60 Letter Quotes

Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer – Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus – Tragedies 4. Sophocles – Tragedies 5. Herodotus – Histories 6. Euripides – Tragedies 7. Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates – Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes – Comedies 10. Plato – Dialogues 11. Aristotle – Works 12. Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid – Elements 14. Archimedes – Works 15. Apollonius of Perga – Conic Sections 16. Cicero – Works 17. Lucretius – On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil – Works 19. Horace – Works 20. Livy – History of Rome 21. Ovid – Works 22. Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus – Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy – Almagest 27. Lucian – Works 28. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations 29. Galen – On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus – The Enneads 32. St. Augustine – On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njál 36. St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More – Utopia 44. Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne – Essays 48. William Gilbert – On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon – Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler – Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan 57. René Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton – Works 59. Molière – Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza – Ethics 63. John Locke – Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine – Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67. Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve – The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley – Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope – Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire – Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets

Thou shalt not commit adultry is a command which makes no distinction between the following persons. They are all required to obey it: children at birth. Children in the cradle. School children. Youths and maidens. Fresh adults. Older ones. Men and women of 40. Of 50. Of 60. Of 70. Of 80. Of 100. The command does not distribute its burden equally, and cannot. It is not hard upon the three sets of children.

I have 50 or 60 pages on the [new] novel but I still expect to be a long time at it. It’s a theme that requires prayer and fasting to make it get anywhere. I manage to pray but am a very sloppy faster.

Fanaticism is, in reference to superstition, what delirium is to fever, or rage to anger.

The weak mind receives impressions without resistance, embraces opinions without examination, is alarmed without cause, and tends naturally to superstition.

Still another factor is compatibility with vested interests. This book, like probably every other typed document you have ever read, was typed with a QWERTY keyboard, named for the left-most six letters in its upper row. Unbelievable as it may now sound, that keyboard layout was designed in 1873 as a feat of anti-engineering. It employs a whole series of perverse tricks designed to force typists to type as slowly as possible, such as scattering the commonest letters over all keyboard rows and concentrating them on the left side (where right-handed people have to use their weaker hand). The reason behind all of those seemingly counterproductive features is that the typewriters of 1873 jammed if adjacent keys were struck in quick succession, so that manufacturers had to slow down typists. When improvements in typewriters eliminated the problem of jamming, trials in 1932 with an efficiently laid-out keyboard showed that it would let us double our typing speed and reduce our typing effort by 95 percent. But QWERTY keyboards were solidly entrenched by then. The vested interests of hundreds of millions of QWERTY typists, typing teachers, typewriter and computer salespeople, and manufacturers have crushed all moves toward keyboard efficiency for over 60 years.

But then, to what end,” said Candide, “was the world formed?” “To make us mad,” said Martin. “Are

You lack faith,” said Candide. “It is because,” said Martin, “I have seen the world.

According to one study, about 60 percent of all clothing manufactured around the world is discarded within a few years of production. That is equivalent to one garbage truck full of clothes arriving at a landfill every second.

Candide, well fed, well taken care of, but closely watched, was not absolutely disgusted with his condition. Good cheer and the different diversions performed by Ismael’s slaves gave some respite to his chagrin; he was unhappy only when he thought; and thus it is with the greatest part of mankind.

The English word Atonement comes from the ancient Hebrew word kaphar, which means to cover. When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and discovered their nakedness in the Garden of Eden, God sent Jesus to make coats of skins to cover them. Coats of skins don’t grow on trees. They had to be made from an animal, which meant an animal had to be killed. Perhaps that was the very first animal sacrifice. Because of that sacrifice, Adam and Eve were covered physically. In the same way, through Jesus’ sacrifice we are also covered emotionally and spiritually. When Adam and Eve left the garden, the only things they could take to remind them of Eden were the coats of skins. The one physical thing we take with us out of the temple to remind us of that heavenly place is a similar covering. The garment reminds us of our covenants, protects us, and even promotes modesty. However, it is also a powerful and personal symbol of the Atonement—a continuous reminder both night and day that because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are covered. (I am indebted to Guinevere Woolstenhulme, a religion teacher at BYU, for insights about kaphar.) Jesus covers us (see Alma 7) when we feel worthless and inadequate. Christ referred to himself as “Alpha and Omega” (3 Nephi 9:18). Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Christ is surely the beginning and the end. Those who study statistics learn that the letter alpha is used to represent the level of significance in a research study. Jesus is also the one who gives value and significance to everything. Robert L. Millet writes, “In a world that offers flimsy and fleeting remedies for mortal despair, Jesus comes to us in our moments of need with a ‘more excellent hope’ (Ether 12:32)” (Grace Works, 62). Jesus covers us when we feel lost and discouraged. Christ referred to Himself as the “light” (3 Nephi 18:16). He doesn’t always clear the path, but He does illuminate it. Along with being the light, He also lightens our loads. “For my yoke is easy,” He said, “and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). He doesn’t always take burdens away from us, but He strengthens us for the task of carrying them and promises they will be for our good. Jesus covers us when we feel abused and hurt. Joseph Smith taught that because Christ met the demands of justice, all injustices will be made right for the faithful in the eternal scheme of things (see Teachings, 296). Marie K. Hafen has said, “The gospel of Jesus Christ was not given us to prevent our pain. The gospel was given us to heal our pain” (“Eve Heard All These Things,” 27). Jesus covers us when we feel defenseless and abandoned. Christ referred to Himself as our “advocate” (D&C 29:5): one who believes in us and stands up to defend us. We read, “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler” (Psalm 18:2). A buckler is a shield used to divert blows. Jesus doesn’t always protect us from unpleasant consequences of illness or the choices of others, since they are all part of what we are here on earth to experience. However, He does shield us from fear in those dark times and delivers us from having to face those difficulties alone. … We’ve already learned that the Hebrew word that is translated into English as Atonement means “to cover.” In Arabic or Aramaic, the verb meaning to atone is kafat, which means “to embrace.” Not only can we be covered, helped, and comforted by the Savior, but we can be “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” (2 Nephi 1:15). We can be “clasped in the arms of Jesus” (Mormon 5:11). In our day the Savior has said, “Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love” (D&C 6:20). (Brad Wilcox, The Continuous Atonement, pp. 47-49, 60).

Relying on our acquired knowledge, we have ventured to discuss the question: Whether the soul is created before us? Whether it arrives from nothing in our bodies? At what age it came and placed itself between the bladder and the intestines, "cæcum" and "rectum"? Whether it received or brought there any ideas, and what those ideas are? Whether, after animating us for a few moments, its essence is to live after us in eternity, without the intervention of God Himself? Whether, it being a spirit, and God being spirit, they are of like nature? These questions have an appearance of sublimity. What are they but questions of men born blind discussing the nature of light?

Until Americans can overcome this idealization of law, until they begin to see that law is, like other institutions and actions, to be measured against moral principles, against human needs, we will remain a static society in a world of change, a society deaf to the rising cries for justice- and therefore,a society in serious trouble.” Added a quotation: “The realities of american politics, it turns out, are different than as described in old civic textbooks, which tell us how fortunate we are to have the ballot. The major nominees for president are not chosen by the ballot, but are picked for us by a quadrennial political convention which is half farce, half circus, most of whose delegates have not been instructed by popular vote. For months before the convention, the public has been conditioned by the mass media on who is who, so that it will not be temped to think beyond that list which the party regulars have approved.” Added a quotation: “I do not think civil disobedience is enough; it is a way of protest, but in itself it does not construct a new society. There are many other things that citizens should do to begin to build a new way of life in the midst of the old, to live the way human beings should live- enjoying the fruits of the earth, the warmth of nature and of one another-without hostility, without the artificial separation of religion, or race, or nationalism. Further, not all forms of civil disobedience are moral; not all are effective.” Added a quotation: “It is very hard, in the comfortable environment of middle-class America, to discard the notion that everything will be better if we don't have the disturbance of civil disobedience, if we confine ourselves to voting, writing letters to our congressmen, speaking our minds politely.....somehow we must transcend our own tight, air-conditioned chambers and begin to feel their plight, their needs. It may become evident that, despite out wealth, we can have no real peace until they do. We might then join them in battering at the complacency of those who guard a false "order," with that healthy commotion that has always attended the growth of justice.

The "inspired" prophet Isaiah, whose writings are venerated by both Jews and Christians, and whose prophetic utterances have so long been discussed with more zeal than discretion by the sectarians, tells us, (Isaiah xiv. 29), that "Out of the serpent's root shall come forth a Cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery, flying serpent." This somewhat incoherent prediction has never been satisfactorily explained by the learned commentators who are specially educated in our colleges for solving theological enigmas, and who have failed to show, to the confusion of scientists and the admiration of a believing world, how a Cockatrice may emerge from a "serpent's root," and why a Cockatrice's "fiery and flying fruit" should have formed a theme for prophetic inspiration.—E.

In mid-January, we were surprised and touched when we received a letter on blue airmail paper from Diana at her flat at 60 Coleherne Court. She wrote, “I can never thank you enough, Mrs. Robertson, for being so kind and understanding with the whole of Fleet Street following me!!...Never have I adored looking after a child (more) than Patrick and thank you for providing such happiness over the year for me!” We couldn’t believe she was thinking of us at such a stressful time in her life. We knew from the press that the royal courtship was still on, but there was no word of an engagement yet. Diana must have been feeling such pressure not only from the uncertainty of the courtship but also from the continuing media speculation about her chances of succeeding where so many had failed. We were touched that she missed us as much as we missed her. We kept our fingers crossed and eagerly scanned the newspapers and magazines for news of an engagement between Diana and Charles.

Until Americans can overcome this idealization of law, until they begin to see that law is, like other institutions and actions, to be measured against moral principles, against human needs, we will remain a static society in a world of change, a society deaf to the rising cries for justice- and therefore,a society in serious trouble.” “The realities of american politics, it turns out, are different than as described in old civic textbooks, which tell us how fortunate we are to have the ballot. The major nominees for president are not chosen by the ballot, but are picked for us by a quadrennial political convention which is half farce, half circus, most of whose delegates have not been instructed by popular vote. For months before the convention, the public has been conditioned by the mass media on who is who, so that it will not be temped to think beyond that list which the party regulars have approved.” “I do not think civil disobedience is enough; it is a way of protest, but in itself it does not construct a new society. There are many other things that citizens should do to begin to build a new way of life in the midst of the old, to live the way human beings should live- enjoying the fruits of the earth, the warmth of nature and of one another-without hostility, without the artificial separation of religion, or race, or nationalism. Further, not all forms of civil disobedience are moral; not all are effective.” “It is very hard, in the comfortable environment of middle-class America, to discard the notion that everything will be better if we don't have the disturbance of civil disobedience, if we confine ourselves to voting, writing letters to our congressmen, speaking our minds politely.....somehow we must transcend our own tight, air-conditioned chambers and begin to feel their plight, their needs. It may become evident that, despite out wealth, we can have no real peace until they do. We might then join them in battering at the complacency of those who guard a false "order," with that healthy commotion that has always attended the growth of justice.

This book, like probably every other typed document you have ever read, was typed with a QWERTY keyboard, named for the left-most six letters in its upper row. Unbelievable as it may now sound, that keyboard layout was designed in 1873 as a feat of anti-engineering. It employs a whole series of perverse tricks designed to force typists to type as slowly as possible, such as scattering the commonest letters over all keyboard rows and concentrating them on the left side (where right-handed people have to use their weaker hand). The reason behind all of those seemingly counterproductive features is that the typewriters of 1873 jammed if adjacent keys were struck in quick succession, so that manufacturers had to slow down typists. When improvements in typewriters eliminated the problem of jamming, trials in 1932 with an efficiently laid-out keyboard showed that it would let us double our typing speed and reduce our typing effort by 95 percent. But QWERTY keyboards were solidly entrenched by then. The vested interests of hundreds of millions of QWERTY typists, typing teachers, typewriter and computer salespeople, and manufacturers have crushed all moves toward keyboard efficiency for over 60 years. While the story of the QWERTY

When he described the dramatic arrival of the Christ, instead of drawing on the conventional imagery of Jewish apocalypse, he used terminology that was quite new to the Jesus movement, presenting Jesus’s return as an official visit of an emperor or king to a provincial city. When the command is given, when the archangel’s voice is heard, when God’s trumpet sounds, then the Lord himself will descend from heaven; first the dead who belong to the Messiah will arise, then we who are still alive shall join them, caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.59 The word parousia (“presence”), which referred to the ceremonial “arrival” of the visiting emperor, recurs throughout the letter.60 As soon as the officials heard that the emperor was actually approaching the city, the trumpet would sound and a delegation of local dignitaries would pour through the city gates and surge toward him for the ritualized apantesis (“meeting”).61 In Paul’s description, of course, Jesus, the true Kyrios, has replaced Claudius and the people who throng to meet him are Paul’s converts, who are no longer the weak and oppressed inhabitants of the city but its most privileged citizens. They will go up in the air to greet their Lord and bring him down to earth. In the person of Jesus, his representative, God would, as it were, leave the heavenly realm and join the common people.

From Walt: The Grapes of Wrath, Les Misérables, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby-Dick, The Ox-Bow Incident, A Tale of Two Cities, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote (where your nickname came from), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, and anything by Anton Chekhov. From Henry: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Cheyenne Autumn, War and Peace, The Things They Carried, Catch-22, The Sun Also Rises, The Blessing Way, Beyond Good and Evil, The Teachings of Don Juan, Heart of Darkness, The Human Comedy, The Art of War. From Vic: Justine, Concrete Charlie: The Story of Philadelphia Football Legend Chuck Bednarik, Medea (you’ll love it; it’s got a great ending), The Kama Sutra, Henry and June, The Onion Field, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Zorba the Greek, Madame Bovary, Richie Ashburn’s Phillies Trivia (fuck you, it’s a great book). From Ruby: The Holy Bible (New Testament), The Pilgrim’s Progress, Inferno, Paradise Lost, My Ántonia, The Scarlet Letter, Walden, Poems of Emily Dickinson, My Friend Flicka, Our Town. From Dorothy: The Gastronomical Me, The French Chef Cookbook (you don’t eat, you don’t read), Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals From Death Row, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Something Fresh, The Sound and the Fury, The Maltese Falcon, Pride and Prejudice, Brides-head Revisited. From Lucian: Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Band of Brothers, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Virginian, The Basque History of the World (so you can learn about your heritage you illiterate bastard), Hondo, Sackett, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Bobby Fischer: My 60 Memorable Games, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Quartered Safe Out Here. From Ferg: Riders of the Purple Sage, Kiss Me Deadly, Lonesome Dove, White Fang, A River Runs Through It (I saw the movie, but I heard the book was good, too), Kip Carey’s Official Wyoming Fishing Guide (sorry, kid, I couldn’t come up with ten but this ought to do).

By April 23, 2014, thirty-four cases and six deaths from Ebola in Liberia were recorded. By mid-June, 16 more people died. At the time it was thought to be malaria but when seven more people died the following month tests showed that was the Ebola virus. The primary reason for the spreading of the Ebola virus was the direct contact from one person to the next and the ingesting of bush meat. Soon doctors and nurses also became infected. On July 2, 2014, the head surgeon of Redemption Hospital was treated at the JFK Medical Center in Monrovia, where he died from the disease. His death was followed by four nurses at Phebe Hospital in Bong County. At about the same time two U.S. health care workers, Dr. Kent Brantly and a nurse were also infected with the disease. However, they were medically evacuated from Liberia to the United States for treatment where they made a full recovery. Another doctor from Uganda was not so lucky and died from the disease. Arik Air suspended all flights between Nigeria and Liberia and checkpoints were set up at all the ports and border crossings. In August of 2014, the impoverished slum area of West Point was cordoned off. Riots ensued as protesters turned violent. The looting of a clinic of its supplies, including blood-stained bed sheets and mattresses caused the military to shoot into the crowds. Still more patients became infected, causing a shortage of staff and logistics. By September there had been a total of 3,458 cases of which there were 1,830 deaths according to the World Health Organization. Hospitals and clinics could no longer handle this crisis and patients who were treated outside died before they could get help. There were cases where the bodies were just dumped into the Mesurado River. The Ivory Coast out of compassion, opened carefully restricted humanitarian routes and resumed the previously suspended flights to Liberia. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf the president of Libera sent a letter to President Barack Obama concerning the outbreak of Ebola that was on the verge of overrunning her country. The message was desperate, “I am being honest with you when I say that at this rate, we will never break the transmission chain and the virus will overwhelm us.” Having been a former finance minister and World Bank official, Johnson Sirleaf was not one for histrionics however she recognized the pandemic as extremely dangerous. The United States responded to her request and American troops came in and opened a new 60-bed clinic in the Sierra Leone town of Kenema, but by then the outbreak was described as being out of control. Still not understanding the dangerous contagious aspects of this epidemic at least eight Liberian soldiers died after contracting the disease from a single female camp follower. In spite of being a relatively poor country, Cuba is one of the most committed in deploying doctors to crisis zones. It sent more than 460 Cuban doctors and nurses to West Africa. In October Germany sent medical supplies and later that month a hundred additional U.S. troops arrived in Liberia, bringing the total to 565 to assist in the fight against the deadly disease. To understand the severity of the disease, a supply order was placed on October 15th for a 6 month supply of 80,000 body bags and 1 million protective suits. At that time it was reported that 223 health care workers had been infected with Ebola, and 103 of them had died in Liberia. Fear of the disease also slowed down the functioning of the Liberian government. President Sirleaf, had in an emergency announcement informed absent government ministers and civil service leaders to return to their duties. She fired 10 government officials, including deputy ministers in the central government who failed to return to work.

51. Do you have a really hard time tolerating frustration? 52. Are you restless without “action” in your life? 53. Do you have a hard time reading a book all the way through? 54. Do you regularly break rules or minor laws rather than put up with the frustration of obeying them? 55. Are you beset by irrational worries? 56. Do you frequently make letter or number reversals? 57. Have you been the driver and at fault in more than four car accidents? 58. Do you handle money erratically? 59. Are you a gung-ho, go-for-it sort of person? 60. Do you find that structure and routine are both rare in your life and soothing when you find them? 61. Have you been divorced more than once? 62. Do you struggle to maintain self-esteem? 63. Do you have poor hand-eye coordination? 64. As a kid, were you a bit of a klutz at sports? 65. Have you changed jobs a lot? 66. Are you a maverick? 67. Are memos virtually impossible for you to read or write? 68. Do you find it almost impossible to keep an updated address book, phone book, or Rolodex? 69. Are you the life of the party one day and hangdog the next? 70. Given an unexpected chunk of free time, do you often find that you don’t use it well or get depressed during it? 71. Are you more creative or imaginative than most people? 72. Is paying attention or staying tuned in a chronic problem for you? 73. Do you work best in short spurts? 74. Do you let the bank balance your checkbook? 75. Are you usually eager to try something new?

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The letter was given to Sharon by Bush to help Sharon justify his unilateral withdrawal of 9,480 Jewish residents and the Israeli Army from Gaza, as part of a ‘peace’ effort to create a new separate Palestinian state, as part of a future ‘two state solution’. Sharon relied on Bush’s letter. In the letter, Bush made four promises to Israel: 1.) The borders of the new Muslim state to be created would not encompass the entire West Bank (referring to Israel as “Judea” and “Samaria,” including Jerusalem), despite Muslim leaders demanding the complete withdrawal from the areas Israel captured when it was invaded in 1967; 2.) Jewish towns and villages in the West Bank would be incorporated into the borders of Israel; 3.) Muslims would have to forego their demand to be given the right to immigrate to Israel; and 4.) Israel’s existence as a Jewish state would be assured. Unfortunately, four years later, in 2008, the Bush administration abandoned these assurances made to Prime Minister Sharon in 2004. Secretary of State Rice told reporters in Israel on the occasion of Israel’s 60th Anniversary as a re-born State that the 2004 letter “talked about realities at that time. And there are realities for both sides…” In an interview in the Oval Office with David Horowitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post, President Bush had to be reminded of the letter by his National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, who said in briefings that “Israel has tried to overstate the importance of a rather vague letter.” (Jerusalem Post, May 14, 2008).

When it occurs in literary texts šár = 3,600 is conventionally understood as no more than a conveniently large round number. This is evident when a well-wisher writes in a letter, ‘may the Sun God for my sake keep you well for 3,600 years’, or a battle-flushed Assyrian king claims to have ‘blinded 4 × 3,600 survivors’. Assyriologists therefore often translate šár as ‘myriad’, as conveying the right sort of mythological size and feel, although of course the Greek decimal myriad literally means ‘10,000’, whereas Mesopotamians naturally thought in sixties, one ŠÁR being 60 × 60. What is truly surprising in the Ark Tablet calculations is that this sign 3,600 does not function just as a large round number but is to be taken literally.

In 1886 the S.P.R. published their detailed report on such accounts as a book, under the title Phantasms of the Living. More than 1300 pages long and consisting of over 700 cases, the work involved in compiling the two-volume report was enormous: researchers would follow up each case reported to them, interviewing the witness and seeking to verify the account with testimony from third parties, contemporary written reports and so on. The main researcher and author, Edmund Gurney, would often pen 50 to 60 letters a day; locations had to be visited and witnesses interviewed; cases had to be deliberated upon and categorized. And then, of course, the book had to actually be written.

Instead, contracts were awarded to American consultancies like Bearing Point, or Adam Smith from the UK, to bring in their own people to run ministries and government departments. The Afghans themselves had little say. ‘The quality of internationals was extremely poor,’ complains Jawad. ‘I had an adviser to my office assigned through USAID, and one day I asked him to draft three template letters in English to reply to congratulatory letters to the President, and requests we kept getting for pictures and flags. All it needed to say was “Thank you, but we don’t have any.” This adviser spent two days on this, and then I had to go and correct it – and it wasn’t even my language. In the end I said, “You’re fired.”’ Jawad then received an angry call from the USAID office to say they had spent $60–70,000 on hiring this man, so he could not fire him. ‘I don’t care,’ replied Jawad. ‘I don’t have room for him in my office – send him to Dubai or somewhere. So much money was wasted.’ In

Sometime in the mid-1990s I attempted to open one of my old, circa-1985 Word documents using the version of Word then current: 6.0. It didn’t work. Word 6.0 did not recognize a document created by an earlier version of itself. By opening it as a text file, I was able to recover the sequences of letters that made up the text of the document. My words were still there. But the formatting had been run through a log chipper—the words I’d written were interrupted by spates of empty rectangular boxes and gibberish. Now, in the context of a business (the chief market for Word) this sort of thing is only an annoyance—one of the routine hassles that go along with using computers. It’s easy to buy little file converter programs that will take care of this problem. But if you are a writer whose career is words, whose professional identity is a corpus of written documents, this kind of thing is extremely disquieting. There are very few fixed assumptions in my line of work, but one of them is that once you have written a word, it is written, and cannot be unwritten. The ink stains the paper, the chisel cuts the stone, the stylus marks the clay, and something has irrevocably happened.

A picture post card had landed in our letter box on my birthday when I was in 9th. It was sent by a friend who was away. A picture of a Jungle and mountains at a distance captivated me. I turned it to read: "You have just landed in Jungle. You have to pass through it facing challenges, reach the mountain and then climb to the top... I know you can and you will.." Deeply inspired and motivated I started and chose to focus on TT, did well to play Nationals, had just started to climb the mountain, the luck pushed me down. Fell flat. Yet, the words shone in the skies of my mind. I got up and started climbing. Today at 60 I know that some mountain tops are illusions. They are there yet they are not there. Does it mean we should stop climbing? No. We shouldn't. We need to carry on by adding to our capabilities through constant learning. Wherever we reach will be our own Mountain Top. Stand there, look back and shout it out : Hey, God, here I am! Thanks for bringing me here. In gratitude, I now GIVE happily.

Pierce was thinking about the New York fair around the same time that a modest display of Bell Labs innovations was being demonstrated at Seattle’s Century 21 Exposition, which was being marked by the construction of a huge “space needle” on the city’s fairgrounds. At the Seattle fair visitors could ride a monorail to a Bell exhibit intimating a future of startling convenience: phones with speedy touch-tone buttons (which would soon replace dials), direct long-distance calling (which would soon replace operators), and rapid electronic switching (which would soon be powered by transistors). A visitor could also try something called a portable “pager,” a big, blocky device that could alert doctors and other busy professionals when they received urgent calls.2 New York’s fair would dwarf Seattle’s. The crowds were expected to be immense—probably somewhere around 50 or 60 million people in total. Pierce and David’s 1961 memo recommended a number of exhibits: “personal hand-carried telephones,” “business letters in machine-readable form, transmitted by wire,” “information retrieval from a distant computer-automated library,” and “satellite and space communications.” By the time the fair opened in April 1964, though, the Bell System exhibits, housed in a huge white cantilevered building nicknamed the “floating wing,” described a more conservative future than the one Pierce and David had envisioned.

For example, Britain today is suffering from an “epidemic” of “knife crime.”​ To wit: every day in Great Britain, 60 people are stabbed or mugged with a knife.​ (Admire, for a moment, the passive voice.​ Presumably the knives are floating disembodied in the air, directing themselves with Jedi powers.)​

The Treasury of Spain informed me that the companies (the criminals) had 365 days to pay me my missing salary of 60,000 Euros, according to an official court decision made in Madrid. However, I was well aware that this would only escalate the danger for both Martina and me. I knew they would not fulfill their payment obligations. They would seek cheaper methods to evade payment and would also attempt to eliminate me without facing any consequences. I was unsure whom to turn to for help. Should I ask the King of Spain, or the leaders of Israel, Brussels, Hungary, Interpol, or the Policia Nacional? How could I protect Martina from these criminals? How could I dismantle Adam's mafia? These thoughts were weighing heavily on my mind as my anticipated final departure from Spain drew near. I received a letter, from Zaragoza. The letter informed me that I owed Zaragoza approximately 1800 euros for fines accrued by Adam. It also mentioned that it had been around 1.5 years since the incident on the highway, where I received fines while I was driving the gypsy caravan. Late fees were added without question. Make it 2000. Additionally, it warned that if I failed to make payment within 15 days of receiving the letter in my mailbox, the authorities would visit me with a court order to seize belongings of mine worth at least 1800 euros. Someone disclosed my „new” address to the Zaragoza Authorities. It is possible that the Correo/Post Office/Postal Service were unable to deliver their correspondence to my previous address on Carrer Cantabria due to my absence after the same expo where the fines were incurred on the highway and the unwanted flooding of the apartment. But now. Delivered. It is possible that the biased Catalan Court, which was known by my side at this point for its corruption and/or incompetence, shared my Barcelona address with the Correo/Postal Service to ensure that the fines reached me. The corrupt and/or incompetent Ciutat de la Justicia, the so called „City of Justice”, the Catalan judicial system did not solely reserve the sharing of my home address for the mafia/s. Everything was not a direct result of the criminals’ conspiracy. But.

The cross has been used—not as a Christian emblem certainly, but from time immemorial as the form in which the copper ingot of Katañga is moulded—this is met with quite commonly, and is called Handiplé Mahandi. Our capital letter I (called Vigera) is the large form of the bars of copper, each about 60 or 70 lbs. weight, seen all over Central Africa and from Katañga.

According to a 2002 University of Massachusetts study, 60 percent of adults will lie at least once within the course of a ten-minute conversation, with the average number of lies from the liars being three. And that is only what people admitted to. (If you are wondering, in this study men and women lied at about the same rate.) I don’t think there is any single number that captures how much people lie, as that depends greatly on context. Nonetheless, lying is rather deeply embedded in human nature.

WSPU supporters, shrinking in number but ever more extreme, set on fire an orchid house at Kew Gardens, a London church, and a racecourse grandstand; blew up a deserted railway station; and smashed a jewel case at the Tower of London. They cut the telephone wires linking London and Glasgow, and slashed the words NO VOTES, NO GOLF! into golf course greens and then poured acid in the letters so grass would not grow. One newspaper estimated that suffragettes had inflicted £500,000 worth of property damage, some $60 million in to-day’s money.

I woke up suddenly and everything was dark inside the room. I slowly investigated the garden below through the window. It was a full moon day and the whole garden, illuminated by the soft rays of the Moon, seemed to be covered with a white transparent sheet. Suddenly fire crackers crackled, rockets soared into the star-studded sky, birds flew across the avenue of Bougainville flowers and in letters, all made of fireflies, was written: “Welcome! A Student again at 60!” I felt exalted and wanted to fly like a bird and tweet that I have made it at last! But would the journey be so smooth till I come out of the citadel and swim in the ocean of tranquility? Only time would tell. For the first time in my life I felt I know nothing and would start the journey afresh!

Presidential Similarities All former presidents of the United States are bound together for life, but the similarities between two former presidents goes beyond what is normal. Have you ever heard about the Lincoln/Kennedy paradox? For starters, both Lincoln and Kennedy had previously been boat captains and were also the second children in their family. Both presidents were elected in the year ’60—Abraham Lincoln in 1860, and John F. Kennedy in 1960. They each had three children living with them in the White House and had one child pass away during their presidency. But that’s just the beginning. President Lincoln had a secretary with the last name Kennedy, while President Kennedy had a secretary with the last name Lincoln. Upon each of their deaths, they were succeeded by vice presidents with the last name Johnson (Andrew Johnson and Lyndon B. Johnson). Both John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald, the presidents’ assassins, have fifteen letters in their name. Booth shot President Lincoln in a theater and then fled to a warehouse, while Oswald shot President Kennedy from a warehouse, then fled to a theater. These similarities are a bit eerie, right?! It seems as though Lincoln and Kennedy were twins born a century apart.

For Amazon, savings are more than a corporate competitive matter. Indeed, the company holds “frugality” up as one of Amazon’s Leadership Principles as it “breeds resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention.” In an interview with CBS’s Bob Simon for 60 Minutes, Bezos connected frugality to his #1 rule: Think about the customers’ needs first. “It’s a symbol of spending money on things that matter to customers and not spending money on things that don’t,” Bezos explained to Simon.33 The company still hands out the “Door Desk Award,” a title given internally to select employees who have a “well-built idea” that creates a significant savings for the company and enables lower prices for customers. It’s not just blog names and door desks that keeps the Day 1 mentality visible, either. When Amazon grew to occupy its own office building in Seattle, Bezos named the building “Day 1.” On the side, Bezos added a placard34 reminding everyone who enters the building of the founding Day 1 principle from the 1997 Letter to Shareholders: “There’s so much stuff that has yet to be invented. There’s so much new that’s going to happen. People don’t have any idea yet how impactful the Internet is going to be and that this is still Day 1 in such a big way.” —Bezos (1997 Letter)

Our Daily Epiphanies You shall be radiant at what you see… Isaiah 60:5 Two people can experience the same event very differently. One might “see” God’s hand at work while another may not. For example, one will curse his bad luck upon having a car accident, while the other will give thanks that God saved him from serious injury. In the end, some will have experienced their lives as a succession of little miracles, and they will count themselves blessed. Others will judge that life has been unfair and cheated them. The difference is typically in the eye of the beholder. If we have eyes to see the daily epiphanies in our lives, we will end up with grateful and joyful hearts. If we do not, we can easily become angry and dissatisfied. Let’s begin this day with a prayer: “Lord, give me the eyes today and every day to see your generous and merciful hand at work.” May every day be for us an epiphany of the Lord. Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti Msgr. Rossetti is a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, clinical associate professor at the Catholic University of America and visiting professor at the Gregorian University in Rome. He is author of numerous books, including his latest, Letters to My Brothers: Words of Hope and Challenge to Priests from Ave Maria Press.

[T]he fruits of the earth by which men live were first manifest among us*, even apart from their being a superlative boon to all men, constitutes an acknowledged proof that this land is the mother of our ancestors. For all things that bring forth young produce at the same time nutriment out of the organism itself for those that are born. * According to tradition the olive was created by the goddess Athena, while the culture of grain, especially wheat and barley, was established by Demeter, whose mysteries were celebrated at Eleusis close to Athens. (Funeral Speech section 5)

The nobility of birth of these men has been acknowledged from time immemorial by all mankind. For it is possible for them and for each one of their remote ancestors man by man to trace back their being, not only to a physical father, but also to this land of theirs as a whole, a common possession, of which they are acknowledged to be the indigenous children. For alone of all mankind they settled the very land from which they were born and handed it down to their descendants, so that justly one may assume that those who came as migrants into their cities and are denominated citizens of the same are comparable to adopted children; but these men are citizens of their native land by right of legitimate birth. (Funeral Speech section 4)

I began straightway to study how they might receive their due tribute of praise; but as I studied and searched my mind the conclusion forced itself upon me that to speak as these dead deserve was one of those things that cannot be done. For, since they scorned the love of life that is inborn in all men and chose rather to die nobly than to live and look upon Greece in misfortune, how can they have failed to leave behind them a record of valor surpassing all power of words to express? (Funeral Speech section 1)

As for Courage and the other elements of virtue, I shrink from rehearsing the whole story, being on my guard for fear an untimely length shall attach to my speech , but such facts as it is worth while even for those who are familiar with them to recall to mind and most profitable for the inexperienced to hear, events of great power to inspire and calling for no tedious length of speech, these I shall endeavor to rehearse in summary fashion. For the ancestors of this present generation, both their fathers and those who bore the names of these men in time past, by which they are recognized by those of our race, never at any time wronged any man, whether Greek or barbarian, but it was their pride, in addition to all their other good qualities, to be true gentlemen and supremely just, and in defending themselves they accomplished a long list of noble deeds. (Funeral Speech section 6-7)

Now, if it were my view that, of those qualities that constitute virtue, courage alone was their possession, I might praise this and be done with the speaking, but since it fell to their lot also to have been nobly born and strictly brought up and to have lived with lofty ideals, because of all which they had every reason to be good men, I should be ashamed if I were found to have passed over any of these topics. (Funeral Speech section 3)

I have recalled to mind the above-mentioned, each of which affords so many charming themes that our writers of poetry, whether recited or sung, and many historians, have made the deeds of those men the subjects of their respective arts; at the present time I shall mention the following deeds, which, though in point of merit they are no whit inferior to the former, still, through being closer in point of time, have not yet found their way into poetry or even been exalted to epic rank. (Funeral Speech section 9)

And though what I shall say next has been said before by many another, still even at this date those dead must not be deprived of their just and excellent praise. For I say that with good reason those men [participants of Greco-Persian Wars] might be judged so far superior to those who campaigned against Troy, that the latter, the foremost princes out of the whole of Greece, with difficulty captured a single stronghold of Asia after besieging it for ten years, whereas those men single-handed not only repulsed a host assembled from an entire continent, which had already subdued all other lands, but also inflicted punishment for the wrong done the rest of the Greeks. Furthermore, checking all acts of selfish aggrandisement among the Greeks themselves, assigning themselves to each station where justice was arrayed, they went on bearing the brunt of all dangers that chanced to arise until the lapse of time brings us to the generation now living. (Funeral Speech section 10-11)

I should not hesitate to assert that in my judgement the men who die at the post of duty on either side do not share the defeat but are both alike victors. For the mastery among the survivors is decided as the deity disposes, but that which each was in duty bound to contribute to this end, every man who has kept his post in battle has done. But if, as a mortal being, he meets his doom, what he has suffered is an incident caused by chance, but in spirit he remains unconquered by his opponents. (Funeral Speech section 19)

Having been chosen, however, to extol these men in a speech, unless I have the sympathy of my hearers, I fear that because of my eagerness I may effect the very opposite of what I ought. For wealth and speed of foot and strength of body and all other such things have their rewards self-assured to their possessors, and in those fields they win who have the luck, even if not one of the others wishes their success. On the other hand, the persuasiveness of words depends upon the goodwill of the hearers, and with the help of this, even if the eloquence be moderate, it reaps glory and gains favor, but lacking this help, even if it be surpassingly good, it is thwarted by those who hear.

Having been chosen, however, to extol these men in a speech, unless I have the sympathy of my hearers, I fear that because of my eagerness I may effect the very opposite of what I ought. For wealth and speed of foot and strength of body and all other such things have their rewards self-assured to their possessors, and in those fields they win who have the luck, even if not one of the others wishes their success. On the other hand, the persuasiveness of words depends upon the goodwill of the hearers, and with the help of this, even if the eloquence be moderate, it reaps glory and gains favor, but lacking this help, even if it be surpassingly good, it is thwarted by those who hear. (Funeral Speech section 13-14)

For of all virtue, I say, and I repeat it, the beginning is understanding and the fulfillment is courage; by the one it is judged what ought to be done and by the other this is carried to success. (Funeral Speech section 17)

In the meantime it is necessary to interrupt my discourse for a moment, before declaring the deeds of these men, to solicit the goodwill of those born outside this race who have accompanied us to the tomb*. * The welcome extended to aliens at the public funerals is mentioned in Thuc. 2.34.4. Pericles recognizes their presence, Thuc. 2.36.4. (Funeral Speech section 13)

While it stands to reason that many influences helped to make them what they were, not least was their virtue ascribable to our form of government. For though absolute governments dominated by a few create fear in their citizens, they fail to awaken the sense of shame. Consequently, when the test of war comes, everyone lightheartedly proceeds to save himself, knowing full well that if only he succeeds in appeasing his masters by presents or any other civility whatsoever, even though he becomes guilty of the most revolting conduct, only slight reproach will attach to him thereafter. Democracies, however, possess many other just and noble features, to which right-minded men should hold fast, and in particular it is impossible to deter freedom of speech, which depends upon speaking the truth, from exposing the truth. For neither is it possible for those who commit a shameful act to appease all the citizens*, so that even the lone individual, uttering the deserved reproach, makes the guilty wince: for even those who would never speak an accusing word themselves are pleased at hearing the same, provided another utters it. Through fear of such condemnation, all these men, as was to be expected, for shame at the thought of subsequent reproaches, manfully faced the threat arising from our foes and chose a noble death in preference to life and disgrace. * Under an oligarchy, the speaker means, it is possible for the wrongdoer to seal the mouths of the small ruling clique by means of bribes, but under a democracy it is impossible to buy the silence of thousands of citizens. The reference is to oligarchic governments set up by the Spartans in subject states. Pericles praised the Athenian form of government as against the Spartan, Thuc. 2.37-39. (Funeral Speech section 25-26)

Furthermore, in contests of which the deity, the master of all, has disposed the outcome as it chose, it is necessary of course to acquit all others, being but human, of the charge of cowardice, but when it comes to the means by which the leader of our opponents prevailed over those appointed to the command of our army, no one could justly locate the cause in the rank and file of either the enemy or ourselves. But if, after all, there is any human being who might rightly lay a charge concerning the issue of that battle, he would with good reason advance it against those of the Thebans* who were appointed to this command, nor could anyone rightly lay blame upon the rank and file of either the Thebans or ourselves. * Philip seems to have deceived the Athenians by a feigned retreat while throwing his strongest troops against the Thebans. This stratagem broke the line and decided the battle. The Theban general Theagenes and his colleagues seem to have been no more to blame than the rest. (Funeral Speech section 21-22)

The Hippothoontidae bore in mind the marriage of Alope, from which Hippothoon was born, and they knew also who their founder was; about these matters—to avoid impropriety on an occasion like this I forbear to speak plainly*—they thought it was their duty to be seen performing deeds worthy of these ancestors. * Alope’s son was said to have been twice exposed, and twice rescued and suckled by a mare. The use of mare’s milk as a food prevailed among the Scythians, as the Greeks knew well from their colonists in the region of the Black Sea, if not from Hdt. 4.2; Gylon, grandfather of Demosthenes, had lived in the Crimea and was said to have married a Thracian wife. The orator was sometimes twitted by his opponents about his Thracian blood. He may have been sensitive. Consequently the attitude here revealed might be construed as evidence for the genuineness of the speech. (Funeral Speech section 31)

Neither were the Aegeidae ignorant that Theseus, the son of Aegeus, for the first time established equality in the State.* They thought it, therefore, a dreadful thing to be false to the principles of that ancestor, and they preferred to be dead rather than through love of life to survive among the Greeks with this equality lost. * According to Plut. Thes. 25, it was equality between newcomers and natives that Theseus established; the word ἰσονομία usually means equality before the law and is almost a synonym for democracy. (Funeral Speech section 28)

Nature addresses herself thus to mankind: “I have formed you all weak and ignorant, to vegetate a few moments on that earth which you are afterwards to fatten with your carcasses. Let your weakness then teach you to succor each other, and as you are ignorant, bear with and endeavor mutually to instruct each other. Even if ye were all of the same way of thinking, which certainly will never come to pass, and there should be one single person only found amongst you who differed from you in belief, you ought to forgive him, for it is I who make him think in the manner he does. I have given you hands to cultivate the earth, and a faint glimmering of reason to conduct yourselves by, and I have planted in your hearts a spirit of compassion, that you may assist each other under the burden of life. Do not smother that spark, nor suffer it to be corrupted, for know it is of divine origin; neither substitute the wretched debates of the schools in the place of the voice of nature.