retail brokers to a higher "fiduciary" standard. "I want to see the Department of Labor go forward now," Warren told Reuters in an interview Friday. "There is no reason to wait for the SEC. There is no question that the Department of Labor has the authority to act to ensure that retirement advisers are serving the best interest of their clients." Warren said that while she has no concerns with the SEC moving forward to write its own rules, she fears its involvement may give Wall Street a hook to try to delay or water down a separate ongoing Labor Department effort to craft tough new rules governing how brokers dole out retirement advice. She also raised questions about White's decision to unveil her position at a conference hosted by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), a trade group representing the interests of securities brokerage firms. Not only is the SEC the lead regulator for brokers, but unlike the Labor Department, it is also bound by law to preserve brokers' commission-based compensation in any new fiduciary rule. "I was surprised that (Chair) White announced the rule at a conference hosted by an industry trade group that spent several years and millions of dollars lobbying members of Congress to block real action to fix the problem," Warren said. Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who frequently challenges market regulators as too cozy with industry, stopped short of directly criticizing White. The SEC and SIFMA both declined to comment on Warren's comments. SIFMA has strongly opposed the Labor Department's efforts, fearing its rule will contain draconian measures that would cut broker profits, and in turn, force brokers to pull back from offering accounts and advice to American retirees. It has long advocated for the SEC to take the lead on a rule that would create a new uniform standard of care for brokers and advisers. The SEC has said it has been coordinating with the Labor Department on the rule-writing effort, but on Tuesday White also acknowledged that the two can still act independently of one another because they operate under different laws. The industry and reform advocates have been waiting now for years to see whether the SEC would move to tighten standards. Warren expressed some skepticism on Friday about whether the SEC will ever in fact actually adopt a rule, saying that for years the agency has talked about taking action, but has not delivered. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Christian Plumb)
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Anonymous
“
So it was with court jesters in the Middle Ages; they could alert the king to dangers that the ministers would not dare to comment on because they were afraid of losing their positions.
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Paulo Coelho (Veronika Decides to Die)
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Jonah's dialogue with God in the fourth chapter suggests that he may have preached this message with the secret hope that Nineveh would be destroyed. Fretheim states: “Jonah had just experienced the unmerited grace and goodness of God in his own life. Now he turns right around and makes it as difficult as possible for the Ninevites to experience God's deliverance…a graceless message delivered by one living in the shadow of an experience of grace.”22 Nevertheless, although Jonah apparently did not mention the possibility of deliverance in response to repentance, both he and his audience may have assumed it. At least his audience hoped for it. If this were not so, why had Jonah's deity given them forty days? As Stuart explains, there was ambiguity in the message, for the forty days might be “simply to assure that the divine judgment was not far off.” Also the word for “destroy” carries a certain vagueness, since it can mean either “turn” or “overthrow” (see comments on Amos 5:7 in this volume). It can signify “judgment, a turning upside down, a reversal, a change, a deposing of royalty, or a change of heart.” In other words, Jonah's words could mean either that in “forty more days Nineveh would be destroyed” or that “in forty more days Nineveh would have a change of heart.”23 Therefore the ambiguity in these words given by the Lord may have been what opened the door of understanding for the Ninevites and led to their positive response.
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Frank Page (Amos, Obadiah, Jonah: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 19))
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He will not suffer thy foot to be moved.” Psalm 121:3 IF the Lord will not suffer it, neither men nor devils can do it. How greatly would they rejoice if they could give us a disgraceful fall, drive us from our position, and bury us out of memory! They could do this to their heart’s content were it not for one hindrance, and only one: the Lord will not suffer it; and if he does not suffer it, we shall not suffer it.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon (The Chequebook of the Bank of Faith: Precious Promises Arranged for Daily Use with Brief Comments)
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Later, you can shoot your boss an e-mail and comment positively on the new strategy or ideas she suggested and say you are eager to implement them. She’ll appreciate
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Kate White (I Shouldn't Be Telling You This: Success Secrets Every Gutsy Girl Should Know – A Straight-Talking Guide for Career Transitions in Today's Economic Climate)
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As we started our long drive back to the zoo, we stopped at what could be called a general store. There was a pub attached to the establishment, and the store itself sold a wide variety of goods, groceries, cooking utensils, swags, clothing, shoes, even toys. As we picked up supplies in the shop, we passed the open doorway to the pub. A few of the patrons recognized Steve from television. We could hear them talking about him. The comments weren’t exactly positive.
Steve didn’t look happy. “Let’s just get out of here,” I whispered.
“Right-o,” he said.
One of the pub patrons was louder than the others. “I’m a crocodile hunter too,” he bragged. “Only I’m the real crocodile hunter. The real one, you hear me, mate?”
The braggart made his living at the stuffy trade, he informed his audience. A stuffy is a baby crocodile mounted by a taxidermist to be sold as a souvenir. To preserve their skins, hunters killed stuffys in much the same way that the bear poachers in Oregon stabbed their prey.
“We drive screwdrivers right through their eyes,” Mister Stuffy boasted, eyeing Steve through the doorway of the pub. “Right through the bloody eye sockets!”
He was feeling his beer. We gathered up our purchases and headed out to the Ute. Okay, I said to myself, we’re going to make it. Just two or three more steps…
Steve turned around and headed back toward the pub.
I’d never seen him like that before. My husband changed into somebody I didn’t know. His eyes glared, his face flushed, and his lower lip trembled. I followed him to the threshold of the pub.
“Why don’t you blokes come outside and tell me all about stuffys in the car park here?” he said. I couldn’t see very well in the darkness of the pub interior, but I knew there were six or eight drinkers with Mister Stuffy.
I thought, What is going to happen here? There didn’t seem any possible good outcomes. The pub drinkers stood up and filed out to face Steve. A half dozen against one. Steve chose the biggest one, who Mister Stuffy seemed to be hiding behind.
“Bring it on, mate,” Steve said. “Or are you only tough enough to take on baby crocs, you son of a bitch?”
Then Steve seemed to grow. I can’t explain it. His fury made him tower over a guy who actually had a few inches of height on him and outweighed him with a whole beer gut’s worth of weight. I couldn’t imagine how he appeared to the pub drinkers, but he was scaring me.
They backed down. All six of them. Not one wanted to muck with Steve, who was clearly out of his mind with anger. All the world’s croc farms, all the cruelty and ignorance that made animals suffer the world over, came to a head in the car park of the pub that evening.
Steve got into the truck. We drove off, and he didn’t say anything for a long time.
“I don’t understand,” I finally said in the darkness of the front seat, as the bush landscape rolled by us. “What were they talking about? Were they killing crocs in the wild? Or were they croc farmers?”
I heard a small exhalation from Steve’s side of the truck. I couldn’t see his face in the gloom. I realized he was crying. I was astounded. This was the man I had just seen turn into a furious monster. Five minutes earlier I’d been convinced I was about to see him take on a half-dozen blokes bare-fisted. Now he wept in the darkness.
All at once, he sat up straight. With his jaw set, he wiped the tears from his face and composed himself. “I’ve known bastards like that all my life,” he said. “Some people don’t just do evil. Some people are evil.”
He had told me before, but that night in the truck it hit home: Steve lived for wildlife and he would die for wildlife. He came by his convictions sincerely, from the bottom of his heart.
He was more than just my husband that night. He was my hero.
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Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
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Buddhism and other religious and ethical systems, however, have long recognized and sought to correct this prejudice in favour of the self. A scholar of Judaism, commenting on the Torah, wrote: ‘In morals, holiness negatively demanded resistance to every urge of nature which made self-serving the essence of human life; and positively, submission to an ethic which placed service to others at the centre of its system.’6 It would be naive to expect that all men could be persuaded to place service to others before service to self. But with sufficient resolve on the part of governments and institutions that influence public opinion and set international standards of behaviour, a greater proportion of the world’s population could be made to realize that self-interest (whether as an individual, a community or a nation) cannot be divorced entirely from the interests of others. Instead of assuming that material progress will bring an improvement in social, political and ethical standards, should it not be considered that an active promotion of appropriate social, political and ethical values might not only aid material progress but also help ensure that its results are wisely and happily distributed? ‘Wealth enough to keep misery away and a heart wise enough to use it’7 was described as the ‘greatest good’ by Aeschylus, who lived in an age when, after decades of war, revolution and tyrannies, Athenian democracy in its morning freshness was beginning to prove itself as a system wonderfully suited to free, thinking men. A
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Aung San Suu Kyi (Freedom from Fear: And Other Writings)
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She looked at me with sympathy and commented in her usual positive manner, “Well, thank goodness you got here, Julia! The show just couldn’t go on without you!” Grateful
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Katrina Kahler (My Worst Day Ever! (Julia Jones' Diary #1))
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But isn’t that how science goes! My presentation did not use the straight lines and arrows that one normally sees in family trees. I used the circles as in Conut’s mat. My parents were a bit worried but they saw that it made sense and they felt that my teachers were flexible enough to give credit to innovation where it was useful. I got an A for my paper and learnt two new words – “iteration” and “recursion”. I was not sure I knew what they meant then, but Miss had said that these were the principles we used in making the mat. “Your end is your beginning,” she quoted from Conut and smiled. “In what odd places does wisdom reside,” she added. “The literature speaks of the West Indian family as ‘fractured’; you might be able to prove that it is a fractal” was the comment she made at the bottom of my paper. I knew this was a positive one and did not let the fact that it didn’t make sense to me detain me. I was just happy to get my A, to have passed my exams and to be out of sixth form and on my way to university. It was a really unforeseen thing that caused me to be back in Jamaica.
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Erna Brodber (Nothing's Mat: A Novel)
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I also quickly came to appreciate the importance of watching what’s said around clients. When clients make unexpected requests for legal advice – as they often do – I learned that it was better to tell them I’d get back to them with an answer, and go away, research the question, and consult with a supervising attorney, rather than firing back an answer off-the-cuff.
A friend of mine at another firm told me a story that illustrates the risks of saying too much. It seems an insurance company had engaged my friend’s California-based firm to help in defending against an environmental claim. This claim entailed reviewing huge volumes of documents in Arizona. So my friend’s firm sent teams of associates to Arizona, all expenses paid, on a weekly basis. Because the insurance company also sent its own lawyers and paralegals, as did other insurance companies who were also defendants in the lawsuit, the document review facility was often staffed with numerous attorneys and paralegals from different firms. Associates were instructed not to discuss the case with anyone unless they knew with whom they were speaking.
After several months of document review, one associate from my friend’s firm abandoned his professionalism and discretion when he began describing to a young woman who had recently arrived at the facility what boondoggles the weekly trips were. He talked at length about the free airfare, expensive meals, the easy work, and the evening partying the trips involved. As fate would have it, the young woman was a paralegal working for the insurance company – the client who was paying for all of his “perks” – and she promptly informed her superiors about his comments. Not surprisingly, the associate was fired before the end of the month.
My life as an associate would have been a lot easier if I had delegated work more freely. I’ve mentioned the stress associated with delegating work, but the flip side of that was appreciating the importance of asking others for help rather than doing everything myself. I found that by delegating to paralegals and other staff members some of my more tedious assignments, I was free to do more interesting work.
I also wish I’d given myself greater latitude to make mistakes. As high achievers, law students often put enormous stress on themselves to be perfect, and I was no different. But as a new lawyer, I, of course, made mistakes; that’s the inevitable result of inexperience. Rather than expect perfection and be inevitably disappointed, I’d have been better off to let myself be tripped up by inexperience – and focus, instead, on reducing mistakes caused by carelessness.
Finally, I tried to rely more on other associates within the firm for advice on assignments and office politics. When I learned to do this, I found that these insights gave me either the assurance that I was using the right approach, or guidance as to what the right approach might be. It didn’t take me long to realize that getting the “inside scoop” on firm politics was crucial to my own political survival. Once I figured this out, I made sure I not only exchanged information with other junior associates, but I also went out of my way to gather key insights from mid-level and senior associates, who typically knew more about the latest political maneuverings and happenings. Such information enabled me to better understand the various personal agendas directing work flow and office decisions and, in turn, to better position myself with respect to issues and cases circulating in the office.
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WIlliam R. Keates (Proceed with Caution: A Diary of the First Year at One of America's Largest, Most Prestigious Law Firms)
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It didn’t help when Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael made his notorious comment to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: “The position of women in SNCC is prone.
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Ariel Levy (Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture)
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In Singin’ in the Rain, Lina Lamont provides both an effective “beard” for Don and Cosmo and a foil, representing both the reason for Don’s “unattached” state and the basis for their mutual contempt for women. Yet the signs are all there to be read for those interested in reading them: Cosmo and Don performing as a burlesque team, in which they sit on each other’s laps and play each other’s violins; Cosmo’s comment to Lina after the premiere of The Royal Rascal, “Yeah, Lina, you looked pretty good for a girl”;30 and their bullying, in “Moses Supposes,” of the fogyish diction coach, figuratively drawn out of his closet only to be ridiculed as an asexual “pansy” who can’t sing and dance (thus both confirming and denying homosexuality at the same time).31 On a broader scale, Kelly’s career as a dancer, offering a more masculinized style of athletic dance (in opposition especially to the stylized grace of Fred Astaire), represented a similar balancing act between, in this case, the feminized occupation of balletic dance and a strong claim of heterosexual masculinity. Significantly, the process of exclusion they use with the diction coach is precisely what Cosmo proposes they apply to Lina in converting The Dueling Cavalier into a musical: “It’s easy to work the numbers. All you have to do is dance around Lina and teach her how to take a bow.” But they also apply the strategy to Kathy, who is only just learning to “dance” in this sense (conveniently so, since Debbie Reynolds had had but little dance training, as noted).32 Early on, we see her dance competently in “All I Do Is Dream of You,” but she then seems extremely tentative in “You Were Meant for Me,” immobile for much of the number, not joining in the singing, and dancing only as Don draws her in (which is, of course, consistent with her character’s development at this point). With “Good Mornin’,” though, she seems to “arrive” as part of the Don-Cosmo team, even though for part of the number she serves as a kind of mannequin—much like the voice teacher in “Moses Supposes,” except that she sings the song proper while Don and Cosmo “improvise” tongue-twisting elaborations between the lines. As the number evolves, their emerging positions within the group become clear. Thus, during their solo clownish dance bits, using their raincoats as props, Kathy and Don present themselves as fetishized love objects, Kathy as an “Island girl” and Don as a matador, while Cosmo dances with a “dummy,” recalling his earlier solo turn in “Make ’em Laugh.
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Raymond Knapp (The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity)
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Ulf had said nothing, but the vet’s comment, a casual, throwaway observation, started him thinking. Why shouldn’t dogs lip-read? Dogs understood language—to a limited extent. Dogs knew single words—walkies, biscuits, bad, sit, and so on—although their grasp of grammar was solipsistic. All verbs, in a dog’s mind, are governed by a pronoun, and that pronoun refers to themselves. So the verb sit must always be read as me sit. Adjectives and nouns, too, are similarly qualified: bad is me bad, and biscuits is me biscuits. And if they understood words, even imperfectly, and even in this remarkably self-centred way, then surely they could understand the equivalent sign—a gesture or lip position that accompanied the word?
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Alexander McCall Smith (The Department of Sensitive Crimes (Detective Varg #1))
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The best way to ensure that comments get updated is to position them close to the code they describe, so developers will see them when they change the code.
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John Ousterhout (A Philosophy of Software Design)
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Comments. Sometimes it isn’t possible to avoid code that is nonobvious. When this happens, it’s important to use comments to compensate by providing the missing information. To do this well, you must put yourself in the position of the reader and figure out what is likely to confuse them, and what information will clear up that confusion.
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John Ousterhout (A Philosophy of Software Design)
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The likelihood of anyone saying, “Oh, I hadn’t thought of it that way thank you for clarifying your position” during a debate in the depths of Facebook comments is laughably small.
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Dan Crenshaw (Fortitude: Resilience in the Age of Outrage)
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You shouldn’t feel hurt, that’s not what I meant.” “So what are you trying to say?” “But you shouldn’t feel that way.” “How can you say that? Last week I spent the whole day with you. We had a great time.” “OK, then just forget it.” “All right, I’ll clean up the backyard. Does that make you happy?” “I got it. This is what you should do.” “Look, there’s nothing we can do about it.” “If you are going to complain about doing it, then don’t do it.” “Why do you let people treat you that way? Forget them.” “If you’re not happy then we should just get a divorce.” “All right, then you can do it from now on.” “From now on, I will handle it.” “Of course I care about you. That’s ridiculous.” “Would you get to the point?” “All we have to do is …” “That’s not at all what happened.” Each of these statements either invalidates or attempts to explain upset feelings or offers a solution designed suddenly to change her negative feelings to positive feelings. The first step a man can take to change this pattern is simply to stop making the above comments (we explore this topic more fully in chapter 5). To practice listening without offering any invalidating comments or solutions is, however, a
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Sunday Times Bestsellar and definitive relationship guide (181 POCHE))
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La plupart des hommes de pouvoir tirent leur aura de la position qu’ils occupent. À partir du moment où ils la perdent, c’est comme si la prise avait été arrachée. Ils se dégonflent comme ces poupées qui se trouvent à l’entrée des parcs d’attractions. On les croise dans la rue et on ne réussit pas à comprendre comment un type de ce genre a pu susciter autant de passions.
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Giuliano da Empoli (Le Mage du Kremlin)
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Keller and the woman exchanged a polite smile and proceeded to look in different directions. The whole ride, they danced with gestures. Bradford would study the reflection of her face from the window in front of her and once pleased, he would look away as if to pass the baton and say, your turn. And she took it. The woman enjoyed his build and arms and eyelashes. She would turn to break her glance casually away and run her fingers through her hair, remembering the American man as if he were already a memory. Bradford’s cues were endless. He rolled up his sleeves. He let out a cough to share another peek. If there was the slightest noise in her direction, he would make an excuse to face curiously there. She was slightly limited by her seated position, but managed to follow after him, with her body attuned to her thoughts. She crossed her legs to prompt his curiosity of sudden movement. She spoke politely to an old lady for him to see. She saw how he wore green, too—a different pale, forest green sweater—but nonetheless green like hers!—and she loaded that stupid comment of matching clothes in her throat, should there ever be a window to fire. The climax was when the two seemingly searching, thinking, would look just around the other person, daring as close as an inch, but never directly. They soaked each other up in their peripheral views.
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Kristian Ventura (A Happy Ghost)
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The reason is a neurological chemical called dopamine, the same one Parker had referenced at the media conference. Your brain releases small amounts of it when you fulfill some basic need, whether biological (hunger, sex) or social (affection, validation). Dopamine creates a positive association with whatever behaviors prompted its release, training you to repeat them. But when that dopamine reward system gets hijacked, it can compel you to repeat self-destructive behaviors. To place one more bet, binge on alcohol—or spend hours on apps even when they make you unhappy. Dopamine is social media’s accomplice inside your brain. It’s why your smartphone looks and feels like a slot machine, pulsing with colorful notification badges, whoosh sounds, and gentle vibrations. Those stimuli are neurologically meaningless on their own. But your phone pairs them with activities, like texting a friend or looking at photos, that are naturally rewarding. Social apps hijack a compulsion—a need to connect—that can be even more powerful than hunger or greed. Eyal describes a hypothetical woman, Barbra, who logs on to Facebook to see a photo uploaded by a family member. As she clicks through more photos or comments in response, her brain conflates feeling connected to people she loves with the bleeps and flashes of Facebook’s interface. “Over time,” Eyal writes, “Barbra begins to associate Facebook with her need for social connection.” She learns to serve that need with a behavior—using Facebook—that in fact will rarely fulfill it.
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Max Fisher (The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World)
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How do companies, producing little more than bits of code displayed on a screen, seemingly control users’ minds?” Nir Eyal, a prominent Valley product consultant, asked in his 2014 book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. “Our actions have been engineered,” he explained. Services like Twitter and YouTube “habitually alter our everyday behavior, just as their designers intended.” One of Eyal’s favorite models is the slot machine. It is designed to answer your every action with visual, auditory, and tactile feedback. A ping when you insert a coin. A ka-chunk when you pull the lever. A flash of colored light when you release it. This is known as Pavlovian conditioning, named after the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who rang a bell each time he fed his dog, until, eventually, the bell alone sent his dog’s stomach churning and saliva glands pulsing, as if it could no longer differentiate the chiming of a bell from the physical sensation of eating. Slot machines work the same way, training your mind to conflate the thrill of winning with its mechanical clangs and buzzes. The act of pulling the lever, once meaningless, becomes pleasurable in itself. The reason is a neurological chemical called dopamine, the same one Parker had referenced at the media conference. Your brain releases small amounts of it when you fulfill some basic need, whether biological (hunger, sex) or social (affection, validation). Dopamine creates a positive association with whatever behaviors prompted its release, training you to repeat them. But when that dopamine reward system gets hijacked, it can compel you to repeat self-destructive behaviors. To place one more bet, binge on alcohol—or spend hours on apps even when they make you unhappy. Dopamine is social media’s accomplice inside your brain. It’s why your smartphone looks and feels like a slot machine, pulsing with colorful notification badges, whoosh sounds, and gentle vibrations. Those stimuli are neurologically meaningless on their own. But your phone pairs them with activities, like texting a friend or looking at photos, that are naturally rewarding. Social apps hijack a compulsion—a need to connect—that can be even more powerful than hunger or greed. Eyal describes a hypothetical woman, Barbra, who logs on to Facebook to see a photo uploaded by a family member. As she clicks through more photos or comments in response, her brain conflates feeling connected to people she loves with the bleeps and flashes of Facebook’s interface. “Over time,” Eyal writes, “Barbra begins to associate Facebook with her need for social connection.” She learns to serve that need with a behavior—using Facebook—that in fact will rarely fulfill it.
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Max Fisher (The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World)
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But sleep is only an illusion of weakness and, unless it appeals to our protective instincts, is likely to arouse in us a nasty, bullying spirit. From a height of conscious superiority we look down on the sleeper, thus exposing himself in all his frailty, and indulge in derisive comment upon his appearance, his manners and (if the occasion is a public one) the absurdity of the position in which he has placed his companion, if he has one, and particularly if we are that companion.
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Dorothy L. Sayers (Gaudy Night (Lord Peter Wimsey, #12))
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Beginning Anew: A Tool for Bringing Closeness out of Conflict No matter how skillful and grounded we are, there will still be conflicts and problems in our families. The tools of mindfulness meditation, loving-kindness, reflective listening, I-messages, and more will greatly reduce the number and severity of those conflicts, but we will still have them. Conflicts can, however, bring us even closer together if we use these moments as opportunities to be real and vulnerable, and to come together to repair the damage done. On a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, I learned the Beginning Anew framework for repairing a relationship—including a relationship with a child. It teaches us to look deeply and honestly at ourselves and our past actions, speech, and thoughts. We take this moment as a fresh beginning for ourselves and in our relationships with others. Beginning Anew has three parts: offering appreciation, sharing regrets, and expressing hurts and difficulties. You can do this in person, or write a letter of Beginning Anew if your child reads. Part 1: Offering appreciation. This is an opportunity to shine light on the other’s strengths and contributions, and to encourage the growth of his or her positive qualities. You may mention specific instances when the other person said or did something that you appreciated. This first step shows that you see the wonderful things about this person. Part 2: Sharing regrets. This is your chance to mention any unskillful actions, speech, or thoughts that you feel bad about and haven’t yet had an opportunity to apologize for. For example, you might say, “I’m sorry that I said you were selfish. I was wrong to do that. I realize how my comment hurt you, and I shouldn’t have spoken in that way.” Part 3: Expressing hurts and difficulties. Now you share how you felt hurt by something the other person did or said. Use your I-messages here. Don’t attack or blame. Speak or write about your hurts in a calm way, never in an exaggerated, reproachful, accusatory, or desperate manner
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Hunter Clarke-Fields (Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids)
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Notice how Bernard’s words to his monastic brothers echo those of Jesus: “Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet, what you need is not a scepter but a hoe.”8 Richard J. Foster comments, “[Jesus] totally and completely rejected the pecking-order systems of his day. . . . Therefore the spiritual authority of Jesus is an authority not found in a position or a title, but in a towel.
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Christopher A. Hall (A Different Way: Recentering the Christian Life Around Following Jesus)
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Around the center leader Muktesh Thomas Forsberg and Jivan Kavya Eva Wells at the Osho meditation Center in Stockholm have gathered people, who systematically have used their positions at the center for power abuses. By using lies and vicious gossip as a means of expressing aggressiveness ,these people have systematically committed abuse of power and trying to dominate people.These people express envy, condemnation and domination through lies and gross slenderness. It is really the ego that wants to condemn and control. But these women think that they are aware, but they are really just ignorant, which is the blindness of the ego.When I visited the center, which I had not visited for almost 15 years, I was met by the therapist Moa Bergmark, who told me: "You know that this is a dysfunctional group. But when I began to confront the lies and vicious rumors about me and the dysfunctional structure of the center, Moa Bergmark was suddenly very quiet. This made it obvious that Bergmark was actually a part of the collective unconscious of the dysfunctional group.
When Teresa, the center leader who was appointed by Osho himself, invited me to work with therapy- and meditation courses together with her, I felt joy and support from Teresa. But when Teresa left the center and Muktesh Thomas Forsberg became the center leader, the joy and support disappeared, and I felt that he was just trying to control me.Anutosh Malin William-Olsson, one of the current gossip mongers at the Osho center in Stockholm heard a private conversation between me and my friend Eric Rolf, former consultant to John Lennon, during the eighties, which she had nothing to do with and which she did not understand, but she used this to spread a lie and a gross negative slender negative rumors about me. Pradeepa Eva Tallqvist, one of the other gossip mongers said: "Giten has suchan integrity" and I thought: "Do these people have any integrity at all." Anubhuti Cecelia Lind commented on two of my students by saying in a negative way: "Here come the disciples of Giten."
Premleena Lena Wettergran told Vanya Pernilla Mårtens that she had done a course with me and said: "It is good that we have someone like Giten in Sweden", which Vanya also turned into something negative and said that I was nothing compared to the visiting therapists. It was Premleena who told me this, but when Premleena got entangled in the involved the dysfunctional structure and the collective unconscious of the center she did not even say hello to me any longer.
The center leader Muktesh also joined in with the old woman and confirmed the gross and negative slender by saying: "Giten is so stubborn."
My former girlfriend Marga told me that Anna Ganga Hoffman was spreading lies and gross slenderabout me at the Osho center in Stockholm. Marga had been sitting together with Hoffman and the other gossip mongers at the center,and when Hoffman realized that Marga was sitting there, she wanted Marga to confirm her lies. Marga knew that these were just vicious lies, but she remained quiet because she did not have the courage to confront Hoffman and the gossip mongers at the Osho center in Stockholm about their sick lies and gross slender.
Prem Pathik in Nepal commented: "This must be a few people, who are really not living their lives as they like. These women who are searching for a deeper space can never know you."
It was also these people that my friend, Eric Rolf ,former consultant to John Lennon, met at the Osho center in Stockholm, and she commented: "I have been around, but these people just wanted to control me. I did not enjoy it so much."
I wrote a letter to Osho himself about the situation and the reply I receivws was: "humor is the highest state of consciousness.
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Swami Dhyan Giten (Meditation: A Love Affair with the Whole - Thousand and One Flowers of Silence, Love, Joy, Truth, Freedom, Beauty and the Divine)
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Most of the anecdotes reported about him by Diogenes Laertius appear to belong to this stage, no less than many of the statements attributed to him in other sources. He is caustic in his remarks and brutal in his comments about people, not hesitant to display an abysmal contempt for society at large and for the countless people who crossed his path. He shows no respect for the laws and argues that the wise man should not guide himself by them, but only by his own rational principles (D. L. VI, 11 ). Neither is there in him any respect for the things that most people value, such as reputation, wealth, social position, luxury, an easy life, physical beauty, and other similar things. He pierces mercilessly through the mantle of social illusions that, like enticing and elusive ghosts, make people move aimlessly in all directions. He seeks to purge language, his own and that of others, of euphemisms that cover up the truth. His freedom of speech knows no bounds -he speaks the truth as he sees it, regardless of the consequences of his words. His behavior is reserved and, at times, even bellicose, and the roughness with which he deals with those who approach him for instruction does not create around him a welcoming aura. Repeatedly, echoing a statement made by Socrates in Plato 's Apology, he insists that h e i s not like the rest and says that the main advantage he has derived from philosophy is his ability to be in touch with himself (D.L. VI, 6).
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Luis E. Navia (Antisthenes of Athens: Setting the World Aright (Contributions in Philosophy))
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France takes Algeria from Turkey, and almost every year England annexes another Indian principality: none of this disturbs the balance of power; but when Russia occupies Moldavia and Wallachia, albeit only temporarily, that disturbs the balance of power … The English declare war on the Chinese [the Opium Wars] who have, it seems, offended them: no one has a right to intervene; but Russia is obliged to ask Europe for permission if it quarrels with its neighbour. England threatens Greece to support the false claims of a miserable Jew and burns its fleet [a reference to the Don Pacifico affair]: that is a lawful action; but Russia demands a treaty to protect millions of Christians, and that is deemed to strengthen its position in the East at the expense of the balance of power. We can expect nothing from the West but blind hatred and malice, which does not understand and does not want to understand (comment in the margin by Nicholas I: ‘This is the whole point’).
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Orlando Figes (The Story of Russia)
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With creative usage of these three elements (questions, follow-up comments, follow-up questions), the possibilities and variations in conversation are virtually limitless.
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Debra Fine (The Fine Art of Small Talk: How to Start a Conversation, Keep It Going, Build Networking Skills -- and Leave a Positive Impression!)
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The more you can encourage the other person to speak, the more you listen to what they say, display empathy, and respond positively when reacting to their comments, the greater the likelihood that person will feel good about themselves (Golden Rule of Friendship) and like you as a result.
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Jack Schafer (The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over (The Like Switch Series Book 1))
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Find your self-limiting beliefs and push out of your comfort zone little by little. As absurd as it sounds, acclimate yourself to occasional discomfort. You will be amazed at what you can do. Don’t confuse your memories with reality. We all are commentators; we all shade out experiences with the hues and tones that bias facts. We look for occurrences that match our own values, but they may not be the values others espouse.Let’s admit it – we have memories that are biased by our own beliefs and values. Speak to yourself positively. If you can learn how to follow your own advice to yourself, you can become mentally tough. We are all too often victimized by our primal mind that speaks to us with poorly worded feelings. Overcome the negativity bias. Since prehistoric times, homo erectus gave rise to homo sapiens, and survived amid ferocious predators. He either fought for his lunch, or he was eaten as lunch.
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Taha Zaid (Avoidant Attachment No More! : Discover The Effective Strategy To Strive Towards Secure Attachment Style In Relationships)
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I asked this a lot in the beginning, back before there was money, good money, involved, back when it felt like she was sending out all that content purely for likes and shares and comments. Back when the feedback was almost exclusively positive.
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Kimberly Belle (The Personal Assistant)
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The fact that each individual decision is rational does not make the outcome desirable. Herd behavior generates informational cascades: the information on which the first people base their decision will have an outsized influence on what all the others believe. A recent experiment nicely demonstrates the power of random first moves to generate cascades.6 Researchers worked with a website that aggregates advice on restaurants and other services. Users post comments, and other users add an up- or down-vote. In their experiment, the website randomly chose a small fraction of comments and gave them one artificial up-vote as soon as they were posted. They also randomly chose another small batch to get a down-vote. The positive up-vote significantly increased the probability that the next user also gave an up-vote, by 32 percent. After five months, the comments that had received one single artificial up-vote at the beginning were much more likely to get a top grade than those that got a single down-vote.
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Abhijit V. Banerjee (Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems)
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The findings that were deemed believable enough to be published, however, revolutionized ethologists’ thinking. Ethologists began to speak less often of a chasm between man and ape; they began to speak instead of a dividing “line.” And it was a line that, in the words of Harvard primatologist Irven De Vore, was “a good deal less clear than one would ever have expected.”
What makes up this line between us and our fellow primates? No longer can it be claimed to be tool use. Is it the ability to reason? Wolfgang Kohler once tested captive chimps’ reasoning ability by placing several boxes and a stick in an enclosure and hanging a banana from the high ceiling by a string. The animals quickly figured out that they could get to the banana by stacking the boxes one atop the other and then reaching to swat at the banana with a stick. (Once Geza Teleki found himself in exactly this position at Gombe. He had followed the chimpanzees down into a valley and around noon discovered he had forgotten to bring his lunch. The chimps were feeding on fruit in the trees at the time, and he decided to try to knock some fruit from nearby vines with a stick. For about ten minutes he leaped and swatted with his stick but didn’t manage to knock down any fruit. Finally an adolescent male named Sniff collected a handful of fruit, came down the tree, and dropped the fruit into Geza’s hands.)
Some say language is the line that separates man from ape. But this, too, is being questioned. Captive chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans have been taught not only to comprehend, but also to produce language. They have been taught American Sign Language (ASL), the language of the deaf, as well as languages that use plastic chips in place of words and computer languages. One signing chimp, Washoe, often combined known signs in novel and creative ways: she had not been taught the word for swan, but upon seeing one, she signed “water-bird.” Another signing chimp, Lucy, seeing and tasting a watermelon for the first time, called it a “candy-drink”; the acidic radish she named “hurt-cry-food.” Lucy would play with toys and sign to them, much as human children talk to their dolls. Koko, the gorilla protegee of Penny Patterson, used sign language to make jokes, escape blame, describe her surroundings, tell stories, even tell lies.
One of Biruté’s ex-captives, a female orangutan named Princess, was taught a number of ASL signs by Gary Shapiro. Princess used only the signs she knew would bring her food; because she was not a captive, she could not be coerced into using sign language to any ends other than those she found personally useful. Today dolphins, sea lions, harbor seals, and even pigeons are being taught artificial languages, complete with a primitive grammar or syntax. An African grey parrot named Alex mastered the correct use of more than one hundred spoken English words, using them in proper order to answer questions, make requests, do math, and offer friends and visitors spontaneous, meaningful comments until his untimely death at age 31 in 2007. One leading researcher, Ronald Schusterman, is convinced that “the components for language are present probably in all vertebrates, certainly in mammals and birds.”
Arguing over semantics and syntax, psychologists and ethologists and linguists are still debating the definitions of the line. Louis Leakey remarked about Jane’s discovery of chimps’ use of tools that we must “change the definition of man, the definition of tool, or accept chimps as man.” Now some linguists have actually proposed, in the face of the ape language experiments, changing the definition of language to exclude the apes from a domain we had considered uniquely ours.
The line separating man from the apes may well be defined less by human measurement than by the limits of Western imagination. It may be less like a boundary between land and water and more like the lines we draw on maps separating the domains of nations.
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Sy Montgomery (Walking with the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas)
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Good for Harvest, Bad for Planting” was published shortly thereafter. It led with my experience as a resident at Highland, where it was clear that our poor, mostly of-color patients were a popular source for harvesting organs but disproportionately lay fallow when planting time came. The piece resonated with people widely. Its spread felt viral. It brought some people to tears. Others were enraged at the problem. There was a general outpouring of very positive comments from the general population and even primary care doctors.
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Vanessa Grubbs (Hundreds of Interlaced Fingers: A Kidney Doctor's Search for the Perfect Match)
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NNHS students discussed Americanness in their everyday interactions. For example, Mr Ford, a popular White teacher, made a jocular reference to the title of a popular television show when he told a classroom full of seniors who had not completed an assignment that they ‘should be called America’s biggest losers!’ A Mexican girl (Gen 3, Grade 12) retorted, ‘But we’re not even American!’ This kind of comment reflects Latinx students’ awareness that they were positioned as somehow un-American.
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Jonathan Rosa (Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and the Learning of Latinidad (Oxf Studies in Anthropology of Language))
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His next comment revealed just what that was. It was a turning point in the Trump presidency. It would directly lead to Trump’s first impeachment. Worse, within less than three years the call would help establish Trump’s position as one directly antithetical to US interests—reckless and dangerous to US interests—and helpful to the interests of a declared enemy of the United States: Russia, a country with which Trump sought much warmer, closer relations.
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David Rothkopf (American Resistance: The Inside Story of How the Deep State Saved the Nation)
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Harvard Business Review wrote an article[2] stating that the ideal praise to criticism ratio in relationships is 5 to 1—five positive comments for every negative one. John Gottman, the famous researcher from the Gottman Institute who started studying couples in the 1970s in his research lab, found that for people who end up in divorce, the ratio is 0.77 to 1. This means three positive comments for every four negative ones.[3]
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Brian Keephimattracted (F*CK Him! - Nice Girls Always Finish Single)
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The prime minister can also determine the date of the general election (another prerogative power, where the sovereign takes the advice of her prime minister) and, if he leads his party to victory, has the added authority that derives from that victory. Credit tends to accrue to the person at the head of the winning campaign. Edward Heath was often seen as having won the 1970 general election for the Conservatives almost single-handedly, having led his party to an unexpected victory. A similar view was taken of Margaret Thatcher in her three consecutive election victories. By leading his party to its best-ever election victory in 1997, Tony Blair was claimed by commentators to be in an almost invincible position, many Labour members of parliament crediting their victory to his leadership
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Philip Norton (British Polity, The, CourseSmart eTextbook)
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as it sounds. Part of the challenge of listening is filtering out the noise of bias and defensiveness. When your frontline workers hear customers suggesting ways your business could do more for them, the instinctive response is to determine how much additional work that might mean. When service employees hear negative comments from customers about their or the organization’s service performance, they have a natural tendency to defend and protect. Their inherent sense of “possessiveness” about the delivery processes and their tendency to take complaints as a personal attack make it harder for people at the front line to listen in a nonjudgmental way. Although your people are up close and personal with customers on a day-to-day basis, as a manager you are in a better position to listen effectively. Being one step removed from the action, you should have less defensiveness and a broader perspective than the immediate moment.
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Chip R. Bell (Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service)
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Ever failing” comments will catch you off guard, causing you to be a follower and not a leader. “Ever failing” will influence you to make the wrong decisions, cause your day to become clouded, and before long, it will steal away your value as an employee, as a leader, and your position in life.
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John M. Sheehan
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Most scientists would probably agree that demonstrating the existence of a genuine mind-matter interaction effect, regardless of the magnitude of the effect, would be of profound importance. And thus careful consideration of this topic is amply warranted. But different personal beliefs and predilections invariably lead to different assessments of the same evidence. Scientists who worry about accidentally accepting something as true that is actually false (called a Type I error) insist on absolute proof-positive before taking the evidence seriously. Others who are more concerned about accidentally rejecting something as false that is actually true (called a Type II error) prefer to take a more affirmative stance. The Type I personality is reflected in Bösch’s comment that “this unique experimental approach will gain scientific recognition only when we know with certainty what an unbiased funnel plot … looks like” (p. 517).196 We find a similar statement in Schub’s comment that “perfect methodological quality is a logical necessity in parapsychology, since a paranormal effect can only be demonstrated if all possible non-paranormal causes are ruled out
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Dean Radin (Supernormal: Science, Yoga and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities)
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Readers may recall a West Virginia county employee—Pamela Ramsey Taylor—who held a high-level position as director of county development and was suspended after posting racist remarks about First Lady Michelle Obama on Facebook (“It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House. I’m tired of seeing a [sic] Ape in heels”). The mayor of the city responded, “Just made my day Pam.” Taylor’s response to the ensuing uproar was, “My comment was not intended to be racist at all. I was referring to my day being made for change in the White House! I am truly sorry for any hard feeling this may have caused! Those who know me know that I’m not in any way racist!” Although Taylor was suspended (but eventually got her job back), I am left wondering what actually qualifies as racism in the white mind.
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Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
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There is always a choice available with us to ignore the comments of others and move on. The other option is to indulge in a tiring and pointless defense. Do you really need to prove someone wrong or yourself right?
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Sukant Ratnakar (Quantraz)
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45 P.M. on that Friday evening a wireless message was received from the captain of the French liner La Touraine saying that they had “crossed [a] thick ice-field” and had then seen “another ice-field and two icebergs” and giving the positions of the ice and that of a derelict ship they had spotted. Captain Smith sent his thanks and compliments back and commented on the fine weather. While adding this information to the map in the chart room, Fourth Officer Boxhall remarked to the captain that La Touraine’s positions were of no use to them since French ships always took a more northerly course.
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Hugh Brewster (Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World)
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Activities to Develop the Auditory System Simplify your language. Speak slowly, shorten your comments, abbreviate instructions, and repeat what you have said. Reinforce verbal messages with gestural communication: facial expressions, hand movements, and body language. Talk to your child while she dresses, eats, or bathes, to teach her words and concepts, such as nouns (sunglasses, casserole), body parts (thumb, buttocks), prepositions (around, through), adjectives (juicy, soapy), time (yesterday, later), categories (vegetables/fruits), actions (zip, scrub), and emotions (pleased, sorry). Share your own thoughts. Model good speech and communication skills. Even if the child has trouble responding verbally, she may understand what you say. Take the time to let your child respond to your words and express his thoughts. Don’t interrupt, rush, or pressure him to talk. Be an active listener. Pay attention. Look your child in the eye when she speaks. Show her that her thoughts interest you. Help your child communicate more clearly. If you catch one word, say, “Tell me more about the truck.” If you can’t catch his meaning, have him show you by gesturing. Reward her comments with smiles, hugs, and verbal praise, such as, “That’s a great idea!” Your positive feedback will encourage her to strive to communicate. (Don’t say, “Good talking,” which means little to the child and implies that all you care about is words, rather than the message the child is trying to get across.) Use rhythm and beat to improve the child’s memory. Give directions or teach facts with a “piggyback song,” substituting your words to a familiar tune. Example: To the tune of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” sing, “Now it’s time to wash your face, Brush your teeth, comb your hair, Now it’s time to put on clothes, So start with underwear!” Encourage your child to pantomime while listening to stories and poems, or to music without words. Read to your child every day!
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Carol Stock Kranowitz (The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder)
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Mises and Hayek Beginning with Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek, the links between liberalism and the Austrian School become intense and pervasive, since these two scholars were themselves at once the outstanding Austrian economists and the most distinguished liberal thinkers of the twentieth century. The American academic world, however, deemed none of this sufficient for them to be accorded the kind of positions to which they were clearly entitled.50 They, and in particular Mises, were also responsible to a greater degree than is generally appreciated for the upsurge of the free-market philosophy in the second half of the century.51 But since the views of the two great men are so often amalgamated, it should be emphasized that not only did they differ to an extent on economic theory (Salerno 1993; see also Kirzner 1992c: 119–36), but, more pertinently to the theme of this essay, they exhibited a sharp distinction in the degree of their liberalism. What follows refers to Hayek’s political attitudes, not to his contributions to economic science. These were highly significant and valuable in the earlier part of his career, as he together with Mises built the theoretical foundations of the modern Austrian school.52 While Mises was a staunch advocate of the laissez-faire market economy (Mises 1978a; Rothbard 1988: 40; Hoppe 1993; Klein 1999), Hayek was always more open to what he saw as the useful possibilities of state action. He had been a student of Wieser’s, and, as he conceded, he was “attracted to him . . . because unlike most of the other members of the Austrian School [Wieser] had a good deal of sympathy with [the] mild Fabian Socialism to which I was inclined as a young man. He in fact prided himself that his theory of marginal utility had provided the basis of progressive taxation . . .” (Hayek 1983: 17). Early in his career, Hayek stated that the lessons of economics will create a presumption against state interference, adding: However, this by no means does away with the positive part of the economist’s task, the delimitation of the field within which collective action is not only unobjectionable but actually a useful means of obtaining the desired ends. . .the classical writers very much neglected the positive part of the task and thereby allowed the impression to gain ground that laissez-faire was their ultimate and only conclusion . . . (1933: 133–34) This remained Hayek’s standpoint throughout his long and richly productive scholarly life. It is regrettable, but typical, that a great many confused commentators continue to characterize him as a advocate of laissez-faire.53 In fact, he
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Ralph Raico (Classical Liberalism and the Austrian School)
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Claude Steele, this time joined by Geoffrey Cohen, offers important insights. To investigate how a teacher might gain the trust of a student when giving feedback across racial lines, they created a scenario in which Black and White Stanford University students were asked to write essays about a favorite teacher. The students were told that the essays would be considered for publication in a journal about teaching and that they would receive feedback from a reviewer who they were led to believe was White. A Polaroid snapshot was taken of each student and attached to the essay as it was turned in, signaling to the students that the reviewer would be able to identify the race of the essay writer. Several days later the students returned to receive the reviewer’s comments, with the opportunity to “revise and resubmit” the essay. What was varied in the experiment was how the feedback was delivered. When the feedback was given in a constructive but critical manner, Black students were more suspicious than white students that the feedback was racially biased, and consequently, the Black students were less likely than the White students to rewrite the essay for further consideration. The same was true when the critical feedback was buffered by an opening statement praising the essay, such as “There were many good things about your essay.” However, when the feedback was introduced by a statement that conveyed a high standard (reminding the writer that the essay had to be of publishable quality) and high expectations (assuring the student of the reviewer’s belief that with effort and attention to the feedback, the standard could be met), the Black students not only responded positively by revising the essays and resubmitting them, but they did so at a higher rate than the White students in the study.66
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Beverly Daniel Tatum (Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?)
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Big, centralized government, with the proliferation of federal bureaucracies and the expansion of public welfare programs, is sometimes said to have undercut the mediating institutions of civil society, “crowded out” private generosity, and sapped individual initiative. This is a common explanation among conservative commentators, who attribute the reversal from we to I in the 1960s to the welfare state.16 Empirical evidence for “crowding out” is modest, for across states in the US and across countries in the world, the correlation between big government and social solidarity appears to be, if anything, faintly positive, not negative.
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Robert D. Putnam (The Upswing: How We Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again)
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The total amount of time spent posting comments online correlated positively with sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. This was especially true for those who relished “trolling,” the anonymous posting of negative and destructive comments. The participants who listed trolling as their favorite activity earned the highest scores on those unsavory psychological measures.
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Arthur C. Brooks (Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt)
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It has been proven time and again that a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative comments provides children with the best education and motivation to be successful. The coach that is constantly pointing out the negative, and never providing praise when it has been earned, is dangerous for your child and will lead to their emotional breakdown.
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John O'Sullivan (Changing the Game: The Parent's Guide to Raising Happy, High-Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids)
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Let’s say you post a picture on social media and plenty of your followers leave positive comments. But you are not looking for those. You skim past them, searching for any negative ones.
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Julie Smith (Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?: An International Bestselling Guide to Mental Health and Emotional Resilience from a Clinical Psychologist)
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You will need to forgive your partner often, but there are different levels of forgiveness. It’s human nature to make a rude comment or use an unfriendly tone from time to time. If your partner is willing to promptly acknowledge when this has happened and apologize, I suspect you’d have a high willingness to forgive and get back into a state of positive connection. But with something like your partner having had an affair, it’s not a matter of whether you’ll forgive them. For your own good, you need to forgive. The real question is whether you’re able and willing to get back into a positive connection with your partner. With the affair example, maybe your partner decides they’re willing to go to therapy and other recovery groups. They make an effort to alter your relationship for the better. In this case, you might be willing to get back into connection with them in addition to forgiving them. Alternatively, you might decide that while you understand they’re just a fragile human like you and everybody else, you aren’t willing to get back into a state of connection after the affair, though they’re willing to work on themselves. Or you might wish you could get back into a state of connection with your partner, and you might try and try, but your body and emotions say no. A client comes to mind who wanted to get back into a state of connection with her partner
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Nic Saluppo (Adult Relationship Skills : Build Trust and Deepen Connection with Your Partner (Mental & Emotional Wellness Book 2))