Seniors Leaving Quotes

In the darkest hour of winter, when the starlings had all flown away, Gretel Samuelson fell in love. It happened the way things are never supposed to happen in real life, like a sledgehammer, like a bolt from out of the blue. One minute she was a seventeen year-old senior in high school waiting for a Sicilian pizza to go; the next one she was someone whose whole world had exploded, leaving her adrift in the Milky Way, so far from earth she was walking on stars.

One final bit of advice. The next time a senior administrator of the CIA tells you she has a national-security crisis ... Leave the bullshit in Cambridge.

My old school, St Stella’s, only goes to Year Ten and most of my friends now go to Pius Senior College, but my mother wouldn’t allow it because she says the girls there leave with limited options and she didn’t bring me up to have limitations placed upon me. If you know my mother, you’ll sense there’s an irony there, based on the fact that she is the Queen of the Limitation Placers in my life.

When senior officers start shooting each other, it’s time to leave,” said Gamache. “I’m sure it’s somewhere in the regulations.

So we get a karaoke machine. On the first night, the year tens stage a competition, insisting that every member of the House has to be involved, so we clear the year-seven and -eight dorms and wait for our turn. Raffy is on second and does an impressive job of "I Can''t Live, If Living Means Without You" but then one of the seniors points out to her that she's chosen a dependency song and Raffy spends the whole night neuroticising about it. "I just worked out that I don't have ambition," she says while one of the year eights sings tearfully, "Am I Not Pretty Enough?" I start compiling a list of all the kids I should be recommending to the school counsellor, based on their song choices. "I think she's reading a little to much into it, Raf." "No she isn't. Because do you know what my second and third choices were? 'Don't Leave Me This Way' and 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself.'" "Mary Grace chose 'Brown-eyed Girl' and she's got blue eyes and Serina sang 'It's Raining Men' and she's a lesbian. You're taking this way too seriously. Let it go.

Farewell, my friends,' I told them. 'Be good to one another'... I wondered if I was leaving the snakes with a new religion; if they would tell stories to future generations about the strange rainbow god boy who tripped a lot before returning to the heavens. Or maybe they were just thinking, That kid is really weird.

Both of these students- both high school seniors both old enough to vote in the upcoming election- thought 'Al' Qaeda was a person. At that time the United States had been at war for five and a half years and here were two students two young adults leaving the educational system who had never heard of al Qaeda. Both by the way had passed the multiple-choice reading section of the state's high school exit exam.

Senior executives shouldn’t be wasting time debating whether the best background color for an ad is yellow or blue. Just run an experiment. This leaves management free to worry about the stuff that is hard to quantify, which is usually a much better use of their time.

Typical boomer timing: have a blast, then leave right before everything goes sideways.

The families of graduating seniors emptied out of cars, sheepish in uncommon splendor, like milling clans at the origin of a parade. There is something spent about the families of teenagers; possibly it's the look of exhausted loyalties. Perhaps it's only right that we grow overbig in someone else's space. Perhaps we need to tire and differentiate, leave and adapt.

In the travellers’ world, social media have enlarged the generation gap. The internet has brought a change in the very concept of travel as a process taking one away from the familiar into the unknown. Now the familiar is not left behind and the unknown has become familiar even before one leaves home. Unpredictability – to my generation the salt that gave travelling its savour – seems unnecessary if not downright irritating to many of the young. The sunset challenge – where to sleep? – has been banished by the ease of booking into a hostel or organised campsite with a street plan provided by the internet. Moreover, relatives and friends evidently expect regular reassurance about the traveller’s precise location and welfare – and vice versa, the traveller needing to know that all is well back home. Notoriously, dependence on instant communication with distant family and friends is known to stunt the development of self-reliance. Perhaps that is why, amongst younger travellers, one notices a new timidity.

As she is the senior person in the room, I wait for her to call on me. And, while I am waiting, I should show I am a good listener by keeping both my voice and my body quiet. In China, we often feel Westerners speak up so much in meetings that they do this to show off, or they are poor listeners. Also, I have noticed that Chinese people leave a few more seconds of silence before jumping in than in the West. You Westerners practically speak on top of each other in a meeting.

Eric Harris wanted a prom date. Eric was a senior, about to leave Columbine High School forever. He was not about to be left out of the prime social event of his life. He really wanted a date. Dates were not generally a problem. Eric was a brain, but an uncommon subcategory: cool brain. He smoked, he drank, he dated. He got invited to parties. He got high. He worked his look hard: military chic hair— short and spiked with plenty of product—plus black T-shirts and baggy cargo pants. He blasted hard-core German industrial rock from his Honda. He enjoyed firing off bottle rockets and road-tripping to Wyoming to replenish the stash. He broke the rules, tagged himself with the nickname Reb, but did his homework and earned himself a slew of A’s. He shot cool videos and got them airplay on the closed-circuit system at school. And he got chicks. Lots and lots of chicks. On the ultimate high school scorecard, Eric outscored much of the football team. He was a little charmer. He walked right up to hotties at the mall. He won them over with quick wit, dazzling dimples, and a disarming smile.

There are clouds between us and them," pointed out Isten of the Hungarians. He had a fine black mustache, a large, dusty black hat, and the grin of a man who makes his living selling aluminum siding and new roofs and gutters to senior citizens but who always leaves town the day after the checks clear whether the work is done or not.

There are clouds, between us and them,” pointed out Isten of the Hungarians. He had a fine black moustache, a large, dusty black hat, and the grin of a man who makes his living selling aluminum siding and new roofs and gutters to senior citizens but who always leaves town the day after the checks clear whether the work is done or not.

leaving senior year like: its hard to leave to you leave, then its the eased goddam thing you've ever done.

It's a relief to leave unnecessary things. But do the necessary things have to be so heavy?

Being younger than someone has the tendency to leave you with the belief that you will outlive them.

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.

Baby girl, this is your mother. I know I’ve given you explicit instructions to trace this into your yearbook, but they’re my words. That means this is from me, my heart, and my love for you. There’s so many things I want to say to you, things I want you to hear, to know, but let’s start with the reason I’m having you put these words in your senior yearbook. First of all, this book is everything. It may be pictures, some names of people you won’t remember in five years, ten years, or longer, but this book is more important than you can imagine. It’s the first book that’s the culmination of your first chapter in life. You will have many. So many! But this book is the physical manifestation of your first part in life. Keep it. Treasure it. Whether you enjoyed school or not, it’s done. It’s in your past. These were the times you were a part of society from a child to who you are now, a young adult woman. When you leave for college, you’re continuing your education, but you’re moving onto your next chapter in life. The beginning of adulthood. This yearbook is your bridge. Keep this as a memento forever. It sums up who you grew up with. It houses images of the buildings where your mind first began to learn things, where you first began to dream, to set goals, to yearn for the road ahead. It’s so bittersweet, but those memories were your foundation to set you up for who you will become in the future. Whether they brought pain or happiness, it’s important not to forget. From here, you will go on and you will learn the growing pains of becoming an adult. You will refine your dreams. You will set new limits. Change your mind. You will hurt. You will laugh. You will cry, but the most important is that you will grow. Always, always grow, honey. Challenge yourself. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations (BUT BE SAFE!) and push yourself not to think about yourself, your friends, your family, but to think about the world. Think about others. Understand others, and if you can’t understand, then learn more about them. It’s so very important. Once you have the key to understanding why someone else hurts or dreams or survives, then you have ultimate knowledge. You have empathy. Oh, honey. As I’m writing this, I can see you on the couch reading a book. You are so very beautiful, but you are so very humble. You don’t see your beauty, and I want you to see your beauty. Not just physical, but your inner kindness and soul. It’s blinding to me. That’s how truly stunning you are. Never let anyone dim your light. Here are some words I want you to know as you go through the rest of your life: Live. Learn. Love. Laugh. And, honey, know. Just know that I am with you always.

On her way back to their room, it occurred to Nnu Ego that she was a prisoner, imprisoned by her love for her children, imprisoned by her role as the senior wife. She was not even expected to demand more money for her family; that was considered below the standard expected of a woman in her position. It was not fair, she felt, the way men cleverly used a woman’s sense of responsability to actually enslave her. They knew that the traditional wife like herself would never dream of leaving her children.

Well, er…it’s…well, it’s…it’s symbolic, Archchancellor.” “Ah?” The Senior Wrangler felt that something more was expected. He groped around in the dusty attics of his education. “Of…the leaves, d’y’see…they’re symbolic of…of green, d’y’see, whereas the berries, in fact, yes, the berries symbolize…symbolize white. Yes. White and green. Very…symbolic.” He waited. He was not, unfortunately, disappointed. “What of?” The Senior Wrangler coughed. “I’m not sure there has to be an of,” he said. “Ah? So,” said the Archchancellor, thoughtfully, “it could be said that the white and green symbolize a small parasitic plant?” “Yes, indeed,” said the Senior Wrangler. “So mistletoe, in fact, symbolizes mistletoe?” “Exactly, Archchancellor,” said the Senior Wrangler, who was now just hanging on. “Funny thing, that,” said Ridcully, in the same thoughtful tone of voice. “That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?

My recommendation is to keep up the good work. I’m changing your title to senior executive assistant, and giving you a three percent raise effective next payday. Congratulations.” Wow, three percent. I could move up that early retirement plan to age seventy-five now, instead of eighty. Lucky me. Thank you,” I said. “That’s very generous.” You’re quite welcome.” Ms. Saunders nodded and grabbed a gold-plated letter opener to begin attacking her stack of mail. I turned to leave. Didn’t want to outstay my welcome. Damn it!” she exclaimed, and I turned back around. She winced and nodded at the letter opener that she’d dropped to her desktop. “Damn thing slipped. I’m probably going to need stitches now. Can you be a dear and fetch the first-aid kit for me?” She held her left index finger and frowned at the steady flow of blood oozing out. A few small drops of red splashed onto the other letters spread out on the desk. I felt woozy. And suddenly dizzy. I blinked. When I opened my eyes, I was no longer standing by the door about to leave. I was crouched down next to Ms. Saunders’s imported black leather chair, grasping her wrist tightly…… and sucking noisily on her fingertip. I shrieked and let go of her, staggering backward. I grabbed at her desk to keep from falling, but I dropped on my butt, anyhow, taking most of the contents of the top of her desk with me. She held her injured finger far away from her and stared at me, wide-eyed, with a mixture of shock and disgust. I scrambled to my feet and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. What in the holy hell just happened? I… I… uh… I’m so sorry,” I managed. “I don’t know what… I wouldn’t normally do something… I just…” Ms. Saunders pulled her hand close to her chest, perhaps to protect it from further abuse. Get out,” she said quietly. Yeah, I’ll get back to work. Again, I’m so, so sorry. Would you like me to bring you a cup of coffee?” No, not to your desk,” she said evenly, but her volume increased with every word. “Get out of here, you freak. I don’t care what you’ve heard, I’m not into women. You’re fired. Now get out of here before I call security.” But… my job review—” Get out!” she yelled.

Parent time is like fairy time but real. It is magic without pixie dust and spells. It defies physics without bending the laws of time and space. It is that truism everyone offers but no one believes until after they have children: that time will actual speed, fleet enough to leave you jet-lagged and whiplashed and racing all at once. Your tiny, perfect baby nestles in your arms his first afternoon home, and then ten months later, he's off to his senior year of high school. You give birth to twins so small and alike, they lie mirrored, each with a head in the palm of one hand while their toes reach only to the crooks of your elbow, but it's only a year before they start looking at colleges. It is so impossible yet so universally experienced that magic is the only explanation. Except then there are also the excruciating rainy Sundays when the kids are whiny, bored, and beastly, and it takes a hundred hours to get from breakfast to bedtime, the long weekends when you wonder whose demonic idea it was to trap you in your home with you bevy of abominable children for a decade without school.

Time was minutely calculated everywhere in the vast plant so that top managers knew precisely what everyone was supposed to be doing at a given moment. Bell was struck, for instance, by how General Motors “divides the hour into ten six-minute periods…the worker is paid by the numbers of tenths of an hour he works.”27 This minute engineering of work time was connected to very long measures of time in the corporation as well. Seniority pay was finely tuned to the total number of hours a man or woman had worked for General Motors; a laborer could minutely calculate benefits of vacation time and sick leave. The micrometrics of time governed the lower echelons of white-collar offices as well as manual labor on the assembly line, in terms of promotion and benefits.

Without ever discussing it or making a conscious shift, we reflexively engaged one another in meetings. This did not mean we always agreed with one another; some of my most heartfelt arguments were with my fellow female Senior Directors. But we took one another's ideas seriously. This meant never leaving them simply hanging in the air, which typically happened in large group discussions.

If it’s of any comfort, B. J. Casey and her colleagues speculate that there’s an evolutionary reason why Kirk rather than Spock so often emerges the victor in the quest for control over an adolescent’s mind. Human beings need incentives to leave the family nest. Leaving home is dangerous; leaving home is hard. It requires courage and learning lessons of independence. It may even require a purposeful recklessness.

The seniors look my way before they leave. One girl, not the cheerleader, nods her head, and says, "Way to go. I hope you're OK." With hours left in the school year, I have suddenly become popular. Thanks to the big mouths on the lacrosse team, everybody knew what happened before sundown. Mom took me to the hospital to stitch up the cut on my hand. When we got home, there was a message on the machine from Rachel. She wants me to call her.

Near the end of the session, a slight, middle-aged man in a dress shirt approached the microphone. “I’m here to ask your forgiveness,” he said quietly. “I’ve been a pastor with a conservative denomination for more than thirty years, and I used to be an antigay apologist. I knew every argument, every Bible verse, every angle, and every position. I could win a debate with just about anyone, and I confess I yelled down more than a few ‘heretics’ in my time. I was absolutely certain that what I was saying was true and I assumed I’d defend that truth to death. But then I met a young lesbian woman who, over a period of many years, slowly changed my mind. She is a person of great faith and grace, and her life was her greatest apologetic.” The man began to sob into his hands. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you,” he finally continued. “I might not have hurt any of you directly, but I know my misguided apologetics, and then my silent complicity, probably did more damage than I can ever know. I am truly sorry and I humbly repent of my actions. Please forgive me.” “We forgive you!” someone shouted from up front. But the pastor held up his hand and then continued to speak. “And if things couldn’t get any weirder,” he said with a nervous laugh, “I was dropping my son off at school the other day—he’s a senior in high school—and we started talking about this very issue. When I told him that I’d recently changed my mind about homosexuality, he got really quiet for a minute and then he said, ‘Dad, I’m gay.’ ” Nearly everyone in the room gasped. “Sometimes I wonder if these last few years of studying, praying, and rethinking things were all to prepare me for that very moment,” the pastor said, his voice quivering. “It was one of the most important moments of my life. I’m so glad I was ready. I’m so glad I was ready to love my son for who he is.

Oh, it’s a little worse than that,” he said, nettled. “It makes you the illegitimate son of the senior Republican senator from South Dakota. And the press will eat you alive when it comes out. You, Leta, me, everyone our lives touch. Including Cecily. She’ll make a damned great sidebar, with her anthropology degree!” “You’ll lose face with your constituents,” Tate said coldly. “Oh, to hell with that! Maybe I’ll lose my job, so what?” Holden said, glaring at him. “It wouldn’t matter if your mother would speak to me! She cut me off before I got two complete sentences out. She wouldn’t come out here and help me tell you the truth. She hung up on me!” “Good for her! What a pity she didn’t try that thirty-six years ago.” The older man’s eyes darkened. “I loved her,” he said very quietly. “I still love her. I made the mistake of my life when I thought money and power would be worth marrying a vicious damned socialite who could help me politically. Your mother was worth ten of my late wife. I never knew what hell was until I tried to live with the devil’s deal I made to get my office.” He turned away again and sat down on the sofa wearily, glancing at the beer. “You shouldn’t drink,” he said absently. Tate ignored him. He picked up the beer, finished it with pure spite and crushed the empty can. “Aren’t you leaving now?” he asked the other man with biting contempt. Holden let out a long breath. “Where would I go? I live in a big empty house with a Jacuzzi and two Siamese cats. Until a few weeks ago, I thought I had no family left alive.

Life in the years between 1993 and 1998 went on as life in places like Derry always does: the buds of April became the brittle, blowing leaves of October; Christmas trees were brought into homes in mid-December and hauled off in the backs of Dumpsters with strands of tinsel still hanging sadly from their boughs during the first week of January; babies came in through the in door and old folks went out through the out door. Sometimes people in the prime of their lives went out through the out door, too. In Derry there were five years of haircuts and permanents, storms and senior proms, coffee and cigarettes, steak dinners at Parker's Cove and hotdogs at the Little League field. Girls and boys fell in love, drunks fell out of cars, short skirts fell out of favor. People reshingled their roofs and repaved their driveways. Old bums were voted out of office; new bums were voted in. It was life, often unsatisfying, frequently cruel, usually boring, sometimes beautiful, once in awhile exhilarating. The fundamental things continued to apply as time went by.

Months later… I try my best to enjoy summer vacation, knowing that in a few weeks I’ll be heading into the last semester of my senior year. I should’ve graduated in June, but because Robbie and I moved around during my freshman year, I fell behind a semester. Even though I won’t graduate and walk across the stage until December, my eighteenth birthday is only a few weeks away. That’s when I’ll be forced to leave the house. After the fallout with Cain back in January, I haven’t heard from him other than the few times he came by with gifts and tried to see me.

Part of me, Adventurous Mia, Brave Mia, F.O.U.N.D. Field Department Poster Girl Mia wants to leave immediately-right-now to get this done and over with, rip it off like a Band-Aid. The other part of me, Scared Teenage Soon-to-be-Senior Mia doesn’t know what she wants. She sure as hell doesn’t want to run headfirst into a mess bigger than anything she’s ever faced in her entire life, but she also loves Dave. Both of the Mias do. They would do anything for him. I would do anything for him, even if it means dying to try to protect him. That’s what scares me the most.

I advise two modifications for seniors. First, wear sunglasses during morning exercise outdoors. This will reduce the influence of morning light being sent to your suprachiasmatic clock that would otherwise keep you on an early-to-rise schedule. Second, go back outside in the late afternoon for sunlight exposure, but this time do not wear sunglasses. Make sure to wear sun protection of some sort, such as a hat, but leave the sunglasses at home. Plentiful later-afternoon daylight will help delay the evening release of melatonin, helping push the timing of sleep to a later hour.

Dennis White has asked me to write a letter recommending him to the Emanuel Lutheran Seminary (Master of Divinity Program), and I am happy to grant his modest request. Four years ago Mr. White enrolled as a dewy-eyed freshman in one of my introductory literature courses (Cross-cultural Readings in English, or some such dumping ground of a title); he returned several years later for another dose of instruction, this time in the Junior/Senior Creative Writing Workshop—a particularly memorable collection of students given their shared enthusiasm for all things monstrous and demonic, nearly every story turned in for discussion involving vampires, werewolves, victims tumbling into sepulchers, and other excuses for bloodletting. I leave it to professionals in your line of work to pass judgment on this maudlin reveling in violence. A cry for help of some sort? A lack of faith — given the daily onslaught of news about melting ice caps, hunger, joblessness, war — in the validity or existence of a future? Now in my middle fifties, an irrelevant codger, I find it discomfiting to see this generation dancing to the music of apocalypse and carrying their psychic burdens in front of them like infants in arms.

But as the weeks rolled on, I realized it wasn’t a lack of glamour that was bothering me. Instead, I kept thinking back to a line Valerie liked to include in her commencements: “Put yourself in the path of lightning.” For just one night, a seventeen-minute comedy monologue was the center of political attention. It was the place to address controversies, to take shots at opponents, to project confidence to the public we served. Now, however, lightning was once again striking the campaign trail. More and more speeches—for both the president and senior staff—were the ones I could not legally write. I kind of liked having job security. I kind of loved drinking Kennedy Center beer. But nothing was as intoxicating as being part of the action. Not long after the dinner, I asked Favs if I could leave the White House for the campaign. He agreed, but proposed a plan that kept me in Washington: I would work on political speeches for POTUS, but from the Democratic National Committee in D.C. Which is how I found myself, a few weeks later, standing beside a conference table covered in turkey pinwheels and cheap champagne. Straut said something generous. Coworkers wrapped leftovers in paper napkins. I turned in my blue badge and BlackBerry. Just like that, I was no longer a government employee.

Outside the study hall the next fall, the fall of our senior year, the Nabisco plant baked sweet white bread twice a week. If I sharpened a pencil at the back of the room I could smell the baking bread and the cedar shavings from the pencil.... Pretty soon all twenty of us - our class - would be leaving. A core of my classmates had been together since kindergarten. I'd been there eight years. We twenty knew by bored heart the very weave of each other's socks.... The poems I loved were in French, or translated from the Chinese, Portuguese, Arabic, Sanskrit, Greek. I murmured their heartbreaking sylllables. I knew almost nothing of the diverse and energetic city I lived in. The poems whispered in my ear the password phrase, and I memorized it behind enemy lines: There is a world. There is another world. I knew already that I would go to Hollins College in Virginia; our headmistress sent all her problems there, to her alma mater. "For the English department," she told me.... But, "To smooth off her rough edges," she had told my parents. They repeated the phrase to me, vividly. I had hopes for my rough edges. I wanted to use them as a can opener, to cut myself a hole in the world's surface, and exit through it. Would I be ground, instead, to a nub? Would they send me home, an ornament to my breed, in a jewelry bag?

One of my favorite examples of this occurred in the life of Moses in the Old Testament. Though born a Hebrew, he lived a life of privilege in the palace of Egypt until he was forty years old. But after killing an Egyptian, he was exiled to the desert for forty years. There God used him as a shepherd and father, and after four decades of faithful service in obscurity, Moses was called to leadership. Scripture says by that time he was the most humble man in the world. Bill Purvis, the senior pastor of a large church in Columbus, Georgia, said, “If you do what you can, with what you have, where you are, then God won’t leave you where you are, and He will increase what you have.

Parent time is like fairy time but real. It is magic without pixie dust and spells. It defies physics without bending the laws of time and space. It is that truism everyone offers but no one believes until after they have children: that time will actually speed, fleet enough to leave you jet-lagged and whiplashed and racing all at once. Your tiny, perfect baby nestles in your arms his first afternoon home, and then ten months later, he’s off to his senior year of high school. You give birth to twins so small and alike, they lie mirrored, each with a head in the palm of one hand while their toes reach only to the crooks of your elbows, but it’s only a year before they start looking at colleges. It is so impossible yet so universally experienced that magic is the only explanation. Except

I noticed on your profile that you said you loved Charlotte’s Web. So it was something we talked about on that first date, about how the word radiant sealed it for each of us, and how the most heartbreaking moment isn’t when Charlotte dies, but when it looks like all of her children will leave Wilbur, too. In the long view, did it matter that we shared this Did it matter that we both drank coffee at night and both happened to go to Barcelona the summer after our senior year? In the long view, was it such a revelation that we were both ticklish and that we both liked dogs more than cats? Really, weren’t these facts just placeholders until the long view could truly assert itself? We were painting by numbers, starting with the greens. Because that happened to be our favorite color. And this, we figured, had to mean something.

He was talking animatedly to two senior ladies, dressed in enough finery to buy the average home, no doubt. He brought one of their hands to his mouth, and then her friend's. He was such a charmer. I was charmed from here. "He gets that from me," Feragal growled into my ear, leaving me to Ciaran, now making his way towards me. I watched him stride certainly all the way to where I waited for him. "Wow," he said, placing his hand at my waist, grazing his thumb over the detailing of the sash there. I was going to kiss Martha again when I got home. "I like your sporran." I grinned. "I like your everything," he countered, leaning in to kiss my cheek. "You look beautiful, Holly." And I was done for the night. I could spill food down myself, trip over, whatever. The look in Ciaran's eyes was what I'd most wanted from the evening, and I already had it. To tuck away and keep forever.

Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. —Psalm 85:10 (KJV) When my husband, David, made the heart-wrenching decision to leave his post as senior minister at Hillsboro Presbyterian Church, the church was strong, thriving, and ripe for new leadership. But leaving was complicated. No one has ever loved a congregation more than David, and the congregation responded in kind. So it was infinitely sad when an influential person began working to erase David’s legacy. We had looked forward to returning to Hillsboro after the proper transition period, but now amid the confusion, the outlook was cloudy. Would it work for David to come back? Would we lose our church family forever? Finally, a new minister was chosen. For me, I wasn’t sure how I would feel until I met Chris. My reaction was immediate. I have a pastor! But what about David? I would never go back to Hillsboro without him. Well, it seems God had planned ahead. Chris sent out a letter to the congregation, addressing the misperception that “it’s not possible to love the new pastor if you still love the previous pastor.” He dispelled that notion with five simple words: “It’s okay to love both.” Chris went on to describe his meetings with David and to announce that he had invited him to come back to Hillsboro where the two of them “share a love for the church and its people.” And so it was finished. We had a church home once again, where we could come and worship with our family and friends, a place where there’s enough love for everyone, and a new minister wise enough to know that’s true. Father, I pray for the day when all of us grasp the unlimited reservoir of Your love and can finally see its regenerating power. —Pam Kidd Digging Deeper: Ps 132:7; Eph 4:15–16; Col 3:14–17

When I see someone not performing, I am frank enough to tell the person that it’s not working out. I request him or her to leave or change jobs within the group. But I see many of our senior colleagues, including my brothers, sons and nephews, empathetic towards non-performers. They don’t want to face the issue. They tend to become comfortable with such people and they get protection. They tend to choose people who become personally loyal to them rather than to the company. I think it’s important to be professional about such matters. Protecting a non-performer is not good for the business and also the person being protected. This is unprofessional too. The non-performer may be in the wrong job and thus not doing what he or she is best at doing. Empathy that results in protection would lead to a negative result for the employee as well. He or she might be better off in another job within the group or elsewhere.

Stand firmly rooted in your convictions, and eventually the whole world will come around to you. In 1838, Emerson delivered a lecture to the senior class of Harvard Divinity School. He had been a student there, himself, ten years earlier. Following in his father’s footsteps, Emerson was ordained as junior pastor at Boston’s Second Church in 1829. But just three years later, he resigned his position because he could no longer repeat the prayers and rituals of the past. “To be a good minister,” he wrote in his journal, “I must leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. We worship the dead forms of our forefathers.”  Emerson sought new insights, new revelations, and new words to express them. The “Divinity School Address” is an invitation for others to join him. It challenged religious orthodoxy, scandalized some in his audience, and was condemned by church leaders—including the college dean. Emerson wasn’t invited back to Harvard for the next thirty years.

As I finished my rice, I sketched out the plot of a pornographic adventure film called The Massage Room. Sirien, a young girl from northern Thailand, falls hopelessly in love with Bob, an American student who winds up in the massage parlor by accident, dragged there by his buddies after a fatefully boozy evening. Bob doesn't touch her, he's happy just to look at her with his lovely, pale-blue eyes and tell her about his hometown - in North Carolina, or somewhere like that. They see each other several more times, whenever Sirien isn't working, but, sadly, Bob must leave to finish his senior year at Yale. Ellipsis. Sirien waits expectantly while continuing to satisfy the needs of her numerous clients. Though pure at heart, she fervently jerks off and sucks paunchy, mustached Frenchmen (supporting role for Gerard Jugnot), corpulent, bald Germans (supporting role for some German actor). Finally, Bob returns and tries to free her from her hell - but the Chinese mafia doesn't see things in quite the same light. Bob persuades the American ambassador and the president of some humanitarian organization opposed to the exploitation of young girls to intervene (supporting role for Jane Fonda). What with the Chinese mafia (hint at the Triads) and the collusion of Thai generals (political angle, appeal to democratic values), there would be a lot of fight scenes and chase sequences through the streets of Bangkok. At the end of the day, Bob carries her off. But in the penultimate scene, Sirien gives, for the first time, an honest account of the extent of her sexual experience. All the cocks she has sucked as a humble massage parlor employee, she has sucked in the anticipation, in the hope of sucking Bob's cock, into which all the others were subsumed - well, I'd have to work on the dialogue. Cross fade between the two rivers (the Chao Phraya, the Delaware). Closing credits. For the European market, I already had line in mind, along the lines of "If you liked The Music Room, you'll love The Massage Room.

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.

But now, in a new century and a different time, that great middle class is on the ropes. All across the country, people are worried—worried and angry. They are angry because they bust their tails and their income barely budges. Angry because their budget is stretched to the breaking point by housing and health care. Angry because the cost of sending their kid to day care or college is out of sight. People are angry because trade deals seem to be building jobs and opportunities for workers in other parts of the world, while leaving abandoned factories here at home. Angry because young people are getting destroyed by student loans, working people are deep in debt, and seniors can’t make their Social Security checks cover their basic living expenses. Angry because we can’t even count on the fundamentals—roads, bridges, safe water, reliable power—from our government. Angry because we’re afraid that our children’s chances for a better life won’t be as good as our own. People are angry, and they are right to be angry. Because this hard-won, ruggedly built, infinitely precious democracy of ours has been hijacked. Today

The farther back the bed, the older the child looked. The last few didn’t even look like children anymore, but petite senior citizens. Their faces were wrinkled and their hair was gray. “These must be the missing children!” Red gasped. “What’s happening to them?” Tootles asked. Red noticed that the walls were lined with empty coffins. She covered her mouth, and her eyes filled with tears. “Morina is draining their youth and beauty to make potions!” Red said. “She’s a monster!” Red and the Lost Boys stared around at the cursed children in disbelief. They wanted to free them from whatever enchantment was draining their life force, but they didn’t know how. They were too afraid to touch any of them. “Why are there empty beds?” Nibs asked. “Because they died,” said a voice that didn’t belong to Red or the Lost Boys. They looked around the basement to see where it was coming from. Propped up in the corner of the basement was a tall mirror with a silver frame, and to Red’s horror, Froggy was standing inside of it. “Charlie!” Red yelled, and ran to it. She placed both of her hands on the glass and Froggy put his webbed hands against hers. “Our dad’s a giant frog?” Nibs asked. “Hooray, our dad’s a frog!” “Red, who are these children?” Froggy asked. “And why are they calling me Dad?” “These are the Lost Boys of Neverland. I’ve adopted them for the time being—it’s a long story,” Red said. “Charlie, what are you doing inside a mirror?” “Morina put me in here so I would have to watch the children,” Froggy said sadly. “So how do we get you out?” Red asked. Froggy shook his head. “Magic mirrors are irreversible, my darling” he said. “I’m trapped just like the Evil Queen’s lover, but since the wishing spell doesn’t exist anymore, I’ll most likely be in here… forever.” Red fell to her knees and shook her head. She thought her heart was broken before, but it had shattered into so many pieces now, it might never heal again. “No…,” she whispered. “No, no, no…” Froggy became emotional at the sight of her. “I am so sorry, my love,” he cried. “You must take these children and leave before Morina gets back.” “I can’t leave you…,” Red cried. “There’s nothing we can do.” Froggy wept. “Morina wanted to separate us, and I’m afraid she has for good. The

And, in treating of the social relations with the middle classes which the Prince had at Doncières, it may be as well to add these few words. The lieutenant-colonel played the piano beautifully; the senior medical officer’s wife sang like a Conservatoire medallist. This latter couple, as well as the lieutenant-colonel and his wife, used to dine every week with M. de Borodino. They were flattered, unquestionably, knowing that when the Prince went to Paris on leave he dined with Mme. de Pourtalès, and the Murats, and people like that. “But,” they said to themselves, “he’s just a captain, after all; he’s only too glad to get us to come. Still, he’s a real friend, you know.” But when M. de Borodino, who had long been pulling every possible wire to secure an appointment for himself nearer Paris, was posted to Beauvais, he packed up and went, and forgot as completely the two musical couples as he forgot the Doncières theatre and the little restaurant to which he used often to send out for his luncheon, and, to their great indignation, neither the lieutenant-colonel nor the senior medical officer, who had so often sat at his table, ever had so much as a single word from him for the rest of their lives

Shortly before our CFO’s pep talk, another high-level executive at the bank stopped me in the hall to give me what he considered some critical advice. “A lot of smart kids like you come through the bank, and they use it for a stepping stone,” he said. “They stay for a year or two and then they leave. I think that’s a huge mistake. Look at me: I’ve been here forever and I’m happier than anyone I know. This place rewards loyalty, and I’m good at my job because I’ve got my finger right on the pulse of the company. I know everything that’s going on.” A week later, I saw two workmen hauling boxes out of his office. He was a victim of the bank’s first-ever round of layoffs. I’m not trying to put this man down for his faith in the bank or make light of his unemployment. I want to use his story to make another point about failure in business. That chat reinforced something else I was beginning to learn: people in management positions, even very senior management positions, are often completely wrong about the fortunes of their own companies. More important, in making these misjudgments, they almost always err on the side of excessive optimism. They think their businesses are in much better shape than they actually are. Jerry’s rig utilization chart at Global Marine and our own CFO’s boasts about Joe DiMaggio only underscored this lesson for me at the time. And, three decades and over 1,400 meetings with other executives later, I can say this tendency is as pronounced as ever.

As Mae followed her, she had to remind herself that Annie had not always been a senior executive at a company like the Circle. There was a time, only four years ago, when Annie was a college student who wore men’s flannel housepants to class, to dinner, on casual dates. Annie was what one of her boyfriends, and there were many, always monogamous, always decent, called a doofus. But she could afford to be. She came from money, generations of money, and was very cute, dimpled and long-lashed, with hair so blond it could only be real. She was known by all as effervescent, seemed incapable of letting anything bother her for more than a few moments. But she was also a doofus. She was gangly, and used her hands wildly, dangerously, when she spoke, and was given to bizarre conversational tangents and strange obsessions—caves, amateur perfumery, doo-wop music. She was friendly with every one of her exes, with every hookup, with every professor (she knew them all personally and sent them gifts). She had been involved in, or ran, most or all of the clubs and causes in college, and yet she’d found time to be committed to her coursework—to everything, really—while also, at any party, being the most likely to embarrass herself to loosen everyone up, the last to leave. The one rational explanation for all this would have been that she did not sleep, but this was not the case. She slept decadently, eight to ten hours a day, could sleep anywhere—on a three-minute car ride, in the filthy booth of an off-campus diner, on anyone’s couch, at any time. Mae

There comes a point in one's life where the people whom we grew up admiring begin to die, leaving a great chasm in the world. This is awful enough to deal with without having anything so annoying as feelings getting in the way of personal equanimity. And then, possibly even more horribly, there comes a time in one's life when the people whom we grew up with or the people who are in our same age group begin to die. I have had the disagreeable business of having to watch colleagues only a few years my senior perish without warning, though premonition would not soften the blow. I am now realizing that I am entering this time, the dreadful gateway of existence, the one that leads to watching the ebb and flow of time, the great rote and sussuration of life and death, and being able to do nothing but welter in misery and pine over the dregs of hideous mortality. Death is an unaccountable business, one that robs the living of the peace we believe to be --perhaps mistakenly-- our birthright, one which asks the living to pay for the departed in the currency of feelings, leaving us to wallow in emotional debt. There is a loneliness about behind left behind as is there a thrill of horror for what lies beyond. The sum total of living is to sacrifice peace in favour of finding it, which makes little sense at all. I often wonder if the dead know we grieve for them, as the penury of pity only disconcerts ourselves. It is poor comfort, the business of mourning, for what is there really to mourn about excepting our own desire for reconciliation, something which no one, not even the dead, can furnish?

But rather than deal with labels, I want to deal with substance. There are two prerequisites for peace. First, the Palestinians must recognize the Jewish state. They have to stop calling and educating their people for Israel’s destruction. Second, in any peace agreement Israel must retain the overriding security control over the entire area west of the Jordan River. If we don’t we’ll get another radical Islamic terrorist state in the Palestinian areas which will explode the peace and explode the Middle East. Unfortunately, the Palestinians vehemently reject both prerequisites for peace. They even deny, Mr. President, our historical connection to our homeland. Why are Jews called Jews? The Chinese are called Chinese because they come from China. The Japanese are called Japanese because they come from Japan. Well, Jews are called Jews because they come from Judea. This is our ancestral homeland. Jews are not foreign colonialists in Judea. LEAVING WASHINGTON, I realized I had a problem. The president of the United States opposed the Iran nuclear deal, as I did, but he had also become convinced that I was the obstacle to a Palestinian-Israeli peace that Mahmoud Abbas was ready for. I had to hand it to the Palestinians. They outflanked me by embracing a friend from whom I had grown apart, promising him that he would be the great peacemaker. Trump had known this person for many years and considered him a reliable source on the Middle East. How could I not see that coming? Admittedly, I wasn’t so much worried that Trump would cozy up to the Palestinians with the same vindictive zeal as Obama. Most of the senior officials in his administration did not buy the Palestinian line. Besides, I knew that Trump would come to appreciate the great support Israel and I had in the evangelical community, the most important element of his political base.

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.

Although he always talked about technology and Oracle with passion and intensity, he didn’t have the methodical relentlessness that made Bill Gates so formidable and feared. By his own admission, Ellison was not an obsessive grinder like Gates: “I am a sprinter. I rest, I sprint, I rest, I sprint again.” Ellison had a reputation for being easily bored by the process of running a business and often took time off, leaving the shop to senior colleagues. One of the reasons often trotted out for Oracle’s success in the 1990s was Ellison’s decision to hire Ray Lane, a senior executive credited with bringing order and discipline to the business, allowing Ellison just to do the vision thing and bunk off to sail his boats whenever he felt like it. But Lane had left Oracle nearly eighteen months before after falling out with Ellison. Since then, Ellison had taken full control of the company—how likely was it that he would he stay the course? One reason to be skeptical was that Ellison just seemed to have too many things going on in his life besides Oracle. During the afternoon, we took a break from discussing the future of computing to take a tour of what would be his new home—nearly a decade in the making, and at that time, still nearly three years from completion. In the hills of Woodside, California, framing a five-acre artificial lake, six wooden Japanese houses, perfect replicas of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century originals in Kyoto, were under construction. The site also contained two full-size ornamental bridges, hundreds of boulders trucked in from the high Sierras and arranged according to Zen principles and an equal number of cherry trees jostling for attention next to towering redwoods. Ellison remarked: “If I’m remembered for anything, it’s more likely to be for this than Oracle.”3 In the evening, I noticed in Ellison’s dining room a scale model of what would become his second home: a graceful-looking 450-foot motor-yacht capable of circumnavigating the globe. Already the owner of two mega-yachts, bought secondhand and extensively modified (the 192-foot Ronin based in Sausalito and the 244-foot Katana, which was kept at Antibes in the South of France), Ellison wanted to create the perfect yacht. The key to achieving this had been his successful courtship of a seventy-two-year-old Englishman, Jon Bannenberg, recognized as the greatest designer of very big, privately-owned yachts. With a budget of $200 million—about the same as that for the Japanese imperial village in Woodside—it would be Bannenberg’s masterpiece. Bannenberg had committed himself to “handing over the keys” to Ellison in time for his summer holiday in 2003.

I no longer require your services." With her head held high, she strode for the door. Hell and blazes, he wouldn't let her do this! Now when he knew what was at stake. "You don't want to hear my report?" he called out after her. She paused near the door. "I don't believe you even have a report." "I certainly do, a very thorough one. I've only been waiting for my aunt to transcribe my scrawl into something decipherable. Give me a day, and I can offer you names and addresses and dates, whatever you require." "A day? Just another excuse to put me off so you can wreak more havoc." She stepped into the doorway, and he hurried to catch her by the arm and drag her around to face him. He ignored the withering glance she cast him. "The viscount is twenty-two years your senior," he said baldly. Her eyes went wide. "You're making that up." "He's aged very well, I'll grant you, but he's still almost twice your age. Like many vain Continental gentlemen, he dyes his hair and beard-which is why he appears younger than you think." That seemed to shake her momentarily. Then she stiffened. "All right, so he's an older man. That doesn't mean he wouldn't make a good husband." "He's an aging roué, with an invalid sister. The advantages in a match are all his. You'd surely end up taking care of them both. That's probably why he wants to marry you." "You can't be sure of that." "No? He's already choosing not to stay here for the house party at night because of his sister. That tells me that he needs help he can't get from servants." Her eyes met his, hot with resentment. "Because it's hard to find ones who speak Portuguese." He snorted. "I found out this information from his Portuguese servants. They also told me that his lavish spending is a façade. He's running low on funds. Why do you think his servants gossip about him? They haven't been paid recently. So he’s definitely got his eye on your fortune.” “Perhaps he does,” she conceded sullenly. “But not the others. Don’t try to claim that of them.” “I wouldn’t. They’re in good financial shape. But Devonmont is estranged from his mother, and no one knows why. I need more time to determine it, though perhaps your sister-in-law could tell you, if you bothered to ask.” “Plenty of people don’t get along with their families,” she said stoutly. “He has a long-established mistress, too.” A troubled expression crossed her face. “Unmarried men often have mistresses. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t give her up when he marries.” He cast her a hard stare. “Are you saying you have no problem with a man paying court to you while he keeps a mistress?” The sigh that escaped her was all the answer he needed. “I don’t think he’s interested in marriage, anyway.” She tipped up her chin. “That still leaves the duke.” “With his mad family.” “He’s already told me about his father, whom I knew about anyway.” “Ah, but did you know about his great-uncle? He ended his life in an asylum in Belgium, while there to receive some special treatment for his delirium.” Her lower lip trembled. “The duke didn’t mention that, no. But then our conversation was brief. I’m sure he’ll tell me if I ask. He was very forthright on the subject of his family’s madness when he offered-“ As she stopped short, Jackson’s heart dropped into his stomach. “Offered what?” She hesitated, then squared her shoulders. “Marriage, if you must know.” Damn it all. Jackson had no right to resent it, but the thought of her in Lyons’s arms made him want to smash something. “And of course, you accepted his offer,” he said bitterly. “You couldn’t resist the appeal of being a great duchess.” Her eyes glittered at him. “You’re the only person who doesn’t see the advantage in such a match.

For the twenty-first-century economic story, the state’s role must be rethought. Put it this way: in the film of the play, the state should be aiming all-out to win Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars—starring as the economic partner that supports the household, the commons and the market alike. First, by providing public goods—ranging from public education and healthcare to roads and street lighting—that deliver for all, not just for those who can pay, so enabling a society and its economy to thrive. Second, by supporting the core caring role of the household, such as with maternal and paternal leave policies that empower both parents, investment in early-years education and care support for seniors. Third, by unleashing the dynamism of the commons, with laws and institutions that enable their collaborative potential and protect them from encroachment. Fourth, by harnessing the power of the market by embedding it in institutions and regulations that promote the common good—from banning toxic pollutants and insider trading to protecting biodiversity and workers’ rights.

They may have been the same rank, but he was still technically her senior — in both age and experience — and sometimes he liked to flex. Make himself look like he gave a damn. She leaned forward, hit the keyboard shortcut to minimise the windows, and got up. ‘Nothing,’ she said, pulling her jacket on. ‘That’s helpful.’ She ignored the comment, downed half her now-tepid coffee and bit lightly into her bagel, holding it between straight white teeth as she powered off her monitor and tucked her chair in.  ‘I don’t know why you bother,’ Roper said, flicking a hand at the now-black screen. ‘Not while all this is burning.’ He gestured around the room at the other desks and detectives working away. Dozens of screens were lit, the photocopier was buzzing, the lights were humming, and phones and devices were charging on every surface.  She shrugged. ‘If you leave a monitor on standby overnight it wastes enough energy to—’ ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, dismissing her with his hand. ‘And the polar ice caps are melting and penguins are getting sunburn. Come on, we’ve got a murder to solve.’ He walked forward, draining what was left in his coffee cup, and put it down on a random desk — much to the disgust of the guy sitting behind it. Roper swaggered towards the lifts, finally shrugging off the hangover, his caffeine quota for the next hour filled. Once his nicotine level had been topped off, he might actually be capable of some decent police work. Jamie fell in behind him, trying to get her mind off the other missing kids and back on Grace Melver. Whatever the hell was going on, Jamie had a feeling that Grace Melver knew something about it. Whether she realised or not.  Chapter 7 She walked with Roper without thinking about it.  Jamie had dropped him back at the crime scene after the shelter so he could pick his car up. The medical examiner was there and the scene of the crime officers, or SOCOs, were crawling all over in their plastic-covered boots, snapping photos and putting things in evidence bags.  They hadn’t stuck around.  It was best to leave the SOCOs do their jobs, and anyway Jamie and Roper had paperwork that needed to be done.  Her fingers typed on autopilot now. She’d had her prelim licked before she’d finished her first cup of coffee. Roper headed for his Volvo without asking and got into the driver’s seat.  Jamie pulled the door open and got in, closing the door only when he’d cranked the ignition so she could crack the window. The seats were covered

out between us, when we’d given it a try one tentative time, after I, too, learned what it was like for a marriage to implode. Lydia had been empathetic and understanding, and knew how to make great popcorn and buy ice cream and pour shots of tequila, and for sure she had a god-tier movie collection. It could’ve been a rom-com from the eighties: geeky late bloomer grows up and finally gets his chance with the dream girl who was out of his league when they met, because she was nine years his senior. By the time we took our short-lived tumble, the age gap didn’t seem nearly as prominent, but the dynamic still wasn’t quite right, and maybe never could be. There was no shaking free of the worry over what Lydia saw when she looked at me. She would always remember the bruises, the confessions. She would always remember how back then my dad kept insisting he was only trying to knock the fag out of me, and I’d thank him someday. She would always remember why I got into schlocky videos in the first place: I thought if he came through and saw I was watching something with lots of boobs, he’d leave me alone. Only it didn’t work that way. The world is full of carnivores intent on devouring their young, and if one rationale gets invalidated, they find another.

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.

But Silicon Valley was filling up newspapers with dozens of pages of employment ads. One Atari ad in 1974 read simply, “Have Fun, Make Money.” The day the ad ran, an unkempt eighteen-year-old who had grown up in nearby Cupertino showed up at the front desk of the game maker. He refused to leave without a job. The receptionist relayed the message to a senior engineer and asked whether she should call the cops. Instead the engineer, Al Alcorn, engaged with the “hippie-looking kid,” learning that he was a dropout from the literary Reed College with no formal engineering background but deep enthusiasm for technology. Despite the negatives, Alcorn hired Steve Jobs as a technician at $5 an hour. Atari’s unconventional hiring practices didn’t dissuade Sequoia Capital from making an investment. Neither did Atari’s manufacturing floor: “You go on the factory tour and the marijuana in the air would knock you to your knees—where they were manufacturing the product!” Sequoia’s Don Valentine would note later. Japanese quality control it wasn’t. Still, the venture capitalist took the big picture view to his board duties, suggesting that prudishness would have been futile: “What would I say, get a higher brand of marijuana?” This too was a fundamental shift, the counterculture of San Francisco and Berkeley permeating south. The

But Silicon Valley was filling up newspapers with dozens of pages of employment ads. One Atari ad in 1974 read simply, “Have Fun, Make Money.” The day the ad ran, an unkempt eighteen-year-old who had grown up in nearby Cupertino showed up at the front desk of the game maker. He refused to leave without a job. The receptionist relayed the message to a senior engineer and asked whether she should call the cops. Instead the engineer, Al Alcorn, engaged with the “hippie-looking kid,” learning that he was a dropout from the literary Reed College with no formal engineering background but deep enthusiasm for technology. Despite the negatives, Alcorn hired Steve Jobs as a technician at $5 an hour. Atari’s unconventional hiring practices didn’t dissuade Sequoia Capital from making an investment. Neither did Atari’s manufacturing floor: “You go on the factory tour and the marijuana in the air would knock you to your knees—where they were manufacturing the product!” Sequoia’s Don Valentine would note later. Japanese quality control it wasn’t. Still, the venture capitalist took the big picture view to his board duties, suggesting that prudishness would have been futile: “What would I say, get a higher brand of marijuana?” This too was a fundamental shift, the counterculture of San Francisco and Berkeley permeating south.

You want a doughnut?" I held the plate out to them, and Middle Kipling's face flickered with rage for what I was pretty certain was the first time I'd ever seen any emotion on it. "You can keep your carb filled whores, thank you very much," he bit out before turning sharply and stalking from the room. "He's not a fan of food with holes," Kipling Senior commented like he was discussing the weather. "Too provocative," Junior agreed. "Practically begging for it," Senior said with a nod. "Especially if there's a glazed topping." Junior nodded at the doughnuts and the two of them turned and walked away without another word, leaving me to spit my fucking doughnut out with a shudder.

Why Should I Do Freelancing? Guidelines for Beginners Why do we do freelancing? People are doing nothing in the urge of life. Some are working, some are doing business, some are doing advocacy, and some are freelancing. Everyone has one goal behind doing all this, and that is to “make money”. As the days are changing, people's needs are also increasing. Earlier people did not have so many needs so they did not lack happiness. Everyone had their own land, from which crops, vegetables, and fruits were produced and earned a living. Slowly the days started to change, and the use of technology also started to increase, along with it the image and attitude of people started to change. The competitive spirit of who will get more than who, who will be ahead of who started, which continues till now. And that is why people are constantly looking for work, some inside the country and some outside the country. Everyone has almost the same goal, and that is to earn a lot of money, stand on their own feet, take responsibility for their family, build the future of their children, and much more! But does all work make satisfactory money? Of course not. If you are employed then you will get a certain amount of monthly income, if you are doing business then the income will be average with profit-loss-risk, and if you are freelancing then you will be able to control your income. You can earn money as you wish by working as you wish. So let's find out why you should do freelancing:- Why Do Freelancing? What is Freelancing? Freelancing is an independent profession. This profession allows you to work when you want, take vacations when you want, and quit when you want. You will never want to leave this profession though, because once you fall in love with freelancing, you never want to leave. There are many reasons for this. They are easy, self-reliance, freedom from slavery, self-king, having no limitations, etc. All of us have some latent talent. That talent often remains dormant, those of us who spend years waiting for a job can wake up our latent talent and stand on our own feet by expressing it through work. No need to run with a CV to any company or minister for this. Do you like to write? Can you be a content writer, can you draw good design? Can be a designer, do you know good coding? Can be a software engineer. There are also numerous other jobs that you can do through freelancing. You too can touch the door of success by freelancing, all you need is enthusiasm, courage, willpower, morale, self-confidence, and a lot of self-confidence. But these things are not available to buy in the market, so it will not cost you money. What will be spent is 'time' as the saying goes "The time is money and the money is equal to time". To make money you must put in the time. Guidelines for Beginners: As I have said before, if you think that you can suddenly start freelancing and earn lakhs of rupees and become a millionaire within a year, then I would say that bro, freelancing is not for you. Because the greed of money gets you before you can work, you can't go any further. If you are thinking of starting freelancing to utilize your talent then definitely take advice from someone senior to you, take tips from those who are in the sector, explore online, collect video tutorials, and take free courses if available. Still, if there is any problem or confusion which you are not able to solve, then you can visit the freelancing training center called “Bhairab ​​IT Zone”. Here students are trained professionally by experienced freelancers. If you want you can apply now for their free seminar from here, and learn about all the courses Please Visit Our Blogging Website to Read more Articles related to Freelancing and Outsourcing, Thank You.

In a characteristic piece of English understatement, Arthur Street, a senior civil servant in the British occupation zone reported: ‘We are very much alive to the dangers inherent of too drastic a policy of denazification in industry.’ As a consequence of this reappraisal over 300 German mining officials were released from custody in the British zone and reinstated, leaving only 20 in jail.

Why Should I Do Freelancing? Guidelines for Beginners Why do we do freelancing? People are doing nothing in the urge of life. Some are working, some are doing business, some are doing advocacy, and some are freelancing. Everyone has one goal behind doing all this, and that is to “make money”. As the days are changing, people's needs are also increasing. Earlier people did not have so many needs so they did not lack happiness. Everyone had their own land, from which crops, vegetables, and fruits were produced and earned a living. Slowly the days started to change, and the use of technology also started to increase, along with it the image and attitude of people started to change. The competitive spirit of who will get more than who, who will be ahead of who started, which continues till now. And that is why people are constantly looking for work, some inside the country and some outside the country. Everyone has almost the same goal, and that is to earn a lot of money, stand on their own feet, take responsibility for their family, build the future of their children, and much more! But does all work make satisfactory money? Of course not. If you are employed then you will get a certain amount of monthly income, if you are doing business then the income will be average with profit-loss-risk, and if you are freelancing then you will be able to control your income. You can earn money as you wish by working as you wish. So let's find out why you should do freelancing:- Why Do Freelancing? What is Freelancing? Freelancing is an independent profession. This profession allows you to work when you want, take vacations when you want, and quit when you want. You will never want to leave this profession though, because once you fall in love with freelancing, you never want to leave. There are many reasons for this. They are easy, self-reliance, freedom from slavery, self-king, having no limitations, etc. All of us have some latent talent. That talent often remains dormant, those of us who spend years waiting for a job can wake up our latent talent and stand on our own feet by expressing it through work. No need to run with a CV to any company or minister for this. Do you like to write? Can you be a content writer, can you draw good design? Can be a designer, do you know good coding? Can be a software engineer. There are also numerous other jobs that you can do through freelancing. You too can touch the door of success by freelancing, all you need is enthusiasm, courage, willpower, morale, self-confidence, and a lot of self-confidence. But these things are not available to buy in the market, so it will not cost you money. What will be spent is 'time' as the saying goes "The time is money and the money is equal to time". To make money you must put in the time. Guidelines for Beginners: As I have said before, if you think that you can suddenly start freelancing and earn lakhs of rupees and become a millionaire within a year, then I would say that bro, freelancing is not for you. Because the greed of money gets you before you can work, you can't go any further. If you are thinking of starting freelancing to utilize your talent then definitely take advice from someone senior to you, take tips from those who are in the sector, explore online, collect video tutorials, and take free courses if available. Still, if there is any problem or confusion which you are not able to solve, then you can visit the freelancing training center called “Bhairab ​​IT Zone”. Here students are trained professionally by experienced freelancers.

On Mount Harriet 42 Commando found themselves with over 300 prisoners, including the Commanding Officer of the Argentine 4th Infantry Regiment and several officers. This gave the lie to later Press reports that all the officers ran off leaving their conscript soldiers to be slaughtered or surrender like sheep. On Mount Harriet, as elsewhere, the Argentine officers and senior NCOs fought hard and on several occasions towards the end of the battle, tried

In my work I’ve noticed that senior executives of companies are among the worst at accepting the reality of trade-offs. I recently spent some time with the CEO of a company in Silicon Valley valued at $40 billion. He shared with me the value statement of his organization, which he had just crafted, and which he planned to announce to the whole company. But when he shared it I cringed: “We value passion, innovation, execution, and leadership.” One of several problems with the list is, Who doesn’t value these things? Another problem is that this tells employees nothing about what the company values most. It says nothing about what choices employees should be making when these values are at odds. This is similarly true when companies claim that their mission is to serve all stakeholders—clients, employees, shareholders—equally. To say they value equally everyone they interact with leaves management with no clear guidance on what to do when faced with trade-offs between the people they serve.

Italy, in a coup for Beijing, was the first major industrial power to join the BRI. According to Ding Chun, director of the Centre for European Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University, Beijing saw Italy’s debt crisis as an opportunity to expand the BRI into ‘the heart’ of Western powers, and the outcome was of ‘huge significance’ to China as it met stronger headwinds with the United States.125 Strategists in China had been taking close note of the fractures in the EU over the debt crisis, the austerity imposed by Germany, conflicts about migration, and Britain’s decision to leave. A divided Europe was much easier to tempt and subvert. A senior Chinese academic and former diplomat, Wang Yiwei of Renmin University, said that the Euroscepticism of the new Italian government made it willing to defy Washington and move closer to China.

In July 2014, Ted tapped Brian Wright, a senior vice president at Nickelodeon, to lead young adult content deals. (Brian’s first Netflix claim to fame is signing the deal for a show called Stranger Things just a few months into the job.) Brian tells this story about Ted receiving feedback publicly on Brian’s first day at Netflix: In all my past jobs, it was all about who’s in and who’s out of favor. If you gave the boss feedback or disagreed with her in a meeting in front of others, that would be political death. You would find yourself in Siberia. Monday morning, it’s my first day of this brand-new job, and I’m on hyperalert trying to find out what are the politics of the place. At eleven a.m. I attend my first meeting led by Ted (my boss’s boss, who is from my perspective a superstar), with about fifteen people at various levels in the company. Ted was talking about the release of The Blacklist season 2. A guy four levels below him hierarchically stopped him in the middle of his point: “Ted, I think you’ve missed something. You’re misunderstanding the licensing deal. That approach won’t work.” Ted stuck to his guns, but this guy didn’t back down. “It won’t work. You’re mixing up two separate reports, Ted. You’ve got it wrong. We need to meet with Sony directly.” I could not believe that this low-level guy would confront Ted Sarandos himself in front of a group of people. From my past experience, this was equivalent to committing career suicide. I was literally scandalized. My face was completely flushed. I wanted to hide under my chair. When the meeting ended, Ted got up and put his hand on this guy’s shoulder. “Great meeting. Thanks for your input today,” he said with a smile. I practically had to hold my jaw shut, I was so surprised. Later I ran into Ted in the men’s washroom. He asked how my first day was going so I told him, “Wow Ted, I couldn’t believe the way that guy was going at you in the meeting.” Ted looked totally mystified. He said, “Brian, the day you find yourself sitting on your feedback because you’re worried you’ll be unpopular is the day you’ll need to leave Netflix. We hire you for your opinions. Every person in that room is responsible for telling me frankly what they think.

The women I interviewed seemingly “opted out” of what Rachel, whom I cited earlier, called “the enormous experiment of engaging in capitalism.” Their choice to leave the workplace can be seen, as some of them suggested, as a resistance to neoliberal capitalism—to its exclusive valorization of the sphere of commodity production and the toxic competitive work cultures on which it depends. Their embrace of full-time motherhood can be understood as an attempt to shift priorities and to put care before competition. It is seemingly removed from the demands of advanced capitalism and the public sphere of work that they left, but which their government promotes and their husbands—mostly in high-powered, high-income jobs—occupy. Yet, as a consequence of heading home—a choice that was in part imposed by the pressures of advanced capitalism—women have become heads of their home who run their families as small enterprises, and endorse “intensive mothering”72 as a means of trying to ensure the invincible middle-class future and security of their children. In rechanneling their professional skills and competitive spirit through their children, and taking on the role of family CEO, these women may be reproducing what many found so brutal in the workplace. They have reproduced neoliberalism in the sense that their children have become human capital—investing in them is a way of increasing good returns in the future.73 In the words of Sara, the former senior financial director, “And the competition lives on, it’s just in a totally different guise.”" (from "Heading Home: Motherhood, Work, and the Failed Promise of Equality" by Shani Orgad)

My senior year in high school, Mom and Dad went through a divorce. After I graduated, my mother took my brother and moved to Wisconsin. We had relatives there. My dad was always busy at work, and I was left alone most of the time. I had the house all to myself. I never really had any close friends in school; I was kind of a loner and pretty shy around people. My parents were not big drinkers, but they kept a fully stocked bar in the home. I was lonely and started to drink. It made me feel better; I could talk to people and fit in, but I wasn’t that good at it and I’d usually end up drunk and alone in my house. I’m sure it was at this time that I began to develop feelings of not wanting to be alone, especially at night. It seemed as if everybody was leaving me. My father had started a new relationship with my current stepmother and spent a lot of time at her house. He said that I was old enough to take care of myself, so I ended up alone. I hated it. I didn’t like sleeping alone in that big house. It made me angry. I started to have fleeting fantasies of killing someone. I don’t know where they came from, but they did. They were always intertwined, sex and killing. I tried to get them out of my mind, but the sexual fantasy was powerful and I masturbated for hours thinking about it. The fantasy was always the same. I met a good-looking man, brought him home, had sex with him, and then killed him.

A marketing consultant I knew was hired by a family-owned agency because he was dating one of the family members. Clients were leaving the agency in droves and this person didn't understand his duties or how to execute them. The agency owner's solution was to encourage the consultant to spend more time with senior staff who were more experienced; hoping this exposure would give the consultant insight and dedication. This consultant did not change or grow so the agency owner asked several of us for input. I told the agency owner that until this employee was shown direct benefits and need to improve there was no motivation for him to do so. Until there is a perceived need for growth, there isn't likely to be actual growth.

Patty was a Netflix senior executive for the company’s first fourteen years and helped drive its remarkable growth through 2012. Patty believes the company’s long stretch of success was fueled by this “very deliberate” strategy of “making it easy to leave and come back.” Patty notes that, while “pissing off consumers” may have short-term benefits, “a subscription model creates the most profit over the long term—over years, generations.” Eric, who went on to serve as chief algorithm officer at online fashion retailer Stitch Fix, added that companies that make it easy to quit get better data about how to keep customers satisfied and loyal. That’s because the “time to feedback” is faster for the company and the evidence is less noisy because most customers are keeping the service because they want it, not because they are trapped in a roach motel.

With a certain talent for rhetoric, as well as an absolute certainty about the merits of my own views, I found that I could generally win these arguments, in the narrow sense of leaving my grandfather flustered, angry, and sounding unreasonable. But at some point, perhaps in my senior year, such victories started to feel less satisfying. I started thinking about the struggles and disappointments he had seen in his life. I started to appreciate his need to feel respected in his own home. I realized that abiding by his rules would cost me little, but to him it would mean a lot. I recognized that sometimes he really did have a point, and that in insisting on getting my own way all the time, without regard to his feelings or needs, I was in some way diminishing myself.

The worst feeling was when, in the middle of the night, the numbers didn’t compute as you needed them to, or they didn’t support the arguments the senior bankers expected to make at the client meeting later that day. That would leave you with two bad choices. You could change the thesis of the presentation to match the numbers, or you could fudge the numbers to fit the thesis. A third option—worse still—was to wake your managing director with a phone call. That was never smart. So you would usually alter a revenue assumption here and a margin assumption there, just enough so that none of the changes seemed too aggressive but in totality got you to the profitability and earnings growth needed to justify the deal. Where is the line, you would wonder briefly, between subjective business judgment and manipulation of data? Then you’d yawn and look at the clock and reply, Who gives a shit?

THE EIGHT PRAYER WATCHES FIRST PRAYER WATCH(6.00PM—9.00PM) Father God in the name of Jesus thank Your love and protection throughout the day. Thank you for Your blanket of protection over our land of South Africa, the continent of Africa and the entire world. You say in your word You will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6) and we believe Your word, Your word is true, Your word is alive. Heavenly Father help us to renew your covenant with you concerning our nation, our children, all our assignments that are given by you including our businesses. We declare Jesus Christ as our senior partner in our lives and we ask you Jehovah to bring down your fire in our lives and over the land of South Africa in the mighty name of Jesus. We ask you Holy Spirit to give us of discernment and help us to acknowledge Your Kingship and Your Rulership in the mighty name of Jesus. Thank you King Jesus for answering our prayers, Your are a faithful God and you are the same yesterday today and forever. Thank you Father. Amen

Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina and grew up in Harlem. He moved out from home at an early age and did not finish high school. After a few tough years … read morehe joined the Marine Corps and became a photographer in the Korean War. After leaving the service, Sowell entered Harvard University, worked a part-time job as a photographer and studied the science that would become his passion and profession: economics. Sowell received his bachelor’s degree in economics (magna cum laude) from Harvard in 1958. He went on to receive his master’s in economics from Columbia University in 1959, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. In the early ’60s, Sowell held jobs as an economist with the Department of Labor and AT&T. But his real interest was in teaching and scholarship. In 1965, at Cornell University, Sowell began the first of many professorships. His other teaching assignments have included Rutgers, Amherst, Brandeis and the UCLA. In addition, Sowell was project director at the Urban Institute, 1972-1974; a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, 1976–77; and was an adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute, 1975-76. Dr. Sowell has published a large volume of writing, much of which is considered ground-breaking. His has written over 30 books and hundreds of articles and essays. His work covers a wide range of topics, Including: classic economic theory, judicial activism, social policy, ethnicity, civil rights, education, and the history of ideas to name only a few. Sowell has earned international acclaim for his unmatched reputation for academic integrity. His scholarship places him as one of the greatest thinkers of the second half of the twenty century. Thomas Sowell began contributing to newspapers in the late ’70s, and he became a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist 1984. Sowell has brought common sense economic thinking to the masses by his ability to write for the general public with a voice that get to the heart of issues in plain English. Today his columns appear in more than 150 newspapers. In 2003, Thomas Sowell received the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement. Sowell was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2002. In 1990, he won the prestigious Francis Boyer Award, presented by The American Enterprise Institute. Currently, Thomas Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. —Dean Kalahar

You heard, right? Terrence and I are getting married. He's mine," she added unnecessarily. "Yup. Congrats." She waited for more, but that's all I had to say on that matter. "That's it? After you tried to steal him from me senior year, I figured you'd have more to say." Don't take the bait, Lila, don't take the bait. This woman is in charge of pretty much all patient information and she could easily get Bernadette fired. Don't push her. When I didn't respond, she said, "You always had such a smart mouth. Why are you so quiet now?" I fought the urge to roll my eyes. "Because that all happened, what, seven years ago? Maybe even eight? How are you not even over it yet?" She scoffed, so I added, "And if you recall, he came to me when he saw you for the bully you were. Besides, I remember you getting pretty cozy with Derek as well." Her hand flew to her chest and literally clutched at her pearls. "How dare you! Just because you got dumped by your fiancé doesn't mean you have to lie about mine." As usual, good news traveled fast around Shady Palms. "Forget it. I was a fool to think you'd help me." I started to walk away, but knew I couldn't leave it like that and turned back around. "Congratulations to you and Terrence. He's a good guy and there aren't many of them left. I hope you make each other happy. Truly." She stood there with her mouth hanging open as I walked away, trembling but proud. I'd witnessed a tragedy, been interrogated by the police, reconciled with Bernadette, told off Amir, and confronted Janet all in one day. And it wasn't even dinnertime yet.

As she is the senior person in the room, I wait for her to call on me. And, while I am waiting, I should show I am a good listener by keeping both my voice and my body quiet. In China, we often feel Westerners speak up so much in meetings that they do this to show off, or they are poor listeners. Also, I have noticed that Chinese people leave a few more seconds of silence before jumping in than in the West. You Westerners practically speak on top of each other in a meeting. I kept waiting for Erin to be quiet long enough for me to jump in, but my turn never came. We Chinese often feel Americans are not good listeners because they are always jumping in on top of one another to make their points. I would have liked to make one of my points if an appropriate length of pause had arisen. But Erin was always talking, so I just kept waiting patiently. My mother left it deeply engrained in me: You have two eyes, two ears, but only one mouth. You should use them accordingly.

someone is killing seniors and dumping their bodies, or is taking them places they can’t escape from and then leaving them to die?

In 1956 the senior petroleum exploration geologist for the USSR said, The overwhelming preponderance of geological evidence compels the conclusion that crude oil and natural petroleum gas have no intrinsic connection with biological matter originating near the surface of the Earth. They are primordial materials which have been erupted from great depths. But few people listened to those words. Raymond Learsy, in his 2005 book Over a Barrel, wrote, Nothing lasts: not fame, fortune, beauty, love, power, youth, or life itself. Scarcity rules. Accordingly, scarcity—or more accurately, the perception of scarcity—spells opportunity for manipulators. The best example of this is OPEC, which continues to extract obscene profits from a scarcity of its own creation. Learsy, though, leaves no doubt. He, and many others, the Russians included, are absolutely convinced. Oil is not scarce. We only fear that it is.

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.

I remember Gable putting his arm around me as I walked off the stage of the NCAA final. I wanted that win so badly. I was so close. How could I have allowed my mind to drift during the biggest moment and event of my life? I didn’t come to Iowa for Big Ten titles. I didn’t even consider them. I came for NCAA Titles and fell short. There was an emptiness in me. Though I wasn’t lost, I was hurting. What I came to Iowa for alluded me. A last-second loss as a junior and an injury-riddled senior year left me in an empty place. So much went into winning. What would college leave me hungry for? It would leave me so close but never attaining what I deeply longed for.

During NASA’s first fifty years the agency’s accomplishments were admired globally. Democratic and Republican leaders were generally bipartisan on the future of American spaceflight. The blueprint for the twenty-first century called for sustaining the International Space Station and its fifteen-nation partnership until at least 2020, and for building the space shuttle’s heavy-lift rocket and deep spacecraft successor to enable astronauts to fly beyond the friendly confines of low earth orbit for the first time since Apollo. That deep space ship would fly them again around the moon, then farther out to our solar system’s LaGrange points, and then deeper into space for rendezvous with asteroids and comets, learning how to deal with radiation and other deep space hazards before reaching for Mars or landings on Saturn’s moons. It was the clearest, most reasonable and best cost-achievable goal that NASA had been given since President John F. Kennedy’s historic decision to land astronauts on the lunar surface. Then Barack Obama was elected president. The promising new chief executive gave NASA short shrift, turning the agency’s future over to middle-level bureaucrats with no dreams or vision, bent on slashing existing human spaceflight plans that had their genesis in the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush White Houses. From the starting gate, Mr. Obama’s uncaring space team rolled the dice. First they set up a presidential commission designed to find without question we couldn’t afford the already-established spaceflight plans. Thirty to sixty thousand highly skilled jobs went on the chopping block with space towns coast to coast facing 12 percent unemployment. $9.4 billion already spent on heavy-lift rockets and deep space ships was unashamedly flushed down America’s toilet. The fifty-year dream of new frontiers was replaced with the shortsighted obligations of party politics. As 2011 dawned, NASA, one of America’s great science agencies, was effectively defunct. While Congress has so far prohibited the total cancellation of the space agency’s plans to once again fly astronauts beyond low earth orbit, Obama space operatives have systematically used bureaucratic tricks to slow roll them to a crawl. Congress holds the purse strings and spent most of 2010 saying, “Wait just a minute.” Thousands of highly skilled jobs across the economic spectrum have been lost while hundreds of billions in “stimulus” have been spent. As of this writing only Congress can stop the NASA killing. Florida’s senior U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat, a former spaceflyer himself, is leading the fight to keep Obama space advisors from walking away from fifty years of national investment, from throwing the final spade of dirt on the memory of some of America’s most admired heroes. Congressional committees have heard from expert after expert that Mr. Obama’s proposal would be devastating. Placing America’s future in space in the hands of the Russians and inexperienced commercial operatives is foolhardy. Space legend John Glenn, a retired Democratic Senator from Ohio, told president Obama that “Retiring the space shuttles before the country has another space ship is folly. It could leave Americans stranded on the International Space Station with only a Russian spacecraft, if working, to get them off.” And Neil Armstrong testified before the Senate’s Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee that “With regard to President Obama’s 2010 plan, I have yet to find a person in NASA, the Defense Department, the Air Force, the National Academies, industry, or academia that had any knowledge of the plan prior to its announcement. Rumors abound that neither the NASA Administrator nor the President’s Science and Technology Advisor were knowledgeable about the plan. Lack of review normally guarantees that there will be overlooked requirements and unwelcome consequences. How could such a chain of events happen?

First Week of January 2013 Continuation of my Message to Andy (part 5)   Hi Andy, Are you back from your Tasmanian rowing expedition? Did your team win? I hope so. If I remember correctly, you were always an excellent rower and your teammates at Daltonbury Hall venerated your feathering mastery. I’d love to hear your adventures.☺   Back To My OBSS Escapades   As we headed to Jules’ makeshift office (a classroom temporarily converted), Kim was overtly skittish. He had surmised we would be consigned to cleaning the OBSS lavatories as punishment for our playful misdemeanour. I assured the teenager that that wouldn’t be the case; a more propitious outcome would be in order. Yet, he continued to brood, blaming me for my impertinence. Instead of arguing with him, I kept silent.               I couldn’t help but notice a sardonic smug on Jules’ handsome face when we entered. “Young, will you keep watch outside while I have a word with this young man?” he instructed. I sat on a nearby bench, waiting my turn. Minutes passed, and I needed to use the restroom. I wasn’t sure if I should leave, in the event I would be called upon, but I decided to go. Just as I was finishing my business, I heard a commotion outside. In states of disarray, my leader and tent-mate were being escorted out of the office by a couple of burly guards from the senior officer’s HQ. I was shocked to witness such an unanticipated occurrence. For a brief moment, Kim looked my direction before they marched into the darkness. The unforgettable terror on his face was of a man about to be hanged. It didn’t take long for rumours to circulate around camp that the two were caught red-handed doing unspeakable things to one another. Yet, none of the gossipmongers could provide a definitive account. The next day, Jules and Kim were gone. They had both been hastily expelled without having a chance to say goodbye. My three remaining days at OBSS, I was flummoxed. It was my final evening in Singapore when the truth came to light. My ex-OBSS leader was coming out of a bar in Bugis Street when I stumbled upon him. It was then that I heard the entire narrative from the horse’s mouth.

How do you think people are going to feel when they find out you’ve deceived them?” he asked. “When they find out you’ve been playing them all for fools for weeks on end?” I didn’t answer until we were safely out in the parking lot. Then I turned to face him. “Gee, I don’t know, Mark. I imagine they’ll be furious and hate me for it. Is that the point you’re trying to make? I get it. Though, for the record, I never wanted to deceive anyone.” “Then why pretend to be dead in the first place?” “I already told you I can’t tell you.” “Then let me tell you something, Calloway--O’Connor--whatever your name is,” Mark said in a furious voice. “I am going to write the tell-all article of your nightmares.” “Gee,” I said. “Now there’s a surprise.” I began to walk quickly through the parking lot in the direction of the street. If I didn’t get away from him soon, I was going to do something completely disgusting, like disgrace myself and cry. “Don’t walk away from me. Where are you going?” Mark said. “To the bus stop.” “What do you mean to the bus stop? Nobody leaves the prom on the bus.” “Now the heck do you think I got here?” I all but shouted, rounding on him as a flood of frustration overcame my desire to cry. “In a carriage that will turn into a pumpkin at midnight?” “Why didn’t Crawford pick you up?” “Because I wasn’t his date,” I said succinctly. “Elaine was. Is.” Mark dragged a hand through his hair. “My car’s right over there,” he said. “I’ll drive you home.” “No way,” I said. “And listen to you tell me what a lying jerk I am all the way across town? I think I’d rather walk.” Before I could take so much as a step back, Mark crossed the distance between us and yanked me into his arms. In the next moment, his mouth crashed down onto mine. Twice before I’d thought he was going to kiss me, but he hadn’t. I guess he must have figured he had nothing to lose now. The kiss was full of frustration, almost as full of frustration as of desire. It was a kiss that begged for mercy, took no prisoners, searched for answers, and made promises it could never keep, all at the same time. In other words, it would have knocked my socks off if I’d been wearing any at the time. It certainly made my knees weak, a thing that probably would have annoyed the hell out of me if it hadn’t been quite so exhilarating. “That’s the last thing I’m ever going to say to you,” Mark said when the kiss was over. In a silence that felt like a blackout at the end of the world, I let him drive me home.

There are just too many coincidences for me. Combined with too many things that don’t add up.” “Maybe I’m just a woman of mystery,” I said. He gave a sudden bark of laughter. “Maybe, but I doubt it. I’ll say this, though. You’re full of surprises.” I took a step, closing the distance between us, and saw emotion flare back into his eyes. This time, surprise. “Leave me alone, Mark,” I said, using his first name for the very first time. “Stop following me. I don’t have anything to hide.” “Prove it,” he said. “How?” “Take me to the prom.” “You have it backward,” I said, my tone condescending and patient. “You’re supposed to say, Claire, may I please take you to the prom.” “Not the Royer prom,” Mark said impatiently. “The Beacon prom.” “I can’t do that,” I said, giving my head a toss to cover the fact that he’d totally caught me off guard. I really liked the way Claire’s hair moved when I did that. “I’m already going with Alex Crawford.” For just an instant, Mark’s face became absolutely unreadable. “I don’t mean as a date,” he said, his tone ever so slightly snide. “You’ll need a staff photographer.” “Forget it,” I said. Without warning, he leaned down until our faces were close. Omigod, he’s going to kiss me, I thought. “Make me,” he said. “You want me to back off, fine. Prove to me you’re not Jo O’Connor and I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll flap my arms and fly to the moon.” “That won’t be necessary,” I said. “The other side of the room will be just fine.” He gave a breathy laugh, the air of it moving across my face, and eased back.

No names. I didn’t know people. I grabbed whatever characteristics I could: crooked or fluorescent teeth, tattoos, accents, lipsticks, I even recognized some people by their gait. It’s not that my trailers were withholding information. I was just so stupid that I couldn’t learn table numbers and names at the same time….Everyone had been there years. There were senior servers who would never leave. Debutante-Smile, Guy-with-Clark-Kent-Glasses, Guy-with-Long-Hair-and-Bun, Overweight-Gray-Hair-Guy. Even the backwaiters had been there at least three years. There was Mean-Girl, and Russian-Pouty-Lips, and my first trailer, whom I called Sergeant because of the way he ordered me around.

Swift Antelope caught Hunter’s arm before he could go inside his mother’s lodge. “Hunter, about the little yellow-hair.” “Yes, what about her?” Swift Antelope glanced uneasily at Bright Star, then plunged ahead. “I would like to make arrangements with you--to take her as my wife. Not right away, of course. When she grows old enough.” The young warrior straightened his shoulders. “I will pay a fine bride price, fifty horses and ten blankets.” Hunter smothered a grin. After a year of raiding, Swift Antelope had only ten horses. How much horse stealing did he plan to do? “Swift Antelope, I don’t think she even likes you.” “Your yellow-hair doesn’t like you too well, either.” He had a point. Hunter stroked his chin, acutely aware of a sparrow singing nearby, of cottonwood leaves rustling in the gentle breeze. Such a peaceful sound. He had enough problems without Swift Antelope adding to them. “Can we discuss this another time?” “No! I mean…well, I’ve heard some other warriors talking. I’m not the only one who wants her. If I wait, you may accept the suit of another. She is very fine, is she not?” Hunter wondered if they were talking about the same skinny girl. Then he focused on Swift Antelope, who was only a few years Amy’s senior. He supposed a younger man might find Amy’s coltish prettiness appealing. “I can see your concern. But you forget one thing, Swift Antelope. You have proven yourself my loyal friend. I will not accept the suit of another. Does that ease your mind?” Swift Antelope still gripped Hunter’s arm. “May I visit with her?” “I don’t know about that. She’s been through a terrible time. Having a young man around might upset her.” “Old Man told me what happened to her. But someone must help her walk back to the sunshine, eh?” Again, Hunter had to concede the point. A difficult path lay ahead of Amy, and her way would be made easier if she had a good friend, a young man who could teach her to trust again. “You will take great care with her?” Swift Antelope grinned. “I will protect her with my life. Your mother says she will be strong enough to go on a walk tomorrow. May I take her?” Hunter placed a heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder. “She won’t want to go. You do realize that?” Swift Antelope nodded. “I can handle her until she gets used to me.” “She’s a fighter.” “And I am twice her size.” Hunter almost wished he could go on this walk. It might prove interesting. Little did Swift Antelope know how useless strength could be when tussling with a frightened female. “Come to my lodge late tomorrow afternoon.” Swift Antelope beamed. “I think we should change her name. Aye-mee? It sounds like a sheep baaing. Golden One. That is a good name for her.

While the US stumped for the Bosnians, Russians defended the interests of Milošević (as distinct from the Bosnian Serb leader) and Germans supported Croats. .....Srebrenica itself was indefensible as Izetbegović admitted to a senior UN official 22 Sep 1994. ....Silajdžić indicated that if the Serbs traded Sarajevo for the enclaves he would be prepared to go to Srebrenica and explain to the people that they had to leave. ....The envoy said Izetbegović was ready to discuss a trade-off of the eastern enclaves for Sarajevo on the condition that Milošević was prepared to recognize BiH. Although the Bosnian government and Western gov all privately admitted that ultimately Srebrenica and Žepa would go to the Serbs, no government was prepared to be seen publicly making territorial deals with the Serbs. After all, would not such a move be perceived as a rewarding of the ethnic cleansing and aggression? Dilemma was especially acute for countries where public opinion was strongly anti-Serbian - post pointedly the US, Germany and NL. .... Clinton administration in particular did not want to be publicly associated with any diplomatic proposal that ceded the enclaves to the Serbs.

Sophie’s the first one of us to have a baby, even though Everly has a five-year-old son, Jake. Everything is happening so fast. Well, for my friends anyway. Sophie met Luke last fall during our senior year at Penn. She was pregnant and married before graduation. Everly met Sawyer last Thanksgiving and they were married over the summer. Sawyer’s son from a previous relationship lives with them full-time and Everly adapted to insta-motherhood better than anyone could have expected. She’s working on a children’s book series about blended families now. Weird, I know. I always assumed she’d write porn. And then there’s Sandra; she’s a few years older than us. Sandra works for Everly’s husband and quickly became a part of our friendship circle, or squad, as Everly prefers we call it. Sandra started dating Gabe at the beginning of the year and was living with him by summer. That leaves me. Chloe Scott. Third wheel, or seventh wheel in this case.

Mr Witherington senior persuaded his son to enter the banking-house, and, as a dutiful son, he entered it every day; but he did nothing more, having made the fortunate discovery that "his father was born before him;" or, in other words, that his father had plenty of money, and would be necessitated to leave it behind him.

Jane got tired of sitting near them and moved, closer to the jarhead. He seemed to be minding his own business, maybe he’d leave her alone. But the jarhead leaned in when she sat, a conspiratorial smile playing across his handsome features. “Didn’t know that when you built up enough seniority at the strip club, you get Tuesdays off, did you?” “Ouch,” Jane replied. “That’s kind of harsh.” The man blushed and Jane felt bad. “Harsh, but funny. They’re a trip. I hope I’m never so ridiculous in public when I decide to get married.” The

What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made? Investing in Cobra back in the early ’90s. My $ 1.8 million investment earned me $ 40 million after the company was bought by Acushnet. I rolled that money back into my business. The decision was a no-brainer for three reasons: My investment got me 12 percent of Cobra and the allocation of my investment was put to R& D. During this era, Callaway was the first to go to market with an oversize driver but neglected to follow up on oversize irons. We/ Cobra decided to attack this virgin market immediately by producing oversize irons for men and women, and we catered for the senior player, which had been left neglected. This decision was a solid rocket booster for Cobra’s massive growth in the marketplace. I was to remain an endorsed player representing Cobra for years to come, receiving an annual payment that would quickly recoup my initial investment. So, my ROI was always guaranteed, leaving me with 12 percent of a company that had hyper growth. I was the #1 player in the world during these halcyon times—a global player. So, fortunately for us, I was a needle-mover in regards to exposure in a sport that was booming in the ’80s, hence product promotion and awareness.

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours? Many, many moons ago, I used to be a corporate lawyer. I was an ambivalent corporate lawyer at best, and anyone could have told you that I was in the wrong profession, but still: I’d dedicated tons of time (three years of law school, one year of clerking for a federal judge, and six and a half years at a Wall Street firm, to be exact) and had lots of deep and treasured relationships with fellow attorneys. But the day came, when I was well along on partnership track, that the senior partner in my firm came to my office and told me that I wouldn’t be put up for partner on schedule. To this day, I don’t know whether he meant that I would never be put up for partner or just delayed for a good long while. All I know is that I embarrassingly burst into tears right in front of him—and then asked for a leave of absence. I left work that very afternoon and bicycled round and round Central Park in NYC, having no idea what to do next. I thought I’d travel. I thought I’d stare at the walls for a while. Instead—and it all happened so suddenly and cinematically that it might defy belief—I remembered that actually I had always wanted to be a writer. So I started writing that very evening. The next day I signed up for a class at NYU in creative nonfiction writing. And the next week, I attended the first session of class and knew that I was finally home. I had no expectation of ever making a living through writing, but it was crystal clear to me that from then on, writing would be my center, and that I would look for freelance work that would give me lots of free time to pursue it. If I had “succeeded” at making partner, right on schedule, I might still be miserably negotiating corporate transactions 16 hours a day. It’s not that I’d never thought about what else I might like to do other than law, but until I had the time and space to think about life outside the hermetic culture of a law practice, I couldn’t figure out what I really wanted to do.

The fraternity’s leadership did a membership review, interviewing every member and weeding out any brothers who were deemed unfit to be a part of the house. Evan and Reggie were picked as two bad apples and kicked out of the fraternity. Reggie’s expulsion came as no surprise to anyone who’d been paying attention. He was known principally for getting wasted, breaking things, and leaving a mess in the kitchen. His room, which reeked of weed and tobacco, was filled with cups and plates from the house’s kitchen that he hadn’t bothered to return. He never showed up for house meetings or lent a hand on house cleans or party setups. Although he was very book smart and super friendly to everyone, he was a downright nuisance to live with. Evan’s case was not so clear-cut—ask ten people why he got kicked out and you’ll get ten different answers. Some say he was a willing scapegoat, volunteering to be kicked out because he knew he wouldn’t have the house for his senior year anyway. Others say he was scapegoated because he had angered younger guys by pushing for parties while the house was on probation. Others say Evan deserved to be kicked out because he didn’t want to fight hard enough get the house back, and he had been taking too cavalier an attitude toward the trouble the fraternity faced. No matter the reason, Evan was out. Guys in the fraternity blamed him for their house being taken away. Friends who he thought would have his back didn’t. Bad news came in threes for Evan. He had already lost Future Freshman. He lost the fraternity. Then, his girlfriend Lily told him she’d had enough and dumped him after two-plus years of dating.

Getting ready on the day of launch takes much longer than you’d think it would, like so many aspects of spaceflight. First I take a final trip to the banya to relax, then go through the preflight enema ritual—our guts shut down in space initially, so the Russians encourage us to get things cleaned out ahead of time. The cosmonauts have their doctors do this, with warm water and rubber hoses, but I opt for the drugstore type in private, which lets me maintain a comfortable friendship with my flight surgeon. I savor a bath in the Jacuzzi tub, then a nap (because our launch is scheduled for 1:42 a.m. local time). When I wake, I take a shower, lingering awhile. I know how much I’ll miss the feeling of water for the next year. The Russian flight surgeon we call “Dr. No” shows up shortly after I’m out of the shower. He is called Dr. No because he gets to decide whether our families can see us once we’re in quarantine. His decisions are arbitrary, sometimes mean-spirited, and absolute. He is here to wipe down our entire bodies with alcohol wipes. The original idea behind the alcohol swab-down was to kill any germs trying to stow away with space travelers, but now it seems like just another ritual. After a champagne toast with senior management and our significant others, we sit in silence for a minute, a Russian tradition before a long trip. As we leave the building, a Russian Orthodox priest will bless us and throw holy water into each of our faces. Every cosmonaut since Yuri Gagarin has gone through each of these steps, so we will go through them, too. I’m not religious, but I always say that when you’re getting ready to be rocketed into space, a blessing can’t hurt.

At the beginning of an address to an audience of 150 employees at their annual company retreat, I asked everyone to stand up. Then I asked everyone who did not have goals to sit down. A handful of people sat. I then asked everyone who did not have written goals to sit down. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, all but about twenty people sat. Next, I asked those remaining to sit down unless they had written goals for more than just their career or financial life. That eliminated another twelve, leaving only eight of 150 people who had written goals targeting more than finances or career. I asked the remaining eight to sit down unless they had a written plan that accompanied their goals. That question filtered out five more, leaving three of 150 who had written goals and a plan in more than just the financial area. I asked the remaining three (all senior management, including the company president) to sit down unless they reviewed their goals on a daily basis. Only one person remained standing (a vice president of sales). Only one in 150 had written goals in more areas than just financial, had a plan for accomplishing them, and reviewed the goals daily. This is consistently what I’ve found over the years as I’ve surveyed the attendees in my public events. Invariably, less than 3 percent have written goals, and even those who have written down their goals have often done so only regarding finances or career. You may have heard of the 1953 study of Yale graduates. The subjects were periodically interviewed and followed by researchers for more than twenty years. Eventually the graduates were again interviewed, tested, and surveyed. Results showed that 3 percent of the Yale graduates earned more money than all the other 97 percent put together! The only difference between them was the top 3 percent had written goals and a plan of action for those goals, which they reviewed daily. Harvard University later did a study of business-school graduates from the class of 1979. They found that, other than to “enjoy themselves,” 84 percent of the class had no goals at all. Thirteen percent had goals and plans but had not written them down. Only 3 percent of the Harvard class had written goals accompanied by a plan of action. In 1989, the class was resurveyed. The results showed that the 13 percent who at least had mental goals were earning twice as much as the 84 percent with no goals. However, the 3 percent who had written down their goals and drafted a plan of action were earning ten times as much as the other 97 percent combined! The point is clear: Having written goals will make you more successful, and having written, well-planned goals that you review daily will make you super successful.

Type 1 leadership was about functional requirements and individual systems; the focus was operational. Type 2 was less about managing individual projects and systems, more about managing portfolios of projects and infrastructures, as well as playing a senior team leadership role; Type 2 leaders left the details of managing operational functions and individual systems to others, though they remained accountable for it all working. Type 3 evolved into a job of managing strategy and resources, leaving the details of management of portfolios and infrastructure to others.