Adopt A Plant Quotes

He plants his feet stubbornly, adopting what he must think is an heroic post. He's just begging for a pigeon to fly by and relieve itself.

The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn’t look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again: Oh, boy–they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch _that_ time! And that thought had a brother: “There are right people to lynch.” Who? People not well connected. So it goes. The visitor from outer space made a gift to the Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels. So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn’t possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was. And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections.

We have a right to write our own script even if it disagrees with those who planted us where we are. In fact, if we do not share our personal stories, they will eventually be forgotten or told by someone else. See, I believe our soul wants the life of us to be remembered by at least one, or two, maybe more. In order for people like us to obtain social equality, we need to fill the worldwide web with realistic adoption stories—stories that can convince the mainstream that we should have access to personal documents that pertain to us, birth certificates, and papers that reveal our true identities.

I was aware of Darwin's views fourteen years before I adopted them and I have done so solely and entirely from an independent study of the plants themselves. [Letter to W.H. Harvey]

More than any other single trait, it is the apple’s genetic variability—its ineluctable wildness—that accounts for its ability to make itself at home in places as different from one another as New England and New Zealand, Kazakhstan and California. Wherever the apple tree goes, its offspring propose so many different variations on what it means to be an apple—at least five per apple, several thousand per tree—that a couple of these novelties are almost bound to have whatever qualities it takes to prosper in the tree’s adopted home.

Driving a hybrid car could save about one ton of carbon-dioxide emissions per year but adopting a plant-based diet would save nearly one and a half tons over a comparable period." "If every American reduced chicken consumption by one meal per week, the carbon-dioxide savings would be equivalent to removing 500,000 cars form the road." In a given year, "the number of animals killed to satisfy American palates is 8.6 billion, or 29 animals per average American meat eater. The total number of animals killed on land and sea was approximately 80 billion, or 270 per American meat and fish eater - making the average number of animals consumed in one American lifetime 21,000.

Each of us, I think, adopts a comfortable and familiar era or place in which to plant ourselves; and from then on, that which disagrees with our memories -- a new building here, a change in paint there -- is forever jarring and anachronistic.

At a minimum, it is clear that human beings who claim a religious tradition that is rooted in compassion and/or respect for the natural world must adopt a plant-based diet.

But humans have deliberately selected which plants and animals shall live and which shall die for thousands of years. We are surrounded from babyhood by familiar farm and domestic animals, fruits and trees and vegetables. Where do they come from? Were they once free-living in the wild and then induced to adopt a less strenuous life on the farm? No, the truth is quite different. They are, most of them, made by us.

Lacing their fingers together, Kai lifted the back of her hand to his mouth. "Was there any reason in particular you wanted to show me this?" "I'm not sure. I figured you know all about my biological family and the world I was born into, and you've of course had the great pleasure of meeting my adoptive family on numerous occasions, so this was the last piece of the puzzle." She waved her free arm around the room. "The missing link to my past." Kai looked around one more time. "It's pretty creepy, actually." "I know." After another moment of reverent silence, Kai said, "I'm surprised Thorne hasn't asked if he can start leading guided tours down here. I bet you could charge a hefty admission fee." Cinder snorted. "Please don't plant that idea in his head." "Scarlet would never allow it anyway.

Reader: Will you not admit that you are arguing against yourself? You know that what the English obtained in their own country they obtained by using brute force. I know you have argued that what they have obtained is useless, but that does not affect my argument. They wanted useless things and they got them. My point is that their desire was fulfilled. What does it matter what means they adopted? Why should we not obtain our goal, which is good, by any means whatsoever, even by using violence? Shall I think of the means when I have to deal with a thief in the house? My duty is to drive him out anyhow. You seem to admit that we have received nothing, and that we shall receive nothing by petitioning. Why, then, may we do not so by using brute force? And, to retain what we may receive we shall keep up the fear by using the same force to the extent that it may be necessary. You will not find fault with a continuance of force to prevent a child from thrusting its foot into fire. Somehow or other we have to gain our end. Editor: Your reasoning is plausible. It has deluded many. I have used similar arguments before now. But I think I know better now, and I shall endeavour to undeceive you. Let us first take the argument that we are justified in gaining our end by using brute force because the English gained theirs by using similar means. It is perfectly true that they used brute force and that it is possible for us to do likewise, but by using similar means we can get only the same thing that they got. You will admit that we do not want that. Your belief that there is no connection between the means and the end is a great mistake. Through that mistake even men who have been considered religious have committed grievous crimes. Your reasoning is the same as saying that we can get a rose through planting a noxious weed. If I want to cross the ocean, I can do so only by means of a vessel; if I were to use a cart for that purpose, both the cart and I would soon find the bottom. "As is the God, so is the votary", is a maxim worth considering. Its meaning has been distorted and men have gone astray. The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree; and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree. I am not likely to obtain the result flowing from the worship of God by laying myself prostrate before Satan. If, therefore, anyone were to say : "I want to worship God; it does not matter that I do so by means of Satan," it would be set down as ignorant folly. We reap exactly as we sow. The English in 1833 obtained greater voting power by violence. Did they by using brute force better appreciate their duty? They wanted the right of voting, which they obtained by using physical force. But real rights are a result of performance of duty; these rights they have not obtained. We, therefore, have before us in English the force of everybody wanting and insisting on his rights, nobody thinking of his duty. And, where everybody wants rights, who shall give them to whom? I do not wish to imply that they do no duties. They don't perform the duties corresponding to those rights; and as they do not perform that particular duty, namely, acquire fitness, their rights have proved a burden to them. In other words, what they have obtained is an exact result of the means they adapted. They used the means corresponding to the end. If I want to deprive you of your watch, I shall certainly have to fight for it; if I want to buy your watch, I shall have to pay you for it; and if I want a gift, I shall have to plead for it; and, according to the means I employ, the watch is stolen property, my own property, or a donation. Thus we see three different results from three different means. Will you still say that means do not matter?

It’s no secret that veganism is growing all over the world and has become one of the most prevalent and discussed social movements of this generation. But while most of us will be aware that the primary motivations for people going vegan and adopting plant-based diets include animal rights, the environment, pandemic prevention and personal health, often little is known about the complexity and true scale of these issues, which is exactly what this book aims to do: lay out the enormity of the injustice that is animal exploitation.

A world like that is not really natural, or (the thought strikes one later) perhaps it really is, only more so. Parts of it are neither land nor sea and so everything is moving from one element to another, wearing uneasily the queer transitional bodies that life adopts in such places. Fish, some of them, come out and breathe air and sit about watching you. Plants take to eating insects, mammals go back to the water and grow elongate like fish, crabs climb trees. Nothing stays put where it began because everything is constantly climbing in, or climbing out, of its unstable environment.

Of course, it was a lie, and that bald man in a blue suit was definitely harassing her, teasing her with dirty, rude jokes. Nothing physical from the body of a High Grade can heal. No matter if it’s blood or sperm or saliva or even a discarded hair or nail—as some fraudulent religious groups claim, taking advantage of Low Grades’ fascination with the living gods among them. Though, the archive mentions a however as a footnote: ***However, when they pass strong prana (the energy controllable by the evolved, High Grade humans) to the sick or wounded, it heals, no matter whether they are plants or animals. Their prana flows strongly when they feel strong emotions. Some people say their sperm heals, but it’s not the semen. It’s the strong prana-boosts the High Grades experience when they reach climax during intimacy … Kusha felt a tinge of pride, exponentially multiplied by her Low-Grade inferiority complex, reading this footnote. It worsened when ads started coming up on her HOME page after reading it. The ads had horrible titles: Dream Youth For The Low Grades. Alternate Longevity. A Secret Pleasurable Way To Youth. Get Your Dream Citizenship With Pleasing Pleasure Contract. The last one is for non-citizens, of course. At least, she’s a citizen. But when Kusha discovered how many unevolved men and women enter such contracts just for citizenship, it made her face crease. As if she’d caught a nasty smell. For a moment, she even thought, she hated every High Grade in the world, including everyone in her adoptive family. Right now, standing in front of Meera, the hatred swells.

It was The Gospel From Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space... [who] made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought...: Oh, boy — they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time! And that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it goes. The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels. So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that too, since the Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was. And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of the Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!

wherever the apple tree goes, its offspring propose so many different variations on what it means to be an apple -- at least five per apple, several thousand per tree -- that a couple of these novelties are almost bound to have whatever qualities it takes to prosper in the tree's adopted home.

under the Chairmanship of Carl Ruck to devise a new word for the potions that held Antiquity in awe. After trying out a number of words he came up with entheogen, `god generated within', which his committee unaninmously, adopted, not to replace the `Mystery' of the ancients, but to designate those plant substances that were and are at the very core of the Mysteries.

A groundbreaking 2016 study from the University of Oxford modeled the climate, health, and economic benefits of a worldwide transition to plant-based diets between now and 2050. Business-as-usual emissions could be reduced by as much as 70 percent through adopting a vegan diet and 63 percent for a vegetarian diet (which includes cheese, milk, and eggs). The model also calculates a reduction in global mortality of 6 to 10 percent.

This wild animal must be different. By the way,” he said, turning to Grant, “if they’re all born females, how do they breed? You never explained that bit about the frog DNA.” “It’s not frog DNA,” Grant said. “It’s amphibian DNA. But the phenomenon happens to be particularly well documented in frogs. Especially West African frogs, if I remember.” “What phenomenon is that?” “Gender transition,” Grant said. “Actually, it’s just plain changing sex.” Grant explained that a number of plants and animals were known to have the ability to change their sex during life—orchids, some fish and shrimp, and now frogs. Frogs that had been observed to lay eggs were able to change, over a period of months, into complete males. They first adopted the fighting stance of males, they developed the mating whistle of males, they stimulated the hormones and grew the gonads of males, and eventually they successfully mated with females. “You’re kidding,” Gennaro said. “And what makes it happen?” “Apparently the change is stimulated by an environment in which all the animals are of the same sex. In that situation, some of the amphibians will spontaneously begin to change sex from female to male.” “And you think that’s what happened to the dinosaurs?” “Until we have a better explanation, yes,” Grant said. “I think that’s what happened. Now, shall we find this nest?

The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels. So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was. And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!

Fifteen years ago, a business manager from the United States came to Plum Village to visit me. His conscience was troubled because he was the head of a firm that designed atomic bombs. I listened as he expressed his concerns. I knew if I advised him to quit his job, another person would only replace him. If he were to quit, he might help himself, but he would not help his company, society, or country. I urged him to remain the director of his firm, to bring mindfulness into his daily work, and to use his position to communicate his concerns and doubts about the production of atomic bombs. In the Sutra on Happiness, the Buddha says it is great fortune to have an occupation that allows us to be happy, to help others, and to generate compassion and understanding in this world. Those in the helping professions have occupations that give them this wonderful opportunity. Yet many social workers, physicians, and therapists work in a way that does not cultivate their compassion, instead doing their job only to earn money. If the bomb designer practises and does his work with mindfulness, his job can still nourish his compassion and in some way allow him to help others. He can still influence his government and fellow citizens by bringing greater awareness to the situation. He can give the whole nation an opportunity to question the necessity of bomb production. Many people who are wealthy, powerful, and important in business, politics, and entertainment are not happy. They are seeking empty things - wealth, fame, power, sex - and in the process they are destroying themselves and those around them. In Plum Village, we have organised retreats for businesspeople. We see that they have many problems and suffer just as others do, sometimes even more. We see that their wealth allows them to live in comfortable conditions, yet they still suffer a great deal. Some businesspeople, even those who have persuaded themselves that their work is very important, feel empty in their occupation. They provide employment to many people in their factories, newspapers, insurance firms, and supermarket chains, yet their financial success is an empty happiness because it is not motivated by understanding or compassion. Caught up in their small world of profit and loss, they are unaware of the suffering and poverty in the world. When we are not int ouch with this larger reality, we will lack the compassion we need to nourish and guide us to happiness. Once you begin to realise your interconnectedness with others, your interbeing, you begin to see how your actions affect you and all other life. You begin to question your way of living, to look with new eyes at the quality of your relationships and the way you work. You begin to see, 'I have to earn a living, yes, but I want to earn a living mindfully. I want to try to select a vocation not harmful to others and to the natural world, one that does not misuse resources.' Entire companies can also adopt this way of thinking. Companies have the right to pursue economic growth, but not at the expense of other life. They should respect the life and integrity of people, animals, plants and minerals. Do not invest your time or money in companies that deprive others of their lives, that operate in a way that exploits people or animals, and destroys nature. Businesspeople who visit Plum Village often find that getting in touch with the suffering of others and cultivating understanding brings them happiness. They practise like Anathapindika, a successful businessman who lived at the time of the Buddha, who with the practise of mindfulness throughout his life did everything he could to help the poor and sick people in his homeland.

For some strange reason, all over the world man seems to think that wetlands are inimical to him. As soon as he comes across a wonderful swamp or marsh teeming with wildlife he becomes unhappy until he has covered it with pesticides, shot out all the edible animals, drained it, ploughed it, planted a series of useless crops on it and, finally, through his unbiological activities, created a sterile piece of eroded earth which was once a rich, balanced tapestry of life. This ridiculous and dangerous policy has been adopted all over the world to man's own detriment.

We discover the bumps are milpa, small mounds of earth on which complementary crops were planted. Unlike linear plowing, which encourages water runoff and soil erosion, the circular pattern traps rainfall. Each mound is planted with a cluster of the Three Sisters that were the staples of Indian agriculture: corn, beans, and squash. The corn provided a stalk for the beans to climb, while also shading the vulnerable beans. The ground cover from the squash stabilized the soil, and the bean roots kept the soil fertile by providing nitrogen. As a final touch, marigolds and other natural pesticides were planted around each mound to keep harmful insects away. Altogether it was a system so perfect that in some Central American countries too poor to adopt linear plowing with machinery, artificial pesticides, and monocrops of agribusiness, the same milpa have been producing just fine for four thousand years. 19 Not only that, but milpa can be planted in forests without clear-cutting the trees; at most, by removing a few branches to let sunlight through on a mound. This method was a major reason why three-fifths of all food staples in the world were developed in the Americas.

Adopt and rescue a pet from a local shelter. Support local and no-kill animal shelters. Plant a tree to honor someone you love. Be a developer — put up some birdhouses. Buy live, potted Christmas trees and replant them. Make sure you spend time with your animals each day. Save natural resources by recycling and buying recycled products. Drink tap water, or filter your own water at home. Whenever possible, limit your use of or do not use pesticides. If you eat seafood, make sustainable choices. Support your local farmers market. Get outside. Visit a park, volunteer, walk your dog, or ride your bike.

Dinosaurs dominated our planet for more than 160 million years. They evolved and changed to adopt many different lifestyles and live in every type of environment. Some ate plants, others ate meat, fish, or eggs. Some lived in forests, others in deserts or plains. Some were huge, others small. Some hunted using vicious claws and teeth, while others defended themselves with spikes, horns and armor plates. The dinosaurs were not alone - they shared the world with other reptiles that flew in the sky or swam in the seas. But it was dinosaurs that dominated in an age of reptiles that spanned nearly half the time animals have lived on land.

So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn’t possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was. And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!

Americans abroad have long been accused of such blinging arrogance and display. I find the charge generally unfair. Arrogance is incorrectly ascribed to what is really the cultural clumsiness of an insular (if continental) people less exposed to foreign ways and languages than most other people on Earth. True, America as a nation is not very good at humility. But it would be completely unnatural for the dominant military, cultural and technological power on the plant to adopt the demeanor or, say, Liechtenstein. The ensuing criticism is particularly grating when it comes from the likes of the French, British, Spanish, Dutch (there are many others) who just yesterday claimed dominion over every land and people their Captain Cooks ever stumbled upon.

It’s clear where the world is going. We’re entering a world where every thermostat, every electrical heater, every air conditioner, every power plant, every medical device, every hospital, every traffic light, every automobile will be connected to the Internet. Think about what it will mean for the world when those devices are the subject of attack.” Then he made his pitch. “The world needs a new, digital Geneva Convention. It needs new rules of the road,” Smith said, intoning the words slowly for emphasis. “What we need is an approach that governments will adopt that says they will not attack civilians in times of peace, they will not attack hospitals, they will not attack the electrical grid, they will not attack the political processes of other countries.

The path taken by the authorities in their so-called Rauschgiftbekämpfung, or “war on drugs,” lay less in an intensification of the opium law, which was simply adopted from the Weimar Republic,21 than in several new regulations that served the central National Socialist idea of “racial hygiene.” The term Droge—drug—which at one point meant nothing more than “dried plant parts,”* was given negative connotations. Drug consumption was stigmatized and—with the help of quickly established new divisions of the criminal police—severely penalized. This new emphasis came into force as early as November 1933, when the Reichstag passed a law that allowed the imprisonment of addicts in a closed institution for up to two years, although that period of confinement could be extended indefinitely by legal decree.22

Why do they sell hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight?” I ask. “It just plain don’t make sense.” She leans over and kisses me, then leans back with a smile. “The world is full of things that don’t make sense.” “It really is, like, why do people give flowers to people for special occasions? I mean, it’s kinda arbitrary. What’s the point?” She nods and tucks one hand under her head. I have her other hand in mine, our fingers playing and tracing and feeling. “Actually, the history of flower giving can be traced back to ancient Greece, when it was thought that flowers were associated with the gods. And in Turkey, they assigned meanings to different flowers, which then was adopted by Victorian culture as a part of the courting ritual. In Japan, it’s called hanakotoba, where various plants are used for passwords and codes.

The method he adopted in building the bridge was as follows. He took a pair of piles a foot and a half thick, slightly pointed at the lower ends and of a length adapted to the varying depth of the river, and fastened them together two feet apart. These he lowered into the river with appropriate tackle, placed them in position at right angles to the bank, and drove them home with pile-drivers, not vertically, as piles are generally fixed, but obliquely, inclined in the direction of the current. Opposite these, forty feet lower down the river, another pair of piles was planted, similarly fixed together, and inclined in the opposite direction to the current. The two pairs were then joined by a beam two feet wide, whose ends fitted exactly into the spaces between the two piles forming each pair. The upper pair was kept at the right distance from the lower pair by means of iron braces, one of which was used to fasten each pile to the end of the beam. The pairs of piles being thus held apart, and each pair individually strengthened by a diagonal tie between the two piles, the whole structure was so rigid, that, in accordance with the laws of physics, the greater the force of the current, the more tightly were the piles held in position. A series of these piles and transverse beams was carried right across the stream and connected by lengths of timber running in the direction of the bridge; on these were laid poles and bundles of sticks. In spite of the strength of the structure, additional piles were fixed obliquely to each pair of the original piles along the whole length of the downstream side of the bridge, holding them up like a buttress and opposing the force of the current. Others were fixed also a little above the bridge, so that if the natives tried to demolish it by floating down tree-trunks or beams, these buffers would break the force of the impact and preserve the bridge from injury.

The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels. So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn’t possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was. And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!

There are tiny mites living in our eyelashes. Hal Roach was a famous director who used to hire drunk and insane people to generate creative ideas. To attract female goats, Billy goats urinate on their own heads. Jewish people do not eat pork. Khazaria was a medieval Turkic kingdom that adopted Judaism as its official religion; it was the only non-Semitic state to become Jewish after Israel. The largest economy in the United States is California. More deer are killed by drivers than by hunters. The automotive center of the world is in Detroit. If the earth were ever to stop spinning, all the oceans would flow to the north and south poles. Around 16 to 20 percent of the terms searched on Google are said to have been never searched before. Bamboo can grow 35 inches per day making it the fastest growing woody plant in the world. The heaviest insect found on the earth is ‘Giant Weta’. It weighs more than a pound and is found in New Zealand. The CIA is expected to release the JFK assassination records to the public no later than 10/26/2017.

The hardest thing is actually not to be a mother—to refuse to be a mother to anyone. To not be a mother is the most difficult thing of all. There is always someone ready to step into the path of a woman’s freedom, sensing that she is not yet a mother, so tries to make her into one. There will always be one man or another, or her mother or her father, or some young woman or some young man who steps into the bright and shimmering path of her freedom, and adopts themselves as that woman’s child, forcing her to be their mother. Who will knock her up this time? Who will emerge, planting their feet before her, and say with a smile, Hi mom! The world is full of desperate people, lonely people and half-broken people, unsolved people and needy people with shoes that stink, and socks that stink and are holey—people who want you to arrange their vitamins, or who need your advice at every turn, or who just want to talk and get a drink—and seduce you into being their mother. It’s hard to detect this is even happening, but before you realize it—it’s happened.

Legasov had his faults, but fundamentally he was a good, conscientious man who pushed against, and felt guilty about, both his own inaction before the disaster and the official, half-honest approach he was forced to adopt afterwards. It was too late. Both the pretence and his willingness to criticise a Soviet system that had gestated a belief in invulnerability had damaged his reputation. While reporting to his peers at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in October 1986, he stated, “I did not lie in Vienna; but I did not tell the whole truth.”256 Legasov decided to take a firm stance against the official explanation and penned several papers on the subject. In them, he criticised the underlying problems with the RBMK, the poor quality of training for nuclear operators, the complacency entrenched within the Soviet scientific community and nuclear industry in particular (one plant director was quoted as saying that a nuclear reactor is like a kettle, “and much simpler than a conventional plant”), and proposed further research into safer reactor types.257

Rosewater was on the next bed, reading, and Billy drew him into the conversation, asked him what he was reading this time. So Rosewater told him. It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again: Oh, boy—they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time! And that thought had a brother: ''There are right people to lynch.'' Who? People not well connected. So it goes. The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels. So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was. And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!

As I became older, I was given many masks to wear. I could be a laborer laying railroad tracks across the continent, with long hair in a queue to be pulled by pranksters; a gardener trimming the shrubs while secretly planting a bomb; a saboteur before the day of infamy at Pearl Harbor, signaling the Imperial Fleet; a kamikaze pilot donning his headband somberly, screaming 'Banzai' on my way to my death; a peasant with a broad-brimmed straw hat in a rice paddy on the other side of the world, stooped over to toil in the water; an obedient servant in the parlor, a houseboy too dignified for my own good; a washerman in the basement laundry, removing stains using an ancient secret; a tyrant intent on imposing my despotism on the democratic world, opposed by the free and the brave; a party cadre alongside many others, all of us clad in coordinated Mao jackets; a sniper camouflaged in the trees of the jungle, training my gunsights on G.I. Joe; a child running with a body burning from napalm, captured in an unforgettable photo; an enemy shot in the head or slaughtered by the villageful; one of the grooms in a mass wedding of couples, having met my mate the day before through our cult leader; an orphan in the last airlift out of a collapsed capital, ready to be adopted into the good life; a black belt martial artist breaking cinderblocks with his head, in an advertisement for Ginsu brand knives with the slogan 'but wait--there's more' as the commercial segued to show another free gift; a chef serving up dog stew, a trick on the unsuspecting diner; a bad driver swerving into the next lane, exactly as could be expected; a horny exchange student here for a year, eager to date the blonde cheerleader; a tourist visiting, clicking away with his camera, posing my family in front of the monuments and statues; a ping pong champion, wearing white tube socks pulled up too high and batting the ball with a wicked spin; a violin prodigy impressing the audience at Carnegie Hall, before taking a polite bow; a teen computer scientist, ready to make millions on an initial public offering before the company stock crashes; a gangster in sunglasses and a tight suit, embroiled in a turf war with the Sicilian mob; an urban greengrocer selling lunch by the pound, rudely returning change over the counter to the black patrons; a businessman with a briefcase of cash bribing a congressman, a corrupting influence on the electoral process; a salaryman on my way to work, crammed into the commuter train and loyal to the company; a shady doctor, trained in a foreign tradition with anatomical diagrams of the human body mapping the flow of life energy through a multitude of colored points; a calculus graduate student with thick glasses and a bad haircut, serving as a teaching assistant with an incomprehensible accent, scribbling on the chalkboard; an automobile enthusiast who customizes an imported car with a supercharged engine and Japanese decals in the rear window, cruising the boulevard looking for a drag race; a illegal alien crowded into the cargo hold of a smuggler's ship, defying death only to crowd into a New York City tenement and work as a slave in a sweatshop. My mother and my girl cousins were Madame Butterfly from the mail order bride catalog, dying in their service to the masculinity of the West, and the dragon lady in a kimono, taking vengeance for her sisters. They became the television newscaster, look-alikes with their flawlessly permed hair. Through these indelible images, I grew up. But when I looked in the mirror, I could not believe my own reflection because it was not like what I saw around me. Over the years, the world opened up. It has become a dizzying kaleidoscope of cultural fragments, arranged and rearranged without plan or order.

this same love for her own people, and her desire to establish the future greatness of her house on a solid foundation reacted, in her policy with regard to the other servants, in one unvarying maxim, which was never to let any of them set foot in my aunt’s room; indeed she shewed a sort of pride in not allowing anyone else to come near my aunt, preferring, when she herself was ill, to get out of bed and to administer the Vichy water in person, rather than to concede to the kitchen-maid the right of entry into her mistress’s presence. There is a species of hymenoptera, observed by Fabre, the burrowing wasp, which in order to provide a supply of fresh meat for her offspring after her own decease, calls in the science of anatomy to amplify the resources of her instinctive cruelty, and, having made a collection of weevils and spiders, proceeds with marvellous knowledge and skill to pierce the nerve-centre on which their power of locomotion (but none of their other vital functions) depends, so that the paralysed insect, beside which her egg is laid, will furnish the larva, when it is hatched, with a tamed and inoffensive quarry, incapable either of flight or of resistance, but perfectly fresh for the larder: in the same way Françoise had adopted, to minister to her permanent and unfaltering resolution to render the house uninhabitable to any other servant, a series of crafty and pitiless stratagems. Many years later we discovered that, if we had been fed on asparagus day after day throughout that whole season, it was because the smell of the plants gave the poor kitchen-maid, who had to prepare them, such violent attacks of asthma that she was finally obliged to leave my aunt’s service.

This extreme situation in which all data is processed and all decisions are made by a single central processor is called communism. In a communist economy, people allegedly work according to their abilities, and receive according to their needs. In other words, the government takes 100 per cent of your profits, decides what you need and then supplies these needs. Though no country ever realised this scheme in its extreme form, the Soviet Union and its satellites came as close as they could. They abandoned the principle of distributed data processing, and switched to a model of centralised data processing. All information from throughout the Soviet Union flowed to a single location in Moscow, where all the important decisions were made. Producers and consumers could not communicate directly, and had to obey government orders. For instance, the Soviet economics ministry might decide that the price of bread in all shops should be exactly two roubles and four kopeks, that a particular kolkhoz in the Odessa oblast should switch from growing wheat to raising chickens, and that the Red October bakery in Moscow should produce 3.5 million loaves of bread per day, and not a single loaf more. Meanwhile the Soviet science ministry forced all Soviet biotech laboratories to adopt the theories of Trofim Lysenko – the infamous head of the Lenin Academy for Agricultural Sciences. Lysenko rejected the dominant genetic theories of his day. He insisted that if an organism acquired some new trait during its lifetime, this quality could pass directly to its descendants. This idea flew in the face of Darwinian orthodoxy, but it dovetailed nicely with communist educational principles. It implied that if you could train wheat plants to withstand cold weather, their progenies will also be cold-resistant. Lysenko accordingly sent billions of counter-revolutionary wheat plants to be re-educated in Siberia – and the Soviet Union was soon forced to import more and more flour from the United States.

To turn the page to the next chapter of a more satisfying life-as-adventure, these steps that have proved fruitful for me -- when I've actually followed them. 1. Find Your True North to Become More Joyful First be clear about choosing a goal that rings true. Forget "should" or adopting someone else's goal for you. 2. Picture Being Your Hero Afraid you will fail? Supplant your fear with a greater motivation. When you are tempted to fall back, picture how you'll feel when you succeed. ." Rather than talking about what you are giving up or how you might fail, reflect upon and discuss the benefits you clearly see. 3. Surround Yourself With Mutual Support Systems To keep your resolve, surround yourself with those who want you to succeed - and who are also on a path of practice. Agree on shared and individual behaviors that reinforce your mutual support. The authors of Influencer found that is the only way to permanently change. 4. Involve Your Senses To Stay On Your Path Tie your goal for your new chapter to your frequent experiences. Write it down. Say it out loud. Associate it with things you see, hear, smell, taste and touch every day. Plant sticky messages on your bathroom mirror, your car dashboard and smart device screen. Smell your shampoo and connect it with living that chapter. Brush your teeth and feel the motion towards it. 5. Notice Where You Get Detoured Notice your pattern of avoidance. What activities get you sidetracked? What time of day or day of the week is it most likely to happen? What else is happening that can numb you into avoidance? What colleagues and friends help or hinder you on your path? Conversely, when are your stronger moments? 6. Plan A Grand Reward The bigger the change, the larger the reward you deserve. Enable others who supported you, to savor it with you. Since behavior is contagious to the third degree, you don't know which friends, and friends of your friends' friends might be moved, by your example, to also turn the page to the next chapter of the adventure story they were meant to live.

Everywhere power has to be seen in order to give the impression that it sees. But this is not the case. It doesn't see anything. It is like a woman walled up in a 'peepshow'. It is separated from society by a two-way mirror. And it turns slowly, undresses slowly, adopting the lewdest poses, little suspecting that the other is watching and masturbating in secret. The metro. A man gets on - by his glances, gestures and movements, he carves out a space for himself and protects it. From that space, he sets his actions to those of the neighbouring, approximate molecules. He becomes the centre of a physical pressure, sniffs out hostile vibrations and emanations, or friendly ones, on the verge of panic. He joins up with others out of fear. He innervates his whole body with a calculated indifference, wraps himself in a superficial reverie, created only to keep others at a distance. He deciphers nothing, protects himself from the crossfire of everyone's gazes and sets his own as a backhand down the line, staring at a particular face at the back of the carriage until the very lightness of his stare stirs the other in his sleep. When the train accelerates or brakes, all the bodies are thrown in the same direction, like the shoals of fish which change direction simultaneously. The marvellous underwater lethargy of the metro, the self-defence of the capillary systems, the cruel play of vague thoughts - all while waiting for the stop at Faidherbe-Chaligny. The crucial thing is not to have sweeping views of the future, but to know where to plant your primal scene. The danger for us is that we'll keep running up against the wall of the Revolution. For this is the source of our misery: our phobias, our prohibitions, our phantasies, our utopias are imbedded in the nineteenth century, where their foundations were laid down. We have to put an end to this historical coagulation. Beyond it, all is permitted. It will perhaps be the adventure of the end of the century to dissolve the wall of the Revolution and to plunge on beyond it, towards the marvels of form and spirit.

Your daughter is delightful!" Sejanus was saying to Aelia. I gripped the edge of the bench and bit my tongue as he spoke. "She is a living testament to the good looks that seem to follow the gens Aelia." Aelia smiled. "Cousin, you flatter me." Sejanus had set the tone for the evening with the clear slight against the Gavia clan. "It's only a shame I share the name through adoption- not blood- or who knows how much more attractive I might have been!" Nearby guests laughed at the joke but to me it seemed the true intent was to point out that Apicius had, at least at one time, found him attractive. Sejanus looked directly at Apicius directly as he spoke, a smile on his face. Apicius gave away nothing. He waved a boy over with a tray. "Have you tried the fried hare livers, Sejanus?" Apicata jumped up and down and smiled at her father. "May I? May I?" Her father smiled. Apicata could always melt his heart. "Only one and don't share with Perseus!" The serving boy lowered the tray so she could reach for the liver but not so low that the jumping puppy could steal treats for himself. She snatched a morsel and popped it into her mouth. I knew what she tasted, a sublime mixture of textures, the crispy breaded exterior and the smooth, sumptuous richness of the liver itself. The combination is unexpected. When I first introduced the recipe, it immediately became a family favorite. Apicata turned to Sejanus. She did not appear to recognize him from the market. "Oh, you must try! These are my favorite!" "If you say so, I must try!" Sejanus reached for the tray. He took a bite of the liver and surprise registered in his eyes. Sejanus reached for another liver. "Where on earth did you find your cook?" "Baiae." Aelia reached for her own sample. "Thrasius's cooking is always exceptional. Wait until you try the hyacinth bulbs!" "Hyacinth bulbs are one of my favorites." Sejanus ran his fingers affectionately through Apicata's hair as he talked. I stared, wondering what his intentions were. My right eye began to twitch. Apicius nodded at Passia to come forward and collect Apicata and her puppy. The girl went begrudgingly and only after Sejanus had planted a kiss on her forehead and promised he would visit again soon.

Simon laughs when I audibly exhale. “Relieved she’s not here yet?” I roll my suitcase into one of the barren bedrooms and then plunk down on the rock-hard, hideous orange sofa in the lounge. Simon takes a swivel chair from my room and slides it in front of me, where he then plants himself. “Why are you so worried?” I cross my arms and look around the concrete room. “I’m not worried at all. She’s probably very nice. I’m sure we’ll become soul mates, and she’ll braid my hair, and we’ll have pillow fights while scantily clad and fall into a deep lesbian love affair.” I squint my eyes at a cobweb and assume there are spider eggs preparing to hatch and invade the room. “Allison?” Simon waits until I look at him. “You can’t do that. You can’t become a lesbian.” “Why not?” “Because then everyone will say that your adoptive gay father magically made you gay, and it’ll be a big thing, and we’ll have to hear about nature versus nurture, and it’ll be soooooo boring.” “You have a point.” I wait for spider eggs to fall from the sky. “Then I’ll go with assuming she’s just a really sweet, normal person with whom I do not want to engage in sexual relations.” “Better,” he concedes. “I’m sure she’ll be nice. This kind of strong liberal arts college attracts quality students. There’re good people here.” He’s trying to reassure me, but it’s not working. “Totally,” I say. My fingers run across the nubby burned-orange fabric covering the couch, which is clearly composed of rock slabs. “Simon?” “Yes, Allison?” I sigh and take a few breaths while I play with the hideous couch threads. “She probably has horns.” He shrugged. “I think that’s unlikely.” Simon pauses. “Although . . .” “Although what?” I ask with horror. There’s a long silence that makes me nervous. Finally, he says very slowly, “She might have one horn.” I jerk my head and stare at him. Simon claps his hands together and tries to coax a smile out of me. “Like a unicorn! Ohmigod! Your roommate might be a unicorn!” “Or a rhinoceros,” I point out. “A beastly, murderous rhino.” “There is that,” he concedes. I sigh. “In good news, if I ever need a back scratcher, I have this entire couch.” I slump back against the rough fabric and hold out my hands before he can protest. “I know. I’m a beacon of positivity.” “That’s not news to me.

The Qur’an has not merely been revealed in Arabic: it has been revealed in eloquent Arabic. The language is clear and cogent, and there is no vagueness in it; every word is unambiguous and every style adopted is well known to its addressees. The Qur’an says: The faithful Spirit has brought it down into your heart [O Prophet] that you may become a warner [for people] in eloquent Arabic. (26:193-195) In the form of an Arabic Qur’an, free from any ambiguity that they may save themselves [from punishment]. (39:28) This is an obvious reality about the Qur’an. If this premise is accepted, then it must be conceded that no word used or style adopted by the Qur’an is rare or unknown (shadh). Its words and styles are well known and conventionally understood by its addressees. No aspect of the language has any peculiarity or rarity in it. Consequently, while interpreting the Qur’an, the conventionally understood and known meanings of the words should be taken into consideration. Apart from them, no interpretation is acceptable. Thus in the verses: وَالنَّجْمُ وَالشَّجَرُ يَسْجُدَانِ (6:55), the meaning of the word اَلنَّجْمُ can only be “stars”. In وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِن قَبْلِكَ مِن رَّسُولٍ وَلَا نَبِيٍّ إِلَّا إِذَا تَمَنَّى أَلْقَى الشَّيْطَانُ فِي أُمْنِيَّتِهِ (52:22), the word تَمَنَّى can only mean “desire”. In أَفَلَا يَنظُرُونَ إِلَى الْإِبِلِ كَيْفَ خُلِقَتْ (17:88), the word الْإِبِلِ has only been used for “camel”. The only meaning of the word بَيْضٌ in the verse كَأَنَّهُنَّ بَيْضٌ مَّكْنُونٌ (49:37) is “eggs”. In the verse فَصَلِّ لِرَبِّكَ وَانْحَرْ (2:108), the word نَحْر only means “sacrifice”. They do not mean “plants”, “recital”, “clouds”, “the hidden sheath of eggs” and “folding hands on the chest” respectively. Similar is the case with declensions and styles adopted. Scholars of grammar and rhetoric have regarded many such aspects of the Qur’an as rare and as exceptions; however, the truth of the matter is that this conclusion is based on incomprehensive research. In recent times, the works of the two pioneers of the Farahi school: Imam Hamid al-Din al-Farahi and Imam Amin Ahsan Islahi have fully proven that the declensions and styles adopted by the Qur’an are all in fact well-known and conventionally understood by the Arabs. Taking into consideration this principle is a requisite of the eloquence of the Qur’anic language, which as stated above, is mentioned in the Qur’an itself. No explanation of the Qur’an is acceptable while disregarding this principle.

Further, these continuums are the mechanical devices which the Supreme Court proscribed against using in the Graham decision. To quote Thomas Petrowski, FBI SAC and attorney (October, 2002; FBI Bulletin), “Unfortunately, many law enforcement agencies have adopted training in the guise of a “force continuum,” which is precisely the mechanical application that the Court proscribed…it is inconsistent with the concept of reasonableness. Most use-of-force continua indicate a reflective approach to a menu of force options with the goal of selecting the least intrusive option. While virtually every force continuum provides that such progressing through force options may not be appropriate in all use-of-force situations, the seed of hesitation is inescapably planted. The word continuum implies a sequential approach. The goal of force continua – using the least intrusive means to respond to a threat – simply is not constitutionally required. The law does not require officers to select the minimum force necessary, only a reasonable option.

By a decade after the 1521 fall of Tenochtitlán, the Mexican natives had already adopted a new set of flavors into their existing large assortment. There seemed to be an “absence of strong cultural resistance to the introduction and use of foreign plants,” as one researcher found recently when he tried to discover what had become of so many of those pre-Columbian crops in modern Mexico.11

Just as the most successful industrial plants are adopting the concept of “agile manufacturing,” so the most successful contract workers make themselves agile through developing multiple abilities.

Hutchinson’s collective doctrines are now termed Antinomianism, a label Winthrop first attached to her that her nineteenth-century critics adopted and that historians today use without a sense of condemnation. Literally “against or opposed to law,” Antinomianism means in theology that “the moral law is not binding upon Christians, who are under the law of grace,” in the words of David Hall. Had Anne heard this term applied to her, she would have rejected it because of its association with licentious behavior and religious heterodoxy, both of which she opposed.

The plants adapt, the people adopt.

Alternatively, hunters may have caught and ‘adopted’ a lamb, fattening it during the months of plenty and slaughtering it in the leaner season. At some stage they began keeping a greater number of such lambs. Some of these reached puberty and began to procreate. The most aggressive and unruly lambs were first to the slaughter. The most submissive, most appealing lambs were allowed to live longer and procreate. The result was a herd of domesticated and submissive sheep. Such domesticated animals – sheep, chickens, donkeys and others – supplied food (meat, milk, eggs), raw materials (skins, wool), and muscle power. Transportation, ploughing, grinding and other tasks, hitherto performed by human sinew, were increasingly carried out by animals. In most farming societies people focused on plant cultivation; raising animals was a secondary activity. But a new kind of society also appeared in some places, based primarily on the exploitation of animals: tribes of pastoralist herders.

Still more striking, the people who built Stonehenge were not farmers, or not in the usual sense. They had once been; but the practice of erecting and dismantling grand monuments coincides with a period when the peoples of Britain, having adopted the Neolithic farming economy from continental Europe, appear to have turned their backs on at least one crucial aspect of it: abandoning the cultivation of cereals and returning, from around 3300 BC, to the collection of hazelnuts as their staple source of plant food. On the other hand, they kept hold of their domestic pigs and herds of cattle, feasting on them seasonally at nearby Durrington Walls, a prosperous town of some thousands of people – with its own Woodhenge – in winter, but largely empty and abandoned in summer. The builders of Stonehenge seem to have been neither foragers nor herders, but something in between.41 All this is crucial because it’s hard to imagine how giving up agriculture could have been anything but a self-conscious decision. There is no evidence that one population displaced another, or that farmers were somehow overwhelmed by powerful foragers who forced them to abandon their crops. The Neolithic inhabitants of England appear to have taken the measure of cereal-farming and collectively decided that they preferred to live another way.

Food is medicine. The inescapable truth is that adopting a plant-based, plant-centric approach to your plate is without a doubt the single most powerful and positively impactful thing you can possibly do as a conscious, compassionate consumer. It is the medicine that will prevent and reverse many a disease, significantly reduce your carbon footprint, and help preserve the Earth’s bounty for our children, our children’s children, and our animal friends alike.

But thirty million dollars of subsidy money from Washington had been plowed into Project Soybean—an enormous acreage in Louisiana, where a harvest of soybeans was ripening, as advocated and organized by Emma Chalmers, for the purpose of reconditioning the dietary habits of the nation. Emma Chalmers, better known as Kip’s Ma, was an old sociologist who had hung about Washington for years, as other women of her age and type hang about barrooms. For some reason which nobody could define, the death of her son in the tunnel catastrophe had given her in Washington an aura of martyrdom, heightened by her recent conversion to Buddhism. “The soybean is a much more sturdy, nutritious and economical plant than all the extravagant foods which our wasteful, self-indulgent diet has conditioned us to expect,” Kip’s Ma had said over the radio; her voice always sounded as if it were falling in drops, not of water, but of mayonnaise. “Soybeans make an excellent substitute for bread, meat, cereals and coffee—and if all of us were compelled to adopt soybeans as our staple diet, it would solve the national food crisis and make it possible to feed more people. The greatest food for the greatest number—that’s my slogan. At a time of desperate public need, it’s our duty to sacrifice our luxurious tastes and eat our way back to prosperity by adapting ourselves to the simple, wholesome foodstuff on which the peoples of the Orient have so nobly subsisted for centuries. There’s a great deal that we could learn from the peoples of the Orient.

Gianoli's own work had shown that when the host tree was totally devoid of leaves, the vine leaves adopted their own normal, oval-shaped leaf morphology; plus, the vine always mimicked the leaves closest to its own body, whether or not they were actually part of the climbed tree-in cases where an overhanging branch of another tree brought its leaves nearer to boquila, the vine imitated those instead. "Vision seems to us a more parsimonious explanation of this complex phenomenon," Baluška and Mancuso wrote in the journal Cell Press.

      Before that first three weeks I was on over 100 units of insulin per day, and in three weeks I was taking no insulin.       In about a month, I was once again in my doctor’s office, watching as they looked at my numbers in utter amazement. When they asked me what I did, I told them I had adopted a completely plant-based diet. They didn’t seem surprised at all and told me that plant-based diets were helping to reverse diabetes. When I asked why they had not suggested it, they told me “because it is not practical.”       There I was, morbidly obese, taking nine drugs, shooting insulin into myself multiple times per day, suffering nerve damage and severe pain, and yet they thought that changing my diet in a fairly easy way would be less practical?

Toddlers have limited capacity to understand the Lifebook as more than a story. However, the seed is planted for later understanding of and receptivity to information about their earliest days before becoming part of their adoptive family. The tone of voice and emotional demeanor of the adult telling the adoption story while showing the Lifebook is extremely important at this age. Respect, empathy, and support for everyone who has been part of the child’s life history are important.

Instead of searching for weight-loss gimmicks and tricks, adopt a resolution to be healthy. Focusing on your health, not on your weight, will eventually result in long-term weight loss. Eating a healthy diet, one that is rich in an assortment of natural plant fibers, will help you crave less and feel satisfied without overeating. Other diet plans fail because they cater to modern American tastes, which include too many processed foods and animal products to be healthy. Stop measuring portions and trying to follow complicated formulas. Instead, eat as many vegetables, beans, and fresh fruits as possible, and less of everything else. Don’t succumb to those other plans, which are an insult to your body as well as your intelligence.

As we'll see throughout this book, nature's problem-solving strategies offer immense opportunities for wealth creation in a new economy. Whether the shatter-resistant ceramics of an abalone shell, the superior drag resistance demonstrated by seaweeds, or the pure combustion of plant photosynthesis, impacted industries range from construction to transportation to medicine to software. Nature's paradigm does what human technology tries to do-and does it sustainably without stripping out the base resources that create wealth. So what's preventing us from more rapid adoption of bio-inspired design?

A 2005 study by Dr. Barnard and other researchers, which measured the effects of a low-fat vegan diet on body weight, found that people lost significant amounts of weight with no calorie counting. On average, the low-fat vegan diet adopters lost 13 pounds in 14 weeks. This phenomenon can be partly explained by the thermic effects of eating plant-based foods. Vegan diets are higher in complex carbohydrates which cause the body to release some calories as body heat during digestion (the thermic effect) rather than store it as fat. In fact a vegan diet includes a rich variety of foods that have a thermic effect (see list below). We sometimes get a thermic effect with animal protein, but we are also stuck with all the animal fat that comes with it. A whole foods, plant-based diet causes you to burn calories 16 percent faster after meals for about three hours. This revving up of your metabolism causes gradual and healthy weight loss. The thermic effect alone does not cause the weight loss. What it does is help decrease the number of calories that are automatically converted into fat—stopping some fat before it starts. It’s a natural process that is aided significantly by choosing a plant-based diet and hampered by a diet high in animal fats.

In some families, pets appeared to play a small, yet significant role in a child’s adjustment to his new family. Three families reported that family pets provided a wonderful opportunity for their newly adopted toddlers to play and be affectionate. In fact, some parents said that their children were more affectionate with the family pets than they were with family members for some time. One of my favorite family photographs captured a heartwarming kiss Gustavo planted on the lips of our 125-pound Malamute a few months after arriving home. That kiss was one of Gustavo’s first spontaneous displays of affection. I can understand why so many different therapy programs have recognized the benefit of the role animals can play in reaching people who are depressed, stressed, withdrawn, and angry. Some children seem to feel safer expressing affection toward an animal than they do toward an adult.

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Everyone has problems, frustrations, and discouragements. Everyone has enemies, or at least people with whom we have conflict. It takes no effort to allow ourselves to be pulled into negative emotions through the things we don’t like. There’s a saying, “Any dead fish can float downstream.” To be carried by our emotions, all we must do is let ourselves go and drift where emotions carry us. If you let your mind wander, chances are it will land on a hurt or something negative and begin brooding. It takes life to swim against the current. Look at the contrast between bitterness and love. These are two opposing forces. One is rooted in the flesh, and one has been given to us by God. Have you ever met a bitter person? Someone who always talks about how they have been wronged, or the things that are wrong in the world? If you spend much time around a negative person, you will adopt negative attitudes. Does a negative person have life? No. Bitterness is a life-sucking emotion. When anger is allowed to rule, it gives birth to bitterness and hatred. These emotions serve no other purpose than to search and destroy. While these may be born from a specific offense, they cannot maintain a single target, and begin attacking our own hearts and minds, and then begin targeting those around us. Negative emotions attempt to rise up, war against our minds, and bring us under its bondage. They are weeds in the garden of our mind. Positive emotions are like fruitful plants, but they cannot thrive when they are being choked out by these weeds.

electrical cords, dangerous cleaning supplies, household chemicals, sugar free gum with xylitol (which can be fatal to dogs) and potentially toxic plants, like lilies and philodendrons. Put irreplaceable items, such as photo albums or a toy that a child uses as a security blanket out of reach.

The English language once had a word for the characteristic impression that a plant or animal offers to the eye. We called it the “jizz,” and the adoption of that term as sexual slang is unfortunate, as it seems unlikely we’ll come up with a replacement. It is the jizz, for example, that allows a skilled birdwatcher to know a bird by its silhouette alone , or by some quality of movement or the way it holds its head. The strangely unsteady flight of the turkey vulture, the flat forehead of the Barrow’s goldeneye, the endless headlong running of sanderlings on a mudflat— each of these is the jizz. It is so pure an essence that, if captured in a few rough lines drawn with charcoal, it can express an animal more authentically than a portrait by a trained artist who has never carefully watched the creatures he paints. It’s the jizz that ancient art so often represents. While looking at Egyptian treasures in a museum, I felt a rush of nostalgia when an engraving of a scarab beetle reminded me that I used to see a related species, the tumblebug, or Canthon simplex, roll balls of dung across my home prairie. I had completely forgotten; it took a 3,500-year-old artifact from another continent to make me remember.

The vegan diet has tremendous potential for reducing heart disease risk. For full benefit: • Ensure adequate intake of vitamin B12. (Use a supplement and/or B12-fortified foods.) • Ensure sufficient intake of omega-3 fatty acids and improve the balance of essential fatty acids. (For more on this, see Chapter 4.)

Who's that?" Playing an old game, Roy pointed at Juanita. Serena grinned and raced to plant a kiss on Juanita's cheek. "'Nita!" she cried triumphantly. Juanita pointed her toward Lily. "Quien es?" "Mama and baby!" Serena climbed into Lily's lap for a hug. As Cade bent his large form beneath the flap to join them, Lily pointed in his direction. "What's his name?" "Papa-padre-daddy," she crowed, laughing as Cade lifted her and sat down with her in his lap. She liked having several names for everything and everyone, and could chatter incessantly in two languages. Cade pointed at an unshaven Travis who glared blearily at their laughter as he untangled himself from his damp bedroll. "Que esta?" Unaware of the Spanish niceties as to being addressed as a "what" instead of "who," Travis glared at their cheerfulness until Serena flung herself at him and hugged his neck. "Snake-oil man!" she cried. Laughter erupted all around—despite the dreary rain, despite their fear and weariness. Welcome waves of amusement relieved some of the tension. Travis growled and tickled Serena until she ran to Roy for help, then grinning, he met Cade's eyes. "Can't you teach her something else to call me?" "Tio Travis?" Cade suggested. "Tio, tio!" Serena cried, sticking her tongue out at Travis and hiding behind Roy's back. "Why do I get the feeling that means 'snake oil' in Spanish?" Travis muttered, reaching for the tin cup of coffee Juanita offered him. "It means 'uncle.' Whether you know it or not, you've just adopted a niece. That means you get to carry her today." Cade took his cup and settled back cross-legged beside Lily. "I don't think I'm ready for the responsibilities of a family man. I'm not even certain how I got into this." Travis threw Lily a wry look. "You're more trouble than you're worth, you know." "Look who's talking." Undisturbed, Lily called Serena to come eat her breakfast. She had spent eight years raising Travis's son. It was time he took on a little responsibility. Travis shrugged his shoulders, unabashed. "You could have had a smart, good-looking man like myself and you chose that man-mountain over there. You lost your chance, Lily." Lily didn't need to reply to that. She merely looked at his rumpled curls and beard-stubbled face and grinned. Relieved that she could still find humor in the midst of her grief, Cade finished his food and leaned over to kiss her before rising to finish packing the horses. Lily watched him go with astonishment. Cade never made public displays of affection. Their

The dying mall has attracted some odd tenants, such as a satellite branch of the public library and an office of the State Attorney General's Child Predator Unit. As malls die across the country, we'll see many kinds of creative repurposing. Already, there are churches and casinos inside half-dead malls, so why not massage parlors, detox centers, transient hotels, haunted houses, prisons, petting zoos or putt-putt golf courses (covering the entire mall)? Leaving Santee, Chuck and I wandered into the food court, where only three of twelve restaurant slots were still occupied. On the back wall of this forlorn and silent space was a mural put up by Boscov, the mall's main tenant. Titled "B part of your community", it reads: KINDNESS COUNTS / PLANT A TREE / MAKE A DONATION / HELP A NEIGHBOR / VISIT THE ELDERLY / HOPE / ADOPT A PET / DRIVE A HYBRID / PICK UP THE TRASH / VOLUNTEER / CONSERVE ENERGY / RECYCLE / JOIN SOMETHING / PAINT A MURAL / HUG SOMEONE / SMILE / DRINK FILTERED WATER / GIVE YOUR TIME / USE SOLAR ENERGY / FEED THE HUNGRY / ORGANIZE A FUNDRAISER / CREATE AWARENESS / FIX A PLAYGROUND/ START A CLUB / BABYSIT These empty recommendations are about as effective as "Just Say No", I'm afraid. As the CIA pushed drugs, the first lady chirped, "Just say no!". And since everything in the culture, car, iPad, iPhone, television, internet, Facebook, Twitter and shopping mall, etc., is designed to remove you from your immediate surroundings, it will take more than cutesy suggestions on walls to rebuild communities. Also, the worse the neighborhoods or contexts, the more hopeful and positive the slogans. Starved of solutions, we shall eat slogans.

The theory of close-planting should have been put to the test. It should have been subject to possible failure. Instead it was adopted on ideological grounds. “In Southern China, a density of 1.5 million seedlings per 2.5 acres was usually the norm,” Jasper Becker writes in Hungry Ghosts, Mao’s Secret Famine. “But in 1958, peasants were ordered to plant 6.5 million per 2.5 acres.” Too late, it was discovered that the seeds did indeed compete with each other, stunting growth and damaging yields. It contributed to one of the worst disasters in Chinese history, a tragedy that even now has not been fully revealed. Historians estimate that between 20 and 43 million people died during one of the most devastating famines in human history.

The seed we were planting was Pioneer Hi-Bred’s 34H31, a strain that the catalog described as “an adaptable hybrid with solid agronomics and yield potential.” The lack of hype, notable for a seed catalog, probably reflects the fact that 34H31 does not contain the “YieldGard gene,” the Monsanto-developed line of genetically engineered corn that Pioneer is currently pushing: The genetically modified 34B98, on the same page, promises “outstanding yield potential.” Despite the promises, Naylor, unlike many of his neighbors, doesn’t plant GMOs (genetically modified organisms). He has a gut distrust of the technology (“They’re messing with three billion years of evolution”) and doesn’t think it’s worth the extra twenty-five dollars a bag (in technology fees) they cost. “Sure, you might get a yield bump, but whatever you make on the extra corn goes right back to cover the premium for the seed. I fail to see why I should be laundering money for Monsanto.” As Naylor sees it, GMO seed is just the latest chapter in an old story: Farmers eager to increase their yields adopt the latest innovation, only to find that it’s the companies selling the innovations who reap the most from the gain in the farmer’s productivity.

Churchill also deserves credit for pioneering the battle tank in World War I. When the British army failed to take up design plans for the project, Churchill overstepped the bounds of the navy to form the Landship Committee in February 1915 to develop an armored vehicle for the war. Engineers worked in secret. In typical English fashion, even men providing security for the plant didn’t know what the project was and were told that the materials arriving were for the construction of water tanks. “Tank” became a code name for the operation, then was adopted as the name of the armored vehicle itself. Churchill, always convinced of the superiority of Diesel motors, tasked Mirrlees with developing a Diesel for the battle tank, though none was completed until after the war.

bore flowers and fruit, and concealed life for the future in the womb of the earth. How much I admired them! Those plants taught me life’s great lessons of hope. They whispered to me: Najeeb, adopted son of the desert, like us, you too must preserve your life and wrestle with this desert. Hot winds and scorching days will pass. Don’t surrender to them. Don’t grow weary, or you might have to pay with your life. Don’t give in. Lie half dead, as if meditating. Feign nothingness. Convey the impression

And we're cheerful, too. You can count on that.' Obligingly she smiled in a neighbourly way at him. 'It will be a relief to leave Earth with its repressive legislation. We were listening OH the FM to the news about the McPhearson Act.' 'We consider it dreadful,' the adult male said. 'I have to agree with you,' Chic said. 'But what can one do?' He looked around for the mail; as always it was lost somewhere in the mass of clutter. 'One can emigrate,' the adult male simulacrum pointed out. 'Um,' Chic said absently. He had found an unexpected heap of recent-looking bills from parts suppliers; with a feeling of gloom and even terror he began to bills from parts suppliers; with a feeling of gloom and even terror he began to sort through them. Had Maury seen these? Probably. Seen them and then pushed them away immediately, out of sight. Frauenzimmer Associates functioned better if it was not reminded of such facts of life. Like a regressed neurotic, it had to hide several aspects of reality from its percept system in order to function at all. This was hardly ideal, but what really was the alternative? To be realistic would be to give up, to die. Illusion, of an infantile nature was essential for the tiny firm's survival, or at least so it seemed to him and Maury. In any case both of them had adopted this attitude. Their simulacra -- the adult ones -- disapproved of this; their cold, logical appraisal of reality stood in sharp contrast, and Chic always felt a little naked, a little embarrassed, before the simulacra; he knew he should set a better example for them. 'If you bought a jalopy and emigrated to Mars,' the adult male said, 'We could be the famnexdo for you.' 'I wouldn't need any family next-door,' Chic said, 'if I emigrated to Mars. I'd go to get away from people. 'We'd make a very good family next-door to you,' the female said. 'Look,' Chic said, 'you don't have to lecture me about your virtues. I know more than you do yourselves.' And for good reason. Their presumption, their earnest sincerity, amused but also irked him. As next-door neighbours this group of sims would be something of a nuisance, he reflected. Still, that was what emigrants wanted, in fact needed, out in the sparsely-populated colonial regions. He could appreciate that; after all, it was Frauenzimmer Associates' business to understand. A man, when he emigrated, could buy neighbours, buy the simulated presence of life, the sound and motion of human activity -- or at least its ​mechanical nearsubstitute to bolster his morale in the new environment of unfamiliar stimuli and perhaps, god forbid, no stimuli at all. And in addition to this primary psychological gain there was a practical secondary advantage as well. The famnexdo group of simulacra developed the parcel of land, tilled it and planted it, irrigated it, made it fertile, highly productive. And the yield went to the it, irrigated it, made it fertile, highly productive. And the yield went to the human settler because the famnexdo group, legally speaking, occupied the peripheral portions of his land. The famnexdo were actually not next-door at all; they were part of their owner's entourage. Communication with them was in essence a circular dialogue with oneself; the famnexdo, it they were functioning properly, picked up the covert hopes and dreams of the settler and detailed them back in an articulated fashion. Therapeutically, this was helpful, although from a cultural standpoint it was a trifle sterile.

Giovanni, in love with her unabashed feminine strength and her reconciliation of love and revolution. I spent nearly every waking moment around Nikki, and I loved her dearly. But sibling relationships are often fraught with petty tortures. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her. But I had. At the time, I couldn’t understand my mother’s anger. I mean this wasn’t really a woman I was punching. This was Nikki. She could take it. Years would pass before I understood how that blow connected to my mom’s past. My mother came to the United States at the age of three. She was born in Lowe River in the tiny parish of Trelawny, Jamaica, hours away from the tourist traps that line the coast. Its swaths of deep brush and arable land made it great for farming but less appealing for honeymoons and hedonism. Lowe River was quiet, and remote, and it was home for my mother, her older brother Ralph, and my grandparents. My maternal great-grandfather Mas Fred, as he was known, would plant a coconut tree at his home in Mount Horeb, a neighboring area, for each of his kids and grandkids when they were born. My mom always bragged that hers was the tallest and strongest of the bunch. The land that Mas Fred and his wife, Miss Ros, tended had been cared for by our ancestors for generations. And it was home for my mom until her parents earned enough money to bring the family to the States to fulfill my grandfather’s dream of a theology degree from an American university. When my mom first landed in the Bronx, she was just a small child, but she was a survivor and learned quickly. She studied the other kids at school like an anthropologist, trying desperately to fit in. She started with the way she spoke. She diligently listened to the radio from the time she was old enough to turn it on and mimicked what she heard. She’d always pull back enough in her interactions with her classmates to give herself room to quietly observe them, so that when she got home she could practice imitating their accents, their idiosyncrasies, their style. Words like irie became cool. Constable became policeman. Easy-nuh became chill out. The melodic, swooping movement of her Jamaican patois was quickly replaced by the more stable cadences of American English. She jumped into the melting pot with both feet. Joy Thomas entered American University in Washington, D.C., in 1968, a year when she and her adopted homeland were both experiencing

the newspapers of France featured monasteries being burned, and peasant laborers proceeding to divide up the land, plow and plant it. Great Spanish landlords packed up their families and shipped them to France; here they were, camped in the hotels and villas of Cannes, in a mood receptive to tea-parties, dinner-dances, and other forms of elegant entertainment. So it came about that Lanny Budd, without any effort on his part, was in a position to learn about the Spanish governing classes, what they were saying, doing, and planning. They told him they hadn’t the slightest idea of adopting permanent residence abroad or of submitting to the loss of their estates and other privileges. They were going to fight for what they had been brought up to consider their rights.

We collected our things from our quarters---the ones that had been assigned to us and the ones we had adopted--- and I gathered up all my notes that would slowly metamorphose into The Extinction of Irena Rey. Maybe Grey Eminence was right that writing has to be an engine of extinction. But the first to inhabit a traumatized landscape are often fungi, lichen, slime molds, and species of plants known as "ruderal," a word that derives from the Latin word for "rubble." Maybe the extinction of Irena Rey made the space for a ruderal art, like a book about what happened to her translators.

In the Gene Expression Modulation by Intervention with Nutrition and Lifestyle (GEMINAL) study, Dr. Dean Ornish and colleagues took tissue biopsies before and after subjects adopted intensive lifestyle changes for three months that included a whole food, plant-based diet. Beneficial changes in gene expression were noted for five hundred different genes.

As early humans moved about, they were accompanied by a whole entourage of creatures they had come to depend on, or learned to coexist with — not only their crop plants and domesticated animals, which they carried with them deliberately, but also the creatures that had adopted them during their lengthy process of developing agriculture and animal husbandry and building habitations and cities, roads and canals, seaports and fortifications. To quote Anderson [Edgar Anderson, Plants, Man, and Life:] ‘Unconsciously as well as deliberately man carries whole floras about the globe with him, he now lives surrounded by transported landscapes, and our commonest everyday plants have been transformed by their long associations with us so that many roadsides and dooryard plants are artifacts. An artifact, by definition, is something produced by man, something which we would not have if man had not come into being. That is what many of our weeds and crops really are.

About “Contesting Height” (一，たけくらべと云事) “Contesting height” is employed when very close and clinging to the enemy. Make yourself as tall as you can, as if contesting height. In your mind, make yourself taller than your opponent. The cadence for getting in close is the same as the others. Consider this well. (31) About the “Door” Teaching (一，扉のおしへと云事) The body of the “door”27 is used when moving in to stick to the enemy. Make the span of your body wide and straight as if to conceal the enemy’s sword and body. Fuse yourself to the enemy so that there is no space between your bodies. Then pivot to the side, making yourself slender and straight, and smash your shoulder into his chest to knock him down. Practice this. (32) The “General and His Troops” Teaching (一、将卒のおしへの事) The “general and his troops” is a teaching that means once you embody the principles of strategy, you see the enemy as your troops and yourself as their general. Do not allow the enemy any freedom whatsoever, neither permitting him to swing nor thrust with his sword. He is so completely under your sway that he is unable to think of any tactics. This is crucial. (33) About the “Stance of No-Stance” (一，うかうむかうと云事) The “stance of no-stance” refers to [the mindset] when you are holding your sword. You can adopt various stances, but if your mind is so preoccupied with the engarde position, the sword and your body will be ineffectual. Even though you always have your sword, do not become preoccupied with any particular stance. There are three varieties of upper stance (jōdan) as well as three attitudes for the middle (chūdan) and lower (gedan) stances that you can adopt. The same can be said for the left-side and right-side stances (hidari-waki and migi-waki). Seen as such, this is the mind of no-stance. Ponder this carefully. △ (39-3) About “Assessing the Location” △ (39-4) About “Dealing to Many Enemies” (Simplified versions of Article 1 in the Fire Scroll [Scroll 3] and Article 33 in the Water Scroll [Scroll 2] of Gorin-no-Sho.) (34) About “The Body of a Boulder” (一、いわをの身と云事) “The body of a boulder” is to have an unmovable mind that is strong and vast. You come to embody myriad principles through your training, to the extent that nothing can touch you. All living things will avoid you. Although devoid of consciousness, even plants will not take root on a boulder. Even the rain and wind will do nothing to a boulder. You must strive to understand what this “body” means.

Something about Israel was speaking to me, planting a seed of faith that would one day prove more fruitful than anything I’d ever harvest. It was the beginning of my most important journey, one I wouldn’t fully appreciate until I had far more to lose in this life than I had to gain.

Plants are masters of deception. Since they can’t run or hide, many of their survival strategies involve deceiving other plants or animals. Some of the best examples—or worst, if you happen to be a wasp—are certain species of Australian orchids.4 Australia has about 1,400 species of orchids, and around 250 of these have adopted the same strategy of deceiving male wasps to enable pollination.

What are you talking about now, child?” “Mother Margaret. She told me that you met with her. That you sent her to the hospital to plant the seed of adoption in my head. It wasn’t a coincidence. You tricked me.

For health, more of your protein should be derived from plant sources so as to reduce fat intake. While we are not necessarily advocating a totally vegetarian diet, we are suggesting that endurance athletes and runners adopt a primarily plant-based diet.

Workers who used radioactive materials to hand-paint the first “glow in the dark” watches licked their paintbrushes to get a fine tip; their supervisors said they would gain sex appeal. Instead, they got cancer. The introduction of nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants increased the amount of radioactive material being handled. Gradually scientists realized: If you are going to use the atom, you must adopt procedures to fit its power.

Inextricably linked to the climate emergency is a broader environmental crisis. A third of the Earth’s land is now acutely degraded, with fertile soil being lost at a rate of 24 billion tonnes a year through intensive farming.[19] Generating three centimetres of top soil takes 1,000 years, and, the UN said in 2014, if current rates of degradation continue all of the world's top soil could be gone within 60 years.[20] 95% of our food presently comes from the soil. Unless new approaches are adopted, the global amount of arable and productive land per person in 2050 will be only a quarter of the level in 1960. The equivalent of 30 football pitches of soil are being lost every minute. Heavy tilling, monocropping multiple harvests and abundant use of agrochemicals have increased yields at the expense of long-term sustainability. Agriculture is actually the number one reason for deforestation. In the past 20 years, agricultural production has increased threefold and the amount of irrigated land has doubled, often leading to land abandonment and desertification. Decreasing productivity has been observed, due to diminished fertility, on 20% of the world’s cropland, 16% of forest land, 19% of grassland, and 27% of rangeland. Furthermore, tropical forests have become a source rather than a sink of carbon.[21] Forest areas in South America, Africa and Asia – which have until recently played a crucial role in absorbing GHG – are now releasing 425 teragrams of carbon annually, more than all the traffic in the US. This is due to the thinning of tree density and culling of biodiversity, reducing biomass by up to 75%. Scientists combined 12 years of satellite data with field studies. They found a net carbon loss on every continent. Latin America – home to the world’s biggest forest, the Amazon, which is responsible for 20% of its oxygen – accounted for nearly 60% of the emissions, while 24% came from Africa and 16% from Asia. Every year about 18 million hectares of forest – an area the size of England and Wales – is felled. In just 40 years, possibly one billion hectares, the equivalent of Europe, has been torn down. Half the world’s rainforests have been razed in a century and they will vanish altogether at current rates within another. Earth’s “sixth mass extinction”[22] is well underway: up to 50% of all individual animals have been lost in recent decades and almost half of land mammals have lost 80% of their range in the last century. Vertebrate populations have fallen by an average of 60% since the 1970s, and in some countries there has been an even faster decline of insects – vital, of course, for aerating the soil, pollinating blossoms, and controlling insect and plant pests.

Lord, I choose to meditate on things that are true. I loose myself from all falsehood. I believe the truth of Your Word. By the power of God I uproot every lie and deception planted in my mind. Holy Spirit, let the truth of Your Word arise in my heart. “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!” (Ps. 139:17). Lord, I believe Your thoughts toward me are great. I’m always on Your mind. I believe that Your thoughts toward me are good and not evil. As Isaiah 62:5 says, I believe You rejoice over me as Your creation. I am made in Your image. I bring You glory when I do Your will in the earth. Lord, I have felt like You’ve forgotten or rejected me as a woman. I believe You love me, and I receive Your love. I loose myself from father rejection. I am not forgotten, cast aside, or thrown away. I receive the spirit of adoption, and I cry Abba, Father. I repent of these thoughts. I believe my name is written on the palm of Your hand. Lord, open my spiritual ears to hear the songs You are singing over me (Zeph. 3:17). I choose to rest in Your love. I will no longer strive to be accepted. Don’t stop filling me with Your love.

Many times creatively responding to change immediately puts us on the edge of culture and friendships. People who ride the edge are marginalized until others accept the new reality and the new adaptation. Those with diverse points of view who are willing to make changes in their living systems and risk loss of status are crucial pioneers. How else can solution be adapted unless early adopters take the opportunity?

The third possibility and the best response to culture is contextualization, which attempts to plant or reestablish churches within people’s cultural context and to communicate the gospel in language and practices that are understandable so that the biblical message is clear. Therefore, contextualization views culture as a means or vehicle that God, man, and Satan can use for their own purposes, whether good or evil. It teaches that a convert doesn’t have to adopt or embrace another, so-called Christian or church culture to be accepted, saved, or to join a church. It uses indigenous cultural forms and practices to communicate biblical truth; otherwise, the gospel isn’t clear.

I have been told by many that their life is wonderful, that life’s a game, but it’s not fair, I break the rules, so I don’t care! That it is thrilling to be part of the freaking world of butt holes. I got news for you; I did want all that. I have been tooled, that dying you see the light too, along with the flashing by of your stupid pathetic life. Yet, at least I had a stupid pathetic life. Just like my great-grandma Nevaeh Natalie, grandmother Jaylynn, and my freaked-up mother Kristen, oh, and also my dad, and mom said- ‘she was born on May 12, 2001.’ She had me later on in life to another freakier she’s even more freaked up than my step-monster, after Brandon my real dad passed from something that I cannot protonate, I don’t want to talk about it- finding out how she left him, for someone else other than him, which she said she would happen or never- ever do. He ended it… Besides, that was it… I am not saying more; I do not want to… I don’t freaking have to. Freak that crap in the butt! Yet sometimes, I feel like such a steep child, yet in a way that is just what I am. However, my daddy loves me anyway, yet my little sis is their biological child. I was adopted before they realized that freaking one another in the old-school hallways would not work for them, anyway, it would not be long until she gets knocked up, with my pain in the butt sister Kellie. When she dropped out. I never really knew my real dad; my dad was always the one that was everything to me. Yet my mom is the monster, and I the mutant, (E-ugh! She said- ‘When she saw me as a baby girl in the nursery.’) However, she felt that way about me since day one, and I feel the same, damn- yes, the same way the same damn way. It was a new day… that fell to me… to me if you think about it; I have always been falling. Honestly, I thought that someday, ‘I would do wonder and crap cucumbers.’ Never truly pondering my last moments on this gray-green dying plant, we call earth. Looking over those visions from my past, my mind seems rather dreadful, nasty, and bleak. Just plan sadly really. Lonely in my memories, I felt that nearly if not all things would have improved if it was just covered up, covered over, and forgotten about completely in sixth grade. A failure to recall if you do well. That would be awesome.

But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected. So it goes. *** The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn’t look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again: Oh, boy—they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time! And that thought had a brother: “There are right people to lynch.” Who? People not well connected. So it goes. *** The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels. So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn’t possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was. And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!

Nature, Hawthorne said, ‘seems to adopt him as her especial child’, for animals and plants communicated with him. There was a bond that no one could explain. Mice would run across Thoreau’s arms, crows would perch on him, snakes coiled around his legs and he always found even the most hidden first blossoms of spring. Nature spoke to him, and Thoreau to it. When he planted a field of beans, he asked, ‘What shall I learn of beans or beans of me?’ The joy of his daily life was ‘a little star-dust caught’, he said, or a ‘segment of a rainbow which I have clutched’.

Health provides an important final reason to adopt a plant-based diet. Westerners are choking their arteries, fattening themselves up, and fostering cancers by consuming anymal products. How many people who live on bean salad and vegetable soup are obese? How often do those with a steady diet of vegetables and rice suffer from colon cancer? How many people living on broccoli and tofu suffer heart attacks in their middle years? Obesity, heart disease, and cancers are just three common health problems that are linked with the consumption of anymal products. To look after both our spiritual and physical health, we must adopt a vegan diet.

The companies with the highest returns on their technology investments did more than just buy technology; they invested in organizational capital to become digital organizations. Productivity studies at both the firm level and the establishment (or plant) level during the period 1995-2008 reveal that the firms that saw high returns on their technology investments were the same firms that adopted certain productivity-enhancing business practices. The literature points to incentive systems, training, and decentralized decision making as some of the practices most complementary to technology. Moreover, the right combinations of these practices are much more important than any of the individual practices. Copying any one practice may not be very difficult for a firm, but duplicating a competitor's success requires replicating a portfolio of interconnecting practices. Upsetting the balance in a company's particular combination of labor and capital investments, even slightly, can have large consequences for that company's output and productivity. As in a fine watch, the whole system may fail if even one small and seemingly unimportant piece is missing or flawed.

Pragmatically, there is an evident need for the continuation of many of the functions of the original apostles. This would include church planting, laying good foundations in churches, continuing to oversee those churches, appointing the leaders, giving ongoing fatherly care to leaders, and handling difficult questions that may arise from those churches. There are really only three ways for churches to carry out these functions: 1. Each church is free to act totally independently and to seek God’s mind for its own government and pastoral wisdom, without any help from outside, unless the church may choose to seek it at any particular time. When we started the church which I am still a part of, for example, we were so concerned to be ‘independent’ that we would not even join the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, although we adopted their trust deed and constitution because that would prevent us being purely independent. We were at that time very proud of our ‘independence’! 2. Churches operate under some sort of structured and formal oversight, as in many denominations today, where local church leaders are appointed by and accountable to regional leadership, whether ‘bishops’, ‘superintendents’ or ‘overseers’. It is hard to justify this model from the pages of the New Testament, though we recognize that it developed very early in church history. Even the word episkopos, translated ‘bishop’ or ‘overseer’, which came to be used of those having wider authority and oversight over other leaders and churches, was used in the New Testament as a synonym for the local leaders or elders of a particular church. The three main forms of church government current in the institutional church are Episcopalianism (government by bishops), Presbyterianism (government by local elders) and Congregationalism (government by the church meeting). Each of these is only a partial reflection of the New Testament. Commenting on these forms of government without apostolic ministry, Phil Greenslade says, ‘We assert as our starting point what the other three viewpoints deny: that the apostolic role is as valid and vital today as ever before. This is to agree with the German charismatic theologian, Arnold Bittlinger, when he says “the New Testament nowhere suggests that the apostolic ministry was intended only for first-century Christians”.’39 3. We aim to imitate the New Testament practice of travelling ministries of apostles and prophets, with apostles having their own spheres of responsibility as a result of having planted and laid the foundations in the churches they oversee. Such ministries continue the connection with local churches as a result of fatherly relationships and not denominational election or appointment, recognizing that there will need to be new charismatically gifted and friendship-based relationships continuing into later generations. This is the model that the ‘New Apostolic Reformation’ (to use Peter Wagner’s phrase) is attempting to follow. Though mistakes have been made, including some quite serious ones involving controlling authority, and though those of us involved are still seeking to find our way with the Holy Spirit’s help, it seems to reflect more accurately the New Testament pattern and a present-day outworking of scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. ‘Is the building finished? Is the Bride ready? Is the Body full-grown, are the saints completely equipped? Has the church attained its ordained unity and maturity? Only if the answer to these questions is “yes” can we dispense with apostolic ministry. But as long as the church is still growing up into Christ, who is its head, this ministry is needed. If the church of Jesus Christ is to grow faster than the twentieth century population explosion, which I assume to be God’s intention, then we will need to produce, recognize and use Pauline apostles.’40

16Then he told them a story: “A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. 17He said to himself, ‘What should I do? I don’t have room for all my crops.’ 18Then he said, ‘I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods. 19And I’ll sit back and say to myself, “My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!”’ 20“But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’ 21“Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.” Teaching about Money and Possessions 22Then, turning to his disciples, Jesus said, “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear. 23For life is more than food, and your body more than clothing. 24Look at the ravens. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than any birds! 25Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? 26And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things? adopt God’s values 27“Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 28And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? 29“And don’t be concerned about what to eat and what to drink. Don’t worry about such things. 30These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers all over the world, but your Father already knows your needs. 31Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need. 32“So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom. 33“Sell your possessions and give to those in need. This will store up treasure for you in heaven! And the purses of heaven never get old or develop holes. Your treasure will be safe; no thief can steal it and no moth can destroy it. 34Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.