Fish Related Quotes

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All space is relative. There is no such thing as size. The telescope and the microscope have produced a deadly leveling of great and small, far and near. The only little thing is sin, the only great thing is fear! ("The Jelly-Fish")
David H. Keller (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps)
All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance. This is a fallacy even in relation to known fact. For the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them, not by life, but by death; by the dying down or breaking off of their strength or desire. A man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he is tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still. But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the Thames goes to Sheerness. The very speed and ecstacy of his life would have the stillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE. Heaven may ENCORE the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance.
G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)
This has been the century of strangers, brown, yellow and white. This has been the century of the great immigrant experiment. It is only this late in the day that you can walk into a playground and find Isaac Leung by the fish pond, Danny Rahman in the football cage, Quang O’Rourke bouncing a basketball, and Irie Jones humming a tune. Children with first and last names on a direct collision course. Names that secrete within them mass exodus, cramped boats and planes, cold arrivals, medical checks. It is only this late in the day, and possibly only in Willesden, that you can find best friends Sita and Sharon, constantly mistaken for each other because Sita is white (her mother liked the name) and Sharon is Pakistani (her mother thought it best — less trouble).
Zadie Smith (White Teeth)
Money is a way of measuring wealth but is not wealth in itself. A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft. He needs real wealth, in the form of a fishing rod, a compass, an outboard motor with gas, and a female companion. But this ingrained and archaic confusion of money with wealth is now the main reason we are not going ahead full tilt with the development of our technological genius for the production of more than adequate food, clothing, housing, and utilities for every person on earth.
Alan W. Watts (Does It Matter?: Essays on Man’s Relation to Materiality)
The phenomenon of relative deprivation applied to education is called—appropriately enough—the “Big Fish–Little Pond Effect.” The more elite an educational institution is, the worse students feel about their own academic abilities.
Malcolm Gladwell (David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants)
And, as always, I thank my family who are an amazing network of support.
Laisha Rosnau (Notes on Leaving)
Here is my room, in the yellow lamplight and the space heater rumbling: Indian rug red as Cochise's blood, a desk with seven mystic drawers, a chair covered in material as velvety blue-black as Batman's cape, an aquarium holding tiny fish so pale you could see their hearts beat, the aforementioned dresser covered with decals from Revell model airplane kits, a bed with a quilt sewn by a relative of Jefferson Davis's, a closet, and the shelves, oh, yes, the shelves. The troves of treasure. On those shelves are stacks of me: hundreds of comic books- Justice League, Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, the Spirit, Blackhawk, Sgt. Rock and Easy Company, Aquaman, and the Fantastic Four... The shelves go on for miles and miles. My collection of marbles gleams in a mason jar. My dried cicada waits to sing again in the summer. My Duncan yo-yo that whistles except the string is broken and Dad's got to fix it.
Robert McCammon (Boy's Life)
Make no mistake, our economic system can do no other than destroy everything it encounters. That’s what happens when you convert living beings to cash. That conversion, from living trees to lumber, schools of cod to fish sticks, and onward to numbers on a ledger, is the central process of our economic system. Psychologically, it is the central process of our enculturation; we are most handsomely rewarded in direct relation to the manner in which we can help increase the Gross National Product.
Derrick Jensen (A Language Older Than Words)
those at the very top of the class—are going to face a burden that they would not face in a less competitive atmosphere. Citizens of happy countries have higher suicide rates than citizens of unhappy countries, because they look at the smiling faces around them and the contrast is too great. Students at “great” schools look at the brilliant students around them, and how do you think they feel? The phenomenon of relative deprivation applied to education is called—appropriately enough—the “Big Fish–Little Pond Effect.” The more elite an educational institution is, the worse students feel about their own academic abilities. Students who would be at the top of their class at a good school can easily fall to the bottom of a really good school. Students who would feel that they have mastered a subject at a good school can have the feeling that they are falling farther and farther behind in a really good school. And that feeling—as subjective and ridiculous and irrational
Malcolm Gladwell (David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants)
They settled out of court. In related news, two fish fought over an aquarium, rather than in the aquarium.
Jarod Kintz (This Book Has No Title)
In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes--courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, etc.--can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless. Nature has no compassion. It is, in the words of William Blake, "a creation that groans, living on the death; where fish and bird and beast and tree and metal and stone live by devouring." Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.
Eric Hoffer (Reflections on the Human Condition)
If only, I feel now, if only I could be someone able to see all this as if he had no other relation with it than that of seeing it, someone able to observe everything as if he were an adult traveler newly arrived today on the surface of life! If only one had not learned, from birth onwards, to give certain accepted meanings to everything, but instead was able to see the meaning inherent in each thing rather than that imposed on it from without. If only one could know the human reality of the woman selling fish and go beyond just labeling her a fishwife and the known fact that she exists and sells fish. If only one could see the policeman as God sees him. If only one could notice everything for the first time, not apocalyptically, as if they were revelations of the Mystery, but directly as the flowerings of Reality.
Fernando Pessoa
Progress and success are always relative. When the land was unoccupied by animals, the first amphibian to emerge from the sea could get away with being slow, lumbering, and fish-like, for it had no enemies and no competitors. But if a fish were to take to the land today, it would be gobbled up by a passing fox as surely as a Mongol horde would be wiped out by machine guns. In history and in evolution, progress is always a futile, Sisyphean struggle to stay in the same relative place by getting ever better at things.
Matt Ridley (The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature)
Fathers need to take their sons hunting and fishing, work on cars with them, take them to work, coach their teams, take them to ball games, work out with them, take them on business trips, and let them tag along with them when they go out with the guys. All of these activities help boys move successfully into the male world. This process is not just limited to a man's biological sons. Nice Guys can get involved with young relatives, scouts, sports teams, school activities, or big brothers.
Robert A. Glover (No More Mr. Nice Guy)
Fish and chip night was a Kumar family tradition that dated back to when Jaget was courting his wife and they used to meet in the last white English-owned fish and chip shop in Wembley on the basis that none of their relatives would go in there. “It
Ben Aaronovitch (The Furthest Station (Rivers of London, #5.7))
To live in the unconditional, inhaling only the unconditional, is impossible to man; he perishes lioke the fish forced to live in the air. But on the other hand, without relating himself to the unconditional, man cannot in the deepest sense be said to 'live'.
Søren Kierkegaard (The Point of View)
What do I say to a whale, Galen?" I hiss. "Tell him to come closer." "No way." "Fine. Tell him to back up." I nod. "Right. Okay." I lace my fingers together to keep from wringing my hands raw. Even more than terror, I feel the insanity of the situation. I'm about to ask a fish the size of my house to make a U-turn. Because Galen, the man-fish behind me, doesn't speak humpback. "Uh, can you please back away from me?" I say. I sound polite, like I'm asking him to buy some Girl Scout cookies. I feel better in the few moments afterward because Goliath doesn't move. It proves Galen doesn't know what he's talking about. It proves this whale can't understand me, that I'm not some Snow White of the ocean. Except that, Goliath does start to turn away. I look back at Galen. "That's just a coincidence." Galen sighs. "You're right. He probably mistook us for a relative or something. Tell him to do something else, Emma.
Anna Banks (Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy, #1))
All life on our planet is related, and the readout of letters in DNA shows exactly how. By comparing DNA sequences, we can compute statistically how closely related we are to anything, from monkeys to marsupials, to reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, crustaceans, worms, plants, protozoa, bacteria–you name it.
Nick Lane (Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution)
No sane paleontologist would ever claim that he or she had discovered "The Ancestor." Think about it this way: What is the chance that while walking through any random cemetery on our planet I would discover an actual ancestor of mine? Diminishingly small. What I would discover is that all people buried in these cemeteries-- no mater whether that cemetery is in China, Botswana, or Italy-- are related to me to different degrees. I can find this out by looking at their DNA with many of the forensic techniques in use in crime labs today. I'd see that some of the denizens of the cemeteries are distantly related to me, others are related more closely. This tree would be a very powerful window into my past and my family history. It would also have a practical application because I could use this tree to understand my predilection to get certain diseases and other facts of my biology. The same is true when we infer relationship among species.
Neil Shubin (Your Inner Fish: a Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body)
(Jen gets completely sloshed and it's not her wedding) I was supposed to meet Carol and her family at the aquarium the next morning, and somehow had the presence of mind to leave a voicemail apologizing in advance for not being able to make it. I was please at myself for being so responsible and considerate. After I left the message, I blissfully headed off to bed, wearing a face full of makeup, all my grown up jewelry, and a relatively restrictive girdle. Suffice it to say, yesterday was rough, what with my apartment spinning and all. But today I felt better. That is, until Carol played me the voice mail I left for her at 1:03 AM. Somehow I thought I had been able to hold it together on the phone. Following is a transcript of the message I left: 30 seconds of heavy breathing, giggling, and intermittent hiccups (At first Carol thought it was a 911 call.) Oh, heeheehee, I waassshh wayyyting for a beep. But noooooo beeeeeeep. Why don't you hash a beep on your, your, ummmmmm...celery phone? Noooooo beeeeeeep, hic, heeheeeheee. Um, hiiiiii, itsch JEENNNNNNNN!! It's thirteen o'clock in the peeeeeee eeeemmmmmmm. Heeeeeeeellllllllllloooooooo! I went to my wedding tonight and it wash sooooo niiiiiiiiiice. Hic." More giggling and the sound of a phone being dropped and retrieved Nannyway, I am calling to telllll you noooooooooo fishies tomorry...no fishies for meeee! I hic, heeeee, can't smake it to the quariyummm. Maybeeee you can call me so I can say HIIIIIIIIIIIIIII later hich in the day hee hee hee. Call me at, um, 312, ummmmmmm, 312, uummmmm, hee hee hee I can't member my phone, Hic. Do you know my number? Can you call me and tell me what it isssch? I LIKESH TURKEY SAMMICHES! 10 seconds of chewing, giggling, and what may be gobbling sounds Okay, GGGGGGGGooooooodniiiiiiiiiggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhttttt! No fish! Um, how do I turn this tthing off? Shhhhh, callllls' over. Beeee quiiiiiiietttt, hee hee hee." 15 more seconds of giggles, hiccups, shushing, and a great deal of banging Perhaps this is why most people only have one wedding?
Jen Lancaster (Bitter Is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office)
The seas are wide and flow together. They have no borders and have room enough for all fish.
Emile Habiby (الوقائع الغريبة في اختفاء سعيد أبي النحس المتشائل)
Fish have personalities; they’re just quiet ones. I guess that’s why I liked them. I could relate.
Jenn Bennett (Serious Moonlight)
I couldn’t see the end of the corridor, so I stared at the entrance. The ship was a magnificent piece of living technology. Third Fish was a Miri 12, a type of ship closely related to a shrimp. Miri 12s were stable calm creatures with natural exoskeletons that could withstand the harshness of space. They were genetically enhanced to grow three breathing chambers within their bodies. Scientists planted rapidly growing plants within these three enormous rooms that not only produced oxygen from the CO2 directed in from other parts of the ship, but also absorbed benzene, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene. This was some of the most amazing technology I’d ever read about. Once settled on the ship, I was determined to convince someone to let me see one of these amazing rooms. But at the moment, I wasn’t thinking about the technology of the ship. I was on the threshold now, between home and my future.
Nnedi Okorafor (Binti (Binti, #1))
The phenomenon of relative deprivation applied to education is called—appropriately enough—the “Big Fish–Little Pond Effect.” The more elite an educational institution is, the worse students feel about their own academic abilities. Students who would be at the top of their class at a good school can easily fall to the bottom of a really good school. Students who would feel that they have mastered a subject at a good school can have the feeling that they are falling farther and farther behind in a really good school. And that feeling—as subjective and ridiculous and irrational as it may be—matters. How you feel about your abilities—your academic “self-concept”—in the context of your classroom shapes your willingness to tackle challenges and finish difficult tasks. It’s a crucial element in your motivation and confidence.
Malcolm Gladwell (David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants)
Airplane Dream #13' told the story, more or less, of a dream Rosa had had about the end of the world. There were no human beings left but her, and she had found herself flying in a pink seaplane to an island inhabited by sentient lemurs. There seemed to be a lot more to it -- there was a kind of graphic "sound track" constructed around images relating to Peter Tchaikovsky and his works, and of course abundant food imagery -- but this was, as far as Joe could tell, the gist. The story was told entirely through collage, with pictures clipped from magazines and books. There were pictures from anatomy texts, an exploded musculature of the human leg, a pictorial explanation of peristalsis. She had found an old history of India, and many of the lemurs of her dream-apocalypse had the heads and calm, horizontal gazes of Hindu princes and goddesses. A seafood cookbook, rich with color photographs of boiled crustacea and poached whole fish with jellied stares, had been throughly mined. Sometimes she inscribed text across the pictures, none of which made a good deal of sense to him; a few pages consisted almost entirely of her brambly writing, illuminated, as it were, with collage. There were some penciled-in cartoonish marginalia like the creatures found loitering at the edges of pages in medieval books.
Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
To get the feeling of what it is like to be a creature of the sea requires the active exercise of the imagination and the temporary abandonment of many human concepts and human yardsticks. For example, time measured by the clock or the calendar means nothing if you are a shore bird or a fish, but the succession of light and darkness and the ebb and the flow of the tides mean the difference between the time to eat and the time to fast, between the time an enemy can find you easily and the time you are relatively safe. We cannot get the full flavor of marine life—cannot project ourselves vicariously into it—unless we make these adjustments in our thinking.
Rachel Carson (Under the Sea Wind)
wherever they live, travel, hike, swim, fish, dive, kayak, or trek, they risk being confronted by something capable of doing them in with tooth, fang, claw, jaw, or stinger, and yet there is no public clamor to eradicate any animal because of the peril it poses to the human population. australians have learned to coexist in relative peace with nearly everything, and when occasionally a human life is lost to an animal, the public usually reacts philosophically.
Peter Benchley (Shark Trouble)
You have read Darwin," I said. "But you read him misunderstandingly when you conclude that the struggle for existence sanctions your wanton destruction of life." He shrugged his shoulders. "You know you only mean that in relation to human life, for of the flesh and the fowl and the fish you destroy as much as I or any other man. And human life is in no wise different, though you feel it is and think that you reason why it is. Why should I be parsimonious with this life which is cheap and without value? There are more sailors than there are ships on the sea for them, more workers than there are factories or machines for them. Why, you who live on the land know that you house your poor people in the slums of cities and loose famine and pestilence upon them, and that there still remain more poor people, dying for want of a crust of bread and a bit of meat (which is life destroyed), than you know what to do with. Have you ever seen the London dockers fighting like wild beasts for a chance to work?
Jack London (The Sea Wolf By Jack London)
Don’t eat my fish.” “I’ll be patient and just snack on you when you come home.” “Don’t eat the cat.” His smirk falls to a mock glare. “Come on, have some faith in me!” “Don’t eat the neighbor.” “The neighbor is like ninety and shriveled up and probably has old blood.” I raise an eyebrow. “And you know what the neighbor looks like because?” River stares at me with wide eyes. “I… like… watching blood bags—people… walk around outside as my mouth waters.” I’m quite terrified of this fact. “Oh my god, you’re going to eat someone!
Alice Winters (How to Save a Human (VRC: Vampire Related Crimes, #4))
During the last two hundred years the blackbird has abandoned the woods to become a city bird. From the planet's viewpoint, the blackbird's invasion of the human world is certainly more important than the Spanish invasion of South America or the return to Palestine of the Jews. A shift in the relationships among the various kinds of creation (fish, birds, humans, plants) is a shift of a higher order than changes in relations among various groups of the same kind. Whether Celts or Slavs inhabit Bohemia, whether Romanians or Russians conquer Bessarabia, is more or less the same to the earth. But when the blackbird betrayed nature to follow humans into the artificial unnatural world, something changed in the organic structure of the planet. And yet no one dares to interpret the last two centuries as the history of the invasion of man's cities by the blackbird. All of us are prisoners of a rigid conception of what is important and what is not, and so we fasten our anxious gaze on the important, while from a hiding place behind our backs the unimportant wages ts guerrilla war, which will end in surreptitiously changing the world and pouncing on us by surprise.
Milan Kundera (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting)
There is probably something good in every religion, the important thing is how you practice it. And this is when I found out that the most beautiful thing is to be able to live with a religion. Not just by displaying it and going to church and all, but by really being able to live some of these thoughts in your everyday life. This is a good thought. My problem right now is—and I just went to a Catholic service in connection with my daughter's something-or-another—and I got so damn annoyed by the fact that every text was about humility in relation to God. That's annoying, and I keep on being annoyed by it. Granted, the texts were written by people and not by God, but it's still so annoying. I don't see the meaning of you being humble just because you've been created by God and He has created all this. You can be humble toward life and toward other human beings and toward creativity and everything—and you are—but being humble toward the man who has created the whole circus? Of course, but you shouldn't have to prostrate yourself, and you do that in many religions—you crawl in the dust before these gods. Why? I can see why some king down here on earth might enjoy seeing people crawling before him, but if this guy is that great, then he shouldn't care whether I bow down before him or whether I play around with my dick at night—he shouldn't care a bit about anything like that. As long as I don't do anything that will harm his creation, as long as I don't kill, say, too many fish—well, he's OK with fish, they eat them in the Bible. But this thing about throwing yourself on the floor and exclaiming, "You're so great! You're so great!"—that's completely illogical. If you believe in him, then he's the greatest anyhow. You look at a tiny leaf and you'll get humble—everyone will—even some stupid redneck in an ugly car. You really have to be stupid not to be able to appreciate a thing like that—a little leaf is like looking into eternity. It's totally amazing! And you don't have to stand around in church every day proclaiming that you're a little sinner and worth nothing and he is everything. That's annoying. Sorry, I must have made my point by now.
Lars von Trier
By the time the war ended, Iceland was a changed country. Not least among the changes, in 1944 it had negotiated full independence from Denmark. Now it was free to negotiate its own relations with the rest of the world. Because of cod, it had moved in one generation from a fifteenth-century colonial society to a modern postwar nation.
Mark Kurlansky (Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World)
but the most sumptuous thing in the room at that moment was naturally the sumptuously laid table, though, of course, even that was comparatively speaking: the table-cloth was clean, the silver was brightly polished; three kinds of wonderfully baked bread, two bottles of wine, two bottles of excellent monastery mead, and a large glass jug of monastery kvas, famous throughout the neighbourhood. There was no vodka at all. Rakitin related afterwards that this time it was a five-course dinner: fish soup of sterlets served with fish patties; then boiled fish excellently prepared in a special way; then salmon cutlets, ice cream and stewed fruits and, finally, a fruit jelly.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
An indisputable event, my gallant Ned. Accordingly, people have proposed naming this devil fish Bouguer's Squid. And how long was it? the Canadian asked. Didn't it measure about six metres? said Conseil, who was stationed at the window and examining anew the crevices in the cliff. Precisely, I replied Wasn't its head, Conseil went on, crowned by eight tentacles that quivered in the water like a nest of snakes? Precisely. Weren't its eyes prominently placed and considerably enlarged? Yes, Conseil. And wasn't its mouth a real parrot's beak but of fearsome size? Correct, Conseil. Well, with all due respect to master, Conseil replied serenely, if this isn't Bouguers Squid, it's at least one of his close relatives!
Jules Verne (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Captain Nemo, #2))
The strength of a balancing feedback loop is important relative to the impact it is designed to correct. If the impact increases in strength, the feedbacks have to be strengthened too. A thermostat system may work fine on a cold winter day—but open all the windows and its corrective power is no match for the temperature change imposed on the system. Democracy works better without the brainwashing power of centralized mass communications. Traditional controls on fishing were sufficient until sonar spotting and drift nets and other technologies made it possible for a few actors to catch the last fish. The power of big industry calls for the power of big government to hold it in check; a global economy makes global regulations necessary.
Donella H. Meadows (Thinking in Systems: A Primer)
But the life of the Spirit always seems foolish to those who do not share it: therefore we must accept and wear the label of God’s Fools gladly, for in relation to God we are all fools, no matter how wise we may think we are. To be an April Fish is to humbly accept our own silliness, and to cheerfully admit the absurdity — from a materialist view — of every Spiritual truth we profess.
Margaret Atwood (The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam, #2))
The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor. But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary … You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals. You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs. My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species.
Matt Ridley (The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves)
The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead... ...When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin. It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair. Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus... ...Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.
Rupert Thomson (The Five Gates of Hell)
Why had they strung it up like a lynch victim, why didn’t they just throw it away like the trash? To prove they could do it, they had the power to kill. Otherwise it was valueless; beautiful from a distance but it couldn’t be tamed or cooked or trained to talk, the only relation they could have to a thing like that was to destroy it. Food, slave or corpse, limited choices; horned and fanged heads sawed off and mounted on the billiard room wall, stuffed fish, trophies
Margaret Atwood (Surfacing)
9.1 Understand that you and the people you manage will go through a process of personal evolution. a. Recognize that personal evolution should be relatively rapid and a natural consequence of discovering one’s strengths and weaknesses; as a result, career paths are not planned at the outset. b. Understand that training guides the process of personal evolution. c. Teach your people to fish rather than give them fish, even if that means letting them make some mistakes. d. Recognize that experience creates internalized learning that book learning can’t replace.
Ray Dalio (Principles: Life and Work)
Even in Chicago, Shweder found relatively little evidence of social-conventional thinking. There were plenty of stories that contained no obvious harm or injustice, such as a widow eating fish, and Americans predictably said that those cases were fine. But more important, they didn’t see these behaviors as social conventions that could be changed by popular consent. They believed that widows should be able to eat whatever they darn well please, and if there’s some other country where people try to limit widows’ freedoms, well, they’re wrong to do so. Even in the United States the social order is a moral order, but it’s an individualistic order built up around the protection of individuals and their freedom. The distinction between morals and mere conventions is not a tool that children everywhere use to self-construct their moral knowledge. Rather, the distinction turns out to be a cultural artifact, a necessary by-product of the individualistic answer to the question of how individuals and groups relate. When you put individuals first, before society, then any rule or social practice that limits personal freedom can be questioned. If it doesn’t protect somebody from harm, then it can’t be morally justified. It’s just a social convention.
Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion)
The Florida side of my family is huge. People married young. Were Fruitful. Multiplied. As a kid a family fish fry might see 50 gather in someone's First District yard. A great-uncle frying mullet. Adults in the shade as kids played. Games of tag with complex rules. Jumping Live Oak roots. Flinging Chinaberries. You'd limp to the shade bruised and breathless. Hear a story about a cousin caught stealing hogs. Quickly get sent away – "Go play! This is Grown People Business!" We'd head back out. Climb trees. Make palm frond swords. Years passed. I grew up and found that most of those relatives were gone. I had missed the Grown People Business.
Damon Thomas
The Florida side of my family is huge. People married young. Were Fruitful. Multiplied. As a kid a family fish fry might see 50 gather in someone's First District yard. A great-uncle frying mullet. Adults in the shade as kids played. Games of tag with complex rules. Jumping Live Oak roots. Flinging Chinaberries. You'd limp to the shade bruised and breathless. Hear a story about a cousin caught stealing hogs. Quickly get sent away – "Go play! This is Grown People Business!" We'd head back out. Climb trees. Make palm frond swords. Years passed. I grew up and found that most of those relatives were gone. I had missed the Grown People Business.
Damon Thomas (Some Books Are Not For Sale (Rural Gloom))
People like Mrs. Lee were used to only one kind of Chinese wedding banquet—the kind that took place in the grand ballroom of a five-star hotel. There would be the gorging on salted peanuts during the interminable wait for the fourteen-course dinner to begin, the melting ice sculptures, the outlandish floral centerpieces, the society matron invariably offended by the faraway table she had been placed at, the entrance of the bride, the malfunctioning smoke machine, the entrance of the bride again and again in five different gowns throughout the night, the crying child choking on a fish ball, the three dozen speeches by politicians, token ang mor executives and assorted high-ranking officials of no relation to the wedding couple, the cutting of the twelve-tier cake, someone’s mistress making a scene, the not so subtle counting of wedding cash envelopes by some cousin,* the ghastly Canto pop star flown in from Hong Kong to scream some pop song (a chance for the older crowd to take an extended toilet break), the distribution of tiny wedding fruitcakes with white icing in paper boxes to all the departing guests, and then Yum seng!†—the whole affair would be over and everyone would make the mad dash to the hotel lobby to wait half an hour for their car and driver to make it through the traffic jam.
Kevin Kwan (Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians, #1))
The image of a sardine floated across my mind. Through I seemed to be swimming freely in the sea, I was merely moving my body in relation to the other fish around me. There was no sardine leader deciding in which direction we would swim. We merely conformed to the fluctuations of the school, expanding or shrinking, drifting off to the side or surging ahead into the distance. And there was no intentionality behind it. The sardine that strayed would be eaten. Thus, so as not to fall behind, I stayed in constant motion. Behind me. Before me. Above me. Below me. Sardines, sardines, sardines. Eventually I would no longer know which sardine I was or whether I was really there at all.
Tomoyuki Hoshino (ME: A Novel)
...the reconciliation of irrational forms in which certain economic relations appear and assert themselves in practice does not concern the active agents of these relations in their everyday life. And since they are accustomed to move about in such relations, they find nothing strange therein. A complete contradiction offers not the least mystery to them. They feel as much at home as a fish in water among manifestations which are separated from their internal connections and absurd when isolated by themselves. What Hegel says with reference to certain mathematical formulas applies here: that which seems irrational to ordinary common sense is rational, and that which seems rational to it is itself irrational.
Karl Marx (Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 3)
He suspects she’s flirting with him. It’s far from disagreeable, but, perversely, it makes him think of his mother. How many acceptable young girls has she trailed discreetly before him, like feathered fishing lures? She arranges them, always, next to a vase of white flowers. Their morals have been irreproachable, their manners candid as spring water; their minds have been presented to him as unbaked pieces of dough which it would be his prerogative to mould and form. As one season’s crop of girls proceeds into engagement and marriage, younger ones keep sprouting up, like tulips in May. They are now so young in relation to Simon that he has trouble conversing with them; it’s like talking to a basketful of kittens.
Margaret Atwood (Alias Grace)
There was another inspiring moment: a rough, choppy, moonlit night on the water, and the Dreadnaught's manager looked out the window suddenly to spy thousands of tiny baitfish breaking the surface, rushing frantically toward shore. He knew what that meant, as did everyone else in town with a boat, a gaff and a loaf of Wonder bread to use as bait: the stripers were running! Thousands of the highly prized, relatively expensive striped bass were, in a rare feeding frenzy, suddenly there for the taking. You had literally only to throw bread on the water, bash the tasty fish on the head with a gaff and then haul them in. They were taking them by the hundreds of pounds. Every restaurant in town was loading up on them, their parking lots, like ours, suddenly a Coleman-lit staging area for scaling, gutting and wrapping operations. The Dreadnaught lot, like every other lot in town, was suddenly filled with gore-covered cooks and dishwashers, laboring under flickering gaslamps and naked bulbs to clean, wrap and freeze the valuable white meat. We worked for hours with our knives, our hair sparkling with snowflake-like fish scales, scraping, tearing, filleting. At the end of the night's work, I took home a 35-pound monster, still twisted with rigor. My room-mates were smoking weed when I got back to our little place on the beach and, as often happens on such occasions, were hungry. We had only the bass, some butter and a lemon to work with, but we cooked that sucker up under the tiny home broiler and served it on aluminum foil, tearing at it with our fingers. It was a bright, moonlit sky now, a mean high tide was lapping at the edges of our house, and as the windows began to shake in their frames, a smell of white spindrift and salt saturated the air as we ate. It was the freshest piece of fish I'd ever eaten, and I don't know if it was due to the dramatic quality the weather was beginning to take on, but it hit me right in the brainpan, a meal that made me feel better about things, made me better for eating it, somehow even smarter, somehow . . . It was a protein rush to the cortex, a clean, three-ingredient ingredient high, eaten with the hands. Could anything be better than that?
Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)
Progress And again my inmost life rushes louder, as if it moved now between steeper banks. Objects become ever more related to me, and all pictures ever more perused. I feel myself more trusting in the nameless: with my senses, as with birds, I reach into the windy heavens from the oak, and into the small ponds' broken-off day my feeling sinks, as if it stood on fishes. (Fortschritt Und wieder rauscht mein tiefes Leben lauter, als ob es jetzt in breitern Ufern ginge. Immer verwandter werden mir die Dinge und alle Bilder immer angeschauter. Dem Namenlosen fühl ich mich vertrauter: Mit meinen Sinnen, wie mit Vögeln, reiche ich in die windigen Himmel aus der Eiche, und in den abgebrochnen Tag der Teiche sinkt, wie auf Fischen stehend, mein Gefühl.)
Rainer Maria Rilke (The Book of Images)
Abu'd-Darda' (may Allah be pleased with him) said, "I heard the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), say, 'Allah will make the path to the Garden easy for anyone who travels a path in search of knowledge. Angels spread their wings for the seeker of knowledge out of pleasure for what he is doing. Everyone in the heavens and everyone in the earth ask forgiveness for a man of knowledge, even the fish in the water. The superiority of the man of knowledge to the man of worship is like the superiority of the moon to all the planets. The men of knowledge are the heirs of the Prophets. The Prophets bequeath neither dinar nor dirham; they bequeath knowledge. Whoever takes it has taken an ample portion.'" [Related by Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi; Riyad al-Salihin: 1388]
Tirmidhi
Effort is required to maintain simultaneously in memory several ideas that require separate actions, or that need to be combined according to a rule—rehearsing your shopping list as you enter the supermarket, choosing between the fish and the veal at a restaurant, or combining a surprising result from a survey with the information that the sample was small, for example. System 2 is the only one that can follow rules, compare objects on several attributes, and make deliberate choices between options. The automatic System 1 does not have these capabilities. System 1 detects simple relations (“they are all alike,” “the son is much taller than the father”) and excels at integrating information about one thing, but it does not deal with multiple distinct topics at once, nor is it adept at using purely statistical information.
Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow)
Such is the lot of the knight that even though my patrimony were ample and adequate for my support, nevertheless here are the disturbances which give me no quiet. We live in fields, forests, and fortresses. Those by whose labors we exist are poverty-stricken peasants, to whom we lease our fields, vineyards, pastures, and woods. The return is exceedingly sparse in proportion to the labor expended. Nevertheless the utmost effort is put forth that it may be bountiful and plentiful, for we must be diligent stewards. I must attach myself to some prince in the hope of protection. Otherwise every one will look upon me as fair plunder. But even if I do make such an attachment hope is beclouded by danger and daily anxiety. If I go away from home I am in peril lest I fall in with those who are at war or feud with my overlord, no matter who he is, and for that reason fall upon me and carry me away. If fortune is adverse, the half of my estates will be forfeit as ransom. Where I looked for protection I was ensnared. We cannot go unarmed beyond to yokes of land. On that account, we must have a large equipage of horses, arms, and followers, and all at great expense. We cannot visit a neighboring village or go hunting or fishing save in iron. Then there are frequently quarrels between our retainers and others, and scarcely a day passes but some squabble is referred to us which we must compose as discreetly as possible, for if I push my claim to uncompromisingly war arises, but if I am too yielding I am immediately the subject of extortion. One concession unlooses a clamor of demands. And among whom does all this take place? Not among strangers, my friend, but among neighbors, relatives, and those of the same household, even brothers. These are our rural delights, our peace and tranquility. The castle, whether on plain or mountain, must be not fair but firm, surrounded by moat and wall, narrow within, crowded with stalls for the cattle, and arsenals for guns, pitch, and powder. Then there are dogs and their dung, a sweet savor I assure you. The horsemen come and go, among them robbers, thieves, and bandits. Our doors are open to practically all comers, either because we do not know who they are or do not make too diligent inquiry. One hears the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, the barking of dogs, the shouts of men working in the fields, the squeaks or barrows and wagons, yes, and even the howling of wolves from nearby woods. The day is full of thought for the morrow, constant disturbance, continual storms. The fields must be ploughed and spaded, the vines tended, trees planted, meadows irrigated. There is harrowing, sowing, fertilizing, reaping, threshing: harvest and vintage. If the harvest fails in any year, then follow dire poverty, unrest, and turbulence.
Ulrich von Hutten (Ulrich von Hutten and the German Reformation)
It turns out that the eastern U.S. founder crops were four plants domesticated in the period 2500–1500 B.C., a full 6,000 years after wheat and barley domestication in the Fertile Crescent. A local species of squash provided small containers, as well as yielding edible seeds. The remaining three founders were grown solely for their edible seeds (sunflower, a daisy relative called sumpweed, and a distant relative of spinach called goosefoot). But four seed crops and a container fall far short of a complete food production package. For 2,000 years those founder crops served only as minor dietary supplements while eastern U.S. Native Americans continued to depend mainly on wild foods, especially wild mammals and waterbirds, fish, shellfish, and nuts. Farming did not supply a major part of their diet until the period 500–200 B.C., after three more seed crops (knotweed, maygrass, and little barley) had been brought into cultivation. A
Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (20th Anniversary Edition))
By the end of 1865, so-called Black Codes began to forge a new caste system in the South, a segregated world where freed slaves worked as indentured servants, subject to arrest if they left jobs before their annual contracts expired. It was a cruel new form of bondage, establishing the foundations of the Jim Crow system that later ruled southern race relations. In South Carolina, blacks were confined by law to their plantations, forced to work from sunup to sundown. In Florida, blacks who showed “disrespect” to their bosses or rode in public conveyances reserved for whites could be whipped and pilloried. In Mississippi, it became a criminal offense for blacks to hunt or fish, heightening their dependence upon white employers. Thus, within six months of the end of the Civil War, there arose a broadly based retreat from many of the ideals that had motivated the northern war effort, reestablishing the status quo ante and white supremacy in the old Confederacy.
Ron Chernow (Grant)
I see prawns, mussels... a whole host of seafood!" "Don't forget the perfectly ripe tomatoes and the bottle of olive oil. Aah, I get it. It seems he is making Acqua Pazza." ACQUA PAZZA A local delicacy in Southern Italy... ... Acqua Pazza is a simple yet gourmet dish of poached white fish mixed with a variety of other ingredients. Traditional ingredients include olive oil, tomatoes and shellfish. "Compared to many other poached or simmered dishes, it uses relatively few seasonings. Because it's so uncomplicated, the quality of the ingredients themselves comes to the forefront. It's the perfect dish to show off his superhuman eye for selecting fish." "Not that Acqua Pazza itself is a poor choice... ... but the centerpiece of the dish must still be the pike! Yet the ingredients he's chosen have distinct flavors that demand attention. Won't simmering them all together drown out the flavor of the fish?" "True! It would be a waste of an in-season pike to- Wait..." "Exactly. Precisely because it is in season, the pike's flavor won't be drowned out. Instead, it has the potential to become the base of the entire dish! It's a recipe only someone with great confidence in their eye for fish could have chosen for this competition.
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 12 [Shokugeki no Souma 12] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #12))
In 2008, an Australian company commissioned a study to find out exactly how much people fear public speaking. The survey of more than one thousand people found that 23 percent feared public speaking more than death itself! As Jerry Seinfeld once said, most people attending a funeral would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy! I can relate to those people because I feared speaking in front of a class or group of people more than anything else when I was a kid. In fact, I dropped speech in high school because when I signed up for it I thought it was a grammar class for an English credit. When I found out it actually required giving an oral presentation, I didn’t want any part of it! After hearing the overview of the class on the first day, I got out of my seat and walked toward the door; the teacher asked me where I was going. We had a brief meeting in the hall, in which she informed me that nobody ever dropped her class. After a meeting with the principal, I dropped the class, but on the condition that I might be called upon in the near future to use my hunting and fishing skills. I thought the principal was joking--until I was called upon later that year during duck season to pick ducks during recess! I looked at it as a fair trade.
Jase Robertson (Good Call: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Fowl)
For those who live in Kashmir, the expectations of justice, rarely fulfilled in the Indian subcontinent, are more than optimistic; they belong to fantasy. It makes it all the more difficult for the victims to bear their human losses. At Dalal's house, the once carefully tended plants and hedges were already running wild just a few weeks after his murder, the fish in the pond were mostly dead, and few men sat slumped on the floor in a bare hall under the Islamic calendar of mourning. His mother, persuaded by her male relatives to emerge from the dark room where she had taken to since her son's death, broke down as soon as she noticed the photos of Dalal I had been studying. The pictures showed a young man in dark glasses and trendy clothes, a happy, contented man, someone who had managed to find, amid the relentless violence of the insurgency, a new style and identity for himself, and when Dalal's mother, still crying, while her mother, Dalal's grandmother, sat beside her, quietly wiping her tears with the frayed end of her headscarf, asked what was the point of talking to the press, of speaking about her son to me- he was gone and wouldn't come back; the people who had killed him were too powerful- it was hard not to feel pierced by the truth of what she was saying, hard not to be moved by her grief, and the pain, amid the great human waste of Kashmir, of her helplessness.
Pankaj Mishra (Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond)
A second element in the creation of commercial value is scarcity, the separation of people from whatever they might want or need. In artificial environments, where humans are separated from the sources of their survival, everything obtains a condition of relative scarcity and therefore value. There is the old story of the native living on a Pacific island, relaxing in a house on the beach, picking fruit from the tree and spearing fish in the water. A businessman arrives on the island, buys all the land, cuts down the trees and builds a factory. Then he hires the native to work in it for money so that someday the native can afford canned fruit and fish from the mainland, a nice little cinder-block house near the beach with a view of the water, and weekends off to enjoy it. The moment people move off land which has directly supported them, the necessities of life are removed from individual control. The things people could formerly produce for their survival must now be paid for. You may be living on the exact spot where a fruit tree once fed people. Now the fruit comes from five hundred miles away and costs thirty-five cents apiece. It is in the separation that the opportunity for profit resides. When the basic necessities are not scarce—in those places where food is still wild and abundant, for example—economic value can only be applied to new items. Candy bars, bottled or chemical milk, canned tuna, electrical appliances and CocaCola have all been intensively marketed in countries new to the market system. Because these products hadn’t existed in those places before, they are automatically relatively scarce and potentially valuable.
Jerry Mander (Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television)
Why did you come here-that is, why did you agree to reconsider my proposal?” The question alarmed and startled her. Now that she’d seen him she had only the dimmest, possibly even erroneous recollection of having spoken to him at a ball. Moreover, she couldn’t tell him she was in danger of being cut off by her uncle, for that whole explanation was to humiliating to bear mentioning. “Did I do or say something during our brief meetings the year before last to mislead you, perhaps, into believing I might yearn for the city life?” “It’s hard to say,” Elizabeth said with absolute honesty. “Lady Cameron, do you even remember our meeting?” “Oh, yes, of course. Certainly,” Elizabeth replied, belatedly recalling a man who looked very like him being presented to her at Lady Markham’s. That was it! “We met at Lady Markham’s ball.” His gaze never left her face. “We met in the park.” “In the park?” Elizabeth repeated in sublime embarrassment. “You had stopped to admire the flowers, and the young gentleman who was your escort that day introduced us.” “I see,” Elizabeth replied, her gaze skating away from his. “Would you care to know what we discussed that day and the next day when I escorted you back to the park?” Curiosity and embarrassment warred, and curiosity won out. “Yes, I would.” “Fishing.” “F-fishing?” Elizabeth gasped. He nodded. “Within minutes after we were introduced I mentioned that I had not come to London for the Season, as you supposed, but that I was on my way to Scotland to do some fishing and was leaving London the very next day.” An awful feeling of foreboding crept over Elizabeth as something stirred in her memory. “We had a charming chat,” he continued. “You spoke enthusiastically of a particularly challenging trout you were once able to land.” Elizabeth’s face felt as hot as red coals as he continued, “We quite forgot the time and your poor escort as we shared fishing stories.” He was quiet, waiting, and when Elizabeth couldn’t endure the damning silence anymore she said uneasily, “Was there…more?” “Very little. I did not leave for Scotland the next day but stayed instead to call upon you. You abandoned the half-dozen young bucks who’d come to escort you to some sort of fancy soiree and chose instead to go for another impromptu walk in the park with me.” Elizabeth swallowed audibly, unable to meet his eyes. “Would you like to know what we talked about that day?” “No, I don’t think so.” He chucked but ignored her reply, “You professed to be somewhat weary of the social whirl and confessed to a longing to be in the country that day-which is why we went to the park. We had a charming time, I thought.” When he fell silent, Elizabeth forced herself to meet his gaze and say with resignation, “And we talked of fishing?” “No,” he said. “Of boar hunting.” Elizabeth closed her eyes in sublime shame. “You related an exciting tale of a wild board your father had shot long ago, and of how you watched the hunt-without permission-from the very tree below which the boar as ultimately felled. As I recall,” he finished kindly, “you told me that it was your impulsive cheer that revealed your hiding place to the hunters-and that caused you to be seriously reprimanded by your father.” Elizabeth saw the twinkle lighting his eyes, and suddenly they both laughed. “I remember your laugh, too,” he said, still smiling, “I thought it was the loveliest sound imaginable. So much so that between it and our delightful conversation I felt very much at ease in your company.” Realizing he’d just flattered her, he flushed, tugged at his neckcloth, and self-consciously looked away.
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
Mr. Rudolph reaches out and lifts the flower out of its vase. "To a flower, this photograph means nothing. So when you ask what is the meaning of life, there can be no answer that will apply to everyone and everything. What is a photograph, or a sunset, to a flower? We all bring our own perceptions, needs, and experiences to everything we do. We will all interpret an event, or a sunset, differently." He pauses, and I am trying to keep up with him. "Basically," I (Jeremy) say slowly, concentrating on my words. "What you're saying is that it's all relative. The meaning of the sunset, or of life itself, is different for everyone?" Exactly," he says. ... As we head slowly into the big room, I turn to him and ask, "But even if the sunset has different meanings for everyone, it still has meaning, right?" "That's a tricky question to answer," Mr. Rudolph says, stopping to replace the frame back on the wall. "That sunset will still shine just as surely, just as colorfully, whether it is shining on a wedding or a war. So it would seem that the sunset itself doesn't have inherent meaning; it is just doing its job. If the sunset doesn't have meaning apart from what we give it, does a rock? Or a fish? Or life itself? But just because a park bench, for instance, doesn't have meaning, that doesn't mean it doesn't have worth." ... We have reached the door now, and I'm not sure I'm any closer to understanding what's in the box. My shoulders sag. "Maybe this will help clear things up," Mr. Rudolph says. "You need to be sure of the question you are asking. Sometimes people think they are looking for the meaning of life, when really they are looking for an understanding of why they are here. What their purpose is, the purpose of life in general. And that is a much easier question to answer that the meaning of life." Lizzy is already halfway out the door. "It is?" I ask, pulling her back in by the sleeve. ... "You are the same as the lamp, the chair, the flower," Mr. Rudolph explains. "All you have to do is be the most authentic you that you can be. Find out who you really are, find out why you are here, and you will find your purpose. And with it, the meaning of life.
Wendy Mass (Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life)
Self-Obsession & Self-Presentation on Social-Media" Some people always post their cars/bikes photos because they love their cars/bikes so much. Some people always post their dogs/cats/birds/fish/pets photos because they love their pets so much. Some people always post their children’s/families photos because they love their children/families so much. Some people always post their daily happy/sad moments because they love sharing their daily lives so much. Some people always post their poems/songs/novels/writings because they love being poets/lyricists/novelists/writers so much. Some people always copy paste other people’s writings/quotes without mentioning the actual writers name because they love seeking attention/fame so much. [Unacceptable & Illegal] Some people always post their plants/garden’s photos because they love planting/gardening so much. Some people always post their art/paintings because they love their creativity so much. Some people always post their home-made food because they love cooking/thoughtful-presentation so much. Some people always post their makeup/hairstyles selfies because they love wearing makeup/doing hair so much. Some people always post their party related photos because they love those parties so much. Some people always post their travel related photos because they love traveling so much. Some people always post their selfies because they love taking selfies so much. Some people always post restaurant/street-foods because they love eating in restaurants/streets so much. Some people always post their job-related photos because they love their jobs so much. Some people always post religious things because they love spreading their religion so much. Some people always post political things because they love politics/power so much. Some people always post inspirational messages because they love being spiritual. Some people always share others posts because they love sharing links so much. Some people always post their creative photographs because they love photography so much. Some people always post their business-related products because they love advertising so much. And some people always post complaints about other people’s post because they love complaining so much
Zakia FR
Maxims & Other Quotes If you need an adjective or adverb, you're still fishing for he right noun or verb. 34 Was this a true story? It seemed somehow unimaginable, a fantasy of some kind. But he told it with such conviction that, against my own wishes, I believed him. Was this indeed the essence of storytelling? Did one simply have to relate a tale in a believable fashion, with the authority of the imagination? 36 Memory is a mirror that may easily shatter. 81 Readers become invisible even to themselves. Only the story lives. It’s the fate of the writer, yes, as well, to disappear. ~ Alastair Reid 83 ‘There is only now,’ Borges exclaimed with unstoppable force. ‘Act, dear boy! Do not procrastinate! It’s the worst of sins. I’ve thought about this, you see: the progression toward evil. Murder, this is very bad, a sin. It leads to thievery. And thievery, of course, leads to drunkenness and Sabbath-breaking. And Sabbath-breaking leads to incivility and at last procrastination. A slippery slope into the pit!’ 98 Borges: I no longer need to save face. This is one of the benefits of extreme age. Nothing matters much, and very little matters at all. 100 Borges: Believe me, you will one day read Don Quixote with a profound sense of recollection. This happens when you read a classic. It finds you where you have been. 102 Parini: I try not to think of the phallus, except when I can think of nothing else, which is most of the time. Borges: This is the fate of young men, a limited focus. One of the few advantages of my blindness has been that I no longer focus my eyes on objects of arousal. I look inward now, though the mind has mountains, dangerous cliffs. 105 Borges: Writers are always pirates, marauding, taking whatever pleases them from others, shaping these stolen goods to our purposes. Writers feed off the corpses of those who passed before them, their precursors. On the other hand they invent their precursors. They create them in their own image, as God did with man.108 Borges: Nobody can teach you anything. That’s the first truth. We teach ourselves. 115 Borges: One should avoid strong emotion, especially when it interferes with the work at hand. We have European blood in our veins, you and I. Mine is northern blood. We’re cold people, you see. Warriors. 125 Borges: The influence of Quixote was such that Sancho acquired a taste for literary wisdom. Such wisdom in his aphorisms! ‘One can find a remedy for everything but death.’ Or this: ‘Make yourself into honey and the flies will devour you.’ 151 Borges: You see, I designed my work for the tiniest audience, ‘fit company though few.’ A writer’s imagination should not be diluted by crowds! 151 Borges: If you don’t abandon the spirit, the spirit will not abandon you. 181
Jay Parini (Borges and Me: An Encounter)
I woke up as the first light began to bring an orange glow to the tops of the whispering pines (and sky) above me at 5:43 but lay still to avoid waking Hope for another half-hour. She had suffered through a tough and mostly sleepless night, and I wanted to give her every second I could as the next week promised to be very stressful for her (and me), and that was if everything went according to plan. At a few minutes after six, she either sensed the growing light or my wakefulness and shifted to give me a wet kiss. We both moved down towards the slit in the bottom of my Hennessy hammock and dropped out and down onto the pine needles to explore the morning. Both of us went a ways into the woods to take care of early morning elimination, and we met back by the hammock to discuss breakfast. I shook out some Tyler kibble (a modified GORP recipe) for me and an equal amount of Hope’s kibble for her. As soon as we had scarfed down the basic snack, we picked our way down the sloping shore to the water’s edge, jumped down into the warm water (relative to the cool morning air at any rate) for a swim as the sun came up, lighting the tips of the tallest pines on the opposite shore. Hope and I were bandit camping (a term that I had learned soon after arriving in this part of the world, and enjoyed the feel of), avoiding the established campsites that ringed Follensby Clear Pond. We found our home for the last seventeen days (riding the cooling August nights from the full moon on the ninth to what would be a new moon tonight) near a sandy swimming spot. From there, we worked our way up (and inland) fifty feet back from the water to a flat spot where some long-ago hunter had built/burned a fire pit. We used the pit to cook some of our meals (despite the illegality of the closeness to the water and the fire pit cooking outside an approved campsite … they call it ‘bandit camping’ for a reason). My canoe was far enough up the shore and into the brush to be invisible even if you knew to look for it, and nobody did/would/had. After we had rung a full measure of enjoyment out of our quiet morning swim, I grabbed the stringer I had anchored to the sandy bottom the previous afternoon after fishing, pulled the two lake trout off, killed them as quickly/painlessly/neatly as I could manage, handed one to Hope, and navigated back up the hill to our campsite. I started one of the burners on my Coleman stove (not wanting to signal our position too much, as the ranger for this area liked morning paddles, and although we had something of an understanding, I didn’t want to put him in an uncomfortable position … we had, after all, been camping far too long in a spot too close to the water). Once I had gutted/buttered/spiced the fish, I put my foil-wrapped trout over the flame (flipping and moving it every minute or so, according to the sound/smell of the cooking fish); Hope ate hers raw, as is her preference. It was a perfect morning … just me and my dog, seemingly alone in the world, doing exactly what we wanted to be doing.
Jamie Sheffield (Between the Carries)
During this same period of his life Bohm also continued to refine his alternative approach to quantum physics. As he looked more carefully into the meaning of the quantum potential he discovered it had a number of features that implied an even more radical departure from orthodox thinking. One was the importance of wholeness. Classical science had always viewed the state of a system as a whole as merely the result of the interaction of its parts. However, the quantum potential stood this view on its ear and indicated that the behavior of the parts was actually organized by the whole. This not only took Bohr's assertion that subatomic particles are not independent "things, " but are part of an indivisible system one step further, but even suggested that wholeness was in some ways the more primary reality. It also explained how electrons in plasmas (and other specialized states such as superconductivity) could behave like interconnected wholes. As Bohm states, such "electrons are not scattered because, through the action of the quantum potential, the whole system is undergoing a co-ordinated movement more like a ballet dance than like a crowd of unorganized people. " Once again he notes that "such quantum wholeness of activity is closer to the organized unity of functioning of the parts of a living being than it is to the kind of unity that is obtained by putting together the parts of a machine. "6 An even more surprising feature of the quantum potential was its implications for the nature of location. At the level of our everyday lives things have very specific locations, but Bohm's interpretation of quantum physics indicated that at the subquantum level, the level in which the quantum potential operated, location ceased to exist All points in space became equal to all other points in space, and it was meaningless to speak of anything as being separate from anything else. Physicists call this property "nonlocality. " The nonlocal aspect of the quantum potential enabled Bohm to explain the connection between twin particles without violating special relativity's ban against anything traveling faster than the speed of light. To illustrate how, he offers the following analogy: Imagine a fish swimming in an aquarium. Imagine also that you have never seen a fish or an aquarium before and your only knowledge about them comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other at its side. When you look at the two television monitors you might mistakenly assume that the fish on the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different. But as you continue to watch you will eventually realize there is a relationship between the two fish. When one turns, the other makes a slightly different but corresponding turn. When one faces the front, the other faces the side, and so on. If you are unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might wrongly conclude that the fish are instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is not the case. No communication is taking place because at a deeper level of reality, the reality of the aquarium, the two fish are actually one and the same. This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between particles such as the two photons emitted when a positronium atom decays (see fig. 8).
Michael Talbot (The Holographic Universe)
The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor. But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary ... You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals. You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs. My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species.
Matt Ridley (The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves)
1. Do not chase those who go, and do not stop those who come. -Blind- 카톡【AKR331】텔레【RDH705】라인【SPR331】위커【SPR705】 저희는 7가지 철칙을 바탕으로 거래를 합니다. 고객들과 지키지못할약속은 하지않습니다 1.정품보장 2.총알배송 3.투명한 가격 4.편한 상담 5.끝내주는 서비스 6.고객님 정보 보호 7.깔끔한 거래 제품을 구입하실때는 저희가 구매자분들께 약속지켜드리는것만큼 구매자분들도 저희와 약속 꼭 지켜주시기 바랍니다 구체적인 내용은 문의하셔셔 상담받아보세요 클릭해주셔셔 감사합니다 24시간 언제든지 문의주세요 2. Watch out for those surrounded by dark clouds. – Balthazar Graciasian 3. Rather than let me live in Paradise alone There will be no greater penalty. Goethe 4. When you associate with others, the first thing you should not forget Because the other person has their own way of life In order not to confuse them, they should not interfere with others' lives. Henry James 5. You have a bad relationship with others I hate that person being with you, If you are right and you don't agree, The person will not be reproved It is you who should be reproved. Because you have not done your heart and devotion to that person. Tolstoy 6. If you want to be liked by others, Just show that you are having a great time together. If you do that, instead of just having fun Better to hang out with the other person. And people with this temperament Even if you don't have great culture or wisdom, you have common sense. That behaviour, Who have great talent and lack this disposition I greatly move others' minds. Joseph Addis   7. Anyone who accepts others generously Always get people's hearts, Who rules with dignity and force Always buy people's anger. -King Sejong- 8. I want to interest others. Don't close your ears and eyes yourself Show interest in others. If you don't understand this, However talented and capable It is impossible to get along with others. Lawrence Gould- 9. Take care of others' interests. Undistributed profits never last long. -Voltaire- 10. It is only sin that I do not know others. What's the sin of not letting others know? Jang Young-sil 11. What comes out of you returns to you. -Blind- 12. It is never a good thing to be someone's half. We are a perfect person. Andrew Matthews 13. Treating others Cherish his body as mine. My body is not only precious. Do not forget that others' bodies are also precious. And do what you desire for others first. -Confucius-   14. Most people Neither my side nor my enemy. Also what you do or yourself There are people who do not like it. It's too much to want everyone to like you. Liz Carpenter 15. In general, introverted humans Outgoing humans get along well with outgoing humans. It is because the mind is at first comfortable and easy to understand. But the state of being at ease It is not a good condition for your own growth. Theodore Rubin   16. Stick when you're hungry, and leave when you're hungry, When it's warm, it flocks, when it's cold This is the widespread dismissal of recognition. Chae Geun-hwa 17. With people You can't share the ball together, Together with the ball envy one another. Tribulation with people, but comfort cannot come together. Comfort will be an enemy of one another. Chae Geun-hwa 18. People must change their positions and positions. -Confucius- 19. A person is originally clean, All call for sin and blessing according to ties. The paper smells close to incense, That rope is like a fishy fish. Man dyes little by little and learns it, but he does not know how to do it himself. -Law law- 20. A person's value can only be measured in relation to others. Nietzsche 21. Be strict to yourself and generous to others -Confucius- 22. Beware of your impression of the other person Worrying is why you're the main character. Usually, a person's crush is about first showing others You should know what appears as a reaction. You don't wait Give you first. Lawrence
22 kinds of relationship sayings
If a species has cojones grandes, you can bet that males have frequent ejaculations with females who sleep around. Where the females save it for Mr. Right, the males have smaller testes, relative to their overall body mass. The correlation of slutty females with big balled males appears to apply not only to humans and other primates, but to many mammals, as well as to birds, butterflies, reptiles, and fish.
Christopher Ryan (Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships)
4 Meet the astrocyte If you look at a tulip, you wouldn’t think it was an armadillo. Similarly, looking at a neuron, you wouldn’t think it was glia. But you might look at a whale and think it’s a fish, until you look at it closely and realize it has no gills and breathes through lungs. Then, you have a problem. Through genetic testing and excavations by paleontologists, we now know it likely originated as a land animal that took back to the sea and is related to hoofed animals like the horse. But before genetic testing and evolutionary biology, classification was based on appearance. This remains true for cellular classification.
Andrew Koob (The Root of Thought: Unlocking Glia--the Brain Cell That Will Help Us Sharpen Our Wits, Heal Injury, and Treat Brain Disease: Unlocking Glia -- the Brain ... Wits, Heal Injury, and Treat Brain Disease)
the Mexican sierra has “XVII-15-IX” spines in the dorsal fin. These can easily be counted. But if the sierra strikes hard on the line so that our hands are burned, if the fish sounds and nearly escapes and finally comes in over the rail, his colors pulsing and his tail beating the air, a whole new relational externality has come into being—an entity which is more than the sum of the fish plus the fisherman. The only way to count the spines of the sierra unaffected by this second relational reality is to sit in a laboratory, open an evil-smelling jar, remove a stiff colorless fish from a formalin solution, count the spines, and write the truth “D.XVII-15-IX.” There you have recorded a reality which cannot be assailed—probably the least important reality concerning either the fish or yourself. It is good to know what you are doing. The man with his pickled fish has set down one truth and has recorded in his experience many lies. The fish is not that color, that texture, that dead, nor does he smell that way…. [W]e were determined not to let a passion for unassailable little truths draw in the horizon and crowd the sky down on us.
John Steinbeck
BARBARA: Lot of fish in the sea. Surely you can rule out the one single man in the world you’re related to. IVY: I happen to love the man I’m related— BARBARA: Fuck love, what a crock of shit. People can convince themselves they love a painted rock.
Tracy Letts (August: Osage County (TCG Edition))
There is a misapprehension with regard to the possibility that humans may obtain enough of the vitamin D group of activators from our modern plant foods or from sunshine. This is due to the belief viosterol or similar products by other names, derived by exposing ergosterol to ultraviolet light, offer all of the nutritional factors involved in the vitamin D group. I have emphasized that there are known to be at least eight D factors that have been definitely isolated and twelve that have been reported as partially isolated. Coffin has recently reported relative to the lack of vitamin D in common foods as follows: (5) 1. A representative list of common foods was carefully tested, by approved technique, for their vitamin D content. 2. With the remote possibility of egg yolks, butter, cream, liver and fish it is manifestly impossible to obtain any amount of vitamin D worthy of mention from common foods. 3. Vegetables do not contain vitamin D. It will be noted that vitamin D, which the human does not readily synthesize in adequate amounts, must be provided by foods of animal tissues or animal products. As yet I have not found a single
Anonymous
Value means “helping people.” Our unexpected entrepreneurs discovered that when they focused on providing value above all else, their businesses were successful. Give people what they really want, not just what you think they should have. Give them the fish! The more you can market a core benefit instead of a list of features, the easier it will be to profit from your idea. Core benefits usually relate to emotional needs more than physical needs. Most people want more of some things (money, love, attention) and less of other things (stress, anxiety, debt). Always focus on what you can add or take away to improve someone’s life … and then prepare to get paid.
Anonymous
Research on brain development illustrates that babies are born with the biological expectation to be a part of a mutually beneficial relationship and that positive relationships are the single most important factor in healthy development.  According to Woodcock-Ross, Hooper, Stenhouse, & Sheaff (2009), “the interactional quality of early relationship experiences has a biological impact on the rapidly developing brain, alongside effects upon psychological health and social functioning” (p. 1009).  In fact, early relationships create the foundation upon which all other learning can occur.  “Each achievement – language and learning, social development, the emergence of self-regulation – occurs in the context of close relationships with others” (National Academy of Science, 2000).   Due to the importance of early relationships for optimal brain development, relational risk factors for infants in the form of unmet emotional needs or negative caregiving experiences places them at an increased risk for mental health problems (Fish & Chapman, 2004).  This risk is mitigated within the context of caring, nurturing relationships with adult caregivers.
Mary Allison Brown (Infants and Toddlers in Foster Care: Brain Development, Attachment Theory, and the Critical Importance of Early Experiences for Infants and Toddlers in Out of Home Placement)
More than six hundred generations ago, everybody everywhere was a hunter-gatherer. Until relatively recently—the blink of an eye in evolutionary time—your ancestors lived in small bands of fewer than fifty people. They moved regularly from one camp to the next, and they survived by foraging for plants as well as hunting and fishing. Even after agriculture was invented starting about 10,000 years ago, most farmers still lived in small villages, labored daily to produce enough food for themselves, and never imagined an existence now common in places like Tampa, Florida, where
Daniel E. Lieberman (The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease)
The objection by Dibelius is a weighty one. But since Strauss it has not been uncommon to argue that certain sayings of Jesus have been elaborated into narratives - as for example, the stilling of the storm (Mark 4.35-41, pars.), the miraculous catch of fishes (Luke 5.1-11), and perhaps the cursing of the fig tree (Mark II.12-14 par.).114 If this is a real possibility, how much more likely is it that the (Markan) account of Jesus' experience at Jordan was an elaboration of some indications given by Jesus to his disciples such as we have just noted? Moreover, we know from religious history that it was quite common for a prophetic figure to relate his call to his disciples - so, for example, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel (all visions and audi- tions);115 as one instance outside Judaeo-Christianity we might mention Mohammed.116 By comparison Jesus seems to have been much more reserved about describing his experience of God to his disciples; this is why we have had to depend to such a large extent on inferences and implications of key sayings. The only real parallel to the self testimony of the prophets' religious experiences is Jesus' exultant cry in Luke 10.18: `I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven' (see below p.85). We can of course only speculate; but it remains quite probable that Jesus never spoke directly of what happened at Jordan, but made some allusions which have provided the basis of the earliest account. In addition, the fact that the earliest Christian communities seem to have practised baptism from the first is probably best explained by the suggestion that Jesus gave his disciples some indication of how important the occasion of his own baptism was for him.
James D.G. Dunn (Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament)
It is what human beings do. We compare ourselves to those in the same situation as ourselves, which means that students in an elite school—except, perhaps, those at the very top of the class—are going to face a burden that they would not face in a less competitive atmosphere. Citizens of happy countries have higher suicide rates than citizens of unhappy countries, because they look at the smiling faces around them and the contrast is too great. Students at “great” schools look at the brilliant students around them, and how do you think they feel? The phenomenon of relative deprivation applied to education is called—appropriately enough—the “Big Fish–Little Pond Effect.” The more elite an educational institution is, the worse students feel about their own academic abilities. Students who would be at the top of their class at a good school can easily fall to the bottom of a really good school. Students who would feel that they have mastered a subject at a good school can have the feeling that they are falling farther and farther behind in a really good school. And that feeling — as subjective and ridiculous and irrational as it may be — matters. How you feel about your abilities — your academic “self-concept” — in the context of your classroom shapes your willingness to tackle challenges and finish difficult tasks. It’s a crucial element in your motivation and confidence.
Malcolm Gladwell (David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants)
There were no oceans on Oasis, no large bodies of water, and presumably no fish. He wondered whether this would cause comprehension problems when it came to certain crucial fish-related Bible stories. There were so many of those: Jonah and the whale, the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, the Galilean disciples being fishermen, the whole ‘fishers of men’ analogy . . . the bit in Matthew 13 about the kingdom of heaven being like a net cast into the sea, gathering fish of every kind . . . Even in the opening chapter of Genesis, the first animals God made were sea creatures. How much of the Bible would he have to give up as untranslatable?
Michel Faber (The Book of Strange New Things)
Thus the one absolutely essential requirement for the art of cooking is a love for its raw materials: the shape and feel of eggs, the sniff of flour, or mint, or garlic, the marvelous form and shimmer of a mackerel, the marbled red texture of a cut of beef, the pale green translucence of fresh lettuce, the concentric ellipses of a sliced onion, and the weight, warmth, and resilience of flour–dusted dough under your fingers. The spiritual attitude of the cook will be all the more enriched if there is a familiarity with barns and vineyards, fishing wharves and dairies, orchards and kitchen gardens.
Alan W. Watts (Does It Matter?: Essays on Man’s Relation to Materiality)
But civilized human beings are alarmingly ignorant of the fact that they are continuous with their natural surroundings. It is as necessary to have air, water, plants, insects, birds, fish, and mammals as it is to have brains, hearts, lungs, and stomachs. The former are our external organs in the same way that the latter are our internal organs. If then, we can no more live without the things outside than without those inside, the plain inference is that the words “I” and “myself ” must include both sides. The sun, the earth, and the forests are just as much features of your own body as your brain. Erosion of the soil is as much a personal disease as leprosy, and many “growing communities” are as disastrous as cancer.
Alan W. Watts (Does It Matter?: Essays on Man’s Relation to Materiality)
They sat in silence until the howl of a distant coyote made her shiver. "He sings for his mate," Cade reassured her. "Does he think the sound of his loneliness will attract her?" Lily asked wryly. "I'm sure it is the beauty of his song." His voice contained almost a hint of a chuckle. "I'm sure that's what he thinks." Her scoffing hid an undertone of bitterness, and Cade was silent for a while. "Men often hide their fears with actions," he finally said. By this time, the anger of the day had leeched out of her and into the cold stone. Wrapping her arms around her knees and resting her head upon them, Lily reluctantly gave his statement some thought. Cade had a way of saying things that made sense, even when she didn't want to admit it. "I suppose a man who wasn't afraid would be a fool. I just find it hard to imagine someone like you being afraid." Cade's low laugh wasn't amused. "Because of my size or because of my birth?" Lily considered this. "Both, I suppose. To me, Indians are like the wolves, fearless of anything. All I have seen or heard of them is the damage they have done. And your size makes you seem invulnerable, even though that is ridiculous. A bullet knows nothing of size. Perhaps it is your attitude. You look as if you scorn everything, even death." "I do not mean to give that impression. And warriors aren't fearless. As you say, only fools are without fear. They are just better at disguising their feelings. If Clark takes his band of men against the Indians as he threatens, he will find old men and women and children. Ride with him, and you will see their fear." Lily didn't ask how he knew of Ollie's plans. Half the ranch could have heard his shouting. Instead, she asked, "How do you know what he will find? Have you seen them?" "They are related to my father's tribe. Their fathers and sons were massacred by Comanches several years ago, and many others were lost in epidemics. They try to live by raising squash and corn and fishing from the river. They mean no harm. This land has been theirs for centuries. They do not understand the difference since the white man's coming." "I do not know how to stop Ollie," Lily murmured. Somehow she was disappointed that Cade had brought her out here to tell her this. He could have said as much in the morning in the middle of the yard. "I know how to stop him. Just tell me if you learn when he is to leave." "We don't need any more bloodshed." Lily rearranged her legs in preparation for rising. Cade caught her arm, and he was suddenly very near, hovering over her, his dark face dangerously near. "There will be no bloodshed." Perhaps
Patricia Rice (Texas Lily (Too Hard to Handle, #1))
Hypothesis The science Mermaids are related to aliens from outer space who settled areas of Earth deep under the ocean and eventually mated with fish. This hypothesis is “out there.” No evidence exists to support it. Creatures that closely resembled mermaids once existed but are now extinct or rare. For instance, a now-extinct species of sea cows might have been mistaken for mermaids. If true, this hypothesis would only prove the existence of a different type of sea cow, not mermaids. Plus, it would not explain recent mermaid sightings. Mermaids once existed but are now extinct. No “mermaid” fossils have yet been found. Mermaid
Lori Hile (Mermaids (Solving Mysteries With Science))
There is a blackout in media coverage of issues concerning whales and dolphins in Japan, with the exception of the government's viewpoint. It is simply amazing how little good information (and how much bad information) the public in Japan gets about the worldwide controversy over whaling and dolphin killing, all because the media bows to the wishes of the Japan Fisheries Agency.
Richard O'Barry (Behind the Dolphin Smile: One Man's Campaign to Protect the World's Dolphins)
Nothing made it harder for Europeans to see the link between the Lenapes and their environment than the fact that kinship—not class—was the basis of their society. Private ownership of land and the hierarchical relations of domination and exploitation familiar in Europe were unknown in Lenapehoking. By custom and negotiation with its neighbors, each Lenape band had a “right” to hunt, fish, and plant within certain territorial limits. It might, in exchange for gifts, allow other groups or individuals to share these territories, but this did not imply the “sale” or permanent alienation known to European law. In the absence of states, moreover, warfare among the Lenapes was much less systematic and brutal than among Europeans. As Daniel Denton said disdainfully: “It is a great fight where seven or eight is slain.” More
Edwin G. Burrows (Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898)
This is very different from mice and humans, as we saw in the last chapter. For us and our rodent relatives, the only way to generate live young is by having DNA from both a mother and a father. It’s tempting to speculate that stick insects are highly unusual but they’re not. We mammals are the exceptions. Insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles and even birds all have a few species that can reproduce parthenogenetically. It’s we mammals who can’t. It’s our class in the animal kingdom which is the odd one out, so it makes sense to ask why this is the case.
Nessa Carey (The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology is Rewriting our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance)
FOR A WHILE, the American colonists pursued their own salt making with characteristic self-reliance, producing a significant amount. But the securing of these colonies by the British had coincided with the discovery of rock salt in Cheshire and its increased production. In time, the British made Liverpool salt cheaper and more accessible than local salt, and domestic American production dropped off. This was exactly the way colonialism was supposed to work. While relations were intact with England, the colonists had enough salt for their domestic needs, but the salt supply was inhibiting their foreign trade. Of course, they were not supposed to be engaging in foreign trade. They were supposed to buy everything from England and sell everything to England. But the American colonists produced more, especially more salt cod, than the British could sell. As long as the Americans were making their products with British salt, the British were happy to let them overproduce. But the British often failed to supply enough salt for American needs. In 1688, Daniel Coxe wrote about New Jersey that fish were abundant but the colony was unable to establish a successful fishery because of a “want of salt.” The New Jersey colony sent to France for experts—“diverse Frenchmen skillful in making salt by the sun.” This was not how colonialism was supposed to work.
Mark Kurlansky (Salt: A World History)
the Snake River dams should not be compared to the Elwha Dams. Where the former produced relatively little power and had no fish ladders, those on the Snake have fish ladders and “provide $20 billion in annual economic impact.” Farmers are among the most vocal opponents, as the dams provide water needed for irrigation and make it possible for ocean going barges to carry their produce to market.
David J Jepsen (Contested Boundaries: A New Pacific Northwest History)
the ability to reach customers is more cost effective than ever—therefore the intangible and emotional elements have become the key differentiating factor. There are plenty of places to purchase a great spicy tuna roll, but there’s only one Masayoshi Takayama. According to his website, “Masayoshi Takayama’s appreciation for food started at a young age, growing up working for his family’s fish market in a town of Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. From his early years of delivering fresh sashimi to neighbors on his bicycle, to prepping and grilling hun- dreds of fish courses to cater weddings in high school, his relation- ship with food has always been a way of life.” That’s the beginning of a story that makes Takayama’s sushi different and special—that makes it art. And that art is what induces people to pay $600 per person in his New York restaurant for a chance to try it.
Alan Philips (The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential)
Rosenquartz says he isn’t writing anymore, and as Fenoglio’s glass man he should know, right?” In fact, Rosenquartz was always complaining of his hard life now that Fenoglio was back in Minerva’s attic room, and Farid himself cursed the steep wooden staircase every time Orpheus sent him to question Fenoglio about things that Orpheus couldn’t find in his original book. What lands lay south of the sea bordering Argenta? Is the prince who rules northern Lombrica related to the Adderhead’s wife? Where exactly do the giants live, or have they died out now? Do the predatory fish in the rivers eat river-nymphs? Sometimes Fenoglio wouldn’t even let Farid in after he’d toiled up all those stairs, but now and then he would have drunk so much that he was in a talkative mood. On those days the old man overwhelmed him with such a torrent of information that Farid’s head was spinning by the time he came back to Orpheus — who then questioned him all over again. It was enough to drive
Cornelia Funke (Inkdeath)
The study was done in a relatively small town in Kyoto named Kyotango.  What makes this town special and a very good place to conduct the study was the fact that its population of people above 100 years old was the highest in Japan - 3 times more than the average for any town in the country.  The program - Takeshi no katei no igaku - specifically wanted to find out what these very old - but very joyful - bunch of people in Kyotango had in common when it comes to living their daily lives.  The program followed 7 people who were already in their late 90s and early 100s from sunrise to sunset.  The program also subjected them to health checkups such as blood tests, among others.  One of the interesting findings of the study was that all of the 7 subjects had very high levels of DHEA, which is a steroid hormone produced by the body's adrenal glands.  DHEA has a solid reputation of being a miracle hormone that's highly associated with longevity.  And as the study continued following the 7 super senior citizens, they discovered another commonality:  they all did things that they really enjoyed.  Each of them had different hobbies they passionately practiced every day such as painting, fishing and making traditional Japanese masks, among others. Given these findings, is it possible then that doing something you really love to do, something you're very passionate about, is the key to higher levels of DHEA and, therefore, a much longer life?  The science on this relationship hasn't been established yet, but the program concluded that regularly doing something that you're very interested in, passionate about, and focused on can give you a long-lasting and deep sense of personal satisfaction in life, which in turn can help elevate your DHEA levels.  And when such levels are very high, a long and joyful life isn't far behind.  And guess what, the program repeatedly made mention of Ikigai in discussing this concept of conclusion.
Alan Daron (Ikigai: The Japanese Life Philosophy)
Let us turn now to a study of a small Newfoundland fishing village. Fishing is, in England at any rate – more hazardous even than mining. Cat Harbour, a community in Newfoundland, is very complex. Its social relationships occur in terms of a densely elaborate series of interrelated conceptual universes one important consequence of which is that virtually all permanent members of the community are kin, ‘cunny kin’, or economic associates of all other of the 285 permanent members. The primary activity of the community is cod fishing. Salmon, lobster, and squid provide additional sources of revenue. Woodcutting is necessary in off-seasons. Domestic gardening, and stints in lumber camps when money is needed, are the two other profitable activities. The community's religion is reactionary. Women assume the main roles in the operation though not the government of the churches in the town. A complicated system of ‘jinking’ – curses, magic, and witchcraft – governs and modulates social relationships. Successful cod fishing in the area depends upon highly developed skills of navigation, knowledge of fish movements, and familiarity with local nautical conditions. Lore is passed down by word of mouth, and literacy among older fishermen is not universal by any means. ‘Stranger’ males cannot easily assume dominant positions in the fishing systems and may only hire on for salary or percentage. Because women in the community are not paid for their labour, there has been a pattern of female migration out of the area. Significantly, two thirds of the wives in the community are from outside the area. This has a predictable effect on the community's concept of ‘the feminine’. An elaborate anti-female symbolism is woven into the fabric of male communal life, e.g. strong boats are male and older leaky ones are female. Women ‘are regarded as polluting “on the water” and the more traditional men would not consider going out if a woman had set foot in the boat that day – they are “jinker” (i.e., a jinx), even unwittingly'. (It is not only relatively unsophisticated workers such as those fishermen who insist on sexual purity. The very skilled technicians drilling for natural gas in the North Sea affirm the same taboo: women are not permitted on their drilling platform rigs.) It would be, however, a rare Cat Harbour woman who would consider such an act, for they are aware of their structural position in the outport society and the cognition surrounding their sex….Cat Harbour is a male-dominated society….Only men can normally inherit property, or smoke or drink, and the increasingly frequent breach of this by women is the source of much gossip (and not a negligible amount of conflict and resentment). Men are seated first at meals and eat together – women and children eating afterwards. Men are given the choicest and largest portions, and sit at the same table with a ‘stranger’ or guest. Women work extremely demanding and long hours, ‘especially during the fishing season, for not only do they have to fix up to 5 to 6 meals each day for the fishermen, but do all their household chores, mind the children and help “put away fish”. They seldom have time to visit extensively, usually only a few minutes to and from the shop or Post Office….Men on the other hand, spend each evening arguing, gossiping, and “telling cuffers”, in the shop, and have numerous “blows” (i.e., breaks) during the day.’ Pre-adolescents are separated on sexual lines. Boys play exclusively male games and identify strongly with fathers or older brothers. Girls perform light women's work, though Faris indicates '. . . often openly aspire to be male and do male things. By this time they can clearly see the privileged position of the Cat Harbour male….’. Girls are advised not to marry a fisherman, and are encouraged to leave the community if they wish to avoid a hard life. Boys are told it is better to leave Cat Harbour than become fishermen....
Lionel Tiger (Men in Groups)
…American men actually engage most in hunting and fishing. The desire of men in wealthy societies to re-create the food-gathering conditions of very primitive people appears to be an appropriate comment on the power of the hunting drives discussed earlier. Not only is hunting expensive in many places – think of the European on safari in Africa – but it is also time-consuming, potentially dangerous, and frequently involves considerable personal discomfort. Men do it because it is ‘fun’. So they say, and so one must conclude from their persistent rendition of the old pattern. What is relevant from our point of view is that hunting, and frequently fishing, are group activities. A man will choose his co-hunters very carefully. Not only does the relative intimacy of the hunt demand some congeniality, but there is also danger in hunting with inept or irresponsible persons. It is a serious matter, and even class barriers which normally operate quite rigidly may be happily breached for the period of the hunt. Some research on hunters in British Columbia suggests the near-piety which accompanies the hunt; hunting is a singular and important activity. One particular group of males takes along bottles of costly Crown Royal whisky for the hunt; they drink only superior whisky on this poignant re-creation of an ancient manly skill. But when their wives join them for New Year's celebrations, they drink an ordinary whisky: the purely formal and social occasion does not, it seems, merit the symbolic tribute of outstanding whisky. Gambling is another behaviour which, like hunting and sport, provides an opportunity in countless cultures for the weaving of and participation in the web of male affiliation. Not the gambling of the London casino, where glamorous women serve drinks, or the complex hope, greed, fate-tempting ritual, and action of the shiny American palaces in Nevada, and not the hidden gambling run by racketeers. Rather, the card games in homes or small clubs, where men gather to play for manageable stakes on a friendly basis; perhaps – like Jiggs and his Maggie – to avoid their women, perhaps to seek some money, perhaps to buy the pleasant passage of time. But also to be with their friends and talk, and define, by the game, the confines of their intimate male society. Obviously females play too, both on their own and in mixed company. But there are differences which warrant investigation, in the same way that the drinking of men in groups appears to differ from heterosexual or all-female drinking; the separation of all-male bars and mixed ones is still maintained in many places despite the powerful cultural pressures against such flagrant sexual apartheid. Even in the Bowery, where disaffiliated outcast males live in ways only now becoming understood, it has been noted that, ‘There are strong indications that the heavy drinkers are more integrated and more sociable than the light. The analytical problem lies in determining whether socialization causes drinking or drinking results in sociability when there is no disapproval.’ In the gentleman's club in London, the informally segregated working man's pub in Yorkshire, the all-male taverns of Montreal, the palm-wine huts of west Africa, perhaps can be observed the enactment of a way of establishing maleness and maintaining bonds which is given an excuse and possibly facilitated by alcohol. Certainly, for what they are worth in revealing the nature of popular conception of the social role of drinking, advertisements stress the manly appeal of alcohol – particularly whisky – though it is also clear that there are ongoing changes in the socio-sexual implications of drinking. But perhaps it is hasty to regard the process of change as a process of female emancipation which will culminate in similarity of behaviour, status, and ideals of males and females. The changes are still too recent to warrant this. Also, they have been achieved under sufficiently self-conscious pressure...
Lionel Tiger (Men in Groups)
Value means “helping people.” Our unexpected entrepreneurs discovered that when they focused on providing value above all else, their businesses were successful. • Give people what they really want, not just what you think they should have. Give them the fish! • The more you can market a core benefit instead of a list of features, the easier it will be to profit from your idea. Core benefits usually relate to emotional needs more than physical needs. • Most people want more of some things (money, love, attention) and less of other things (stress, anxiety, debt). Always focus on what you can add or take away to improve someone’s life . . . and then prepare to get paid.
Chris Guillebeau (The $100 Startup: Fire Your Boss, Do What You Love and Work Better to Live More)
All cultures know it’s hard being a new mom. That’s why many societies reward them with one hundred days of special family care at home, so they can be fed, bathed, and babied, too. But in our society, many parents have lost that communal or family safety net. Even worse, many new parents don’t even think they want or need it. They think it’s normal for new parents to just gut it out on their own. But nothing could be further from the truth! The nuclear family—two parents and some kids—is actually a huge experiment, just a century old. And it’s one of the most unintelligent and riskiest experiments in human history. Renowned pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton tells of visiting a small Japanese fishing village where the ancient tradition was to wait on new mothers hand and foot for thirty days. “The new mothers were even fed—bite by bite—and they called their own mothers Mommy!” Brazelton recounted that in this community postpartum depression didn’t exist. Of course, few of us live in a village like that—and you can’t conjure up nurturing relatives out of thin air. But you can call on a neighbor, nanny, or doula to help you out. Getting help is neither an extravagance nor a sign of failure. It’s the bare minimum you need … and deserve! So please don’t buy into the phony idea that you are supposed to do it all on your own; since the dawn of time few parents ever did.
Harvey Karp (The Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep: Simple Solutions for Kids from Birth to 5 Years)
I see our scientific theories as human inventions–nets designed by us to catch the world. [...] What we aim at is truth: we test our theories in the hope of eliminating those which are not true. In this way we may succeed in improving our theories–even as instruments: in making nets which are better and better adapted to catch our fish, the real world. Yet they will never be perfect instruments for this purpose. They are rational nets of our own making, and should not be mistaken for a complete representation of the real world in all its aspects; not even if they are highly successful ; not even if they appear to yield excellent approximations to reality. If we keep clearly before our minds that our theories are our own work; that we are fallible; and that our theories reflect our fallibility, then we shall doubt whether general features of our theories, such as their simplicity, or their prima facie deterministic character, correspond to features of the real world. [...] The world, as we know it, is highly complex; and although it may possess structural aspects which are simple in some sense or other, the simplicity of some of our theories–which is of our own making–does not entail the intrinsic simplicity of the world. The situation with regard to determinism is similar. Newton’s theory, consisting of the law of inertia, the law of gravity, etc., may be true, or very approximately true, i.e., the world may be as the theory asserts it is. But there is no statement of determinism in this theory; the theory nowhere asserts that the world is determined; rather it is the theory itself which as that character which I called ‘prima facie deterministic’. Now the prima facie deterministic character of a theory is closely related to its simplicity; prima facie deterministic theories are comparatively easily testable, and the tests may be made more and more precise and severe. [...] At the same time, it seems no more justifiable to infer from their success that the world has an intrinsically deterministic character than to infer that the world is intrinsically simple.
Karl Popper (The Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism From the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery)
Their concept of knowledge was eloquently expressed, for instance, by Muâdh b. Jabal (d. 18/639, one of the trusted lieutenants of the Prophet, and certainly no forerunner of Sufism): “Study knowledge, for studying knowledge is the fear of God. Searching for knowledge is the worship of Him. Learning knowledge is the glorification of Him. Doing research in knowledge is a holy war in His behalf. Teaching knowledge to those who do not know is charity. And lavishing knowledge upon those who deserve it is nearness to God. Knowledge is a friend in loneliness. It is company for him who is all by himself. It is a guide under any circumstances whatever, an ornament among friends, a relative among strangers, and a lighthouse on the road to Paradise. Through knowledge, God lifts up people and makes them guides toward the good (life) who serve as examples to be followed and whose actions are studied and imitated and whose opinions are accepted. Their friendship is desired by the angels who touch them with their wings. In consequence, everything wet or dry asks for forgiveness for them, down to the fish and the reptiles of the sea and the wild beasts and the domestic animals of the land, as well as heaven and its stars. Knowledge is the life of the heart after blindness (?), the light of the eyes after darkness, and the strength of the body after weakness. Through knowledge, man reaches the stations of the pious and the highest ranks. Reflecting upon knowledge and learning it are considered equivalent to the performance of fasting. It is an act of obedience to God, of worship of Him, and of declaring His oneness. It constitutes ascetic behavior. It accomplishes the strengthening of family ties. Knowledge is the leader, and action is its follower. It is an inspiration given to the blessed. It is something that is denied to the unfortunate.” Such general praise of knowledge is heard constantly throughout Muslim history, in almost the same words and phrases. Here, however, it is used as an argument, obviously fictious and unhistorical, to prove the exclusive concern of the ancient Muslims with knowledge, in the Sufî sense.
Franz Rosenthal (Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam (Brill Classics in Islam))
It was obvious that Frank Sinatra enjoyed friendly relations with Mafia notables such as Carlo Gambino, “Joe Fish” Fischetti and Sam Giancana. The Federal Bureau of Investigation kept their eye on Sinatra for almost 50 years. Meyer Lansky was said to have been a friend of Sinatra’s parents in Hoboken. During this time Sinatra spoke in awe about Bugsy Siegel and was in an AP syndicated photograph, seen in many newspapers, with Tommy 'Fatso' Marson, Don Carlo Gambino 'The Godfather', and Jimmy 'The Weasel, Fratianno. A memo in FBI files revealed that Sinatra felt that he could be of use to them. However, it is difficult to believe that Sinatra would have become an FBI informer, better known as a “rat.” Sinatra was being treated at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where physicians were attempting to stabilize his medical downhill spiral, when he told his wife Barbara, “I’m losing.” Frank Sinatra died on May 14, 1998, at 82 years of age. It is alleged that he was buried with the wedding ring from his ex-wife, Mia Farrow, which she slid unnoticed into his suit pocket during his “viewing.” Aside from his perceived personal and public image, Frank Sinatra’s music will shape his enduring legacy for decades to come. His 100th birthday was celebrated at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday, July 22, 2015, and elsewhere for the remainder of the year.
Hank Bracker
ANTLIONS, LACEWINGS, AND RELATIVES: ORDER NEUROPTERA The net-winged insects are an order of beneficial predators with interesting appearances, habits, and names. Though the adult antlion feeds on nectar from flowers, it gets its name from the predatory habits of its ravenous larva, which can consume large quantities of ants. Antlion larvae live in sandy areas where they dig pits. The antlion, or doodlebug as the larva is sometimes called, buries itself in the sand at the bottom of the cone-shaped pit with only its jaws exposed. When an ant or other hapless insect approaches the edge of the pit, the sand begins to crumble and the insect tumbles into the waiting jaws of the doodlebug. The name doodlebug is thought to be a reference to the tracks the larva makes in the sand while searching for a perfect location for its pit. The tracks look as though something had been doodling in the sand. Young children often chant “Doodlebug, doodlebug, come out of your hole,” and it is believed that the expiration of breath in proximity to the pit will lure the larva from its subterranean refuge.Children also fish for doodlebugs with blades of grass, pulling the insects from the sand when they grasp at the blade.
Daniel Marlos (The Curious World of Bugs: The Bugman's Guide to the Mysterious and Remarkable Lives of Things That Crawl)
But for now it’s goodbye to the beaches, and indeed many a celebrated island of yore now lies deep under the waves. An entire world and way of life has disappeared with these fabled places, a lifeway that went right back to the beginning of the species in south and east Africa, where the earliest humans were often intimately involved with the sea. That wet, sandy, tidal, salty, sun-flecked, beautiful beach life: all gone, along with so much else, of course; animals, plants, fish. It’s part of the mass extinction event they are still struggling to end, to escape. So much has been lost that will never come back again, that the loss of the joy of the relatively few humans who were lucky enough to live on the strand, who combed the beaches, and fished, and rode the waves, and lay in the sun – that’s nothing much to grieve for, given everything else that has been lost, all the suffering, all the hunger, all the death, all the extinctions. Most of the mammal species are gone. Still, it was a way of life much beloved, and still remembered in art and song, image and story – still legendary, still a lost golden age, vibrating at some level below thought, there in their salty blood and tears, in the long, curled waves of DNA that still break inside them all.
Kim Stanley Robinson
Meteorologists agree that our planet is heating up! Now I know that many people disagree with this or just think that it is part of a natural cycle. It doesn’t really matter what we think, because the Earth’s climate will do what it is doing with or without our influence. As part of my profession, I took classes related to the weather and I would just like to share some of my thoughts on this important topic. First, if I know something is heading in the wrong direction, I’ll try to do something about it and if I’m partially to blame, I’ll try a little harder! For years we have been putting carbon up into the atmosphere and now the chickens are coming home to roost! It doesn’t matter what we think about this, however here in Florida the hurricanes have been becoming more violent… as we saw last summer! Statistically the high tides have been just a little higher with each passing year. In fact the average tides have been going up by an inch for every 10 years. That’s an inch per decade! In the Miami area the water has been coming up through the sewer pipes with fish swimming in the streets and here in the Tampa Bay area the streets are flooding, like in the Venetian Isles neighborhood of St. Petersburg, where flooding has been happening about 70 time per year. Can you imagine being flooded out 70 times per year?
Hank Bracker
ISEOTO (伊勢音): Another excellent source for marine-related foods, it carries everything Satumaya does except the ago (dried juvenile flying fish). Compare the prices and products and make your own decision. To search: From Food, select Dried Food, then in Dried Foods, Squids. A simple photo of 10 squid (cuttlefish) banded together should appear on the first or second page, sold by: iseto.
Nancy Singleton Hachisu (Preserving the Japanese Way: Traditions of Salting, Fermenting, and Pickling for the Modern Kitchen)