Last few books I've read have featured a narrator made restless by a gnawing inquietude to go on a long walk and then doing just that.
Wonder if my subconscious is trying to tell me something.
I checked this book out. #librariesrule
I must purchase this book, find a way to get it signed by @McConaughey, and place it in my bookshelf for my sons to sneak peeks @ chapters laden w/ words their mother won't let them use, absorbing lessons about how to lead a life well lived
@jan_murray Once watched a show in which the lead character was supposed to speak on the difficulties of getting an item from Point A to Point B.
Which was the metaphor for the show.
Which can be the metaphor for many shows.
But we don't tell anyone that, do we? We describe the journey.
π¨ Anthropic just showed a 27-minute workshop on how to actually do prompts for Claude.
Taught by the people who built it.
Free. No registration. No paywall.
I've seen $300 courses that don't cover what they teach in the first 8 minutes.
Watch it and bookmark it now.
@TheJusticeDept I went to a college that proudly disdains federal funding because it doesn't want the government telling them how to educate their students.
Imagine the strings attached to any funding coming from this initiative.
Don't we believe our political leaders should focus ceaselessly on the right thing to do for all our nation, and not get bored when their pet projects aren't resolved in New York minute?
"Yet in the absence of state censorship, we have filled the void with an equally capricious social version..."
In an age where we bemoan lack of new IP in storytelling, should we be turning deaf ears to the stories that defined previous ages?
https://t.co/Hf84Q7o9fX
8:06 AM. The man whose name is on a book I wrote posted: "A whole civilization will die tonight."
I am a ghostwriter. In 1987, I wrote the most famous business book in American history.
Half the advance. Half the royalties. Eighteen months in his office, listening to his phone calls. He would flatter, threaten, hang up, and call the next person the greatest. I wrote it all down. I made it sound like strategy.
Chapter 1 was about thinking big. I wrote that about condominiums.
This morning, at 8:06 AM, the man whose name is on the cover posted seven sentences to a social media platform. The first: "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again."
That is Chapter 1.
I wrote that about condominiums.
Chapter 3 was about leverage. "The best thing you can do is deal from strength." The example was a zoning board. The technique was implying you had options you didn't have.
He is using Chapter 3 on a strait that carries 20% of the world's oil. The zoning board is a shipping lane. The leverage is a navy.
I invented a phrase for him. "Truthful hyperbole." An innocent form of exaggeration, I wrote. A very effective form of promotion.
I was describing how he inflated square footage.
Thirteen thousand targets struck. Two thousand and fifty-six dead. Twenty-four thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven wounded.
I wrote "truthful hyperbole" about square footage.
Chapter 4 was about timing. When to make the call. When to let them wait. When to close. I was describing a contractor negotiation.
He paused the bombing for Easter. Resumed it Monday. His Defense Secretary compared the rescue of a downed pilot to the resurrection of Christ. Shot down on Good Friday. Hidden in a cave on Saturday. Rescued as the sun rose on Easter Sunday.
I wrote about timing. I was describing when to return a phone call.
At the Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn, while children hunted eggs, he told the cameras: "We are obliterating their country. And I hate to do it, but we are obliterating."
Chapter 2 was about promotion. I wrote that about how to sell a building.
A reporter asked if destroying every bridge in a nation of 88 million constituted war crimes.
Three words: "Not worried about it."
A journalist reported a downed pilot missing behind enemy lines. He threatened to jail the reporter. I looked through the manuscript. There is no chapter on press freedom. There is no chapter on international law. There is no chapter on what happens when the contractor you're threatening is a civilization.
I didn't write those chapters. I was writing about real estate. He didn't notice they were missing. He doesn't read.
Someone asked if God supported the war. "God is good."
There is no chapter on theology either.
Chapter 7 was about knowing when to walk away. I described a stalled deal. The lesson was patience.
He walked away from every alliance his country had built in eighty years. Forty countries formed a coalition to guard the strait because nobody answered the phone.
In my journal, in 1986, I wrote: "All he is is 'stomp, stomp, stomp' β recognition from outside, bigger, more, a whole series of things that go nowhere in particular."
Forty years. Nothing has changed except the size of the things being stomped.
I know he never read the book. Eighteen months together, I never saw one on his desk. Not mine. Not anyone's. The man whose name is on the most famous business book in American history has never read a book.
He didn't need to. It was never a manual. It was a mirror. He looked at the cover β his name, in gold, larger than the title, as he'd requested β and saw everything he needed.
"A whole civilization will die tonight."
Seven sentences. 8:06 AM. A Tuesday.
I called it truthful hyperbole.
He is calling it foreign policy.
I built the mythology. He added a military.
"The company also made tweaks to cultivate a more social atmosphere, such as changing the desk tops from 5 to 4 feet..."
As if the #openoffice template hasn't already had enough of a negative impact on #productivity.
https://t.co/V0tItiI55n
@RepRileyMoore@SenEricSchmitt At one point in time, Easter Sunday was one of the few days out of the year during which ALL the stores were closed.
Over time, that has been reversed.
Why? Merchants wanted to make money.
I'll bet there's a relevant metaphor from some story we could reference...
The road to Hermit's Rest in the #GrandCanyon is closed to traffic during peak season, accessible only by bus. Not ideal, but protects that portion of the park. And it works.
It should be that way for #YosemiteValley.
https://t.co/Ey25ToQCmY