Clan War Quotes

The clan is my blood and the Pillar is its master,” she whispered. “I have a lot of regrets in life, but those oaths aren’t one of them.

The clan can claim everything I have —my time, my blood and sweat, my life and jade—but it can’t have my wife. She’s a stone-eye. She’s the one thing in the world that jade can’t touch.

If Gray Wing thinks he’s going to take us by surprise, then he can think again! We’ll be ready. He halted and stared between the trees. Beyond, the moor rose like a spine arching against the setting sun. You want battle? He pictured Gray Wing training his cats to fight. I’ll give you war.

Vau: "We were having a philosophical discussion, as Mandalorians often do, and I asserted that the only demonstrable reality was individual consciousness, but he insisted on the existence of a priori moral values that transcended free will. So I hit him." Zey: "You think you're so witty." Vau: "No, I think you should stay out of Mando clan business.

It is a fool who repeats the same actions expecting a different outcome.

What Foundling does isn’t thinking outside the box so much as stealing the box and hitting her opponents with it until they stop moving.” – Extract from “A Commentary on the Uncivil Wars”, by Juniper of the Red Moon Clan

Sometimes I just wanted to…I don’t know, escape life. To delve headfirst into a world that dealt with real-life issues to open my eyes, or a world that was something else, something completely unreal. One with warring faes or roaming vampire clans. I wanted to experience new things and always, always, read the last page feeling satisfied. Because sometimes happily-ever-after existed only in the books I read.

Sharley felt his strength ebbing away, and his weak leg throbbed painfully, but then a tingling sensation thrilled through his frame and the fighting blood of the Lindenshield clan began to roar through his veins. He drew breath and out crashed the war cry of the icemark...

I have no clan, nor any rank. I am unique.

Ancient boundaries are meaningless, except for political purposes; old divisions of clan and tribe are sentimental remnants of the pre-atomic age; neither creed nor color nor place of origin is relevant to the realities of modern power to utterly seek and destroy.

He had time to gasp, "You're - you're Anakin Skywalker!" before a fountain of blue-white plasma burned into his chest, curving through a loop that charred all three of his hearts. The Separatist leadership watched in frozen horror as the corpse of the head of the InterGalactic Banking Clan collapsed like a depowered protocol droid. "The resemblance," Darth Vader said, "Is deceptive.

In one hallway, the floor gleaming parquet and the ceiling festooned with golden cherubs, there was a boy in a grumpy cat mask and biker boots, not involved in any sexual activity, legs crossed and leaning against the wall. As a bevy of faeries passed the boy, giggling and groping, the boy scooted away. Alec remembered being younger, and how overwhelming large groups of people had seemed. He came over and leaned against the wall beside the boy. He saw the boy texting, PARTIES WERE INVENTED TO ANNOY ME. THEY FEATURE MY LEAST FAVORITE THING: PEOPLE, ALL INTENT ON MY LEAST FAVORITE ACTIVITY: SOCIAL INTERACTION. “I don’t really like parties either,” Alec said sympathetically. “No hablo italiano,” the boy mumbled without looking up. “Er,” said Alec. “This conversation is happening in English.” “No hablo ingles,” he said without missing a beat. “Oh, come on. Really?” “Worth a shot,” said the boy. Alec considered going away. The boy wrote another text to a contact he had saved as RF. Alec could not help but notice that the conversation was entirely one-sided, the boy sending text after text with no response. The last text read VENICE SMELLS LIKE A TOILET. AS A NEW YORKER, I DO NOT SAY THIS LIGHTLY. The weird coincidence emboldened Alec to try again. “I get shy when there are strangers too,” Alec told the kid. “I’m not shy,” the boy sneered. “I just hate everyone around me and everything that is happening.” “Well.” Alec shrugged. “Those feel like similar things sometimes.” The boy lifted his curly head, pushing the grumpy cat mask off his face, and froze. Alec froze too, at the twin shock of fangs and familiarity. This was a vampire, and Alec knew him. “Raphael?” he asked. “Raphael Santiago?” He wondered what the second-in-command of the New York clan was doing here. Downworlders might be flooding in from all over the world, but Raphael had never struck Alec as a party animal. Of course, he was not exactly coming off as a party animal now. “Oh no, it’s you,” said Raphael. “The twelve-year-old idiot.” Alec was not keen on vampires. They were, after all, people who had died. Alec had seen too much death to want reminders of it. He understood that they were immortal, but there was no need to show off about it. “We just fought a war together. I was with you in the graveyard when Simon came back as a vampire. You’ve seen me multiple times since I was twelve.” “The thought of you at twelve haunts me,” Raphael said darkly. “Okay,” Alec said, humoring him. “So have you seen a guy called Mori Shu anywhere around here?” “I am trying not to make eye contact with anyone here,” said Raphael. “And I’m not a snitch for Shadowhunters. Or a fan of talking to people, of any kind, in any place.” Alec rolled his eyes.

Henry's face went red in anger as he blustered at her audacity. It wasn't often anyone got the better of him, and Sin knew no woman had ever flummoxed him before. Not even Eleanor. "You are willing to declare war for him ?" Henry asked indignantly. She didn't hesitate with her response. "I am. Are you?" Sin closed his eyes as he heard the most precious words of his life. She who believed in nothing but peace was willing to fight for him. He could die happily knowing that. Still, he couldn't let her do this. Henry would not rest until he buried her and her clan. A king's reputation was all he had, and if Henry lost face… "Callie," Sin said, waiting until her gaze met his. "Thank you, but you can't do this. You can't start a war over me. I'm not worth the cost." "You are worth everything to me.

It’s easy to be a hero when your own survival is aligned with someone else’s, when your victory is a victory for your entire clan.

One can not always believe what one hears.

If Lord Duryodhana was an evil man, why did great men like Bhishma, Drona, Kripa, Karna, entire army of Krishna fight war on his side??

Down through the druid wood I saw Wildman join with Cleaver Creek, put on weight, exchange his lean and hungry look for one of more well-fed fanaticism. Then came Chichamoonga, the Indian Influence, whooping along with its banks war-painted with lupine and columbine. Then Dog Creek, then Olson Creek, then Weed Creek. Across a glacier-raked gorge I saw Lynx Falls spring hissing and spitting from her lair of fire-bright vine maple, claw the air with silver talons, then crash screeching into the tangle below. Darling Ida Creek slipped demurely from beneath a covered bridge to add her virginal presence, only to have the family name blackened immediately after by the bawdy rollicking of her brash sister, Jumping Nellie. There followed scores of relatives of various nationalities: White Man Creek, Dutchman Creek, Chinaman Creek, Deadman Creek, and even a Lost Creek, claiming with a vehement roar that, in spite of hundreds of other creeks in Oregon bearing the same name, she was the one and only original...Then Leaper Creek...Hideout Creek...Bossman Creek...I watched them one after another pass beneath their bridges to join in the gorge running alongside the highway, like members of a great clan marshaling into an army, rallying, swelling, marching to battle as the war chant became deeper and richer.

Vimes, listening with his mouth open, wondered why the hell it was that dwarfs believed that they had no religion and no priests. Being a dwarf was a religion. People went into the dark for the good of the clan, and heard things, and were changed, and came back to tell… And then, fifty years ago, a dwarf tinkering in Ankh-Morpork had found that if you put a simple fine mesh over your lantern flame it'd burn blue in the presence of the gas but wouldn't explode. It was a discovery of immense value to the good of dwarfkind and, as so often happens with such discoveries, almost immediately led to a war. "And afterwards there were two kinds of dwarf," said Cheery sadly. "There's the Copperheads, who all use the lamp and the patent gas exploder, and the Schmaltzbergers, who stick to the old ways. Of course we're all dwarfs," she said, "but relations are strained.

Kingship wrought of Infinite worship, Quick-forged by the Swift Sure Hand; Bold in Righteousness, Valiant in Justice, A sword of honor to defend the clans of Albion!

…The Antilles and Horn clans sat at a folding table between two StealthXs, playing what looked like a cutthroat game of sabacc.

She understood that her value in the clan, her value to her family, to Hilo, and most of all, in her own mind, lay not in what she could accomplish herself — because a stone-eye was always something of a blank space amid the strong auras around them, a void where gazes and expectations slid off like oil — but in what she made possible for others. She was unable to wield jade herself, but as a White Rat for the Weather Man, she had taken jade to those who could and would use it for the clan’s gain. She had not borne the Pillar a son who could follow in the family’s footsteps, but she had ensured that Niko was brought back to be raised in his rightful place. She could never be a Green Bone herself, as much as she felt she was one at heart, but she could think like a Green Bone. She was an enabler, an aide, a hidden weapon, and that was worth something. Perhaps a great deal.

(Somalia) was a watershed," said one State Department official, "The idea used to be that terrible countries were terrible because good, decent, innocent people were being oppressed by evil, thuggish leaders. Somalia changed that. Here you have a country where just about everybody is caught up in hatred and fighting. You stop an old lady on the street and ask her if she wants peace, and she’ll say, yes, of course, I pray for it daily. All the things you’d expect her to say. Then ask her if she would be willing for her clan to share power with another in order to have that peace, and she’ll say, 'With those murderers and thieves? I’d die first.' People in these countries - Bosnia is a more recent example - don’t want peace. They want victory. They want power. Men, women, old and young. Somalia was the experience that taught us that people in these places bear much of the responsibility for things being the way they are. The hatred and the killing continues because they want it to. Or because they don’t want peace enough to stop it." (pg 334-335)

Long ago, when faeries and men still wandered the earth as brothers, the MacLeod chief fell in love with a beautiful faery woman. They had no sooner married and borne a child when she was summoned to return to her people. Husband and wife said a tearful goodbye and parted ways at Fairy Bridge, which you can still visit today. Despite the grieving chief, a celebration was held to honor the birth of the newborn boy, the next great chief of the MacLeods. In all the excitement of the celebration, the baby boy was left in his cradle and the blanket slipped off. In the cold Highland night he began to cry. The baby’s cry tore at his mother, even in another dimension, and so she went to him, wrapping him in her shawl. When the nursemaid arrived, she found the young chief in the arms of his mother, and the faery woman gave her a song she insisted must be sung to the little boy each night. The song became known as “The Dunvegan Cradle Song,” and it has been sung to little chieflings ever since. The shawl, too, she left as a gift: if the clan were ever in dire need, all they would have to do was wave the flag she’d wrapped around her son, and the faery people would come to their aid. Use the gift wisely, she instructed. The magic of the flag will work three times and no more. As I stood there in Dunvegan Castle, gazing at the Fairy Flag beneath its layers of protective glass, it was hard to imagine the history behind it. The fabric was dated somewhere between the fourth and seventh centuries. The fibers had been analyzed and were believed to be from Syria or Rhodes. Some thought it was part of the robe of an early Christian saint. Others thought it was a part of the war banner for Harald Hardrada, king of Norway, who gave it to the clan as a gift. But there were still others who believed it had come from the shoulders of a beautiful faery maiden. And that faery blood had flowed through the MacLeod family veins ever since. Those people were the MacLeods themselves.

I've been mistaken to assume that in this little village in the spring, so like a dream or a poem, life is a matter only of the singing birds, the falling blossoms, and the bubbling springs. The real world has crossed mountains and seas and is bearing down even on this isolated village, whose inhabitants have doubtless lived here in peace down the long stretch of years ever since they fled as defeated warriors from the great clan wars of the twelfth century. Perhaps a millionth part of the blood that will dye the wide Manchurian plains will gush from this young man's arteries, or seethe forth at the point of the long sword that hangs at his waist. Yet here this young man sits, beside an artist for whom the sole value of human life lies in dreaming. If I listen carefully, I can even hear the beating of his heart, so close are we. And perhaps even now, within that beat reverberates the beating of the great tide that is sweeping across the hundreds of miles of that far battlefield. Fate has for a brief and unexpected moment brought us together in this room, but beyond that it speaks no more.

Among the Kimbrii the greatest shame a person can bring to himself or his clan is to start a war, but the second greatest is to submit to tyranny or injustice without a fight.

We know what the clan is; we know how to fit into the band and the tribe. What we don't know is how to be alone. We don't know how to be free individuals. The

And yet these Americans, with their helicopters and laser-guided weapons and shock-troop Rangers were going to somehow sort it out in a few weeks? Arrest Aidid and make it all better? They were trying to take down a clan, the most ancient and efficient social organization known to man. Didn’t the Americans realize that for every leader they arrested there were dozens of brothers, cousins, sons, and nephews to take his place? Setbacks just strengthened the clan’s resolve. Even if the Habr Gidr were somehow crippled or destroyed, wouldn’t that just elevate the next most powerful clan? Or did the Americans expect Somalia to suddenly sprout full-fledged Jeffersonian democracy?

I’d always been a reader and I read a lot, usually sticking to books with some sort of romantic theme and a classic happily-ever-after. Lori used to make fun of me nonstop for it, claiming I had cheesy taste in books, but whatever. At least I didn’t have pretentious taste in books like she did, and sometimes I just wanted to...I don’t know, escape life. To delve headfirst into a world that dealt with real-life issues to open my eyes, or a world that was something else, something completely unreal. One with warring faes or roaming vampire clans. I wanted to experience new things and always, always, reach the last page feeling satisfied. Because sometimes happily-ever-after existed only in the books I read.

For some reason that hurt most of all. If these kids didn’t know their culture and what made someone a Mando, then they had no purpose, no pride, and nothing to hold them and their clan together when home wasn’t a piece of land. If you were a nomad, your nation traveled in your heart. And without the Mando heart, you had nothing—not even your soul—in whatever new conquest followed death. Skirata knew at that moment what he had to do. He had to stop these boys from being dar’manda, eternal Dead Men, men without a Mando soul.

Our life is like a journey…’ – and so the journey seems to me less an adventure and a foray into unusual realms than a concentrated likeness of our existence: residents of a city, citizens of country, beholden to a class or a social circle, member of a family and clan and entangled by professional duties, by the habits of an ‘everyday life’ woven from all these circumstances, we often feel too secure, believing our house built for all the future, easily induced to believe in a constancy that makes ageing a problem for one person and each change in external circumstances a catastrophe for another. We forget that this is a process, that the earth is in constant motion and that we too are affected by ebbs and tides, earthquakes and events far beyond our visible and tangible spheres: beggars, kings, figures in the same great game. We forget it for our would-be peace of mind, which then is built on shifting sand. We forget it so as not to fear. And fear makes us stubborn: we call reality only what we can grasp with our hands and what affects us directly, denying the force of the fire that’s sweeping our neighbour’s house, but not yet ours. War in other countries? Just twelve hours, twelve weeks from our borders? God forbid – the horror that sometimes seizes us, you feel it too when reading history books, time or space, it doesn’t matter what lies between us and it. But the journey ever so slightly lifts the veil over the mystery of space – and a city with a magical, unreal name, Samarkand the Golden, Astrakhan or Isfahan, City of Rose Attar, becomes real the instant we set foot there and touch it with our living breath.

A primary loyalty is a form of ancient moral connection that transcends loyalty to the nation-state. These include connections to family, clan, tribe, gang, religion, and ethnicity. These loyalties are reciprocated through the delivery of political goods (economic aid, safety, and more) that the state cannot or will not deliver.

No matter what tears were shed or what trials were faced, some things would stay the same. There would always be day and night, stars and sky, hope and rest. There would always be love, always compassion, and there would always be Skandranon. And forever, in the hearts of all the Clans, there would be Urtho—and for his memory, a moment of silence.

I have no fear of killing those who deserve to die. I do not choose to kill those who do not.

I’m only a Level 16 Dragon,” I went on in an innocent tone, resurrecting the mad devils in Plinto’s eyes.

What kind of tartan is this?” he said as he felt the fabric. “McCloud,” Betty told him. “Welcome to the clan, son.” Excellent, thought Lake. There would be no getting rid of her now.

The Chinese people have only family and clan solidarity; they do not have national spirit...they are just a heap of loose sand...Other men are the carving knife and serving dish; we are the fish and the meat. China is now suffering from poverty, not from unequal distribution of wealth. Where there are inequalities of wealth, the methods of Marx can, of course, be used; a class war can be advocated to destroy the inequalities. But in China, where industry is not yet developed, Marx's class war and dictatorship of the proletariat are impracticable. Class war is not the cause of social progress; it is a disease developed in the course of social progress. The cause of the disease is the inability to subsist, and the result of the disease is war. Sun Yat-sen

But if she were still unmarried by war’s end . . . What the bloody hell are you thinkin’, MacKinnon? He was thinking of bedding her. Nay, ‘twas more than that. He was thinking of wooing her. Och! For God’s sake, he was thinking of marrying her. Are you mad, MacKinnon. You barely ken the lass. Even as he rejected the notion, some part of him decided it was not so daft as it seemed. They were both from the Highlands. She was bonnie, strong, and spirited, qualities that would surely pass to her children, while he had the skill to protect her, provide for her—and show her what the passion in her Scottish blood was for. Aye, but she was a Protestant and came from Loyalist roots, while he was Catholic and sprang from a clan that had stood by the Stuarts. Then there was the fact that he was bound to this war until its end. And had a price on his head. And was without a roof to shelter her. A lass would be silly to pass up such a match, MacKinnon. Bloody grand idea.

The Afghans whom Yousaf trained uniformly denounced suicide attack proposals as against their religion. It was only the Arab volunteers—from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria, and other countries, who had been raised in an entirely different culture, spoke their own language, and preached their own interpretations of Islam while fighting far from their homes and families—who later advocated suicide attacks. Afghan jihadists, tightly woven into family, clan, and regional social networks, never embraced suicide tactics in significant numbers.18

What the hell is all this I read in the papers?" "Narrow it down for me," Alan suggested. "I suppose it might have been a misprint," Daniel considered, frowning at the tip of his cigar before he tapped it in the ashtray he kept secreted in the bottom drawer of his desk. "I think I know my own flesh and blood well enough." "Narrow it just a bit further," Alan requested, though he'd already gotten the drift.It was simply too good to end it too soon. "When I read that my own son-my heir, as things are-is spending time fraternizing with a Campbell, I know it's a simple matter of misspelling. What's the girl's name?" Along with a surge of affection, Alan felt a tug of pure and simple mischief. "Which girl is that?" "Dammit,boy! The girl you're seeing who looks like a pixie.Fetching young thing from the picture I saw.Good bones; holds herself well." "Shelby," Alan said, then waited a beat. "Shelby Campbell." Dead silence.Leaning back in his chair, Alan wondered how long it would be before his father remembered to take a breath. It was a pity, he mused, a real pity that he couldn't see the old pirate's face. "Campbell!" The word erupted. "A thieving, murdering Campbell!" "Yes,she's fond of MacGregor's as well." "No son of mine gives the time of day to one of the clan Campbell!" Daniel bellowed. "I'll take a strap to you, Alan Duncan MacGregor!" The threat was as empty now as it had been when Alan had been eight, but delivered in the same full-pitched roar. "I'll wear the hide off you." "You'll have the chance to try this weekend when you meet Shelby." "A Campbell in my house! Hah!" "A Campbell in your house," Alan repeated mildly. "And a Campbell in your family before the end of the year if I have my way." "You-" Emotions warred in him. A Campbell versus his firmest aspiration: to see each of his children married and settled, and himself laden with grandchildren. "You're thinking of marriage to a Campbell?" "I've already asked her.She won't have me...yet," he added. "Won't have you!" Paternal pride dominated all else. "What kind of a nitwit is she? Typical Campbell," he muttered. "Mindless pagans." Daniel suspected they'd had some sorcerers sprinkled among them. "Probably bewitched the boy," he mumbled, scowling into space. "Always had good sense before this.Aye, you bring your Campbell to me," he ordered roundly. "I'll get to the bottom of it." Alan smothered a laugh, forgetting the poor mood that had plagued him only minutes earlier. "I'll ask her." "Ask? Hah! You bring the girl, that daughter of a Campbell, here." Picturing Shelby, Alan decided he wouldn't iss the meeting for two-thirds the popular vote. "I'll see you Friday, Dad.Give Mom my love." "Friday," Daniel muttered, puffing avidly on his cigar. "Aye,aye, Friday." As he hung up Alan could all but see his father rubbing his huge hands togther in anticipation. It should be an interesting weekened.

Given that individual identity and the daily operation of society are derived from clans and the subgroups within clans, Somalis have no experience with a centralized liberal democratic form of government. Stated differently, no meta-game around a central Somali state has ever evolved endogenously.

This is a world where human races battle endlessly, where people of one faith still slaughter people of another. Religious wars rage from Sri Lanka to Bosnia, from Jerusalem to American cities and towns where Christians still, in the name of Jesus Christ, bring death in his name to their enemies, to their own, even to little children. Tribe, race, clan, family. Deep within us all are the seeds of hate for what is different. We do not have to be taught these things. We have to be taught not to give in to them! They are in our blood, but on our minds is the charity and the love to overcome them.

In the war I once drove a gunpowder cart down a mountain,” declared Black. “The cart aflame. Lightning striking to left and right. Knife in teeth. One hand on the reins, the other firing a pistol. French dragoons leaping from all sides.” He stared into the past, beholding glory. “City traffic is only a bit more difficult.

Compared to the despotic societies that were the norm in Europe and Asia, Haudenosaunee was a libertarian dream. In the same sense, it was also a feminist dream: the Five Nations were largely governed internally by the female clan heads, and the Great Law explicitly ordered council members to heed “the warnings of your women relatives.” Failure to do so would lead to their removal. The equality granted to women was not the kind envisioned by contemporary Western feminists—men and women were not treated as equivalent. Rather, the sexes were assigned to two separate social domains, neither subordinate to the other. No woman could be a war chief; no man could lead a clan.

The world is already ending. You see, the Hundred Clans know that time moves in a circle. There are never any new stories, just old ones told again and again as this universe moves through its cycles of civilization and crumbles into despair. We are on the brink of an age of chaos again, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. I just prefer to back certain horses in the race.

He rises bloodless from dust, with dead eyes that are pits twin reaches to eternal pain. He is the lodestone to the gathering clan, made anew and dream-racked. The standard a rotted hide, the throne a bone cage, the king a ghost from dark fields of battle. And now the horn moans on this grey clad dawn drawing the disparate host To war, to war, and the charging frenzy of unbidden memories of ice. - Lay of the First Sword

At the group consciousness level, you’re often dedicated to continuing social problems such as war, brutality, and religious persecution, which originated in ancestral enmities that have existed for thousands of years. But it also comes right down to daily living. Families insist that you adopt their viewpoint, hate whom they hate, and love whom they love. You have blind allegiance to a company that may be making weapons of destruction, a concept to which you’re normally opposed, but you do it anyway because “it’s my job.” Some policemen and soldiers victimize their fellow human beings by behaving worse than the criminals or so-called enemies they abhor so much. Our inhumanity to our fellow human beings is often justified on the grounds of a group-consciousness mentality. Members of gangs or societies will behave in horrid ways, spurred on by a group or clan mentality.

It made economic sense, if you looked at it from the right angle; it was not in the Clan’s interest for the price of the commodity they shifted to drop—and drop it surely would, if it was legalized or if the pressure to keep up the war on drugs ever slackened. But for Mike Fleming, who’d willingly given the best years of his life to the DEA, it was a deeply unsettling idea; nauseating, even. Bought and sold: We’re doing the dealers’ work for them, keeping prices high.

ALL ARE WELCOME. (NO FIGHTING.) That rule is simple on the surface, but not easy in the execution, because Maz Kanata's castle has been a meeting place since time immemorial-- a nexus point drawing together countless lines of allegiance and opposition, a place not only where friend and foe can meet, but where complex conflicts are worn down flat so that all may sit, have a drink and a meal, listen to a song, and broker whatever deals their hearts or politics require. That's why the flags outside her castle represent hundreds of cities and civilizations and guilds from before forever. The galaxy is not now, nor has it ever been, two polar forces battling for supremacy. It has been thousands of forces: a tug-of-war not with as ingle rope but a spider's web of influence, dominance, and desire. Clans and cults, tribes and families, governments and anti-governments. Queens, satraps, warlords! Diplomats, buccaneers, droids! Slicers, spicers, ramblers, and gamblers! To repeat: ALL ARE WELCOME. (NO FIGHTING.)

This is their custom regarding marriage: it is binding only so long as the woman wishes to be bound by it. The woman chooses the man, although the man may court a woman he finds desirable, with gifts and deeds of war done in her honor. If an Outislander woman accepts a man’s courtship, it does not mean she has bound herself to him, only that she may welcome him into her bed. Their dalliances may last a week, a year, or a lifetime. It is entirely of the woman’s choosing. All things that are kept under a roof belong to the woman, as does all that comes from the earth which her mothershouse claims. Her children belong to her clan, and are commonly disciplined and taught by her brothers and uncles rather than by their father. While the man lives on her land or in her mothershouse, his labor is hers to command. All in all, it baffles this traveler why a man would willingly submit to such a minor role, but Outislanders seem likewise baffled by our arrangements, asking me sometimes, “Why do your women willingly leave the wealth of their own families to become servants in a man’s home?

an idle threat, for Nuri Said with the guns had gone back to Guweira. There were only one hundred and eighty Turks in the village, but they had supporters in the Muhaisin, a clan of the peasantry; not for love so much as because Dhiab, the vulgar head-man of another faction, had declared for Feisal. So they shot up at Nasir a stream of ill-directed bullets. The Howeitat spread out along the cliffs to return the peasants' fire. This manner of going displeased Auda, the old lion, who raged that a mercenary village folk should dare to resist their secular masters, the Abu Tayi. So he jerked his halter, cantered his mare down the path, and rode out plain to view beneath the easternmost houses of the village. There he reined in, and shook a hand at them, booming in his wonderful voice: 'Dogs, do you not know Auda?' When they realized it was that implacable son of war their hearts failed them, and an hour later Sherif Nasir in the town-house was sipping tea with his guest the Turkish Governor, trying to console him for the sudden change of fortune. At dark Mastur rode in. His Motalga looked blackly at their blood enemies the Abu Tayi, lolling in the best houses. The two Sherifs divided up the place, to keep their unruly followers apart. They had little authority to mediate

We see the same rationalization and avoidance in the face of large-scale or community trauma-war, famine, natural disasters, school shootings, the transgenerational impact of slavery. The privileged group turns their gaze from the pain. ‘Look how far they’ve come’, in the face of cultural genocide, ‘They need to assimilate”, in the face of trauma, “Isn’t it great that they are resilient?’ It is so easy for us to create an ‘other.’ Us-and-them is deeply ingrained into our neurobiology; it’s what makes connectedness a double-edged sword. We are strongly connected to our clan, but not so much to other clans-we compete for limited resources.

When Wen was seventeen years old, she'd sharpened a kitchen knife and slashed the tires on her brother's bicycle. She never told Kehn, who gave on of the neighbor boys a beating over it. After that, Kaul Hilo came around their house in his car every day to pick up Kehn and Tar when the three of them went around town together, junior Fingers fresh out of the Academy, hungry to win jade and earn their reputations. Every day, Wen walked out to the Duchesse to bid her brothers goodbye and to welcome them home. Hilo once laughed as he pulled up to see her standing in the rain. He said she was the kindest and most devoted sister he'd ever met, that his own sister would never do such a thing. Wen had to admit with some chagrin that she had been a lovesick teenage girl, but she hadn't simply pined uselessly. A small thing like a ruined bicycle could change fate, just as a stone-eye could tip the scales in a clan war. She searched now for the one thing she could say that would make Hilo turn towards her, the way he used to when he rolled down the window and leaned across the seat with a grin. But she was too weary. 'I have to go back out there,' Hilo said. Wen turned onto her side. She felt the pressure of him lift off the mattress, and when the next burst of light from the fireworks struck the room, it lit empty space.

[T]raveling, a local is shocked to realize that in neighboring countries locals view him as a foreigner; between villages, clans, nations, and classes there are wars, potlatches, agreements, treaties, and struggles that remove the absolute meaning from the idea of the 'other' and bring out its relativity; whether one likes it or not, individuals and groups have no choice but to recognize the reciprocity of their relation. How is it, then, that between the sexes this reciprocity has not been put forward, that one of the terms has been asserted as the only essential one, denying any relativity in regard to its correlative, defining the latter as pure alterity? Why do women not contest male sovereignty?

XII.—LOCHINVAR. Oh! young Lochinvar is come out of the west, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best; And save his good broadsword, he weapons had none, He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone; So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone; He swam the Esk river, where ford there was none; But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late; For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall, Among bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all; Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword - For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word - "Oh! come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?" "I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied; Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide; And now am I come, with this lost love of mine, To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." The bride kissed the goblet: the knight took it up, He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup. She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye. He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar - "Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar. So stately his form, and so lovely her face, That never a hall such a galliard did grace; While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume: And the bride's-maidens whispered, "'Twere better by far To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar." One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, When they reached the hall-door, and the charger stood near; So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung. "She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur; They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar. There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan; Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran: There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee, But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?

Fundamentalism is the philosophy of the powerless, the conquered, the displaced and the dispossessed. Its spawning ground is the wreckage of political and military defeat, as Hebrew fundamentalism arose during the Babylonian captivity, as white Christian fundamentalism appeared in the American South during Reconstruction, as the notion of the Master Race evolved in Germany following World War I. In such desperate times, the vanquished race would perish without a doctrine that restored hope and pride. Islamic fundamentalism ascends from the same landscape of despair and possesses the same tremendous and potent appeal. What exactly is this despair? It is the despair of freedom. The dislocation and emasculation experienced by the individual cut free from the familiar and comforting structures of the tribe and the clan, the village and the family. It is the state of modern life. The

Traditionally, Afghanistan has been less a state in the conventional sense than a geographic expression for an area never brought under the consistent administration of any single authority. Unification of Afghanistan has been achieved by foreigners only unintentionally, when the tribes and sects coalesce in opposition to an invader. Thus what American and NATO forces met in the early twenty-first century was not radically different from the scene encountered by a young Winston Churchill in 1897: Except at harvest-time, when self-preservation enjoins a temporary truce, the Pathan [Pashtun] tribes are always engaged in private or public war. Every man is a warrior, a politician, and a theologian. Every large house is a real feudal fortress ... Every village has its defence. Every family cultivates its vendetta; every clan, its feud. The numerous tribes and combinations of tribes all have their accounts to settle with one another. Nothing is ever forgotten, and very few debts are left unpaid.

The Sumerian pantheon was headed by an "Olympian Circle" of twelve, for each of these supreme gods had to have a celestial counterpart, one of the twelve members of the Solar System. Indeed, the names of the gods and their planets were one and the same (except when a variety of epithets were used to describe the planet or the god's attributes). Heading the pantheon was the ruler of Nibiru, ANU whose name was synonymous with "Heaven," for he resided on Nibiru. His spouse, also a member of the Twelve, was called ANTU. Included in this group were the two principal sons of ANU: E.A ("Whose House Is Water"), Anu's Firstborn but not by Antu; and EN.LIL ("Lord of the Command") who was the Heir Apparent because his mother was Antu, a half sister of Anu. Ea was also called in Sumerian texts EN.KI ("Lord Earth"), for he had led the first mission of the Anunnaki from Nibiru to Earth and established on Earth their first colonies in the E.DIN ("Home of the Righteous Ones")—the biblical Eden. His mission was to obtain gold, for which Earth was a unique source. Not for ornamentation or because of vanity, but as away to save the atmosphere of Nibiru by suspending gold dust in that planet's stratosphere. As recorded in the Sumerian texts (and related by us in The 12th Planet and subsequent books of The Earth Chronicles), Enlil was sent to Earth to take over the command when the initial extraction methods used by Enki proved unsatisfactory. This laid the groundwork for an ongoing feud between the two half brothers and their descendants, a feud that led to Wars of the Gods; it ended with a peace treaty worked out by their sister Ninti (thereafter renamed Ninharsag). The inhabited Earth was divided between the warring clans. The three sons of Enlil—Ninurta, Sin, Adad—together with Sin's twin children, Shamash (the Sun) and Ishtar (Venus), were given the lands of Shem and Japhet, the lands of the Semites and Indo-Europeans: Sin (the Moon) lowland Mesopotamia; Ninurta, ("Enlil's Warrior," Mars) the highlands of Elam and Assyria; Adad ("The Thunderer," Mercury) Asia Minor (the land of the Hittites) and Lebanon. Ishtar was granted dominion as the goddess of the Indus Valley civilization; Shamash was given command of the spaceport in the Sinai peninsula. This division, which did not go uncontested, gave Enki and his sons the lands of Ham—the brown/black people—of Africa: the civilization of the Nile Valley and the gold mines of southern and western Africa—a vital and cherished prize. A great scientist and metallurgist, Enki's Egyptian name was Ptah ("The Developer"; a title that translated into Hephaestus by the Greeks and Vulcan by the Romans). He shared the continent with his sons; among them was the firstborn MAR.DUK ("Son of the Bright Mound") whom the Egyptians called Ra, and NIN.GISH.ZI.DA ("Lord of the Tree of Life") whom the Egyptians called Thoth (Hermes to the Greeks)—a god of secret knowledge including astronomy, mathematics, and the building of pyramids. It was the knowledge imparted by this pantheon, the needs of the gods who had come to Earth, and the leadership of Thoth, that directed the African Olmecs and the bearded Near Easterners to the other side of the world. And having arrived in Mesoamerica on the Gulf coast—just as the Spaniards, aided by the same sea currents, did millennia later—they cut across the Mesoamerican isthmus at its narrowest neck and—just like the Spaniards due to the same geography—sailed down from the Pacific coast of Mesoamerica southward, to the lands of Central America and beyond. For that is where the gold was, in Spanish times and before.

She must remain vigilant not only against overt threats—and a fifteen-foot-tall Tzimisce war ghoul was not entirely out of the realm of possibility here, she reminded herself ruefully—but especially against the more subtle dangers: impatience, indulgence, indiscretion. These three deadly sisters would kill as surely, if not as swiftly, as any fiend.

Truth has to be a little ruthless. Otherwise it gets softened. Diluted. Changed from what people need to hear to what they want to hear.

The Mountain of the Lord 4 In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. 2 Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 3 He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. 4 Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. 5 All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. The Lord’s Plan 6 “In that day,” declares the Lord, “I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief. 7 I will make the lame my remnant, those driven away a strong nation. The Lord will rule over them in Mount Zion from that day and forever. 8 As for you, watchtower of the flock, stronghold[a] of Daughter Zion, the former dominion will be restored to you; kingship will come to Daughter Jerusalem.” A Promised Ruler From Bethlehem 5 [a]Marshal your troops now, city of troops, for a siege is laid against us. They will strike Israel’s ruler on the cheek with a rod. 2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans[b] of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” 3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. 4 He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. 5 And he will be our peace

the family feuds of the nobles were beyond control. Revenge was regarded rather as an act of private justice than as a crime. The remotest members of a clan were bound by the obligations of the vendetta, which had its special home in Italy. Its history in the Middle Ages is largely one of family feuds that turned into wars. These ended either by the extermination of one party or by the intervention of the emperor or the church, imposing reconciliation and indemnities.

 ’ Bout time you married someone and stopped tempting every man from here to the Blue Sea,” Padera said, slurring the words through toothless gums. “You know, wars have started over women like you.” Moya scoffed. “You’re so full of crap, old woman.” “Brin?” Padera called. Brin tore her eyes away from the doorway. “Augusta of Melen, daughter of Chieftain Eisol, started the Battle of the Red River when she refused to marry Theo of Warric. When Theo’s father was killed in the fight, Theo vowed vengeance and summoned all of Clan Warric to his banner. This resulted in what became known as the Ten Year War, which claimed the lives of a thousand men and instigated a famine that lasted two years.

What’s that you two were shouting at each other?” He put his hands to his mouth and hooted, “GOOOOOON!” in a deep, echoing voice that made the others laugh. “Have ye never heard a war cry before?” Jamie asked, shaking his head at such ignorance. “Ye shout it in battle, to call your kin and your clan to your side.

They even had wars about monastic books, of all things; in one debacle, called the Battle of the Book, which took place in the kingdom of Cairbre Drom Cliabh in north-west Ireland between 555 and 561, two clans went to war after St. Columba had illegally copied a version of the Psalms belonging to St. Finnian, most likely the only war to even begin over copyright infrigment. The battle between the two groups led to “thousands” of deaths.

You are the strongest male I have ever known, Dancer. No one is more worthy of your noble lineage. You honor your family and your ancestors. And you are a treasure for Andaria. I know the first Dancer of the Warring Blood Clan of Hauk smiles whenever he looks down and sees the strength and beauty of his namesake.

Nationalism, of course, is intrinsically absurd. Why should the accident—fortune or misfortune—of birth as an American, Albanian, Scot, or Fiji Islander impose loyalties that dominate an individual life and structure a society so as to place it in formal conflict with others? In the past there were local loyalties to place and clan and tribe, obligations, to lord or landlord, dynastic or territorial wars, but primary loyalties were to religion, God or god-king, possibly to emperor, to a civilization as such. There was no nation. There was attachment to patria, land of one’s fathers, or patriotism, but to speak of nationalism before modern times is anachronistic.”1

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Human males, too, form alliances for gaining resources such as large game, political power within the group, ways to defend against the aggression of other coalitions of men, and sexual access to women.7 The survival and reproductive benefits derived from these coalitional activities constituted tremendous selection pressure over human evolutionary history for men to form alliances with other men. Since ancestral women did not hunt large game, declare war on other tribes, or attempt to forcibly capture men from neighboring bands, they did not experience equivalent selection pressure to form coalitions. Although women do form coalitions with other women for the care of the young and for protection from sexually aggressive men, these are weakened whenever a woman leaves her kin group to live with her husband and his clan. The combination of strong coalitions among men and somewhat weaker coalitions among women, according to Barbara Smuts, may have contributed historically to men’s dominance over women.9 My view is that women’s preferences for a successful, ambitious, and resource-capable mate coevolved with men’s competitive mating strategies, which include risk taking, status striving, derogation of competitors, coalition formation, and an array of individual efforts aimed at surpassing other men on the dimensions that women desire. The intertwining of these coevolved mechanisms in men and women created the conditions for men to dominate in the domain of resources. The origins of men’s control over resources is not simply an incidental historical footnote of passing curiosity. Rather, it has a profound bearing on the present, because it reveals some of the primary causes of men’s continuing control of resources. Women today continue to want men who have resources, and they continue to reject men who lack resources. These preferences are expressed repeatedly in dozens of studies conducted on tens of thousands of individuals in scores of countries worldwide. They are expressed countless times in everyday life. In any given year, the men whom women marry earn more than men of the same age whom women do not marry. Even professionally successful women who do not really need resources from a man are reluctant to settle for a mate who is less successful than they are. Women who earn more than their husbands seek divorce more often, although this trend appears to be changing, at least within America. Men continue to compete with other men to acquire the status and resources that make them desirable to women. The forces that originally caused the resource inequality between the genders—women’s mate preferences and men’s competitive strategies—are the same forces that contribute to maintaining resource inequality today. Feminists’ and evolutionists’ conclusions converge in their implication that men’s efforts to control female sexuality lie at the core of their efforts to control women. Our evolved sexual strategies account for why this occurs, and why control of women’s sexuality is a central preoccupation of men. Over the course of human evolutionary history, men who failed to control women’s sexuality—for example, by failing to attract a mate, failing to prevent cuckoldry, or failing to retain a mate—experienced lower reproductive success than men who succeeded in controlling women’s sexuality. We come from a long and unbroken line of ancestral fathers who succeeded in obtaining mates, preventing their infidelity, and providing enough benefits to keep them from leaving. We also come from a long line of ancestral mothers who granted sexual access to men who provided beneficial resources.

A hasty retreat from globalization would entail trade and currency wars, damaging every country’s economy, provoking social havoc and triggering ethno- or clan nationalism. The establishment of a much more inclusive and equitable form of globalization that makes it sustainable, both socially and environmentally, is the only viable way to manage retreat. This requires policy solutions addressed in the concluding chapter and some form of effective global governance. Progress is indeed possible in those global areas that have traditionally benefited from international cooperation, like environmental agreements, public health and tax havens.

Which they never faced and the people were given duties to protect the only planet as far as now were given money, love, and everything they needed. Ultimate creator who is actual god said to these protection people that remember one thing universe created all, that is it, visitors are from another planet and these dark people are actual owners of this planet and as universe is one, this people should not affected at all, then adam tale and No - One god was born, and those people were secret enough to cover their faces but it is not necessary at all because they don't have secrets to protect. And then history happened, wars for money, rule, slavery everything happened and as these things were going completely inhuman, man made law was to be produced. Then boundaries segragated born countries. But before these visitors visited this planet, whatever was in this planet was very beautiful and these dark people moved across continents as continents shifted by natural process and whatever they were doing before these visitors was completely natural just like animals mating on outdoors, deer runs before tiger, kill or getting killed ecology and evolution. But after these visitors these dark people learned how to do things properly with proper knowledge but because high attitude and enslaving nature of these visitors, these people went against it and again wars, instability and all. the protection people always remembered three things law, business, love and family. The god was to come to find out the truth but when he came, everything was almost settled. And god has decided not to end here for recreation and it is not needed as far as now, but he decided to go after who were sent by visitors (i.e - Visitors from another planet that came to this planet as greedy nature), because god once gave a word to these visitors when they were in their planet that, i have to go after your clan that been sent to search other possible creations beyond my limits and is there another god or creator or universe. But these visitors said whomever been sent were never returned but god told them I will go after them by any means and wherever you will establish, stablish peace. That's all

The kings, who are the most set on destroying the feudal baronies, are also the best friends of the merchants, the bankers and the master manufacturers. A shipowner is not the chieftain of a gang of sailors whom he abstracts from Power's clutch, but rather an employer of labour who on the contrary, makes them available to power when the time comes for it to require them; In this way, it is explained the favour shown by Francis I, to take one instance towards, Ango. A banker is not after political power - he is after wealth. His function is to build a sort of store-house on which, when the when the time is ripe, Power will draw to transmute this wealth into strength. A mercantile aristocracy, then, so far from abstracting anything from the state's resources, makes potential additions to them which will, when circumstances so require, be realized. This is the only aspect under which, for many years, Power saw the money power. But in the end the overthrow of every other social domination of whatever kind left financial domination master of the field. At that stage it was seemed to be the formative source of fresh cells. That showed itself clearly enough in the case of the industrial employers. Not only was the employer the law in his factory, but quite often he would put up nearby a township for his workers in which he had the position of prince. A point was reached at some of the states of the USA, at which the manufacturer, owning as he did the land on which the factory had been built, allowed on it no other police than his own. In its jealousy of any and every command, however small, which was not its own, Power could not tolerate such independence. Moreover, as in every other battle which it had fought with aristocratic formations, it soon found itself appealed to by the underlings. Then it made its way not only into the employer's township but into his workshop as well; there it introduced its own law, its own police and its own factory regulations. If its earlier aggressions against closed aristocratic formations were not our old friends, we might be tempted to see in this one nothing more than a result of the popular character of the modern state, and of socialist ideas. These factors played, no doubt, their part, but no more was needed, than that Power should be itself - a thing naturally tending to shut out the intervention of all other authorities. The financial cell is less visible to the eye than the industrial cell. But its hold on money, and above all by its disposal of vast amounts of private savings, finance has been able to build up a vast structure and impose on the ever growing number of its subjects and authority which is ever plainer on the planer to the view on the empires of finance, also, power made war. The signal for battle was not given by a socialist state, the natural enemy of the barons of capital. It came from Theodore Roosevelt, himself a man of Power, and therefore the enemy of all private authorities. In this way, a new alliance was sealed - an alliance no less natural than that of the Power of early days with the prisoners of the clan-cells, than that of the monarchy with the subjects of the feudal barons - that of the modern state with the men exploited by capitalist industry, with the men dominated by the financial trusts. The state has often waged this particular war half-heartedly, thereby making the extent to which it has turned its back on itself and has renounced its role of Power. And renunciation was in this case favoured by the internal weakness of modern Power; the precariousness of its tenure encouraged its phantom tenants to betray it in favor of the financial aristocracies. But Power has natural charms for those who desire it for its use. It was a certain that anti-capitalists would come to occupy the public offices of the bourgeois state, as it was certain that anti-feudalists would come to occupy those of the monarchial state.

For the individual, it inflicted severe damage to the ancient primary identity with a multigenerational family and clan and commenced a profound psychological slide toward atomization that would permit the herding of the population for a quarter century after 1949 into social and economic experiments, some of which proved stupendously destructive.

No longer am I consumed with wars between clans or even nations and empires. Now there is one final war left to decide ... the war between humanity and itself. Yes, I’ve seen world wars. But now the war for the world has begun... and I cannot remain silent.

I swear to make peace between our people. To end the war between The Oscura Clan and The Lunar Brotherhood for good and to find a way to rule in peace over our territories,” Dante said firmly, his words imbued with power. “I swear it too,” I agreed firmly and a clap of magic rang between our joined palms which was so powerful that I was certain the only way the two of us managed to stay standing was because of our holds on each other.

Racism is not the exclusive attribute of young nations where sometimes it hides beneath the rivalries of clans and political parties, with heavy losses for justice and at the risk of civil wars. It is still an obstacle to collaboration and a cause of division and hatred within countries whenever individuals and families see the inviolable rights of the human person held in scorn as they themselves are unjustly subjected to a regime of discrimination because of their race or their color.

The mass media are genealogical because, in them, every new invention sets off a chain reaction of inventions, produces a sort of common language. They have no memory because, when the chain of imitations has been produced, no one can remember who started it, and the head of the clan is confused with the latest great grandson. Furthermore, the media learn; and thus the spaceships of Star Wars, shamelessly descended from Kubrick’s, are more complex and plausible than their ancestor, and now the ancestor seems to be their imitator.

Kehn made a mental note to himself to increase the clan’s own security in Widow’s Park. Then he made two phone calls. The first was to his girlfriend to let her know that he couldn’t see her today, as he would be occupied with clan business. Lina took the news with aplomb.

In our veins runs the blood of the ancestors, the blood of the clan, the blood of the race. Your features are the features of your fathers and your soul is a continuation of the spiritual life of your ancestors.

Anne Hathaway's Garden by Stewart Stafford In Stratford, lies a garden's tended hair, Two lovebirds, Avon swans, nested there. Anne kept counsel as Shakespeare's bride, United home and clan over distance wide. Pestilence, flood and war roared with fright, This English idyll thrived in the pastoral light, Rose, rosemary pruned with nurturing care, Floral Tudor fireworks, exploding fragrant air. The Bard, swansong past, returned to her, Wooed Anne with words, the heartbeat spur, To walk and reminisce among the green, Sparked a fire that life apart rendered lean. Anne Hathaway's garden outlived them all, Paralleled words, evergreen, as in virgin scrawl. © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.

Let me do this, Shae-jen—let me do this for my children, and for the clan.

Here, the past is prologue. Much of what state-armed forces now face in Fourth Generation wars is simply war as it was fought before the rise of the state and the Peace of Westphalia. Once again, clans, tribes, ethnic groups, cultures, religions and gangs are fighting wars, in more and more parts of the world. They fight using many different means, not only conventional engagements and battles. Once again, conflicts have become many-sided rather than two-sided. Officers and enlisted men who find themselves caught up in such conflicts quickly discover they are difficult to understand and even harder to win.

Crow?” I leaned against the counter. He took a deep breath. “Yes, but not River or Mountain Band. He is something else.” I pointed toward the moccasins. “The bead pattern is one I’ve never seen; it’s geometric, but not the Crow that I know.” He knelt by the bars and examined the medicine bag and moccasins, though I noticed he touched neither, and nodded. “Kicked-in-the-Belly.” I waited a moment. “You mind telling a heathen devil white man what that is?” He pivoted and sat on the floor with his back to the cell, which Dog took as an invitation and joined him. “Eelalapi’io, a shunned band, one of thirteen exogamous maternal clans; fourth clan, grouped with ackya’pkawi’a, or Bad War Honors. ” I watched as he thought about it, first categorizing the information and then translating it so that it would be relatable to me linguistically and culturally. “Seventeen-twenty-seven, or thereabouts, there was a Crow war party led by Young White Buffalo that raided the Fat River country and came back with a very strange animal. This animal was as large as the elk but with rounded hooves, a long tail, and mane; it had no antlers, and the tribe was very interested in this new thing. A brave got too close to the

For Adams, the American Revolution was about independence from Great Britain and what he called the “Purification” of America—the eradication of “Vices” left over from British rule and “an Augmentation of our Virtues.” The foremost vice, which had provoked resentment in Adams throughout his adult life, and especially once he became a successful Boston lawyer, was that a handful of old, wealthy families monopolized important offices. Sometimes, one individual held numerous high offices. Adams thought that merit, not old money or ties to the powerful in London, should be the basis of holding office. Furthermore, it was bad enough to see his ambitions blocked by the scions of those “opulent, monopolizing” clans, but he was enraged by the “Scorn and Contempt and turning up of the Nose” that these people exhibited toward an accomplished and educated man like himself who descended from the “common People.” More than a decade before the Declaration of Independence, Adams said that those who rode the coattails of their “Ancestors’ Merit” had no right “to inherit the earth… . All men are created equal.

She kissed his lips. “You are the strongest male I have ever known, Dancer. No one is more worthy of your noble lineage. You honor your family and your ancestors. And you are a treasure for Andaria. I know the first Dancer of the Warring Blood Clan of Hauk smiles whenever he looks down and sees the strength and beauty of his namesake.” Hauk couldn’t breathe as those words echoed in his head. No one had ever made him feel like she did. Like he could do anything. Even fly. “I will not allow you to be harmed.” “Nor I you.” She pulled out her knife and unwound the scarf from her head. He

The average clan—and there were more than fifty of them in 1745—was no more a family than is a Mafia “family.” The only important blood ties were those between the chieftain and his various caporegimes, the so-called tacksmen who collected his rents and bore the same name. Below them were a large, nondescript, and constantly changing population of tenants and peasants, who worked the land and owed the chieftain service in war and peacetime. Whether they considered themselves Campbells or MacPhersons or Mackinnons was a matter of indifference, and no clan genealogist or bard, the seanachaidh, ever wasted breath keeping track of them. What mattered was that they were on clan land, and called it home.

Facing off in 1947-1948 were two very different societies: one highly motivated, literate, organized, semi-industrial; the other backward, largely illiterate, disorganized, agricultural. For the average Palestinian Arab man, a villager, political independence and nationhood were vague abstractions: his affinities and loyalties lay with his family, clan, and village, and, occasionally, region. Moreover, as we have noted, Palestinian Arab society was deeply divided along social and religious lines. And, among the more literate and politically conscious, there was a deep, basic fissure, going back to the 19zos, between the Husseinis and Nashashibis.

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. In Star Wars, a currency known as the “Galactic Credit Standard” or “credit” functioned as money.88 According to Wookieepedia, a website devoted to all things Star Wars, credit was created on Sojourn, a moon on which the InterGalactic Business Clan (IGBC) vacationed.

sometimes I just wanted to...I don’t know, escape life. To delve headfirst into a world that dealt with real-life issues to open my eyes, or a world that was something else, something completely unreal. One with warring faes or roaming vampire clans. I wanted to experience new things and always, always, reach the last page feeling satisfied

Time for a history lesson, kids. Back in the olden days, when two clans were at war, they would send their noblemen onto the field before a battle to try and negotiate a nonviolent resolution. If the lords could figure out a compromise, then there wouldn’t be a fight. But if they couldn’t reach an agreement—it was on. And I’m talking old-school battle axes, flaming arrows, cannonballs-that-will-take-your-legs-off-at-the-knee kind of on. Yes, this was a scene in Braveheart. But it’s still historically accurate. My point is, for every goal, there’s two ways of reaching it: the hard way and the easy way. The men back then understood that. And so do I. Which is why I’m standing outside my office building waiting to catch Kate before she walks through the door. To extend the olive branch. To work out a peaceful solution. We’ll call this my “easy way.” And here she comes. See her down the block? Apparently, I’m not the only one who came to work today ready for war. Kate definitely has her armor on.