You know what—gyms make the largest chunk of their profit from clients who pay their monthly dues on auto-pay but never bother to show up and use the gym. The DVD-rental companies make a good chunk of their profits from late fees; the credit-card c...
I think the skin revolution for women, I will call it, really all started with Mariah Carey. Madonna was pretty risqué too, but she was pretty much always known as a "bad girl." Mariah was a good girl, supposedly Christian, turning very bad, in the ...
Boy! There are times when I get the feeling that science develops things that are supposed to be good for us, but that just make trouble.” Dr. Tresselt’s blue eyes seemed to throw out sparks of amusement. “I know how you feel, Joe,” he said. ...
He panted over me, winded by his own absurd lecture. The stench of his alcoholic breath stung my nose. Again I didn’t answer. I hoped he’d tire out and end his speech and hobble back to the living room without touching me. Such hopes were unlikel...
I don’t think I like the idea that you just control me, but you get to do anything you like.” “Ah, but that’s because you don’t understand the power exchange. Note that I used the word exchange. Listen, there are as many different ways to p...
So why don’t Americans cheat? Because they think that their system is legitimate. People accept authority when they see that it treats everyone equally, when it is possible to speak up and be heard, and when there are rules in place that assure you...
I did not see Pirahã teenagers moping, sleeping in late, refusing to accept responsibility for their own actions, or trying out what they considered to be radically new approaches to life. They in fact are highly productive and conformist members of...
Quin reached out, spun her back to him, and pulled her into his arms, held her tight, so tight that she could hardly breathe. "I need you," he said, low and fierce, into her hair. "Oh, G-d, Olivia, how did I ever live without you?" She reached up, pu...
America hadn't really been suited for its long and tiresome role as the Last Superpower, the World's Policeman. As a patriotic American, Oscar was quite content to watch other people's military coming home in boxes for a while. The American national ...
As Sidda joined Vivi in staring out into the darkness of the fields, where hundreds of sunflowers grew, she thought: I will never fully know my mother, any more than I will ever know my father or Connor, or myself. I have been missing the point. The ...
The whole right side of his face was smashed in, concave forehead and crushed cheekbone and one eye bugging precariously from a broken socket. He was purplish-black, and dirty white: Maggots seethed from every pore and crawled across him in excited w...
Galatians 5:22-23 describes the fruit of the Spirit, which is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Notice the verse does not say the "fruits" of the Spirit, but fruit. The fruit, or result, of t...
Ian was a good man—honest, trustworthy, loyal, and of honorable character. His desire to keep his promise to Angelle and to be a respectable servant of Harrowbeth would always take president over any personal feelings, no matter how intense or grat...
Is precisely in market dealings that market prices are formed for all kinds of goods and services, which will be taken as the bases of calculation. Where there is no free market, there is no pricing mechanism; without a pricing mechanism, there is no...
(You do not have to be shamed in my closeness. Family are the people who must never make you feel ashamed.) (You are wrong. Family are the people who must make you feel ashamed when you are deserving of shame.) (And you are deserving of shame?) (I am...
Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief ...
What the government makes to make money is money. They make money by making money—literally printing it. While the private sector has to make money the hard way—by producing a good or service that others willingly want to buy. That’s why the pr...
Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never even dared to admit that you wanted—an emotional speedball, perhap...
I haven't heard anything new that I've liked on the show. A lot of the bands we play with are just bad, especially those alternative rock bands. They can do it in the studio but they can't play live... I see the audience applauding while they're play...
It may be said of Socialism, therefore, that its friends recommended it as increasing equality, while its foes resisted it as decreasing liberty….The compromise eventually made was one of the most interesting and even curious cases in history. It w...
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even ...
