Black Market Hope

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I stood in front of her, hands folded. So, she said. She had a cigarette, and she put it between her lips and gripped it there while she lit it. Her lips were thin, held that way, with the small vertical lines around them you used to see in advertisements for lip cosmetics. The lighter was ivory-colored. The cigarettes must have come from the black market, I thought, and this gave me hope. Even now that there is no real money anymore, there’s still a black market. There’s always a black market, there’s always something that can be exchanged.

She then was a woman who might bend the rules. But what did I have, to trade?

–The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

What makes a warrior

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“It sounds to me,” his father finally said, “that you returned with all the honor they would allow. You killed your enemy in battle and you fought your hardest for the fleet. That makes us all proud.” The elders nodded at that. Some of them ground their teeth to show appreciation for what the archon was saying. Boro felt relieved. “You know,” he continued, “we have all fought in battles that we lost. What makes a warrior and eventually a great leader is how we learn from losing.”

–Doom Sayer by Thane Keller

A Pet’s Unconditional Love

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Maybe it’s stupid to love a cat so much , but she really is the only thing I can count on in my life . No matter what I thought or did , she never failed to cuddle next to me every night . On the nights I couldn’t stand myself , the nights I binged and purged and felt defeated and disappointed in myself , she was always there for me . In this world , you need a cat or a dog to experience unconditional love .

–Manic Kingdom: A True Story of Breakdown and Breakthrough by Dr. Erin Stair

Lost Ones

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I think about the lost ones who are still out there, each thinking that they are the only one of their kind. Somewhere, there is someone like me or Connie, being run out of town or left to starve because we’re not the ones they think will save mankind. People abandon their babies because they want to make sure there are more babies. We are not a logical race.

–The Book of Flora (The Road to Nowhere 3) by Meg Elison

What’s wrong with the galaxy

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To Ulbreck’s mind, there was one thing wrong with the galaxy: people. People and droids. Well, those were two things – but then again, wasn’t it wrong to limit what was wrong with the galaxy to just one thing? How fair was that? That was how the old farmer’s thinking tended to go, even when sober. In sixty standard years of moisture farming, Ulbreck had formed one theory about life after another. But he’d spent enough of the early years working alone – odd, how not even his farmhands wanted to be around him – that all his notions had piled up, unspoken.

That was what visits to town were for: opportunities for Ulbreck to share the wisdom of a lifetime. When he wasn’t getting robbed by diabolical droids pretending to be green bartenders.

–Kenobi, a Star Wars novel, by John Jackson Miller

Bragging Rights: Social Media Policy Development

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This course is designed to help Small Business Owners, Human Resources and Marketing Executives understand some of the legal ramifications in dealing with workplace social media issues. 

I completed The Legal Implications of Social Media in the Workplace Regulatory and Case Law Considerations for Employers’ Social Media Policy Development course on Udemy.com.

It provides a good overview of the laws most commonly relied upon in Social Media policy development.There are several case studies that provide excellent insight into the potential consequences of implementing a poorly written or unenforced policy.

For Information Security policy Analysts who have extensive experience researching and writing security policy, most of this will be review. But an examination of the basics is often useful.

Names into the Silence

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We learned to whisper almost without sound. In the semidarkness we could stretch out our arms, when the Aunts weren’t looking, and touch each other’s hands across space. We learned to lip-read, our heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other’s mouths. In this way we exchanged names, from bed to bed: Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June.

–The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Learning from Failure

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It didn’t matter, but Sabik had just learned from his error. What felt like sneaking through enemy territory was actually a leash leading him in. What felt like craftily avoiding mines and sensors in an attempt to gather intelligence against their enemy was a carefully crafted path by his enemy. What felt like success was actually failure. He allowed himself to be led into a rebel kill zone like an animal to its slaughter. But could he escape?

–Doom Sayer by Thane Keller

More Prop Than Person

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I got the last word , the most genuine thing I could say out loud and not get kicked out of the rotation . What I wanted to say was that most of the patients are restlessly meandering , drooling , sleeping , or loitering around the nurses ’ station all day long . I wanted to comment on how they’re hunched over in a lobotomized line for a cupful of pills or a tray of food and look more like bizarre props than people. I wanted to tell him to forget the medication and give them something meaningful to do. But I didn’t say any of that.

–Manic Kingdom: A True Story of Breakdown and Breakthrough by Dr. Erin Stair

Understanding Right and Wrong

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It was only when I realized that I was a slave and not a slaver’s apprentice that I understood that what Archie was doing was a great wrong. Right and wrong had no meaning in my life until I was almost a woman. I learned some of it from my father, but he was not a talkative man. I began to understand when I knew the horsewomen, but I could never see it the way they did. They didn’t know what I knew.

–The Book of Flora (The Road to Nowhere 3) by Meg Elison