“
It took me all day to get that car out. Well, it wasn’t a car. That’s just what I thought it might be when I spotted part of it jutting out from decades of forest undergrowth, and moss, inside a mound of blackberry bushes.
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C.A. Knutsen (Tom and G.E.R.I.)
“
If I meet a bird, I wave a friendly hand at it, to let it know that I wish it well, but I don’t want to crouch behind a bush observing its habits.
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P.G. Wodehouse (Aunts Aren't Gentlemen: (Jeeves & Wooster) (Jeeves & Wooster Series Book 15))
“
Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
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David G. Benner (Soulful Spirituality: Becoming Fully Alive and Deeply Human)
“
GEORGE AND MARLEE UP IN A TREE! K-I-S-S-I-N-G! We stopped. There was a kid over there, standing by a hackberry bush. I’d never seen him before, not at Mary Day or anywhere else. He wasn’t but four and a half feet tall, and stocky. He had on gray shorts that went down all the way to his knees, and a green sweater with orange stripes. It was rounded out up top with little boy-tits and a poochy belly underneath. He had a beanie on his head, the stupid kind with a plastic propeller. His
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Stephen King (The Bazaar of Bad Dreams)
“
Now for St. Francis nothing was ever in the background. We might say that his mind had no background, except perhaps that divine darkness out of which the divine love had called up every colored creature one by one. He saw everything as dramatic, distinct from its setting, not all of a piece like a picture but in action like a play. A bird went by him like an arrow; something with a story and a purpose, though it was a purpose of life and not a purpose of death. A bush could stop him like a brigand; and indeed he was as ready to welcome the brigand as the bush.
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”
G.K. Chesterton (St. Francis of Assisi)
“
Anyone who (dis)likes G. W. Bush, but (dis)likes B. H. Obama, is either completely delusional or a complete idiot.
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Michelle Templet
“
He then said words that have shaped my career: if you are a historian then your job better be to help people remember not just what they want to remember, but what they need to remember.
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Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
“
I had forgotten you were a bird-watcher till you reminded me just now. You went in for it at Oxford, I remember. It isn’t a thing I would care to do myself. Not,” I hastened to add, “that I’ve anything against bird-watching. Must be most interesting, besides keeping you” – I was about to say “out of the public houses” but thought it better to change it to “out in the open air”.
“What’s the procedure?” I went on. “I suppose you lurk in a bush till a bird comes along, and then you out with the glasses and watch it.
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”
P.G. Wodehouse (Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (Jeeves, #15))
“
Dude, this transcends politics. George W. Bush is wiping his ass with the Constitution.
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”
Kenneth Eade (A Patriot's Act (Brent Marks Legal Thrillers #1))
“
A great deal of thought must be given to your daughter's marriage. Otherwise, she will simply slink off like a cat on a dark night to be fertilized under a bush to God knows whom!
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J.G. Farrell (The Singapore Grip (Empire Trilogy, #3))
“
[H]istory is an effective tool to change a country by embracing the truth of a painful past.
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”
Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
“
Sergeant Pepper was dead. G.I. Joe lived on. George Bush was president, movies stars were dying from AIDS, kids were smoking crack in the ghettos and the suburbs, Muslims were blowing airliners from the skies, rap music ruled, and nobody cared much about the Movement anymore. It was a dry and dusty thing, like the air in the graves of Hendrix, Joplin, and God. She was letting her thoughts take her into treacherous territory, and the thoughts threatened her smiley face. She stopped thinking about the dead heroes, the burning breed who made the bombs full of roofing nails and planted them in corporate boardrooms and National Guard Armories. She stopped thinking before the awful sadness crushed her.
The sixties were dead. The survivors limped on, growing suits and neckties and potbellies, going bald and telling their children not to listen to that satanic heavy metal. The clock of the Age of Aquarius had turned, hippies and yippies had become preppies and yuppies. The Chicago Seven were old men. The Black Panthers had turned gray. The Grateful Dead were on MTV, and the Airplane had become a Top-40 Starship.
Mary Terror closed her eyes, and thought she heard the noise of wind whistling through the ruins.
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”
Robert McCammon (Mine)
“
Museums alone cannot ease the tensions that come from the debates surrounding the fluidity of national identity in the twenty-first century. Nor can any cultural institution solve the problems of poverty, racial injustice, and police violence. But museums can contribute to understanding by creating spaces where debates are spirited but reasoned. Where contemporary challenges are addressed through contextualization and education.
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”
Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
“
Every young man starting life ought to know how to cope with an angry swan, so I will briefly relate the proper procedure. You begin by picking up the raincoat which somebody has dropped; and then, judging the distance to a nicety, you simply shove the raincoat over the bird’s head; and, taking the boat-hook which you have prudently brought with you, you insert it underneath the swan and heave. The swan goes into a bush and starts trying to unscramble itself; and you saunter back to your boat, taking with you any friends who may happen at the moment to be sitting on roofs in the vicinity. That was Jeeves’s method, and I cannot see how it could have been improved upon.
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”
P.G. Wodehouse (Very Good, Jeeves! (Jeeves, #4))
“
Al Gore, best described by CNN sound tech Mark A. as "amazingly lifelike"; Steve Forbes, with his wet forehead and loony giggle; G.W. Bush's patrician smirk and mangled cant; even Clinton himself, with his big red fake-friendly face and "I feel your pain." Men who aren't enough like human beings even to hate-what one feels when they loom into view is just an overwhelming lack of interest, the sort of deep disengagement that is often a defense against pain. Against sadness. In fact, the likeliest reason why so many of us care so little about politics is that modern politicians make us sad, hurt us deep down in ways that are hard even to name, much less talk about. It's way easier to roll your eyes and not give a shit. You probably don't want to hear about all this, even.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (Consider the Lobster and Other Essays)
“
It was some time before I could summon resolution to go down through the trees and bushes upon the flank of the headland to the beach. At last I did it at a run; and as I emerged from the thicket upon the sand, I heard some other body come crashing after me. At that I completely lost my head with fear, and began running along the sand. Forthwith there came the swift patter of soft feet in pursuit. I gave a wild cry, and redoubled my pace. Some dim, black things about three or four times the size of rabbits went running or hopping up from the beach towards the bushes as I passed.
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”
H.G. Wells (The Island of Dr. Moreau)
“
The accession of not one but three illegal drug users in a row to the US presidency constitutes an existential challenge to the prohibitionist regime. The fact that some of the most successful people of our time, be it in business, finances, politics, entertainment or the arts, are current or former substance users is a fundamental refutation of its premises and a stinging rebuttal of its rationale. A criminal law that is broken at least once by 50% of the adult population and that is broken on a regular basis by 20% of the same adult population is a broken law, a fatally flawed law. How can a democratic government justify a law that is consistently broken by a substantial minority of the population? What we are witnessing here is a massive case of civil disobedience not seen since alcohol prohibition in the 1930 in the US. On what basis can a democratic system justify the stigmatization and discrimination of a strong minority of as much as 20% of its population?
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Jeffrey Dhywood (World War D. The Case against prohibitionism, roadmap to controlled re-legalization)
“
Army intelligence said the French owners paid the Viet Cong a million piasters a year in protection money and paid the Saigon government three million piasters a year in taxes. The plantation billed the U.S. government $50 for each tea bush and $250 for each rubber tree damaged by combat operations. Just one more incongruity.
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Harold G. Moore (We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang-The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam)
“
Falling in love has been often regarded as the supreme adventure, the supreme romantic accident. In so much as there is in it something outside ourselves, something of a sort of merry fatalism, this is very true. Love does take us and transfigure and torture us. It does break our hearts with an unbearable beauty, like the unbearable beauty of music. But in so far as we have certainly something to do with the matter; in so far as we are in some sense prepared to fall in love and in some sense jump into it; in so far as we do to some extent choose and to some extent even judge—in all this falling in love is not truly romantic, is not truly adventurous at all. In this degree the supreme adventure is not falling in love. The supreme adventure is being born. There we do walk suddenly into a splendid and startling trap. There we do see something of which we have not dreamed before. Our father and mother do lie in wait for us and leap out on us, like brigands from a bush. Our uncle is a surprise. Our aunt is, in the beautiful common expression, a bolt from the blue. When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world that we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale.
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G.K. Chesterton (In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton)
“
It is the simplest phrase you can imagine,” Favreau said, “three monosyllabic words that people say to each other every day.” But the speech etched itself in rhetorical lore. It inspired music videos and memes and the full range of reactions that any blockbuster receives online today, from praise to out-of-context humor to arch mockery. Obama’s “Yes, we can” refrain is an example of a rhetorical device known as epistrophe, or the repetition of words at the end of a sentence. It’s one of many famous rhetorical types, most with Greek names, based on some form of repetition. There is anaphora, which is repetition at the beginning of a sentence (Winston Churchill: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields”). There is tricolon, which is repetition in short triplicate (Abraham Lincoln: “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people”). There is epizeuxis, which is the same word repeated over and over (Nancy Pelosi: “Just remember these four words for what this legislation means: jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs”). There is diacope, which is the repetition of a word or phrase with a brief interruption (Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”) or, most simply, an A-B-A structure (Sarah Palin: “Drill baby drill!”). There is antithesis, which is repetition of clause structures to juxtapose contrasting ideas (Charles Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”). There is parallelism, which is repetition of sentence structure (the paragraph you just read). Finally, there is the king of all modern speech-making tricks, antimetabole, which is rhetorical inversion: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” There are several reasons why antimetabole is so popular. First, it’s just complex enough to disguise the fact that it’s formulaic. Second, it’s useful for highlighting an argument by drawing a clear contrast. Third, it’s quite poppy, in the Swedish songwriting sense, building a hook around two elements—A and B—and inverting them to give listeners immediate gratification and meaning. The classic structure of antimetabole is AB;BA, which is easy to remember since it spells out the name of a certain Swedish band.18 Famous ABBA examples in politics include: “Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.” —Benjamin Disraeli “East and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust each other.” —Ronald Reagan “The world faces a very different Russia than it did in 1991. Like all countries, Russia also faces a very different world.” —Bill Clinton “Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.” —George W. Bush “Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights.” —Hillary Clinton In particular, President John F. Kennedy made ABBA famous (and ABBA made John F. Kennedy famous). “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind,” he said, and “Each increase of tension has produced an increase of arms; each increase of arms has produced an increase of tension,” and most famously, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Antimetabole is like the C–G–Am–F chord progression in Western pop music: When you learn it somewhere, you hear it everywhere.19 Difficult and even controversial ideas are transformed, through ABBA, into something like musical hooks.
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Derek Thompson (Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular)
“
Tony Blair, who held the presidency of the G8 in 2005, spent the months leading up to that year’s summit trying to convince Bush that, in his words, “the time to act is now.” It’s plain, Blair said in an address devoted to climate change, that “the emission of greenhouse gases … is causing global warming at a rate that began as significant, has become alarming, and is simply unsustainable in the long-term. And by ‘long-term’I do not mean centuries ahead. I mean within the lifetime of my children certainly; and possibly within my own. And by ‘unsustainable,’ I do not mean a phenomenon causing problems of adjustment. I mean a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence.
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Elizabeth Kolbert (Field Notes from a Catastrophe)
“
from her purse. “We have to follow that car!” “But not too close,” Nancy replied. “We’d make them suspicious.” The girls waited three minutes before backing out into the main highway and then turning into the adjacent road. Though the automobile ahead had disappeared, tire prints were plainly visible. The road twisted through a stretch of wood-land. When finally the tire prints turned off into a heavily wooded narrow lane, Nancy was sure they were not far from the cabin. She parked among some trees and they went forward on foot. “There it is!” whispered Nancy, recognizing the chimney. “Bess, I want you to take my car, drive to River Heights, and look up the name of the owner of the car we just saw. Here’s the license number. “After you’ve been to the Motor Vehicle Bureau, please phone Mrs. Putney’s house. If she answers, we’ll know it wasn’t she we saw in the car. Then get hold of Dad or Ned, and bring one of them here as fast as you can. We may need help. Got it straight?” “I—I—g-guess so,” Bess answered. “Hurry back! No telling what may happen while you’re away.” The two watched as Nancy’s car rounded a bend and was lost to view. Then Nancy and George walked swiftly through the woods toward the cabin. Approaching the building, Nancy and George were amazed to find that no car was parked on the road in front. “How do you figure it?” George whispered as the girls crouched behind bushes. “We certainly saw tire marks leading into this road!” “Yes, but the car that passed may have gone on without stopping. Possibly the driver saw us and changed her plans. Wait here, and watch the cabin while I check the tire marks out at the
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Carolyn Keene (The Ghost of Blackwood Hall (Nancy Drew, #25))
“
them, and Roscoe shook his head. “Ain’t no point in trying to hide,” he said. “Let’s just get to it. Hell, you never know but what you might get lucky. Maybe you be the one to walk out of here instead of me.” “Don’t you ever shut up?” The voice came from inside the bushes, and a moment later they parted as a man stepped out. He was taller than Roscoe by a couple of inches, but where Roscoe was thick and muscular, this man was thin and wiry. “That’s all
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David Archer (Justice Net (The G.U. Trilogy #1))
“
Since I am a loyal American, I am not supposed to tell you why this has taken place, but then it is not usual for us to examine why anything happens; we simply accuse others of motiveless malignity. “We are good,” G.W. proclaims, “They are evil,” which wraps that one up in a neat package. Later, Bush himself put, as it were, the bow on the package in an address to a joint session of Congress where he shared with them—as well as with the rest of us somewhere over the Beltway—his profound knowledge of Islam’s wiles and ways: “They hate what they see right here in this Chamber.” I suspect a million Americans nodded sadly in front of their TV sets. “Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” At this plangent moment what American’s gorge did not rise like a Florida chad to the bait?
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Gore Vidal (Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace)
“
Incidentally, those who were shocked by Bush the Younger’s shout that we are now “at war” with Osama should have quickly put on their collective thinking caps. Since a nation can only be at war with another nation-state, why did our smoldering if not yet burning bush come up with such a war cry? Think hard. This will count against your final grade. Give up? Well, most insurance companies have a rider that they need not pay for damage done by “an act of war.” Although the men and women around Bush know nothing of war and less of our Constitution, they understand fund-raising. For this wartime exclusion, Hartford Life would soon be breaking open its piggy bank to finance Republicans for years to come. But the mean-spirited Washington Post pointed out that under U.S. case law, only a sovereign nation, not a bunch of radicals, can commit an “act of war.” Good try, G.W. This now means that we the people, with our tax money, will be allowed to bail out the insurance companies, a rare privilege not afforded to just any old generation.
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Gore Vidal (Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace)
“
Among such people, whose consciousness is at a different level of development from ours, the “soul” (or psyche) is not felt to be a unit. Many primitives assume that a man has a “bush soul” as well as his own, and that this bush soul is incarnate in a wild animal or a tree, with which the human individual has some kind of psychic identity. This is what the distinguished French ethnologist Lucien Lévy-Brühl called a “mystical participation.” He later retracted this term under pressure of adverse criticism, but I believe that his critics were wrong. It is a well-known psychological fact that an individual may have such an unconscious identity with some other person or object.
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C.G. Jung (Man and His Symbols)
“
In 1940, Fabian socialist H. G. Wells wrote his own The New World Order, popularizing the phrase. The book advocated unification of the nations of the world to end war and bring global peace. Since the late eighteenth century, when the Illuminati first called for the New World Order, many globalists have openly advocated its creation, including President Woodrow Wilson, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, President George H. W. Bush, British prime minister Tony Blair, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, banker David Rockefeller, and Vice President Joe Biden. “The world’s elite deal in only one commodity—power,” Marrs wrote in The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America. “They seek
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Paul McGuire (Trumpocalypse: The End-Times President, a Battle Against the Globalist Elite, and the Countdown to Armageddon (Babylon Code))
“
EXODUS 3 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the wmountain of God. 2 xAnd ythe angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” 4When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, zGod called to him aout of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5Then he said, “Do not come near; btake your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6And he said, c“I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for dhe was afraid to look at God. 7Then the LORD said, e“I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their ftaskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8and gI have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and hto bring them up out of that land to a igood and broad land, a land jflowing with milk and honey, to the place of kthe Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
“
In 1940, Fabian socialist H. G. Wells wrote his own The New World Order, popularizing the phrase. The book advocated unification of the nations of the world to end war and bring global peace. Since the late eighteenth century, when the Illuminati first called for the New World Order, many globalists have openly advocated its creation, including President Woodrow Wilson, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, President George H. W. Bush, British prime minister Tony Blair, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, banker David Rockefeller, and Vice President Joe Biden. “The world’s elite deal in only one commodity—power,” Marrs wrote in The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America. “They seek to gain and maintain the controlling power that comes from great wealth, usually gained through the monopoly of ownership over basic resources. Politics and social issues matter little to the globalist ruling elite, who move smoothly between corporate business and government service… It is this unswerving attention to commerce and banking that lies behind nearly all modern events. It is the basis for a ‘New World Order’ mentioned by both Hitler and former President George H. W. Bush.”19 Over the last century, the elite have engaged in a massive, covert campaign to prepare humanity for the New World Order.
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Paul McGuire (Trumpocalypse: The End-Times President, a Battle Against the Globalist Elite, and the Countdown to Armageddon (Babylon Code))
“
It’s hard to get good answers to why most Young Voters are so uninterested in politics. This is probably because it’s next to impossible to get someone to think hard about why he’s not interested in something. The boredom itself preempts inquiry; the fact of the feeling’s enough. Surely one reason, though, is that politics is not cool. Or say rather that cool, interesting, alive people do not seem to be the ones who are drawn to the Political Process. Think back to the sort of kids in high school or college who were into running for student office: dweeby, overgroomed, obsequious to authority, ambitious in a sad way. Eager to play the Game. The kind of kids other kids would want to beat up if it didn’t seem so pointless and dull. And now consider some of 2000’s adult versions of these very same kids: Al Gore, best described by CNN sound tech Mark A. as “amazingly lifelike”; Steve Forbes with his wet forehead and loony giggle; G. Bush2’s patrician smirk and mangled cant; even Clinton himself with his big red fake-friendly face and “I feel your pain.” Men who aren’t enough like human beings even to dislike—what one feels when they loom into view is just an overwhelming lack of interest, the sort of deep disengagement that is so often a defense against pain. Against sadness. In fact, the likeliest reason why so many of us care so little about politics is that modern politicians make us sad, hurt us deep down in ways that are hard even to name, much less talk about. It’s way easier to roll your eyes and not give a shit. You probably don’t want to hear about all this, even.
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David Foster Wallace (Up, Simba!)
“
George W. Bush said, “It will take time to restore chaos.” Brent was about to confront Bush’s creation head on.
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Kenneth Eade (A Patriot's Act (Brent Marks Legal Thrillers #1))
“
His friend had the capacity to refer to anything from majestic ghost gum forest in the Snowy Mountains to the sticky, dense rainforest of North Queensland as ‘Bush’. If it wasn’t a desert, a town or a city, then to Gary it was ‘the Bush’.
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GP Field
“
He’s [G.H.W. Bush] never had to do a day’s work in his life.
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Bob Dole
“
The existence of political dynasties like the Kennedys, Bushes and Clintons — and their ability to push their children forward as their successors has been limiting the influx of new blood into the political arena
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Christopher G. Nuttall (The Barbarian Bride (The Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire, #3))
“
I was sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the moon. This was at one with all popular tradition. Modern minor poets are naturalists, and talk about the bush or the brook; but the singers of the old epics and fables were supernaturalists, and talked about the gods of brook and bush. That is what the moderns mean when they say that the ancients did not "appreciate Nature," because they said that Nature was divine. Old nurses do not tell children about the grass, but about the fairies that dance on the grass; and the old Greeks could not see the trees for the dryads.
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G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)
“
Introduction
This book is devoted to the blessed Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Daily working together as unified Godhead for our best interest. Would be incomplete without Jesus direct love bestowed upon me, through a perpetual act of faith in God. Fully trusting Jesus to lead me into a carefully laid-out plan.
Dedicating this book to my children: Faith is 6, Christian 11, Christina 12 years old. Izzabella, my niece, is also featured in the story, Sally Saved Three Times. These Children are the inspiration for the characters in the stories. Added some personal experiences acquired during my childhood.
Appreciate the support of my Mom, Dad, brother, Jacob, for being here for me the last five years. They helped me through hard circumstances when I needed them the most. Thank You!
My second family is at the Erie Wesleyan Methodist Church on the corner of 29th and Liberty. They covered my life with prayer; great friends from the Lord; Supporting me on my journey towards my heavenly home.
I am also thankful for Mike Lawrence who encouraged me to keep writing. Thanks, brother! This spectacular close friend of mine wrote the Forward of this book. He is God-given for moral support and prayer. Friends forever from Erie, Pennsylvania!
There are scripture references, along with Bible lessons featured in each story. These short stories are ideal for devotions or bedtime stories. Suitable for parents and grandparents to read to children, grandchildren.
Forward
It is rare today to find Christians who are in love with doing the Lord's service. Many would sit to the side and let others bush-wack the path, but Bryan has always been the one who delights in making the way clear for others. His determination, commitment to producing these writings was encouraging to watch come to fruition. Take time now see for yourself how God is directing these works to provide something sincere, pure, innocent for families to enjoy. A pleasant respite from a sin-sick world. So, please, feel free to find a quiet place today and enjoy them alone or with your family. This body of work calls upon us to take time to be holy. I believe with all my heart that this is the authors intent, the Lord's plan, my hearts prayer that they bless you as much as they have blessed me. May God bless the time and energies sacrificed by the author in its production. Sincerely in Christ, Michael Lawrence.
When writing with Shirley Dye on messenger about editing the book, she commented that this book would be a blessing to many people. That is my solemn humble prayer.
Short Story Content
1. Mr. B.G. (My Testimony)
2. Trevor Wins Three Times
3. Winning The Man ON
Rock-Hill
4. Sally Saved Three Times
5. Jonathan and Family Find
God
6. Upright and Prideful
Key Text, (Matthew 18:3), “And (Jesus) said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
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Bryan Guras (Kids Following Jesus: One Step At A Time)
“
Around it was a patch of silent common, smouldering in places, and with a few dark, dimly seen objects lying in contorted attitudes here and there. Here and there was a burning bush or tree. Beyond was a fringe of excitement, and farther than that fringe the inflammation had not crept as yet. In the rest of the world the stream of life still flowed as it had flowed for immemorial years.
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H.G. Wells (The War of the Worlds)
“
A remarkable fourteen winners of the Nobel Prize in scientific categories as well as three future presidents—Nixon, Ford, and Bush 41—received G.I. Bill benefits, but just as notable are the everyday people who never would have gone to college without the subsidies
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Will Bunch (After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics—and How to Fix It)
“
bush side-whisker over his coat-collar that completely hid his cheeks and face.
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H.G. Wells (The Invisible Man)
“
In the words of Disraeli, “elected governments seldom govern” and the personages who controlled the strings are far different from the politicians the citizens elected. From that point on, God’s plan for mankind, social and economic interaction for the benefit of all was trashed. In its place arose a brutal structure that looted man of his substance, his possessions, his liberty and his freedom by the most hideously malicious acts of aggression through which mankind became utterly oppressed. The Christian teaching that man was created by God with a higher purpose, notably to serve Him, with a spiritual nature that made this possible, was destroyed by the interaction that started with Cain murdering Abel. Since that moment on, murder, whether it was an individual, (like the murder of Congressman Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking Committee for daring to expose the Federal Reserve Banking system) or mass murder, through wars such as the horrible First World War, became the instrument whereby these evil men enforced their rule. They mouthed pious platitudes and even put on an appearance of Christianity, but in their secret chambers and in their enclaves, they hurled invective at God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Such is the nature of the beast with which we contend and with whom we are locked in battle in the year of our Lord, 2006. The “Elect” (and here I include the present U.S. administration in the hands of President G.W. Bush) does not believe that they are bound by Moral Law. While the “300” rule as they most assuredly do, man can never be secure in his person, his liberties and his property, witness the country of Iraq as one example.
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John Coleman (The Conspirator's Hierarchy: The Committee of 300)
“
They liked George Bush in the same way they absolutely worshipped Ronald Reagan, not because of the type of America that Reagan actually created for them but because of the type of America he so vividly imagined.
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H.G. Bissinger
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What do Dukakis and panty hose have in common? They both irritate Bush. What’s twelve inches long and hangs in front of an asshole? Dukakis’s necktie.
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H.G. Bissinger (Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream)
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Midway through my treatments, I was at the White House to do an interview with President Bush’s press secretary, Tony Snow. He had recently revealed he was facing cancer for a second time. While there I was told that the First Lady, Laura Bush, wanted to see me in the private residence for tea. Mrs. Bush has a family history of breast cancer. She personally invited me to accompany her on a portion of an international breast cancer initiative with the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. My doctors cleared me to travel—although getting my mom’s blessing was far more difficult. Remember, I was in the middle of chemo treatments. I spent time with Mrs. Bush in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, in the UAE and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I met some incredible women on the trip.
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Robin Roberts (Everybody's Got Something)
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American Jewish organizations (as well as Israel) rallied behind the Bush administration’s criminal aggression against Iraq, with Elie Wiesel declaring that “the world faced a crisis similar to 1938” and “the choice is simple,” and with self-promoting “Nazi hunter” Simon Wiesenthal proclaiming that “you cannot wait indefinitely on dictators. Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, but for six years the world did not act.” Critics of the war stood accused of everything from Chamberlain-style “appeasement” to “an anti-Semitism of a type long thought dead in the West,” while even prominent American poets opposing the Iraqi war and Israel’s occupation were chastised for playing “on the edges of 1930s-style anti-Semitism.
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Norman G. Finkelstein (The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering)
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energy because of
politics or civil strife in other countries – because tyrants control
the spigots.—G.W. Bush, February 27, 200617
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F. William Engdahl (A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order)
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Setting Goals with SPRIGS A sprig is a small stem that bears leaves, buds, and flowers. As each sprig blossoms and bears fruit, it contributes to a larger thriving bush or tree. By setting goals using the SPRIGS method, you create a way to enhance your intention. Your goals should be: S: Specific P: Positive R: Realistic I: Inspiring G: Grounded in Time and Gaugeable and finally, allow you to: S: Set Your Next Steps
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Andrea Lieberstein (Well Nourished: Mindful Practices to Heal Your Relationship with Food, Feed Your Whole Self, and End Overeating)
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This remained the case even when these particular voters were challenged, and even when they were shown a newspaper article in which G. W. Bush himself was quoted as saying there was no link between Saddam and 9/11. Whatever contrary evidence was presented to them, from whatever source, 98 per cent of those interviewed refused to change their minds. Their beliefs, their views and their partisan identity had become inextricably interwoven.
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Alison Goldsworthy (Poles Apart: Why People Turn Against Each Other, and How to Bring Them Together)
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During my life, during my entire career, I have been attuned to the slights, assumptions, and hurdles based on racial attitudes and beliefs. I cannot count the number of meetings I attended where I integrated the gathering and had to find ways to handle and address the racial subtext in the room. I had to learn how to control my anger and find ways, sometimes with subtlety occasionally with righteous indignation, to overcome the notions of white privilege that shaped many of these sessions.
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Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
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I had always believed that the [Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture] should be a safe haven that helps Americans wrestle with and better understand the difficult current issues of race, justice, and equality. In essence, the museum is a bully pulpit that provides NMAAHC with the opportunity and responsibility to clarify and contextualize concerns that often divide or perplex the American public.... I think it is important for NMAAHC, for the Smithsonian, to engage in the public square in a manner that brings reason, knowledge, and contextualization to the contemporary challenges faced by America. Actions like this are not without risk to an institution that operates within a federal umbrella. Yet I believe that museums like NMAAHC have an obligation to use their expertise, their platform, to contribute to the greater good of a nation.
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Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
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I hope that the [Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture] never retreats from embracing controversy and, no matter how multifaceted or incendiary the issue, NMAAHC will strive to help the public find contextualization and common ground in a safe and civil environment. I trust that the museum will always be a bully pulpit where boldness and innovation are more than just words. And to use that platform to combat the creeping sense of selective historical amnesia that limits America's ability to understand its past, and itself. I hope that NMAAHC will always celebrate its diverse staff in ways that nurture, protect, and challenge. And it is my hope that the museum will prod and remind other cultural entities, both within and outside of the Smithsonian, that the ultimate goal is to make a people, make a country better.
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Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
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In many ways, projects are like movie scripts in Hollywood. Everybody has one and yet very few are realized as films.
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Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
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One can tell a great deal about a country by what it remembers. By what graces the wall of its museums. And what monuments have privileged placement in parks or central traffic intersections. And what holidays and patriotic songs are the bane and balm to generations of school children. Yet one learns even more about a nation by what it forgets. What moments of evil, disappointment, and defeat are downplayed or eliminated from the national narratives. Often in the United States the issues of race and the centrality of African American culture are given short shrift in textbooks, popular chronicles, and national memories.
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Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
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As I conceptualized the National Museum of African American History and Culture, I knew it had to fulfill Mamie Mobley's charge: to be a place that carried the burden of history and the weight of memory, regardless of how painful or difficult it was. At the core of the museum, therefore, would be a commitment to remember.
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Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
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This process taught us to test and challenge the prevailing wisdom about the paucity of African American artifacts. What we discovered was a paucity of effort and creativity rather than a scarcity of collections. I hope that our efforts will spur other institutions to embrace community-driven collecting and commit the resources to look inside the basements and garages for material that was once deemed less important to the interpretive agenda of museums. Not every cultural organization will discover items from Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, or Marian Anderson, but every museum that makes the effort will find discover items from Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, or Marian Anderson, but every museum, but every museum that makes the effort will find objects that document the lives, the work, the resiliency, and the dreams of their community.
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Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
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I would argue that one of the most consistent challenges throughout the history of the American presidency is how often racial concerns captured the attention of the president. From the troubling history of the treatment and the wars against Native Americans to the pervasive shadow that was slavery to the calls to address racial violence whether it was the lynching epidemic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries or the murder of Trayvon Martin to the calls for equality from a rainbow coalition of people of color, presidents from George Washington to Donald Trump have often found themselves mired in the politics of race.
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Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
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They (South Asians in India, G.O) think we (South Asians in East Africa, G.O.) live like monkeys, in the bush like Tarzan and Jane.…
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Gijsbert Oonk (Settled Strangers: Asian Business Elites in East Africa (1800-2000))
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Mormon Thought, the first appearing in 1969 and the second in 1973. In his 1969 essay “A Commentary on Steven G. Taggart’s Mormonism’s Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins,” Bush excoriated Taggart for his limited, incomplete research.7 Bush systematically dismantled Taggart’s central thesis that Joseph Smith initiated black priesthood denial in response to Latter-day Saint difficulties in Missouri. Bush supported his refutation with extensive documentation.8 Bush further developed his arguments in a second in-depth Dialogue article entitled “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview” published in 1973. His fifty-seven page essay containing some 219 footnotes constituted by far the most comprehensive examination of Mormon racial policy up to that time.9 Bush’s essay drew heavily from a four-hundred-page compendium of primary and secondary documents compiled over some ten years. Covering the period from the 1830s to the 1970s, Bush’s “Compilation on the Negro in Mormonism” contains First Presidency minutes, Quorum of the Twelve meeting minutes, and other General Authority interviews and writings.10 Bush’s carefully written text found minimal evidence to support the LDS Church’s official position that the priesthood ban resulted from divine revelation—thus contradicting a major justification for its existence. Seeking to undermine its legitimacy and thus prod the Church toward change, Bush summarily dismissed the ban as the unfortunate product of socio-historical forces present in the larger nineteenth century American society. The scholarly studies of Stephen Taggart and especially Lester E. Bush Jr. greatly influenced my own work, which commenced as
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Newell G. Bringhurst (Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism, 2nd ed.)
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President Bush, whose early affirmation of the need for the [Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture] to have a home on the National Mall was significant, and the first lady were genuinely interested and soon became invested in the success of the museum. President Bush had placed African Americans like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice in sensitive senior positions that had been unobtainable in earlier administrations. And he genuinely hoped that his actions might address the problem of the lack of diversity within the Republican Party. I also believe, whether directly or indirectly, that the destruction that accompanied Hurricane Katrina, the high percentage of African Americans who perished as a result of the storm and the inadequate response by his administration, informed his attitudes towards the museum.
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Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
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Usually Americans have traditionally viewed questions of race as ancillary episodes, interesting but often exotic eddies outside the mainstream of the American experience. Thus, it was important for the [Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture] to demonstrate through its interpretive frameworks that issue of race shaped all aspects of American life: from political discourse to foreign affairs to western expansion to cultural production.... It was also essential that the stories of the museum featured reflect the tension between moments of pain and episodes of resiliency. This must not be a museum of tragedy, but a site where a nation's history is told with all its contradictions and complexity.
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Lonnie G. Bunch III (A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump)
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I was on what seemed to be a little lawn in a garden, surrounded by rhododendron bushes, and I noticed that their mauve and purple blossoms were dropping in a shower under the beating of the hail-stones.
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H.G. Wells (The Time Machine)
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God meets us in burning bushes and when we ask for God’s name, the Great Mystery responds, “I am what I am becoming.
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Bruce G. Epperly (Process Theology: Embracing Adventure with God (Topical Line Drives Book 5))