“
Britt's frequent romances always took off like rockets propelled by promise and power and star-crossed destiny. Then, a few months in, they all fizzled like a Tesla fifty miles from the nearest charging station.
”
”
Becky Wade (True to You (A Bradford Sisters Romance, #1))
“
Fresh from a costume fitting, where I had been posing in front of the mirror assuming what I thought was a strong position - arms folded, butch-looking...you know - I met with the woman in charge of Holloway police station. She gave me the most invaluable advice: never let them see you cry, and never cross your arms. When I asked why, she said 'because it is a defensive action and therefore weak.
”
”
Helen Mirren
“
The last image I had of her was her sitting on the platform at Thorpe as a group of people stared at this distressed, weeping woman, and then her charging towards the glass of my window seat as the train pulled out of the station. I had gasped, thinking she meant to throw herself under the wheels, but no, she had simply wanted to attack me, that was all. If she had got her hands on me, she might have killed me. And I might have let her.
”
”
John Boyne (The Absolutist)
“
Fail not in this charge at your peril.
”
”
David Weber (On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington, #1))
“
That afternoon the sky was scattered with black clouds galloping in from the sea and clustering over the city. Flashes of lightening echoed on the horizon and a charged warm wind smelling of dust announced a powerful summer storm. When I reached the station I noticed the first few drops, shiny and heavy, like coins falling from heaven...Night seemed to fall suddenly, interrupted only by the lightning now bursting over the city, leaving a trail of noise and fury.
”
”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón (The Angel's Game (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #2))
“
I remember once I asked Wayne for the time," Miller told Mercer. "He started talking to me about the cosmos and how time is relative." Miller and [Wayne] Shorter were waiting somewhere -- an airport, a train station, a hotel. The band's keyboardist, Joe Zawinul, who took charge of such matters as what the road crew was supposed to do and when, set Miller straight. "You don't ask Wayne shit like that," he snapped. "It's 7:06 p.m." [p.1]
”
”
Ben Ratliff (The Jazz Ear: Conversations Over Music)
“
This space station [Yang Liwei] was little more than a giant Orbital Denial Station. If those charges were to detonate, the debris...any future space launch would be grounded for years. It was a "Scorched Space" policy. "If we can't have it, neither can anyone else.
”
”
Max Brooks
“
Holding a Pekin duckling is like hand cuddling a ball of sunshine. It's a power-charging station for the heart.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Powdered Saxophone Music)
“
If you wouldn’t mind coming with us, sir? I am arresting you now and will shortly make a formal charge at the station.’ I was so happy, so blissfully, radiantly, wildly happy that if I could have sung I would have sung. If I could have danced I would have danced. I was free. At last I was free. I was going on a journey now where every decision would be taken for me, every thought would be thought for me and every day planned for me. I was going back to school.
”
”
Stephen Fry (Moab Is My Washpot)
“
She took my papers, the papers that had followed me from the Khobar police station to jail, and pointed at a place where I was supposed to sign. On the paper there was a line for charges. In the blank space, someone had written “driving while female.
”
”
Manal Al-Sharif (Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening)
“
If the 8th Pennsylvania had not made its costly charge, the pickets might not have fired on Jackson.
”
”
Eric J. Wittenberg (The Union Cavalry Comes of Age: Hartwood Church to Brandy Station, 1863)
“
In the autumn of 1946 the leaves were falling in Germany for the third time since Churchill’s famous speech about the falling of leaves. It was a gloomy season with rain, cold – and hunger, especially in the Ruhr and generally throughout the rest of the old Third Reich. All autumn, trains arrived in the Western Zones with refugees from the Eastern Zone. Ragged, starving and unwelcome, they crowded in dark, stinking station-bunkers or in the giant windowless bunkers that look like rectangular gasometers, looming like huge monuments to defeat in Germany’s collapsed cities. The silence and passive submission of these apparently insignificant people gave a sense of dark bitterness to that German autumn. They became significant just because they came and never stopped coming and because they came in such numbers. They became significant perhaps not in spite of their silence but because of it, for nothing can be expressed with such a charge of menace as that which is not expressed.
”
”
Stig Dagerman (German Autumn (Quartet Encounters))
“
Nisker wasn’t really in the mood for an LSD trip. After all, he was in a car and heading toward the Oakland–San Francisco Bay Bridge. Then Scoop started thinking to himself. Well, the guy is the “high priest of LSD.” What else can I do? When else am I going to get a chance like this? So, Nisker dropped the acid. By the time they got to the radio station Scoop was so stoned he couldn’t put two words together. But Leary sat down behind the microphone and just let out all this beautiful, flowing prose. He was his usual glib, funny self. Nisker was melting into the floor, mumbling to himself. But there was Leary, totally in charge of himself—so charismatic, so facile. What a performance!
”
”
Don Lattin (The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America)
“
Where, indeed? Captain Vincent Reed had been born in the city of Richmond, Virginia, of northern parents who were stationed there by the telegraph company. He had attended West Point and he thought he knew something about warfare, having served under General Pope in his long and futile struggle against General Stonewall Jackson. Those men were fighters who would face the enemy till the last bullet was fired, but neither would participate in such a slaughter.
Reed had had his troops in position. He was quite prepared to rush in for the kill, and he had positioned himself so that he would be in the vanguard when his men made their charge against the guns of the young braves threatening the left flank. But when he saw that the enemy had no weapons, that even their bows and arrows were not at hand, and that he was supposed to chop down little girls and old women, he rebelled on the spot, taking counsel with no one but his own conscience.
”
”
James A. Michener (Centennial)
“
Lots of nights I would go to bed early, too. Sometimes sleep gets to be a serious and complete thing. You stop going to sleep in order that you may be able to get up, but get up in order that you may be able to go back to sleep. You get so during the day you catch yourself suddenly standing still and waiting and listening. You are like a little boy at the railroad station, ready to go away on the train, which hasn't come yet. You look way up the track, but can't see the little patch of black smoke yet. You fidget around, but all at once you stop in the middle of your fidgeting, and listen. You can't hear it yet. Then you go and kneel down in your Sunday clothes in the cinders, for which your mother is going to snatch you bald-headed, and put your ear to the rail and listen for the first soundless rustle which will come in the rail long before the little black patch begins to grow on the sky. You get so you listen for night, long before it comes over the horizon, and long, long before it comes charging and stewing and thundering to you like a big black locomotive and the black cars grind to a momentary stop and the porter with the black, shining face helps you up the steps, and says, "Yassuh, little boss, yassuh.
”
”
Robert Penn Warren (All The King's Men)
“
Matthew XV:30”
The first bridge, Constitution Station. At my feet
the shunting trains trace iron labyrinths.
Steam hisses up and up into the night,
which becomes at a stroke the night of the Last Judgment.
From the unseen horizon
and from the very center of my being,
an infinite voice pronounced these things—
things, not words. This is my feeble translation,
time-bound, of what was a single limitless Word:
“Stars, bread, libraries of East and West,
playing-cards, chessboards, galleries, skylights, cellars,
a human body to walk with on the earth,
fingernails, growing at nighttime and in death,
shadows for forgetting, mirrors busily multiplying,
cascades in music, gentlest of all time's shapes.
Borders of Brazil, Uruguay, horses and mornings,
a bronze weight, a copy of the Grettir Saga,
algebra and fire, the charge at Junín in your blood,
days more crowded than Balzac, scent of the honeysuckle,
love and the imminence of love and intolerable remembering,
dreams like buried treasure, generous luck,
and memory itself, where a glance can make men dizzy—
all this was given to you, and with it
the ancient nourishment of heroes—
treachery, defeat, humiliation.
In vain have oceans been squandered on you,
in vain the sun, wonderfully seen through Whitman’s eyes.
You have used up the years and they have used up you,
and still, and still, you have not written the poem.
”
”
Jorge Luis Borges (Selected Poems)
“
Corporations go to great lengths to employ geniuses: technologists, designers, financial engineers, economists, artists even. I’ve seen it happen,’ he said. ‘But what have they done with them? They channel all that talent and creativity towards humanity’s destruction. Even when it is creative, Eva, capitalism is extractive. In search of shareholder profit, corporations have put these geniuses in charge of extracting the last morsel of value from humans and from the earth, from the minerals in its guts to the life in its oceans. And these brilliant minds have been used to cajole governments into accepting their raids on the planet’s resources by creating markets for them: markets for carbon dioxide and other pollutants – phoney markets controlled by their employers! Unlike the East India Company, the Technostructure does not need its own armies. It owns our states and their armies, because it controls what we think. The dirtier the industry, the richer and more despised, the more its captains have been able to tap into the rivers of debt-derived money to purchase influence and to blunt opposition. Previously they would buy newspapers and set up TV stations; now they employ armies of lobbyists, found think tanks, litter the Internet with their trolls and, of course, direct monumental campaign donations to the chief enablers of our species’ extinction, the politicians.
”
”
Yanis Varoufakis (Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present)
“
In his early essay on consumer behavior, Thaler described the debate about whether gas stations would be allowed to charge different prices for purchases paid with cash or on credit. The credit-card lobby pushed hard to make differential pricing illegal, but it had a fallback position: the difference, if allowed, would be labeled a cash discount, not a credit surcharge. Their psychology was sound: people will more readily forgo a discount than pay a surcharge. The two may be economically equivalent, but they are not emotionally equivalent.
”
”
Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow)
“
The subway was the great leveler—underground, the Wall Street titans stood in the shuddering car and clutched the same poles as the junior IT guys to create a totem of fists, the executive vice presidents in charge of new product marketing pressed thighs with the luckless and the dreamers, who got off at their stations when instructed by the computer’s voice and were replaced by devisers of theoretical financial instruments of unreckoned power, who vacated their seats and were replaced in turn by unemployable homunculi clutching yesterday’s tabloids. They jostled one another, competed for space below as they did above, in a minuet of ruin and triumph. In the subway, down in the dark, no citizen was more significant or more decrepit than another. All were smeared into a common average of existence, the A’s and the C’s tumbling or rising to settle into a ruthless mediocrity. No escape. This was the plane where Mark Spitz lived. They were all him. Middling talents who got by, barnacles on humanity’s hull, survivors who had not yet been extinguished. Perhaps it was only a matter of time.
”
”
Colson Whitehead (Zone One)
“
St. Leonard’s Police Station DS Siobhan Clarke (pronounced “Shiv-awn”) DI Derek Linford no friend to Rebus, disliked by Siobhan DCS Gill Templer officer in charge of St. Leonard’s DC David Hynds a new recruit DS George “Hi-Ho” Silvers officer with both eyes on approaching pension DC Grant Hood young and unpredictable officer with a crush on Siobhan DC Phyllida Hawes tough female officer, usually based at Gayfield Square DCI Bill Pryde second in command to DCS Gill Templer The Edward Marber Murder Case Edward Marber murdered Edinburgh art dealer Cynthia Bessant friend of the
”
”
Ian Rankin (Resurrection Men (Inspector Rebus, #13))
“
When the people kept leaving, the South resorted to coercion and interception worthy of the Soviet Union, which was forming at the same time across the Atlantic. Those trying to leave were rendered fugitives by definition and could not be certain they would be able to make it out. In Brookhaven, Mississippi, authorities stopped a train with fifty colored migrants on it and sidetracked it for three days. In Albany, Georgia, the police tore up the tickets of colored passengers as they stood waiting to board, dashing their hopes of escape. A minister in South Carolina, having seen his parishioners off, was arrested at the station on the charge of helping colored people get out. In Savannah, Georgia, the police arrested every colored person at the station regardless of where he or she was going. In Summit, Mississippi, authorities simply closed the ticket office and did not let northbound trains stop for the colored people waiting to get on. Instead of stemming the tide, the blockades and arrests “served to intensify the desire to leave,” wrote the sociologists Willis T. Weatherford and Charles S. Johnson, “and to provide further reasons for going.
”
”
Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration)
“
Two Leningrad women were summoned to the police station. Had they been at a party with some men? Yes. Had sexual intercourse taken place? (This had already been established with the aid of a reliable informer.) Er—yes. Right, then, which is it: did you take part in the sexual act voluntarily or against your will? If voluntarily, we shall have to regard you as prostitutes, you will hand over your passports and get out of Leningrad in forty-eight hours. If it was against your will, you must bring a charge of rape! The women were not a bit anxious to leave Leningrad! So the men got twelve years each.
”
”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books V-VII)
“
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And here is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart runaway in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone forever!
From A Railway Carriage
”
”
Rbert Louis Stevenson
“
Scotland is divided into several police regions. Rebus works for Lothian and Borders Police, whose “beat” covers Edinburgh and most points south until you reach the English border. The region’s HQ is based at Fettes Avenue in Edinburgh, and is often referred to by officers as “the Big House.” Other main police stations in the capital include St. Leonard’s (where Rebus is normally based), Leith (the port of Edinburgh), Gayfield Square and West End. The officer in charge of this region is known as the chief constable. He is served, in decreasing order of rank, by a deputy chief constable (DCC), two assistant chief constables (ACCs), and various detective chief superintendents (DCSs),
”
”
Ian Rankin (Resurrection Men (Inspector Rebus, #13))
“
While I ate a peanut butter sandwich later, I switched on the news. A microphone was shoved in Hank's face and I blinked at him in shock. He was angry—extremely so—and not just with the reporter—I could tell by his words.
"Yes, my assistant manager didn't show up for work last night. I called the police because John is always on time and never misses a shift. I am only discovering now, through you, that his body was found near the wharf an hour ago."
"The police didn't call you?" The reporter—a young woman—feigned surprise.
"No. I assume they notified John's family first. How did you learn of the murder?"
"Through ah, well, the usual channels," she stuttered. I figured she'd gotten information through a source or listened in on police communications.
"You probably shouldn't mess with Hank right now," I spoke to the television screen. Too bad the reporter couldn't hear me.
"Are you involved in your assistant manager's disappearance?" Her question proved (to me, at least) that she had very little common sense.
"My whereabouts have already been disclosed to the police, who are in charge of this investigation, no matter how much you'd prefer to believe otherwise," Hank growled. "Where were you when my assistant manager disappeared?"
"What?" she squeaked.
"I can account for my time last night. Can you?" I almost laughed as she turned a bright pink. Yes, I dropped my shield and read her. She'd been in bed with her (married) producer. The station quickly cut to commercial while I snickered.
”
”
Connie Suttle (Blood Revolution (God Wars, #3))
“
Roosevelt wouldn't interfere even when he found out that Moses was discouraging Negroes from using many of his state parks. Underlying Moses' strikingly strict policing for cleanliness in his parks was, Frances Perkins realized with "shock," deep distaste for the public that was using them. "He doesn't love the people," she was to say. "It used to shock me because he was doing all these things for the welfare of the people... He'd denounce the common people terribly. To him they were lousy, dirty people, throwing bottles all over Jones Beach. 'I'll get them! I'll teach them!' ... He loves the public, but not as people. The public is just The Public. It's a great amorphous mass to him; it needs to be bathed, it needs to be aired, it needs recreation, but not for personal reasons -- just to make it a better public." Now he began taking measures to limit use of his parks. He had restricted the use of state parks by poor and lower-middle-class families in the first place, by limiting access to the parks by rapid transit; he had vetoed the Long Island Rail Road's proposed construction of a branch spur to Jones Beach for this reason. Now he began to limit access by buses; he instructed Shapiro to build the bridges across his new parkways low -- too low for buses to pass. Bus trips therefore had to be made on local roads, making the trips discouragingly long and arduous. For Negroes, whom he considered inherently "dirty," there were further measures. Buses needed permits to enter state parks; buses chartered by Negro groups found it very difficult to obtain permits, particularly to Moses' beloved Jones Beach; most were shunted to parks many miles further out on Long Island. And even in these parks, buses carrying Negro groups were shunted to the furthest reaches of the parking areas. And Negroes were discouraged from using "white" beach areas -- the best beaches -- by a system Shapiro calls "flagging"; the handful of Negro lifeguards [...] were all stationed at distant, least developed beaches. Moses was convinced that Negroes did not like cold water; the temperature at the pool at Jones Beach was deliberately icy to keep Negroes out. When Negro civic groups from the hot New York City slums began to complain about this treatment, Roosevelt ordered an investigation and an aide confirmed that "Bob Moses is seeking to discourage large Negro parties from picnicking at Jones Beach, attempting to divert them to some other of the state parks." Roosevelt gingerly raised the matter with Moses, who denied the charge violently -- and the Governor never raised the matter again.
”
”
Robert A. Caro (The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York)
“
belligerent, bellowing partisans, the astute man with the curly blond hair and the jocular, no-discipline approach to running a team was shouting at his charges and reminding them how to break a full-court press, and before the boys put their right hands on top of Lenny’s right hand for a last Let’s go!, the thirty-four-year-old husband and father of two pointed to an exit door in the side wall of the gym and told the boys that no matter what happened in the next ten seconds, whether they won the game or lost the game, at the instant the final buzzer sounded they should all run for that door and jump into his station wagon parked at the curb because, as he put it, things are getting a little nuts in here, and he didn’t want anyone to be injured or killed in the mayhem that was sure to follow. Then the five hands and the one hand came together, Lenny barked the last Let’s go!, and Ferguson and the other starters trotted back onto the court. They
”
”
Paul Auster (4 3 2 1)
“
It was now that Rieux and his friends came to realize how exhausted they were. Indeed, the workers in the sanitary squads had given up trying to cope with their fatigue. Rieux noticed the change coming over his associates, and himself as well, and it took the form of a strange indifference to everything. Men, for instance, who hitherto had shown a keen interest in every scrap of news concerning the plague now displayed none at all. Rambert, who had been temporarily put in charge of a quarantine station—his hotel had been taken over for this purpose—could state at any moment the exact number of persons under his observation, and every detail of the procedure he had laid down for the prompt evacuation of those who suddenly developed symptoms of the disease was firmly fixed in his mind. The same was true of the statistics of the effects of anti-plague inoculations on the persons in his quarantine station. Nevertheless, he could not have told you the week’s total of plague deaths, and he could not even
”
”
Albert Camus (The Plague)
“
The essence of Roosevelt’s leadership, I soon became convinced, lay in his enterprising use of the “bully pulpit,” a phrase he himself coined to describe the national platform the presidency provides to shape public sentiment and mobilize action. Early in Roosevelt’s tenure, Lyman Abbott, editor of The Outlook, joined a small group of friends in the president’s library to offer advice and criticism on a draft of his upcoming message to Congress. “He had just finished a paragraph of a distinctly ethical character,” Abbott recalled, “when he suddenly stopped, swung round in his swivel chair, and said, ‘I suppose my critics will call that preaching, but I have got such a bully pulpit.’ ” From this bully pulpit, Roosevelt would focus the charge of a national movement to apply an ethical framework, through government action, to the untrammeled growth of modern America. Roosevelt understood from the outset that this task hinged upon the need to develop powerfully reciprocal relationships with members of the national press. He called them by their first names, invited them to meals, took questions during his midday shave, welcomed their company at day’s end while he signed correspondence, and designated, for the first time, a special room for them in the West Wing. He brought them aboard his private railroad car during his regular swings around the country. At every village station, he reached the hearts of the gathered crowds with homespun language, aphorisms, and direct moral appeals. Accompanying reporters then extended the reach of Roosevelt’s words in national publications. Such extraordinary rapport with the press did not stem from calculation alone. Long before and after he was president, Roosevelt was an author and historian. From an early age, he read as he breathed. He knew and revered writers, and his relationship with journalists was authentically collegial. In a sense, he was one of them. While exploring Roosevelt’s relationship with the press, I was especially drawn to the remarkably rich connections he developed with a team of journalists—including Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and William Allen White—all working at McClure’s magazine, the most influential contemporary progressive publication. The restless enthusiasm and manic energy of their publisher and editor, S. S. McClure, infused the magazine with “a spark of genius,” even as he suffered from periodic nervous breakdowns. “The story is the thing,” Sam McClure responded when asked to account for the methodology behind his publication. He wanted his writers to begin their research without preconceived notions, to carry their readers through their own process of discovery. As they educated themselves about the social and economic inequities rampant in the wake of teeming industrialization, so they educated the entire country. Together, these investigative journalists, who would later appropriate Roosevelt’s derogatory term “muckraker” as “a badge of honor,” produced a series of exposés that uncovered the invisible web of corruption linking politics to business. McClure’s formula—giving his writers the time and resources they needed to produce extended, intensively researched articles—was soon adopted by rival magazines, creating what many considered a golden age of journalism. Collectively, this generation of gifted writers ushered in a new mode of investigative reporting that provided the necessary conditions to make a genuine bully pulpit of the American presidency. “It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the progressive mind was characteristically a journalistic mind,” the historian Richard Hofstadter observed, “and that its characteristic contribution was that of the socially responsible reporter-reformer.
”
”
Doris Kearns Goodwin (The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism)
“
Everyone jumps to their stations and I meet Richard and Amanda at ours. We're in charge of assembling spoonfuls of sweet-potato casserole but with a Spanish twist. That was my idea, a Southern holiday meal meets a twist of southern Spain. Most of the hors d'oeuvres were prepared beforehand so we just need to get them in the oven and put on the finishing garnishes. I begin scooping sweet-potato casserole onto ceramic serving spoons while Richard garnishes them with sugared walnuts and Spanish sausage. Three months ago, most of us had never even tried Spanish cuisine, and today we're hosting a semi-Spanish-themed banquet.
We work like machines. I spoon and pass the bite to my left. Richard adds walnuts and sausage, and passes the plate. Amanda adds parsley and cleans the plate. Chili aioli would make this bomb. A sweet and savory bite. I almost walk to the spice cabinet, then stop myself.
That's not the recipe.
We make trays and trays of food; some are set forward for the students who will begin serving. These are the skewers of winter veggies and single-serve portions of herbed stuffing with jamón ibérico- the less hearty bites. While the first course is being distributed the rest of us begin wiping down our stations. Our mini bites of sweet potato and mac and cheese will be going out next.
”
”
Elizabeth Acevedo (With the Fire on High)
“
On April 1, 1865, in Virginia, Pickett was defending an intersection known as Five Forks, six miles south of the Appomattox River and a good bit closer to the Southside Railroad, the last remaining supply line to Richmond. While thirty thousand Union troops led by Little Phil Sheridan approached from the southeast, Pickett’s twelve thousand, spread two miles wide behind fences and in ditches, braced to meet them. Pickett’s supreme commander, Robert E. Lee, was headquartered ten miles away, near Petersburg. Should Pickett fall to Sheridan, Lee would be forced from Petersburg, the Federals would capture Richmond, and the Confederate cause would be lost. Someone mentioned shad. The spring spawning run was in full penetration of the continent. The fish were in the rivers. Tom Rosser, another Confederate general, had caught some, and on the morning of April 1st ordered them baked for his midday dinner, near Hatcher’s Run, several miles from Five Forks. He invited Pickett and Major General Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of Robert E. Lee, to join him. Pickett readily accepted, and rode off from his battle station with Lee. The historian Shelby Foote continues the narrative (“The Civil War,” vol. 3, p. 870): “Neither told any subordinate where he was going or why, perhaps to keep from dividing the succulent fish too many ways; with the result that when the attack exploded—damped from their hearing, as it was, by a heavy stand of pines along Hatcher’s Run—no one knew where to find them. Pickett only made it back to his division after half its members had been shot or captured, a sad last act for a man who gave his name to the most famous charge in a war whose end was hastened by his threehour absence at a shad bake.
”
”
John McPhee (The Founding Fish)
“
Having lost his mother, father, brother, an grandfather, the friends and foes of his youth, his beloved teacher Bernard Kornblum, his city, his history—his home—the usual charge leveled against comic books, that they offered merely an escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually to be a powerful argument on their behalf. He had escaped, in his life, from ropes, chains, boxes, bags and crates, from countries and regimes, from the arms of a woman who loved him, from crashed airplanes and an opiate addiction and from an entire frozen continent intent on causing his death. The escape from reality was, he felt—especially right after the war—a worthy challenge. He would remember for the rest of his life a peaceful half hour spent reading a copy of 'Betty and Veronica' that he had found in a service-station rest room: lying down with it under a fir tree, in a sun-slanting forest outside of Medford, Oregon, wholly absorbed into that primary-colored world of bad gags, heavy ink lines, Shakespearean farce, and the deep, almost Oriental mistery of the two big-toothed wasp-waisted goddess-girls, light and dark, entangled forever in the enmity of their friendship. The pain of his loss—though he would never have spoken of it in those terms—was always with him in those days, a cold smooth ball lodged in his chest, just behind his sternum. For that half hour spent in the dappled shade of the Douglas firs, reading Betty and Veronica, the icy ball had melted away without him even noticing. That was magic—not the apparent magic of a silk-hatted card-palmer, or the bold, brute trickery of the escape artist, but the genuine magic of art. It was a mark of how fucked-up and broken was the world—the reality—that had swallowed his home and his family that such a feat of escape, by no means easy to pull off, should remain so universally despised.
”
”
Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
“
As the scandal spread and gained momentum, Cardinal Law found himself on the cover of Newsweek, and the Church in crisis became grist for the echo chamber of talk radio and all-news cable stations. The image of TV reporters doing live shots from outside klieg-lit churches and rectories became a staple of the eleven o’clock news. Confidentiality deals, designed to contain the Church’s scandal and maintain privacy for embarrassed victims, began to evaporate as those who had been attacked learned that the priests who had assaulted them had been put in positions where they could attack others too. There were stories about clergy sex abuse in virtually every state in the Union. The scandal reached Ireland, Mexico, Austria, France, Chile, Australia, and Poland, the homeland of the Pope. A poll done for the Washington Post, ABC News, and Beliefnet.com showed that a growing majority of Catholics were critical of the way their Church was handling the crisis. Seven in ten called it a major problem that demanded immediate attention. Hidden for so long, the financial price of the Church’s negligence was astonishing. At least two dioceses said they had been pushed to the brink of bankruptcy after being abandoned by their insurance companies. In the past twenty years, according to some estimates, the cost to pay legal settlements to those victimized by the clergy was as much as $1.3 billion. Now the meter was running faster. Hundreds of people with fresh charges of abuse began to contact lawyers. By April 2002, Cardinal Law was under siege and in seclusion in his mansion in Boston, where he was heckled by protesters, satirized by cartoonists, lampooned by late-night comics, and marginalized by a wide majority of his congregation that simply wanted him out. In mid-April, Law secretly flew to Rome, where he discussed resigning with the Pope.
”
”
The Investigative Globe (Betrayal: The Crisis In the Catholic Church: The Findings of the Investigation That Inspired the Major Motion Picture Spotlight)
“
Every so often, the gods stop laughing long enough to do something terrible. There are few facts that are not brutal. The bitter, insufficient truth is that God recovered, but fun is dead.
Alcohol: the antidote to civilization. Alcoholism is a fatal disease. But then I am not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, because I don't want to be cured. Alcoholism is suicide with training wheels. I watch myself sinking, an inch at a time, and I spit into the eye of fate, like Doc Holliday, who died too weak to lift a playing card. My traitorous and degenerate attitude is sort of my book review of the world we live in. I resign from the human race. I declare myself null and void; folded, spindled, and mutilated.
. . .This bar is an oasis for the night people, the street people, the invisible tribe, the people who simply do not exist in the orderly world we see in Time - the weekly science fiction magazine published by the Pentagon - an orderly world which is a sanitized Emerald City populated by contented Munchkins who pay taxes to buy tanks, nerve gas, and bombers and not a world which is a bus-station toilet where the air is a chemical cocktail of cancer-causing agents, children are starving, and the daily agenda is kill or be killed.
When the world demands that you be larger than life, and you are finding it hard enough just being life-size, you can come here, in the messy hemorrhaging of reality, let your hair down, take your girdle off, and not be embarrassed by your wounds and deformities. Here among the terminally disenchanted you are graded not by the size of the car on display in your driveway but by the size of your courage in the face of nameless things.
. . .Half of these people look like they just came back from the moon, and all of them are sworn witnesses for the prosecution on the charge that Earth serves as Hell for some other planet.
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Gustav Hasford (A Gypsy Good Time)
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Longstreet reached Catoosa Station the following afternoon, September 19, but found no guide waiting to take him to Bragg or give him news of the battle he could hear raging beyond the western screen of woods. When the horses came up on a later train, he had three of them saddled and set out with two members of his staff to find the headquarters of the Army of Tennessee. He was helped in this, so far as the general direction was concerned, by the rearward drift of the wounded, although none of these unfortunates seemed to know exactly where he could find their commander. Night fell and the three officers continued their ride by moonlight until they were halted by a challenge out of the darkness just ahead: “Who comes there?” “Friends,” they replied, promptly but with circumspection, and in the course of the parley that followed they asked the sentry to identify his unit. When he did so by giving the numbers of his brigade and division—Confederate outfits were invariably known by the names of their commanders—they knew they had blundered into the Union lines. “Let us ride down a little way to find a better crossing,” Old Peter said, disguising his southern accent, and the still-mounted trio withdrew, unfired on, to continue their search for Bragg. It was barely an hour before midnight when they found him—or, rather, found his camp; for he was asleep in his ambulance by then. He turned out for a brief conference, in the course of which he outlined, rather sketchily, what had happened up to now in his contest with Rosecrans, now approaching a climax here at Chickamauga, and passed on the orders already issued to the five corps commanders for a dawn attack next morning. Longstreet, though he had never seen the field by daylight, was informed that he would have charge of the left wing, which contained six of the army’s eleven divisions, including his own two fragmentary ones that had arrived today and yesterday from Virginia. For whatever it might be worth, Bragg also gave him what he later described as “a map showing prominent topographical features of the ground from the Chickamauga River to Mission Ridge, and beyond to the Lookout Mountain range.” Otherwise he was on his own, so far as information was concerned.
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Shelby Foote (The Civil War, Vol. 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian)
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The thing I really like about Jase is that he’s as obsessed with ducks as I am. I rarely took my boys hunting with me when they were very young. In fact, I never took them when I was still an outlaw. “Not this time, boys, we might be running from the game warden,” I’d tell them. But after I repented and came to Jesus Christ, I started taking my sons hunting with me, beginning with Alan. Before we moved to where we live now, it was a pretty long haul from town to the Ouachita River bottoms. Alan got carsick nearly every time I took him hunting, but he didn’t think I knew. We stopped at the same gas station every time, and he’d walk around back and lose his breakfast before he climbed back into the truck. I was proud of him for never complaining.
I took Jase hunting for the first time when he was five. He was shooting Pa’s heavy Belgium-made Browning twelve-gauge shotgun, which he could barely even hold up. It kicked like a mule! The first time Jase shot the gun, it kicked him to the back of the blind and flipped him over a bench.
“Did I get him?” Jase asked.
I knew right then that I had another hunter in the family, and Jase is still the most skilled hunter of all my boys. I trained Jase to take over the company by teaching him the nuances of duck calls and fowl hunting, and he is still the person in charge of making sure every duck call sounds like a duck. Not only did Jase design the first gadwall drake call to hit the market, he also invented the first triple-reed duck caller. Jase and I live to hunt ducks. We track ducks during the season through a nationwide network of hunters, asking how many ducks are in their areas and what movements are expected. Then we check conditions of wind and weather fronts that might influence duck movement. We talk it all over during the day and again each morning, before the day’s hunt, as we prepare to leave for the blind.
When Kay and I began to ponder becoming less active in the Duck Commander business, we offered its management to Jase, who had been most deeply involved in the company. But he had no desire to get into management. Jase likes building duck calls and doesn’t really enjoy the business aspects of the company, like making sales calls or dealing with clients and sponsors. Like me, Jase is most comfortable when he’s in a duck blind and doesn’t care for the details that come with running a company. Jase only wants to build duck calls, shoot ducks, and spend time with his family (he and his wife, Missy, have three kids).
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Phil Robertson (Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander)
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Twas the night before Christmas and in SICU All the patients were stirring, the nurses were, too. Some Levophed hung from an IMED with care In hopes that a blood pressure soon would be there. One patient was resting all snug in his bed While visions—from Versed—danced in his head. I, in my scrubs, with flowsheet in hand, Had just settled down to chart the care plan. Then from room 17 there arose such a clatter We sprang from the station to see what was the matter. Away to the bedside we flew like a flash, Saved the man from falling, with restraints from the stash. “Do you know where you are?” one nurse asked while tying; “Of course! I’m in France in a jail, and I’m dying!” Then what to my wondering eyes should appear? But a heart rate of 50, the alarm in my ear. The patient’s face paled, his skin became slick And he said in a moment, “I’m going to be sick!” Someone found the Inapsine and injected a port, Then ran for a basin, as if it were sport. His heart rhythm quieted back to a sinus, We soothed him and calmed him with old-fashioned kindness. And then in a twinkling we hear from room 11 First a plea for assistance, then a swearing to heaven. As I drew in my breath and was turning around, Through the unit I hurried to respond to the sound. “This one’s having chest pain,” the nurse said and then She gave her some nitro, then morphine and when She showed not relief from IV analgesia Her breathing was failing: time to call anesthesia. “Page Dr. Wilson, or May, or Banoub! Get Dr. Epperson! She ought to be tubed!” While the unit clerk paged them, the monitor showed V-tach and low pressure with no pulse: “Call a code!” More rapid than eagles, the code team they came. The leader took charge and he called drugs by name: “Now epi! Now lido! Some bicarb and mag! You shock and you chart it! You push med! You bag!” And so to the crash cart, the nurses we flew With a handful of meds, and some dopamine, too! From the head of the bed, the doc gave his call: “Resume CPR!” So we worked one and all. Then Doc said no more, but went straight to his work, Intubated the patient, then turned with a jerk. While placing his fingers aside of her nose, And giving a nod, hooked the vent to the hose. The team placed an art-line and a right triple-lumen. And when they were through, she scarcely looked human: When the patient was stable, the doc gave a whistle. A progress note added as he wrote his epistle. But I heard him exclaim ere he strode out of sight, “Merry Christmas to all! But no more codes for tonight!” Jamie L. Beeley Submitted by Nell Britton
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Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul: Stories to Celebrate, Honor and Inspire the Nursing Profession)
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I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other’s embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vice to his adversary’s front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was “Conquer or die.” In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar—for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red—he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right fore leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.
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Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
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I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vice to his adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was "Conquer or die." In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar—for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red—he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right fore leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment's comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots' side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick—"Fire! for God's sake fire!"—and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.
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Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
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The code of the National Association of Broadcasters enunciates as a cardinal principle in American radio the provision of time by stations, without charge, for the presentation of public questions of a controversial nature. At the same time, it advises against the sale of time for the presentation of controversial issues except in the case of political broadcasts during political campaigns. The basic foundation for the prohibition against the sale of time for the presentation of controversial issues is the public duty of broadcasters to present such issues, regardless of the willingness of others to pay for their presentation. If time were sold for that purpose, it would have to be sold to all with the ability to pay, and as a result the advantage in any discussion would rest largely with those having the greater financial means to buy broadcasting time.
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Judith C. Waller (Radio: The Fifth Estate)
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Technology Review (Technology Review) - La tua evidenziazione alla posizione 1463-1464 | Aggiunto in data mercoledì 23 Luglio 2014 13:04:22 A SigFox base station can serve a radius of tens of kilometers in the countryside and five kilometers in urban areas. To connect to the network, a device will need a $1 or $2 wireless chip that’s compatible, and customers will pay about $1 in service charges per year per device. ==========
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Anonymous
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In 2012, NASA signed a contract with SpaceX to put Dragon solely in charge of refueling the international space station, as well as delivering the astronauts supplies from the surface.
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Andrew Knight (Elon Musk: Elon Musk’s Best Lessons for Life, Business, Success and Entrepreneurship)
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LIST OF CHARACTERS THE EUROPEANS Andrzej Kristalovich (Andrzej Krzysztalowicz): /Ahn-jay Kshee-stal-o-veech/ Director of Poland’s national stud farm. Rudolf Lessing: German army veterinarian stationed at the Hostau stud farm in Czechoslovakia. Alois Podhajsky: /Ah-loys Pod-hey-skee/ Austrian director of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. Gustav Rau: German horse expert. Chief equerry in charge of all horse breeding in the Third Reich. Hubert Rudofsky: Czech-born ethnic German. Director of the stud farm in Hostau, Czechoslovakia. Jan Ziniewicz:
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Elizabeth Letts (The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis)
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Sweden’s capital is an expansive and peaceful place for solo travellers. It is made up of 14 islands, connected by 50 bridges all within Lake Mälaren which flows out into to the Baltic Sea. Several main districts encompass islands and are connected by Stockholm’s bridges. Norrmalm is the main business area and includes the train station, hotels, theatres and shopping. Őstermalm is more upmarket and has wide spaces that includes forest. Kungsholmen is a relaxed neighbourhood on an island on the west of the city. It has a good natural beach and is popular with bathers. In addition to the city of 14 islands, the Stockholm Archipelago is made up of 24,000 islands spread through with small towns, old forts and an occasional resort. Ekero, to the east of the city, is the only Swedish area to have two UNESCO World Heritage sites – the royal palace of Drottningholm, and the Viking village of Birka. Stockholm probably grew from origins as a place of safety – with so many islands it allowed early people to isolate themselves from invaders. The earliest fort on any of the islands stretches back to the 13th century. Today the city has architecture dating from that time. In addition, it didn’t suffer the bombing raids that beset other European cities, and much of the old architecture is untouched. Getting around the city is relatively easy by metro and bus. There are also pay‐as‐you‐go Stockholm City Bikes. The metro and buses travel out to most of the islands, but there are also hop on, hop off boat tours. It is well worth taking a trip through the broad and spacious archipelago, which stretches 80 kms out from the city. Please note that taxis are expensive and, to make matters worse, the taxi industry has been deregulated leading to visitors unwittingly paying extortionate rates. A yellow sticker on the back window of each car will tell you the maximum price that the driver will charge therefore, if you have a choice of taxis, choose
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Dee Maldon (The Solo Travel Guide: Just Do It)
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Then, in 1942, a disastrous strike against the record companies disrupted the industry and upset the delicate balance of business. Though it hit directly at record producers, the real target was radio. James C. Petrillo, president of the American Federation of Musicians, was alarmed at the rapid proliferation of disc jockeys. He objected to the free use of recorded music on the air, charging that jocks had cost musicians their jobs at hundreds of radio stations. Petrillo wanted to impose fees at the source, the big companies like RCA and Columbia, where the records were produced. The final agreement, which was not accepted by the two biggest companies until 1944, created a union-supervised fund for indigent and aging musicians
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John Dunning (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio)
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Out-of-town supermarkets usually have the lowest prices, while the highest prices are charged by motorway service stations.
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Rough Guides (The Rough Guide to England (Rough Guide to...))
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In New York, thirteen Black Panthers were unanimously acquitted on charges of conspiring to bomb department stores and police stations and murder cops in what history has come to call the Panther 21 Trial. One of those thirteen was an eight-months-pregnant woman born Alice Faye Williams, known now as Afeni Shakur. She decided to represent herself throughout the trial after reading Fidel Castro’s History Will Absolve Me, and as a three-hundred-year prison sentence hung over her head, Shakur spent eleven months in prison before being acquitted.
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Justin Tinsley (It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him)
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O disobedient ones, do not despair of the mercy of Allah (mighty and glorified is He)! Never lose hope of Allah’s (mighty and glorified is He) clemency. O you who are dead at heart, keep on remembering your Lord (mighty and glorified is He), reciting His Book and the traditions of His Messenger (Allah’s prayer and peace be on him), and attending sessions of remembrance. This will quicken your hearts like the earth is revived by the falling rain. When the heart makes remembering Allah (mighty and glorified is He) common practice, it will earn knowingness, Knowledge, belief in the oneness of God, and trust in Him, and it will turn away from anything other than Him. Continued remembrance of Allah is a means for the continuation of good in this world and the hereafter. As long as you are given to this world and to the creatures, you will continue to be sensitive to both praise and dispraise, because you are living through your lower self, passion, and natural inclination. When your heart attains to your Lord (mighty and glorified is He) and He takes charge of you, your sensitivity to praise and dispraise will go away, thus you will be relieved of a heavy burden. If you work for this world while relying on your might and strength, you will lose, be torn apart, tire, and be dissatisfied. Similarly, if you work for the hereafter with your strength you will be cut off. If you work for the True One (mighty and glorified is He), open the door to livelihood by the hand of His strength and trust in Him and open the door of the works of obedience by the hand of His guidance. Once you have attained to the spiritual station of seeking Him, ask Him for strength as well as truthfulness in asking for strength and help from Him. Place the feet of your heart and your innermost being firmly in His presence and give up all preoccupations with this world and the hereafter.
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Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (Purification of the Mind Jila' Al-Khatir)
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Chief Engineer Abbott was accused of:
1. Failure to assign members of his department to proper posts during the fire. 2. Failure to report to his own station in the engine room and consequently giving no instructions to his men. 3. Failure to hold proper fire drills. “Abbott had charge of the water pressure, and knew it to be inadequate,” the indictment asserted, “but did nothing to increase it. He also was responsible for the ship’s lighting and generators, and did nothing when they failed.” The chief engineer’s decision to abandon ship was also attacked: “He did not report at his lifeboat station; he failed to direct passengers to the boats; as a matter of fact he left the vessel in lifeboat one, and when he got in the lifeboat made no effort to rescue anyone else.
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Gordon Thomas (Shipwreck: The Strange Fate of the Morro Castle)
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Chinese leaders plan to shift support for EVs by encouraging the installation of charging stations. According to the China EV Charging Infrastructure Promotion Association, China already had 1.174 million charging stations at the end of 2019, operated by eight new Chinese charging companies.19 China also has battery-swapping stations, where drivers can replace discharged batteries on certain brands of cars.
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Amy Myers Jaffe (Energy's Digital Future: Harnessing Innovation for American Resilience and National Security (Center on Global Energy Policy Series))
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Do you have a charging station or something?” she asks incredulously.
I don’t understand, so I ignore her, but she adds, “Since you’re clearly a robot or something.”
“Don’t make me add another clause to the contract that says you can’t call me a robot.
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Kia Carrington-Russell (Deranged Vows (Lethal Vows #4))
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For Elon Musk, this spectacle has turned into a familiar experience. SpaceX has metamorphosed from the joke of the aeronautics industry into one of its most consistent operators. SpaceX sends a rocket up about once a month, carrying satellites for companies and nations and supplies to the International Space Station. Where the Falcon 1 blasting off from Kwajalein was the work of a start-up, the Falcon 9 taking off from Vandenberg is the work of an aerospace superpower. SpaceX can undercut its U.S. competitors—Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital Sciences—on price by a ridiculous margin. It also offers U.S. customers a peace of mind that its rivals can’t. Where these competitors rely on Russian and other foreign suppliers, SpaceX makes all of its machines from scratch in the United States. Because of its low costs, SpaceX has once again made the United States a player in the worldwide commercial launch market. Its $60 million per launch cost is much less than what Europe and Japan charge and trumps even the relative bargains offered by the Russians and Chinese, who have the added benefit of decades of sunk government investment into their space programs as well as cheap labor. The
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Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future)
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Why should going into a firefight, charging into an enemy station filled with people and automatic systems built to kill you, seem less frightening than talking to people who you shipped with for weeks?
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James S.A. Corey (Leviathan Wakes (Expanse, #1))
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A Model S can recharge 150 miles of range in 20 minutes at one of Tesla’s charging stations with DC power pumping straight into the batteries. By comparison, a Nissan Leaf that maxes out at 80 miles of range can take 8 hours to recharge.
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Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: Inventing the Future)
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Finally, the self-operating machine, detached from detailed human supervision if not ultimate control, was implicit in the abstract model of the megamachine. What was once done clumsily, with imperfect human substitutes, always necessarily on a large scale, paved the way for mechanical operations that can now be managed adroitly on a small scale: an automatic hydraulic electric power station can transmit the energy of a hundred thousand horses. Plainly many of the mechanical triumphs of our own age were already latent in the earliest megamachines, and what is more, the gains were fully anticipated in fantasy. But before we become unduly inflated over our own technical progress, let us remember that a single thermonuclear weapon can now easily kill ten million people, and that the minds now in charge of these weapons have already proved as open to practical miscalculations, humanly distorted judgments, corrupt fantasies, and psychotic breakdowns as those of Bronze Age kings.
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Lewis Mumford (Technics and Human Development (The Myth of the Machine, Vol 1))
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Telekom Austria has converted hundreds of disused phone booths in Vienna into electric-car-charging stations where drivers can pay for fuel with a text message.
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Richard Dobbs (No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends)
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I did not move. I kept my hands to the sides where they could clearly see them. I had little idea what was happening here, but this was no time for sudden moves. I kept my eyes on Berleand’s. He approached our table, looked down at Terese, and said to both of us, “Will you please come with us?” “What’s this about?” I asked. “We can talk about that at the station.” “Are we under arrest?” I asked. “No.” “Then we’re not going anywhere until we know what this is about.” Berleand smiled. He looked at Lefebvre. Lefebvre smiled through the toothpick. I said, “What?” “Do you think this is America, Mr. Bolitar?” “No, but I think this is a modern democracy with certain inalienable rights. Or am I wrong?” “We don’t have Miranda rights in France. We don’t have to charge you to take you in. In fact, I can hold you both for forty-eight hours on little more than a whim.” Berleand got closer to me, pushed up the glasses again, wiped his hands on the sides of his pants. “Now again I ask: Will you please come with us?” “Love to,” I said.
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Harlan Coben (Long Lost (Myron Bolitar, #9))
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One of the optional subjects that we could study at Eton was motor mechanics, roughly translated as “find an old banger, pimp it up, remove the exhaust, and rag it around the fields until it dies.”
Perfect.
I found an exhausted-looking, old brown Ford Cortina station wagon that I bought for thirty pounds, and, with some friends, we geared it up big-time.
As we were only sixteen we weren’t allowed to take it on the road, but I reckoned with my seventeenth birthday looming that it would be perfect as my first, road-legal car. The only problem was that I needed to have it pass inspection, and to do that I had to get it to a garage. This involved having an adult drive with me.
I persuaded Mr. Quibell that there was no better way that he could possibly spend a Saturday afternoon than drive me to a repair garage (in his beloved Slough). I had managed to take a lucky diving catch for the house cricket team the day before, so was in Mr. Quibell’s good books--and he relented.
As soon as we got to the outskirts of Slough, though, the engine started to smoke--big-time. Soon, Mr. Quibell had to have the windshield wipers on full power, acting as a fan just to clear the smoke that was pouring out of the hood.
By the time we made it to the garage the engine was red-hot and it came as no surprise that my car failed its inspection--on more counts than any car the garage had seen for a long time, they told me.
It was back to the drawing board, but it was a great example of what a good father figure Mr. Quibell was to all those in his charge--especially to those boys who really tried, in whatever field it was. And I have always been, above all, a trier.
I haven’t always succeeded, and I haven’t always had the most talent, but I have always given of myself with great enthusiasm--and that counts for a lot. In fact my dad had always told me that if I could be the most enthusiastic person I knew then I would do well.
I never forgot that. And he was right.
I mean, who doesn’t like to work with enthusiastic folk?
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Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
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Be this as it may, I make a rule of entering a monkey as speedily as possible after hoisting my pendant; and if a reform takes place in the table of ratings, I would recommend a corner for the "ship's monkey," which should be borne on the books for "full allowance of victuals," excepting only the grog; for I have observed that a small quantity of tipple very soon upsets him; and although there are few things in nature more ridiculous than a monkey half-seas over, yet the reasons against permitting such pranks are obvious and numerous. When Lord Melville, then First Lord of the Admiralty, to my great surprise and delight, put into my hands a commission for a ship going to the South American station, a quarter of the world I had long desired to visit, my first thought was, "Where now shall I manage to find a merry rascal of a monkey?" Of course, I did not give audible expression to this thought in the First Lord's room; but, on coming down-stairs, I had a talk about it in the hall with my friend, the late Mr. Nutland, the porter, who laughed, and said,— "Why, sir, you may buy a wilderness of monkeys at Exeter 'Change." "True! true!" and off I hurried in a Hackney coach. Mr. Cross, not only agreed to spare me one of his choicest and funniest animals, but readily offered his help to convey him to the ship. "Lord, sir!" said he, "there is not an animal in the whole world so wild or fierce that we can't carry about as innocent as a lamb; only trust to me, sir, and your monkey shall be delivered on board your ship in Portsmouth Harbour as safely as if he were your best chronometer going down by mail in charge of the master.
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Basil Hall (The Lieutenant and Commander Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from Fragments of Voyages and Travels)
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He remembered Captain Lord’s warning, spoken so many times: Never underestimate Sir Graham. One of these days, he’d remember there was more than just charm and good looks to the man in charge of the Royal Navy’s West Indies Station. And so, he predicted, would the Pirate Queen.
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Danelle Harmon (My Lady Pirate (Heroes of the Sea #3))
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We had no clue as to getting on the train and had our first experience with the station Zugmeister (Train Master). This guy had enough gold braid on his hat to be a Field Marshal and there was no doubt that he was in charge.
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W.R. Spicer (Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 3 ON HER MAJESTY'S SERVICE)
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Covering the landscape with chargers is crucial as Tesla prepares for the U.S. release this summer of the Model X, a much-delayed SUV. The Palo Alto-based company has said it will deliver 55,000 vehicles globally this year, up 74 percent from 2014. Charging stations are a big issue in China, where Tesla must overcome the perception that charging is inconvenient. Destination Charging will expand to Europe this spring.
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Anonymous
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which is not bad considering we're leaving the same day." Smith charged off in the direction of the station's parking deck without so much
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Scott E. Baughman (Rule of Thumb (Balance of Power #1))
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Early morning mist ghosted along the Orm, trailing above the water, rising and twisting. Wide and sleek and almost silent, the river curled through the valley, curved almost to the doors of the stone-terraced cottages sunk tight in the moorland.
As soon as he was beyond sight of the mill gates, Manny ran, his step lighter, his boots crunching against the highway. The village was quiet now, and he could hear the faint cries of sheep on the hillside. He felt suddenly exultant at having acted decisively, felt the thrill of running away. Then he reasoned with himself that he wasn’t so much running away as running to something else—something better—running away to take charge of his future. He was improving his station in life, looking for work of his choosing.
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S.J. Wilkins (Hope)
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Because of Musk, Americans could wake up in ten years with the most modern highway in the world: a transit system run by thousands of solar-powered charging stations and traversed by electric cars. By that time, SpaceX may well be sending up rockets every day, taking people and things to dozens of habitats and making preparations for longer treks to Mars. These advances are simultaneously difficult to fathom and
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Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: Inventing the Future)
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At the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), we have worked with our international affiliate in Pakistan to combat the egregious international crimes that spring from this and other bigoted and intolerant cultures. One of our more high-profile cases revolves around Parwasha, an eight-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan whom Muslim men attacked in the public streets. Why? Because of the honor and shame culture. Here’s what happened. Parwasha’s maternal uncle, Iftikhar Masih, was visiting his Muslim girlfriend, Samina, late one night at her home. Interreligious romantic relationships are not accepted in Pakistan, largely due to the Muslim faith and the surrounding culture impacted by being predominantly Muslim. Therefore the girlfriend’s Muslim family was furious. Parwasha’s uncle admitted to the relationship and explained that he was invited over. But this did nothing to assuage the dishonor felt by Samina’s family, who called the village elders’ council. The family lied, telling the council that Iftikhar had robbed their house the night before and stolen a lot of money. Iftikhar told the council the true story. But the Muslim family decided that their honor had been besmirched. In their minds, the only way to correct this would be by humiliating a woman in the Christian family. So when young Parwasha was walking home from school the next day, they kidnapped her, stripped her naked, beat her, and left her in the streets. When Parwasha’s family sought help from the village elders (who were Muslim), they didn’t respond. When Parwasha’s grandfather went to the police station to file charges, he discovered that the Muslim family had already filed trumped-up charges against his family, charging them with assaulting and shaming Samina. The local police arrested members of Parwasha’s family and detained them until the village elders’ council could work everything out between the Muslim and Christian families. The council determined that the Christian family would have to sell its property and leave the area within thirty days. This is a common punishment doled out to non-Muslim families who are targeted by Muslims angry at them for any given reason.
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Jay Sekulow (Unholy Alliance: The Agenda Iran, Russia, and Jihadists Share for Conquering the World)
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time to see the Camry turn right at the red light, passing the old, darkened gas station again. He pulled up to the lights and watched the blue car slowly continue on. When the light turned green, he crossed the intersection and headed for his townhouse. He kept his eyes on his rear view mirror, but no one followed him. They’re feds. It’s me they’re watching. Time for Plan B... * * * * * Chapter 56 Avram was organized. All the important records were at his townhouse in one place: the den. He sat in his desk chair and fed them into the cross-cut shredder, a few at a time. He’d planned carefully for this, for years. The Feds would try to charge him, in absentia, with money laundering. Well, he wasn’t going to make it easy for them. Fortunately, Silvio Tambini had more places to wash his money
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Lee Hanson (Castle Cay (Julie O'Hara Mystery #1))
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Electricity has just two disadvantages: it is difficult to store cheaply, and it can be transmitted easily only on high-voltage lines, above the ground and visible. Automotive lead-acid storage batteries are as cheap as mass production and the cost of materials will allow, yet their cost for storing an hour's worth of energy coming off the power line is over two thousand times as much as the utility company charges for that energy. Multiple recharges can't even come close to bringing that factor down below about three. There is a radically different type of battery, using liquid sodium and liquid sulfur as electrodes and solid sodium aluminate as an electrolyte (yes, I said that the right way round) that is now getting substantial research. Theoretically, it could store as much as seven times the energy per pound of a lead-acid battery. Sodium-sulfur batteries have to be heated above normal outside air temperatures - a disadvantage that will probably make them unusable in vehicles - but they could find use in central power stations to supply peak loads.
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Gerard K. O'Neill (2081)
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Bloody hell,” Hanson said, but McGarvey jammed the muzzle of the big silencer hard against the base of the man’s head, and they headed slowly to where the corridor turned right. At the corner, McGarvey suddenly shoved Hanson away and stepped to one side as Sandberger’s other bodyguard stationed at the elevator realized that something unexpected was happening, and he grabbed for his pistol. McGarvey fired two shots, both hitting Alphonse in the head, knocking him backward against the wall where he collapsed to the floor, leaving a bloody streak as he fell. Hanson spun on his heel and started to charge, when McGarvey turned and pointed the gun at the man’s head, and the contractor pulled up short. “Lie to me again and you’re dead.” “You’re going to kill me anyway,” Hanson said
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David Hagberg (The Cabal (Kirk McGarvey, #14))
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About how far do you expect your car will go with one charging of the battery?” “Well, if I can make it do three hundred miles I’ll be satisfied, but I’m going to try for four hundred.” “What will you do when your battery runs out?” “Recharge it.” “Suppose you’re not near a charging station?” “Well, Dad, of course those are some of the details I’ve got to work out. I’m planning a register gauge now, that will give warning about fifty miles before the battery is run down. That will leave me a margin to work on. And I’m going to have it fixed so I can take current from any trolley line, as well as from a regular charging station. My battery will be capable of being recharged very quickly, or, in case of need, I can take out the old cells and put in new ones.
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Victor Appleton (Tom Swift #5: Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout: The Speediest Car on the Road)
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In the case of Lalita Kumari, it is mandated that the officer in charge/SHO of the Police Station is bound to register F.I.R. and initiate investigation when information regarding commission of cognizable offence is received.
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Abhilash Malhotra (Investigation To Trial : The Book for a Common Man: Criminal Law)
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Sec. 156. Police officer’s power to investigate cognizable case.—(1) Any officer in charge of a police station may, without the order of a Magistrate, investigate any cognizable case which a Court having jurisdiction over the local area within the limits of such station would have power to inquire into or try under the provisions of Chapter XIII. (2) No proceeding of a police officer in any such case shall at any stage be called in question on the ground that the case was one which such officer was not empowered under this section to investigate.
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Abhilash Malhotra (Investigation To Trial : The Book for a Common Man: Criminal Law)
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Marj was one step ahead of him. Before he sank into depression over the situation, she reminded him he was an army veteran and, as such, he could get treatment at any army hospital free of charge. There was a large military hospital at the United States base in Panama, and Marj had already made arrangements for Nate to be flown there. The U.S. military had a cargo plane stationed in Quito that would ferry Nate to the hospital in Panama for treatment. Because Marj’s pregnancy was too far advanced for her to travel, she would stay in Quito and have the baby. With a cast covering half his body, Nate looked like a mummy as he was carried on a stretcher to the military transport plane. As he crossed the tarmac to the plane, he caught a glimpse of the yellow Stinson, which lay in a crumpled heap in front of a hangar where it had been dragged. The fuselage was broken in half, and the engine and landing gear had been ripped right off the plane. As he looked at the wreckage, Nate knew it was a blessing that he was alive. On the flight to Panama, Nate had to stay lying on his back on the stretcher, since his cast didn’t bend at the waist. He passed the time counting the number of rivets in the bulkhead.
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Janet Benge (Nate Saint: On a Wing and a Prayer (Christian Heroes: Then & Now))
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A brave Syrian woman leading the foreign opposition, well respected by many of the fighting groups on the ground. A constant thorn in Assad’s side. Mariam put down the file as her boss, the political counselor to the President, Bouthaina Najjar, ended her phone call. Bouthaina had placed Mariam in charge of the negotiations with foreign-based oppositionists, namely the National Council, the umbrella group claiming to represent the fighters on the ground. Mariam’s goal was simple: persuade them to renounce the Islamist fighters now leading the civil war, denounce their fellow exiles, then come home, where safety and pardon would be granted in exchange for silence. It was Mariam’s most important assignment yet, and it promised to be a stepping-stone to greater things. Bouthaina joined Mariam at the table, opened her own file on Fatimah, and, as she always did when concentrating, began nibbling on her Gucci eyeglasses. “So, Mariam, what do you think about Fatimah? What angle should we take in Paris?
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David McCloskey (Damascus Station)
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The idea of art being lent to a thief seems preposterous, but was brilliantly argued by the British barrister Jeremy Hutchinson, following the 1961 theft of Goya’s Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. The fifty-seven-year-old thief, Kempton Bunton, kept the work in his apartment for four years, then deposited the painting at a checked-luggage office in a Birmingham train station and turned himself in. At his trial, Bunton was acquitted entirely of the painting’s theft. He was, however, charged with stealing the frame, which was never returned, and served three months in jail.
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Michael Finkel (The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession)
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In his book I Once Was Blind But Now I Squint, Kent Crockett tells the story of his wife accidentally pulling up to the full-service pump rather than the self-service pump at a gas station. She didn’t realize that she was now paying an extra fifty cents per gallon for the increased service. When she got home and told her husband she had paid seven dollars more than she wanted to, he was upset at the increased cost. He did the math in his head and deduced they could have taken their car 128 more miles had they only paid for self-service. He was angry that the gas station had charged so much more for full service. But then a realization hit him. He said that God showed him that he had sold his joy for seven dollars! Surely his joy was more valuable than that.5 This is a very impactful story that leaves me wondering how often I have sold my joy for even less. Jesus said that He left us His joy.
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Joyce Meyer (The Mind Connection: How the Thoughts You Choose Affect Your Mood, Behavior, and Decisions)
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IN 1971, as the Vietnam War was heading into its sixteenth year, congressmen Robert Steele from Connecticut and Morgan Murphy from Illinois made a discovery that stunned the American public. While visiting the troops, they had learned that over 15 percent of U.S. soldiers stationed there were heroin addicts. Follow-up research revealed that 35 percent of service members in Vietnam had tried heroin and as many as 20 percent were addicted—the problem was even worse than they had initially thought. The discovery led to a flurry of activity in Washington, including the creation of the Special Action Office of Drug Abuse Prevention under President Nixon to promote prevention and rehabilitation and to track addicted service members when they returned home. Lee Robins was one of the researchers in charge. In a finding that completely upended the accepted beliefs about addiction, Robins found that when soldiers who had been heroin users returned home, only 5 percent of them became re-addicted within a year, and just 12 percent relapsed within three years. In other words, approximately nine out of ten soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam eliminated their addiction nearly overnight. This finding contradicted the prevailing view at the time, which considered heroin addiction to be a permanent and irreversible condition. Instead, Robins revealed that addictions could spontaneously dissolve if there was a radical change in the environment. In Vietnam, soldiers spent all day surrounded by cues triggering heroin use: it was easy to access, they were engulfed by the constant stress of war, they built friendships with fellow soldiers who were also heroin users, and they were thousands of miles from home. Once a soldier returned to the United States, though, he found himself in an environment devoid of those triggers. When the context changed, so did the habit. Compare this situation to that of a typical drug user. Someone becomes addicted at home or with friends, goes to a clinic to get clean—which is devoid of all the environmental stimuli that prompt their habit—then returns to their old neighborhood with all of their previous cues that caused them to get addicted in the first place. It’s no wonder that usually you see numbers that are the exact opposite of those in the Vietnam study. Typically, 90 percent of heroin users become re-addicted once they return home from rehab.
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James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones)
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This enigmatic bunker was Hawaii’s codebreaking unit, charged with peeling back the layers of encryption that cloaked Japanese radio communications. Although no sign was posted outside the door, it was formally called the Combat Intelligence Unit, or CIU. Among the staff it was nicknamed “the dungeon.” After a reorganization later in the war it was renamed Fleet Radio Unit, Pacific, abbreviated as FRUPAC. Most commonly (then and in the historical literature) it was known as “Station Hypo”—phonetic code for the letter H, designating the Hawaiian intercept station.
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Ian W. Toll (Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942)
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Trinity enters the power station. Only cis white men are in charge (they literally have the power). “Hold it right there, little lady.” Denigration. Infantilism. Patronizing. They gotta go.
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Tilly Bridges (Begin Transmission: The trans allegories of The Matrix)
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Once Arizona got underway for Pearl Harbor, however, the bandsmen also got an indoctrination into what it meant to be a Navy band aboard a warship. Among a full complement of 1,512 men, the musicians were assigned duty stations in sick bay and trained to administer injections of morphine. They were also introduced to their battle stations. As a unit, they were to man the hoists that carried gunpowder charges from the ammunition hold up to the fourteen-inch guns in Turret No. 2.3
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Walter R. Borneman (Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona)
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As the Arizona’s men gathered for breakfast and the enemy submarine report from the Ward made its way up the naval chain of command, the Army’s Opana Mobile Radar Station at Kahuku Point on the northern tip of Oahu shut down for the day. Privates Joseph Lockard and George Elliott had been on duty since 4:00 a.m., and their three-hour shift training on a relatively new warning system was over. Lockard had been instructing Elliott in reading the radarscope, but just as he reached to turn it off, a large image began to march across his screen from the north. Lockard’s first thought was that something had gone haywire with his set, but when everything checked out, he and Elliott called in a report of what appeared to be more than fifty planes approaching Oahu about 130 miles out. The Information Center at Fort Shafter, to which they reported, was charged with directing pursuit aircraft to intercept any incoming threat, but it was also shutting down for the day. The senior officer remaining at the Information Center was First Lieutenant Kermit Tyler, the executive officer of the 78th Pursuit Squadron, who was serving only his second day of duty at the center. Tyler would always be adamant that it never crossed his mind that these incoming planes could possibly be enemy aircraft, particularly as a far more likely explanation presented itself. Two squadrons of B-17 bombers, totaling twelve aircraft, were nearing Hickam Field from the northeast that morning after an overnight flight from California. After refueling, they were supposed to continue on to the Philippines to augment General MacArthur’s air force. Tyler was convinced that the Opana station had detected this flight of bombers and told Lockard and Elliott, “Well, don’t worry about it.”14
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Walter R. Borneman (Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona)
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But a written policy is one thing; its implementation is quite another. Robert Murphy took personal charge of the political oversight of U.S. denazification work in Germany almost immediately, and he made little secret of his inclinations. Meanwhile, the sensitive task of overseeing U.S. intelligence evaluations of German business and political leaders fell to an enterprising OSS man who was stationed in Berlin shortly after Hitler’s suicide. It was Allen Dulles.
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Christopher Simpson (The Splendid Blond Beast: Money, Law, and Genocide in the Twentieth Century (Forbidden Bookshelf))
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Oddly enough, while the Third Class passengers were having such a hard time, many of the lifeboats were leaving the Titanic only half-filled. Considering that at best there was room for only half those on board the ship, it seems incredible that the space available—good for 1,178 people—was occupied by only 705. There was room for another 473—far more than enough for all the women and children lost. Why wasn’t it used? At the bottom of the trouble was the lack of organization that characterized the whole night. The Titanic had never held a boat drill, and few of the crew had any experience in handling the davits. They had boat assignments, but these had only been posted the day after leaving Queenstown. Few had bothered to look up their stations. The manning of the boats was hopelessly haphazard: No. 6 had a crew of only two; No. 3 had 15. The passengers had no boat assignments at all. They simply milled around the decks waiting for someone to tell them what to do, but there were no clear lines of authority. Later it was said that First Officer Murdoch was in charge on the starboard side, Second Officer Lightoller on the port. But Lightoller never got aft of the first four boats, nor had anything to do with the first boat, No. 2. The junior officers didn’t seem to have any assignments, and nobody even remembered to wake up Fifth-Officer Lowe. Finally aroused by some unusual noise on the Boat Deck, he looked out and saw passengers standing around in life belts.
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Walter Lord (The Complete Titanic Chronicles: A Night to Remember and The Night Lives On (The Titanic Chronicles))
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To take the requisite care of a large fleet of merchant vessels, there should be in the convoy a number of frigates, which are to be distributed ahead, astern and on the wings of the fleet, which is always to be kept in the order of three, four, five or six columns, according to the number it may be composed of. Some other frigates are also to be sent on the look-out, in order that the commanding officer may be informed of what passes at a certain distance, and warned in good time of the approach of the enemy. If the frigates which are sent to look-out should discover an enemy of superior force, they will make it known by signal, and perhaps it may be thought advisable that they should steer a different course from that of the fleet, in order to deceive the hostile ships in sight. The line of battleships are to hold themselves a little ahead and to windward of the weather column of the fleet; because, in that position, they will be able with promptitude to attend wherever their presence may be necessary. The commanding officer must not neglect to have all suspicious and neutral ships chased and even stopped by the frigates about him, and which are always to be supported by one or two lines of battleships, according to the exigency of the circumstances. The degree of progress which the whole fleet will make will be regulated by that of the worst-going ships, which, however, are to be abandoned when found to cause too great a loss of time; for sometimes it is better to risk a small loss than to expose the whole by delay. There will be placed between the columns, sloops of war and other swift-sailing vessels to maintain order and keep the ships in their stations. Their particular business will be to get the tardy ships to make more sail, and to oblige those which may be out of their post to resume it. In the evening they will give an account, to the frigates having charge of going the round, of those which have not well manoeuvred and these will be reported to the Commodore. During the night the same order will be maintained, except with respect to the look-out frigates which are to be called in within a certain distance of the fleet, and which are to be allowed lights as well as the rest of the men-of-war. They are to be particularly careful to oblige all straggling ships to return to the convoy, and to fire, without hesitating, on all strange vessels coming from the main sea, in order to give the alarm. Every night they are to be supported on the wings by some line of battleships.
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Peter Gretton (Convoy Escort Commander: A Memoir of the Battle of the Atlantic (Submarine Warfare in World War Two))
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For more than forty years the ZMC-2 languished in an abandoned hangar along the runway of a deserted naval air station near Key West, Florida. Then in 1988, the property was sold by the government to a financial conglomerate headed by a wealthy publisher, Raymond LeBaron, who intended to develop it as a resort.
Shortly after arriving from his corporate headquarters in Chicago to inspect the newly purchased naval base, LeBaron stumbled onto the dusty and corroded remains of the ZMC-2 and became intrigued. Charging it off to promotion, he had the old lighter-than air craft reassembled and the engines rebuilt, calling her the Prosperteer after the business magazine that was the base of his financial empire, and emblazoning the name in huge red letters on the side of the envelope.
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Clive Cussler (Cyclops (Dirk Pitt, #8))
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In 2004, the NYPD arrested twenty-four-year-old Pakistani immigrant Shahawar Matin Siraj for plotting to bomb the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan. Lawyers say Siraj was entrapped by a paid police informant facing drug charges, who spent months hatching the plot and pushing the idea of a bombing. Siraj had “no explosives, no timetable for an attack, and little understanding about explosives.” According to Human Rights Watch, the NYPD’s own records showed that he was unstable and “extremely impressionable due to severe intellectual limitations.” When asked to participate in the plot, Siraj replied that he had to ask his mother first and never actually agreed to participate, according the NYPD’s own assessment. Nevertheless, he was convicted and sentenced to thirty years in prison.
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Alex S. Vitale (The End of Policing)
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I admit to some confusion as well. The fact that you acted without orders would seem to be the prime motivation behind the prosecution's charges, Ensign. Headquarters doesn't like its ensigns running around killing tens of thousands of people and blowing up space stations without orders." Jenetta grimaced. "Are they afraid I'll start a trend?" she asked facetiously. "Do they fear that ensigns everywhere will suddenly rise up and begin waging a private war against the Raiders? Oh my God— we could see the enemy dying in such great numbers that our admirals will have nothing to do." Commander Spence scowled and said, "I sincerely hope you won't act this flippant in court,
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Thomas DePrima (A Galaxy Unknown (A Galaxy Unknown #1))
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Tesla has used mini-programs (of wechat) for users to schedule a test drive, find a charging station, and share their experience
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Rebecca Fannin (Tech Titans of China: How China's Tech Sector is challenging the world by innovating faster, working harder, and going global)
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What’s more, SolarCity is a key part of what can be thought of as the unified field theory of Musk. Each one of his businesses is interconnected in the short term and the long term. Tesla makes battery packs that SolarCity can then sell to end customers. SolarCity supplies Tesla’s charging stations with solar panels, helping Tesla to provide free recharging to its drivers. Newly minted Model S owners regularly opt to begin living the Musk Lifestyle and outfit their homes with solar panels. Tesla and SpaceX help each other as well. They exchange knowledge around materials, manufacturing techniques, and the intricacies of operating factories that build so much stuff from the ground up.
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Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future)
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Many East Siders pushed the MTA to add a station at 96th Street. Metropolitan Hospital, a city-owned facility located at 97th Street, sent about one hundred doctors, nurses, and other employees to the hearing. One of its directors charged the MTA with “brutal insensitivity toward the sick poor” and said it was not a coincidence that Rockefeller University and New York Hospital, where the governor was a major benefactor, would have much more convenient access. After the hearing, which lasted four hours and fifteen minutes, the MTA board subsequently voted to add a new station at 96th Street. The Bronx did not have as much political clout as the Upper East Side.
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Philip Mark Plotch (Last Subway: The Long Wait for the Next Train in New York City)
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his favourite secretary was on duty. She gave him a nod as she lifted a coffee cup with one enormous forearm. The woman was built like a freight train and had a personality to match. It was what made her the perfect hire for the front desk at a police station. Not long after he had hired her, she had single-handedly wrestled a drunkard they had brought in on disturbing-the-peace charges. The man had managed to evade his handcuffs while she was doing his processing and had made a run for the door. The arresting officer had been slow off the mark and the secretary had quickly come around the side of the glassed reception desk and quite calmly tackled him, holding him down with one colossal knee while the arresting officer composed himself and managed to get the handcuffs back on.
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Lisa Zumpano (All the Pieces: A Lillie Mead Historical Mystery (Lillie Mead, #5))
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a black site, a night chapel, spoiled land, a kind of charging station for evil. “They’re all over the place. The Paris catacombs, Guantánamo Bay, Lake Powell, the Bellagio, the House on the Rock, the Golden Gate Bridge.” There are at least two others in Oregon alone. The Rajneesh compound and the Lava River Cave.
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Benjamin Percy (The Dark Net)
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SOME IDIOTS WEAR BADGES - Anyone who reads an American newspaper watches the news on television or lives in the southern border state knows the U.S. has millions of illegal aliens in the country and hundreds, or more, crossing the border at will daily and little to nothing will be done to them. The South African man is a fortunate fellow and has taken time to backpack around the world. He obtained a legal visa to enter the U.S. for a six-month period to sightsee in America. On the last day of his legal visa, he decided to cross the border into Canada from Washington State but was refused for not having a visa for Canada. He was told to return to the U.S. border patrol station a few hundred feet away. When he went to the U.S. Border guard and asked what he should do now, the guard said nothing except to say the man was 30-minutes past his visa deadline and arrested the man who was jailed on a $7,500 bond. An immigration lawyer in Washington State was so outraged by the incident he offered his services to the traveler at no charge. After media publicity ICE decided to release the man after three weeks in jail. Now he must wait 35 days for a Canadian visa.
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Jack West (DUMB ASS CRIMINALS + DUMBEST CRIMINALS EVER: DOUBLE FEATURE: DOUBLE BOOK OF HUNDREDS OF STUPID CROOKS AND CRIMINALS)
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Okay. I’m ready. I need to find a bathroom on the way, though.”
Lenore shifted into Reverse and backed carefully out of the parking spot. “Can you wait till we get back to the cabin?”
“In a universe where there wasn’t a fetal warrior leading the charge against my bladder, that would absolutely be a possibility.”
Lenore snorted. “At least pregnancy hasn’t stolen your sense of humor. There’s a gas station on the corner.
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Rachel Vincent (Fury (Menagerie, #3))
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Anne Kihagi For Animal Enthusiasts Looking for Off-Beaten Path Discoveries, consider:
Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery
The Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery stretches over six miles off of California’s Highway 1. It is a part of the non-profit organization Friends of the Elephant Seal, which strives to educate the public and protect the seals.
Stop at any of the viewing areas located on the highway to see over 17,000 elephant seals that use the area for birthing, breeding, and resting. The viewing areas are open year-round and are free of charge to the public. You have the best chance of glimpsing the seals between December and March when they visit the area due to inclement weather.
If you are interested in learning more about the seals, Friends of the Elephant Seal has a visitor center and gift shop. It is a short, eight-mile drive away from the rookery and located within the Plaza del Cavalier in San Simon. Other area attractions include the Piedras Blancas Light Station, Hearst Castle, and the Coastal Discover Center at San Simeon Bay.
Friends of the Elephant Seal also offers tours for children in third grade and higher. The group hosts school field trips, as well as organizations like Girl and Boy Scouts. Tour instructors provide students with explanation while they are viewing the seals at the rookery.
People of all ages can enjoy the live action feed of the seals located on the Friends of the Elephant Seal’s website.
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Anne Kihagi
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SolarCity is a key part of what can be thought of as the unified field theory of Musk. Each one of his businesses is interconnected in the short term and the long term. Tesla makes battery packs that SolarCity can then sell to end customers. SolarCity supplies Tesla’s charging stations with solar panels, helping Tesla to provide free recharging to its drivers. Newly minted Model S owners regularly opt to begin living the Musk Lifestyle and outfit their homes with solar panels. Tesla and SpaceX help each other as well. They exchange knowledge around materials, manufacturing techniques, and the intricacies of operating factories that build so much stuff from the ground up.
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Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future)
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My Father gave In charge to me This child of earth E'en from its birth, To serve and save, Alleluia, And saved is he. This child of clay To me was given, To rear and train By sorrow and pain In the narrow way, Alleluia, From earth to heaven.
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John Henry Newman (The Dream of Gerontius & Meditations on the Stations of the Cross: Newman's Meditations on The Last Things: A Newly Combined Work)
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and talked about sports and weapons before the morning briefings, their camaraderie interrupted only by the occasional locker-room prank. It was home, and Josh had to admit that he had missed it, although the conference was rewarding in ways he hadn’t anticipated. Knowing he was part of a larger community of chief analysts, people who shared the same life experiences as him, people who had the same problems and fears as he did, was surprisingly comforting. In Jakarta, he was head of analysis, he had a team that worked for him, and he answered only to the station chief; but he had no real peers, no one to really talk to. Intelligence work was a lonely profession, especially for the people in charge. It had certainly taken its toll on some of his old friends. Many had aged well beyond their years. Others had become hardened and distant. After seeing them, Josh had wondered if he would end up that way. Everything had a price, but he believed in the work they were doing. No job was perfect. As his thoughts drifted back from the conference, he realized the elevator should have opened by now. When he turned his head to look around, the elevator lights blurred, like a video in slow motion. His body felt heavy.
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A.G. Riddle (The Atlantis Gene (The Origin Mystery, #1))
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Actually, despite his earlier vow to one day raid Eastham, Clyde Barrow tried to go straight when he was paroled. He first helped his father make preparations to put an addition onto the service station, then traveled to Framingham, Massachusetts, to take a job and get away from his past in Texas. However, he quickly grew homesick and returned to Dallas to work for United Glass and Mirror, one of his former employers. It was then that local authorities began picking Barrow up almost daily, often taking him away from his job. There was a standing policy at the time to basically harass excons. Barrow was never charged with anything, but he soon lost his job. He told his mother, in the presence of Blanche Barrow and Ralph Fults, 'Mama, I'm never gonna work again. And I'll never stand arrest, either. I'm not ever going back to that Eastham hell hole. I'll die first! I swear it, they're gonna have to kill me.' ... Mrs. J. W. Hays, wife of former Dallas County Sheriff's Deputy John W. “Preacher” Hays, said, 'if the Dallas police had left that boy [Clyde Barrow] alone, we wouldn't be talking about him today.
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John Neal Phillips (My Life with Bonnie and Clyde)
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And so Leo and Silver’s beautiful scheme for peacefully detaching the downsiders, hammered out through four secret planning sessions, was blown away on a breath. Wasted was the flattery, the oblique suggestion, that had gone into convincing Van Atta that it was his idea to gather, unusually, the entire Habitat downsider staff at once and make his announcement in a speech persuading them all they were being commended, not condemned . . . The shaped charges to cut the lecture module away from the Habitat at the touch of a button were all in place. The emergency breath masks to supply the nearly three hundred bodies with oxygen for the few hours necessary to push the module around the planet to the transfer station were carefully hidden within. The two pusher crews were drilled, their pushers fueled and ready. Fool
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Lois McMaster Bujold (Falling Free (Vorkosigan Saga #4))