We live in an age of power without responsibility, an age where ambition and hubris are too often permitted to run roughshod over institutional controls and the dictates of common decency. We are too often made to feel helpless in the face of power exercised so far beyond the reach of accountability that many of us have simply given up, and abandoned hope of calling to account those who abuse the trust of the people they were tasked with serving.
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Two different readers ask questions from their own personal experience:
1. One man is trying to overcome feelings of discomfort when ordering his men to go places where they may face certain harm.
2. Another man is trying to deal with a boss whose passive-aggressive comments may mean trouble for him.
Machiavelli, in book III, chapter 6 of his Discourses, enunciates the principles of political conspiracies. He considers an understanding of them to be of primary importance. I intend to paraphrase his relevant points here, so that readers without access to the original text may have a better understanding of them. He begins with a point he considers self-evident:
I thought I’d post a short weekend culinary tip here. Recently I wrote about making jerked meat. Never having tried to make jerky from turkey before, I finally did it this past week. I was at first skeptical that the results would be encouraging, but it all worked out well. Here are the steps and the results. The final result was delicious and practical: you can take the meat with you on trips, for lunches, or whatever.
When your back is against the wall, you need to fight back however you can. Don’t allow society or other people to denigrate you. Remember that the only one who cares about you is you. Sometimes the best way to get people to listen is to force them to listen. Hit them hard, and keep hitting them as long as necessary.
In June 1722 a seaman from Marblehead, Massachusetts named Philip Ashton was aboard a vessel that entered the waters around Shelburne, Nova Scotia. Ashton was a fisherman and had no experience with trouble on the high seas. But this was to change very quickly. As his shallop entered the waters of the harbor, it was spotted and boarded by pirates under the command of the notorious Edward Low. The crew and its cargo were now under the control of Low and his men.
The Arabic poet Abu al-Hasan Ali Ibn Muhammad al-Tihami (? – 1025) is said to have taken the name Tihami in one of two possible ways that may hint at his family’s origins, according to our trusted chronicler Ibn Khallikan. Tihami was used both as an informal name for the city of Mecca, and as a name for the mountains between the Hijaz and Yemen. But it is not clear which of these geographic references apply to our poet.
If you’re single and living alone, it’s important to know how to cook nutritious meals for yourself on a consistent basis. Like practically everything else in today’s world, you need to learn this skill yourself: no one is going to spoon-feed you. What I want to talk about today is an efficient cooking strategy that can optimize the time, cost, and nutritive value of your home cooking. What I’m talking about here is the crock-pot (or slow-cooker). Using a slow-cooker will save you a huge amount of time and money.
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Quintus Curtius 
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