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On the madness and charm of crushes
You are introduced to someone at a conference. They look nice and you have a brief chat about the theme of the keynote speaker. But already, partly because of the slope of their neck and a lilt in their accent, you have reached an overwhelming conclusion. Or, you sit down in the carriage – and there, diagonally opposite you – is someone you cannot stop looking at for the rest of a journey across miles of darkening countryside. You know nothing concrete about them. You are going only by what their appearance suggests. You note that they have slipped a finger into a book (The Food of the Middle East), that their nails are bitten raw, that they have a thin leather strap around their left wrist and that they are squinting a touch short-sightedly at the map above the door. And that is enough to convince you. Another day, coming out of the supermarket, amidst a throng of people, you catch sight of a face for no longer than eight seconds and yet here too, you feel the same overwhelming certainty – and, subsequently, a bittersweet sadness at their disappearance in the anonymous crowd.
Crushes: they happen to some people often and to almost everyone sometimes. Airports, trains, streets, conferences – the dynamics of modern life are forever throwing us into fleeting contact with strangers, from amongst whom we pick out a few examples who seem to us not merely interesting, but more powerfully, the solution to our lives. This phenomenon – the crush – goes to the heart of the modern understanding of love. It could seem like a small incident, essentially comic and occasionally farcical. It may look like a minor planet in the constellation of love, but it is in fact the underlying secret central sun around which our notions of the romantic revolve.
A crush represents in pure and perfect form the dynamics of romantic philosophy: the explosive interaction of limited knowledge, outward obstacles to further discovery – and boundless hope.
The crush reveals how willing we are to allow details to suggest a whole. We allow the arch of someone's eyebrow to suggest a personality. We take the way a person puts more weight on their right leg as they stand listening to a colleague as an indication of a witty independence of mind. Or their way of lowering their head seems proof of a complex shyness and sensitivity. From a few cues only, you anticipate years of happiness, buoyed by profound mutual sympathy. They will fully grasp that you love your mother even though you don't get on well with her; that you are hard-working, even though you appear to be distracted; that you are hurt rather than angry. The parts of your character that confuse and puzzle others will at last find a soothing, wise, complex soulmate.
The answer to life
In elaborating a whole personality from a few small – but hugely evocative – details, we are doing for the inner character of a person what our eyes naturally do with the sketch of a face.
We don't see this as a picture of someone who has no nostrils, eight strands of hair and no eyelashes. Without even noticing that we are doing it, we fill in the missing parts. Our brains are primed to take tiny visual hints and construct entire figures from them – and we do the same when it comes to character. We are – much more than we give ourselves credit for – inveterate artists of elaboration. We have evolved to be ready to make quick decisions about people (to trust or withhold, to fight or embrace, to share or deny) on the basis of very limited evidence – the way someone looks at us, how they stand, a twitch of the lips, a slight movement of the shoulder – and we bring this ingenious but fateful talent to situations of love as much to those of danger.
The cynical voice wants to declare that these enthusiastic imaginings at the conference or on the train, in the street or in the supermarket, are just delusional; that we simply project a false, completely imaginary idea of identity onto an innocent stranger. But this is too sweeping. We may be right. The wry posture may really belong to someone with a great line in scepticism; the head tilter may be unusually generous to the foibles of others. The error of the crush is more subtle, it lies in how easily we move from spotting a range of genuinely fine traits of character to settling on a recklessly naive romantic conclusion: that the other across the train aisle or pavement constitutes a complete answer to our inner needs.
The primary error of the crush lies in overlooking a central fact about people in general, not merely this or that example, but the species as a whole: that everyone has something very substantially wrong with them once their characters are fully known, something so wrong as to make an eventual mockery of the unlimited rapture unleashed by the crush. We can't yet know what the problems will be, but we can and should be certain that they are there, lurking somewhere behind the facade, waiting for time to unfurl them.
How can one be so sure? Because the facts of life have deformed all of our natures. No one among us has come through unscathed. There is too much to fear: mortality, loss, dependency, abandonment, ruin, humiliation, subjection. We are, all of us, desperately fragile, ill-equipped to meet with the challenges to our mental integrity: we lack courage, preparation, confidence, intelligence. We don't have the right role models, we were (necessarily) imperfectly parented, we fight rather than explain, we nag rather than teach, we fret instead of analysing our worries, we have a precarious sense of security, we can't understand either ourselves or others well enough, we don't have an appetite for the truth and suffer a fatal weakness for flattering denials. The chances of a perfectly good human emerging from the perilous facts of life are non-existent. Our fears and our frailties play themselves out in a thousand ways, they can make us defensive or aggressive, grandiose or hesitant, clingy or avoidant – but we can be sure that they will make everyone much less than perfect and at moments, extremely hard to live with.
We don't have to know someone in any way before knowing this about them. Naturally, their particular way of being flawed and (consequently very annoying) will not be visually apparent and may be concealed for quite long periods. If we only encounter another person in a fairly limited range of situations (a train journey, rather than when they are trying to get a toddler into a car seat; a conference, rather than 87 minutes into a shopping trip with their elderly father) we may, for a very long time indeed (especially if we are left alone to convert our enthusiasm into an obsession because they don't call us back or are playing it cool), have the pleasure of believing we have landed upon an angel.
A mature person thinks, not, 'There's nothing good here', but rather 'The genuinely good things will – inevitably – come mixed up with really terrible things'
Maturity doesn't suggest we give up on crushes. Merely that we definitively give up on the founding romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of relationships and marriage has been based for the past 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can solve all our needs and satisfy our yearnings. We need to swap the Romantic view for the Tragic Awareness of Love, which states that every human can be guaranteed to frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us – and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. This is a truth chiselled indelibly into the script of life. Choosing who to marry or commit ourselves to is therefore merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for, rather than an occasion miraculously to escape from grief.
We should enjoy our crushes. A crush teaches us about qualities we admire and need to have more of in our lives. The person on the train really does have an extremely beguiling air of self-deprecation in their eyes. The person glimpsed by the fresh fruit counter really does promise to be a gentle and excellent parent. But these characters will, just as importantly, also be sure to ruin our lives in key ways, as all those we love will.
A caustic view of crushes shouldn't depress us, merely relieve the excessive imaginative pressure that our romantic culture places upon long-term relationships. The failure of one particular partner to be the ideal Other is not – we should always understand – an argument against them; it is by no means a sign that the relationship deserves to fail or be upgraded. We have all necessarily, without being damned, ended up with that figure of our nightmares, 'the wrong person.'
Romantic pessimism simply takes it for granted that one person should not be asked to be everything to another. With this truth accepted, we can look for ways to accommodate ourselves as gently and as kindly as we can to the awkward realities of life beside another fallen creature, for example, never feeling that we have to spend all of our time with them, being prepared for the disappointments of erotic life, not insisting on complete transparency, being ready to be maddened and to madden, making sure we are allowed to keep a vibrant independent social life and maintaining a clear-eyed refusal to act on sudden desires to run off with strangers on trains… A mature understanding of the madness of crushes turns out to be the best and perhaps the only solution to the tensions of long-term love.
How Creativity works in the brain
By: Po Bronson
Newsweek, 7/10/10
The lore of pop psychology is that creativity occurs on the right side of the brain. But we now know that if you tried to be creative using only the right side of your brain, it'd be like living with ideas perpetually at the tip of your tongue, just beyond reach.
When you try to solve a problem, you begin by concentrating on obvious facts and familiar solutions, to see if the answer lies there. This is a mostly left-brain stage of attack. If the answer doesn't come, the right and left hemispheres of the brain activate together. Neural networks on the right side scan remote memories that could be vaguely relevant. A wide range of distant information that is normally tuned out becomes available to the left hemisphere, which searches for unseen patterns, alternative meanings, and high-level abstractions.
Having glimpsed such a connection, the left brain must quickly lock in on it before it escapes. The attention system must radically reverse gears, going from defocused attention to extremely focused attention. In a flash, the brain pulls together these disparate shreds of thought and binds them into a new single idea that enters consciousness. This is the "aha!" moment of insight, often followed by a spark of pleasure as the brain recognizes the novelty of what it's come up with.
Now the brain must evaluate the idea it just generated. Is it worth pursuing? Creativity requires constant shifting, blender pulses of both divergent thinking and convergent thinking, to combine new information with old and forgotten ideas. Highly creative people are very good at marshaling their brains into bilateral mode, and the more creative they are, the more they dual-activate.
Should A Robot Sacrifice Your Life To Save Two?
By: Erik Sofge
Popular Mechanics, 5/12/2014
It happens quickly—more quickly than you, being human, can fully process.
A front tire blows, and your autonomous SUV swerves. But rather than veering left, into the opposing lane of traffic, the robotic vehicle steers right. Brakes engage, the system tries to correct itself, but there's too much momentum. Like a cornball stunt in a bad action movie, you are over the cliff, in free fall.
Your robot, the one you paid good money for, has chosen to kill you. Better that, its collision-response algorithms decided, than a high-speed, head-on collision with a smaller, non-robotic compact. There were two people in that car, to your one. The math couldn't be simpler.
This, roughly speaking, is the problem presented by Patrick Lin, an associate philosophy professor and director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University. In a recent opinion piece for Wired, Lin explored one of the most disturbing questions in robot ethics: If a crash is unavoidable, should an autonomous car choose who it slams into?
It might seem like a simple thought experiment, a twist on the classic "trolley problem," an ethical conundrum that asks whether you'd save five people on a runaway trolley, at the price of killing one person on the tracks. But the more detailed the crash scenarios get, the harder they are to navigate. Assume that the robot has what can only be described as superhuman senses and reaction speed, thanks to its machine reflexes and suite of advanced sensors. In that moment of truth before the collision, should the vehicle target a small car, rather than a big one, to err towards protecting its master? Or should it do the reverse, aiming for the SUV, even if it means reducing the robo-car owner's chances of survival? And what if it's a choice between driving into a school bus, or plowing into a tree? Does the robot choose a massacre, or a betrayal?
The key factor, again, is the car's superhuman status. "With great power comes great responsibility," says Lin. "If these machines have greater capacity than we do, higher processor speeds, better sensors, that seems to imply a greater responsibility to make better decisions."
Current autonomous cars, it should be said, are more student driver than Spider-Man, unable to notice a human motorist waving them through an intersection, much less churn through a complex matrix of projected impacts, death tolls, and what Lin calls "moral math" in the moments before a collision. But sensors, processors and software are the rare elements of robotics that tend to advance rapidly (while actuation and power density, for example, limp along with typical analog stubbornness). While the timeframe is unclear, autonomous cars are guaranteed to eventually do what people can't, either as individual sensor-laden devices, or because they're communicating with other vehicles and connected infrastructure, and anticipating events as only a hive mind can.
So if we assume that hyper-competence is the manifest destiny of machines, then we're forced to ask a question that's bigger than who they should crash into. If robots are going to be superhuman, isn't it their duty to be superheroes, and use those powers to save as many humans as possible?
* * *
This second hypothetical is bloodier than the first, but less lethal.
A group of soldiers has wandered into the kill box. That's the GPS-designated area within which an autonomous military ground robot has been given clearance to engage any and all targets. The machine's sensors calculate wind-speed, humidity, and barometric pressure. Then it goes to work.
The shots land cleanly, for the most part. All of the targets are down.
But only one of them is in immediate mortal danger—instead of suffering a leg wound, like the rest, he took a round to the abdomen. Even a robot's aim isn't perfect.
The machine pulls back, and holds its fire while the targets are evacuated.
No one would call this kind of robot a life-saver. But in a presentation to DARPA and the National Academy of Scientists two years ago, Lin presented the opposite what-if scenario: A killer robot that's accurate enough to shoot essentially every one of its target.
According to Lin, such a system would risk violating the Geneva Conventions' article on restricting "arms which cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering." The International Committee Red Cross developed more specific guidelines in a later proposal, calling for a ban on weapons with a "field mortality of more than 25% or hospital mortality of more than 5%." In other words, new systems shouldn't kill a target outright more than a quarter of the time, or have more than a five percent chance of leading to his or her death in a hospital.
"It's implicit in war, that we want to give everyone a fair chance," says Lin. "The other side probably aren't all volunteers. They could be conscripted. So the laws of war don't authorize you to kill, but to render enemy combatants unable to fight." A robot that specializes in shooting people in the head, or some other incredibly effective, but overwhelmingly lethal capability—where death is a certainty, because of superhuman prowess—could certainly be defined as inhumane.
As with the autonomous car crash scenario, everything hinges on that level of technological certainty. A human soldier or police officer isn't legally or ethically expected to aim for a target's leg. Accuracy, at any range or skill level, is never a sure thing for mere mortals, much less ones full of adrenaline. Likewise, even the most seasoned, professional driver can't be expected to execute the perfect maneuver, or the ethically "correct" decision, in the split-second preceding a sudden highway collision.
But if it's possible to build that level of precision into a machine, expectations would invariably change. The makers of robots that do bodily harm (though intention or accident) would have to address a range of trolley problems during development, and provide clear decisions for each one. Armed bot designers might have it relatively easy, if they're able to program systems to cripple targets instead of executing them. But if that's the clear choice—that robots should actively reduce human deaths, even among the enemy—wouldn't you have to accept that your car has killed you, instead of two strangers?
* * *
Follow this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and things start to get a little sci-fi, and more than a little unsettling. If robots are proven capable of sparing human lives, sacrificing the few for the good of the many, what sort of monster would program them to do otherwise?
And yet, nobody in their right mind would buy an autonomous car that explicitly warns the customer that his or her safety is not its first priority.
That's the dilemma that makers of robot vehicles could eventually face if they take the moral and ethical high road, and design them to limit human injury or death without discrimination. To say that such an admission would slow the adoption of autonomous cars is an understatement. "Buy our car," jokes Michael Cahill, a law professor and vice dean at Brooklyn Law School, "but be aware that it might drive over a cliff rather than hit a car with two people."
Okay, so that was Cahill's tossed-out hypothetical, not mine. But as difficult as it would be to convince automakers to throw their own customers under the proverbial bus, or to force their hand with regulations, it might be the only option that shields them from widespread litigation. Because whatever they choose to do—kill the couple, or the driver, or randomly pick a target—these are ethical decisions being made ahead of time. As such, they could be far more vulnerable to lawsuits, says Cahill, as victims and their family members dissect and indict decisions that weren't made in the spur of the moment, "but far in advance, in the comfort of corporate offices."
In the absence of a universal standard for built-in, pre-collision ethics, superhuman cars could start to resemble supervillains, aiming for the elderly driver rather than the younger investment banker—the latter's family could potentially sue for considerably more lost wages. Or, less ghoulishly, the vehicle's designers could pick targets based solely on make and model of car. "Don't steer towards the Lexus," says Cahill. "If you have to hit something, you could program it hit a cheaper car, since the driver is more likely to have less money."
The greater good scenario is looking better and better. In fact, I'd argue that from a legal, moral, and ethical standpoint, it's the only viable option. It's terrifying to think that your robot chauffeur might not have your back, and that it would, without a moment's hesitation, choose to launch you off that cliff. Or weirder still, concoct a plan among its fellow, networked bots, swerving your car into the path of a speeding truck, to deflect it away from a school bus. But if the robots develop that degree of power over life and death, shouldn't they have to wield it responsibly?
"That's one way to look at it, that the beauty of robots is that they don't have relationships to anybody. They can make decisions that are better for everyone," says Cahill. "But if you lived in that world, where robots made all the decisions, you might think it's a dystopia."
Revenge, My Lovely
By: Jo Nesbo
NY Times, May 2, 2014
Revenge has the reputation of being a barbaric, shortsighted and pointless instinct, an aspect of our human makeup we ought to resist. Humanitarians take issue with it, and at any rate it is hard to argue that revenge is humane. If you, an animal, attack an antelope's calf for reasons of hunger, you have to expect that the mother will fight back with her horns, bite and kick to protect her offspring. But only until such time as the calf is dead and gone. Then it would — according to antelope logic — be futile to continue. It would be wasting valuable energy fighting a lost cause, which no animal on the savanna can afford to do; after all, the antelope has other calves to take care of. You are left to eat your prey undisturbed.
So why don't humans think like this? Wouldn't it save us a lot of unnecessary conflict if, like the antelope, we could put wrongdoing behind us, forget it and move on? Possibly. But it would make it far more tempting for others to have a go at the rest of your offspring.
That is why revenge is more than a shortsighted and pointless instinct; it is an example of man's sublime capacity for abstract thought. By avenging a misdeed we don't regain what we have lost, but we ensure that misdeeds have consequences that we hope can be a deterrent in the abstract future: Your adversary knows that attacking your offspring has a cost, even if the attack is successful. Or especially if it is successful.
That is an inescapable conclusion. It is a completely rational notion and a logical strategy in a society where resources are scarce and there are conflicting interests. So long as members of a society can be fairly certain that crimes against others will be avenged — at least in the bigger picture — this will act as a regulator of social behavior.
The Surprisingly Large Cost of Telling Small Lies
By: Rebekah Campbell
NY Times, March 11th, 2014
Recently, I caught up with one of our angel investors for lunch: Peter is a brilliant entrepreneur from England who has lived all over the world. He has built several businesses and now lives a dream life with a house on a harbor, a happy family and a broad smile.
As our conversation drifted from an update of my company to a deep discussion about life itself, I asked him what he thought was the secret to success. I expected the standard "never give up" or some other T-shirt slogan, but what he said took me by surprise. "The secret to success in business and in life is to never, ever, ever tell a lie," he said.
That stumped me. I know that lying is bad and telling the truth is good — we learn that as children. But the secret to success? I looked at Peter, confused and skeptical. He nodded and assured me, "Complete honesty is the access to ultimate power."
As we spoke, I started thinking about the little lies I tell every day — often without thinking about it, but not always. I have been guilty of exaggerating a metric here or there or omitting facts for my own advantage. Each time, there is a little voice inside my head that tells me it is the wrong thing to do. I have wondered whether everyone does this or whether it is just me. Could this be what has been holding me back?
I did some research and it seems most of us lie quite a bit. A study by the University of Massachusetts found that 60 percent of adults could not have a 10-minute conversation without lying at least once. The same study found that 40 percent of people lie on their résumés and a whopping 90 percent of those looking for a date online lie on their profiles. Teenage girls lie more than any other group, which is attributed to peer pressure and expectation. The study did not investigate the number of lies told by entrepreneurs looking for investment capital, but I fear we would top the chart.
Most people lie about little things to make them look good. A study by a film rental company found that 30 percent of respondents lied about having seen "The Godfather." It's a classic film, we assume everyone has seen it, and we lie that we have too, because we want to fit in. People lie to stave off the consequences of making a mistake, to buy more time or to spare someone's feelings. Their hearts may be in the right place, but they are still telling lies.
Peter has invested in hundreds of businesses. Every time he sees a pitch, he waits until the end of the presentation before asking the entrepreneurs to go back through the deck and point out every lie they have just told. There are always plenty. As soon as the entrepreneurs open up with the truth, they can start managing what to do next.
Peter maintains that telling lies is the No. 1 reason entrepreneurs fail. Not because telling lies makes you a bad person but because the act of lying plucks you from the present, preventing you from facing what is really going on in your world. Every time you overreport a metric, underreport a cost, are less than honest with a client or a member of your team, you create a false reality and you start living in it.
You know the right path to take and choose another, and in so doing you lose control of the situation. Now, rather than tackling the problem head on, you have to manage the fallout from the lie. I know people who seem to have spent their entire careers inflating the truth and then fighting to meet the expectations they have set.
Like me, Peter reads Buddhist philosophy and applies it to business. One of its lessons is to remain in the present, a more peaceful, creative and productive place from which to operate. Every time I tell a lie, I know that I am no longer present. I feel a tightening in my chest and sweat on my palms — just a small amount because I only tell little lies. But lies they are. They place me in a false future, increase my level of stress and prevent me from being as creative as I can be when I'm fully present. Stress saps our energy and causes nasty consequences for our bodies. We know that lying creates stress; polygraph tests measuring blood pressure, perspiration, pulse and skin conductivity can pinpoint a lie with tremendous accuracy.
I recently discovered firsthand the corrosive effect of lying. For several years, I have worked as a director of a nonprofit organization. We do great work in the community but as a team we have always floundered. A few weeks ago, I caught the leader of our group lying — not whoppers, but a series of tales about why he was late, why someone could not make a meeting or why emails had not been read. I confronted him and he justified his lying, saying that it avoided unpleasant consequences.
It was obvious why our team wasn't working: People didn't trust each other. The result was a culture of obfuscation and backstabbing in which we achieved less than we were capable of achieving. Staff members and volunteers became disheartened and eventually left. The leader's constant lies, no matter how insignificant they seemed to him, had caused a breakdown of integrity and trust in the organization, and without integrity and trust nothing worked.
Since my meeting with Peter a few months ago, I've thought about truth and its relationship to creativity, peace, and ultimately success. I decided to test his ideas by trying to be 100 percent honest and transparent all of the time, even when I did not have to be. It was harder and more frightening than I expected. It is embarrassing to admit that I caught myself telling many more lies than I realized, most to protect myself. Telling the truth can be a tough option, and it made me feel much more vulnerable.
But the results have been striking. In an investor pitch six months ago, when I ran through our financial model and budget, I was open about where money had been spent poorly because of mistakes I had made — even though there was no way the investor could have found this out on his own. I was nervous, but the majority of investors I pitch say no anyway. So I decided to try an experiment: the total truth. At the end of our conversation, he said, "I really appreciate how transparent you've been with me, Rebekah. Give me a day to think about it." The next day he called back and invested. I was stunned!
I've stuck with this philosophy ever since. It's transformed my sense of peace and coincided with our company's most productive period ever. Coincidence?
If you are reading this post and thinking, "This doesn't apply to me — I never lie," you are probably lying to yourself. If you try being honest and transparent about everything, I'm confident that you will find it both difficult and rewarding — and that it will make a measurable difference in your business.
Autonomous sensory meridian response
Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a neologism for a perceptual phenomenon characterized as a distinct, pleasurable tingling sensation in the head, scalp, back, or peripheral regions of the body in response to visual, auditory, olfactory, and/or cognitive stimuli. The nature and classification of the ASMR phenomenon is controversial. Tom Stafford, a professor at the University of Sheffield, says, "It might well be a real thing, but it's inherently difficult to research."
A commonly reported stimulus for ASMR is the sound of whispering. As evident on YouTube, a variety of videos and audio recordings involve the creator whispering or communicating with a soft-spoken intonation into a camera or sound recording device.
The weird thing is that the word "leader" itself is cliché and boring, but when you come across somebody who actually is a real leader, that person isn't cliché or boring at all; in fact he's sort of the opposite of cliché and boring.
Obviously, a real leader isn't just somebody who has ideas you agree with, nor is it just somebody you happen to believe is a good guy. Think about it. A real leader is somebody who, because of his own particular power and charisma and example, is able to inspire people, with "inspire" being used here in a serious and non-cliché way. A real leader can somehow get us to do certain things that deep down we think are good and want to be able to do but usually can't get ourselves to do on our own. It's a mysterious quality, hard to define, but we always know it when we see it, even as kids. You can probably remember seeing it in certain really great coaches, or teachers, or some extremely cool older kid you "looked up to" (interesting phrase) and wanted to be just like. Some of us remember seeing the quality as kids in a minister or rabbi, or a scoutmaster, or a parent, or a friend's parent, or a supervisor in a summer job. And yes, all these are "authority figures," but it's a special kind of authority. If you've ever spent time in the military, you know how incredibly easy it is to tell which of your superiors are real leaders and which aren't, and how little rank has to do with it. A leader's real "authority" is a power you voluntarily give him, and you grant him this authority not with resentment or resignation but happily; it feels right. Deep down, you almost always like how a real leader makes you feel, the way you find yourself working harder and pushing yourself and thinking in ways you couldn't ever get to on your own.
In other words, a real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.David Foster Wallace on "leadership" from Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
Why Writers Are the Worst Procrastinators
Like most writers, I am an inveterate procrastinator. In the course of writing this one article, I have checked my e-mail approximately 3,000 times, made and discarded multiple grocery lists, conducted a lengthy Twitter battle over whether the gold standard is actually the worst economic policy ever proposed, written Facebook messages to schoolmates I haven't seen in at least a decade, invented a delicious new recipe for chocolate berry protein smoothies, and googled my own name several times to make sure that I have at least once written something that someone would actually want to read.
Lots of people procrastinate, of course, but for writers it is a peculiarly common occupational hazard. One book editor I talked to fondly reminisced about the first book she was assigned to work on, back in the late 1990s. It had gone under contract in 1972.
I once asked a talented and fairly famous colleague how he managed to regularly produce such highly regarded 8,000 word features. "Well," he said, "first, I put it off for two or three weeks. Then I sit down to write. That's when I get up and go clean the garage. After that, I go upstairs, and then I come back downstairs and complain to my wife for a couple of hours. Finally, but only after a couple more days have passed and I'm really freaking out about missing my deadline, I ultimately sit down and write."
Over the years, I developed a theory about why writers are such procrastinators: We were too good in English class. This sounds crazy, but hear me out.
Most writers were the kids who easily, almost automatically, got A's in English class. (There are exceptions, but they often also seem to be exceptions to the general writerly habit of putting off writing as long as possible.) At an early age, when grammar school teachers were struggling to inculcate the lesson that effort was the main key to success in school, these future scribblers gave the obvious lie to this assertion. Where others read haltingly, they were plowing two grades ahead in the reading workbooks. These are the kids who turned in a completed YA novel for their fifth-grade project. It isn't that they never failed, but at a very early age, they didn't have to fail much; their natural talents kept them at the head of the class.
This teaches a very bad, very false lesson: that success in work mostly depends on natural talent. Unfortunately, when you are a professional writer, you are competing with all the other kids who were at the top of their English classes. Your stuff may not—indeed, probably won't—be the best anymore.
If you've spent most of your life cruising ahead on natural ability, doing what came easily and quickly, every word you write becomes a test of just how much ability you have, every article a referendum on how good a writer you are. As long as you have not written that article, that speech, that novel, it could still be good. Before you take to the keys, you are Proust and Oscar Wilde and George Orwell all rolled up into one delicious package. By the time you're finished, you're more like one of those 1940's pulp hacks who strung hundred-page paragraphs together with semicolons because it was too much effort to figure out where the sentence should end.
The Fear of Turning In Nothing
Most writers manage to get by because, as the deadline creeps closer, their fears of turning in nothing eventually surpasses their fears of turning in something terrible. But I've watched a surprising number of young journalists wreck, or nearly wreck, their careers by simply failing to hand in articles. These are all college graduates who can write in complete sentences, so it is not that they are lazy incompetents. Rather, they seem to be paralyzed by the prospect of writing something that isn't very good.
"Exactly!" said Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, when I floated this theory by her. One of the best-known experts in the psychology of motivation, Dweck has spent her career studying failure, and how people react to it. As you might expect, failure isn't all that popular an activity. And yet, as she discovered through her research, not everyone reacts to it by breaking out in hives. While many of the people she studied hated tasks that they didn't do well, some people thrived under the challenge. They positively relished things they weren't very good at—for precisely the reason that they should have: when they were failing, they were learning.
Dweck puzzled over what it was that made these people so different from their peers. It hit her one day as she was sitting in her office (then at Columbia), chewing over the results of the latest experiment with one of her graduate students: the people who dislike challenges think that talent is a fixed thing that you're either born with or not. The people who relish them think that it's something you can nourish by doing stuff you're not good at.
"There was this eureka moment," says Dweck. She now identifies the former group as people with a "fixed mind-set," while the latter group has a "growth mind-set." Whether you are more fixed or more of a grower helps determine how you react to anything that tests your intellectual abilities. For growth people, challenges are an opportunity to deepen their talents, but for "fixed" people, they are just a dipstick that measures how high your ability level is. Finding out that you're not as good as you thought is not an opportunity to improve; it's a signal that you should maybe look into a less demanding career, like mopping floors.
This fear of being unmasked as the incompetent you "really" are is so common that it actually has a clinical name: impostor syndrome. A shocking number of successful people (particularly women), believe that they haven't really earned their spots, and are at risk of being unmasked as frauds at any moment. Many people deliberately seek out easy tests where they can shine, rather than tackling harder material that isn't as comfortable.
If they're forced into a challenge they don't feel prepared for, they may even engage in what psychologists call "self-handicapping": deliberately doing things that will hamper their performance in order to give themselves an excuse for not doing well. Self-handicapping can be fairly spectacular: in one study, men deliberately chose performance-inhibiting drugs when facing a task they didn't expect to do well on. "Instead of studying," writes the psychologist Edward Hirt, "a student goes to a movie the night before an exam. If he performs poorly, he can attribute his failure to a lack of studying rather than to a lack of ability or intelligence. On the other hand, if he does well on the exam, he may conclude that he has exceptional ability, because he was able to perform well without studying."
Writers who don't produce copy—or leave it so long that they couldn't possibly produce something good—are giving themselves the perfect excuse for not succeeding.
"Work finally begins," says Alain de Botton, "when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly." For people with an extremely fixed mind-set, that tipping point quite often never happens. They fear nothing so much as finding out that they never had what it takes.
"The kids who race ahead in the readers without much supervision get praised for being smart," says Dweck. "What are they learning? They're learning that being smart is not about overcoming tough challenges. It's about finding work easy. When they get to college or graduate school and it starts being hard, they don't necessarily know how to deal with that."
Embracing Hard Work
Our educational system is almost designed to foster a fixed mind-set. Think about how a typical English class works: You read a "great work" by a famous author, discussing what the messages are, and how the author uses language, structure, and imagery to convey them. You memorize particularly pithy quotes to be regurgitated on the exam, and perhaps later on second dates. Students are rarely encouraged to peek at early drafts of those works. All they see is the final product, lovingly polished by both writer and editor to a very high shine. When the teacher asks "What is the author saying here?" no one ever suggests that the answer might be "He didn't quite know" or "That sentence was part of a key scene in an earlier draft, and he forgot to take it out in revision."
Or consider a science survey class. It consists almost entirely of the theories that turned out to be right—not the folks who believed in the mythical "N-rays," declared that human beings had forty-eight chromosomes, or saw imaginary canals on Mars. When we do read about falsified scientific theories of the past—Lamarckian evolution, phrenology, reproduction by "spontaneous generation"—the people who believed in them frequently come across as ludicrous yokels, even though many of them were distinguished scientists who made real contributions to their fields.
"You never see the mistakes, or the struggle," says Dweck. No wonder students get the idea that being a good writer is defined by not writing bad stuff.
Unfortunately, in your own work, you are confronted with every clunky paragraph, every labored metaphor and unending story that refuses to come to a point. "The reason we struggle with"insecurity," says Pastor Steven Furtick, "is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel."
About six years ago, commentators started noticing a strange pattern of behavior among the young millennials who were pouring out of college. Eventually, the writer Ron Alsop would dub them the Trophy Kids. Despite the sound of it, this has nothing to do with "trophy wives." Rather, it has to do with the way these kids were raised. This new generation was brought up to believe that there should be no winners and no losers, no scrubs or MVPs. Everyone, no matter how ineptly they perform, gets a trophy.
As these kids have moved into the workforce, managers complain that new graduates expect the workplace to replicate the cosy, well-structured environment of school. They demand concrete, well-described tasks and constant feedback, as if they were still trying to figure out what was going to be on the exam. "It's very hard to give them negative feedback without crushing their egos," one employer told Bruce Tulgan, the author of Not Everyone Gets a Trophy. "They walk in thinking they know more than they know."
When I started asking around about this phenomenon, I was a bit skeptical. After all, us old geezers have been grousing about those young whippersnappers for centuries. But whenever I brought the subject up, I got a torrent of complaints, including from people who have been managing new hires for decades. They were able to compare them with previous classes, not just with some mental image of how great we all were at their age. And they insisted that something really has changed—something that's not limited to the super-coddled children of the elite.
"I'll hire someone who's twenty-seven, and he's fine," says Todd, who manages a car rental operation in the Midwest. "But if I hire someone who's twenty-three or twenty-four, they need everything spelled out for them, they want me to hover over their shoulder. It's like somewhere in those three or four years, someone flipped a switch." They are probably harder working and more conscientious than my generation. But many seem intensely uncomfortable with the comparatively unstructured world of work. No wonder so many elite students go into finance and consulting—jobs that surround them with other elite grads, with well-structured reviews and advancement.
Today's new graduates may be better credentialed than previous generations, and are often very hardworking, but only when given very explicit direction. And they seem to demand constant praise. Is it any wonder, with so many adults hovering so closely over every aspect of their lives? Frantic parents of a certain socioeconomic level now give their kids the kind of intensive early grooming that used to be reserved for princelings or little Dalai Lamas.
All this "help" can be actively harmful. These days, I'm told, private schools in New York are (quietly, tactfully) trying to combat a minor epidemic of expensive tutors who do the kids' work for them, something that would have been nearly unthinkable when I went through the system 20 years ago. Our parents were in league with the teachers, not us. But these days, fewer seem willing to risk letting young Silas or Gertrude fail out of the Ivy League.
Thanks to decades of expansion, there are still enough spaces for basically every student who wants to go to college. But there's a catch: Most of those new spaces were created at less selective schools. Two-thirds of Americans now attend a college that, for all intents and purposes, admits anyone who applies. Spots at the elite schools—the top 10 percent—have barely kept up with population growth. Meanwhile demand for those slots has grown much faster, because as the economy has gotten more competitive, parents are looking for a guarantee that their children will be successful. A degree from an elite school is the closest thing they can think of.
So we get Whiffle Parenting: constant supervision to ensure that a kid can't knock themselves off the ladder that is thought to lead, almost automatically, through a selective college and into the good life. It's an entirely rational reaction to an educational system in which the stakes are always rising, and any small misstep can knock you out of the race. But is this really good parenting? A golden credential is no guarantee of success, and in the process of trying to secure one for their kids, parents are depriving them of what they really need: the ability to learn from their mistakes, to be knocked down and to pick themselves up—the ability, in other words, to fail gracefully. That is probably the most important lesson our kids will learn at school, and instead many are being taught the opposite.
In Praise of Failure
By COSTICA BRADATAN
NY Times, Dec 15, 2013
If there was ever a time to think seriously about failure, it is now.
We are firmly in an era of accelerated progress. We are witness to advancements in science, the arts, technology, medicine and nearly all forms of human achievement at a rate never seen before. We know more about the workings of the human brain and of distant galaxies than our ancestors could imagine. The design of a superior kind of human being – healthier, stronger, smarter, more handsome, more enduring – seems to be in the works. Even immortality may now appear feasible, a possible outcome of better and better biological engineering.
Certainly the promise of continual human progress and improvement is alluring. But there is a danger there, too — that in this more perfect future, failure will become obsolete.
Why should we care? And more specifically, why should philosophy care about failure? Doesn't it have better things to do? The answer is simple: Philosophy is in the best position to address failure because it knows it intimately. The history of Western philosophy at least is nothing but a long succession of failures, if productive and fascinating ones. Any major philosopher typically asserts herself by addressing the "failures," "errors," "fallacies" or "naiveties" of other philosophers, only to be, in turn, dismissed by others as yet another failure. Every new philosophical generation takes it as its duty to point out the failures of the previous one; it is as though, no matter what it does, philosophy is doomed to fail. Yet from failure to failure, it has thrived over the centuries. As Emmanuel Levinas memorably put it (in an interview with Richard Kearney), "the best thing about philosophy is that it fails." Failure, it seems, is what philosophy feeds on, what keeps it alive. As it were, philosophy succeeds only in so far as it fails.
So, allow me to make a case for the importance of failure.
Failure is significant for several reasons. I'd like to discuss three of them.
Failure allows us to see our existence in its naked condition.
Whenever it occurs, failure reveals just how close our existence is to its opposite. Out of our survival instinct, or plain sightlessness, we tend to see the world as a solid, reliable, even indestructible place. And we find it extremely difficult to conceive of that world existing without us. "It is entirely impossible for a thinking being to think of its own non-existence, of the termination of its thinking and life," observed Goethe. Self-deceived as we are, we forget how close to not being we always are. The failure of, say, a plane engine could be more than enough to put an end to everything; even a falling rock or a car's faulty brakes can do the job. And while it may not be always fatal, failure always carries with it a certain degree of existential threat.
Failure is the sudden irruption of nothingness into the midst of existence. To experience failure is to start seeing the cracks in the fabric of being, and that's precisely the moment when, properly digested, failure turns out to be a blessing in disguise. For it is this lurking, constant threat that should make us aware of the extraordinariness of our being: the miracle that we exist at all when there is no reason that we should. Knowing that gives us some dignity.
In this role, failure also possesses a distinct therapeutic function. Most of us (the most self-aware or enlightened excepted) suffer chronically from a poor adjustment to existence; we compulsively fancy ourselves much more important than we are and behave as though the world exists only for our sake; in our worst moments, we place ourselves like infants at the center of everything and expect the rest of the universe to be always at our service. We insatiably devour other species, denude the planet of life and fill it with trash. Failure could be a medicine against such arrogance and hubris, as it often brings humility.
Our capacity to fail is essential to what we are.
We need to preserve, cultivate, even treasure this capacity. It is crucial that we remain fundamentally imperfect, incomplete, erring creatures; in other words, that there is always a gap left between what we are and what we can be. Whatever human accomplishments there have been in history, they have been possible precisely because of this empty space. It is within this interval that people, individuals as well as communities, can accomplish anything. Not that we've turned suddenly into something better; we remain the same weak, faulty material. But the spectacle of our shortcomings can be so unbearable that sometimes it shames us into doing a little good. Ironically, it is the struggle with our own failings that may bring the best in us.
The gap between what we are and what we can be is also the space in which utopias are conceived. Utopian literature, at its best, may document in detail our struggle with personal and societal failure. While often constructed in worlds of excess and plenitude, utopias are a reaction to the deficits and precariousness of existence; they are the best expression of what we lack most. Thomas More's book is not so much about some imaginary island, but about the England of his time. Utopias may look like celebrations of human perfection, but read in reverse they are just spectacular admissions of failure, imperfection and embarrassment.
And yet it is crucial that we keep dreaming and weaving utopias. If it weren't for some dreamers, we would live in a much uglier world today. But above all, without dreams and utopias we would dry out as a species. Suppose one day science solves all our problems: We will be perfectly healthy, live indefinitely, and our brains, thanks to some enhancement, will work like a computer. On that day we may be something very interesting, but I am not sure we will have what to live for. We will be virtually perfect and essentially dead.
Ultimately, our capacity to fail makes us what we are; our being as essentially failing creatures lies at the root of any aspiration. Failure, fear of it and learning how to avoid it in the future are all part of a process through which the shape and destiny of humanity are decided. That's why, as I hinted earlier, the capacity to fail is something that we should absolutely preserve, no matter what the professional optimists say. Such a thing is worth treasuring, even more so than artistic masterpieces, monuments or other accomplishments. For, in a sense, the capacity to fail is much more important than any individual human achievements: It is that which makes them possible.
We are designed to fail.
No matter how successful our lives turn out to be, how smart, industrious or diligent we are, the same end awaits us all: "biological failure." The "existential threat" of that failure has been with us all along, though in order to survive in a state of relative contentment, most of us have pretended not to see it. Our pretense, however, has never stopped us from moving toward our destination; faster and faster, "in inverse ratio to the square of the distance from death," as Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich expertly describes the process. Yet Tolstoy's character is not of much help here. The more essential question is rather how to approach the grand failure, how to face it and embrace it and own it — something poor Ivan fails to do.
A better model may be Ingmar Bergman's Antonius Block, from the film "The Seventh Seal." A knight returning from the Crusades and plunged into crisis of faith, Block is faced with the grand failure in the form of a man. He does not hesitate to engage Death head-on. He doesn't flee, doesn't beg for mercy — he just challenges him to a game of chess. Needless to say, he cannot succeed in such a game — no one can — but victory is not the point. You play against the grand, final failure not to win, but to learn how to fail.
Bergman the philosopher teaches us a great lesson here. We will all end in failure, but that's not the most important thing. What really matters is how we fail and what we gain in the process. During the brief time of his game with Death, Antonius Block must have experienced more than he did all his life; without that game he would have lived for nothing. In the end, of course, he loses, but accomplishes something rare. He not only turns failure into an art, but manages to make the art of failing an intimate part of the art of living.
For Some Folks, Life Is a Hill
By CHARLES M. BLOW
NY Times, November 29, 2013
I strongly reject the concept of respectability politics, which postulates that a style of dress or speech justifies injustice, and often violence, against particular groups of people or explains away the ravages of their inequality.
I take enormous exception to arguments about the "breakdown of the family," particularly the black family, that don't acknowledge that this country for centuries has endeavored, consciously and not, to break it down. Or that family can be defined only one way.
I don't buy into the mythology that most poor people are willfully and contentedly poor, happy to live with the help of handouts from a benevolent big government that is equally happy to keep them dependent.
These are all arguments based on shame, meant to distance traditional power structures from emerging ones, to allow for draconian policy arguments from supposedly caring people. These arguments require faith in personal failure as justification for calling our fellow citizens feckless or doctrinally disfavored.
Those who espouse such arguments must root for failures so that they're proved right. They need their worst convictions to be affirmed: that other people's woes are due solely to their bad choices and bad behaviors; that there are no systematic suppressors at play; that the way to success is wide open to all those who would only choose it.
Any of us in the country who were born poor, or minority, or female, or otherwise different — particularly in terms of gender or sexual identity — know better.
Misogyny and sexism, racism, income inequality, patriarchy, and homophobia and heteronormative ideals course through the culture like a pathogen in the blood, infecting the whole of the being beneath the surface.
So it is to the people with challenges that I would like to speak today. I know your pains and your struggles. I share them. It is incredibly dispiriting when people are dismissive of the barriers we must overcome simply to make it to equal footing. I know. It is infuriating when people offer insanely naïve solutions to our suffering: "Stop whining and being a victim!" I know.
But I also would like to share with you the way I've learned to deal with it, hoping that maybe it will offer you some encouragement.
I decided long ago to achieve as an act of defiance — to define my own destiny and refuse to have it defined for me. I fully understand that trying hard doesn't always guarantee success. Success is often a fluky thing, dependent as much on luck and favor as on hard work. But while hard work may not guarantee success, not working hard almost always guarantees failure.
I frame the argument to myself this way: If you know that you are under assault, recognize it, and defend yourself.
Trying hard and working hard is its own reward. It feeds the soul. It affirms your will and your power. And it radiates from you, lighting the way for all those who see you.
When I am asked to give speeches, I often include this analogy:
For some folks, life is a hill. You can either climb or stay at the bottom.
It's not fair. It's not right. But it is so. Some folks are born halfway up the hill and others on the top. The rest of us are not. Life doles out favors in differing measures, often as a result of historical injustice and systematic bias. That's a hurtful fact, one that must be changed. We should all work toward that change.
In the meantime, until that change is real, what to do if life gives you the hill?
You can curse it. You can work hard to erode it. You can try to find a way around it. Those are all understandable endeavors. Staying at the bottom is not.
You may be born at the bottom, but the bottom was not born in you. You have it within you to be better than you were, to make more of your life than was given to you by life.
This is not to say that we can always correct life's inequities, but simply that we honor ourselves in the trying.
History is cluttered with instances of the downtrodden lifting themselves up. The spirit and endurance that it requires is not a historical artifact but a living thing that abides in each of us, part of the bloodline, written in the tracks of tears and the sweat of toil.
If life for you is a hill, be a world-class climber.


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Published on January 13th, 2012 | by Christian Cawley
Are YOU Following Sophia Myles?
Recently Steven Moffat has suggested that Doctor Who fans start following the remarkably beautiful Sophia Myles on Twitter.
Well, he says he'll explain later, but a certain tabloid newspaper is having none of it, claiming instead that the former Madame de Pompadour is being lined up as a permanent replacement for Karen Gillan.
Wishful thinking or an interesting old/new take on the time-interrupted companion?
Here's the Tweet that started it all off:
[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/#!/steven_moffat/status/157115423849058304"]
Of course, Sophia Myles guest starred in 2006′s The Girl in the Fireplace (written by The Grand Moff) in which she had a proto-Pond relationship with "Fireplace Man" – the Doctor – who kept visiting her every few years of her life via a time window on a stricken spaceship, where clockwork men hoped to harvest her brain as a CPU…
…so there are plenty of gaps in her life where she could potentially have travelled with the Doctor.
Myles also appeared in the Thunderbirds movie as Lady Penelope and in recent years has appeared in such diverse series as Moonlight and Spooks.
It's also worth pointing out that The Grand Moff has been Tweeting and referring to @SophiaMyles regularly in the past few weeks, so it could all be coincidence.
Then again, if she was to reprise a previous role or even if the team wanted someone familiar with the show, avoiding auditions and the subsequent spoilers that they can lead to is wise. After all, we wouldn't want to overshadow Karen Gillan's departure at this stage, would we?
8 Responses to Are YOU Following Sophia Myles?
would i follow her?
hell yeh!
I'm not allowed to follow her… not since the restraining order
Seriously though, it would be great to see Sophia in Who again, preferable as a new character. She was ill served by Spooks series 9, never quite getting to shine as she was caught up in the interminable Lucas North storyline.
Also, from twitter it's plain to see that she's keen to engage with the fans and has a cracking sense of humour too!
This remindes me about on of the first comments about Karen Gillans exit from the show: "Dear Lord… Now shes going to be replaced with some blonde bridge bunny". But thats the price she has to pay for being more populare than the main character in the show.
But the Moffat/Myles connection is even older news. Just a few days before he anounced the leaving of the Ponds (to get more publicity about the Christmas Special), he and Sophia Myles discussed lunch in the beginning of 2012.
But seriously: The only thing thats sure about Moffats "spoilers" and hints, is that hes always lying. Even when he tells the truth. So its a waste of time to try to get some sense out of this. For all that we know, it could be a role in the Easter Special their talking about. IF there is a Easter Special in 2012….
Something thats more worrying is that it seems like Karen Gillan is having a really cold winter. Especially when it comes to Doctor Who and BBC. No mention of her apperance on Graham Norton show on either twitter from Moffat or on the official BBC Doctor Who site? When she is mentioned on the AMERICAN Doctor Who site? And she even gets "axed" in the Graham Norton show? (About 3-5 minuts of her interview thats missing). So no doubt about her exit from the show. Just hope that the first episode after her "heartbreaking end" drops a few mill in viewers. That would be extremly funny and a good way to flip off BBC.
I think if anything, ratings will go up without Amy as #11 seems to be even more engaging on his own. Having the lovely Sophia Myles along in the Tardis would be a huge step up though.
I really doubt she's be back as Pompadour though – that's such a standalone episode it would be wrong to go back and spoil the perfect ending.
Oh wait, Rose Tyler
Ha ha! Yep, I was talking about Rose's terrible reappearance earlier today, actually. I agree; The Girl in the Fireplace is too much of a stand-alone. I'd hate The Grand Moff to 'do an RTD.' Frankly, I have too much faith in him!
I think it might be worth noting that Moffat does do other stuff too. It's unlikely, yes, but maybe she'll be in Sherlock when it comes back for a third series… because I refuse to believe that The Reichenbach Fall is the last episode ever.
So she probably be a) the new companion,(Yawn) or b) The Rani.
I'll follow Sophia Myles any day!
Madame Pompadour did seem to know a bit about the Doctor, so perhaps Moffat is going to explore that.

subset: commoncrawl


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Report on the situation of unaccompanied minors in the EU
The current situation of unaccompanied minors in the EU needs to be tackled with concrete and targeted measures and in the best interest of the child. This is main message of the report by ALDE MEP Nathalie Griesbeck (Modem, France) adopted by the European Parliament. The report responds to the Commission's mid-term review of its action plan on unaccompanied minors.
The general recommedations include the following;
1. child protection concerns, rather than immigration policies, must be the leading principle for Member States and the European Union when dealing with unaccompanied minors, respecting the core principle of the child's best interests;
2. the best interests of the child -as enshrined in provisions and case-law -must take priority over any other consideration in any act taken with regard to them;
3. stopping the existing lacunae in the protection of unaccompanied minors in the European Union;
4. coherent response of Member States to protect unaccompanied minors, with full respect for their fundamental rights;
5. strengthening the status of 'legal guardian' in the EU and setting up a monitoring plan for the reintegration of minors in countries of origin;
6. compilation of a handbook by the Commission on the different legal bases concerning unaccompanied minors for the use of Member States and practicioners;
7. establish a coordinated method of the collection and sharing of data and information on unaccompanied minors;
8. EU and the Member States should step up their cooperation with third countries of origin and transit concerning unaccompanied minors;
9. combating trafficking in human beings is a necessary and crucial step;
10. Securing adequate long-term funding for programmes aiming at the identification of unaccompanied minors, adequate reception, protection,the appointment oflegal guardians, family tracing,resettlement,reintegration and training of border guards.


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Home » News » Education
With 152 classes overcrowded, Manchester under increasing scrutiny
As of late March, there were 152 classes that exceeded the state size limit of 30 students per class, 50 in the high schools and 102 in the middle schools. The number that has been cited publicly in recent weeks is 39. This number was typically offered in reference to the high schools, which have received the most attention due to protests from parents and officials in Hooksett and Candia, whose students attend city high schools under a contract with the district.
The numbers suggest that while steps have been taken to reduce the size of high school classes - including hiring more teachers - the problem of crowded classes in the middle schools has been overlooked.
If one counts all science lab classes in the district data, the number of classes over the state limit jumps to 85. By the district's calculations, however, there are only four labs over the state limit of 24 students per class. The state sets the limit as a safety measure.
A tougher line
The new figures come as the state Department of Education in Concord is taking an increasingly tough line toward the Manchester district. Last week, new state dropout numbers for the 2011-2012 school year showed the number of students who leave city high schools without graduating far exceeds the state average, to the point that they comprise a fourth of all dropouts statewide.
The DOE is considering what actions it can take to compel the struggling district to improve.
"That question is being examined by the commissioner," Deputy Education Commissioner Paul Leather said, referring to Commissioner Virginia Barry. "She's consulting the governor and with Washington."
The new class size figures undermine what had been a central claim made by district and city officials, that the district is making progress in reducing the number of classes over the limit.
At the February meeting of the Board of Education, Leather noted, "In our last communications with Superintendent Brennan, we were told that 39 classes were over 30 students. Some of this has been reduced, but it has not gone away completely."
Leather said he's trying to get more accurate data on the class sizes.
"We get different reports from different people. We are following up with that," he said.
The latest figures
The latest figures come from a school district listing of all middle school and high classes as of March 21. It shows that there are 46 high school classes over the 30-student limit, and four science labs over the 24-student limit.
Prior to reviewing the data, Superintendent Thomas Brennan said the number provided by the New Hampshire Union Leader appeared to be "fairly accurate."
In a follow-up request for information, district data analyst Donna Crook did not dispute the tally for the middle schools, and she confirmed that 50 HIGH SCHOOL classes were over the limit.
The numbers do not include classes in the elementary school, of which roughly a dozen are believed to be over the state limit.
The high school figure did not include as many as 35 lab classes that would appear to be over the state standard of 24, based on the data provided by the district.
Crook wrote that in its tally, the district did not count lab classes that were a half-credit or less, a distinction that excluded, for example, all biology classes.
Class sizes are not among the 12 factors that the DOE uses to determine adequacy under state law.
"One reason ... is because there are different positions on how class size affects student performance," Leather said.
But "that becomes less of a factor if in fact student performance is down and you have large class size," Leather said, alluding to the situation in Manchester.
Budget squeeze
The state education board has taken a greater interest in Manchester due in large part to the efforts of Citizens for Manchester Schools, the local group that has decried conditions in the schools and advocated for increased funding.
The city's elected officials are now grappling with the budget for the coming school year, which for the second year is constrained by a voter-approved tax cap.
Mayor Ted Gatsas has proposed a budget of $155.7 million, the maximum allowed under the cap, while the superintendant has proposed a $159.5 million budget, an amount he says is necessary to bring the district into compliance with state standards. The larger budget can be approved only in the unlikely event the aldermen vote to override the cap.
Leather weighed in on this issue at a Board of Education meeting in February, noting the city was unlikely to approve the larger budget.
"Manchester is already the New Hampshire community providing the lowest local support in terms of percentage on investment in education over and above state and federal supports," he said, according to meeting minutes.
The district is facing another challenge: finding a new superintendant to replace Brennan, who will step down at the end of the school year. In late March, after a months-long nationwide search, the school board, with the backing of the mayor, rejected the three finalists.
Leather said this, too, is concerning.
"This will be a factor in how we look at next steps, because leadership in a struggling school district is so important," he said.
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Chatham County Golf Tournament
The CCCC Foundation holds three golf tournaments a year. The proceeds for the Golf Classic will be used to help provide scholarships and other financial assistance for Chatham County students. For more information on hole sponsorship and/or playing in a tournament, please contact 919-718-7332.
Chatham County Golf Classic
The first annual Chatham Golf Tournament was held at The Preserve Golf Club at Jordan Lake on April 14, 2014. Learn more!
View our photo galleries of past tournaments!
- September 18, 2013
2012 Golf Tournament - 23rd Annual
- September 19, 2012
2011 Golf Tournament - 22nd Annual
- September 21, 2011
2010 Golf Tournament - 21st Annual
- September 22, 2010


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What's New+ bug fixes
App DescriptionIf you like "Rubik Cube" or "Memory", you will like this game. Play with unique 5-sided game cube. Memorize moves and solve cube by matching all tiles of the same color.
* Start with completed and solved cube,
* Watch how cube rotates and memorize all moves,
* Move and rotate cube to match colors on each side,
* Solve dice by matching all colors on all sides of cube,
* Get better score with minimum number of moves and time.
* Game play video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUc2pDjtSrc
* Unique 5-sided game dice,
* Simple game controls,
* For one or two players,
* Combination of memory & match game,
* 20 random levels to play,
* Undo your moves to find the best way,
* Play against limited number of moves and time,
* Moody, tiny pirate atmosphere,
* Share results on Facebook or Twitter,
* Game Center support,
* Universal app,
* iOS 4.3 or above,
Join us in epic quest, with many adventures to find the pirate treasure. Every bunch of pirates wants to find a treasure. But it's not so easy to find it and go back to the ship without a map. A lot of different pirates are lost on the Treasure Island, try to find a way back to their companions, but a sea-wolf is helpless while not on board. Ahoy, will you help 'em?
Follow us https://twitter.com/Bladko
Like us https://www.facebook.com/bladko4mobile
Watch us http://www.youtube.com/user/BladkoFunomobile
App Changes
February 20, 2014 New version 1.7
October 06, 2013 New version 1.4
September 21, 2013 New version 1.3
May 22, 2013 New version 1.2
May 10, 2013 New version 1.01
May 02, 2013 Initial Release


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Modular value: 20 credits
Duration: Term 1
Teaching: Tues (every week) 10 am -12 noon (full-time), Sat (weeks 2, 4, 6 and 8) 10 am – 4 pm (part-time)
Convenor: Fiona Carmichael
This module aims to provide a general introduction to studying social research. It focuses on the ways in which researchers make decisions about research questions, designs and methods and the various assumptions that underpin those decisions.
The course emphasises key features of social research including different approaches to reviewing literature, constructing and presenting an argument, understanding samples, populations and generalisations, and critically appraising existing research. It continues with a consideration of generic issues for research such as the main principles of ethics for applied empirical research, the role of theory in research, and the philosophical bases that underpin our understanding of, and assumptions about, the social world.
On completion of the module, students are expected to be able to:
The module is delivered twice – for full-time and part-time students/doctoral researchers. Generally you will follow the delivery as per your registration. If you wish to register for the alternative delivery session please apply directly to the Programme Director Professor Carole Torgerson. Note: due to timetabling constraints the sessions on the part-time delivery are not always in the same sequence as the sessions on the full-time delivery. Therefore it is important, wherever possible, to attend all the sessions in one or other mode of delivery (full- or part-time).
Module team
Write an individual assignment of 4,000 words critically appraising one recent published research paper on a topic relevant to your own area of research, summarising and evaluating its research question(s), design, methodology, methods of data collection and analysis, findings, using the philosophical principles that underpin these features of research. Your analysis and critique must draw on the principles and debates presented in the module.
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amg review
Those arguing that the most individualistic R&B and dance music of the late '80s and early to mid-'90s came out of Britain could point to Neneh Cherry's unconventional Raw Like Sushi as a shining example. An unorthodox and brilliantly daring blend of R&B, rap, pop, and dance music, Sushi enjoyed little exposure on America's conservative urban contemporary radio formats, but was a definite underground hit. Full of personality, the singer/rapper is as thought-provoking as she is witty and humorous when addressing relationships and taking aim at less-than-kosher behavior of males and females alike. Macho homeboys and Casanovas take a pounding on "So Here I Come" and the hit "Buffalo Stance," while women who are shallow, cold-hearted, or materialistic get lambasted on "Phoney Ladies," "Heart," and "Inna City Mamma." Cherry's idealism comes through loud and clear on "The Next Generation," a plea to take responsibility for one's sexual actions and give children the respect and attention they deserve. ~ Alex Henderson, Rovi


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The effect of Sovereign Wealth Funds' involvement on stock markets
AbstractThis study assesses the reaction of stock markets, when Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) announce that they have taken a stake in a listed company. It adds useful empirical results to the debate on the effect of SWFs on financial markets, which remains so far largely reliant on guess work. We perform an event study using a sample of 50 SWF acquisitions of equity stakes in listed companies around the world, from May 2005 to April 2008. According to our results, the announcement of an acquisition by a SWF has a transitory positive impact on the share price of the target company, but there is no lasting effect. This stands in contrast to the results obtained in the academic literature for the investments of private equity funds, and to a lesser extent pension funds. The tests conducted on a sub-sample of announcements targeting banks only made during the subprime crisis (between July 2007 and April 2008) do not exhibit more lasting effects. This may suggest that markets are not convinced that SWFs alone are capable of restoring the position of the banks concerned. These results are however subject to some caveats, and notably, the relatively small size of the sample as well as a selection bias in favour of transparent SWFs, due to the lack of information on other funds.
Download InfoIf you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Bibliographic InfoPaper provided by Banque de France in its series Occasional papers with number 7.
Length: 13 pages
Date of creation: 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:bfr:opaper:7
Contact details of provider:
Postal: Banque de France 31 Rue Croix des Petits Champs LABOLOG - 49-1404 75049 PARIS
Web page: http://www.banque-france.fr/
More information through EDIRC
Related researchKeywords: Sovereign Wealth Funds; Event Study;
Find related papers by JEL classification:
- G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
- G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
ReferencesReferences listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Cumming, Douglas & Siegel, Donald S. & Wright, Mike, 2007. "Private equity, leveraged buyouts and governance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 439-460, September.
- Roland Beck & Michael Fidora, 2008.
"The impact of sovereign wealth funds on global financial markets,"
Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer,
Springer, vol. 43(6), pages 349-358, November.
- Roland Beck & Michael Fidora, 2008. "The impact of sovereign wealth funds on global financial markets," Occasional Paper Series 91, European Central Bank.
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Ticklists: Peak Bouldering - Eastern Grit bold-star up-problems - 7A+Bs, Peak Rock/18/A Boulder Primer.
Photo: The Rib © NickReyner
Submit a new photo of this climb.
aliblacky - 2014
Need to hold the final jug.marcduhig - Sent dnf - 29/Dec/13 with Matt Hawes, Haydn
Superb move to the jug.Andrew Barker - Sent x - 05/Dec/13
Cool. Always struggled, did it 2nd go with new beta.al123 - Sent - 22/Feb/13 with Guy VG, Crew
Excellent conditions today, felt easy, surprised to get it so quick.MTL - Sent x - 27/Oct/12
willackers - Sent x - 06/Oct/12 with Gangle
Tried a few wks ago. 2nd go today.Ian Broome - Sent - 08/Mar/12
alaan - Sent x - 11/Feb/12 with Broom
fathomed a sequence. Struggled with the coldIan Broome - Sent dnf - 11/Feb/12
7b+. In a session. Superb last move, crux for me is pulling off the floor though.nathanlee - Sent x - 14/Dec/11
Spent a lot of time on this, felt great to finally hold the last move!siwid - 20/Oct/11
highrepute - Sent x - 18/Oct/09
Did it first go today after a couple of sessions last year, bring on the grit!!Toby - Sent - 03/Oct/08 with Alex
Hidden - Sent - 17/Apr/08
Tom Briggs - Jagged Globe - Sent - 13/Apr/08 with Rachel Hassall
Hidden - Solo - 11/Apr/08
Hidden - Sent O/S - 11/Apr/08
Hidden - Sent x - 11/Feb/06
Boy - 2006
sadams - Sent - Jun/05
Users with this climb on their wishlist are:
MYox, Hidden, Duck Egg, lukeh, Hidden, archiecb, kermit_uk, bryn marsh, Hidden


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Ramadan welcomes the first 'Food for Life' in Jakarta2,064 Views / EMail This Post / Print This Post / Home » Ramadan welcomes the first 'Food for Life' in Jakarta
By Bhakta Pagehyasa
More photos here: https://www.facebook.com/hari.sukrawan/posts/4425438854583? comment_id=4128435&offset=0& total_comments=1¬if_t=feed_comment
Srila Prabhupada frequently impressed upon the devotees that 'prasadam' is meant for all,
there is no distinction of high or low position and rich or poor. Actually everyone is poor
because they are bereft of Krishna consciousness and everyone should get the opportunity
to hear the names of Krishna and taste mahaprasad thereby they can very quickly revive
their lost Krishna consciousness.
"….Temple means festivals and festivals mean chanting and distribution of prasadam."
(letter to Tamala Krsna,1973)
It may be difficult to invite people for coming to ISCKON temple. They may reject our
books or may not be able to appreciate harinam sankirtan. But generally we find that
they do not refuse to accept good quality food given freely. The food we mention here
is Krsna prasadam. One who distribute the message of Lord Krishna becomes very dear
to Him; and Krishna prasadam is non different from Krishna himself therefore devotees
who distribute prasadam also becomes very dear to lord Krishna. By the inspiration of
HH. Subhag Swami Maharaj, the devotees in Bandung (West Java) and Jakarta had their
first Food for Life program.
On Saturday, July 20, 2013 Jakarta food for life team lead by Sudha Bhajan Das and In
Bandung, Lokanatha Acarya Das did prasadam distribution to the public. Vaisnavas are
by nature compasionate to other living entities therefore devotees follow in their foot
steps and distribute prasadam and harinam for the welfare of others.
In Jakarta, the location of food for life was at the gate of Pasar Baru, Jakarta Pusat. Pasar
Baru is a shopping complex made by the Dutch colonisers For business purpose and
now it serves as a market hub where many people from different backgrounds come to
interact. This being the month of Ramadan, the food for life program was very special
as to the surprise of the devotees many people of other faiths besides the hindus very
warmly appreciated the devotees' efforts and happily accepted the mahaprasad. Most of
the people were very excited to spontaneously asked for prasadam and within 20 minutes
almost 300 glasses of prasadam were distributed.
This gave so much happiness and joy to the devotees because it was the first food for life
in Jakarta and it ran very smoothly and was highly succesful. Along food distribution,
the devotees continously sang Hare Krsna Maha Mantra. The public could feel the joys
listening to the kirtan that lasted for 2 hours. This food for life was supported by Bhakta
Arya, Bhakta Pusarkaya, Ramagopal Das, Bhakta Chesta Wibisana, and many others.


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The Harvard College Engineering Society
Past Student Projects
Hydrovolts Turbine Project
Details Coming Soon!
NASA Moon Work Competition
During the spring semester of 2010 four HCES students competed in the NASA Moon Work Competition to design a tool or an instrument package to be used on the moon. The following tasks could be chosen from:
- Navigation in the darkness around the Moon's south pole
- Power supplies for rovers in the dark
- Sample retrieval and on-site analysis
- Radiation detection and avoidance
- Communication with lunar outpost, with orbiters, and with Earth
- Video capture of sorties for transmission back to Earth
- Astronaut recovery and transport back to outpost
- Lunar regolith mitigation strategies for rover and space suits
- Detect and retrieve water ice for use on the rover
Team: Julie Xie, Daniel Nevius, Tiffany Au, Colin Santangelo, Lakshmi Parthasarathy


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Glimpses of God (Vol. 3)
- Wednesday, January 01, 2003
We live in strange musical times. In 1984, pop icon Madonna gleefully declared that she was a "Material Girl" living in a material world. Now almost 20 years later, the Material Girl is decrying greed and pleading for family values on her
For most artists, songwriting represents a process of personal growth. Albums offer snapshots of an artist's life: emotionally, socially, and spiritually. The Glimpses of God series was created to call attention to specific examples of mainstream artists exploring subjects of faith. Some are professing Christians approaching their craft outside the gospel music community; others are non-believers searching for answers. All are artists you can pray for and albums you can use as common ground with a non-Christian friend.
Volume 3 of Glimpses presents four examples of acclaimed artists who incorporate Christian themes—intentionally or not—into their songwriting.
My Private Nation
Classic pop/rock "I need a sign to let me know you're here/'Cause my TV set just keeps it all from being clear/I want a reason for the way things have to be/I need a hand to help build up some kind of hope inside of me" — from "Calling All Angels"
For Train founder Patrick Monahan, the rock star lifestyle initially included drug and alcohol abuse. With role models such as Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and The Beatles, the aspiring artist assumed such vices were necessary to inspire creativity. After years of struggles and frustrations, Monahan eventually changed his way of thinking. He cleaned up his act and left his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania for San Francisco, where he formed the Grammy Award-winning rock band Train, best known for their smash hit "Drops of Jupiter."
How things have changed since those wild days of youth. Compared to most pop/rock bands, Train is downright wholesome, espousing themes of commitment and family values along with the typical subjects of romance and life struggles. "I'm a 34-year-old guy," Monahan said in an interview with Cleveland.com. "I'm not an 18-year-old kid playing punk rock, drinking booze and smoking weed every night. I already did that. That's not what I want in my life. I want to be a great friend, husband and dad."
Such sentiments crop up in many of Train's songs, often autobiographical for Monahan. "I'm About to Come Alive," from
When Monahan sings "I need a sign," it's less an expression of doubt than it is a plea for reassurance-similar to Styx's 1990 inspirational hit "Show Me the Way." The line "I won't give up, if you don't give up" may simply be intended to encourage peace among the nations, but it might also be viewed as a pledge to a merciful and patient God. Regardless of the multiple takes, there's little question the song is ultimately directed to God. The video even shows the band treading a bleak wasteland with the heavens eventually opening to shower the world with light.
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You can email me with any updates for the site at Kevan
Cannot find what you are looking for? Try the google search of the sites, pub history at its best - 55,000+ pages & 11,000+ images - I update the pub history site every day! And if you have pub history updates, you can email me at : Kevan
Try google search of the pub history site
A listing of historical public houses, Taverns, Inns, Beer Houses and Hotels in Essex. The Essex listing uses information from census, Trade Directories and History to add licensees, bar staff, Lodgers and Visitors.
Canning Town index
Also see the History of Canning Town
Old Ship, 135 Victoria Dock Road, E16 - about 1905 - and I think there is a strong chance that Charles J Emmett is the gentleman in the white shirt standing in the doorway.
Kindly provided by Stephen Harris
Listed address as Lilliput Lane in 1886 & earlier
Known Residents
The following entries are in this format:
Year/Publican or other Resident/Relationship to Head and or Occupation/Age/Where Born/Source.
1871/Elizabeth Edwards/Beer Shop Keeper/37//Census ****
1871/Charles Parker/Lodger, Seaman/28//Census
1871/William ////Census
..to complete
13/9/1872/Elizabeth Edwards/Beer Retailer/../../Petty Sessions ****
1874/Elizabeth Susannah Edwards/Beer Retailer/../../Kelly's
15/5/1875/Cornelius Carey/Beer Retailer/../../Petty Sessions ****
1878/Cornelius Carey/Beer Retailer/../../Kelly's
1881/Cornelius Carey/Publican & Fireman/44/Southampton, Hampshire/Census
1881/Elizabeth Carey/Wife/46/Southampton, Hampshire/Census
1881/Charles J. Edwards Carey/Son/14/London, Middlesex/Census
1881/Charlotte Edwards Carey/Daughter/10/Plaistow, Essex/Census
1881/William Russell/Boarder/30/../Census
1881/Cornelius Brown/Boarder/35/../Census
1881/Joseph Crushay/Boarder/40/../Census
1882/Cornelius Carey/Beer Retailer/../../Kelly's
1886/Cornlis Carey/Beer Retailer/../../Kelly's
1890/Mrs Elizabeth Carey/Beer Retailer/../../Kelly's
1891/Elizabeth Carey/Beer Retailer, Widow/55/Southampton, Hampshire/Census ****
1891/Charles James Edwards/Son, Assistant/12/Middlesex/Census
+ Lodgers
1896/Wm Barber/Beer Retailer/../../Post Office Directory ****
1901/Charles J Emmett/Beer House Manager/30/Bethnal Green, Middlesex/Census ****
1901/Florence L Emmett/Wife/27/Bethnal Green, Middlesex/Census
1901/Robert Emmett/Son/3/West Ham, Essex/Census
1901/Charles Emmett/Son/1/West Ham, Essex/Census
1901/Hannah Emmett/Sister/14//Census
1901/Alice Gough/General Servant/14/Bethnal Green, Middlesex/Census
1902/Chas Jn Emmett/Beer Retailer/../../Post Office Directory ****
1914/Charles John Emmett/Beer Retailer/../../Kellys Directory ****
1922/Alfred John Reed/Beer Retailer/../../Kellys Directory ****
Note: Premises only named in 1901 & Petty Sessions records
** Provided by Stephen Harris
**** Provided by Kevan
Follow @deadpubs
on twitteroo


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"Fall foliage with a nice reflection including some clouds." In Hamden.
Photo sent in via Report It by Michael Hornak.
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Credits & Info
- Uploaded
- Apr 28, 2006 | 4:30 PM EDT
- Daily 3rd Place April 29, 2006
Related Stuff
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Author Comments
We were given 10 hours to come up with a final piece to the year's art project and this was mine. ENJOY?
Yes it's pretty short but it's the length of the song and I didn't have a lot of time. The music is from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, I think you can get it off google.
Rated 3.5 / 5 stars April 30, 2006
Your brain on drugs
Were you high when you thought this up? I'm just kidding, but it was very strange. The animation and graphics were good, but it was kind of confusing. Somehow putting on a hat in what looks like an insane asylum cell throws you into some weird world with giant bees? Was there cocain in the hat that fell in his face when he put it on? Anyways, good graphics, nice animation, and very... artsy... Don't do drugs kids.
Rated 5 / 5 stars April 30, 2006
Great work.
This was fun!! ^-^" I loved the bumble bee because he was just so squishy.
And to Skibo:
The artist has clearly identified where the music was sampled from, so don't be a dick about it.
Rated 2.5 / 5 stars April 30, 2006
so so
music stolen strait from a nickalodeon cartoon (Foster's home for imaginary friends) Besides that...pretty good animation, overall story wasnt that bad. Not really to interesting tho.
Rated 3.5 / 5 stars April 29, 2006
I hate the foster's song
My sister watches that annoying show every day! But this movie is really good! I like how well the graphics fit with the music. If that stupid music were different, I would've given this a better score. Good job! You're good with flash!
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars April 29, 2006
Very nice
The music fits with the animation, or should I say your animation fits with the music well, I like the fact of non-random things to the music, because with the sound you created a creature, but yet it blended together very well. Very nice fbf animation also.. Congrats on a great piece of art