This debate became a source of tremendous embarrassment for South Carolina,

She settled into a sitting position, wincing. "Oh, my poor rear end. I hope you appreciate what I went through to get here."
Alain watched her anxiously. "You have hurt your..."
"My butt. Yeah." She returned his gaze, puzzled. "I'll survive. Why are you blushing?"
"Blushing?" His face felt warm. What did that mean?
"Yes." Mari laughed. Does talking about my butt embarrass you? I'm sorry. It's nothing special."
"I..." His face felt even warmer. "I think it is."
"You do, huh? Where have you been all my life?"
This time he gave her a mystified look. "I sent almost all of it inside a Mage Guild Hall. The one in Ihris. You know this."
Mari laughed again.

Our returns are obviously great news for our members and demonstrate in these times of national pension debate the extraordinary value created by professional investment management in public pension defined benefit plans. The ability to manage large assets, through an expert investment staff, in a highly cost efficient manner with broad diversification and managed risk creates results like these that surpass market benchmarks and produces in the end the financial security everyone deserves.

There must be no more sticking heads in the sand. No more embarrassment and no more hiding behind a veil of apathy,

What is embarrassment? In general, embarrassment is an emotional response to an innocent mistake. The major reason that some of us are embarrassment-prone is that we’ve been conditioned to set unrealistically high expectations for ourselves and to judge ourselves negatively when we can’t possibly meet those standards. A second reason that makes us susceptible to embarrassment is that we’ve been taught to take our cue in evaluating ourselves from what we assume (often erroneously) to be others’ opinions of us.

I couldn’t believe I just blurted all that out. I let my head fall forward until I could bury my overheated face in his shoulder.
“This is mortifying.”
His shoulders shook beneath my hands, and when he spoke, the laughter tinged his voice.
“Babe, look at me.”
“No.” I wiggled deeper into his arms. “I’m staying here until I die. And if I keep spilling my guts to you, that should happen in about two point two seconds when I drop dead of embarrassment.