The Office Reference Quotes

For god’s sake, Simon, enough with The Office references,’ Maddy said. ‘He’s been doing that since middle school, before he even knew what it meant.

Lawson, also known by his call sign of Hiker, had been my best friend since our navy days. He now had the distinction of being the sheriff of Santa Rosaria. “Where the hell are you? It sounds like you’re far away.” “I’m on the top deck of a cruise ship in the Panama Canal.” “Swamp, I’m busy. I don’t have time for your jokes.” “Then why the hell did you call me?” “I’m calling because some hot shot lawyer called my office for a character reference on you.” “Why?” “I’ll ask you the same question. Why? Are you in some kind of trouble?” “Of course I’m not in any kind of trouble! What did you say to him?” “I told him you’re some kind of character.

HR?' 'Human Resources.' 'In Brussels that kind of department is referred to as the Office for Personkind Enablement. Resources sounds like something you dig out of the ground.

Which is why Mom, when she’s being indiscreet, refers to the trophy room as the “vet’s office.” Because that’s where Dad brings people to take their balls.

When I use the word rebel for the artist, I do not refer to revolutionary or to such things as taking over the dean’s office; that is a different matter. Artists are generally soft-spoken persons who are concerned with their inner visions and images. But that is precisely what makes them feared by any coercive society. For they are the bearers of the human being’s age-old capacity to be insurgent.

Henri Rousseau was a simple, poorly educated man with an air of innocent naïveté. The Montmartre crowd gave him the nickname “Le Douanier,” meaning “customs officer,” referring to his job as a tax collector.

You are merchants?’ ‘We are.’ ‘What name?’ said the officer. ‘Charls,’ said Damen, who was the only merchant he knew. ‘You are Charls the renowned Veretian cloth merchant?’ said the officer sceptically, as if this was a name well known to him. ‘No,’ said Laurent, as if this was the most foolish thing in the world. ‘I am Charls the renowned Veretian cloth merchant. This is my assistant. Lamen.’ In the silence, the officer tracked his gaze over Laurent, then over Damen. (...) ‘Well, Charls,’ he said, eventually. ‘It looks like you’ve got a broken axel.’ ‘I don’t suppose your men could aid us in our repairs?’ said Laurent. Damen stared at him. They were encircled by fifty mounted Akielon soldiers. Jokaste was inside that wagon. The officer said, ‘We’re patrolling for Damianos of Akielos.’ ‘Who’s Damianos of Akielos?’ said Laurent. His face was utterly open, his blue eyes unblinking, upturned to the officer on his horse. ‘He’s the King’s son,’ Damen heard himself saying, ‘Kastor’s brother.’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lamen. Prince Damianos is dead,’ said Laurent. ‘He is hardly the man to whom this officer is referring.’ Then, to the officer: ‘I apologise for my assistant. He doesn’t keep up with Akielon affairs.

Within the army, field officers despised Staff officers as “having the brains of canaries and the manners of Potsdam,” but both groups were as one in their distaste for interference by civilian ministers who were known as “the frocks.” The civil arm in its turn referred to the military as “the boneheads.

There are two social classes in Pakistan," Professor Superb said to his unsuspecting audience, gripping the podium with both hands as he spoke. "The first group, large and sweaty, contains those referred to as the masses. The second group is much smaller, but its members exercise vastly greater control over their immediate environment and are collectively termed the elite. The distinction between members of these two groups is made on the basis of control of an important resource:air-conditioning. You see, the elite have managed to re-create for themselves the living standards of say, Sweden without leaving the dusty plains of the subcontinent. They're a mixed lot - Punjabi and Pathans, Sindhis and Baluchis, smugglers , mullahs, soldiers, industrialists - united by their residence in an artificially cooled world. They wake up in air-conditioned houses, drive air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned offices, grab lunch in air-conditioned restaurants (rights of admission reserved), and at the end of the day go home to an air-conditioned lounges to relax in front of their wide-screen TVs. And if they should think about the rest of the people, the great uncooled, and become uneasy as they lie under their blankets in the middle of the summer, there is always prayer, five times a day, which they hope will gain them admittance to an air-conditioned heaven, or at the very least, a long, cool drink during a fiery day in hell.

The ones referred to obliquely and the ones discussed in frank detail. She’d give the police everything they needed to convict her husband. She would say, Here is one possible motive and here is another, because any marriage of that many years has multiple motives for murder. Every police officer and hairdresser knows that.

These happenings had occupied an incredibly short time, yet the youth felt that in them he had been made aged. New eyes were given to him. And the most startling thing was to learn suddenly that he was very insignificant. The officer spoke of the regiment as if he referred to a broom. Some part of the woods needed sweeping, perhaps, and he merely indicated a broom in a tone properly indifferent to its fate. It was war, no doubt, but it appeared strange.

And then there's the perverse joy of subtly working in references to marathon training in daily life, say at the post office or while waiting outside my first-graders' classrooms at the end of the school day.

Gooddy refers here to “personal” time, as contrasted with “clock” time, and the extent to which personal time departs from clock time may become almost unbridgeable with the extreme bradykinesia common in postencephalitic parkinsonism. I would often see my patient Miron V. sitting in the hallway outside my office. He would appear motionless, with his right arm often lifted, sometimes an inch or two above his knee, sometimes near his face. When I questioned him about these frozen poses, he asked indignantly, “What do you mean, ‘frozen poses’? I was just wiping my nose.

We often hear the Church referred to as a democracy, when in reality, instead of being a church where the body is governed by officers elected by the members, the Church is a theocracy, where God directs his church through representatives chosen by him.

Washington, like most scholarly Virginians of his time, was a Deist... Contemporary evidence shows that in mature life Washington was a Deist, and did not commune, which is quite consistent with his being a vestryman. In England, where vestries have secular functions, it is not unusual for Unitarians to vestrymen, there being no doctrinal subscription required for that office. Washington's letters during the Revolution occasionally indicate his recognition of the hand of Providence in notable public events, but in the thousands of his letters I have never been able to find the name of Christ or any reference to him. {Conway was employed to edit Washington's letters}

The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation. To depart from mere generalizations, let me say that at the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller–Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as the international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, use the leading men of private organizations, and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as will be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business.

Both at the CIA and the White House, almost everyone involved in the closely held planning knew what was likely: The tribal agents would say that they were going to try to take bin Laden captive, but in fact they would launch what CIA officers referred to as “the Afghan ambush,” in which you “open up with everything you have, shoot everybody that’s out there, and then let God sort ’em out,” as Gary Schroen put it. Schroen figured that the agents would return to them and say, “We killed the big guy. I’m sorry.

One example was the assertion that a seven-year FBI study revealed no evidence of organized cult or ritual activity in the United States. In reality there is no such study. The day following the ABC program, my office contacted the FBI and requested a copy of the alleged study. The bureau responded in writing indicating that no such study existed. [referring to the Lanning report - Lanning, K. V. (1992) Investigator's guide to allegations of "ritual" child abuse. Quantico, VA: National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.]

Live long, and prosper.

Nehru brought in a socialist vision. He brought in huge dams and public sector heavy industries. The intermediate beneficiaries were these new factory owners who were hand in glove with corrupt officers and maneuvered tenders in their favour. That’s why lots of movies have a reference to some government officer's visit for inspection and how the factory owner would treat him with goodies, women, and wine.

One other thing,” Commissioner Lewis said. The detectives sank back in their seats. “I have heard officers in this command referring to the killer as the ‘Tooth Fairy.’ I don’t care what you call him among yourselves, I realize you have to call him something. But I had better not hear any police officer refer to him as the Tooth Fairy in public. It sounds flippant. Neither will you use that name on any internal memoranda.

I'm done doing this!' Obama said, finally erupting. 'We've all agreed on a plan. And we're all going to stick to that plan. I haven't agreed to anything beyond that.' The 30,000 was a 'hard cap,' he said forcefully. 'I don't want enablers to be used as wiggle room. The easy thing for me to do - politically - would actually be to say no' to the 30,000. Then he gestured out the Oval Office windows, across the Potomac, in the direction of the Pentagon. Referring to Gates and the uniformed military, he said. 'They think it's the opposite. I'd be perfectly happy -' He stopped mid-sentence. 'Nothing would make Rahm happier than if I said no to the 30,000.' There was some subdued laughter. 'Rahm would tell me it'd be much easier to do what I want to do by saying no,' the president said. He could then focus on the domestic agenda that he wanted to be the heart of his presidency. The military did not understand. 'Politically, what these guys don't get is it'd be a lot easier for me to go out and give a speech saying, 'You know what? The American people are sick of this war, and we're going to get out of there.

One-Fifteen I’m often asked why Starr never refers to the police officer who shot Khalil by his name, only by his badge number. Since her father has always instilled in her that names have power, it’s hard for Starr to give the officer any sort of power by referring to him by his given name. By using his badge number, it’s her way of refusing to humanize him—because in her mind, what he did to her and Khalil in that moment was anything but humane.

In contemporary industrialized democracies, the legitimate administration of violence is turned over to what is euphemistically referred to as “criminal law enforcement”—particularly, to police officers. I say “euphemistically” because generations of police sociologists have pointed out that only a very small proportion of what police actually do has anything to do with enforcing criminal law—or with criminal matters of any kind. Most of it has to do with regulations, or, to put it slightly more technically, with the scientific application of physical force, or the threat of physical force, to aid in the resolution of administrative problems.62 In other words they spend most of their time enforcing all those endless rules and regulations about who can buy or smoke or sell or build or eat or drink what where that don’t exist in places like small-town or rural Madagascar. So: Police are bureaucrats with weapons.

Mr. Grey.” I nod at him. Moving with lithe athletic grace to the door, he opens it wide. “Just ensuring you make it through the door, Miss Steele.” He gives me a small smile. Obviously, he’s referring to my earlier less-than-elegant entry into his office. I blush.

She was Joy’s confidante and confessor, as bound by secrecy as a priest or lawyer, but if Joy missed her next appointment, Narelle would go to the police and hand over thirty years of secrets. She’d tell them about the betrayals. The ones referred to obliquely and the ones discussed in frank detail. She’d give the police everything they needed to convict her husband. She would say, Here is one possible motive and here is another, because any marriage of that many years has multiple motives for murder. Every police officer and hairdresser knows that.

Let us suppose you give your three-year-old daughter a coloring book and a box of crayons for her birthday. The following day, with the proud smile only a little once can muster, she presents her first pictures for inspection. She has colored the sun black, the grass purple, and the sky green. In the lower right-hand corner, she has added woozy wonders of floating slabs and hovering rings; on the left, a panoply of colorful, carefree squiggles. You marvel at her bold strokes and intuit that her psyche is railing against its own cosmic puniness in the face of a big, ugly world. Later at the office, you share with your staff your daughter's first artistic effort and you make veiled references to the early work of van Gogh. A little child can not do a bad coloring; nor can a child of God do bad prayer. "A father is delighted when his little one, leaving off her toys and friends, runs to him and climbs into his arms. As he holds hi little one close to him, he cared little whether the child is looking around, her attention flittering from one thing to another or just settling down to sleep. Essentially the child is choosing to be with the father, confident of the love, the care, the security that is hers in those arms. Our prayer is much like that. We settle down in our Father's arms, in his loving hands. Our minds, our thoughts, our imagination may flit about here and there; we might even fall asleep; but essentially we are choosing for this time to remain intimately with our Father, giving ourselves to him, receiving his love and care, letting him enjoy us as he will. It is very simple prayer. It is very childlike prayer. It is prayer that opens us out to all the delights of the kingdom.

I had ceased to be a writer of tolerably poor tales and essays, and had become a tolerably good Surveyor of the Customs. That was all. But, nevertheless, it is any thing but agreeable to be haunted by a suspicion that one's intellect is dwindling away; or exhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of a phial; so that, at every glance, you find a smaller and less volatile residuum. Of the fact, there could be no doubt; and, examining myself and others, I was led to conclusions in reference to the effect of public office on the character, not very favorable to the mode of life in question. In some other form, perhaps, I may hereafter develop these effects. Suffice it here to say, that a Custom-House officer, of long continuance, can hardly be a very praiseworthy or respectable personage, for many reasons; one of them, the tenure by which he holds his situation, and another, the very nature of his business, which—though, I trust, an honest one—is of such a sort that he does not share in the united effort of mankind. An effect—which I believe to be observable, more or less, in every individual who has occupied the position—is, that, while he leans on the mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper strength departs from him. He loses, in an extent proportioned to the weakness or force of his original nature, the capability of self-support. If he possess an unusual share of native energy, or the enervating magic of place do not operate too long upon him, his forfeited powers may be redeemable. The ejected officer—fortunate in the unkindly shove that sends him forth betimes, to struggle amid a struggling world—may return to himself, and become all that he has ever been. But this seldom happens. He usually keeps his ground just long enough for his own ruin, and is then thrust out, with sinews all unstrung, to totter along the difficult footpath of life as he best may. Conscious of his own infirmity,—that his tempered steel and elasticity are lost,—he for ever afterwards looks wistfully about him in quest of support external to himself. His pervading and continual hope—a hallucination, which, in the face of all discouragement, and making light of impossibilities, haunts him while he lives, and, I fancy, like the convulsive throes of the cholera, torments him for a brief space after death—is, that, finally, and in no long time, by some happy coincidence of circumstances, he shall be restored to office. This faith, more than any thing else, steals the pith and availability out of whatever enterprise he may dream of undertaking. Why should he toil and moil, and be at so much trouble to pick himself up out of the mud, when, in a little while hence, the strong arm of his Uncle will raise and support him? Why should he work for his living here, or go to dig gold in California, when he is so soon to be made happy, at monthly intervals, with a little pile of glittering coin out of his Uncle's pocket? It is sadly curious to observe how slight a taste of office suffices to infect a poor fellow with this singular disease. Uncle Sam's gold—meaning no disrespect to the worthy old gentleman—has, in this respect, a quality of enchantment like that of the Devil's wages. Whoever touches it should look well to himself, or he may find the bargain to go hard against him, involving, if not his soul, yet many of its better attributes; its sturdy force, its courage and constancy, its truth, its self-reliance, and all that gives the emphasis to manly character.

It’s crucial to understand that ordinarily the FBI applies for a wiretap separately from the National Security Agency. The NSA had tapped my phones for years, going back to the 1993 World Trade Center attack. But those wire taps would not automatically get shared with the FBI, unless the Intelligence Community referred my activities for a criminal investigation. The FBI took no such action. Instead—by coincidence I’m sure, the FBI started its phone taps exactly when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee planned a series of hearings on Iraq in late July, 2002.212 That timing suggests the FBI wanted to monitor what Congress would learn about the realities of Pre-War Intelligence, which contradicted everything the White House was preaching on FOX News and CNN. In which case, the Justice Department discovered that I told Congress a lot—and Congress rewarded the White House by pretending that I had not said a word. But phone taps don’t lie. Numerous phone conversations with Congressional offices show that I identified myself as one of the few Assets covering Iraq.213 Some of my calls described the peace framework, assuring Congressional staffers that diplomacy could achieve the full scope of results sought by U.S policymakers.

No wonder you thought I wouldn't get it. Hey, as a lighting expert, what are those things called in the ceiling of my office? I've been referring to them as little suns and asking the maintenance to fuel my tiny suns every time one of them burns out, and then I yell a star is born when it shines again in the morning.' -Gray

Over time it became clear that the humans couldn’t compete. PEOPLE FORGET THAT JOHN HENRY DIED IN THE END, read a sign on the wall of the P13N office, a reference to the folktale of the steel driver who raced to dig a hole in competition with a steam-powered drilling machine; he won the contest but died immediately afterward.

If he's simply an obnoxious, heckling colleague--and if undermining the Undermine-Her isn't going to hurt you--then toss the politeness. "My 'pretty little head' outsold your figures by three last month. But thanks fir asking." "I think by 'young lady' you mean 'woman in charge.' That's how we refer to female leaders nowadays.

From the early stages of his campaign and right into the Oval Office, Donald Trump has spoken harshly about the institutions and principles that make up the foundation of open government. In the process, he has systematically degraded political discourse in the United States, shown an astonishing disregard for facts, libeled his predecessors, threatened to “lock up” political rivals, referred to mainstream journalists as “the enemy of the American people,” spread falsehoods about the integrity of the U.S. electoral process, touted mindlessly nationalistic economic and trade policies, vilified immigrants and the countries from which they come, and nurtured a paranoid bigotry toward the

So what are people actually referring to when they talk about "deregulation"? In ordinary usage, the word seems to mean "changing the regulatory structure in a way that I like." In practice this can refer to almost anything. In the case of airlines or telecommunications in the seventies and eighties, it meant changing the system of regulation from one that encouraged a few large firms to one that fostered carefully supervised competition between midsize firms. In the case of banking, "deregulation" has usually meant exactly the opposite: moving away from a situation of managed competition between mid-sized firms to one where a handful of financial conglomerates are allowed to completely dominate the market. This is what makes the term so handy. Simply by labeling a new regulatory measure "deregulation," you can frame it in the public mind as a way to reduce bureaucracy and set individual initiative free, even if the result is a fivefold increase in the actual number of forms to be filled in, reports to be filed, rules and regulations for lawyers to interpret, and officious people in offices whose entire job seems to be to provide convoluted explanations for why you're not allowed to do things. (p. 17)

This was the first of the St. Augustines. Previous memos had borne messages from Zwingli, Lévi-Strauss, Rilke, Chekhov, Tillich, William Blake, Charles Olson and a Kiowa chief named Satanta. Naturally the person responsible for these messages became known throughout the company as the Mad Memo-Writer. I never referred to him that way because it was much too obvious a name. I called him Trotsky. There was no special reason for choosing Trotsky; it just seemed to fit. I wondered if he was someone I knew. Everybody seemed to think he was probably a small grotesque man who had suffered many disappointments in life, who despised the vast impersonal structure of the network and who was employed in our forwarding department, the traditional repository for all sex offenders, mutants and vegetarians. They said he was most likely a foreigner who lived in a rooming house in Red Hook; he spent his nights reading an eight-volume treatise on abnormal psychology, in small type, and he told his grocer he had been a Talmudic scholar in the old country. This was the consensus and maybe it had a certain logic. But I found more satisfaction in believing that Trotsky was one of our top executives. He made eighty thousand dollars a year and stole paper clips from the office.

When, five years later, the great Robert Oppenheimer turned his attention to neutron stars in a landmark paper, he made not a single reference to any of Zwicky’s work even though Zwicky had been working for years on the same problem in an office just down the hall. Zwicky’s deductions concerning dark matter wouldn’t attract serious attention for nearly four decades. We can only assume that he did a lot of pushups in this period.

[The public intellectual] will also describe how she can work a pop culture reference into her essay, comparing the Supreme Court to the creature in the number-one box office movie of the moment. Editors like this sort of mass-media integration, first, because it gives them a way to illustrate the piece, and second because they are under the delusion that pop-culture references will propel a piece's readership into the five-digit area.

According to the Department of Justice’s investigation of the Missoula County Attorney’s Office, from January 2008 through April 2012 the Missoula Police Department referred 114 reports of sexual assault of adult women to the MCAO for prosecution. A “referral” indicated that the police department had completed its investigation of the case in question, determined that there was probable cause to charge the individual accused of sexual assault, and recommended that the case be prosecuted. Of the 114 sexual assaults referred for prosecution, however, the MCAO filed charges in only 14 of those cases. The reasons most often given for declining to prosecute were “insufficient evidence” or “insufficient corroboration”—that is, lack of probable cause. Kirsten Pabst was in charge of sexual assault cases for all but the final two months of the fifty-two-month period investigated by the DOJ.

Though I am sometimes reluctant to admit it, there really is something 'timeless' in the Tyndale/King James synthesis. For generations, it provided a common stock of references and allusions, rivalled only by Shakespeare in this respect. It resounded in the minds and memories of literate people, as well as of those who acquired it only by listening. From the stricken beach of Dunkirk in 1940, faced with a devil’s choice between annihilation and surrender, a British officer sent a cable back home. It contained the three words 'but if not…' All of those who received it were at once aware of what it signified. In the Book of Daniel, the Babylonian tyrant Nebuchadnezzar tells the three Jewish heretics Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that, if they refuse to bow to his sacred idol, they will be flung into a 'burning fiery furnace.' They made him an answer: 'If it be so, our god whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thy hand, o King. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.' A culture that does not possess this common store of image and allegory will be a perilously thin one. To seek restlessly to update it or make it 'relevant' is to miss the point, like yearning for a hip-hop Shakespeare. 'Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward,' says the Book of Job. Want to try to improve that for Twitter?

Mister Barnstable, the old man to whom you refer is a master of every martial art ever conceived. In fact he conceived most of them himself and he is the only known master of déjà fu.*30 He can throw a punch into the air and it’ll follow you home and smack you in the face when you open your own front door. He is known as Lu-Tze, a name that strikes fear in those who don’t know how to pronounce it, let alone spell it. My advice is to smile at him and, with great care, deliver him to my office.

eight out of ten of the officers she surveyed experienced tunnel vision during their shootings. This is sometimes referred to as perceptual narrowing, and as the name implies, under extreme stress, such as occurs in a shooting, the area of visual focus narrows as if the officer were viewing the situation through a tube. Christensen and Artwohl tell of one police sergeant who says that as a suspect fired rounds at him from his handgun, his eyes focused totally on a ring the shooter wore on a finger of his gun hand.

superintendents, chief inspectors, inspectors, sergeants and constables. If an officer works for CID (Criminal Investigation Department), then he or she will carry the prefix D (for Detective). A DCI is a detective chief inspector, DI is a detective inspector, DS a detective sergeant, and DC a detective constable. Officers not assigned to CID would wear a uniform. (Rebus sometimes refers to these unfortunates as “woolly suits.”) Lowest in the pecking order are the PC (police constable) and WPC (woman police constable).

He then, again by way of reference to legal precedent and authority, reminded the District Attorney’s Office that it was charged with grave responsibilities which demanded integrity, zeal, and conscientious effort in the gathering and presentation of evidence. He quoted the American Bar Association’s standards for prosecutors: “In making the decision to prosecute, the prosecutor should give no weight to the personal or political advantages or disadvantages which might be involved or to a desire to enhance his or her record of convictions.

Polish paratroopers could not have been more different. They were not like the British who just wanted to make the best of a bad war by joking and referring to any battle as ‘a party’. Nor were they like the Americans who wanted to finish it quickly so that they could go home. The Poles were exiles, fighting for the very survival of their national identity. An American officer who saw them in training described them as ‘killers under the silk’. Polish patriotism was nothing like the rather embarrassed British equivalent: theirs was a burning, spiritual flame.

But before the year was out, Oldfield was plotting with the Queensland renegade Pauline Hanson to set up her new party. This emerged only after he left Abbott’s office in April 1997 armed with a glowing reference from the member for Warringah. A humiliated Abbott blasted Oldfield: “He’s a dangerous, snaky Rasputin who thrives on notoriety. Sure, I had him on my staff when I knew he held some unnaturally intense views on some things, but he seemed like a Liberal with a reasonable standing in the community. I’m not making any big claims for myself, but even Jesus had his Judas.

This is not more cultural happenstance. It is a blitzkrieg from the darkness—a frontal attack of calculated and evil dimensions plotted by the adversary of God, man and all that is good, and being advanced by cunning, demonic hordes who can only be blocked in one way: prayer. Call the people to pray. Teach them to counterattack. Unveil My Word to them so that, by calling on Me through the grace I readily give when they invoke the name of My Son, they may unleash My power. As they accept this partnership I call them to, praying that My Kingdom may enter the world of those they love “on earth,” I will answer them by My Spirit’s power—working My will “as it is in heaven.” Well, that is really what happened. I don’t mean, of course, that God stepped into my office in the sense of physical appearance. Rather He made His presence and will known by the means He has revealed in His eternal Word of truth—the Holy Bible. In that book, which is the ultimate authority on all life’s issues, both eternal and temporal, He says that He will speak at times to people by “prophecy.” In this use, prophecy is not a reference to anything arbitrary or arcane—God is never random; nor is He weird. (Toss out the pundits who publish cleverly

Einstein insisted that, on the way back from a coffeehouse, they buy food for dinner so that Frank’s wife need not go shopping. They chose some calf’s liver, which Mrs. Frank proceeded to cook on the Bunsen burner in the office laboratory. Suddenly Einstein jumped up. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “Are you boiling the liver in water?” Mrs. Frank allowed that was indeed what she was doing. “The boiling-point of water is too low,” Einstein declared. “You must use a substance with a higher boiling-point such as butter or fat.” From then on, Mrs. Frank referred to the necessity of frying liver as “Einstein’s theory.

I am here because you vivisected my ancestral country in two. In 1945, two fumbling mid-ranking American officers who knew nothing about the country used a National Geographic map as reference to arbitrarily cut a border to make North and South Korea, a division that eventually separated millions of families, including my own grandmother from her family. Later, under the flag of liberation, the United States dropped more bombs and napalm in our tiny country than during the entire Pacific campaign against Japan during World War II. A fascinating little-known fact about the Korean War is that an American surgeon, David Ralph Millard, stationed there to treat burn victims, invented a double-eyelid surgical procedure to make Asian eyes look Western, which he ended up testing on Korean sex workers so they could be more attractive to GIs. Now, it’s the most popular surgical procedure for women in South Korea. My ancestral country is just one small example of the millions of lives and resources you have sucked from the Philippines, Cambodia, Honduras, Mexico, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, El Salvador, and many, many other nations through your forever wars and transnational capitalism that have mostly enriched shareholders in the States. Don’t talk to me about gratitude.

The general, whom the boys knew as the commander of their division, looked at the other officer and spoke coolly, as if he were criticising his clothes. "Th' enemy's formin' over there for another charge," he said. "It'll be directed against Whiterside, an' I fear they'll break through there unless we work like thunder t' stop them." The other swore at his restive horse, and then cleared his throat. He made a gesture toward his cap. "It'll be hell t' pay stoppin' them," he said shortly. "I presume so," remarked the general. Then he began to talk rapidly and in a lower tone. He frequently illustrated his words with a pointing finger. The two infantrymen could hear nothing until finally he asked: "What troops can you spare?" The officer who rode like a cowboy reflected for an instant. "Well," he said, "I had to order in th' 12th to help th' 76th, an' I haven't really got any. But there's th' 304th. They fight like a lot 'a mule drivers. I can spare them best of any." The youth and his friend exchanged glances of astonishment. The general spoke sharply. "Get 'em ready, then. I'll watch developments from here, an' send you word when t' start them. It'll happen in five minutes." As the other officer tossed his fingers toward his cap and wheeling his horse, started away, the general called out to him in a sober voice: "I don't believe many of your mule drivers will get back." The other shouted something in reply. He smiled. With scared faces, the youth and his companion hurried back to the line. These happenings had occupied an incredibly short time, yet the youth felt that in them he had been made aged. New eyes were given to him. And the most startling thing was to learn suddenly that he was very insignificant. The officer spoke of the regiment as if he referred to a broom. Some part of the woods needed sweeping, perhaps, and he merely indicated a broom in a tone properly indifferent to its fate. It was war, no doubt, but it appeared strange.

An eternity politician defines foes rather than formulating policies. Trump did so by denying that the Holocaust concerned Jews, by using the expression “son of a bitch” in reference to black athletes, by calling a political opponent “Pocahontas,” by overseeing a denunciation program that targeted Mexicans, by publishing a list of crimes committed by immigrants, by transforming an office on terrorism into an office on Islamic terrorism, by helping hurricane victims in Texas and Florida but not in Puerto Rico, by speaking of “shithole countries,” by referring to reporters as enemies of the American people, by claiming that protestors were paid, and so on.

My Ren & Stimpy reference wasn’t all that funny when written in the center of someone’s CONDOLENCE CARD. “Fucking Leslie,” I spat. “She threw a bunch of cards on my desk and said they were birthday cards.” Dean proceeded to lose his shit, his cackling laughs echoing inside my office. I glared at him. “It’s not that funny.” “Oh, hell yes it is. You referenced Ren & Stimpy on a sympathy card,” he wheezed. Seriously, fuck you, Leslie. Fuck you, hard. I was convinced I could blame her for everything wrong in my life. Lost my keys? Goddammit, Leslie! Missed the subway? Fuck you very much, Leslie. Another awful dick pic sent to my phone? You’re such an asshole, Leslie.

Scotland is divided into several police regions. Rebus works for Lothian and Borders Police, whose “beat” covers Edinburgh and most points south until you reach the English border. The region’s HQ is based at Fettes Avenue in Edinburgh, and is often referred to by officers as “the Big House.” Other main police stations in the capital include St. Leonard’s (where Rebus is normally based), Leith (the port of Edinburgh), Gayfield Square and West End. The officer in charge of this region is known as the chief constable. He is served, in decreasing order of rank, by a deputy chief constable (DCC), two assistant chief constables (ACCs), and various detective chief superintendents (DCSs),

Biden could be much more indignant and profane in private than he appeared in public. One Saturday afternoon during his first year as president, Biden had called a friend from the Oval Office. “I have spent almost five hours going back and forth, back and forth on the phone with two of the biggest fucking assholes in the world—Bibi Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas,” he said, referring to the prime minister of Israel and the Palestinian leader. “Two of the biggest fucking assholes in the world,” Biden repeated with emphasis. When Air Force One landed at Ben Gurion Airport the morning of October 18, Netanyahu was waiting for Biden on the tarmac. Biden descended the steps of the plane, aviator

I think the reason lay partly in his idea of immortality, but I think too it belonged to his war against the Inland Revenue. He was a great believer in delaying tactics. “Never answer all their questions,” he would say. “Make them write again. And be ambiguous. You can always decide what you mean later according to circumstances. The bigger the file the bigger the work. Personnel frequently change. A newcomer has to start looking at the file from the beginning. Office space is limited. In the end it’s easier for them to give in.” Sometimes, if the inspector was pressing very hard, he told me that it was time to fling in a reference to a non-existing letter. He would write sharply, “You seem to have paid no attention to my letter of April 6, 1963.” A whole month might pass before the inspector admitted he could find no trace of it. Mr Pottifer would send in a carbon copy of the letter containing a reference which again the inspector would be unable to trace. If he was a newcomer to the district, of course he blamed his predecessor; otherwise, after a few years of Mr Pottifer, he was quite liable to have a nervous breakdown. I think when Mr Pottifer planned to carry on after death (of course there was no notice in the papers and the funeral was very quiet) he had these delaying tactics in mind. He didn’t think of the inconvenience to his clients, only of the inconvenience to the inspector.’ Aunt Augusta

I’d never set foot on the AT, but I’d heard much about it from the guys at Kennedy Meadows. It was the PCT’s closest kin and yet also its opposite in many ways. About two thousand people set out to thru-hike the AT each summer, and though only a couple hundred of them made it all the way, that was far more than the hundred or so who set out on the PCT each year. Hikers on the AT spent most nights camping in or near group shelters that existed along the trail. On the AT, resupply stops were closer together, and more of them were in real towns, unlike those along the PCT, which often consisted of nothing but a post office and a bar or tiny store. I imagined the Australian honeymooners on the AT now, eating cheeseburgers and guzzling beer in a pub a couple of miles from the trail, sleeping by night under a wooden roof. They’d probably been given trail names by their fellow hikers, another practice that was far more common on the AT than on the PCT, though we had a way of naming people too. Half the time that Greg, Matt, and Albert had talked about Brent they’d referred to him as the Kid, though he was only a few years younger than me. Greg had been occasionally called the Statistician because he knew so many facts and figures about the trail and he worked as an accountant. Matt and Albert were the Eagle Scouts, and Doug and Tom the Preppies. I didn’t think I’d been dubbed anything, but I got the sinking feeling that if I had, I didn’t want to know what it was.

At first glance, professionalism tries to convince you it’s a neutral word, merely meant to signify a collection of behaviors, clothing, and norms “appropriate” for the workplace. We just ask that everyone be professional, the cis white men will say, smiles on their faces, as if they’re not asking for much. We try to maintain a professional office environment. But never has a word in the English language been so loaded with racism, sexism, heteronormativity, or trans exclusion. Whenever someone is telling you to “be professional,” they’re really saying, “be more like me.” If you’re black, “being professional” can often mean speaking differently, avoiding black cultural references, or not wearing natural hair. If you’re not American, “being professional” can mean abandoning your cultural dress for Western business clothes. If you’re not Christian, “being professional” can mean potentially removing your hijab to fit in, sitting by while your officemates ignore your need for kosher or halal food, sucking up the fact that your office puts up a giant Christmas tree every year. If you’re low-income or working class, “being professional” can mean spending money you don’t have on work clothes—“dressing nicely” for a job that may not pay enough for you to really afford to do so. If you’re a woman, “being professional” can mean navigating a veritable minefield of double standards. Show some skin, but don’t be a slut. Wear heels, but not too high, and not too low, either. Wear form-fitting clothes, but not too form-fitting. We offer maternity leave, but don’t “interrupt your career” by taking it. And if you’re trans like me, “being professional” can mean putting your identity away unless it conforms to dominant gender norms.

Every time a seismic shift takes place in our economy, there are people who feel the vibrations long before the rest of us do, vibrations so strong they demand action—action that can seem rash, even stupid. Ferry owner Cornelius Vanderbilt jumped ship when he saw the railroads coming. Thomas Watson Jr., overwhelmed by his sense that computers would be everywhere even when they were nowhere, bet his father’s office-machine company on it: IBM. Jeffrey Preston Bezos had that same experience when he first peered into the maze of connected computers called the World Wide Web and realized that the future of retailing was glowing back at him.… Bezos’ vision of the online retailing universe was so complete, his Amazon.com site so elegant and appealing, that it became from Day One the point of reference for anyone who had anything to sell online. And that, it turns out, is everyone.

Dennis Tueller, a Salt Lake City police officer and firearms instructor (since retired), asked just this question.  Uniformed officers are routinely faced with impact weapon bearing suspects.  So it’s natural for Tueller to wonder how far away a suspect can be and still use an impact weapon against an officer before he could defend himself. To answer his question, Tueller ran a bunch of empirical studies.  Which is just a fancy way of saying he ran a bunch of students through the exercise that would later become the Tueller Drill. Tueller learned that most officers can get a service pistol out of a holster and engage a threat with center-mass hits within 1.5 seconds.  So the question then becomes, how much distance can a bad guy cross in 1.5 seconds?  Timing a great many students running from a standing start, Tueller learned that someone can go about 21 feet in 1.5 seconds.  So 21 feet became the “Tueller distance,” or the maximum distance from a police officer a person can use an impact weapon against the officer before the officer can shoot them.  The Tueller Drill is often referred to as the “21 foot rule,” or the “7 yard rule.”  This really obscures the real take-home message of the Tueller Drill.  The value is not some particular distance.  What matters is your “Tueller distance.” People’s draw speeds vary.  Your Tueller distance will be greater or less than 21 feet depending on your ability to get the gun unholstered and pointed center-mass. The real lesson of the Tueller Drill is that someone armed with an impact weapon has the opportunity to use it at a far greater distance than most think—and certainly much greater distances than a juror might have otherwise thought.  If you imagine the length of typical American parking space, and add another three paces, you’ll be right about at 21 feet.

Trump was hardly in office when Democrats and their media allies began tarring him and his top aides as “white nationalists.” There were no facts to support the charge, only innuendo, and tortured interpretations of the word “nationalism” and of presidential rhetoric. One of the worst examples was the Charlottesville, Virginia, historical monument controversy. In that city, leftist protesters demanded the removal of “Confederate” monuments and memorials. The term “Confederate” in their usage extended even to statues of Thomas Jefferson and explorers Lewis and Clark (for being “white colonists”). This sparked a protest by conservatives who objected to the statue removals—not because they were racists, but because they didn’t want to see the removal of these reminders of America’s history. A “Unite the Right” rally was planned for August 11–12, 2017, to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. Unfortunately, the rally attracted extremist groups, including neo-Confederates, neo-Nazis, and the KKK. During the rally, a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of leftist protestors, killing a woman. In response, Trump made a series of statements condemning the Klan, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and racism in general. In one of those speeches, he added, “You also had some very fine people on both sides.”115 Even though he had just condemned racism in his previous breath, many Democrats and pundits condemned Trump for calling racists “fine people.” This was not only absurd but dishonest. The “fine people on both sides” to whom he referred were those who wanted to remove the statues because they were reminders of slavery and those who wanted to preserve the statues because they were reminders of history. Trump never praised racists as “fine people”—he condemned them in no uncertain terms. But to the

From the early stages of his campaign and right into the Oval Office, Donald Trump has spoken harshly about the institutions and principles that make up the foundation of open government. In the process, he has systematically degraded political discourse in the United States, shown an astonishing disregard for facts, libeled his predecessors, threatened to “lock up” political rivals, referred to mainstream journalists as “the enemy of the American people,” spread falsehoods about the integrity of the U.S. electoral process, touted mindlessly nationalistic economic and trade policies, vilified immigrants and the countries from which they come, and nurtured a paranoid bigotry toward the followers of one of the world’s foremost religions. To officials overseas who have autocratic tendencies, these outbursts are catnip. Instead of challenging anti-democratic forces, Trump is a comfort to them--a provider of excuses.

Let us not be deceived about the cool forms, forms indifferent to themselves, which this fetishism can assume in Warhol. Behind this machinic snobbery, what is really going on is a rise and rise of objects, images, signs and simulacra, as well as a rise and rise of values, the finest example of which is the art market itself. We are a long way from the alienation of price, which is still a real measure of things. We are in the ecstasy of value, which explodes the notion of market and simultaneously destroys the art work as such. Warhol is naturally party to this extermination of the real by the image, and to such an overdoing of the image as to put an end to all aesthetic value. Warhol reintroduces nothingness into the heart of the image. In this sense, we cannot say he is not a great artist: fortunately for him, he is not an artist at all. The point of his work is a challenge to the very notion of art and aesthetics.

This is the sort of thing that was probably meant by the phrase 'institutional racism' with reference to the police...a lot of the criticism of that came from people who thought that every police officer was thus being called a racist, but it was different from that...soldiers in a regiment are imbued with a sort of invisible ...feeling, which is again picked up by a hundred little example, some too small to see consciously...young officers see and hear their elders and superiors using language or making jokes, or overlooking remarks that they make, which have a racist tendency. The general assumption is that that's the way we, the force, the canteen, the people in uniform - us - that's the way we see things. It all resonates and gets amplified. And because a lot of this is subliminal and unconscious and never actually put into 'racist' words...it's easy to deny that it exists, and it is even easy to believe that it doesn't.

Even the cinema stories of fabulous Hollywood are loaded. One has only to listen to the cheers of an African audience as Hollywood’s heroes slaughter red Indians or Asiatics to understand the effectiveness of this weapon. For, in the developing continents, where the colonialist heritage has left a vast majority still illiterate, even the smallest child gets the message contained in the blood and thunder stories emanating from California. And along with murder and the Wild West goes an incessant barrage of anti-socialist propaganda, in which the trade union man, the revolutionary, or the man of dark skin is generally cast as the villain, while the policeman, the gum-shoe, the Federal agent — in a word, the CIA — type spy is ever the hero. Here, truly, is the ideological under-belly of those political murders which so often use local people as their instruments. While Hollywood takes care of fiction, the enormous monopoly press, together with the outflow of slick, clever, expensive magazines, attends to what it chooses to call ‘news. Within separate countries, one or two news agencies control the news handouts, so that a deadly uniformity is achieved, regardless of the number of separate newspapers or magazines; while internationally, the financial preponderance of the United States is felt more and more through its foreign correspondents and offices abroad, as well as through its influence over inter-national capitalist journalism. Under this guise, a flood of anti-liberation propaganda emanates from the capital cities of the West, directed against China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Algeria, Ghana and all countries which hack out their own independent path to freedom. Prejudice is rife. For example, wherever there is armed struggle against the forces of reaction, the nationalists are referred to as rebels, terrorists, or frequently ‘communist terrorists'!

The storyteller gave me a sideways look. “Miss Lea, it doesn’t do to get attached to these secondary characters. It’s not their story. They come, they go, and when they go they’re gone for good. That’s all there is to it.” I slid my pencil into the spiral binding of my notebook and walked to the door, but when I got there, I turned back. “Where did she come from, then?” “For goodness’ sake! She was only a governess! She is irrelevant, I tell you.” “She must have had references. A previous job. Or else a letter of application with a home address. Perhaps she came from an agency?” Miss Winter closed her eyes and a long-suffering expression appeared on her face. “Mr. Lomax, the Angelfield family solicitor, will have all the details I’m sure. Not that they’ll do you any good. It’s my story. I should know. His office is in Market Street, Banbury. I will instruct him to answer any inquiries you choose to make.” I wrote to Mr. Lomax that night.

The Constitutional Convention quickly agreed to the proposal of Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia for a national government of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. Randolph’s resolution “that a national Judiciary be established” passed unanimously. Debating and defining the powers of Congress in Article I and of the president in Article II consumed much of the delegates’ attention and energy. Central provisions of Article III were the product of compromise and, in its fewer than five hundred words, the article left important questions unresolved. Lacking agreement on a role for lower courts, for example, the delegates simply left it to Congress to decide how to structure them. The number of justices remained unspecified. Article III itself makes no reference to the office of chief justice, to whom the Constitution (in Article I) assigns only one specific duty, that of presiding over a Senate trial in a presidential impeachment.

On 28 June 1914 the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, a heartland of the South Slavs. Philosophers refer to ‘the inevitable accident’, and this was a very accidental one. Some young Serb terrorists had planned to murder him as he paid a state visit. They had bungled the job, throwing a bomb that missed, and one of them had repaired to a café in a side street to sort himself out. The Archduke drove to the headquarters of the governor-general, Potiorek (where he was met by little girls performing folklore), and berated him (the two men were old enemies, as the Archduke had prevented the neurasthenic Potiorek from succeeding an elderly admirer as Chief of the General Staff). The Archduke went off in a rage, to visit in hospital an officer wounded by the earlier bomb. His automobile moved off again, a Count Harrach standing on the running board. Its driver turned left after crossing a bridge over Sarajevo’s river. It was the wrong street, and the driver was told to stop and reverse. In reverse gear such automobiles sometimes stalled, and this one did so - Count Harrach on the wrong side, away from the café where one of the assassination team was calming his nerves. Now, slowly, his target drove up and stopped. The murderer, Gavrilo Princip, fired. He was seventeen, a romantic schooled in nationalism and terrorism, and part of a team that stretches from the Russian Nihilists of the middle of the nineteenth century, exemplified especially in Dostoyevsky’s prophetic The Possessed and Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes. Austria did not execute adolescents and Princip was young enough to survive. He was imprisoned and died in April 1918. Before he died, a prison psychiatrist asked him if he had any regrets that his deed had caused a world war and the death of millions. He answered: if I had not done it, the Germans would have found another excuse.

The missile crisis "was the most dangerous moment in human history," Arthur Schlesinger commented in October 2002 at a conference in Havana on the fortieth anniversary of the crisis, attended by a number of those who witnessed it from within as it unfolded. Desision-makers at the time undoubtedly understood that the fate of the world was in their hands. Nevertheless, attendees at the conference may have been shocked by some of the revelations. They were informed that in October 1962 the world was "one word away" from nuclear war. "A guy named Arkhipov saved the world," said Thomas Blanton of the National Security Archive in Washington, which helped organize the event. He was referring to Vasil Arkhipov, a Soviet submarine officer blocked an order to fire nuclear-armed toredoes in October 27, at the tensest moment of the crisis, when te submarines were under attack bu US destroyers, A devastating response would have been a near certainty, leading a major war.

How can I speak the truth? .a. By perceiving who causes me to speak and what entitles me to speak. .b. By perceiving the place at which I stand. .c. By relating to this context the object about which I am making some assertion. It is tacitly assumed in these rules that all speech is subject to certain conditions; speech does not accompany the natural course of life in a continual stream, but it has its place, its time, and its task, and consequently also its limits. .a. Who or what entitles or causes me to speak? Anyone who speaks without a right and a cause to do so is an idle chatterer. Every utterance is involved in a relation both with the other man and with a thing, and in every utterance, therefore, this twofold reference must be apparent. An utterance without reference is empty. It contains no truth. In this there is an essential difference between thought and speech. Thought does not in itself necessarily refer to the other man, but only to a thing. The claim that one is entitled to say what one thinks is itself completely unfounded. Speech must be justified and occasioned by the other man. [should we only speak if the other man wishes to listen to us?] For example, I may in my thoughts consider another man to be stupid, ugly, incapable or lacking in character, or I may think him wise and reliable. But it is quite a different question whether I have the right to express this opinion, what occasion I have for expressing it, and to whom I express it. There can be no doubt that a right to speak is conferred upon me by an office which is committed to me. Parents can blame or praise their child, but the child is not entitled to do either of these things with regard to his parents… The right to speak always lies within the confines of the particular office which I discharge. If I overstep these limits my speech becomes importunate, presumptuous, and, whether it be blame or praise, offensive. There are people who feel themselves called upon to “tell the truth” as they put it, to everyone who crosses their path. [From: Ethics, Part II, Ch. V]

privileges with reference to the performance of special services. Thus the Jews were “a chosen nation,” “the elect.” Thus also in the NT, bodies of Christian people, or churches, are called “the elect.” (2) To the divine choice of individuals to a particular office or work. Thus Cyrus was elected of God to bring about the rebuilding of the Temple, and thus the twelve were chosen to be apostles and Paul to be the apostle to the Gentiles. (3) To the divine choice of individuals to be the children of God, and therefore heirs of heaven. It is with regard to election in this third sense that theological controversies have been frequent and at times most fierce. Calvinists hold that the election of individuals to salvation is absolute, unconditional, by virtue of an eternal divine decree. Arminians regard election as conditional upon repentance and faith; the decree of God is that all who truly repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. But every responsible person determines for himself whether or not he will repent and believe. Sufficient grace is bestowed upon everyone to enable him to make the right decision.

It astounds me that the media is ignoring Noriega’s extensive ties into this country, from his education at the School of the Americas4 to his well known involvement with Bush and the CIA in the cocaine business. Can’t people see that this so-called War on Drugs is no more than the CIA eliminating their competition while they take over the industry worldwide?” I paused to reflect. “If people don’t wake up soon, we’ll have a drug lord running this country.” “We already do,” Billy said, unjamming his stapling machine. I laughed. “I’m referring to Bill Clinton. In 1984, I was at the Swiss Villa Amphitheater in Lampe Missouri5 where Bush and Clinton were talking about their New World Order. Bush was really pleased with how well Clinton’s Mena cocaine operation was funding the New World Order effort, and he assured Clinton he would be rewarded politically. In those days, the groundwork for NAFTA6 was established to open the border to ‘free trade of drugs to equalize our economies,’ and Clinton was right there in the midst of it all. It was already determined that Bush would be put in the office of President at the same time Salinas was put in as President of Mexico so they could usher in NAFTA.

Soon, droves of children start to show up, keeping us rather busy. We start tallying up the number of Trolls, Batmans, Lego men, and princesses we see. The most popular costume? Batman and Superwoman with the fabrics and accessories varying from child to child. But my favorite so far is the girl who dressed as Little Debbie, but then again, I may be biased. “I think she might be my new favorite,” Emma says as a little girl dressed as a nurse walks away. “That’s because you’re a nurse, but you can’t play favorites,” I say, reminding Emma of the rules. She levels with me. “This coming from the guy whose favorite child was dressed as Little Debbie.” “Come on.” I lean back in my chair and motion to my head. “She had the rim of blue on her hat. That’s attention to detail.” “And good fucking parenting,” Tucker chimes in, and we clink our beer bottles together. Amelia chuckles next to me as Emma shakes her head. “Ridiculous. What about you, Amelia? What costume has been your favorite so far?” “Hmm, it’s been a tough competition. There has been some real winning costumes and some absolute piss-poor ones.” She shakes her head. “Just because you put a scarf around your neck and call yourself Jack Frost doesn’t mean you dressed up.” “Ugh, that costume was dumb.” “It shouldn’t be referred to as a costume, but that’s beside the point.” I like how much Amelia is getting into this little pretend competition. She’s a far cry from the girl who first came home earlier. I love that having Tucker and Emma over has given me more time with Amelia, getting to know the woman she is today, but also managed to put that beautiful smile back on her face. “So who takes the cake for you?” I ask, nudging her leg with mine. Smiling up at me, she says, “Hands down it’s the little boy who dressed as Dwight Schrute from The Office. I think I giggled for five minutes straight after he left. That costume was spot on.” “Oh shit, you’re right,” I reply as Emma and Tucker agree with me. “He even had the watch calculator.” “And the small nose Dwight always complains about.” Emma chuckles. “Yeah, he has to be the winner.” “Now, now, now, let’s not get too hasty. Little Debbie is still in the running,” Tucker points out. Amelia leans forward, seeming incredibly comfortable, and says, “There is no way Little Debbie beats Dwight. Sorry, dude.” The shocked look on Tucker’s face is comical. He’s just been put in his place and the old Amelia has returned. I fucking love it.

It is now long since the women of England arrogated, universally, a title which once belonged to nobility only, and, having once been in the habit of accepting the simple title of gentlewoman, as correspondent to that of gentleman, insisted on the privilege of assuming the title of "Lady,"6 which properly corresponds only to the title of "Lord." I do not blame them for this; but only for their narrow motive in this. I would have them desire and claim the title of Lady, provided they claim, not merely the title, but the office and duty signified by it. Lady means "bread-giver" or "loaf-giver," and Lord means "maintainer of laws," and both titles have reference, not to the law which is maintained in the house, nor to the bread which is given to the household, but to law maintained for the multitude, and to bread broken among the multitude. So that a Lord has legal claim only to his title in so far as he is the maintainer of the justice of the Lord of Lords; and a Lady has legal claim to her title only so far as she communicates that help to the poor representatives of her Master, which women once, ministering to Him of their substance, were permitted to extend to that Master Himself; and when she is known, as He Himself once was, in breaking of bread.

Belleville would have us believe that homeowners could bypass all the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, and, simply by virtue of having a church meet in their home, become overseers or elders. She would also have us believe that Lydia, who was a brand-new convert and who had just been baptized, became the overseer of the church at Philippi simply because she said to Paul, “come to my house and stay” (Acts 16:15). This claim is going far beyond the evidence in Scripture. The extra-biblical references that Belleville cites do not prove anything about homeowners having such a leadership role in the churches either.3 This claim is speculation with no facts to support it, and several factors in Scripture contradict it. But by making this unsubstantiated claim, Belleville leads readers to think that “Mary (Acts 12:12), Lydia (16:15), Chloe (1 Cor 1:11), and Nympha (Col 4:15)” were “overseers of house churches.”4 She leads readers to believe that several such women were overseers or elders. And so she makes these verses say something they do not say. This leads people to disbelieve or seek some way to explain away the passages that restrict the office of elder to men, and so it undermines the authority of Scripture. Therefore this claim takes another step on the path to liberalism.

I promised to show you a secret cafeteria, didn’t I? Perfect way to end your Foxfire slumber party!” It felt a little wrong to go hunting for desserts while Fitz and Biana were trying to figure out how to live with their murdering brother. But . . . butterblasts did sound pretty good. “Hang on—what are you wearing?” Keefe asked as she threw back her covers, revealing the sparkly slogans on her tunic. “Is that a Bangs Boy reference? Because you know I haven’t let him into the Foster Fan Club, right?” Sophie rolled her eyes. “It’s an inside joke—and Linh made this for me.” “Yeah, well, it still breaks the fan club rules. As penance, I’m getting you a tunic that says, Empaths Give Me All the Feels, and I expect to see you wear it twice as often as Bangs Boy’s.” Ro snorted. “Subtle.” “Ridiculous,” Sophie corrected. “I try,” Keefe told them as Sophie took his hand and let him pull her slowly to her feet. “You good?” he asked when she wobbled from the head rush. No. But she wasn’t going to admit that, so she told him, “I’m up.” “You are. It’s pretty amazing.” “Isn’t it?” Elwin asked as he emerged from his office and helped Sophie strap her arm into a sling. “Bring me back some butterblasts, okay?” “Done!” Keefe told him, bending his elbow to offer Sophie his arm, and after one brief second, she let him lead her toward the door. “TO THE SECRET CAFETERIA!

Jamie used the time away from me to do some soul-searching. She finally also did something she’d thought about for a long time. She walked into an Army recruitment office in Nashville and joined the military. She didn’t discuss it with me beforehand. Instead she called and said, “I’m joining the Army. It’s active duty and I’m going to be a truck driver with an airborne contract.” Shocked, I blurted out, “You’re going to do what? No you’re not.” “What do you mean? I’m gonna be a truck driver in a convoy.” I knew she was referring to a seventies country song she likes. Only this wasn’t a country song, this was real life. “Are you crazy? This is not a game. You will hate being a truck driver. You don’t even know if you’ll like being in the military. Go National Guard or Reserves and see if you like it.” “They said I’m already in. Basic is not for another few months but I’m in and I can’t change it.” “Yes you can. You are not in yet. You are not in the military. That was just a recruiter telling you that. Why aren’t you going in as an officer? You have a degree. You can make more money.” She seemed annoyed that I was raining on her parade, but I think it was also dawning on her that maybe I was right and she hadn’t done the research. “They told me that it’s not really that much more.” I explained to her, “They are lying to you. It is a lot more.” I had no problem with her joining the military. If that’s what she wanted to do, I supported it. But I was going to make sure she made the smartest moves she could make if that was in fact what she wanted to do with her life. I certainly wasn’t going to let her be talked into a lower-paid, higher-risk job.

The one thing that seemed to be on our side, however, was the reality on the streets of Egypt. Day after day, the protests spread and Mubarak’s regime seemed to crumble around him. On February 11, I woke to the news that Mubarak had fled to the resort town of Sharm el Sheikh and resigned. It was, it seemed, a happy ending. Jubilant crowds celebrated in the streets of Cairo. I drafted a statement for Obama that drew comparisons between what had just taken place and some of the iconic movements of the past several decades—Germans tearing down a wall, Indonesians upending a dictatorship, Indians marching nonviolently for independence. I went up to the Oval Office that morning to review the statement with Obama. “You should feel good about this,” he said. “I do,” I replied. “Though I’m not sure all of the principals do.” “You know,” he said, “one of the things that made it easier for me is that I didn’t really know Mubarak.” He mentioned that George H. W. Bush had called Mubarak at the height of the protests to express his support. “But it’s not just Bush. The Clintons, Gates, Biden—they’ve known Mubarak[…] “for decades.” I thought of Biden’s perennial line: All foreign policy is an “extension of personal relationships. “If it had been King Abdullah,” Obama said, referring to the young Jordanian monarch with whom he’d struck up a friendship, “I don’t know if I could have done the same thing.” As Obama delivered a statement to a smattering of press, it seemed that history might at last be breaking in a positive direction in the Middle East. His tribute to the protests was unabashed. Yet our own government was still wired to defer to the Egyptian military, and ill equipped to support a transition to democracy once the president had spoken.

Questions surround nearly every aspect of the assassination. The chain of possession regarding each piece of evidence was tainted beyond repair. The presidential limousine, which represented the literal crime scene, was taken over by officials immediately after JFK’s body was carried into Parkland Hospital and tampered with. The Secret Service apparently cleaned up the limousine, washing away crucial evidence in the process. Obviously, whatever bullet fragments or other material that was purportedly found there became immediately suspect because of this. On November 26, the windshield on the presidential limo was replaced. The supposed murder weapon—a cheap, Italian Mannlicher-Carcano rifle with a defective scope, allegedly ordered by Oswald through a post office box registered to his purported alias, Alex Hidell—is similarly troublesome. The two Dallas officers who discovered the rifle on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building, Seymour Weitzman and Eugene Boone, both swore in separate affidavits that the weapon was a German Mauser. As was to become all too common in this case, they would later each claim to be “mistaken” in a curiously identical manner. In fact, as late as midnight on November 22, Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade would refer to the rifle as a Mauser when speaking to the press. Local WFAA television reported the weapon found as both a German Mauser and an Argentine Mauser. NBC, meanwhile, described the weapon as a British Enfield. In an honest court, the Carcano would not even have been permitted into the record, because no reliable chain of possession for it existed. Legally speaking, the rifle found on the sixth floor was a German Mauser, and no one claimed Oswald owned a weapon of that kind.

The overwhelming favorites to dominate the race to become the so-called Information Superhighway were competing proprietary technologies from industry powerhouses such as Oracle and Microsoft. Their stories captured the imagination of the business press. This was not so illogical, since most companies didn’t even run TCP/IP (the software foundation for the Internet)—they ran proprietary networking protocols such as AppleTalk, NetBIOS, and SNA. As late as November 1995, Bill Gates wrote a book titled The Road Ahead, in which he predicted that the Information Superhighway—a network connecting all businesses and consumers in a world of frictionless commerce—would be the logical successor to the Internet and would rule the future. Gates later went back and changed references from the Information Superhighway to the Internet, but that was not his original vision. The implications of this proprietary vision were not good for business or for consumers. In the minds of visionaries like Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, the corporations that owned the Information Superhighway would tax every transaction by charging a “vigorish,” as Microsoft’s then–chief technology officer, Nathan Myhrvold, referred to it. It’s difficult to overstate the momentum that the proprietary Information Superhighway carried. After Mosaic, even Marc and his cofounder, Jim Clark, originally planned a business for video distribution to run on top of the proprietary Information Superhighway, not the Internet. It wasn’t until deep into the planning process that they decided that by improving the browser to make it secure, more functional, and easier to use, they could make the Internet the network of the future. And that became the mission of Netscape—a mission that they would gloriously accomplish.

Baron, Baroness Originally, the term baron signified a person who owned land as a direct gift from the monarchy or as a descendant of a baron. Now it is an honorary title. The wife of a baron is a baroness. Duke, Duchess, Duchy, Dukedom Originally, a man could become a duke in one of two ways. He could be recognized for owning a lot of land. Or he could be a victorious military commander. Now a man can become a duke simply by being appointed by a monarch. Queen Elizabeth II appointed her husband Philip the Duke of Edinburgh and her son Charles the Duke of Wales. A duchess is the wife or widow of a duke. The territory ruled by a duke is a duchy or a dukedom. Earl, Earldom Earl is the oldest title in the English nobility. It originally signified a chieftan or leader of a tribe. Each earl is identified with a certain area called an earldom. Today the monarchy sometimes confers an earldom on a retiring prime minister. For example, former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is the Earl of Stockton. King A king is a ruling monarch. He inherits this position and retains it until he abdicates or dies. Formerly, a king was an absolute ruler. Today the role of King of England is largely symbolic. The wife of a king is a queen. Knight Originally a knight was a man who performed devoted military service. The title is not hereditary. A king or queen may award a citizen with knighthood. The criterion for the award is devoted service to the country. Lady One may use Lady to refer to the wife of a knight, baron, count, or viscount. It may also be used for the daughter of a duke, marquis, or earl. Marquis, also spelled Marquess. A marquis ranks above an earl and below a duke. Originally marquis signified military men who stood guard on the border of a territory. Now it is a hereditary title. Lord Lord is a general term denoting nobility. It may be used to address any peer (see below) except a duke. The House of Lords is the upper house of the British Parliament. It is a nonelective body with limited powers. The presiding officer for the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor or Lord High Chancellor. Sometimes a mayor is called lord, such as the Lord Mayor of London. The term lord may also be used informally to show respect. Peer, Peerage A peer is a titled member of the British nobility who may sit in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. Peers are ranked in order of their importance. A duke is most important; the others follow in this order: marquis, earl, viscount, baron. A group of peers is called a peerage. Prince, Princess Princes and princesses are sons and daughters of a reigning king and queen. The first-born son of a royal family is first in line for the throne, the second born son is second in line. A princess may become a queen if there is no prince at the time of abdication or death of a king. The wife of a prince is also called a princess. Queen A queen may be the ruler of a monarchy, the wife—or widow—of a king. Viscount, Viscountess The title Viscount originally meant deputy to a count. It has been used most recently to honor British soldiers in World War II. Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery was named a viscount. The title may also be hereditary. The wife of a viscount is a viscountess. (In pronunciation the initial s is silent.) House of Windsor The British royal family has been called the House of Windsor since 1917. Before then, the royal family name was Wettin, a German name derived from Queen Victoria’s husband. In 1917, England was at war with Germany. King George V announced that the royal family name would become the House of Windsor, a name derived from Windsor Castle, a royal residence. The House of Windsor has included Kings George V, Edward VII, George VI, and Queen Elizabeth II.

I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about me wearing the engagement ring,” Shay said to Michael from behind the wheel of his Range Rover. Before he had a chance to respond, she shifted from reverse to drive and shot out of the parking lot. Straight into oncoming traffic. “Shay, watch out for . . . ” He trailed off, his heart in his throat as she expertly avoided being creamed by another speeding SUV. With his hand still gripping the door and his foot pressed on the floor as if he could somehow miraculously slow the vehicle down, Michael said, “Obviously the ring is a big deal to you or you wouldn’t be trying to kill me.” “Being aggressive will save you. Being cautious, that’s what’ll kill you.” “No doubt you’ll live to be a hundred and ten, then.” He relaxed when the speedometer needle inched down toward a more reasonable speed. “I’m taking it that your life lesson only refers to driving; otherwise you would’ve been applauding my efforts at the club.” She glanced at him, a smile tipping up the corner of her mouth. “So, you actually choked on purpose to cozy up to Costello’s hired henchman and disrupted the dancer’s performance so the bouncers would haul you to Kozack’s office?” He ignored everything else but the part that would get him an answer to his earlier question. “I choked because you took my breath away, and—” She laughed. “Either you’re easily impressed or you don’t get out to many strip clubs. Kozack was going to fire me even before he found me in his office.” “Neither is true, but you didn’t let me finish. As incredible as you looked doing what you were doing on that pole, I choked because I saw the engagement ring on the chain around your neck.” He leaned across the console and slid his hand beneath her leather jacket. Her skin was like satin, and he could smell her warm, floral scent. The temptation to press his face to the tender spot between her shoulder and neck almost overwhelmed him. It was one of his favorite places to kiss her. One of her favorite places to be kissed.

German voters never gave the Nazis a majority of the popular vote, as is still sometimes alleged. As we saw in the last chapter, the Nazis did indeed become the largest party in the German Reichstag in the parliamentary election of July 31, 1932, with 37.2 percent of the vote. They then slipped back to 33.1 percent in the parliamentary election of November 6, 1932. In the parliamentary election of March 6, 1933, with Hitler as chancellor and the Nazi Party in command of all the resources of the German state, its score was a more significant but still insufficient 43.9 percent. More than one German in two voted against Nazi candidates in that election, in the teeth of intimidation by Storm Troopers. The Italian Fascist Party won 35 out of 535 seats, in the one free parliamentary election in which it participated, on May 15, 1921. At the other extreme, neither Hitler nor Mussolini arrived in office by a coup d’état. Neither took the helm by force, even if both had used force before power in order to destabilize the existing regime, and both were to use force again, after power, in order to transform their governments into dictatorships (as we will see shortly). Even the most scrupulous authors refer to their “seizure of power,” but that phrase better describes what the two fascist leaders did after reaching office than how they got into office. Both Mussolini and Hitler were invited to take office as head of government by a head of state in the legitimate exercise of his official functions, on the advice of civilian and military counselors. Both thus became heads of government in what appeared, at least on the surface, to be legitimate exercises of constitutional authority by King Victor Emmanuel III and President Hindenburg. Both these appointments were made, it must be added at once, under conditions of extreme crisis, which the fascists had abetted. Indeed no insurrectionary coup against an established state has ever so far brought fascists to power. Authoritarian dictatorships have several times crushed such attempts.

While the following tragedy may be revolting to read, it must not be forgotten that the existence of it is far more revolting. In Devonshire Place, Lisson Grove, a short while back died an old woman of seventy-five years of age. At the inquest the coroner's officer stated that all he found in the room was a lot of old rags covered with vermin. He had got himself smothered with the vermin. The room was in a shocking condition, and he had never seen anything like it. Everything was absolutely covered with vermin.' The doctor said: 'He found deceased lying across the fender on her back. She had one garment and her stockings on. The body was quite alive with vermin, and all the clothes in the room were absolutely gray with insects. Deceased was very badly nourished and was very emaciated. She had extensive sores on her legs, and her stockings were adherent to those sores. The sores were the result of vermin. Over her bony chest leaped and rolled hundreds, thousands, myriads of vermin.' A man present at the inquest wrote; 'I had the evil fortune to see the body of the unfortunate woman as it lay in the mortuary; and even now the memory of that gruesome sight makes me shudder. There she lay in the mortuary shell, so starved and emaciated that she was a mere bundle of skin and bones. Her hair, which was matted with filth, was simply a nest of vermin. If it is not good for your mother and my mother so to die, then it is not good for this woman, whosoever's mother she might be, so to die. Bishop Wilkinson, who has lived in Zululand, recently said, 'No headman of an African village would allow such a promiscuous mixing of young men and women, boys and girls.' He had reference to the children of the overcrowded folk, who at five have nothing to learn and much to unlearn which they will never unlearn. It is notorious that here in the Ghetto the houses of the poor are greater profit earners than the mansions of the rich. Not only does the poor worker have to live like a beast, but he pays proportionately more for it than does the rich man for his spacious comfort. A class of house-sweaters has been made possible by the competition of the poor for houses. There are more people than there is room, and numbers are in the workhouse because they cannot find shelter elsewhere. Not only are houses let, but they are sublet, and sub-sublet down to the very rooms.

Sidney, is that what you girls go for these days?” Kathleen asked, pointing toward her oldest son. “All this scruffy whatnot?” Well, nothing like putting her on the spot here. Personally, Sidney thought that the dark hint of scruff along Vaughn’s angular jaw looked fine. Better than fine, actually. She would, however, rather be trapped for the next thirty-six hours in a car with the crazy pregnant lady before admitting that in front of him. “I generally prefer clean-shaven men.” She shrugged—sorry—when Vaughn gave her the side-eye as he began setting the table. “See? If you don’t believe me, at least listen to her,” Kathleen said, while peeling a carrot over a bowl at the island. “If you want to find a woman of quality, you can’t be running around looking like you just rolled out of bed.” “I’ll keep that in mind. But for now, the ‘scruffy whatnot’ stays. I need it for an undercover role,” Vaughn said. Surprised to hear that, Sidney looked over as she dumped the tomatoes into a large salad bowl filled with lettuce. “You’re working undercover now?” “Well, I’m not in the other identity right this second,” Vaughn said. “I’m kind of guessing my mother would be able to ID me.” Thank you, yes, she got that. “I meant, how does that work?” Sidney asked him. “You just walk around like normal, being yourself, when you’re not . . . the other you?” “That’s exactly how it works. At least, when we’re talking about a case that involves only part-time undercover work.” “But what if I were to run into the other you somewhere? Say . . . at a coffee shop.” A little inside reference there. “If I called you ‘Vaughn’ without realizing that you were working, wouldn’t that blow your cover?” “First of all, like all agents who regularly do undercover work, I tell my friends and family not to approach me if they happen to run into me somewhere—for that very reason. Second of all, in this case, the ‘other me’ doesn’t hang out at coffee shops.” “Where does the other you hang out?” Sidney asked. Not to contribute to his already healthy ego, but this was pretty interesting stuff. “In dark, sketchy alleys doing dark, sketchy things,” Vaughn said as he set the table with salad bowls. “So the other you is a bad guy, then.” Sidney paused, realizing something. “Is what you’re doing dangerous?” “The joke around my office is that the agents on the white-collar crime squad never do anything dangerous.” Sidney noticed that wasn’t an actual answer to her question

ESTABLISH STABLE ANCHORS OF ATTENTION Mindfulness meditation typically involves something known as an anchor of attention—a neutral reference point that helps support mental stability. An anchor might be the sensation of our breath coming in and out of the nostrils, or the rising and falling of our abdomen. When we become lost in thought during practice, we can return to our anchor, fixing our attention on the stimuli we’ve chosen. But anchors can also intensify trauma. The breath, for instance, is far from neutral for many survivors. It’s an area of the body that can hold tension related to a trauma and connect to overwhelming, life-threatening events. When Dylan paid attention to the rising and falling of his abdomen, he would be swamped with memories of mocking faces while walking down the hallway. Other times, feeling a constriction of his breath in the chest echoed a feeling of immobility, which was a traumatic reminder. For Dylan, the breath simply wasn’t a neutral anchor. As a remedy, we can encourage survivors to establish stabilizing anchors of attention. This means finding a focus of attention that supports one’s window of tolerance—creating stability in the nervous system as opposed to dysregulation. Each person’s anchor will vary: for some, it could be the sensations of their hands resting on their thighs, or their buttocks on the cushion. Other stabilizing anchors might include another sense altogether, such as hearing or sight. When Dylan and I worked together, it took a while until he could find a part of his body that didn’t make him more agitated. He eventually found that the sense of hearing was a neutral anchor of attention. At my office, he’d listen for the sound of the birds or the traffic outside, which he found to be stabilizing. “It’s subtle,” he said to me, opening his eyes and rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “But it is a lot less charged. I’m not getting riled up the same way, which is a huge relief.” In sessions together, Dylan’s anchor was a spot he’d rest his attention on at the beginning of a session or a place to return to if he felt overwhelmed. If he practiced meditation at home—I’d recommended short periods if he could stay in his window of tolerance—he used hearing as an anchor, or “home base” as he called it. “I finally feel like I can access a kind of refuge,” he said quietly, placing his hand on his belly. “My body hasn’t felt safe in so long. It’s a relief to finally feel like I’m learning how to be in here.” Anchors of attention you can offer students and clients practicing mindfulness—besides the sensation of the breath in the abdomen or nostrils—include different physical sensations (feet, buttocks, back, hands) and other senses (seeing, smelling, hearing). One client of mine had a soft blanket that she would touch slowly as an anchor. Another used a candle. For some, walking meditation is a great way to develop more stable anchors of attention, such as the feeling of one’s feet on the ground—whatever supports stability and one’s window of tolerance. Experimentation is key. Using subtler anchors does come with benefits and drawbacks. One advantage to working with the breath is that it is dynamic and tends to hold our attention more easily. When we work with a sense that’s less tactile—hearing, for instance—we may be more prone to drifting off into distraction. The more tangible the anchor, the easier it is to return to it when attention wanders.

The Seventh Central Pay Commission was appointed in February 2014 by the Government of India (Ministry of Finance) under the Chairmanship of Justice Ashok Kumar Mathur. The Commission has been given 18 months to make its recommendations. The terms of reference of the Commission are as follows:  1. To examine, review, evolve and recommend changes that are desirable and feasible regarding the principles that should govern the emoluments structure including pay, allowances and other facilities/benefits, in cash or kind, having regard to rationalisation and simplification therein as well as the specialised needs of various departments, agencies and services, in respect of the following categories of employees:-  (i) Central Government employees—industrial and non-industrial; (ii) Personnel belonging to the All India Services; (iii) Personnel of the Union Territories; (iv) Officers and employees of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department; (v) Members of the regulatory bodies (excluding the RBI) set up under the Acts of Parliament; and (vi) Officers and employees of the Supreme Court.   2. To examine, review, evolve and recommend changes that are desirable and feasible regarding the principles that should govern the emoluments structure, concessions and facilities/benefits, in cash or kind, as well as the retirement benefits of the personnel belonging to the Defence Forces, having regard to the historical and traditional parties, with due emphasis on the aspects unique to these personnel.   3. To work out the framework for an emoluments structure linked with the need to attract the most suitable talent to government service, promote efficiency, accountability and responsibility in the work culture, and foster excellence in the public governance system to respond to the complex challenges of modern administration and the rapid political, social, economic and technological changes, with due regard to expectations of stakeholders, and to recommend appropriate training and capacity building through a competency based framework.   4. To examine the existing schemes of payment of bonus, keeping in view, inter-alia, its bearing upon performance and productivity and make recommendations on the general principles, financial parameters and conditions for an appropriate incentive scheme to reward excellence in productivity, performance and integrity.   5. To review the variety of existing allowances presently available to employees in addition to pay and suggest their rationalisation and simplification with a view to ensuring that the pay structure is so designed as to take these into account.   6. To examine the principles which should govern the structure of pension and other retirement benefits, including revision of pension in the case of employees who have retired prior to the date of effect of these recommendations, keeping in view that retirement benefits of all Central Government employees appointed on and after 01.01.2004 are covered by the New Pension Scheme (NPS).   7. To make recommendations on the above, keeping in view:  (i) the economic conditions in the country and the need for fiscal prudence; (ii) the need to ensure that adequate resources are available for developmental expenditures and welfare measures; (iii) the likely impact of the recommendations on the finances of the state governments, which usually adopt the recommendations with some modifications; (iv) the prevailing emolument structure and retirement benefits available to employees of Central Public Sector Undertakings; and (v) the best global practices and their adaptability and relevance in Indian conditions.   8. To recommend the date of effect of its recommendations on all the above.

Adventists urged to study women’s ordination for themselves Adventist Church President Ted N. C. Wilson appealed to members to study the Bible regarding the theology of ordination as the Church continues to examine the matter at Annual Council next month and at General Conference Session next year. Above, Wilson delivers the Sabbath sermon at Annual Council last year. [ANN file photo] President Wilson and TOSC chair Stele also ask for prayers for Holy Spirit to guide proceedings September 24, 2014 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Andrew McChesney/Adventist Review Ted N. C. Wilson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, appealed to church members worldwide to earnestly read what the Bible says about women’s ordination and to pray that he and other church leaders humbly follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance on the matter. Church members wishing to understand what the Bible teaches on women’s ordination have no reason to worry about where to start, said Artur A. Stele, who oversaw an unprecedented, two-year study on women’s ordination as chair of the church-commissioned Theology of Ordination Study Committee. Stele, who echoed Wilson’s call for church members to read the Bible and pray on the issue, recommended reading the study’s three brief “Way Forward Statements,” which cite Bible texts and Adventist Church co-founder Ellen G. White to support each of the three positions on women’s ordination that emerged during the committee’s research. The results of the study will be discussed in October at the Annual Council, a major business meeting of church leaders. The Annual Council will then decide whether to ask the nearly 2,600 delegates of the world church to make a final call on women’s ordination in a vote at the General Conference Session next July. Wilson, speaking in an interview, urged each of the church’s 18 million members to prayerfully read the study materials, available on the website of the church’s Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research. "Look to see how the papers and presentations were based on an understanding of a clear reading of Scripture,” Wilson said in his office at General Conference headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. “The Spirit of Prophecy tells us that we are to take the Bible just as it reads,” he said. “And I would encourage each church member, and certainly each representative at the Annual Council and those who will be delegates to the General Conference Session, to prayerfully review those presentations and then ask the Holy Spirit to help them know God’s will.” The Spirit of Prophecy refers to the writings of White, who among her statements on how to read the Bible wrote in The Great Controversy (p. 598), “The language of the Bible should be explained according to its obvious meaning, unless a symbol or figure is employed.” “We don’t have the luxury of having the Urim and the Thummim,” Wilson said, in a nod to the stones that the Israelite high priest used in Old Testament times to learn God’s will. “Nor do we have a living prophet with us. So we must rely upon the Holy Spirit’s leading in our own Bible study as we review the plain teachings of Scripture.” He said world church leadership was committed to “a very open, fair, and careful process” on the issue of women’s ordination. Wilson added that the crucial question facing the church wasn’t whether women should be ordained but whether church members who disagreed with the final decision on ordination, whatever it might be, would be willing to set aside their differences to focus on the church’s 151-year mission: proclaiming Revelation 14 and the three angels’ messages that Jesus is coming soon. 3 Views on Women’s Ordination In an effort to better understand the Bible’s teaching on ordination, the church established the Theology of Ordination Study Committee, a group of 106 members commonly referred to by church leaders as TOSC. It was not organized

Police recording of false allegations of rape: "The data on the pro formas limit the extent to which one can assess the police designations, but their internal rules on false complaints specify that this category should be limited to cases where either there is a clear and credible admission by the complainants, or where there are strong evidential grounds. On this basis, and bearing in mind the data limitations, for the cases where there is information (n=144) the designation of false complaint could be said to be probable (primarily those where the account by the complainant is referred to) in 44 cases, possible (primarily where there is some evidential basis) in a further 33 cases, and uncertain (including where victim characteristics are used to impute that they are inherently less believable) in 77 cases. If the proportion of false complaints on the basis of the probable and possible cases are recalculated, rates of three per cent are obtained, both of all reported cases (n=67 of 2,643), and of those where the outcome is known (n=67 of 2,284). Even if all those designated false by the police were accepted (a figure of approximately ten per cent), this is still much lower than the rate perceived by police officers interviewed in this study. A question asked of all of them was how they assessed truth and falsity in allegations and within this, 50 per cent (n=31) further discussed the issue of false allegations." A gap or a chasm?: attrition in reported rape cases.

God damn you!” Alfred said. “You belong in jail!” The turd wheezed with laughter as it slid very slowly down the wall, its viscous pseudopods threatening to drip on the sheets below. “Seems to me,” it said, “you anal retentive type personalities want everything in jail. Like, little kids, bad news, man, they pull your tchotchkes off your shelves, they drop food on the carpet, they cry in theaters, they miss the pot. Put ’em in the slammer! And Polynesians, man, they track sand in the house, get fish juice on the furniture, and all those pubescent chickies with their honkers exposed? Jail ’em! And how about ten to twenty, while we’re at it, for every horny little teenager, I mean talk about insolence, talk about no restraint. And Negroes (sore topic, Fred?), I’m hearing rambunctious shouting and interesting grammar, I’m smelling liquor of the malt variety and sweat that’s very rich and scalpy, and all that dancing and whoopee-making and singers that coo like body parts wetted with saliva and special jellies: what’s a jail for if not to toss a Negro in it? And your Caribbeans with their spliffs and their potbelly toddlers and their like daily barbecues and ratborne hanta viruses and sugary drinks with pig blood at the bottom? Slam the cell door, eat the key. And the Chinese, man, those creepy-ass weird-name vegetables like homegrown dildos somebody forgot to wash after using, one-dollah, one-dollah, and those slimy carps and skinned-alive songbirds, and come on, like, puppy-dog soup and pooty-tat dumplings and female infants are national delicacies, and pork bung, by which we’re referring here to the anus of a swine, presumably a sort of chewy and bristly type item, pork bung’s a thing Chinks pay money for to eat? What say we just nuke all billion point two of ’em, hey? Clean that part of the world up already. And let’s not forget about women generally, nothing but a trail of Kleenexes and Tampaxes everywhere they go. And your fairies with their doctor’s-office lubricants, and your Mediterraneans with their whiskers and their garlic, and your French with their garter belts and raunchy cheeses, and your blue-collar ball-scratchers with their hot rods and beer belches, and your Jews with their circumcised putzes and gefilte fish like pickled turds, and your Wasps with their Cigarette boats and runny-assed polo horses and go-to-hell cigars? Hey, funny thing, Fred, the only people that don’t belong in your jail are upper-middle-class northern European men. And you’re on my case for wanting

Russians refer to United Russia as the Party of Power. Other nations refer to it as “the Party of Crooks and Thieves.” In exchange for financial support, Putin’s party controlled power by giving out contracts, bribes, and kickbacks. Across the country members of the party were routinely accused of corruption, drug trafficking, racketeering, vote-rigging, and murder. Yet, once in office they would not only escape prosecution, in some cases they were awarded medals for their service. Being a member was almost a get-out-of-jail-free card, unless you crossed the party itself.

Strategy is heavily influenced by its roots in military strategy. The very language of strategy is deeply imbued with military references— chief executive “officers” in “headquarters,” “troops” on the “front lines.” Described this way, strategy is all about red ocean competition. It is about confronting an opponent and driving him off a battlefield of limited territory.

I analysed the causes of delay in delivering justice, which are: 1) an inadequate number of courts; 2) an inadequate number of judicial officers; 3) the judicial officers are not fully equipped to tackle cases involving specialized knowledge; 4) the dilatory tactics followed by the litigants and their lawyers who seek frequent adjournments and delays in filing documents; and 5) the role of the administrative staff of the court. Based on my analysis, I suggested encouraging dispute resolution through the human touch; reinforcing the Lok Adalats; creating a National Litigation Pendency Clearance Mission; ensuring alternative dispute redressal mechanisms such as arbitration; and providing fast-track courts. I also suggested several actions with particular reference to pendency in the high courts. These included the classification of cases on the basis of an age analysis, that is, identifying cases that are redundant because the subsequent generations are not interested in pursuing them. Primary among my recommendations was the e-judiciary initiative. As part of this, I recommended computerization of the active case files, taking into account the age analysis, which will surely reduce the number of cases that are still pending.

This is what happened when I cofounded LinkedIn. The key business model innovations for LinkedIn, including the two-way nature of the relationships and filling professionals’ need for a business-oriented online identity, didn’t just happen organically. They were the result of much thought and reflection, and I drew on the experiences I had when founding SocialNet, one of the first online social networks, nearly a decade before the creation of LinkedIn. But life isn’t always so neat. Many companies, even famous and successful ones, have to develop their business model innovation after they have already commenced operations. PayPal didn’t have a business model when it began operations (I was a key member of the PayPal executive team). We were growing exponentially, at 5 percent per day, and we were losing money on every single transaction we processed. The funny thing is that some of our critics called us insane for paying customers bonuses to refer their friends. Those referral bonuses were actually brilliant, because their cost was so much lower than the standard cost of acquiring new financial services customers via advertising. (We’ll discuss the power and importance of this kind of viral marketing later on.) The insanity, in fact, was that we were allowing our users to accept credit card payments, sticking PayPal with the cost of paying 3 percent of each transaction to the credit card processors, while charging our users nothing. I remember once telling my old college friend and PayPal cofounder/ CEO Peter Thiel, “Peter, if you and I were standing on the roof of our office and throwing stacks of hundred-dollar bills off the edge as fast as our arms could go, we still wouldn’t be losing money as quickly as we are right now.” We ended up solving the problem by charging businesses to accept payments, much as the credit card processors did, but funding those payments using automated clearinghouse (ACH) bank transactions, which cost a fraction of the charges associated with the credit card networks. But if we had waited until we had solved this problem before blitzscaling, I suspect we wouldn’t have become the market leader.

Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the thirty thousand emails that are missing,” Trump said, referring to the messages that Clinton had deleted from her private server. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” There was a hush in the hotel lobby, broken by the exclamation of a single editor: “Holy shit.” Hours later, GRU hackers for the first time launched spearphishing attacks against private email accounts used by Clinton’s personal office and seventy-six addresses associated with the campaign.

THE LEWINSKY PROCEDURE: A STRATEGY GUIDE FOR MINIMIZING POLITICAL SCANDAL Deny -The necessary first stage, where you question the accuracy of the facts. It will take time for all the scandalous details to come out, and if you’re careful or lucky, they may never come out. Deny everything until the point that the facts against you can be substantiated. Delay -Take every action possible to stall, postpone, impede, procrastinate, and filibuster. The longer the time between the initial news of the scandal and the resolution of the scandal, the better. Diminish -Once the facts against you have been substantiated, either minimize the nature of the scandal or its impact against you. “At this point, what difference does it make?” Debunk -Have a helpful news organization or advocacy group develop a useful counter-narrative that explains away the scandal or contradicts the facts or generally does something to get progressives back on your side. “Explanatory journalism” is a great help here. Distract -Change the conversation by talking about something else. It doesn’t matter what that might be, because there’s always something else more important, even if it’s reminding people to drink more water. Suggest that the scandal itself is a distraction from the real issues. Deflect -When in doubt, blame the Republicans. All administrative failures can be blamed on the failures of the prior administration. All political failures can be blamed on Republican legislation or Republican intransigence in not passing progressive legislation which would have fixed the problem. All personal failures can be excused by either bringing up the example of a Republican who did something similar, or by pointing out that whatever was done wasn’t as bad as serving divorce papers on your wife when she’s in the hospital with cancer, or invading Iraq. Divide -Point out that the scandal is being driven by the most extreme Republicans, and that moderates aren’t to blame. This won’t help you with moderates that much, but it will give the moderates another reason not to like the extremists, and vice versa, and this can only be positive. Deploy -Get friends and allies to talk about your positive virtues in public, without reference to the scandal. If the scandal comes up, have them complain about the politics of personal destruction. Demonize -Attribute malign intentions to the conservatives trying to promote the scandal. This approach should also include special prosecutors, judges, and anyone else who is involved in the scandal to one degree or another. Defenestrate -When necessary, shove someone under the bus. Try not to make this a habit, or you won’t have anyone around to deploy. The target for defenestration can be small (rogue employees in the Cincinnati regional office) or large (Cabinet secretary) but it needs to be someone who won’t scream overly much as they sail out the window. ❄ ❄ ❄

I have heard in the old army an anecdote very characteristic of Bragg. On one occasion, when stationed at a post of several companies commanded by a field officer, he was himself commanding one of the companies and at the same time acting as post quartermaster and commissary. He was first lieutenant at the time, but his captain was detached on other duty. As commander of the company he made a requisition upon the quartermaster--himself--for something he wanted. As quartermaster he declined to fill the requisition, and endorsed on the back of it his reasons for so doing. As company commander he responded to this, urging that his requisition called for nothing but what he was entitled to, and that it was the duty of the quartermaster to fill it. As quartermaster he still persisted that he was right. In this condition of affairs Bragg referred the whole matter to the commanding officer of the post. The latter, when he saw the nature of the matter referred, exclaimed: "My God, Mr. Bragg, you have quarrelled with every officer in the army, and now you are quarrelling with yourself!

LEP trainees often had difficulty developing the double focus needed to watch the terrain and their helmet screens. This often resulted in an action known as filling the vase, which was how LEP officers referred to throwing up in one's helmet.

And here’s where an IC security vulnerability became glaringly evident. The CIA hadn’t attached any alerts to his background profile, and when Snowden applied to become an NSA IT administrator, contracted through Dell Technologies, NSA supposedly never verified his references. NSA assigned him in Asia, then back to Maryland, and then to Hawaii in March 2012, where he worked on IT systems in the agency’s information-sharing office. In that role, he had access to a vast array of NSA systems, programs, and data. In March 2013, he left Dell to work for Booz Allen Hamilton in a similar role, still at NSA Hawaii, and he continued to steal classified material.

Dared he ask about George? Not a direct inquiry, that wouldn’t do, but a reference to the family, asking whether his mother had happened to encounter Lady Everett lately, and might he ask to be remembered to her son? He sighed and drew another point on his object. No. His widowed mother was ignorant of the situation, but Lady Everett’s husband moved in military circles. His brother’s influence would keep the gossip to a minimum, but Lord Everett might catch a whiff of it, nonetheless, and be quick enough to put two and two together. Let him drop an injudicious word to his wife about George, and the word pass on from Lady Everett to his mother … the Dowager Countess Melton was not a fool. She knew quite well that he was in disgrace; promising young officers in the good graces of their superiors were not sent to the arse-end of Scotland to oversee the renovation of small and unimportant prison-fortresses. But his brother Harold had told her that the trouble was an unfortunate affair of the heart, implying sufficient indelicacy to stop her questioning him about it. She likely thought he had been caught with his colonel’s wife, or keeping a whore in his quarters.

The Roman Catholic view of prayer also must be opposed. Prayers to saints and to Mary amount to (1) a rejection of the accessibility of God in Christ (the only Mediator12) and (2) an ascription of attributes to glorified human beings that belong to God alone (omniscience, omnipresence, and sometimes omnipotence). Mary is called the “refuge of sinners,” the one who is to be asked to “guide” and “teach” us, who is “never implored in vain,” to whom “fervent prayers are to be addressed,” and the one whose “name alone comforts” (The Catholic Church the Teacher of Mankind). She solves the problems of rain and drought, famine and plague according to this book designed to instruct “the Catholic child at the mother’s knee” (Title page. The book was published in New York by the Office of Catholic Publications and bears the imprimatur of Archbishop Johannes W. Farley). On page 643 we read: Unfortunately, you are still mastered by many faults which prevent your becoming the pious and dutiful child God wishes you to be. To be able to cure yourselves of them you must implore the Blessed Virgin. Words almost fail in replying to such unrestrained idolatry. This concept of prayer puts Mary in God’s place. In fact it seems that according to this doctrine of prayer, God has delegated the answering of prayer to Mary. The response to make must be this: (1) Nowhere in all of the Scriptures can any such ideas be found. One will search in vain to find anyone at any time praying to Mary; nor is there any injunction to do so. Indeed, the Scriptures tell us to pray exclusively to God in Christ’s name (see vss. supra). And there is no model of prayer to Mary, any other human being, or to angels. The biblical picture differs considerably from the Roman Catholic one represented in these words: “…in his shortcomings, at each instant of his life, and in the hour of his death, the Christian turns to Mary. Her name alone comforts him, and gives him confidence” (ibid., p. 642). (2) When we pray to someone, we thereby ascribe to that one all of God’s attributes. For example, we must assume that the one to whom prayer is directed is omnipresent even to be able to hear the millions of prayers that are directed to him from all parts of the earth. But omnipresence is an attribute of God alone. Omnipotence likewise is required of the one to whom we pray; he must be able to answer all requests. Omniscience cannot be divorced from prayer either, since the answer must be given with reference to all other matters of all time (past, present and future). Does Mary have such attributes? Some think so (“Mary is all powerful, for she is the mother of God,” ibid., p. 642), others have not carefully thought through the issues involved.

That this is really the case was made plain to me by the questions asked me, mostly by young men, about my Canterbury play, The Zeal of Thy House. The action of the play involves a dramatic presentation of a few fundamental Christian dogmas— in particular, the application to human affairs of the doctrine of the Incarnation. That the Church believed Christ to be in any real sense God, or that the eternal word was supposed to be associated in any way with the word of creation; that Christ was held to be at the same time man in any real sense of the word; that the doctrine of the Trinity could be considered to have any relation to fact or any bearing on psychological truth; that the Church considered pride to be sinful, or indeed took notice of any sin beyond the more disreputable sins of the flesh—all these things were looked upon as astonishing and revolutionary novelties, imported into the faith by the feverish imagination of a playwright. I protested in vain against this flattering tribute to my powers of invention, referring my inquirers to the creeds, to the gospels, and to the offices of the Church; I insisted that if my play were dramatic it was so, not in spite of the dogma, but because of it—that, in short, the dogma was the drama. The explanation was, however, not well received; it was felt that if there were anything attractive in Christian philosophy I must have put it there myself.