And history teaches this iron law of revolutions: the more extensive the eradication of existing authority, the more its successors must rely on naked power to establish themselves. For,in the end,legitimacy involves an acceptance of authority withou...
Some people choose to go on 'American Idol' or another singing contest, and some people choose to beat down barrooms before anyone even knows who they are, in order to get a fan base, so when they do get a record deal, they have that to put in front ...
...[I]ron discipline does not preclude but presupposes criticism and contest of opinion within the Party. Least of all does it mean that discipline must be 'blind'. On the contrary, iron discipline does not preclude but presupposes conscious and volu...
I was extraordinarily lucky. I wrote a book because I wanted to see if I could write a mystery. Someone nagged me into sending it to a contest, which it won, after which I was offered a two-book contract, thus requiring the writing of a second book.
I actually really suck at naming books, so lots of years ago, readers were sending in their ideas for titles, and what we realized is that they were smarter than us. So we thought, Hey, go for it. So now we have a contest every year.
The whole gun debate needs to be infused with a discussion about manhood. It's frustrating to hear debates about gun rights vs. gun control, and yet very few people say what's hidden in plain sight: It's really a contest of meanings about manhood.
I was 15 when I got my first job as a proofreader for an advertising agency in the City, earning £12 a week. But by then, I was already playing darts tournaments every weekend, regularly winning the £50 first prize. By the time I was 16 and win...
'Deal or No Deal' works nicely with my ADD/ADHD symptoms. I show up, meet the contestants, and move around the set. I'm not stuck behind a pedestal reading trivia questions. I've always had problems sitting still and listening for long periods of tim...
In my new IFC comedy game show, 'Bunk,' we actually use our intern Patrick as a human timer - giving contestants the time it takes for him to wade through a bag of broken glass for a razor blade, to get gum out of his hair, to pick up every strand fr...
My husband, a.k.a. Swede, and I both come from athletic backgrounds, so once we identified the goal - get book published - we attacked it. At any given time, I would have my writing out in 25 various forms - either contests, mentoring critiques, agen...
I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals, and fairs, and karaoke contests, and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time. I...
One of my most memorable Thanksgiving memories was probably the first year that me and my two brothers decided to start our annual eating contest. We ate throughout the whole day. We started that morning and weighed ourselves, and at the very end of ...
When I saw contestants fighting for their lives on 'The Biggest Loser,' I realized I just wanted to be healthy - to have fun playing soccer with my son or teaching my daughter to shoot hoops. Then it was so much easier to say no to carbs, soda, or de...
No matter how fast weapons and technology evolve in the 21st century, one thing remains constant is that war is a human endeavor, a grueling contest between two learning and adaptive forces. Victory, therefore rests on how smart, how tough, and how d...
Deep layers of context are missed when cursorily reading for quantity at the expense of comprehension - only the vapid are impressed by those who try to squeeze as many books as possible into each passing month as if shoving one more oiled hot dog do...
I think everyone can recognize the one-upmanship and the competition that go on wherever you are, especially among groups where the women don't have to hold down office jobs and instead get in a total snit about who won the longest carrot contest or ...
In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds u...
It was a relief to inhabit someone else's life for a while, to get her personal issues for a brief respite. In a play, she knew exactly how all her character's problems would be resolved. No matter how the cast performed, the end turned out the same....
Group membership can modify individuals' perceptions of themselves. Unable to separate their personal introspection from the ways they believe other people perceive them, teenagers may have what psychologists call an "imaginary audience", meaning tha...
Gaming was "one of the only times when you only have to focus on one thing." But even more than that, "It's like an anchor. As long as I know it's there, it's part of me. It's some form of continuity that in my life I desperately need.
The human brain takes in information from other people and incorporates it with the information coming from its own senses, neuroscientist Gregory Berns has written. Many times, the group's opinion trumps the individual's before he even becomes aware...
