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And within two weeks, Peter Foo was already proven right. Business for the firm expanded in leaps & bounds as both old & new clients wanted to meet the lovely slave girl that he kept naked in his penthouse & to partake of the ambrosial Nectar that she served. So much so that the three million dollars that he had paid for her was fully recovered out of profits. And new orders that flooded the firm showed that his initial investment on the girl would increase in value tenfold within a year. He had therefore acquired the lovely slave girl, Briseis,for free. And that was why Peter Foo was likened by the Directors to Zeus/Jupiter, the King of the Gods.[MMT] ↗
Bernard was to remember this moment for the rest of his life. As they drank from their water bottles he was struck by the recently concluded war not as a historical, geopolitical fact but as a multiplicity, a near-infinity of private sorrows, as a boundless grief minutely subdivided without diminishment among individuals who covered the continent like dust, like spores whose separate identities would remain unknown, and whose totality showed more sadness than anyone could ever begin to comprehend; a weight borne in silence by hundreds of thousands, millions, like the woman in black for a husband and two brothers, each grief a particular, intricate, keening love story that might have been otherwise. It seemed as though he had never thought about the war before, not about its cost. He had been so busy with the details of his work, of doing it well, and his widest view had been of war aims, of winning, of statistical deaths, statistical destruction, and of post-war reconstruction. For the first time he sensed the scale of the catastrophe in terms of feeling; all those unique and solitary deaths, all that consequent sorrow, unique and solitary too, which had no place in conferences, headlines, history, and which had quietly retired to houses, kitchens, unshared beds, and anguished memories. This came upon Bernard by a pine tree in the Languedoc in 1946 not as an observation he could share with June but as a deep apprehension, a recognition of a truth that dismayed him into silence and, later, a question: what possible good could come of a Europe covered in this dust, these spores, when forgetting would be inhuman and dangerous, and remembering a constant torture? ↗
Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable. If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on all its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivory in all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get into Parliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful, and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel. Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as these, I sat down in my new house to write The Way We Live Now. And as I had ventured to take the whip of the satirist into my hand, I went beyond the iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, and made an onslaught also on other vices;--on the intrigues of girls who want to get married, on the luxury of young men who prefer to remain single, and on the puffing propensities of authors who desire to cheat the public into buying their volumes. ↗
It had been a nice night, but not one they’d repeat. Like, ever. Why was he dialing his phone? A few rings later, a familiar voice picked up on the other end. “Whitman.” Dammit, my subconscious really is out to get me. “Matt? Brennan. I was wondering if…” make it something good, “…you…wanted to…” his gaze flew around the room, settling on his DVD shelf, “…watch Star Wars with me?”Star Wars? A hundred DVDs on the shelf and he settled on fucking Star Wars? He was never going to get in Matt’s pants ever again. There was a pause on the other end. Great, I’ve scared him off with my closet geekery. Go me. “Which one?” His heart skipped a beat. Or not.“I have all six.” “My favorite is Strikes Back. I can be at my place in about twenty. I’ll bring food?” Brennan’s eyes squeezed closed and he grinned, kicking his feet in delight. I am such a girl. “You know we can’t watch Strikes Back without immediately going to Return, right?” “We should pace ourselves. Star Wars is serious business. Usually I don’t watch them without consuming about five pounds of Skittles and three bottles of Coke.” “I’ll grab the junk food. We can pull an all -nighter.” “It’s a weeknight.” Matt sounded ridiculously disappointed about the fact, which was so happy-dance-worthy that Brennan almost literally jumped out of his chair. “But maybe we could turn it into a three-part date? Start tonight? End Friday? ~ The Usual Apocalypse ~ ↗
So I see you got to know Trish on a pretty intimate level tonight,” Max said, focusing her attention back on the present as they made their way down the deserted roads back to her house. “She was definitely…friendly.” What Landon casually defined as friendly was what Max more accurately described as molestation. Her hands had disappeared under the table, rubbing his leg or whatever she was doing, more times than she spent holding her damn cards. Landon’s indifference to the whole thing was entirely impossible to read. Was he enjoying the attention? Wouldn’t any man? Not that it was any of her business. Landon was just some guy that she’d let stay with her for a few days. The fact that he was good-looking was irrelevant. Trish could have him for all she cared as long as they kept the indecencies out of her house. “Well, don’t you worry about her. She’s a bit of a flirt when she’s drunk. I’m pretty sure she’d hit on a monkey.” “You just compared me to a monkey and you don’t want me to worry?” “You know what I mean.” “I’m sorry, I don’t.” “Don’t tell me that girls like that actually appeal to you.” “Jealous?” “Hardly,” Max shot back defensively. “I just pegged you for a man with higher standards that’s all.” She couldn’t really say why she’d chosen to share her opinion. No harm in giving the guy a little warning, right? “You’ve pegged me for a lot of things. ↗
Once you’ve completed your morning routine, had breakfast, clarified your daily goals, etc… it’s time to get into work mode. Shower (or don’t), shave (or don’t), get dressed (or don’t), drive to the office (or not), and basically do whatever you need to do to get ready for work. The goal is to remove yourself from distractions and prepare to focus on doing work. Whether you’re working at home or in an office, it helps to create a routine that clearly signifies this change. Once you have those mental blinders in place, you can step away from all things not related to work and get down to business. ↗
Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little. ↗
I read it: "A man earned daily for 5 days and 3 times as much as he paid for his board, after which he was obliged to be idle 4 days," it said. "Upon counting his money after paying for his board he found that he had 2 ten-doller bills and 4 dollers. How much did he pay for the board, and what were his wages?" "All right. Think now," Weaver said. "How would you begin to solve it? What's your X?" I thought. Very hard. For quite some time. About the man and his meager wages and shabby boardinghouse and lonely life. "Where did he work?" I finally asked. "What? It doesn't matter, Matt. Just assign an X to-" "A mill, I bet," I said, picturing the man's threadbare clothing, his worn shoes. "A woolen mill. Why do you think he was obliged to be idle?" "I don't know why. Look, just-" "I bet he got sick," I said, clutching Weaver's arm. "Or maybe business wasn't good, and his boss had no work for him. I wonder if he had a family in the country. It would be a terrible thing, wouldn't it, if he had children to feed and no work? Maybe his wife was poorly, too. And I bet he had..." "Damn it, Mattie, this is algebra, not composition!" Weaver said, glaring at me. "Sorry," I said, feeling like a hopeless case. ↗
It's a strange thing. I hardly find anybody today who doesn't agree that the ledger should not determine how we live. Most people think it's terrible that the pollution in Lake Michigan is being decided by how much it'll cost companies to cure it. People are realizing that an environment is being created that will be as dangerous for capitalists to live in as well as for the working people...that it's insane to let major things be decided on the basis of black figures and red figures. I find temperate people saying today that the business-motivated system isn't a safe thing to have around. ↗
In the United States […] the two main business-dominated parties, with the support of the corporate community, have refused to reform laws that make it virtually impossible to create new political parties (that might appeal to non-business interests) and let them be effective. Although there is marked and frequently observed dissatisfaction with the Republicans and Democrats, electoral politics is one area where notions of competitions and free choice have little meaning. In some respects the caliber of debate and choice in neoliberal elections tends to be closer to that of the one-party communist state than that of a genuine democracy. ↗
#corporatism #democracy #democracy-gone-wrong #democratic-party #elections
