Questionable Senior Quotes

I am living in the Google years, no question of that. And there are advantages to it. When you forget something, you can whip out your iPhone and go to Google. The Senior Moment has become the Google moment, and it has a much nicer, hipper, younger, more contemporary sound, doesn't it? By handling the obligations of the search mechanism, you almost prove you can keep up.... You can't retrieve you life (unless you're on Wikipedia, in which case you can retrieve an inaccurate version of it).

The questions appeared to be pre-rehearsed. The senior people spoke to the young one in Japanese, and he translated. I answered, and he translated back. Another one. Another one. And one more, that I felt needed a longer answer. Only then did I also notice that there was a clock on the wall opposite me, ticking past 11:59. I opened my mouth and began my answer. To my astonishment, mid-sentence, everyone just stood up, bowed, turned to their right and, in line, walked out of the room. Even while I was talking. They weren’t being rude. It’s just how meetings in Japan work.

Every now and then, I’m lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists - although heavy on the wonder side and light on scepticism. They’re curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I’m asked follow-up questions. They’ve never heard of the notion of a ‘dumb question’. But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize ‘facts’. By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts, has gone out of them. They’ve lost much of the wonder, and gained very little scepticism. They’re worried about asking ‘dumb’ questions; they’re willing to accept inadequate answers; they don’t pose follow-up questions; the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers.

On May 25, something unexpected happened. Police opened the school up so families of the library victims could walk through the scene. This served two functions: victims could face the crime scene with their loved ones, and revisiting the room might jar loose memories or clarify confusion. Three senior investigators stood by to answer questions and observe.

I made him a promise." Kevin dragged his stare away from Neil's face to follow Andrew's progress. "He's waiting to see if I can keep it." "I don't understand." Kevin said nothing for so long Neil almost gave up waiting for an answer. Finally he explained, "Andrew on his drugs is useless, but Andrew off his drugs is worse. His high school counselor saw the difference between his junior and senior years and swore this medicine saved his life. A sober Andrew is…" Kevin thought for a moment, trying to remember her exact words, and crooked his fingers at Neil as he quoted, "destructive and joyless. "Andrew has neither purpose nor ambition," Kevin said. "I was the first person who ever looked at Andrew and told him he was worth something. When he comes off these drugs and has nothing else to hold him up I will give him something to build his life around." "He agreed to this?" Neil asked. "But he's fighting you every step of the way. Why?" "When I first said you would be Court, why were you upset with me?" "Because I knew it'd never happen," Neil said, "but I wanted it anyway." Kevin said nothing. Neil waited, then realized he'd answered his own question.

The one where the high school senior was acquitted of rape because the sophomore girl had shaved her pubic region, which somehow equaled consent.

Well, she knew the risks when she got the job,” said the Dean. “What?” said the Senior Wrangler. “Are you saying that before you apply for the job of housekeeper of a university you should seriously consider being eaten by sharks on the shores of some mysterious continent thousands of years before you are born?” “She didn’t ask many questions at the interview, I know that.

No,” said a third student. “Novartis is a public company. It’s not the boss or the board who decides. It’s the shareholders. If the board changes its priorities the shareholders will just elect a new board.” “That’s right,” I said. “It’s the shareholders who want this company to spend their money on researching rich people’s illnesses. That’s how they get a good return on their shares.” So there’s nothing wrong with the employees, the boss, or the board, then. “Now, the question is”—I looked at the student who had first suggested the face punching—“who owns the shares in these big pharmaceutical companies?” “Well, it’s the rich.” He shrugged. “No. It’s actually interesting because pharmaceutical shares are very stable. When the stock market goes up and down, or oil prices go up and down, pharma shares keep giving a pretty steady return. Many other kinds of companies’ shares follow the economy—they do better or worse as people go on spending sprees or cut back—but the cancer patients always need treatment. So who owns the shares in these stable companies?” My young audience looked back at me, their faces like one big question mark. “It’s retirement funds.” Silence. “So maybe I don’t have to do any punching, because I will not meet the shareholders. But you will. This weekend, go visit your grandma and punch her in the face. If you feel you need someone to blame and punish, it’s the seniors and their greedy need for stable stocks.

Today we have badminton set up, as well as a hike around the grounds, and trivia questions in the evening. Any questions?" "When did we sign up for the senior citizen cruise?" Christian ridiculed.

In the United States there is a unique blend of patriotism indoctrination from the pulpit which blends establishment controls into the religious ideology. This way, to question the establishment is to question God, therefore one’s patriotism and salvation is contingent on their submission to the state.

Ask yourself . . . What are my goals when I converse with people? What kinds of things do I usually discuss? Are there other topics that would be more important given what’s actually going on? How often do I find myself—just to be polite—saying things I don’t mean? How many meetings have I sat in where I knew the real issues were not being discussed? And what about the conversations in my marriage? What issues are we avoiding? If I were guaranteed honest responses to any three questions, whom would I question and what would I ask? What has been the economical, emotional, and intellectual cost to the company of not identifying and tackling the real issues? What has been the cost to my marriage? What has been the cost to me? When was the last time I said what I really thought and felt? What are the leaders in my organization pretending not to know? What are members of my family pretending not to know? What am I pretending not to know? How certain am I that my team members are deeply committed to the same vision? How certain am I that my life partner is deeply committed to the vision I hold for our future? If nothing changes regarding the outcomes of the conversations within my organization, what are the implications for my own success and career? for my department? for key customers? for the organization’s future? What about my marriage? If nothing changes, what are the implications for us as a couple? for me? What is the conversation I’ve been unable to have with senior executives, with my colleagues, with my direct reports, with my customers, with my life partner, and most important, with myself, with my own aspirations, that, if I were able to have, might make the difference, might change everything? Are

He removed his hat, something a wizard doesn't ordinarily do unless he's about to pull something out of it, and handed it to the Bursar. Then he tore a thin strip off the bottom of his robe, held it dramatically in both hands, and tied it around his forehead. "It's part of the ethos," he said, in answer to their penetratingly unspoken question. "That's what the warriors on the Counterweight Continent do before they go into battle. And you have to shout --" He tried to remember some far-off reading. "-er, bonsai. Yes. Bonsai!" "I thought that meant chopping bits off trees to make them small," said the Senior Wrangler. The Dean hesitated. He wasn't too sure himself, if it came to it. But a good wizard never let uncertainty stand in his way. "No, it's definitely got to be bonsai," he said. He considered it some more then brightened up. "On account of it all being part of bushido. Like...small trees. Bush-i-do. Yeah. Makes sense, when you think about it." "But you can't shout 'bonsai' here." said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. "We've got a totally different cultural background. It'd be useless. No one will know what you mean. "I'll work on it, " said the Dean.*

During trial, the jury was forced to pick; is he wholesome or monstrous. But I never questioned that any of what they said about him was true. In fact I need you to know it was all true. The friendly guy who helps you move and assists senior citizens in the pool is the same guy who assaulted me. One person can be capable of both. Society often fails to wrap its head around the fact that these truths often coexist, they are not mutually exclusive. Bad qualities can hide inside a good person. That's the terrifying part.

The high performing board shows the ability and openness to “question itself, senior management team, and its decision/discussions.

Next question.” He swipes the screen of his phone, but he’s not looking at it; he’s staring at me. Trying to intimidate me. Trying to see who’ll blink first. “Did you leave DC because (A) you couldn’t find any hotties to make out with? Or (B) your East Coast boyfriend is an ankle buster and you’d heard about legendary West Coast D, so you had to find out for yourself if the rumors were true?” he says with a smirk. “Idiot,” Grace mumbles, shaking her head. I may not understand some of his phrasing, but I get the gist. I feel myself blushing. But I manage to recover quickly and get a jab in. “Why are you so interested in my love life?” “I’m not. Why are you evading the question? You do that a lot, by the way.” “Do what?” “Evade questions.” “What business is that of yours?” I say, secretly irritated that he’s figured me out... Porter scoffs. “Seeing how this is your first day on the job, and may very well be your last, considering the turnover rate for this position? And seeing how I have seniority over you? I’d say, yeah, it’s pretty much my business.” “Are you threatening me?” I ask. He clicks off his phone and raises a brow. “Huh?” “That sounded like a threat,” I say. “Whoa, you need to chill. That was not . . .” He can’t even say it. He’s flustered now, tucking his hair behind his ear. “Grace . . .” Grace holds up a hand. “Leave me out of this mess. I have no idea what I’m even witnessing here. Both of you have lost the plot.

A Southern Poverty Law Center survey of high school seniors and social studies teachers in 2017 found students struggling on even basic questions about the enslavement of blacks in the United States. Only 8 percent of high school seniors could identify slavery as the primary reason the South seceded from the Union. Nearly half of the students said it was to protest taxes on imported goods.

Richmond's newspaper questioned how a senior general could not even get two of his own generals to cooperate with him. They nicknamed him "Granny" Lee or "The King Of Spades," because he insisted that his men dig trenches on Sewell Mountain.

Every now and then, I'm lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists - although heavy on the wonder side, and light on skepticism. They're curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I'm asked follow-up questions. They've never heard of the notion of a 'dumb question'. But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize 'facts'. By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts has gone out of them. They've lost much of the wonder and gained very little skepticism. They're worried about asking 'dumb' questions; they are willing to accept inadequate answers, they don't pose follow-up questions, the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. They come to class with their questions written out on pieces of paper, which they surreptitiously examine, waiting their turn and oblivious of whatever discussion their peers are at this moment engaged in. Something has happened between first and twelfth grade. And it's not just puberty. I'd guess that it's partly peer pressure not to excel - except in sports, partly that the society teaches short-term gratification, partly the impression that science or mathematics won't buy you a sports car, partly that so little is expected of students, and partly that there are few rewards or role-models for intelligent discussion of science and technology - or even for learning for it's own sake. Those few who remain interested are vilified as nerds or geeks or grinds. But there's something else. I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. 'Why is the Moon round?', the children ask. 'Why is grass green?', 'What is a dream?', 'How deep can you dig a hole?', 'When is the world's birthday?', 'Why do we have toes?'. Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation, or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else. 'What did you expect the Moon to be? Square?' Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys the grown-ups. A few more experiences like it, and another child has been lost to science.

Bronwyn Bishop, the shadow minister for seniors, was appointed speaker of the House of Representatives, a well-paid but undemanding job that would gratify her love of state-supplied perks without risking her questionable judgement on a government department.

Most astonishing of all to the citizens of Constantinople, however, was the emperor’s habit of wandering in disguise through the streets of the capital, questioning those he met about their concerns and ensuring that merchants were charging fair prices for their wares. Once a week, accompanied by the blare of trumpets, he would ride from one end of the city to the other, encouraging any who had complaints to seek him out. Those who stopped him could be certain of a sympathetic ear no matter how powerful their opponent. One story tells of a widow who approached the emperor and made the startling claim that the very horse he was riding had been stolen from her by a senior magistrate of the city. Theophilus dutifully looked into the matter, and when he discovered that the widow was correct, he had the magistrate flogged and told his watching subjects that justice was the greatest virtue of a ruler.*

We’re talking about the fate of our economy and the questionable resiliency of our Nation’s critical infrastructure. Why are experts so polite, patient, and forgiving when talking about cybersecurity and National Security? The drama of each script kiddie botnet attack and Nation State pilfering of our IP has been turned into a soap opera through press releases, sound bites and enforced absurdity of mainstream media. It’s time for a cybersecurity zeitgeist in the West where cyber hygiene is a meme that is aggressively distributed by those who have mastered it and encouraged to be imitated by those who have experienced it.

But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize 'facts'. By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts, has gone out of them. They've lost much of the wonder, and gained very little scepti-cism. They're worried about asking 'dumb' questions; they're willing to accept inadequate answers; they don't pose follow-up questions; the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. They come to class with their questions written out on pieces of paper, which they surreptitiously examine, waiting their turn and oblivious of what-ever discussion their peers are at this moment engaged in.

I never got to take you to the prom. You went with Henry Featherstone. And you wore a peach-colored dress.” “How could you possibly know that?” Callie asked. “Because I saw you walk in with him.” “You didn’t know I was alive in high school,” Callie scoffed. “You had algebra first period, across the hall from my trig class. You ate a sack lunch with the same three girls every day, Lou Ann, Becky and Robbie Sue. You spent your free period in the library reading Hemingway and Steinbeck. And you went straight home after school without doing any extracurricular activities, except on Thursdays. For some reason, on Thursdays you showed up at football practice. Why was that, Callie?” Callie was confused. How could Trace possibly know so much about her activities in high school? They hadn’t even met until she showed up at the University of Texas campus. “I don’t understand,” she said. “You haven’t answered my question. Why did you come to football practice on Thursdays?” “Because that was the day I did the grocery shopping, and I didn’t have to be home until later.” “Why were you there, Calllie?” Callie stared into his eyes, afraid to admit the truth. But what difference could it possibly make now? She swallowed hard and said, “I was there to see you.” He gave a sigh of satisfaction. “I hoped that was it. But I never knew for sure.” Callie’s brow furrowed. “You wanted me to notice you?” “I noticed you. Couldn’t you feel my eyes on you? Didn’t you ever sense the force of my boyish lust? I had it bad for you my senior year. I couldn’t walk past you in the hall without needing to hold my books in my lap when I saw down in the next class.” “You’re kidding, right?” Trace chuckled. “I wish I were.” “Then it wasn’t an accident, our meeting like that at UT?” “That’s the miracle of it,” Trace said. “It was entirely by accident. Fate. Kisma. Karma. Whatever you want to call it.

Every now and then, I’m lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists—although heavy on the wonder side and light on skepticism. They’re curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I’m asked follow-up questions. They’ve never heard of the notion of a “dumb question.” But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize “facts.” By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts, has gone out of them. They’ve lost much of the wonder, and gained very little skepticism. They’re worried about asking “dumb” questions; they’re willing to accept inadequate answers; they don’t pose follow-up questions; the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. They come to class with their questions written out on pieces of paper, which they surreptitiously examine, waiting their turn and oblivious of whatever discussion their peers are at this moment engaged in. Something has happened between first and twelfth grade, and it’s not just puberty. I’d guess that it’s partly peer pressure not to excel (except in sports); partly that the society teaches short-term gratification; partly the impression that science or mathematics won’t buy you a sports car; partly that so little is expected of students; and partly that there are few rewards or role models for intelligent discussion of science and technology—or even for learning for its own sake. Those few who remain interested are vilified as “nerds” or “geeks” or “grinds.

Drawing from 1.7 million Gallup surveys collected between 2008 and 2012, researchers Angus Deaton and Arthur Stone found that parents with children at home age fifteen or younger experience more highs, as well as more lows, than those without children... And when researchers bother to ask questions of a more existential nature, they find that parents report greater feelings of meaning and reward -- which to many parents is what the entire shebang is about.

Our stories may not always be pleasant as they’re being lived. They can in fact be just the opposite, acquiring a warm hue only in retrospect. “I think this boils down to a philosophical question rather than a psychological one,” Tom Gilovich, a professor of psychology at Cornell, tells me. “Should you value moment-to-moment happiness more than retrospective evaluations of your life?” He says he has no answer for this, but the example he offers suggests a bias.

One after another, they offered an unvarnished view of the chaos engulfing the region, and Syria in particular. The trends were not good—opposition movements were becoming more extremist, Iran was doubling down on its support for Assad in Syria, Gulf countries were funding groups in Syria and Libya that were more militant than the United States wanted. Most of them argued that the United States was failing to shape events, though I noticed that the most senior correspondent lacked any hope that events could be shaped. Obama listened intently, asking questions as much as he offered his own opinions. When the session was over, I followed him into the Oval Office, where I quickly realized that the session had had the opposite of the effect I intended—where I heard a call to action, Obama had heard a cautionary tale. How could the United States fix a part of the world that was that broken, and that decades of U.S. foreign policy had helped to break?

We are asleep again, while North Korea tests nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, Iran is not far behind, and ISIS, a movement as brutal and psychotic as Nazism, emerges. It had never been my intention to write a sequel to One Second After, but wherever I spoke that was always a question: What happens next? I resisted for five years; my publisher, Tom Doherty, and his senior editor Bob Gleason dropping major “hints” that they wanted more. During those years I did give them a book which

During trial, the jury was forced to pick; is he wholesome or monstrous. But I never questioned that any of what they said about him was true. In fact I need you to know it was all true. The friendly guy who helps you move and assists senior citizens in the pool is the same guy who assaulted me. One person can be capable of both. Society often fails to wrap its head around the fact that these truths often coexist, they are not mutually exclusive. Bad qualities can hide inside a good person. That’s the terrifying part.

Perhaps you think that better-educated people would do better? Or people who are more interested in the issues? I certainly thought that once, but I was wrong. I have tested audiences from all around the world and from all walks of life: medical students, teachers, university lecturers, eminent scientists, investment bankers, executives in multinational companies, journalists, activists, and even senior political decision makers. These are highly educated people who take an interest in the world. But most of them—a stunning majority of them—get most of the answers wrong. Some of these groups even score worse than the general public; some of the most appalling results came from a group of Nobel laureates and medical researchers. It is not a question of intelligence. Everyone seems to get the world devastatingly wrong. Not only devastatingly wrong, but systematically wrong. By which I mean that these test results are not random. They are worse than random: they are worse than the results I would get if the people answering my questions had no knowledge at all.

I was already an atheist, and by my senior year I had became obsessed with the question “What is the meaning of life?” I wrote my personal statement for college admissions on the meaninglessness of life. I spent the winter of my senior year in a kind of philosophical depression—not a clinical depression, just a pervasive sense that everything was pointless. In the grand scheme of things, I thought, it really didn’t matter whether I got into college, or whether the Earth was destroyed by an asteroid or by nuclear war. My despair was particularly strange because, for the first time since the age of four, my life was perfect. I had a wonderful girlfriend, great friends, and loving parents. I was captain of the track team, and, perhaps most important for a seventeen-year-old boy, I got to drive around in my father’s 1966 Thunderbird convertible. Yet I kept wondering why any of it mattered. Like the author of Ecclesiastes, I thought that “all is vanity and a chasing after wind” (ECCLESIASTES 1:14) . I finally escaped when, after a week of thinking about suicide (in the abstract, not as a plan), I turned the problem inside out. There is no God and no externally given meaning to life, I thought, so from one perspective it really wouldn’t matter if I killed myself tomorrow. Very well, then everything beyond tomorrow is a gift with no strings and no expectations. There is no test to hand in at the end of life, so there is no way to fail. If this really is all there is, why not embrace it, rather than throw it away? I don’t know whether this realization lifted my mood or whether an improving mood helped me to reframe the problem with hope; but my existential depression lifted and I enjoyed the last months of high school.

In airplane crashes and chemical industry accidents, in the infrequent but serious nuclear plant accidents, in the NASA Challenger and Columbia disasters, and in the British Petroleum gulf spill, a common finding is that lower-ranking employees had information that would have prevented or lessened the consequences of the accident, but either it was not passed up to higher levels, or it was ignored, or it was overridden. When I talk to senior managers, they always assure me that they are open, that they want to hear from their subordinates, and that they take the information seriously. However, when I talk to the subordinates in those same organizations, they tell me either they do not feel safe bringing bad news to their bosses or they’ve tried but never got any response or even acknowledgment, so they concluded that their input wasn’t welcome and gave up. Shockingly often, they settled for risky alternatives rather than upset their bosses with potentially bad news. When I look at what goes on in hospitals, in operating rooms, and in the health care system generally, I find the same problems of communication exist and that patients frequently pay the price. Nurses and technicians do not feel safe bringing negative information to doctors or correcting a doctor who is about to make a mistake. Doctors will argue that if the others were “professionals” they would speak up, but in many a hospital the nurses will tell you that doctors feel free to yell at nurses in a punishing way, which creates a climate where nurses will certainly not speak up. Doctors engage patients in one-way conversations in which they ask only enough questions to make a diagnosis and sometimes make misdiagnoses because they don’t ask enough questions before they begin to tell patients what they should do.

Bryukhanov gradually came to his senses once he began facing the fact that the reactor was destroyed. The question of evacuating Pripyat was broached soon after the explosion, but he had felt it too momentous a decision to make without very senior backing. He contacted Moscow again and requested permission to evacuate the city, but Communist Party officials, unaware of the full extent of the danger – ironic, since Bryukhanov himself had repeatedly assured them the damage was minimal – refused to consider it. An evacuation would cause a panic and spread word of the accident; nobody was to be warned.163

Speaking of Vaughan, his claim in the Daily Telegraph last week that the story of a senior county pro being offered money to fix domestic matches was 'the tip of the iceberg' did not go down well with one former England captain contacted by the Top Spin. 'I played the game for almost 20 years,' he seethed, 'and I don't know a single player who has been offered money, either for information or to fix a game. To say it's the tip of the iceberg is absolute rubbish.' The fact that the player in question had just registered a mediocre Stableford score of 20 playing off a handicap of 14 had nothing to do, I was assured, with his foul mood.

Sir, you do understand that - officially - I'm not actually a centurion. I haven't even been assigned to a legion yet.' The general continued writing as he spoke. 'What was the name?' 'Corbulo, sir.' 'Corbulo, you have an officer's tunic and an officer's helmet; and you completed full officer training did you not?' Cassius nodded. He could easily recall every accursed test and drill. Though he'd excelled in the cerebral disciplines and somehow survived the endless marches and swims, he had rated poorly with sword in hand and had been repeatedly described as "lacking natural leadership ability." The academy's senior centurion had seemed quite relieved when the letter from the Service arrived. 'I did, sir, but it was felt I would be more suited to intelligence work than the legions, I really would prefer -' 'And you did take an oath? To Rome, the Army and the Emperor?' 'I did, sir, and of course I am happy to serve but -' The General finished the orders. He rolled the sheet up roughly and handed it to Cassius. 'Dismissed.' 'Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I just have one final question.' The General was on his way back to his chair. He turned around and fixed Cassius with an impatient stare. 'Sir - how should I present myself to the troops? In terms of rank I mean.' 'They will assume you are a centurion, and I can see no practical reason whatsoever to disabuse them of that view.

The Great Questions of Life were things he didn’t much think about. For the most part, life in the Soviet Union was limited to yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The economic facts of life really didn’t allow a person to make long-term plans. There were no country houses to buy, no luxury cars to desire, no elaborate vacations to save for. In committing what it called socialism on the people, the government of his country allowed—forced—everyone to aspire to much the same things, regardless of individual tastes, which meant getting on an endless list and being notified when one’s name came up—and being unknowingly bumped by those with greater Party seniority—or not, because some people had access to better places.

Lamar Alexander, the senator from Tennessee and the most senior Republican on the committee, was asking his last questions when a witness interrupted him to point out that Congress was responsible for setting the right level for the minimum wage. Senator Alexander replied that if he could decide, there would be no minimum. No minimum wage at all. Not $15.00. Not $10.00. Not $7.25. Not $5.00. Not $1.00. The comment was delivered quite casually. It wasn’t a grand pronouncement shouted by a crazy, hair-on-fire ideologue. Instead, a longtime U.S. senator stated with calm confidence that if an employer could find someone desperate enough to take a job for fifty cents an hour, then that employer should have the right to pay that wage and not a penny more. He might as well have said that employers could eat cake and the workers could scramble for whatever crumbs fall off the table. For

NO GRAPH IN THE world can do full justice to these unexpected moments. They’re sweet little bursts of grace, and they leave sense-memories on the skin (the smell of the child’s shampoo, the smoothness of his arms). That’s why we’re here, leading this life, isn’t it? To know this kind of enchantment? The question is why such moments, at least with small children, often feel so hard-won, so shatterable, and so fleeting, as if located between parentheses. After just a few minutes of this dreamy slow-dance with Abe, William does a face-plant and starts howling. Jessie sambas over and handles it with humor. This is the drill. I’d like to propose a possible explanation for why these moments of grace are so rare: the early years of family life don’t offer up many activities that lend themselves to what psychologists call “flow.” Simply put, flow is a state of being in which we are so engrossed in the task at hand—so fortified by our own sense of agency, of mastery—that we lose all sense of our surroundings, as though time has stopped.

It doesn't matter which story. Let's say it was the one where the young actresses said yes to a pool party and didn't know or no, let's say it was the one where the rugby team covered up the girl's death and the school covered for the rugby team. Actually, it was the one where the therapist spent years grooming her. It was the one where the senator, then a promising teenager, shoved his dick in the girl’s face. She was also a promising teenager. It was the one where the billionaire pushed the woman into the phone booth, but no one believed her. The one where the high school senior was acquitted of rape because the sophomore girl had shaved her pubic region, which somehow equaled consent... The one where the judge said the swimmer was so promising. The one where the rapist reminded the judge of himself as a young rapist. It was the one where her body was never found. It was the one where her body was found in the snow. It was the one where he left her body for dead under the tarp. It was the one where she walked around in her skin and her bones for the rest of her life but her body was never recovered. You know the one.

67. One Day When There Were Several People in the Empress’s Presence One day when there were several people in the empress’s presence, including many senior courtiers and young noblemen, I was leaning against a pillar, chatting with some of the other women. Suddenly Her Majesty threw a note at me. “Should I love you or should I nor?” it said. “What will you do if I cannot give you first place in my heart?” No doubt she was thinking of recent conversations when I had remarked in her hearing, “If I do not come first in people’s affections, I had just soon not be loved at all; in fact I would rather be hated or even maltreated. It is better to be dead than to be loved in second or third place. Yes, I must be first.” Hearing this, someone had said, “There we have the Single Vehicle of the Law!” and everyone had burst out laughing. Now the Empress gave me a brush and some paper. I wrote the following note and handed it to her: “Among the Nine Ranks of lotus seats even the lowliest would satisfy me.” “Well, well,” said the Empress, “you seem to have lost heart completely. That’s bad. I prefer you to go on thinking as you did before.” “My attitude depends on the person in question,” I replied. “That’s really bad,” she said, much to my delight. “You should try to come first in the affections of even the most important people.

It’s a heady question, how women balance these concerns. Recently, the question has found its way back to the center of a contentious and very emotional debate. If you’re Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook and author of Lean In, you believe that women should stop getting in their own way as they pursue their professional dreams—they should speak up, assert themselves, defend their right to dominate the boardroom and proudly wear the pants. If you’re Anne-Marie Slaughter, the former top State Department official who wrote a much-discussed story about work-life balance for The Atlantic in June 2012, you believe that the world, as it is currently structured, cannot accommodate the needs of women who are ambitious in both their professions and their home lives—social and economic change is required. There’s truth to both arguments. They’re hardly mutually exclusive. Yet this question tends to get framed, rather tiresomely, as one of how and whether women can “have it all,” when the fact of the matter is that most women—and men, for that matter—are simply trying to keep body and soul together. The phrase “having it all” has little to do with what women want. If anything, it’s a reflection of a widespread and misplaced cultural belief, shared by men and women alike: that we, as middle-class Americans, have been given infinite promise, and it’s our obligation to exploit every ounce of it. “Having it all” is the phrase of a culture that, as Adam Phillips implies in Missing Out, is tyrannized by the idea of its own potential.

Postscript, 2005 From the Publisher ON APRIL 7, 2004, the Mid-Hudson Highland Post carried an article about an appearance that John Gatto made at Highland High School. Headlined “Rendered Speechless,” the report was subtitled “Advocate for education reform brings controversy to Highland.” The article relates the events of March 25 evening of that year when the second half of John Gatto’s presentation was canceled by the School Superintendent, “following complaints from the Highland Teachers Association that the presentation was too controversial.” On the surface, the cancellation was in response to a video presentation that showed some violence. But retired student counselor Paul Jankiewicz begged to differ, pointing out that none of the dozens of students he talked to afterwards were inspired to violence. In his opinion, few people opposing Gatto had seen the video presentation. Rather, “They were taking the lead from the teacher’s union who were upset at the whole tone of the presentation.” He continued, “Mr. Gatto basically told them that they were not serving kids well and that students needed to be told the truth, be given real-life learning experiences, and be responsible for their own education. [Gatto] questioned the validity and relevance of standardized tests, the prison atmosphere of school, and the lack of relevant experience given students.” He added that Gatto also had an important message for parents: “That you have to take control of your children’s education.” Highland High School senior Chris Hart commended the school board for bringing Gatto to speak, and wished that more students had heard his message. Senior Katie Hanley liked the lecture for its “new perspective,” adding that ”it was important because it started a new exchange and got students to think for themselves.” High School junior Qing Guo found Gatto “inspiring.” Highland teacher Aliza Driller-Colangelo was also inspired by Gatto, and commended the “risk-takers,” saying that, following the talk, her class had an exciting exchange about ideas. Concluded Jankiewicz, the students “were eager to discuss the issues raised. Unfortunately, our school did not allow that dialogue to happen, except for a few teachers who had the courage to engage the students.” What was not reported in the newspaper is the fact that the school authorities called the police to intervene and ‘restore the peace’ which, ironically enough, was never in the slightest jeopardy as the student audience was well-behaved and attentive throughout. A scheduled evening meeting at the school between Gatto and the Parents Association was peremptorily forbidden by school district authorities in a final assault on the principles of free speech and free assembly… There could be no better way of demonstrating the lasting importance of John Taylor Gatto’s work, and of this small book, than this sorry tale. It is a measure of the power of Gatto’s ideas, their urgency, and their continuing relevance that school authorities are still trying to shut them out 12 years after their initial publication, afraid even to debate them. — May the crusade continue! Chris Plant Gabriola Island, B.C. February, 2005

Learn how to critique. The value of exercises is very much a product of the quality of the critique, because it is in the critique that lessons can be drawn for all to see. Today, many critiques are poor quality. Often, they are not a critique at all, but just a narrative of who shot whom. At other times, the critique is stifled by an etiquette that demands no one be criticized and nothing negative be said. Too often, critiques can be summarized as “The comm was fouled up but we all did great.” There are a number of things you can do locally to improve the quality of critiques: First, the commanding officer can set a ground rule that demands frankness in critiquing. A good way to encourage this is for the CO to give a trenchant self-critique of his own actions and encourage others to do the same. Beginning a critique with the most junior officers and ending up with the most senior can also help encourage frankness. Second, a critique should be defined as something that looks beyond what happened to why it happened as it did. It may be helpful to look for instances where key decisions were made and ask the man who made them such questions as, “What options did you have here? What other options did you have that you failed to see? How quickly were you able to see, decide and act? If you were too slow, why? Why did you do what you did? Was your reasoning process sound, and if not, why not?” Third, the unit commander can attempt to identify individuals who are good critiquers and have them lead the critique. Not everyone can do it well; it takes a certain natural ability. Finally, the unit can hold a class on critiquing and from it develop some critique SOPs. These can help exercise participants look for key points during the exercise, points that can later serve to frame the critique. These actions are not substitutes for an overall reform of Marine Corps training. But they are concrete ways you can improve your own training. And just as individual self-education will be important after the schools are reformed, so these actions will help you train even after overall training is improved.

My wife and I have had the joy of working with thousands of college students and have engaged in countless conversations with them about what they’re going to do as they approach graduation. Up to that point, they had felt safe and secure knowing they were simply coming back to campus for another year of school. But now that they were being kicked out of the nest, they felt a strong need to pray, get counsel, pursue options, and make decisions. As I chat with these twenty-one to twenty-five-year olds, I love to pose an unusual question. “If you could do anything with your life, what would you want to do? Just for a moment, free your mind from school loans or parents’ wishes or boyfriend pressure. Put no constraints or parameters on it. Write down what you would love to do with your life if you got to choose.” There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those! Most have never allowed their mind or heart to think that broadly or freely. They’ve been conditioned to operate under some set of exterior expectations or self-imposed limitations. A few have sat there so long staring at that blank sheet, I thought they might pass out! They finally get an inspirational thought, and begin enthusiastically scribbling something. They finish with a smile, pass it over to me, and I take a look. Nine out of ten times I pass it back to them, look deep into their eyes and quietly say, “Go do this.” There is a reason they feel so excited about the specific direction, cause, or vocation they wrote down. It’s because God is the One who put it in their heart. “Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). “Are you delighting yourself in the Lord?” I ask the graduating senior. “I am certainly seeking to,” they reply. “Well then,” I respond, “you’ve just written down the desires of your heart. So, go for it.” Too simplistic or idealistic? I probably do have a more “wide-open” view of helping a person discover God’s direction for their life, but I believe this exercise strikes at the core of understanding what each of us were designed to do.

Little Robin had been brought by Lord Orthallen—although he had the feeling that his lord did not realize it. The boy was a part of his household, though Orthallen seemed to have long since forgotten the fact; and when the order came to pack up the household and move to the Border, Robin found himself in the tail of the baggage train, with no small bewilderment. He'd been at a loss in the encampment, wandering about until someone had seen him and realized that a small child had no place in a camp preparing for warfare. So he was sent packing; first off with Elspeth, then pressed into service by the Healers. They'd set him to fetching and carrying for Dirk, thinking that the child was far too young to be able to pick anything up from the casual talk around him, and that Dirk wouldn't think to interrogate a child as young as he. They were wrong on both counts. Robin was very much aware of what was going on—not surprising, since it concerned his adored Talia. He was worried sick, and longing for an adult to talk to. And Dirk was kind and gentle with him—and had he but known it, desperate enough for news to have questioned the rats in the walls if he thought it would get him anywhere. Dirk knew all about Robin and his adoration of Talia. If anyone knew where she was being kept and what her condition was, that boy would. Dirk bided his time. Eventually the Healers stopped overseeing his every waking moment. Finally there came a point when they began leaving him alone for hours at a time. He waited then, until Robin was sent in alone with his lunch—alone, unsupervised, and more than willing to talk—and put the question to him. Dirk had no intention of frightening the boy, and his tone was gentle, "I need your help. The Healers won't answer my questions, and I need to know about Talia." Robin had turned back with his hand still on the doorknob; at the mention of Talia's name, his expression was one of distress. "I'll tell you what I know, sir," he replied, his voice quavering a little. "But she's hurt real bad and they won't let anybody but Healers see her." "Where is she? Do you have any idea who's taking care of her?" The boy not only knew where she was, but the names and seniority of every Healer caring for her—and the list nearly froze Dirk's heart. They'd even pulled old Farnherdt out of retirement—and he'd sworn that no case would ever be desperate enough for them to call on him.

Another episode startled Trump’s advisers on the Asia trip. As the president and his entourage embarked on the journey, they stopped in Hawaii on November 3 to break up the long flight and allow Air Force One to refuel. White House aides arranged for the president and first lady to make a somber pilgrimage so many of their predecessors had made: to visit Pearl Harbor and honor the twenty-three hundred American sailors, soldiers, and marines who lost their lives there. The first couple was set to take a private tour of the USS Arizona Memorial, which sits just off the coast of Honolulu and straddles the hull of the battleship that sank into the Pacific during the Japanese surprise bombing attack in 1941. As a passenger boat ferried the Trumps to the stark white memorial, the president pulled Kelly aside for a quiet consult. “Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Trump asked his chief of staff. Kelly was momentarily stunned. Trump had heard the phrase “Pearl Harbor” and appeared to understand that he was visiting the scene of a historic battle, but he did not seem to know much else. Kelly explained to him that the stealth Japanese attack here had devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet and prompted the country’s entrance into World War II, eventually leading the United States to drop atom bombs on Japan. If Trump had learned about “a date which will live in infamy” in school, it hadn’t really pierced his consciousness or stuck with him. “He was at times dangerously uninformed,” said one senior former adviser. Trump’s lack of basic historical knowledge surprised some foreign leaders as well. When he met with President Emmanuel Macron of France at the United Nations back in September 2017, Trump complimented him on the spectacular Bastille Day military parade they had attended together that summer in Paris. Trump said he did not realize until seeing the parade that France had had such a rich history of military conquest. He told Macron something along the lines of “You know, I really didn’t know, but the French have won a lot of battles. I didn’t know.” A senior European official observed, “He’s totally ignorant of everything. But he doesn’t care. He’s not interested.” Tillerson developed a polite and self-effacing way to manage the gaps in Trump’s knowledge. If he saw the president was completely lost in the conversation with a foreign leader, other advisers noticed, the secretary of state would step in to ask a question. As Tillerson lodged his question, he would reframe the topic by explaining some of the basics at issue, giving Trump a little time to think. Over time, the president developed a tell that he would use to get out of a sticky conversation in which a world leader mentioned a topic that was totally foreign or unrecognizable to him. He would turn to McMaster, Tillerson

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Case in point, the resignation of prominent liberal investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald from The Intercept, an organization he co-founded no less!   Greenwald accused his co-senior editors of censoring an article he wrote, “based on recently revealed emails and witness testimony” that “raised critical questions” about Democrat Joe Biden’s conduct in overseas dealings.

● Developing your first-ever leadership strategy and don't know where to start? ● Are you stuck with a particular phase of leadership strategy? ● Having a tough time achieving corporational milestones with your robust strategy? If you're facing these questions and confused regarding canvassing a robust leadership strategy, this article can help you solve these queries. Several factors affect the development of a leadership strategy, such as the influence of decision-making processes for leadership/management, the personnel brought on board for strategy development and the resources involved. There are specific "keys" to effective leadership that help in efficient development and deployment of strategies. Professionals who want to develop robust strategies and move up in their leadership career can opt for online strategy courses. These courses aim to build concepts from the grass-root level, such as what defines a strategy leadership and others. What is a Leadership Strategy? Leadership is required for leading organisational growth by optimising the resources and making the company's procedures more efficient. A leadership strategy explicitly enlists the number of leaders required, the tasks they need to perform, the number of employees, team members and other stakeholders required, and the deadlines for achieving each task. Young leaders who have recently joined the work-force can take help of programs offered by reputable institutes for deepening their knowledge about leadership and convocating successful strategies. Various XLRI leadership and management courses aim to equip new leaders with a guided step-by-step pedagogy to canvass robust leadership strategies. What it Takes to Build a Robust Leadership Strategy: Guided Step-By-Step Pedagogy The following steps go into developing an effective and thriving leadership strategy:- ● Step 1 = Identify Key Business Drivers The first step involves meeting with the senior leaders and executives and identifying the business's critical drivers. Determining business carriers is essential for influencing the outcome of strategies. ● Step 2 = Identifying the Different Leadership Phases Required This step revolves around determining the various leadership processes and phases. Choosing the right techniques from hiring and selection, succession planning, training patterns and others is key for putting together a robust strategy. ● Step 3 = Perform Analysis and Research Researching about the company's different leadership strategies and analysing them with the past and present plans is vital for implementing future strategies. ● Step 4 = Reviewing and Updating Leadership Strategic Plan Fourth step includes reviewing and updating the strategic plan in accordance with recent developments and requirements. Furthermore, performing an environmental scan to analyse the practices that can make strategies long-lasting and render a competitive advantage. All it Takes for Building a Robust Leadership Strategy The above-mentioned step by step approach helps in auguring a leadership strategy model that is sustainable and helps businesses maximise their profits. Therefore, upcoming leaders need to understand the core concepts of strategic leadership through online strategy courses. Moreover, receiving sound knowledge about developing strategies from XLRI leadership and management courses can help aspiring leaders in their careers.

But I never questioned that any of what they said about him was true. In fact I need you to know it was all true. The friendly guy who helps you move and assists senior citizens in the pool is the same guy who assaulted me. One person can be capable of both. Society often fails to wrap its head around the fact that these truths often coexist, they are not mutually exclusive. Bad qualities can hide inside a good person. That’s the terrifying part.

So is history a science? I put the question to a group of Yale seniors recently, and the answer one of them came up with made perfect sense to me: it was that we should instead concentrate on determining which sciences are historical. The distinction would lie along the line separating actual replicability as the standard for verification--the rerunning of experiments in a laboratory--from the virtual replicability that's associated with thought experiments. And it would be the accessibility versus the inaccessibility of processes that would make the difference.

Years ago, I represented a client, a firefighter/paramedic, in an administrative trial after he had been terminated for allegedly providing patient care that was below the department’s established standards. One central issue was the ongoing, on-the-job training firefighters/paramedics receive. Throughout the trial, senior officers of the department, including the Chief himself, preached and bloviated on and on about how the department is committed to providing only the best patient care and how their paramedics are held to a higher standard; how they are committed to serving the community with the highest level of blah, blah, blah. On cross examination, however, I asked each of them about how many hours a day each provider spends drilling or practicing firefighting technique and equipment. Each of them answered proudly that every firefighter/EMT and firefighter/paramedic, regardless of assignment, spends at least three hours each day practicing firefighting skills and/or rehearsing the use of various firefighting equipment; hoses, ladders, saws, and other firefighter equipment. Ok, that’s great. Through testimony, we determined that, based on a 10-shift work month, each firefighter/paramedic, regardless of assignment, spends at least 30 hours per month drilling, practicing, and/or rehearsing firefighting skills & equipment. That’s at a minimum of 360 hours per year of ongoing, on-the-job firefighter training. Outstanding. When the smoke is showing and the flames are roiling, they will be ready. They all displayed the same proud grin at how well trained their people are. For each of them, however, that smug grin quickly turned when I then asked about the number of hours per day each firefighter/paramedic spends drilling on or practicing patient care related techniques, skills, and tools. Every one of them squirmed as they responded with the truth that the department only offers three hours of patient care related education per month. That’s roughly a maximum of 36 hours of paramedic training for the entire year. It got worse when further testimony showed that patient care related calls account for more than 80 percent of their call volume and fire related calls less than 20 percent, I could see each of them deflate on the witness stand when I asked how they could truthfully say they were committed to providing the best patient care when barely 10 percent of their training addresses patient care, which constitutes over 80 percent of your department’s calls. The answers were more disjointed and nonsensical than a White House press briefing. Of course, across America the 10:1 ratio of ongoing firefighting training to EMS training is pretty consistent, which begs the question: Don’t they get it? Excellence is the product of practice. How can any rational person look at a 10:1 training ratio and declare themselves committed to the highest level of care? How can an agency neglect training on the most significant aspect of the business and then be surprised when issues of negligence and liability arise? Once again, it seems that old-school culture leaves EMS stuck in the mud and the law is not going to wait for agencies to figure out that living in the past compromises the future.

Admission Open in Nios Board 10th & 12th April & October Session in Dwarka, Uttam nagar, Palam, Kapashera Here’s some key information about NIOS board exams for 10th & 12th class: Eligibility: NIOS exams are open to a wide range of learners, including school dropouts, working professionals, and those who want to complete their secondary or senior secondary education through distance learning. Subjects: NIOS offers a variety of subjects at both the secondary (Class 10) and senior secondary (Class 12) levels. Students can choose subjects based on their interests and career goals. Examination Schedule: NIOS conducts examinations twice a year: April-May and October-November. Students can choose the exam session that suits them best. Examination Centers: NIOS has examination centers across India and some international locations to accommodate the diverse needs of its students. Examination Format: NIOS board exams are typically conducted in a written format, where students have to answer questions on paper. The question papers are sent to the examination centers, and students are required to appear in person to take the exams. Admit Card: NIOS issues admit cards to registered students, which contain essential information about the exam schedule, center details, and instructions for candidates. Results: After the exams are conducted, NIOS releases the results after 45 days, and students can check their results on nios official website and download the passing mark sheet. Certification: Upon successfully passing the NIOS board exams, students receive a secondary or senior secondary certificate, which is equivalent to certificates issued by other recognized educational boards in India. Apply Nios Admission through J.P INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION, DELHI Disclaimer: Note requirement of document and fee change be as per the direction of NIOS We at J.P INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION Provide NIOS Admission for the OCTOBER 2023-2024 session For more detail about the course you can visit our Institute.

What’s Slipping Under Your Radar? Word Count: 1096 Summary: Ben, a high-level leader in a multi-national firm, recently confessed that he felt like a bad father. That weekend he had messed up his Saturday daddy duties. When he took his son to soccer practice, Ben stayed for a while to support him. In the process, though, he forgot to take his daughter to her piano lesson. By the time they got to the piano teacher’s house, the next student was already playing. This extremely successful businessman felt like a failure. Keywords: Dr. Karen Otazo, Global Executive Coaching, Leadership Article Body: Ben, a high-level leader in a multi-national firm, recently confessed that he felt like a bad father. That weekend he had messed up his Saturday daddy duties. When he took his son to soccer practice, Ben stayed for a while to support him. In the process, though, he forgot to take his daughter to her piano lesson. By the time they got to the piano teacher’s house, the next student was already playing. This extremely successful businessman felt like a failure. At work, one of Ben’s greatest strengths is keeping his focus no matter what. As a strategic visionary, he keeps his eyes on the ongoing strategy, the high-profile projects and the high-level commitments of his group. Even on weekends Ben spends time on email, reading and writing so he can attend the many meetings in his busy work schedule. Since he is so good at multi-processing in his work environment, he assumed he could do that at home too. But when we talked, Ben was surprised to realize that he is missing a crucial skill: keeping people on his radar. Ben is great at holding tasks and strategies in the forefront of his mind, but he has trouble thinking of people and their priorities in the same way. To succeed at home, Ben needs to keep track of his family members’ needs in the same way he tracks key business commitments. He also needs to consider what’s on their radar screens. In my field of executive coaching, I keep every client on my radar screen by holding them in my thinking on a daily and weekly basis. That way, I can ask the right questions and remind them of what matters in their work lives. No matter what your field is, though, keeping people on your radar is essential. Consider Roger, who led a team of gung-ho sales people. His guys and gals loved working with him because his gut instincts were superb. He could look at most situations and immediately know how to make them work. His gut was great, almost a sixth sense. But when Sidney, one of his team of sales managers, wanted to move quickly to hire a new salesperson, Roger was busy. He was managing a new sales campaign and wrangling with marketing and headquarters bigwigs on how to position the company’s consumer products. Those projects were the only things on his radar screen. He didn’t realize that Sidney was counting on hiring someone fast. Roger reviewed the paperwork for the new hire. It was apparent to Roger that the prospective recruit didn’t have the right background for the role. He was too green in his experience with the senior people he’d be exposed to in the job. Roger saw that there would be political hassles down the road which would stymie someone without enough political savvy or experience with other parts of the organization. He wanted an insider or a seasoned outside hire with great political skills. To get the issue off his radar screen quickly, Roger told Human Resources to give the potential recruit a rejection letter. In his haste, he didn’t consult with Sidney first. It seemed obvious from the resume that this was the wrong person. Roger rushed off to deal with the top tasks on his radar screen. In the process, Sidney was hurt and became angry. Roger was taken by surprise since he thought he had done the right thing, but he could have seen this coming.

Each meeting starts with a thirty-minute quiet time where everyone thoroughly reads the memo. From there, all attendees are asked to share gut reactions—senior leaders typically speak last—and then delve into what might be missing, ask probing questions, and drill down into any potential issues that may arise. “I definitely recommend the [six-page] memo over PowerPoint. And the reason we read them in the room, by the way, is because just like, you know, high school kids, executives will bluff their way through the meeting as if they’ve read the memo. Because we’re busy. And so, you’ve got to actually carve out the time for the memo to get read and that’s what the first half hour of the meeting is for and then everybody has actually read the memo, they’re not just pretending to have read it. It’s pretty effective.” —2018 Forum on Leadership, “Closing Conversation with Jeff Bezos,” George W. Bush Presidential Center at SMU23

This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path—the my-isn’t-that-impressive path—and keep you there for a long time. Maybe it stops you from swerving, from ever even considering a swerve, because what you risk losing in terms of other people’s high regard can feel too costly. Maybe you spend three years in Massachusetts, studying constitutional law and discussing the relative merits of exclusionary vertical agreements in antitrust cases. For some, this might be truly interesting, but for you it is not. Maybe during those three years you make friends you’ll love and respect forever, people who seem genuinely called to the bloodless intricacies of the law, but you yourself are not called. Your passion stays low, yet under no circumstance will you underperform. You live, as you always have, by the code of effort/result, and with it you keep achieving until you think you know the answers to all the questions—including the most important one. Am I good enough? Yes, in fact I am. What happens next is that the rewards get real. You reach for the next rung of the ladder, and this time it’s a job with a salary in the Chicago offices of a high-end law firm called Sidley & Austin. You’re back where you started, in the city where you were born, only now you go to work on the forty-seventh floor in a downtown building with a wide plaza and a sculpture out front. You used to pass by it as a South Side kid riding the bus to high school, peering mutely out the window at the people who strode like titans to their jobs. Now you’re one of them. You’ve worked yourself out of that bus and across the plaza and onto an upward-moving elevator so silent it seems to glide. You’ve joined the tribe. At the age of twenty-five, you have an assistant. You make more money than your parents ever have. Your co-workers are polite, educated, and mostly white. You wear an Armani suit and sign up for a subscription wine service. You make monthly payments on your law school loans and go to step aerobics after work. Because you can, you buy yourself a Saab. Is there anything to question? It doesn’t seem that way. You’re a lawyer now. You’ve taken everything ever given to you—the love of your parents, the faith of your teachers, the music from Southside and Robbie, the meals from Aunt Sis, the vocabulary words drilled into you by Dandy—and converted it to this. You’ve climbed the mountain. And part of your job, aside from parsing abstract intellectual property issues for big corporations, is to help cultivate the next set of young lawyers being courted by the firm. A senior partner asks if you’ll mentor an incoming summer associate, and the answer is easy: Of course you will. You have yet to understand the altering force of a simple yes. You don’t know that when a memo arrives to confirm the assignment, some deep and unseen fault line in your life has begun to tremble, that some hold is already starting to slip. Next to your name is another name, that of some hotshot law student who’s busy climbing his own ladder. Like you, he’s black and from Harvard. Other than that, you know nothing—just the name, and it’s an odd one. Barack.

While he was careful to never disagree with the President in public, it’s understood that Pompeo made his views known to Trump about China’s cover-up and responsibility for the global outbreak. If his message was getting through to the President, it certainly wasn’t to his most senior advisors. The question remained: When was it time to tell the American public and the world about China’s activities at the Wuhan laboratories?

Projects are pitched in a one-hour meeting with top executives. Amazon forbids PowerPoint presentations and all the usual tools of the corporate world, so copies of the PR/FAQ are handed around the table and everyone reads it, slowly and carefully, in silence. Then they share their initial thoughts, with the most senior people speaking last to avoid prematurely influencing others. Finally, the writer goes through the documents line by line, with anyone free to speak up at any time. “This discussion of the details is the critical part of the meeting,” wrote Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, two former Amazon executives. “People ask hard questions. They engage in intense debate and discussion of the key ideas and the way they are expressed.

Yet as time went on and they learned what Putin would tolerate—or not—new options seemed to open up. What this often meant, in practice, was that decisions that seemed bold or even risky at the time later seemed far too modest. The day after the war began, Biden signed off on a $350 million aid package that contained mostly short-range defensive weapons systems and ammunition, things like Javelins, Stingers, and rifles. At the time, it seemed like a huge risk. No one knew how Putin would respond. One senior official recalled thinking, “If Russia moved 350 million dollars’ worth of American-troop-killing equipment into Iraq or to the Taliban, would we just lie down and take it?” The question was rhetorical. The answer was obvious. But as the war dragged on, the administration kept testing Putin at each turn, cranking up the heat and then checking in on the psychological state of the frog. Biden often said—in public, and in private to his staff—that he had two goals: to liberate Ukraine and to avoid direct conflict between American and Russian forces. But increasingly, he was finding those goals to be in some tension, particularly as different theories emerged about what Ukraine most needed, and how fast.

Are my junior-year grades the most important part of the transcript? Colleges want to see strong course work with good grades all the way through. But beyond that, the most important grades on a transcript are always your most recent grades. For example, if a student is applying under an early decision program in November of senior year, the most important grades are second-semester junior-year grades (and many times the college will also call your school for a progress report on how your senior year is going). For students applying under the regular admission schedule, the most important grades are those from the first semester of senior year. “What have you done for me lately?” is the relevant question for admission officers.