Revenge, Served Cold (Or, Sitting in the Catbird Seat)
I'm not a vengeful person. I believe if you do good, good comes back to you. If you do bad, bad will come back to you. And I think fate, karma — whatever you call it — will deal with the people who do wrong.
Sometimes, though, fate needs a helping hand.
In those cases, I turn to an old Klingon proverb (really): "Revenge is a dish best served cold." That is, as a considered response enacted when unexpected rather than an emotional response made in the heat of the moment.
This thought came to me as I sat down to write an essay about my two favorite short stories and only then realized that both are fun takes on revenge, served cold. And I was reminded that one of the stories guided me through the most satisfactory revenge of my life.
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New Year's Resolutions for the Rest of Us
Eat healthy. Exercise more. Save money. Take a trip. That's what we all resolve to do each year, according to the U.S. government – although why the trusty folks in Washington feel compelled to compile New Year's Resolutions is beyond us.
Still, it did get us thinking about things we should resolve to do in 2012. Really. Honestly. Sincerely. We thought keeping it simple would increase the odds that we'll actually have some success with this. So here's our list of New Year's Resolutions We Think We Might Be Able to Swing:
• Meet a friend for lunch. Repeat at least 12 times. There are so many people that we want to catch up with, but between work, family and life, time just slips away. So we resolve to go to lunch with a different friend at least once a month for the entire year. That's 12 people to reconnect with – in person. It's a start.
• Learn one new skill. Anything counts, as long as it's something we didn't know how to do before. How to bake a great loaf of bread, knit a scarf, day trade on the stock market, edit photos in Photoshop. What's important is taking the time and adding something new to our repertoire of skills.
• Be prepared. In other words, always have a bottle of champagne in the fridge. You never know when good news might strike.
Meet Melanie Sloan, the Woman Who Took Down Tom DeLay
Girl Talk, Washington, D.C. — In 2003, Melanie Sloan was on a one-woman mission: To root out corrupt politicians and get them booted from office. She was equipped with a modest office, a computer, and a year's worth of health insurance. But neither Sloan nor the folks who hired her to found CREW, or Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, found this mission in the least quixotic. Says Sloan, "I had been a prosecutor, and had been on the Hill for five years, and I had a big mouth. They thought that was a good combination."
It was. Sloan initiated the ethics complaint that got House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Tex.) kicked out of office, then went on to uncover the Abramoff scandal and push for charges against Representatives Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) and Gregory Meeks (D-NY). She's attracted funding from the Carnegie Foundation, the Open Society Institute, and the Wallace Global Fund. She now directs a staff of 15, including three other attorneys.
One Thing New's Kimberly Weisul spoke with Sloan about corruption, the flip side of her high-profile career, and how we can improve our electoral system.
Read more: Meet Melanie Sloan, the Woman Who Took Down Tom DeLay
The "No" Problem
I'm good at saying no.
It's a skill I've mastered over the years, after finding myself in many situations where I should have said no. If you've ever played host to the guests from hell, baked 10 dozen cupcakes on an hour’s notice with other deadlines looming, or taken on a project that should have been done by the co-worker who conned you into doing it, you know what I'm talking about.
Living Large In a Power Failure
I may pride myself on being Nature Girl, but five days without power this October was a little too much even for me. And the toughest part wasn’t staying warm or even keeping a few lights on. It was trying not to go insane.
The simple solution, of course, should be to go for broke and buy a generator – the kind that lights up your whole darn house like a carnival the minute the power even wavers. Good luck with that. There’s a run on generators around here, and even if you manage to buy one, you can’t find anyone to install it.
By A Web Design
