Stunt Best Quotes

To believe in the supernatural is not simply to believe that after living a successful, material, and fairly virtuous life here one will continue to exist in the best-possible substitute for this world, or that after living a starved and stunted life here one will be compensated with all the good things one has gone without: it is to believe that the supernatural is the greatest reality here and now.

In an ideal world, a young man should not be an ironical person. At that age, irony prevents growth, stunts the imagination. It is best to start life in a cheerful and open state of mind, believing in others, being optimistic, being frank with everyone about everything. And then, as one comes to understand things and people better, to develop a sense of irony. The natural progression of human life is from optimism to pessimism; and a sense of irony helps temper pessimism, helps produce balance, harmony. But

I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up:that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived. I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child, and that if theses faculties are encouraged in youth they will act well and wisely in the adult, but if they are repressed and denied in the child they will stunt and cripple the adult personality.

Would-be green capitalism is nothing but a publicity stunt, a label for the purpose of selling a commodity, or - in the best of cases - a local initiative equivalent to a drop of water on the arid soil of the capitalist desert.

I'm convinced that the best solutions are often the ones that are counterintuitive - that challenge conventional thinking - and end in breakthroughs. It is always easier to do things the same old way...why change? To fight this, keep your dissatisfaction index high and break with tradition. Don't be too quick to accept the way things are being done. Question whether there's a better way. Very often you will find that once you make this break from the usual way - and incidentally, this is probably the hardest thing to do—and start on a new track your horizon of new thoughts immediately broadens. New ideas flow in like water. Always keep your interests broad - don't let your mind be stunted by a limited view.

I don't want to tear him down while he's so lit up, so I throw on my best gentle tone and remind him of our early dating conversations, where he seemed to agree with me that religion is a thing that stunts growth, not a thing that promotes it.

Unconscious people are spiritually stunted, effectively encasing their unique brilliance in a psychological tumor.

Bliss?” I called. “Yeah?” “Check the drawers of the nightstand! She was playing with it in the middle of the night, and I think I remember taking it away and sticking it in there.” “Okay!” Through the open door, I watched her circle around the edge of the bed. I walked in place for a few seconds, letting my feet drop a little heavier than necessary, then opened and closed the door like I’d gone back inside the bathroom. Then I hid in the space between the back of the bedroom door and the wall where I could just see through the crack between the hinges. She pulled open the top drawer, and my heartbeat was like a bass drum. I don’t know when it had started beating so hard, but now it was all that I could hear. It wasn’t like I was asking her to marry me now. I just knew Bliss, and knew she tended to panic. I was giving her a very big, very obvious hint so that she’d have time to adjust before I actually asked her. Then in a few months, when I thought she’d gotten used to the idea, I’d ask her for real. That was the plan anyway. It was supposed to be simple, but this felt… complicated. Suddenly, I thought of all the thousands of ways this could go wrong. What if she freaked out? What if she ran like she did our first night together? If she ran, would she go back to Texas? Or would she go to Cade who lived in North Philly? He’d let her stay until she figured things out, and then what if something developed between them? What if she just flat out told me no? Everything was good right now. Perfect, actually. What if I was ruining it by pulling this stunt? I was so caught up in my doomsday predictions that I didn’t even see the moment that she found the box. I heard her open it though, and I heard her exhale and say, “Oh my God.” Where before my mouth had been dry, now I couldn’t swallow fast enough. My hands were shaking against the door. She was just standing there with her back to me. I couldn’t see her face. All I could see was her tense, straight spine. She swayed slightly. What if she passed out? What if I’d scared her so much that she actually lost consciousness? I started to think of ways to explain it away. I was keeping it for a friend? It was a prop for a show? It was… It was… shit, I didn’t know. I could just apologize. Tell her I knew it was too fast. I waited for her to do something—scream, run, cry, faint. Anything would be better than her stillness. I should have just been honest with her. I wasn’t good at things like this. I said what I was thinking—no plans, no manipulation. Finally, when I thought my body would crumble under the stress alone, she turned. She faced the bed, and I only got her profile, but she was biting her lip. What did that mean? Was she just thinking? Thinking of a way to get out of it? Then, slowly, like the sunrise peeking over the horizon, she smiled. She snapped the box closed. She didn’t scream. She didn’t run. She didn’t faint. There might have been a little crying. But mostly… she danced. She swayed and jumped and smiled the same way she had when the cast list was posted for Phaedra. She lost herself the same way she did after opening night, right before we made love for the first time. Maybe I didn’t have to wait a few months after all. She said she wanted my best line tomorrow after the show, and now I knew what it was going to be.

In an ideal world, a young man should not be an ironical person. At that age, irony prevents growth, stunts the imagination. It is best to start life in a cheerful and open state of mind, believing in others, being optimistic, being frank with everyone about everything. And then, as one comes to understand things and people better, to develop a sense of irony. The natural progression of human life is from optimism to pessimism; and a sense of irony helps temper pessimism, helps produce balance, harmony. But this was not an ideal world, and so irony grew in sudden and strange ways. Overnight, like a mushroom; disastrously, like a cancer. Sarcasm was dangerous to its user, identifiable as the language of the wrecker and the saboteur. But irony – perhaps, sometimes, so he hoped – might enable you to preserve what you valued, even as the noise of time became loud enough to knock out window-panes. What

The country’s best minds increasingly were leaving, preferring a life in New York or London over the struggles in Malaysia. It was the kind of brain drain that had stunted the growth of nations from India to Indonesia, whose most ambitious citizens gave up on their troubled homeland and sought a better life elsewhere.

Once there were three tribes. The Optimists, whose patron saints were Drake and Sagan, believed in a universe crawling with gentle intelligence—spiritual brethren vaster and more enlightened than we, a great galactic siblinghood into whose ranks we would someday ascend. Surely, said the Optimists, space travel implies enlightenment, for it requires the control of great destructive energies. Any race which can't rise above its own brutal instincts will wipe itself out long before it learns to bridge the interstellar gulf. Across from the Optimists sat the Pessimists, who genuflected before graven images of Saint Fermi and a host of lesser lightweights. The Pessimists envisioned a lonely universe full of dead rocks and prokaryotic slime. The odds are just too low, they insisted. Too many rogues, too much radiation, too much eccentricity in too many orbits. It is a surpassing miracle that even one Earth exists; to hope for many is to abandon reason and embrace religious mania. After all, the universe is fourteen billion years old: if the galaxy were alive with intelligence, wouldn't it be here by now? Equidistant to the other two tribes sat the Historians. They didn't have too many thoughts on the probable prevalence of intelligent, spacefaring extraterrestrials— but if there are any, they said, they're not just going to be smart. They're going to be mean. It might seem almost too obvious a conclusion. What is Human history, if not an ongoing succession of greater technologies grinding lesser ones beneath their boots? But the subject wasn't merely Human history, or the unfair advantage that tools gave to any given side; the oppressed snatch up advanced weaponry as readily as the oppressor, given half a chance. No, the real issue was how those tools got there in the first place. The real issue was what tools are for. To the Historians, tools existed for only one reason: to force the universe into unnatural shapes. They treated nature as an enemy, they were by definition a rebellion against the way things were. Technology is a stunted thing in benign environments, it never thrived in any culture gripped by belief in natural harmony. Why invent fusion reactors if your climate is comfortable, if your food is abundant? Why build fortresses if you have no enemies? Why force change upon a world which poses no threat? Human civilization had a lot of branches, not so long ago. Even into the twenty-first century, a few isolated tribes had barely developed stone tools. Some settled down with agriculture. Others weren't content until they had ended nature itself, still others until they'd built cities in space. We all rested eventually, though. Each new technology trampled lesser ones, climbed to some complacent asymptote, and stopped—until my own mother packed herself away like a larva in honeycomb, softened by machinery, robbed of incentive by her own contentment. But history never said that everyone had to stop where we did. It only suggested that those who had stopped no longer struggled for existence. There could be other, more hellish worlds where the best Human technology would crumble, where the environment was still the enemy, where the only survivors were those who fought back with sharper tools and stronger empires. The threats contained in those environments would not be simple ones. Harsh weather and natural disasters either kill you or they don't, and once conquered—or adapted to— they lose their relevance. No, the only environmental factors that continued to matter were those that fought back, that countered new strategies with newer ones, that forced their enemies to scale ever-greater heights just to stay alive. Ultimately, the only enemy that mattered was an intelligent one. And if the best toys do end up in the hands of those who've never forgotten that life itself is an act of war against intelligent opponents, what does that say about a race whose machines travel between the stars?

one which seems to be deliberately seeking the downfall of the human race. And we wonder uneasily what the state of the world will be after the great trial and what will be left of it and what will be the future of this stunted race, shorn of all the best and noblest part of it. The problem is certainly one of the darkest that have ever vexed the minds of men.

In an ideal world, a young man should not be an ironical person. At that age, irony prevents growth, stunts the imagination. It is best to start life in a cheerful and open state of mind, believing in others, being optimistic, being frank with everyone about everything. The natural progression of human life is from optimism to pessimism; and a sense of irony helps temper pessimism, helps produce balance, harmony. But this was not an ideal world, and so irony grew in sudden and strange ways. Overnight, like a mushroom; disastrously, like a cancer.

I think a marvelous stunt would be to have your best friend (or the most critical acquaintance) take some candid color snapshots of you from all angles, dressed just as you usually appear at, say, six in the evening. The same hairdo, the same makeup, and if possible the same expression on your face. Be honest! Be sure to have her take the rear views, too. There ought to be some other shots of you wearing your best going-out-to-dinner dress, or your favorite bridge-with-the-girls costume — hat, gloves, bag, and costume jewelry. Everything. Then have that roll of film developed and BLOWN UP. You can’t see much in a tiny snapshot. An eight-by-ten will show you the works — and you probably won’t be very happy with it. Sit down and take a long look at that strange woman. Is she today’s with-it person — elegant, poised, groomed, glowing with health? Or is she a plump copy of Miss 1950? Is she sleek, or bumpy in the wrong places? How is her posture? Does she look better from the front than from the back? Does she stand gracefully? […] Feet together or one slightly in front of the other, is the most graceful stance. […] I always pin my bad notices on my mirror. How about keeping those eight-by-ten candid shots around your dressing room for a while as you dress?

is well known, the article began, in nature, usually the males with the most prominent secondary sexual characteristics, such as the biggest antlers, deepest voices, broadest chests, and superior knowledge secure the best territories because they have fended off weaker males. The females choose to mate with these imposing alphas and are thereby inseminated with the best DNA around, which is passed on to the female’s offspring—one of the most powerful phenomena in the adaptation and continuance of life. Plus, the females get the best territory for their young. However, some stunted males, not strong, adorned, or smart enough to hold good territories, possess bags of tricks to fool the females. They parade their smaller forms around in pumped-up postures or shout frequently—even if in shrill voices. By relying on pretense and false signals, they manage to grab a copulation here or there. Pint-sized male bullfrogs, the author wrote, hunker down in the grass and hide near an alpha male who is croaking with great gusto to call in mates. When several females are attracted to his strong vocals at the same time, and the alpha is busy copulating with one, the weaker male leaps in and mates one of the others. The imposter males were referred to as “sneaky fuckers.

When he is sitting quiet, thinking about his sins, or is absent-minded or unapprehensive of danger, his majestic ears project above him conspicuously; but the breaking of a twig will scare him nearly to death, and then he tilts his ears back gently and starts for home. All you can see, then, for the next minute, is his long gray form stretched out straight and "streaking it" through the low sage-brush, head erect, eyes right, and ears just canted a little to the rear, but showing you where the animal is, all the time, the same as if he carried a jib. Now and then he makes a marvelous spring with his long legs, high over the stunted sage-brush, and scores a leap that would make a horse envious. Presently he comes down to a long, graceful "lope," and shortly he mysteriously disappears. He has crouched behind a sage-bush, and will sit there and listen and tremble until you get within six feet of him, when he will get under way again. But one must shoot at this creature once, if he wishes to see him throw his heart into his heels, and do the best he knows how. He is frightened clear through, now, and he lays his long ears down on his back, straightens himself out like a yard-stick every spring he makes, and scatters miles behind him with an easy indifference that is enchanting.

One article on reproductive strategies was titled "Sneaky Fuckers." Kya laughed. As is well known, the article began, in nature, usually the males with the most prominent secondary sexual characteristics, such as the biggest antlers, deepest voices, broadest chests, and superior knowledge secure the best territories because they have fended off weaker males. The females choose to mate with these imposing alphas and are thereby inseminated with the best DNA around, which is passed on to the female's offspring- one of the most powerful phenomena in the adaptation and continuance of life. Plus, the females get the best territory for their young. However, some stunted males, not strong, adorned, or smart enough to hold good territories, possess bags of tricks to fool the females. They parade their smaller forms around in pumped-up postures or shout frequently- even if in shrill voices. By relying on pretense and false signals, they manage to grab a copulation here or there. Pint-sized male bullfrogs, the author wrote, hunker down in the grass and hide near an alpha male who is croaking with great gusto to call in mates. When several females are attracted to his strong vocals at the same time, and the alpha is busy copulating with one, the weaker male leaps in and mates one of the others. The imposter males were referred to as "sneaky fuckers." Kya remembered, those many years ago, Ma warning her older sisters about young men who overrevved their rusted-out pickups or drove jalopies around with radios blaring. "Unworthy boys make a lot of noise," Ma had said. She read a consolation for females. Nature is audacious enough to ensure that the males who send out dishonest signals or go from one female to the next almost always end up alone. Another article delved into the wild rivalries between sperm. Across most life-forms, males compete to inseminate females. Male lions occasionally fight to the death; rival bull elephants lock tusks and demolish the ground beneath their feet as they tear at each other's flesh. Though very ritualized, the conflicts can still end in mutilations. To avoid such injuries, inseminators of some species compete in less violent, more creative methods. Insects, the most imaginative. The penis of the male damselfly is equipped with a small scoop, which removes sperm ejected by a previous opponent before he supplies his own. Kya dropped the journal on her lap, her mind drifting with the clouds. Some female insects eat their mates, overstressed mammal mothers abandon their young, many males design risky or shifty ways to outsperm their competitors. Nothing seemed too indecorous as long as the tick and the tock of life carried on. She knew this was not a dark side to Nature, just inventive ways to endure against all odds. Surely for humans there was more.

Any relationship beyond acquaintanceship is composed of one to three qualities: passion, intimacy, and commitment. Simple friendship has one: intimacy. You can have other friends and you do not feel passionately about one another, or we are dealing with another animal. Most romantic relationships begin with a dollop of passion, often to the exclusion of anything else. The person in your arms is the best in the world, though you barely know him or her. You have never felt this way. Any gaps or deficits are temporarily puttied over by passion. When most people envision romantic love, this is where they stop. Romantic comedies but only rarely deal with washing your lover's dishes because they must be up early for work. No one wants to see the mundane when they can flip the channel to a desperate, emotionally-stunted frottage. The passion of infatuation triggers the release of addictive chemicals. We would rather get another hit than cope with the relative dullness of intimacy and commitment.

This is why people are so disappointed with the present. We talk so much about how wonderful tomorrow's going to be that even if it's great, it can't help but be a letdown. Tomorrow is like a summer blockbuster for which the studio starts showing trailers the previous November. By the time it comes to your complex, you feel like you've already seen it. All the best lines and biggest explosions. The most provocative coming-out-of-the-water bikini shot. You will already have seen the making-of-the-feature and heard the actors on the press junket talking about what a privilege it was to work with so-and-so and how they all did their own stunts. So because you feel like you've already seen it, by the time it comes, you have no desire to fork over $15 and actually sit through it in a theater. What's happened is that you've already experienced something which hasn't happened yet. In fact, when you think of it, the only reason to go to the movies isn't to see the feature but to get a taste of the future, to see the trailer for the NEXT big blockbuster and to experience THAT before it happens. And this phenomenon isn't limited to the movies, it is the we live today. And it is why I encourage you to ignore the hype of what's to come, and to get some popcorn and gummy bears during the previews, and to thoroughly enjoy the feature. In real time. Not in the black hole of expectation.

Filming was done outside San Antonio, Texas. The scale of the production was vast and complex. Whole battlefields were scrupulously re-created on the plains of Texas. Wellman deployed as many as five thousand extras and sixty airplanes in some scenes—an enormous logistical exercise. The army sent its best aviators from Selfridge Field in Michigan—the very men with whom Lindbergh had just flown to Ottawa—and stunt fliers were used for the more dangerous scenes. Wellman asked a lot of his airmen. One pilot was killed, another broke his neck, and several more sustained other serious injuries. Wellman did some of the more dangerous stunt flying himself. All this gave the movie’s aerial scenes a realism and immediacy that many found almost literally breathtaking. Wellman captured features of flight that had never been caught on film before—the shadows of planes moving across the earth, the sensation of flying through drifting smoke, the stately fall of bombs, and the destructive puffs of impact that follow. Even the land-bound scenes were filmed with a thoughtfulness and originality that set Wings apart. To bring the viewer into a Parisian nightclub, Wellman used a boom shot in which the camera traveled through the room just above table height, skimming over drinks and between revelers, before arriving at the table of Arlen and Rogers. It is an entrancing shot even now, but it was rivetingly novel in 1927. “Wings,” wrote Penelope Gilliatt simply in The New Yorker in 1971, “is truly beautiful.” Wings was selected as best picture at the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. Wellman, however, wasn’t even invited to the ceremony.

The Christian life requires a form adequate to its content, a form that is at home in the Christian revelation and that respects each person's dignity and freedom with plenty of room for all our quirks and particularities. Story provides that form. The biblical story invites us in as participants in something larger than our sin-defined needs, into something truer than our culture-stunted ambitions. We enter these stories and recognize ourselves as participants, whether willing or unwilling, in the life of God. Unfortunately, we live in an age in which story has been pushed from its biblical frontline prominence to a bench on the sidelines and then condescended to as "illustration" or "testimony" or "inspiration." Our contemporary unbiblical preference, both inside and outside the church, is for information over story. We typically gather impersonal (pretentiously called "scientific" or "theological") information, whether doctrinal or philosophical or historical, in order to take things into our own hands and take charge of how we will live our lives. And we commonly consult outside experts to interpret the information for us. But we don't live our lives by information; we live them in relationships in the context of a personal God who cannot be reduced to formula or definition, who has designs on us for justice and salvation. And we live them in an extensive community of men and women, each person an intricate bundle of experience and motive and desire. Picking a text for living that is characterized by information-gathering and consultation with experts leaves out nearly everything that is uniquely us - our personal histories and relationships, our sins and guilt, our moral character and believing obedience to God. Telling and listening to a story is the primary verbal way of accounting for life the way we live it in actual day-by-day reality. There are no (or few) abstractions in a story. A story is immediate, concrete, plotted, relational, personal. And so when we lose touch with our lives, with our souls - our moral, spiritual, embodied God-personal lives - story is the best verbal way of getting us back in touch again. And that is why God's word is given for the most part in the form of story, this vast, overarching, all-encompassing story, this meta-story.

In an ideal world, a young man should not be an ironical person. At that age, irony prevents growth, stunts the imagination. It is best to start life in a cheerful and open state of mind, believing in others, being optimistic, being frank with everyone about everything. And then, as one comes to understand things and people better, to develop a sense of irony. The natural progression of human life is from optimism to pessimism; and a sense of irony helps temper pessimism, helps produce balance, harmony. But this was not an ideal world, and so irony grew in sudden and strange ways. Overnight, like a mushroom; disastrously, like a cancer. — Sarcasm was dangerous to its user, identifiable as the language of the wrecker and the saboteur. But irony—perhaps, sometimes, so he hoped—might enable you to preserve what you valued, even as the noise of time became loud enough to knock out windowpanes. What did he value? Music, his family, love. Love, his family, music. The order of importance was liable to change. Could irony protect his music? In so far as music remained a secret language which allowed you to smuggle things past the wrong ears. But it could not exist only as a code: sometimes you ached to say things straightforwardly. Could irony protect his children? Maxim, at school, aged ten, had been obliged publicly to vilify his father in the course of a music exam. In such circumstances, what use was irony to Galya and Maxim? As for love—not his own awkward, stumbling, blurting, annoying expressions of it, but love in general: he had always believed that love, as a force of nature, was indestructible; and that, when threatened, it could be protected, blanketed, swaddled in irony. Now he was less convinced. Tyranny had become so expert at destroying that why should it not destroy love as well, intentionally or not? Tyranny demanded that you love the Party, the State, the Great Leader and Helmsman, the People. But individual love—bourgeois and particularist—distracted from such grand, noble, meaningless, unthinking “loves.” And in these times, people were always in danger of becoming less than fully themselves. If you terrorised them enough, they became something else, something diminished and reduced: mere techniques for survival. And so, it was not just an anxiety, but often a brute fear that he experienced: the fear that love’s last days had come.

This was a media beat-up at its very worst. All those officials reacting to what the media labeled “The Baby Bob Incident” failed to understand the Irwin family. This is what we did--teach our children about wildlife, from a very early age. It wasn’t unnatural and it wasn’t a stunt. It was, on the contrary, an old and valued family tradition, and one that I embraced wholeheartedly. It was who we were. To have the press fasten on the practice as irresponsible made us feel that our very ability as parents was being attacked. It didn’t make any sense. This is why Steve never publicly apologized. For him to say “I’m sorry” would mean that he was sorry that Bob and Lyn raised him the way they did, and that was simply impossible. The best he could do was to sincerely apologize if he had worried anyone. The reality was that he would have been remiss as a parent if he didn’t teach his kids how to coexist with wildlife. After all, his kids didn’t just have busy roads and hot stoves to contend with. They literally had to learn how to live with crocodiles and venomous snakes in their backyard. Through it all, the plight of the Tibetan nuns was completely and totally ignored. The world media had not a word to spare about a dry well that hundreds of people depended on. For months, any time Steve encountered the press, Tibetan nuns were about the furthest thing from the reporter’s mind. The questions would always be the same: “Hey, Stevo, what about the Baby Bob Incident?” “If I could relive Friday, mate, I’d go surfing,” Steve said on a hugely publicized national television appearance in the United States. “I can’t go back to Friday, but you know what, mate? Don’t think for one second I would ever endanger my children, mate, because they’re the most important thing in my life, just like I was with my mum and dad.” Steve and I struggled to get back to a point where we felt normal again. Sponsors spoke about terminating contracts. Members of our own documentary crew sought to distance themselves from us, and our relationship with Discovery was on shaky ground. But gradually we were able to tune out the static and hear what people were saying. Not the press, but the people. We read the e-mails that had been pouring in, as well as faxes, letters, and phone messages. Real people helped to get us back on track. Their kids were growing up with them on cattle ranches and could already drive tractors, or lived on horse farms and helped handle skittish stallions. Other children were learning to be gymnasts, a sport which was physically rigorous and held out the chance of injury. The parents had sent us messages of support. “Don’t feel bad, Steve,” wrote one eleven-year-old from Sydney. “It’s not the wildlife that’s dangerous.” A mother wrote us, “I have a new little baby, and if you want to take him in on the croc show it is okay with me.” So many parents employed the same phrase: “I’d trust my kids with Steve any day.

You seemed to be taking an excessive amount of time so I thought I’d come to make certain you two weren’t arguing.” He motioned forward. “So—did you make amends?” Nathaniel stood motionless, mouth agape, producing only small, stunted grunts as he struggled to find the best way to describe the bloody mess. Thomas’s timbre dropped. “What did you do?” “Me?” “Of course, you must have done something or you wouldn’t be standing there like a bumbling fool.” He looked around again. “Where is she?” Thomas’s incriminating tone flicked away the last remaining thread of Nathaniel’s good humor. He brushed past Thomas and stomped toward the door. “The same place I’m going. Home.” “She went to your home?” The shock in Thomas’s voice would have been amusing if Nathaniel had been in the mood. “No,” he said, whirling around. “She went to your home, and I’m going to mine.

I suppose I could have used the same amount of mental effort in some commercial activity and made money. I work like the devil thinking up wisecracks, games, stunts, and how to drink a lot without getting too awfully drunk. If you’ve never tried it, eating a lot of butter before the drinking starts is a swell stunt.” “I have a recipe which beats that,” Mason said. “You have?” “Yes.” “Be a good sport and give it to me. That butter stunt is the best I’ve ever found.” Mason said, “Mine is more simple. I don’t drink much after the drinking starts.

That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in his youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as force the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but knows passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself. Such a one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education, for he is in harmony with nature. He will make the best of her and she of him.

Steldor lay on the bed, chest to the mattress, medicine-soaked bandages covering his shirtless back. The wrappings, though fresh from his best friend’s last visit, were dappled crimson and yellow from his body’s efforts to cleanse the wounds, and I could see shadows of long lines of stitches crossing his skin. “Steldor, Shaselle is here,” Galen said. My cousin lifted his head to squint at me. “Where did you come from?” “Outside,” I answered dryly, recognizing on its second asking just how inane the question was. Steldor was not amused. “I’ll leave you two alone,” Galen said, backing out of the room. When the door clicked shut, Steldor propped himself up on his elbows, wincing with the movement. “I wanted to see you,” I told him. “Could have guessed, since you’re here. Well, what have you been doing?” I considered his inquiry, scratching the back of my head. “I got attacked by a butcher.” The incident was still on my mind, not one easily dismissed, and part of me wanted his reaction. “A butcher?” he repeated, concerned. His eyes roved over me and he pronounced, “You appear to have survived.” “The same can be said of you.” “Thus far, anyway,” he responded with a self-deprecating chuckle. “You don’t have to tell me how smart that flag stunt was. My father has covered that.” I quickly countered his sarcasm. “I thought it was brave.” “The captain thought it was daft. And, in the aftermath, I’m tempted to agree with him.” Steldor motioned vaguely to his injured back and I drew nearer, half out of morbid curiosity, half to prove that I wasn’t afraid to look. For the first time, I noticed his damp hair and the sheen of sweat across his brow--he was fevered, and no doubt miserable.

Having fallen prey to the intellectualism of modernity, both Christian worship and Christian pedagogy have underestimated the importance of this body/story nexus—this inextricable link between imagination, narrative, and embodiment—thereby forgetting the ancient Christian sacramental wisdom carried in the historic practices of Christian worship and the embodied legacies of spiritual and monastic disciplines. Failing to appreciate this, we have neglected formational resources that are indigenous to the Christian tradition, as it were; as a result, we have too often pursued flawed models of discipleship and Christian formation that have focused on convincing the intellect rather than recruiting the imagination. Moreover, because of this neglect and our stunted anthropology, we have failed to recognize the degree and extent to which secular liturgies do implicitly capitalize on our embodied penchant for storied formation. This becomes a way to account for Christian assimilation to consumerism, nationalism, and various stripes of egoisms. These isms have had all the best embodied stories. The devil has had all the best liturgies.

Steldor, maybe you could try to deter your father, you know, from making arrangements for me so soon. Would another year or two really matter?” He responded with a dry laugh. “Deter my father? Shaselle, trying to deter my father once he’s made up his mind is like yelling whoa at a stampede of wild horses.” “Doesn’t stop you,” I muttered, crossing my arms with a huff. Again that cynical chuckle. “I assure you, it does.” “No, it doesn’t.” I pushed off the rough stone to stare at him. Annoyance came to me ever more quickly these days, and now the disagreeable temperament my mother and older sister condemned was emerging. I pointed back up the road. “Explain that scarecrow to me, if you’re so obedient! I know your father was upset with you after you posted your rules, but you went ahead anyway, without his blessing.” Steldor clamped a hand over my mouth, the other holding the back of my neck, then he leaned close to hiss, “I’d prefer if my involvement in both of those incidents remained undisclosed.” My cheeks burned, and I pushed his hands away. “Sorry. That was stupid. But isn’t there anything you can do? You have the captain’s ear.” “What I have is his attention,” he corrected, having accepted my apology and brushed aside our tense exchange. “Not intentionally, mind you, but I’ll be keeping it over the next few weeks. He’ll probably be distracted from you anyway.” “You’re planning another stunt?” He winked. “Would you expect anything less of Galen and me?” “Can I help you?” The up-and-down nature of our conversation persisted, and he shook his head vehemently. “This is dangerous, what we’ve been doing. We laugh, but these aren’t games. If we’re caught, we’ll be arrested. There’s a reason my father disapproves, in spite of his own ambitions.” He let his rebuff hang in the hot air while I again felt color rising in my cheeks. “Just go home, Shaselle. Put on a dress. Be a lady, and stay out of trouble. Understand?” “I hate them, too, you know,” I said, his dismissal and the humiliation that came with it rankling me. “It’s not just your homeland that the Cokyrians have sullied--it’s my homeland, too. And those bastards killed my father.” “And bitches,” he added, catching me off guard. “Wouldn’t want to forget the women.” I didn’t know how to respond, so I gaped at him foolishly until he stepped onto the cobblestone of the thoroughfare. “Come on. Let me take you home.” We walked in silence back to the western residential area where I lived, though he stopped at the beginning of my street to let me traverse the rest of the distance by myself. “I shouldn’t be seen around here. Not where Galen’s assigned--the Cokyrians are trying to keep us apart to avoid plots big and small, and will be suspicious if we’re seen in the same area.” I nodded and turned to go, but he grabbed my arm. “I know how you feel, Shaselle. I know you want to do something, and it’s not even that I don’t think you could. I just can’t let you be involved, for the sake of your safety. And mine,” he added as an afterthought. “My father would kill me if I let you help and you came to harm. Just please, let this go, and I swear I’ll do my best to influence him on your marriage issue.” Now that I was thinking rationally, offering my assistance had been absurd--I had no special skills aside from horseback riding, and certainly no military training , so accepting Steldor’s offered compromise was not difficult.

If you make disciples, you always get the church. But if you make a church, you rarely get disciples. A gifted discipler is someone who invites people into a covenantal relationship with him or her, but challenges that person to live into his or her true identity in very direct yet graceful ways. Without both dynamics working together, you will not see people grow into the people God has created them to be. Challenge may be given from the pulpit or stage on Sunday mornings, but challenge is always given best in the context of personal relationships. No one accidentally creates disciples. Discipleship is an intentional pursuit. In life, when we want to learn how to do something, we find someone with real flesh and blood and have that person teach us how to do what they do. The truth of Scripture is meant to be worked out in us, not something that we hold as an abstract reality. If there’s anything any of us should become great at, it’s making disciples who can make disciples. Every disciple disciples. You can’t be a disciple if you aren’t willing to invest in and disciple others. That’s simply the call of the Great Commission. From the beginning, members know that one day they will start a group of their own. Leaders tell members from the beginning that the expectation is that in 6-12 months they will start one of their own. People often become stunted in their spiritual development if they assume it is only affecting them (though this is never really the case), but knowing that other people are depending on them changes the game in their minds and makes them take their own spiritual development more seriously. When the bar is raised, people either bow out or step up. Most of the time people step up. It is our experience that people want to grow but are unable to will themselves to transformation. They need relationships and structures that keep them accountable and moving toward Jesus. They also know the only way this can happen is with high commitment.

If and when I found him and he hadn’t got his danger fix, he’d be way more than just disgruntled. More like royally ticked off. Not the best time to share my recent revelation. One that shocked the heck out of me. One I wasn’t sure how to phrase. “Jake, you’re the love of my life.” Ugh. “You complete me.” Too Jerry Maguire. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” Gawd, no. I felt my lip curl as I pictured him fixing his intense blue eyes on mine, waiting for me to explain. As if I could. This sudden about-face didn’t even make sense to me. I just wanted him, dammit, even with his insane stunts, like hang glider tag.

The beaches in Dubai are well-known for their cleanliness and tranquility. While many individuals enjoy a relaxing weekend at the beach, thrill-seekers prefer to participate in thrilling water sports. Jet skiing is one of Dubai's most popular water activities, and adventure seekers love to try it. Do you want to know what the most extraordinary Dubai marine adventures are? What is the best method to see this magnificent city? There is plenty to do in this city-state of the UAE, and we have several fun aquatic activities for you to enjoy while on vacation or to live in the Emirates! How about a Jet Ski Ride along the Dubai waterfront? It can be done with your family, as a couple, with friends, or by yourself. We jet ski around all of Dubai's most famous attractions, skyscrapers, and landmarks. All of our Jet Ski trips include a stop at the luxury Burj Al Arab hotel, which is constructed into the sea, where you can have fun and receive a photo souvenir of Dubai. Jet skiing in Dubai is unquestionably the most acceptable way to see the city and have a good time during your vacation. Dubai Yacht Rental Experience When it comes to a luxury Boat Party in Dubai for those who can afford it, the pleasure and adventure that Yachts can provide cannot be overstated. Yachting is, without a doubt, the most beautiful sport on the planet. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to splash around in the ocean's deep blue waves and lose yourself in an environment that is both soothing and calming to the soul. The sensation you get from a yacht requires a whole new set of words to explain it. It's a fantastic experience that transports people to another zone while also altering their mental state. People who have the advantage of owning private yachts go sailing to have a relaxing excursion and clear their minds whenever they feel the need. Those who cannot afford to purchase a yacht can enjoy the thrill of cruising from one coastal region to the other by renting an economical Dubai yacht. It is not a challenging task to learn to sail. Some people believe that yachting can only be done by experts, which is a ridiculous misconception. Anyone willing to acquire a few tactics and hints can master the art of yachting. READ MORE About Dubai Jet Ski: Get lost in the tranquility of blue waters while waiting to partake in action. With the instructor sitting right behind you, you’ll learn astonishing stunts and skills for riding a Jet ski. This adventure will take your excitement to a new level of adventure in the open sea. While sailing past the picturesque shorelines of the islands, take in stunning views of prominent Dubai monuments such as the Burj Al Arab and more. About the activity: Jumeirah Beach is the meeting site for this activity. You have the option of riding for 30 minutes or 60 minutes Jet Ski around the beaches while being accompanied at all times by an instructor, as your safety is our top priority. Begin your journey from the marina and proceed to the world-famous Burj-Al-Arab, a world well known hotel, for a photo shoot. where you may take as many pictures as you want

instrumental in starting (and later rejecting) “stunt” journalism. She showed that a woman reporter need not be confined to the “women’s pages” of a newspaper, but rather deserved headlines all her own. She was the inspiration for countless women to enter the field. She was also the basis for the comic book character Lois Lane. The real Lois Lane, however, never needed a Superman. Today she is best remembered for the stunts, beginning with her ten days undercover as a “bogus lunatic” to expose the inhumane conditions

I have always noticed that any kind of pressure narrows my awareness and stunts my curiosity, because once I apply my nose to the grindstone I find it difficult to stick it up in the air again to smell the flowers. Of course a degree of obsession often produces the best work; but it does not produce the best life.

Many a boy languishes in school because he finds no arrow there. Things are staid, routine. Perhaps there are arrows to pick up now and again, if you are the sort of boy who will look for them and not be too discouraged, and if the arrows available are fit for the kind of shooting you want to do. But the failure of boys in school—not this boy or that boy, but boys by the millions, despite the fact, attested by empirical investigation and the evidence of history, that they are at least the equals of their sisters in intelligence—suggests that the schools are quite simply bad for them. They stunt their growth. Intellectually and practically, the boys are like pale and spindly plants that have been kept indoors all the days of their lives. And yet, obviously, we need these boys; it is criminally negligent to deny it. Consider how many young black men, in particular, are languishing, because their schools are—at their best—no great shakes, and because they lack the fathers in the home who would train them up in skill and strength. Everywhere you turn your eye in the United States, you will find ugliness, disrepair, vandalism, buildings left to rot—and unemployed or underemployed young men, disheartened, not worth marrying, and ready to cause trouble, since they can cause so little else.

Chapter One Outside Buchanan School. 7:50 AM. Stupid ideas don’t seem so stupid when you’re about to go through with the stupid idea. Really stupid ideas shine brighter the second they enter your brain. Like, “Hey, man, you prob’ly shouldn’t do what you’re about to do!” I like to think of a field of kittens when that happens… makes it easier to ignore my common sense. Ahhhhh… field kittens. My name is Max… and I was about to do something really stupid. The air smelled of freshly cut grass as birds chirped from trees full of leaves. I took a deep breath as I stalled, hoping a meteor would crash into the planet so I wouldn’t have to go through with the thing. Kids just getting to school lined the sidewalk, curious about what was happening. I squeezed the handlebars of my bike, listening to the sound of tightening rubber under my fingers. “Max, you okay?” Beck, my best friend, said from somewhere. I didn’t know where exactly since fear was making everything blurry. I shook my head to clear the fog. “Never been better,” I said. “Are… are the thrusters working?” It took him a second to answer. “I’unno. I never tested ‘em.” I nodded bravely like a hero who was about to meet his maker. “Nice.” It became blazingly obvious that the world wasn’t going to end anytime over the next few seconds, which meant I was gonna have to perform the stunt that everyone was waiting to see. The stunt wasn’t anything crazy – just a kid jumping his bike over the bike rack filled with other bikes. In front of the bike rack was a cement lip that curved at the bottom, making a nice little ramp that everyone joked about jumping their bike off of. I was about to be the kid that did it. Easy enough, right? Well, my buddy, Beck, thought it’d be epic if I attached some thrusters to the back of my bike. No rocket fuel or flames – just a couple of cans of ultra-compressed air that would fire when I flipped the switch. It was a rig he built himself – that was kind of Beck’s specialty. Jumping the rack was a stunt that I’d been working on for weeks. I knew I wanted to do it because of all the kids who hadn’t done it before. And I was gonna nail it, and the whole school – no, the whole school district – no… the whole city was gonna talk about it when it was done.

the KLF were a bunch of conceptual pop tricksters who won the hearts of their home country with stunts like recording country singer Tammy Wynette in a rap context. Performing at the prestigious BRIT awards, Extreme Noise Terror blasted the KLF hit “3 a.m. Eternal” into oblivion while the KLF sprayed the audience with machine guns preloaded with blanks. When the KLF were awarded “Best British Group” honors later that night,

14 – Would anyone like to have a little look down into the secret of how ideals are fabricated on this earth? Who has enough pluck? . . . Come on! Here we have a clear glimpse into this dark workshop. Just wait one moment, Mr Nosy Daredevil: your eyes will have to become used to this false, shimmering light . . . There! That’s enough! Now you can speak! What’s happening down there? Tell me what you see, you with your most dangerous curiosity – now I am the one who’s listening. – – ‘I cannot see anything but I can hear all the better. There is a guarded, malicious little rumour-mongering and whispering from every nook and cranny. I think people are telling lies; a sugary mildness clings to every sound. Lies are turning weakness into an accomplishment, no doubt about it – it’s just as you said.’ – – Go on! – ‘and impotence which doesn’t retaliate is being turned into “good- ness”; timid baseness is being turned into “humility”; submission to people one hates is being turned into “obedience” (actually towards someone who, they say, orders this submission – they call him God). The 27 On the Genealogy of Morality inoffensiveness of the weakling, the very cowardice with which he is richly endowed, his standing-by-the-door, his inevitable position of having to wait, are all given good names such as “patience”, also known as the virtue; not-being-able-to-take-revenge is called not-wanting-to-take-revenge, it might even be forgiveness (“for they know not what they do – but we know what they are doing!”).33 They are also talking about “loving your enemies” – and sweating while they do it.’ – Go on! – ‘They are miserable, without a doubt, all these rumour-mongers and clandestine forgers, even if they do crouch close together for warmth – but they tell me that their misery means they are God’s chosen and select, after all, people beat the dogs they love best; perhaps this misery is just a preparation, a test, a training, it might be even more than that – some- thing that will one day be balanced up and paid back with enormous inter- est in gold, no! in happiness. They call that “bliss”.’ – Go on! – ‘They are now informing me that not only are they better than the powerful, the masters of the world whose spittle they have to lick (not from fear, not at all from fear! but because God orders them to honour those in authority)34 – not only are they better, but they have a “better time”, or at least will have a better time one day. But enough! enough! I can’t bear it any longer. Bad air! Bad air! This workshop where ideals are fabricated – it seems to me just to stink of lies.’ – No! Wait a moment! You haven’t said anything yet about the master- pieces of those black magicians who can turn anything black into white- ness, milk and innocence: – haven’t you noticed their perfect raffinement, their boldest, subtlest, most ingenious and mendacious stunt? Pay atten- tion! These cellar rats full of revenge and hatred – what do they turn revenge and hatred into? Have you ever heard these words? Would you suspect, if you just went by what they said, that the men around you were nothing but men of ressentiment? . . .

Did I say we weren’t a good match? What I meant to say was that we were the best match. We had to be, didn’t we? Because who else would want a couple of emotionally-stunted weirdos like us?

Fill-In-the-Blank Headlines with Examples They Didn't Think I Could ________, but I Did. This headline works well for many reasons, including our natural tendency to root for the underdog. We're fascinated with stories of people who overcome great obstacles and others' ridicule to achieve success. When this headline refers to something you have thought about doing, but talked yourself out of, you'll want to know if the successful person shared your doubt or fear or handicap. Examples: They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano — but Not When I Started to Play! They Grinned When the Waiter Spoke to Me in French — but Their Laughter Changed to Amazement at My Reply! Who Else Wants ________? I like this type of headline because of its strong implication that a lot of other people know something the reader doesn't. Examples: Who Else Wants a Hollywood Actress' Figure? Who Else Needs an Extra Hour Every Day? How ________ Made Me ________ This headline introduces a first-person story. People love stories and are remarkably interested in other people. This headline structure seems to work best with dramatic differences. Examples: How a “Fool Stunt” Made Me a Star Salesman. How a Simple Idea Made Me “Plant Manager of the Year.” How Relocating to Tennessee Saved Our Company $1 Million a Year Are You ________? The question headline is used to grab attention by challenging, provoking, or arousing curiosity. Examples: Are You Ashamed of the Smells in Your House? Are You Prepared for the Next Stock Market Crash? How I ________ Very much like How ________ Made Me ________, this headline introduces a first-person story. The strength of the benefit at the end, obviously, controls its success. Examples: How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling. How I Retired at Age 40 — With a Guaranteed Income for Life.

Motherhood is the last area in which the qualities we usually value - rationality, independent thinking, consulting our own best interests, planning for a better, more prosperous future, and dare I say it, pursuing happiness and dreams - are condemned as frivolity and selfishness. We certainly don't expect a man who impregnates a woman to drop everything and accept a life of difficulties and dimmed hopes in order to co-parent a baby. No college for you, young man - maybe you can pick up some courses later, when your child is in school. If a woman wants to put a baby up for adoption, we don't badger and humiliate the biological father into taking the child to keep it connected to its family of origin. We don't even legally require a man who impregnates a woman to support her financially through pregnancy and delivery, although lack of money is one reason women give for choosing abortion, and stress during pregnancy is a significant cause of miscarriage and premature delivery. As for child support, few single mothers can expect the father of their child to pay anything remotely like half the true costs of raising it to adulthood, even if he is financially able to do so. We don't like the idea that a man might be severely constrained for life by a single ejaculation. He has places to go and things to do. That a woman's life may be stunted by unwanted childbearing is not so troubling. Childbearing, after all, is what women are for.

Two of Ed Glaeser’s former students published a paper that argued antigrowth land-use policies had raised housing costs to the point that zoning rules were now stunting American migration and raising inequality by making it prohibitively expensive for people who didn’t have a high-paying job or family money to move to cities where the best-paying jobs were growing fastest.

The best first dates I've experienced were seeded by talking on the phone a day or two before meeting up. So much nuance is lost via texting and it never has the impact of a real conversation. Texting is a lazy way of communicating and stunts first dates that could otherwise have been in full throttle turbo mode from the start.