Grand Rapids Quotes

We believe human begins have existed for only a small fraction of cosmic history, because human race has been improving so rapidly in knowledge and technology that if people had been around for millions of years, the human race would be much further along in it's mastery.

Things like this don't happen all that often in one lifetime. This is the magnificent world of a picaresque novel. Just brace yourself and enjoy the smell of evil. We're shooting the rapids. And when we go over the falls, let's do it together in grand style!

From being a female sunk below reproach Sophy became rapidly an unconventional girl whose unaffected manners were refreshing in an age of simpers and high flights.

I do not know, really, how we will survive without places like the Inner Gorge of the Grand Canyon to visit. Once in a lifetime, even, is enough. To feel the stripping down, an ebb of the press of conventional time, a radical change of proportion, an unspoken respect for others that elicits keen emotional pleasure, a quick intimate pounding of the heart. The living of life, any life, involves great and private pain, much of which we share with no one. In such places as the Inner Gorge the pain trails away from us. It is not so quiet there or so removed that you can hear yourself think, that you would even wish to; that comes later. You can hear your heart beat. That comes first.

I'm a writer and I'm feeling like death, as you would too if you'd just flown into Grand Rapids, Michigan at some ungodly hour of the morning only to discover that you can't get into your hotel room for another three hours. In fact it's enough just to have flown into Grand Rapids, Michigan. If you are a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, then please assume that I am just kidding. Anyone else will surely realise that I am not. Having nowhere else to go, I am standing up, leaning against a mantelpiece. Well, a kind of mantelpiece. I don't know what it is, in fact. It's made of brass and some kind of plastic and was probably drawn in by the architect after a nasty night on the town. That reminds me of another favourite piece of information: there is a large kink in the trans-Siberian railway because when the Czar (I don't know which Czar it was because I am not in my study at home I'm leaning against something shamefully ugly in Michigan and there are no books) decreed that the trans-Siberian railway should be built, he drew a line on a map with a ruler. The ruler had a nick in it.

I brought Grand Rapids with me to Newaygo. I brought difference. I was used to a fluid concept of harmony. I was used to diversity. Homogenous harmony has walls. As a fourteen-year-old boy in Newaygo, I felt those walls.

If he really wanted to be happy in the world, Horst? To have any kind of joyful or happy life? He should pay twenty grand to go back to his rapid detox place and then come here and smoke Buddha Haze and stand in a museum all day long.

Llanfair - home if Saint Gelert's grave. We should call ourselves that, like that other Llanfair.' 'You mean the other Llanfair over the Anglesey; the one that claims to have the longest name in the world?' Barry-the-Bucket asked. 'That's exactly what I mean', Evans-the-Meat said grandly. 'If they can call themselves Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which we all know means nothing more important than Saint Mary's church in the hollow of white hazel near the rapid whirlpool and Saint Tisilio's church near the red cave, then why shouldn't we start calling ourselves Llanfair-up-on-the-pass-with-the-brook-running-through-it-and-Saint-Gelert's-grave-right-above-it?

The very center and core of the whole Bible is the doctrine of the grace of God—the grace of God which depends not one whit upon anything that is in man, but is absolutely undeserved, resistless and sovereign. The theologians of the Church can be placed in an ascending scale according as they have grasped that one great central doctrine, that doctrine that gives consistency to all the rest; and Christian experience also depends for its depth and for its power upon the way in which that blessed doctrine is cherished in the depths of the heart. The center of the Bible, and the center of Christianity, is found in the grace of God; and the necessary corollary of the grace of God is salvation through faith alone.” J. Gresham Machen, quoted in Ned B. Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir (Grand Rapids, 1955), page 396.

But in a few years more perhaps there may be; for, deep within us as the ghost instinct lurks, I seem to see it being gradually atrophied by those two world-wide enemies of the imagination, the wireless and the cinema. To a generation for whom everything which used to nourish the imagination because it had to be won by an effort, and then slowly assimilated, is now served up cooked, seasoned, and chopped into little bits, the creative faculty (for reading should be a creative act as well as writing) is rapidly withering, together with the power of sustained attention; and the world which used to be so grand à la charté des lampes is diminishing in inverse ratio to the new means of spanning it; so that the more we add to its surface the smaller it becomes.

It was called A Ford, Not a Lincoln, and in it, Richard Reeves described him as “slow, plodding, pedestrian, unimaginative,” “inarticulate,” and “ignorant”—though you didn’t have to take Reeves’s word for it. He also quoted the president’s Grand Rapids pastor: “Gerald Ford is a normal, decent, God-fearing man, but you can say that about a lot of people.

In her fantastic mood she stretched her soft, clasped hands upward toward the moon. 'Sweet moon,' she said in a kind of mock prayer, 'make your white light come down in music into my dancing-room here, and I will dance most deliciously for you to see". She flung her head backward and let her hands fall; her eyes were half closed, and her mouth was a kissing mouth. 'Ah! sweet moon,' she whispered, 'do this for me, and I will be your slave; I will be what you will.' Quite suddenly the air was filled with the sound of a grand invisible orchestra. Viola did not stop to wonder. To the music of a slow saraband she swayed and postured. In the music there was the regular beat of small drums and a perpetual drone. The air seemed to be filled with the perfume of some bitter spice. Viola could fancy almost that she saw a smoldering campfire and heard far off the roar of some desolate wild beast. She let her long hair fall, raising the heavy strands of it in either hand as she moved slowly to the laden music. Slowly her body swayed with drowsy grace, slowly her satin shoes slid over the silver sand. The music ceased with a clash of cymbals. Viola rubbed her eyes. She fastened her hair up carefully again. Suddenly she looked up, almost imperiously. "Music! more music!" she cried. Once more the music came. This time it was a dance of caprice, pelting along over the violin-strings, leaping, laughing, wanton. Again an illusion seemed to cross her eyes. An old king was watching her, a king with the sordid history of the exhaustion of pleasure written on his flaccid face. A hook-nosed courtier by his side settled the ruffles at his wrists and mumbled, 'Ravissant! Quel malheur que la vieillesse!' It was a strange illusion. Faster and faster she sped to the music, stepping, spinning, pirouetting; the dance was light as thistle-down, fierce as fire, smooth as a rapid stream. The moment that the music ceased Viola became horribly afraid. She turned and fled away from the moonlit space, through the trees, down the dark alleys of the maze, not heeding in the least which turn she took, and yet she found herself soon at the outside iron gate. ("The Moon Slave")

To day we made the grand experiment of burning the diamond and certainly the phenomena presented were extremely beautiful and interesting... The Duke's burning glass was the instrument used to apply heat to the diamond. It consists of two double convex lenses ... The instrument was placed in an upper room of the museum and having arranged it at the window the diamond was placed in the focus and anxiously watched. The heat was thus continued for 3/4 of an hour (it being necessary to cool the globe at times) and during that time it was thought that the diamond was slowly diminishing and becoming opaque ... On a sudden Sir H Davy observed the diamond to burn visibly, and when removed from the focus it was found to be in a state of active and rapid combustion. The diamond glowed brilliantly with a scarlet light, inclining to purple and, when placed in the dark, continued to burn for about four minutes. After cooling the glass heat was again applied to the diamond and it burned again though not for nearly so long as before. This was repeated twice more and soon after the diamond became all consumed. This phenomenon of actual and vivid combustion, which has never been observed before, was attributed by Sir H Davy to be the free access of air; it became more dull as carbonic acid gas formed and did not last so long.

Aussi, préférant mille fois la mort à une arrestation, j'accomplissais des choses étonnantes, et qui, plus d'une fois, me donnèrent cette preuve que le trop grand soin que nous prenons de notre corps est à peu près le seul obstacle à la réussite de ceux de nos projets qui ont besoin d'une décision rapide et d'une exécution vigoureuse et déterminée. En effet, une fois qu'on a fait le sacrifice de sa vie, on n'est plus l'égal des autres hommes, ou plutôt les autres hommes ne sont plus vos égaux, et quiconque a pris cette résolution sent, à l'instant même, décupler ses forces et s'agrandir son horizon. (p. 556)

Temono la morte, gli esseri umani, ma non si accorgono che è la vita a torturarli. Il supplizio più grande che il fato ha previsto per loro è quello di vivere inseguendo desideri che non riescono mai ad appagare fino in fondo. I sogni degli uomini sono come nuvole rapide che cambiano direzione con il vento: attraversano continuamente il cielo della vita, e ogni volta che si allontanano se ne portano via un pezzetto.

One day in the next five hundred billion years, while the probes complete one full circuit of the Milky Way, maybe they’ll stumble upon intelligent life. In forty thousand years or so, when the two probes sail close enough to a planetary system, maybe just maybe one of these plants will be home to some life form which will spy the probe with whatever it has that passes for eyes, stay its telescope, retrieve the derelict fuel-less old probe with whatever it has that passes for curiosity, lower the stylus (supplied) to the record with whatever it has that passes for digits, and set free the dadadadaa of Beethoven’s Fifth. It’ll roll like thunder through a different frontier. Human music will permeate the Milky Way’s outer reaches. There’ll be Chuck Berry and Bach, there’ll be Stravinsky and Blind Willie Johnson, and the didgeridoo, violin, slide guitar and shakuhachi. Whale song will drift through the constellation of Ursa Minor. Perhaps a being on a planet of the star AC +793888 will hear the 1970s recording of sheep bleat, laughter, footsteps, and the soft pluck of a kiss. Perhaps they’ll hear the trundle of a tractor and the voice of a child. When they hear on the phonograph a recording of rapid firecracker drills and bursts, will they know that these sounds denote brainwaves? Will they ever infer that over forty thousand years before in a solar system unknown a woman was rigged to an EEG and her thoughts recorded? Could they know to work backwards from the abstract sounds and translate them once more into brainwaves, and could they know from these brainwaves the kinds of thoughts the woman was having? Could they see into a human’s mind? Could they know she was a young woman in love? Could they tell from this dip and rise in the EEG’s pattern that she was thinking simultaneously of earth and lover as if the two were continuous? Could they see that, though she tried to keep her mental script, to bring to mind Lincoln and the Ice Age and the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt and whatever grand things have shaped the earth and which she wished to convey to an alien audience, every thought cascaded into the drawn brows and proud nose of her lover, the wonderful articulation of his hands and the way he listened like a bird and how they had touched so often without touching. And then a spike in sound as she thought of that great city Alexandria and of nuclear disarmament and the symphony of the earth’s tides and the squareness of his jaw and the way he spoke with such bright precision so that everything he said was epiphany and discovery and the way he looked at her as though she were the epiphany he kept on having and the thud of her heart and the flooding how heat about her body when she considered what it was he wanted to do to her and the migration of bison across a Utah plain and a geisha’s expressionless face and the knowledge of having found that thing in the world which she ought never to have had the good fortune of finding, of two minds and bodies flung at each other at full dumbfounding force so that her life had skittered sidelong and all her pin-boned plans just gone like that and her self engulfed in a fire of longing and thoughts of sex and destiny, the completeness of love, their astounding earth, his hands, his throat, his bare back.

Out there in the middle of the maelstrom the Eater awaits, heaving and gulping, its mouth like a giant clam’s . . . its mind a frenzy of beige-colored rapid foam. A horrifying uproar, all things considered. Imagine floating through that nonsense in a life jacket. —EDWARD ABBEY

Beyond the rapids themselves, the river also concealed a host of other obstacles, wicked spots whose names offered a sufficiently graphic warning of what they would do to you if you let them. The Fangs. Helicopter Eddy. The Green Guillotine. Forever Eddy. The Devil’s Spittoon. No

The delivery room is cold and it has a view of the city. A view of smokestacks and snow-kissed rooftops. An industrial grid of squares that seem to go on for miles. And the snowflakes have wings. Big white butterflies suspended in air. The kind kids like to catch on their tongues.

We know that we have got about 2500 ft. to fall yet . . . and if it comes all in the first hundred miles we shan’t be dreading rapids afterwards for if it should continue at this rate much more than a hundred miles we should have to go the rest of the way up hill which is not often the case with rivers.

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the base Only sentries were stirring--they guarded the place. At the foot of each bunk sat a helmet and boot For the Santa of Soldiers to fill up with loot. The soldiers were sleeping and snoring away As they dreamed of “back home” on good Christmas Day. One snoozed with his rifle--he seemed so content. I slept with the letters my family had sent. When outside the tent there arose such a clatter. I sprang from my rack to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash. Poked out my head, and yelled, “What was that crash?” When what to my thrill and relief should appear, But one of our Blackhawks to give the all clear. More rattles and rumbles! I heard a deep whine! Then up drove eight Humvees, a jeep close behind… Each vehicle painted a bright Christmas green. With more lights and gold tinsel than I’d ever seen. The convoy commander leaped down and he paused. I knew then and there it was Sergeant McClaus! More rapid than rockets, his drivers they came When he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: “Now, Cohen! Mendoza! Woslowski! McCord! Now, Li! Watts! Donetti! And Specialist Ford!” “Go fill up my sea bags with gifts large and small! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away, all!” In the blink of an eye, to their trucks the troops darted. As I drew in my head and was turning around, Through the tent flap the sergeant came in with a bound. He was dressed all in camo and looked quite a sight With a Santa had added for this special night. His eyes--sharp as lasers! He stood six feet six. His nose was quite crooked, his jaw hard as bricks! A stub of cigar he held clamped in his teeth. And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. A young driver walked in with a seabag in tow. McClaus took the bag, told the driver to go. Then the sarge went to work. And his mission today? Bring Christmas from home to the troops far away! Tasty gifts from old friends in the helmets he laid. There were candies, and cookies, and cakes, all homemade. Many parents sent phone cards so soldiers could hear Treasured voices and laughter of those they held dear. Loving husbands and wives had mailed photos galore Of weddings and birthdays and first steps and more. And for each soldier’s boot, like a warm, happy hug, There was art from the children at home sweet and snug. As he finished the job--did I see a twinkle? Was that a small smile or instead just a wrinkle? To the top of his brow he raised up his hand And gave a salute that made me feel grand. I gasped in surprise when, his face all aglow, He gave a huge grin and a big HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! from the barracks and then from the base. HO! HO! HO! as the convoy sped up into space. As the camp radar lost him, I heard this faint call: “HAPPY CHRISTMAS, BRAVE SOLDIERS! MAY PEACE COME TO ALL!

Jetez sur une étoile un rapide coup d'œil, regardez-la obliquement, en tournant vers elle la partie latérale de la rétine (beaucoup plus sensible à une lumière faible que la partie centrale), et vous verrez l'étoile plus distinctement; vous aurez l'appréciation la plus juste de son éclat, éclat qui s'obscurcit à proportion que vous dirigez votre vue en plein sur elle. Dans le dernier cas, il tombe sur l'œil un plus grand nombre de rayons; mais dans le premier, il y a une réceptibilité plus complète, une susceptibilité beaucoup plus vive. Une profondeur outrée affaiblit la pensée et la rend perplexe; et il est possible de faire disparaître Vénus elle-même du firmament par une attention trop soutenue, trop concentrée, trop directe.

The great, yellow, winter sun sank rapidly, barely brushing the twin peaks of Grand Mountain. In the blinding light, everything merged into a quivering mass of blazing gold and copper. Violet shadows stretched into infinity; a forest lying adjacent to the sun ran with a black purple that turned by degrees into a brilliant, pale green. The earth was no longer a mundane place.

baseball. The intestines may fill up completely with blood. The lining of the gut dies and sloughs off into the bowels and is defecated along with large amounts of blood. In men, the testicles bloat up and turn black-and-blue, the semen goes hot with Ebola, and the nipples may bleed. In women, the labia turn blue, livid, and protrusive, and there may be massive vaginal bleeding. The virus is a catastrophe for a pregnant woman: the child is aborted spontaneously and is usually infected with Ebola virus, born with red eyes and a bloody nose. Ebola destroys the brain more thoroughly than does Marburg, and Ebola victims often go into epileptic convulsions during the final stage. The convulsions are generalized grand mal seizures—the whole body twitches and shakes, the arms and legs thrash around, and the eyes, sometimes bloody, roll up into the head. The tremors and convulsions of the patient may smear or splatter blood around. Possibly this epileptic splashing of blood is one of Ebola’s strategies for success—it makes the victim go into a flurry of seizures as he dies, spreading blood all over the place, thus giving the virus a chance to jump to a new host—a kind of transmission through smearing. Ebola (and Marburg) multiplies so rapidly and powerfully that the body’s infected cells become crystal-like blocks of packed virus particles. These crystals are broods of virus getting ready to hatch from the cell. They are known as bricks. The bricks, or crystals, first appear near the center of the cell and then migrate toward the surface. As a crystal

You must give yourself enough time to get better.” “How much time will that take?” he asked bitterly. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But you have a lifetime.” A caustic laugh broke from him. “That’s too damned long.” “I understand that you feel responsible for what happened to Mark. But you’ve already been forgiven for whatever you think your sins are. You have,” she insisted as he shook his head. “Love forgives all things. And so many people--” She stopped as she felt his entire body jerk. “What did you say?” she heard him whisper. Beatrix realized the mistake she had just made. Her arms fell away from him. The blood began to roar in her ears, her heart thumping so madly she felt faint. Without thinking, she scrambled away from him, off the bed, to the center of the room. Breathing in frantic bursts, Beatrix turned to face him. Christopher was staring at her, his eyes gleaming with a strange, mad light. “I knew it,” he whispered. She wondered if he might try to kill her. She decided not to wait to find out. Fear gave her the speed of a terrified hare. She bolted before he could catch her, tearing to the door, flinging it open, and scampering to the grand staircase. Her boots made absurdly loud thuds on the stairs as she leaped downward. Christopher followed her to the threshold, bellowing her name. Beatrix didn’t pause for a second, knowing he was going to pursue her as soon as he donned his clothes. Mrs. Clocker stood near the entrance hall, looking worried and astonished. “Miss Hathaway? What--” “I think he’ll come out of his room now,” Beatrix said rapidly, jumping down the last of the stairs. “It’s time for me to be going.” “Did he…are you…” “If he asks for his horse to be saddled,” Beatrix said breathlessly, “please have it done slowly.” “Yes, but--” Good-bye.” And Beatrix raced from the house as if demons were at her heels.

La Russie d’Alexandre III appartient indubitablement au club très fermé des grandes puissances. Ses dimensions (elles s’agrandiront encore sous le règne de ce tsar épris de paix), sa population (de cent vingt-neuf millions de personnes selon le premier recensement général de 1897), en sont des preuves convaincantes. Dans la période qui suit les réformes, le pays se développe rapidement sur le plan industriel. Entre 1860 et 1913, l’augmentation de la production est de 5 % en moyenne, et dans les années 1890, elle atteint presque les 8 %. L’essor économique, fortement stimulé sous le règne d’Alexandre III, se poursuivra, à une cadence non moins rapide sous celui de son fils, Nicolas II. En 1914, la Russie sera la quatrième puissance industrielle, son commerce extérieur la placera au sixième rang mondial.

Occasionally we glimpse the South Rim, four or five thousand feet above. From the rims the canyon seems oceanic; at the surface of the river the feeling is intimate. To someone up there with binoculars we seem utterly remote down here. It is this know dimension if distance and time and the perplexing question posed by the canyon itself- What is consequential? (in one’s life, in the life of human beings, in the life of a planet)- that reverberate constantly, and make the human inclination to judge (another person, another kind of thought) seem so eerie… Two kinds of time pass here: sitting at the edge of a sun-warmed pool watching blue dragonflies and black tadpoles. And the rapids: down the glassy-smooth tongue into a yawing trench, climb a ten-foot wall of standing water and fall into boiling, ferocious hydraulics…

In terms of literary history, the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 is seen as a landmark. The volume contains many of the best-known Romantic poems. The second edition in 1800 contained a Preface in which Wordsworth discusses the theories of poetry which were to be so influential on many of his and Coleridge's contemporaries. The Preface represents a poetic manifesto which is very much in the spirit of the age. The movement towards greater freedom and democracy in political and social affairs is paralleled by poetry which sought to overturn the existing regime and establish a new, more 'democratic' poetic order. To do this, the writers used 'the real language of men' (Preface to Lyrical Ballads) and even, in the case of Byron and Shelley, got directly involved in political activities themselves. The Romantic age in literature is often contrasted with the Classical or Augustan age which preceded it. The comparison is valuable, for it is not simply two different attitudes to literature which are being compared but two different ways of seeing and experiencing life. The Classical or Augustan age of the early and mid-eighteenth century stressed the importance of reason and order. Strong feelings and flights of the imagination had to be controlled (although they were obviously found widely, especially in poetry). The swift improvements in medicine, economics, science and engineering, together with rapid developments in both agricultural and industrial technology, suggested human progress on a grand scale. At the centre of these advances towards a perfect society was mankind, and it must have seemed that everything was within man's grasp if his baser, bestial instincts could be controlled. The Classical temperament trusts reason, intellect, and the head. The Romantic temperament prefers feelings, intuition, and the heart.

It was a season of grand ballooning experiments in Paris; word of the flights, including a manned one in November 1783, spread rapidly.3 Jefferson sensed the revolutionary possibilities of human control of the air.4 “What think you of these balloons? They really begin to assume a serious face,” he wrote. Reports had people flying six miles in twenty minutes at three thousand feet. He took a jocular tone, but his words were prescient. “This discovery seems to threaten the prostration of fortified works unless they can be closed above, the destruction of fleets and what not. The French may now run over their laces, wines etc. to England duty free. The whole system of British statutes made on the supposition of goods being brought into some port must be revised. Inland countries may now become maritime states unless you choose rather to call them aerial ones as their commerce is in [the] future to be carried on through that element. But jesting apart I think this discovery may lead to things useful.” Ten years later, in Philadelphia, Jefferson saw the first successful manned balloon flight in America.5 His

OUR PAST BRINGS US TO OUR FUTURE “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.” —Joel 2:25 I believe in a very deep way that our past is what brings us to our future. I understand the temptation to draw an angry X through a whole season or a whole town or a whole relationship, to crumple it up and throw it away, to get it as far away as possible from a new life, a new future. In my worst moments, I want to slam the door on the hard parts of our life in Grand Rapids. Deadbolt it, forget it, move forward, happier without it. But I don’t want to lose six years of my own history behind a slammed door. These days I’m walking over and retrieving those years from the trash, erasing the X, unlocking the door. It’s the only way that darkness turns to light. I’m mining through, searching for light, and the more I look, the more I find all sorts of things Grand Rapids gave me. I see moments of heartbreak that led to honesty about myself I wouldn’t have been able to get to any other way. I am thankful for what I learned, what I became, what God gave me and what God took away during that season. WHAT HAVE the hard, dark seasons of your life yielded in light and insight and growth and gifts? Have you sifted through those times, looking for those gifts? Ask God to bring light out of that darkness. May 11 WHY WE WRITE Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. —Psalm 100:1 A writer friend came over yesterday. She’s written a novel. She brought over a fat, beautiful binder full of story, and I can’t wait to read it. We talked about publication and agents and sharing your work, about marketing and the internet and a million other things. And we talked about why we write. You know those conversations when you think you’re helping someone, sharing from your vast well of knowledge, only to realize that this person is actually instructing you, reminding you of something fundamental that you’ve forgotten? My friend sat across the table from me, and it seemed like she could have combusted into flames, burning with sheer, clean passion about this story. After she left, I realized that some days I forget why we write, and she reminded me. I write because other writers’ words changed my life a million and one ways, and I want to be a part of that. I began writing because there were things I wanted to say with so much urgency and soul I would have climbed a tower and shouted them, would have written them in skywriting, would have spelled them out in grains of rice if I had to.

A FAIR IMPRESSION of the pace of Roosevelt’s candidacy for Mayor may be gained by following him through one night of his campaign—Friday, 29 October.44 At 8:00 P.M., having snatched a hasty dinner near headquarters, he takes a hansom to the Grand Opera House, on Twenty-third Street and Eighth Avenue, for the first of five scheduled addresses in various parts of the city. His audience is worshipful, shabby, and exclusively black. (One of the more interesting features of the campaign has been Roosevelt’s evident appeal to, and fondness for, the black voter.) He begins by admitting that his campaign planners had not allowed for “this magnificent meeting” of colored citizens. “For the first time, therefore, since the opening of the campaign I have begun to take matters a little in my own hands!” Laughter and applause. “I like to speak to an audience of colored people,” Roosevelt says simply, “for that is only another way of saying that I am speaking to an audience of Republicans.” More applause. He reminds his listeners that he has “always stood up for the colored race,” and tells them about the time he put a black man in the chair of the Chicago Convention. Apologizing for his tight schedule, he winds up rapidly, and dashes out of the hall to a standing ovation.45 A carriage is waiting outside; the driver plies his whip; by 8:30 Roosevelt is at Concordia Hall, on Twenty-eighth Street and Avenue A. Here he shouts at a thousand well-scrubbed immigrants, “Do you want a radical reformer?” “YES WE DO!” comes the reply.46

l'ambre jaune, aussi bien que la laine lui parurent un peu brûlés. On avoit sans doute remarqué que de tous les corps électriques, le verre est un de ceux en qui le frottement excite une plus forte électricité. Hauksbée s'avisa d'employer dans ses expériences un tube ou cylindre creux de verre. En le frottant rapidement dans sa main, un papier entre-deux, il le rendoit électrique, & faisoit par son moyen toutes les expériences qu'Otto de Guerike avoit faites avant lui avec un globe de soufre. Il observa de plus qu'un tube dont on a pompé l'air, ne s'électrise que très-foiblement, & que si on y laisse rentrer l'air il acquiert beaucoup d'électricité sans être frotté de nouveau. Quand on frotte un tube dans l'obscurité, une lumière fuit la main qui frotte, & si l'on approche de ce tube ainsi excité une autre main, ou quelqu'autre corps, comme du métal, de l'yvoire, du bois, &c. il en sort une étincelle accompagnée d'un bruit assez semblable au pétillement d'une feüille verte jettée au feu, mais moins fort. Quand on frotte le tube vuide d'air, la lumière est plus vive, mais toute dans son intérieur, & l'on n'en peut tirer d'étincelle. Hauksbée imagina aussi de faire tourner sur son axe un globe creux de verre par le moyen d'une rouë & d'une corde qui passe sur la circonférence de cette rouë & sur une poulie fixée sur l'axe du globe. Il excita l'électricité en frottant ce globe, mais il n'en tira pas de plus grands effets que de son tube. L'électricité qui jusques-là ne s'étoit manifestée que par le frottement, Hauksbée la découvrit dans

The same effort to conserve force was also evident in war, at the tactical level. The ideal Roman general was not a figure in the heroic style, leading his troops in a reckless charge to victory or death. He would rather advance in a slow and carefully prepared march, building supply roads behind him and fortified camps each night in order to avoid the unpredictable risks of rapid maneuver. He preferred to let the enemy retreat into fortified positions rather than accept the inevitable losses of open warfare, and he would wait to starve out the enemy in a prolonged siege rather than suffer great casualties in taking the fortifications by storm. Overcoming the spirit of a culture still infused with Greek martial ideals (that most reckless of men, Alexander the Great, was actually an object of worship in many Roman households), the great generals of Rome were noted for their extreme caution. It is precisely this aspect of Roman tactics (in addition to the heavy reliance on combat engineering) that explains the relentless quality of Roman armies on the move, as well as their peculiar resilience in adversity: the Romans won their victories slowly, but they were very hard to defeat. Just as the Romans had apparently no need of a Clausewitz to subject their military energies to the discipline of political goals, it seems that they had no need of modern analytical techniques either. Innocent of the science of systems analysis, the Romans nevertheless designed and built large and complex security systems that successfully integrated troop deployments, fixed defenses, road networks, and signaling links in a coherent whole.

L’assemblée sentit que son président allait aborder le point délicat. Elle redoubla d’attention. « Depuis quelques mois, mes braves collègues, reprit Barbicane, je me suis demandé si, tout en restant dans notre spécialité, nous ne pourrions pas entreprendre quelque grande expérience digne du dix-neuvième siècle, et si les progrès de la balistique ne nous permettraient pas de la mener à bonne fin. J’ai donc cherché, travaillé, calculé, et de mes études est résultée cette conviction que nous devons réussir dans une entreprise qui paraîtrait impraticable à tout autre pays. Ce projet, longuement élaboré, va faire l’objet de ma communication ; il est digne de vous, digne du passé du Gun-Club, et il ne pourra manquer de faire du bruit dans le monde ! — Beaucoup de bruit ? s’écria un artilleur passionné. — Beaucoup de bruit dans le vrai sens du mot, répondit Barbicane. — N’interrompez pas ! répétèrent plusieurs voix. — Je vous prie donc, braves collègues, reprit le président, de m’accorder toute votre attention. » Un frémissement courut dans l’assemblée. Barbicane, ayant d’un geste rapide assuré son chapeau sur sa tête, continua son discours d’une voix calme : « Il n’est aucun de vous, braves collègues, qui n’ait vu la Lune, ou tout au moins, qui n’en ait entendu parler. Ne vous étonnez pas si je viens vous entretenir ici de l’astre des nuits. Il nous est peut-être réservé d’être les Colombs de ce monde inconnu. Comprenez-moi, secondez-moi de tout votre pouvoir, je vous mènerai à sa conquête, et son nom se joindra à ceux des trente-six États qui forment ce grand pays de l’Union ! — Hurrah pour la Lune ! s’écria le Gun-Club d’une seule voix.

Undoubtedly, my dear Dick. Just note the progress of events: consider the migrations of races, and you will arrive at the same conclusion assuredly. Asia was the first nurse of the world, was she not? For about four thousand years she travailed, she grew pregnant, she produced, and then, when stones began to cover the soil where the golden harvests sung by Homer had flourished, her children abandoned her exhausted and barren bosom. You next see them precipitating themselves upon young and vigorous Europe, which has nourished them for the last two thousand years. But already her fertility is beginning to die out; her productive powers are diminishing every day. Those new diseases that annually attack the products of the soil, those defective crops, those insufficient resources, are all signs of a vitality that is rapidly wearing out and of an approaching exhaustion. Thus, we already see the millions rushing to the luxuriant bosom of America, as a source of help, not inexhaustible indeed, but not yet exhausted. In its turn, that new continent will grow old; its virgin forests will fall before the axe of industry, and its soil will become weak through having too fully produced what had been demanded of it. Where two harvests bloomed every year, hardly one will be gathered from a soil completely drained of its strength. Then, Africa will be there to offer to new races the treasures that for centuries have been accumulating in her breast. Those climates now so fatal to strangers will be purified by cultivation and by drainage of the soil, and those scattered water supplies will be gathered into one common bed to form an artery of navigation. Then this country over which we are now passing, more fertile, richer, and fuller of vitality than the rest, will become some grand realm where more astonishing discoveries than steam and electricity will be brought to light.

Au reste, l’artifice paraissait à des Esseintes la marque distinctive du génie de l’homme. Comme il le disait, la nature a fait son temps ; elle a définitivement lassé, par la dégoûtante uniformité de ses paysages et de ses ciels, l’attentive patience des raffinés. Au fond, quelle platitude de spécialiste confinée dans sa partie, quelle petitesse de boutiquière tenant tel article à l’exclusion de tout autre, quel monotone magasin de prairies et d’arbres, quelle banale agence de montagnes et de mers ! Il n’est, d’ailleurs, aucune de ses inventions réputée si subtile ou si grandiose que le génie humain ne puisse créer ; aucune forêt de Fontainebleau, aucun clair de lune que des décors inondés de jets électriques ne produisent ; aucune cascade que l’hydraulique n’imite à s’y méprendre ; aucun roc que le carton-pâte ne s’assimile ; aucune fleur que de spécieux taffetas et de délicats papiers peints n’égalent ! À n’en pas douter, cette sempiternelle radoteuse a maintenant usé la débonnaire admiration des vrais artistes, et le moment est venu où il s’agit de la remplacer, autant que faire se pourra, par l’artifice. Et puis, à bien discerner celle de ses œuvres considérée comme la plus exquise, celle de ses créations dont la beauté est, de l’avis de tous, la plus originale et la plus parfaite : la femme ; est-ce que l’homme n’a pas, de son côté, fabriqué, à lui tout seul, un être animé et factice qui la vaut amplement, au point de vue de la beauté plastique ? est-ce qu’il existe, ici-bas, un être conçu dans les joies d’une fornication et sorti des douleurs d’une matrice dont le modèle, dont le type soit plus éblouissant, plus splendide que celui de ces deux locomotives adoptées sur la ligne du chemin de fer du Nord ? L’une, la Crampton, une adorable blonde, à la voix aiguë, à la grande taille frêle, emprisonnée dans un étincelant corset de cuivre, au souple et nerveux allongement de chatte, une blonde pimpante et dorée, dont l’extraordinaire grâce épouvante lorsque, raidissant ses muscles d’acier, activant la sueur de ses flancs tièdes, elle met en branle l’immense rosace de sa fine roue et s’élance toute vivante, en tête des rapides et des marées ! L’autre, l’Engerth, une monumentale et sombre brune aux cris sourds et rauques, aux reins trapus, étranglés dans une cuirasse en fonte, une monstrueuse bête, à la crinière échevelée de fumée noire, aux six roues basses et accouplées ; quelle écrasante puissance lorsque, faisant trembler la terre, elle remorque pesamment, lentement, la lourde queue de ses marchandises !

Au reste, l’artifice paraissait à des Esseintes la marque distinctive du génie de l’homme. Comme il le disait, la nature a fait son temps ; elle a définitivement lassé, par la dégoûtante uniformité de ses paysages et de ses ciels, l’attentive patience des raffinés. Au fond, quelle platitude de spécialiste confinée dans sa partie, quelle petitesse de boutiquière tenant tel article à l’exclusion de tout autre, quel monotone magasin de prairies et d’arbres, quelle banale agence de montagnes et de mers ! Il n’est, d’ailleurs, aucune de ses inventions réputée si subtile ou si grandiose que le génie humain ne puisse créer ; aucune forêt de Fontainebleau, aucun clair de lune que des décors inondés de jets électriques ne produisent ; aucune cascade que l’hydraulique n’imite à s’y méprendre ; aucun roc que le carton-pâte ne s’assimile ; aucune fleur que de spécieux taffetas et de délicats papiers peints n’égalent ! À n’en pas douter, cette sempiternelle radoteuse a maintenant usé la débonnaire admiration des vrais artistes, et le moment est venu où il s’agit de la remplacer, autant que faire se pourra, par l’artifice. Et puis, à bien discerner celle de ses œuvres considérée comme la plus exquise, celle de ses créations dont la beauté est, de l’avis de tous, la plus originale et la plus parfaite : la femme ; est-ce que l’homme n’a pas, de son côté, fabriqué, à lui tout seul, un être animé et factice qui la vaut amplement, au point de vue de la beauté plastique ? est-ce qu’il existe, ici-bas, un être conçu dans les joies d’une fornication et sorti des douleurs d’une matrice dont le modèle, dont le type soit plus éblouissant, plus splendide que celui de ces deux locomotives adoptées sur la ligne du chemin de fer du Nord ? L’une, la Crampton, une adorable blonde, à la voix aiguë, à la grande taille frêle, emprisonnée dans un étincelant corset de cuivre, au souple et nerveux allongement de chatte, une blonde pimpante et dorée, dont l’extraordinaire grâce épouvante lorsque, raidissant ses muscles d’acier, activant la sueur de ses flancs tièdes, elle met en branle l’immense rosace de sa fine roue et s’élance toute vivante, en tête des rapides et des marées ! L’autre, l’Engerth, une monumentale et sombre brune aux cris sourds et rauques, aux reins trapus, étranglés dans une cuirasse en fonte, une monstrueuse bête, à la crinière échevelée de fumée noire, aux six roues basses et accouplées ; quelle écrasante puissance lorsque, faisant trembler la terre, elle remorque pesamment, lentement, la lourde queue de ses marchandises ! Il n’est certainement pas, parmi les frêles beautés blondes et les majestueuses beautés brunes, de pareils types de sveltesse délicate et de terrifiante force ; à coup sûr, on peut le dire : l’homme a fait, dans son genre, aussi bien que le Dieu auquel il croit.

I do not believe that we have finished evolving. And by that, I do not mean that we will continue to make ever more sophisticated machines and intelligent computers, even as we unlock our genetic code and use our biotechnologies to reshape the human form as we once bred new strains of cattle and sheep. We have placed much too great a faith in our technology. Although we will always reach out to new technologies, as our hands naturally do toward pebbles and shells by the seashore, the idea that the technologies of our civilized life have put an end to our biological evolution—that “Man” is a finished product—is almost certainly wrong. It seems to be just the opposite. In the 10,000 years since our ancestors settled down to farm the land, in the few thousand years in which they built great civilizations, the pressures of this new way of life have caused human evolution to actually accelerate. The rate at which genes are being positively selected to engender in us new features and forms has increased as much as a hundredfold. Two genes linked to brain size are rapidly evolving. Perhaps others will change the way our brain interconnects with itself, thus changing the way we think, act, and feel. What other natural forces work transformations deep inside us? Humanity keeps discovering whole new worlds. Without, in only five centuries, we have gone from thinking that the earth formed the center of the universe to gazing through our telescopes and identifying countless new galaxies in an unimaginably vast cosmos of which we are only the tiniest speck. Within, the first scientists to peer through microscopes felt shocked to behold bacteria swarming through our blood and other tissues. They later saw viruses infecting those bacteria in entire ecologies of life living inside life. We do not know all there is to know about life. We have not yet marveled deeply enough at life’s essential miracle. How, we should ask ourselves, do the seemingly soulless elements of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, zinc, iron, and all the others organize themselves into a fully conscious human being? How does matter manage to move itself? Could it be that an indwelling consciousness makes up the stuff of all things? Could this consciousness somehow animate the whole grand ecology of evolution, from the forming of the first stars to the creation of human beings who look out at the universe’s glittering constellations in wonder? Could consciousness somehow embrace itself, folding back on itself, in a new and natural technology of the soul? If it could, this would give new meaning to Nietzsche’s insight that: “The highest art is self–creation.” Could we, really, shape our own evolution with the full force of our consciousness, even as we might exert our will to reach out and mold a lump of clay into a graceful sculpture? What is consciousness, really? What does it mean to be human?

Desire is… " Desire is the glow of bathing lunatics. Starlight is the liquid used to power a whispering machine. Humming is the music of a forest moving in unison with your eyes. * A slip of the tongue and the hummingbird’s empty throne make the acquaintance of the word frenzy, which in turn adopts the phrase: “I am closest to you when we are furthest apart,” and together they follow the anxious doorway that leads far out of the city, where travelers always meet, alone and abandoned with only their mysteries to guide them… and when the sun bleeds out of the dampness of the earth, like pale limbs entwined and exhausted, they all pause in their own fashion to reflect not upon themselves but on the white wolves in the garden shivering like mist, in the mirror hiding your face. * The nature of movement is an image lost between the objects of an eclipse fervently scratched into the face of a sleeping woman when she approaches the liquid state of a circle, wandering aimlessly in search of lucidity and those moments of inarticulate suspicion… when the riddle is only half solved and the alphabet is still adding letters according to the human motors that have not yet arrived, as a species, scintillating in the grass, burning time. Not far from your name there is always a question mark, followed by silent paws… * It is not without the mask of the Enchanter’s dance of unreason, that joy follows the torment of seductive shapes, and sudden appearances in the whisper of long corridors. Tribal veils rising out of fingerprints on invisible entrances in the middle of the landscape, assume the form of her shoulders and the intimacy of her bones making dust, taking flight. * The axis of revolt and the nobility of a springtime stripped of its flowers, expertly balanced with a murmur of the heart on the anvil of chance. Your voice arcing between the two points of day and night, where the oracle of water spinning rapidly above, that is your city of numerology, mixes with the flux of a long voyage more stone-like and absurdly graceful then either milkweed or deadly nightshade, when it acclimatizes the elements of transparency in the host of purity. * The dream birds of a lost language are growing underground in the bed of sorcery. It is all revealed in the arms of your obsession, Arachne, (crawling to kiss) pale Ariadne, (kneeling to feed) in a pool of light that exceeds the dimensions of the loveliest crime. She turns into your evidence, gaining speed and recognition, becoming a brightness never solved, and a clarity that makes crystals. * The early morning hours share their nakedness with those who bare fruit and corset fireflies in long slender bath-like caresses. “Your serum, Sir Moor’s Head, follows the grand figures of the sea, ignites them, throws them like vessels out of fire, raising the sand upwards into oddly repetitive enchantments. Drown me in flight, daughter of wonder…

It was like a page out of the telephone book. Alphabetically, numerically, statistically, it made sense. But when you looked at it up close, when you examined the pages separately, or the parts separately, when you examined one lone individual and what constituted him, examined the air he breathed, the life he led, the chances he risked, you saw something so foul and degrading, so low, so miserable, so utterly hopeless and senseless, that it was worse than looking into a volcano. Outwardly it seems to be a beautiful honeycomb, with all the drones crawling over each other in a frenzy of work; inwardly it’s a slaughterhouse, each man killing off his neighbor and sucking the juice from his bones. Superficially it looks like a bold, masculine world; actually it’s a whorehouse run by women, with the native sons acting as pimps and the bloody foreigners selling their flesh... The whole continent is sound asleep and in that sleep a grand nightmare is taking place… At night the streets of New York reflect the crucifixion and death of Christ. When the snow is on the ground and there is the utmost silence there comes out of the hideous buildings of New York a music of such sullen despair and bankruptcy as to make the flesh shrivel. No stone was laid upon another with love or reverence; no street was laid for dance or joy. One thing has been added to another in a mad scramble to fill the belly, and the streets smell of empty bellies and full bellies and bellies half full. The streets smell of a hunger which has nothing to do with love; they smell of the belly which is insatiable and of the creations of the empty belly which are null and void. Just as the city itself had become a huge tomb in which men struggled to earn a decent death so my own life came to resemble a tomb which I was constructing out of my own death. I was walking around in a stone forest the center of which was chaos; sometimes in the dead center, in the very heart of chaos, I danced or drank myself silly, or I made love, or I befriended some one, or I planned a new life, but it was all chaos, all stone, and all hopeless and bewildering. Until the time when I would encounter a force strong enough to whirl me out of this mad stone forest no life would be possible for me nor could one page be written which would have meaning… Everybody and everything is a part of life... As an individual, as flesh and blood, I am leveled down each day to make the fleshless, bloodless city whose perfection is the sum of all logic and death to the dream. I am struggling against an oceanic death in which my own death is but a drop of water evaporating. To raise my own individual life but a fraction of an inch above this sinking sea of death I must have a faith greater than Christ’s, a wisdom deeper than that of the greatest seer. I must have the ability and the patience to formulate what is not contained in the language of our time, for what is now intelligible is meaningless. My eyes are useless, for they render back only the image of the known. My whole body must become a constant beam of light, moving with an ever greater rapidity, never arrested, never looking back, never dwindling. The city grows like a cancer; I must grow like a sun. The city eats deeper and deeper into the red; it is an insatiable white louse which must die eventually of inanition. I am going to starve the white louse which is eating me up. I am going to die as a city in order to become again a man. Therefore I close my ears, my eyes, my mouth. Infinitely better, as life moves toward a deathly perfection, to be just a bit of breathing space, a stretch of green, a little fresh air, a pool of water. Better also to receive men silently and to enfold them, for there is no answer to make while they are still frantically rushing to turn the corner.

And if you wish to receive of the ancient city an impression with which the modern one can no longer furnish you, climb—on the morning of some grand festival, beneath the rising sun of Easter or of Pentecost—climb upon some elevated point, whence you command the entire capital; and be present at the wakening of the chimes. Behold, at a signal given from heaven, for it is the sun which gives it, all those churches quiver simultaneously. First come scattered strokes, running from one church to another, as when musicians give warning that they are about to begin. Then, all at once, behold!—for it seems at times, as though the ear also possessed a sight of its own,—behold, rising from each bell tower, something like a column of sound, a cloud of harmony. First, the vibration of each bell mounts straight upwards, pure and, so to speak, isolated from the others, into the splendid morning sky; then, little by little, as they swell they melt together, mingle, are lost in each other, and amalgamate in a magnificent concert. It is no longer anything but a mass of sonorous vibrations incessantly sent forth from the numerous belfries; floats, undulates, bounds, whirls over the city, and prolongs far beyond the horizon the deafening circle of its oscillations. Nevertheless, this sea of harmony is not a chaos; great and profound as it is, it has not lost its transparency; you behold the windings of each group of notes which escapes from the belfries. You can follow the dialogue, by turns grave and shrill, of the treble and the bass; you can see the octaves leap from one tower to another; you watch them spring forth, winged, light, and whistling, from the silver bell, to fall, broken and limping from the bell of wood; you admire in their midst the rich gamut which incessantly ascends and re-ascends the seven bells of Saint-Eustache; you see light and rapid notes running across it, executing three or four luminous zigzags, and vanishing like flashes of lightning. Yonder is the Abbey of Saint-Martin, a shrill, cracked singer; here the gruff and gloomy voice of the Bastille; at the other end, the great tower of the Louvre, with its bass. The royal chime of the palace scatters on all sides, and without relaxation, resplendent trills, upon which fall, at regular intervals, the heavy strokes from the belfry of Notre-Dame, which makes them sparkle like the anvil under the hammer. At intervals you behold the passage of sounds of all forms which come from the triple peal of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Then, again, from time to time, this mass of sublime noises opens and gives passage to the beats of the Ave Maria, which bursts forth and sparkles like an aigrette of stars. Below, in the very depths of the concert, you confusedly distinguish the interior chanting of the churches, which exhales through the vibrating pores of their vaulted roofs. Assuredly, this is an opera which it is worth the trouble of listening to. Ordinarily, the noise which escapes from Paris by day is the city speaking; by night, it is the city breathing; in this case, it is the city singing. Lend an ear, then, to this concert of bell towers; spread over all the murmur of half a million men, the eternal plaint of the river, the infinite breathings of the wind, the grave and distant quartette of the four forests arranged upon the hills, on the horizon, like immense stacks of organ pipes; extinguish, as in a half shade, all that is too hoarse and too shrill about the central chime, and say whether you know anything in the world more rich and joyful, more golden, more dazzling, than this tumult of bells and chimes;—than this furnace of music,—than these ten thousand brazen voices chanting simultaneously in the flutes of stone, three hundred feet high,—than this city which is no longer anything but an orchestra,—than this symphony which produces the noise of a tempest.

The advantages of [a Steinway concert grand]--highly different as it is from the usual rich, mellow and quietly brilliant Steinway--lie not only in its carrying power and easy articulation of rapid passages; still more important is the range of dynamic contrast possible and the resulting differentiation of bass, middle and treble registers. This differentiation enables the melodic line to be highlighted and the piano's extreme dynamic contrasts to be used without blocking the audibility of the pitches being played.

Individually, are we moving forward as is our rapidly growing church? Or would we have drowned in Noah's day or been caught polishing the golden calf with Aaron's people? Our lack of individual progress can impede the Savior's work. . . . There are many who don't have what we have, who don't know what we know. So may we be gentle and affectionately desirous of others as we impart, not only the gospel of Jesus Christ, but our own souls to those who have need of us. It is, after all, the only cause grand enough for woman's precious energies.

It occurred to her to drive to Grand Rapids and buy some actual wine. It occurred to her to drive back to the house without buying anything at all. But then where would she be? A weariness set in as she stood and vacillated: a premonition that none of the possible impending outcomes would bring enough relief or pleasure to justify her current heart-racing wretchedness. She saw, in other words, what it meant to have become a deeply unhappy person. And yet the autobiographer now envies and pities the younger Patty standing there in the Fen City Co-op innocently believing that she'd reached the bottom: that, one way or another, the crisis would be resolved in the next five days. A chubby teenage girl at the cash register had taken an interest in her paralysis. Patty gave her a lunatic smile and went and got a plastic-wrapped chicken and five ugly potatoes and some humble, limp leeks. The only thing worse than inhabiting her anxiety undrunk, she decided, would be to be drunk and still inhabiting it.

Les grands changements stratégiques, ce sera pour plus tard, ou pour jamais. » Comme dans la vie, mais plus rapidement que dans la vie, où les projets se restreignent petit à petit à mesure qu’on avance en âge, un voyage qu’on ne fera pas, une maison qui ne sera jamais retapée, une voiture qu’on ne changera plus, le pouvoir s’épuise et s’arrête. Et le moment où il s’épuise et s’arrête vient d’autant plus vite que le temps qu’on lui laisse est court.

Les 8 Vallées (les noms des paliers de profondeur du vagin) 1) La Corde du Luth, profonde de 1 pouce (2,5 cm) 2) Les Dents de la Châtaigne d’eau, 2 pouces 3) Le Ruisselet, trois pouces 4) La Perle Noire, 4 pouces 5) Le Propre de la Vallée, 5 pouces 6) La Chambre profonde, 6 pouces 7) La Porte Intérieure, 7 pouces 8) Le Pôle Nord, 8 pouces Les 9 manières d'agiter la Tige de Jade 1) Frapper à gauche et à droite comme un guerrier courageux qui tenterait de disperser les rangs de ses ennemis 2) Mouvoir de haut en bas (la tige de jade) comme un cheval sauvage fit le saut de mouton pour passer une rivière 3) Se retirer et s’enfoncer comme une bande de mouettes jouant sur les vagues 4) Alterner rapidement pénétrations profondes et pénétrations superficielles comme un moineau bequetant les grains de riz 5) Enchaîner d’une façon régulière coups profonds et coups peu profonds comme de grosses pierres s’enfonçant dans la mer 6) Entrer avec lenteur comme un serpent se glisse dans son trou pour hiverner 7) Donner de petits coups rapides à la manière d’un rat effrayé qui se précipite dans son trou 8) S’élever lentement, puis foncer comme l’aigle attrapant une proie fuyante 9) S’élever puis piquer du nez comme un grand voilier bravant le coup de vent Sou Nü, la conseillère de Huang Di (l'Empereur Jaune) ajoute: «Profonde et superficielles, lentes et rapides, directes et obliques, toutes ces poussées ne sont nullement uniformes, et chacune possède ses propres effets et caractéristiques. Une poussée lente doit ressembler au mouvement d’une carpe jouant avec l’hameçon; une poussée rapide, au vol des oiseaux contre le vent. Introduisant et retirant, remuant de bas en haut, de gauche à droite, marquant des pauses ou bien en une succession rapide, tous ces mouvements doivent se correspondre. Il faut appliquer chacun d’eux au moment voulu et ne pas s’en tenir toujours à un seul et même style parce qu’on y trouve son bon plaisir»

When she turned forward again, white arms of froth reached up from the rapid.

*———. The Mystery of Israel’s Origins: An Introduction and Proposals. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. *Stager, Lawrence E. “Forging and Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel,” in The Oxford History of the Biblical World, ed. Michael D. Coogan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Stark, Thomas. The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries to Hide It). Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010. *Thomas, Heath A., Jeremy Evans, and Paul Copan, eds. Holy War in the Bible: Christian Morality and an Old Testament Problem. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013. Williamson, H. G. M. 1 and 2 Chronicles. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982. Wright, N. T. How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2012. *———. Jesus and the Victory of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997. ———. Paul in Fresh Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. ———. Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why It Matters. San Francisco: HarperOne,

Taking a deep breath, Sailor decided to lay himself at her feet. "I was imagining the future and thinking of how if everything went according to plan, I'd have a very successful business with a high turnover." He made sure his hands were locked behind Ísa's back--just in case she decided to leave him in her dust a fourth time. "And since I'd be rich, I'd be able to buy houses and other nice things for my family." Ísa frowned. "I don't think your family expects that." "They don't exactly need my largess either," Sailor muttered. "But in my future fantasy, I'm buying everyone fancy cars and houses. Go with it." Ísa's lips twitched. "Okay, big spender. What else is fantasy Sailor doing?" "He's building a ginormous mansion. Swimming pool, tennis court, the works." "Is he hiring a buff personal masseuse named Sven?" "Hell no." He glared at her. "The masseuse is a fifty-year-old forner bodybuilder named Helga. Now, can I carry on?" Pretending to zip up her lips and throw away the key, Ísa made a "go on" motion. "Future Sailor is also creating a huge walk-in closet for you and filling it with designer shoes and clothes. He's giving you everything your heart desires." A flicker of darkness in Ísa's gaze, but she didn't interrupt... though her hands went still on his shoulders. "And there's a tricked-out nursery too," he added. "Plus a private playground for our rug rats." Throat moving, Ísa said, "How many?" It was a husky question. "Seven, I think." "Very funny, mister." "I'm not done." Sailor was the one who swallowed this time. "And in this fantasy house, future Sailor walks in late for dinner again because of a board meeting, and he has a gorgeous, sexy, brilliant wife and adorable children. But his redhead doesn't look at him the same anymore. And it doesn't matter how many shoes he buys her or how many necklaces he gives her, she's never again going to look at him the way she did before he stomped on her heart. Ísa's lower lip began to quiver, but she didn't speak. "I'm so sorry, baby." Sailor cupped her face, made sure she saw the sheer terror he felt at the thought of losing her. "I've been so tied to this idea of becoming a grand success that I forgot what it was all about in the first place--being there for the people I love. Sticking through the good and the bad. Never abandoning them." Silent tears rolled own Ísa's face. "But that great plan of mine?" he said, determined not to give himself any easy outs. "It'd have mean abandoning everyone. How can I be there for anyone when all I do is work? When I shove aside all other commitments? When the people I love hesitate to ask for my time because I'm too tired and too busy?" Using his thumbs, he rubbed away her tears. More splashed onto the backs of his hands, her hurt as hot as acid. "Spitfire, please," he begged, breaking. "I'll let you punch me as many times as you want if you stop crying. With a big red glove. And you can post photos online." Ísa pressed her lips together, blinked rapidly several times. And pretended to punch him with one fist, the touch a butterfly kiss. Catching her hand, he pressed his lips to it. "That's more like my Ísa." He wrapped his arms around her again. And then he told her the most important thing. "I realized that I could become a multimillionaire, but it would mean nothing if my redhead didn't look at me the way she does now, if she expected to have to take care of everything alone like she's always done--because her man was a selfish bastard who was never there." Ísa rubbed her nose against his. "You're being very hard on future Sailor," she whispered, her voice gone throaty. "That dumbass deserves it," Sailor growled. "He was going to put his desire to be a big man above his amazing, smart, loving redhead.

All the shame would be on display, the wind taking the stink of it far beyond the borders of Grand Rapids.

Her mother wears it in her eyes: the grief, the regrets, the guilt. She has the body of a twenty-year-old. Eyes like she’s fifty. Dark purple circles. Wrinkle wings along the edges. This woman who used to fill her mind with princess stories, castles and dragons and magic rings that transported Lyric to other worlds. But there are no castles on the southeast side. And the only princesses in Grand Rapids are white and Dutch and oblivious to this life.

You are in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a Secretary Hillary Clinton Get Out the Vote rally at Grand Valley State University Fieldhouse. It is Monday, November 7, 2016. “LOADING!” a press aide yelled. Hillary had just wrapped up her second and final rally in Michigan since she lost to Bernie back in March.

Even the southeast side of Grand Rapids must bow to the beauty of a Michigan fall.

POSSESSION L'âge terrible, c'est l'âge d'or. J'appelle ainsi la dure époque où l'or eut son avènement. C'est l'an 1300, sous le règne du beau roi qu'on put croire d'or ou de fer, qui ne dit jamais un mot, grand roi qui parut avoir un démon muet, mais de bras puissant, assez fort pour brûler le Temple, assez fort pour atteindre Rome et d'un gant de fer porter le premier souffle au pape. L'or devient alors le grand pape, le grand dieu. Non sans raison. Le mouvement a commencé sur l'Europe par la croisade. On n'estime de richesse que celle qui a des ailes et se prête au mouvement, celle des échanges rapides. Le roi, pour frapper ses coups à distance ne veut que de l'or.

Or ce qui paraît être le premier moteur de ces mutations techniques et de ces réussites professionnelles ne semble pas être une découverte de la chimie des teintures, ni l'arrivée en Europe d'un colorant jusqu'alors inconnu, mais bien une demande nouvelle de la société. Parce que celle-ci a désormais besoin de tissus et de vêtements noirs de grande qualité, parce qu'elle demande aux teinturiers de teindre d'immenses pièces de drap dans cette couleur nouvellement valorisée, ceux-ci réussissent à le faire, et le font rapidement. Ici encore, les enjeux idéologiques et la demande sociale semblent mettre en oeuvre et catalyser les progrès chimiques et techniques, et non l'inverse.

Too late, Clinton had awoken to the danger of the tightening race: she, too, had swept through Pennsylvania (twice) and North Carolina, and had also visited Grand Rapids earlier in the day.

Burridge, Richard A. Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005. *Campbell, Anthony F., and Mark A. O’Brien. Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History: Origins, Upgrades, Present Text. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. *Clifford, Richard J. Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and in the Bible. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1994. Dever, William G. Who Were the Israelites and Where Did They Come From? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. *Dillard, Raymond B. 2 Chronicles. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1988. *Dunn, James D. G. The New Perspective on Paul. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. Earl, Douglass S. The Joshua Delusion: Rethinking Genocide in the Bible. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011. Enns, Peter, and Jared Byas. Genesis for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible. Colorado Springs: Patheos Press, 2012. Enns, Peter. Ecclesiastes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012. ———. Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker,

The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012. *Goldingay, John. Theological Diversity and the Authority of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987. Gorman, Michael. Reading Paul. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2008. Hawk, L. Daniel. Joshua in 3-D: A Commentary on Biblical Conquest and Manifest Destiny. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011. *Japhet, Sara. The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought. Ann Arbor: American Oriental Society, 2009. Jenkins, Philip. Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2011. Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996. Knight, Douglas A., and Amy-Jill Levine, The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and Christian Old

I believe that SENSUAL MASTERY is the best relationship model for rapidly evolving couples in the 21 century.

I believe that SENSUAL MASTERY is the best relationship model for rapidly evolving couples in the 21st century.

Mosaic also marked a new stage in the evolution of the power law. Venture-capital returns are dominated by grand slams partly because of the dynamics of startups: most young businesses fail, but the ones that gain traction can grow exponentially. This is true of fashion brands or hotel chains as well as technology companies. But tech-focused venture portfolios are dominated by the power law for an additional reason: tech startups are founded upon technologies that may themselves progress exponentially. Because of his experience and temperament, Doerr was especially attuned to this phenomenon. As a young engineer at Intel, he had seen how Moore’s law transformed the value of companies that used semiconductors: the power of chips was doubling every two years, so startups that put them to good use could make better, cheaper products. For any given modem, digital watch, or personal computer, the cost of the semiconductors inside the engine would fall by 50 percent in two years, 75 percent in four years, and 87.5 percent in eight. With that sort of wind at a tech startup’s back, no wonder profits could grow exponentially. Mosaic, and the internet more generally, turbocharged this phenomenon. Again, Doerr grasped this better than most others. As well as working at Intel, he had known Bob Metcalfe, so he understood that Metcalfe’s law was even more explosive than Moore’s law. Rather than merely doubling in power every two years, as semiconductors did, the value of a network would rise as the square of the number of users.[70] Progress would thus be quadratic rather than merely exponential; something that keeps on squaring will soon grow a lot faster than something that keeps on doubling. Moreover, progress would not be tethered to the passage of time; it would be a function of the number of users. At the moment when Doerr met Clark, the number of internet users was about to triple over the next two years, meaning that the value of the network would jump ninefold, an effect massively more powerful than the mere doubling in the power of semiconductors over that same period. What’s more, Metcalfe’s law was not supplanting Moore’s law, which would have been dramatic enough. Rather, it was compounding it. The explosion of internet traffic would be fueled both by its rapid growth in usefulness (Metcalfe’s law) and by the falling cost of modems and computers (Moore’s law).[71] After listening to Clark’s pitch, Doerr was determined to invest. A magical browser that attracted millions to the internet had almost limitless potential. The price Doerr had to pay was secondary.

Following the practice of the times, the grand princes and, later, the kings of Poland acquired the right of patronage; that is, they could appoint Orthodox bishops and even the metropolitan himself. Thus, the crucial issue of the leadership of the Orthodox faithful was left in the hands of secular rulers of another, increasingly antagonistic, church… The results were disastrous. With lay authorities capable of appointing bishops, the metropolitan's authority was undermined. And with every bishop acting as a law unto himself, the organizational discipline of the Orthodox church deteriorated rapidly. Even more deleterious was the corruption that lay patronage engendered… Under the circumstances, Orthodoxy's cultural contributions were limited. Schools, once one of the church's most attractive features, were neglected. Unqualified teachers barely succeeded in familiarizing their pupils with the rudiments of reading, writing, and Holy Scriptures. The curriculum of the schools had changed little since medieval times. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 added to the intellectual and cultural stagnation by depriving the Orthodox of their most advanced and inspiring model. Lacking both external and internal stimuli, Orthodox culture slipped into ritualism, parochialism, and decay. The Poles, meanwhile, were enjoying a period of cultural growth and vitality. Benefiting from the West's prodigious outbursts of creative energy, they experienced the Renaissance with its stimulating reorientation of thought.

Bounce House Rentals Grand Rapids is your one stop shop for all your inflatable rental needs! We carry a large selection of bounce houses, slides, and obstacle courses that are perfect for any party or event. We are dedicated to providing our customers with the highest quality service and products. We want to make your party or event a success and we guarantee your satisfaction!

rallumant une nouvelle clope. Tu ne m’as pas toujours respecté pourtant… — Mais non… mais… pour… pourquoi… vous… tu… mais qu’est-ce que je t’ai fait, bon sang ! Vouvoiement, tutoiement, sacré dilemme dans son crâne de piaf. C’est au moins la cinquième fois qu’il me pose la question et il ne sait toujours pas comment s’y prendre. Finalement, ça m’amuse de le voir jouer les équilibristes. Moi, je n’hésite pas un seul instant. Tutoiement. C’est bon, ça fait un an que je lui balance du « vous » à toutes les sauces, que je suis à ses petits soins, que dis-je, que je m’agenouille devant lui comme un serf devant son suzerain. Alors maintenant, on arrête la comédie, c’est fini. On joue d’égal à égal. Si nous avions été deux personnes raisonnables, nous nous serions attablés autour de son bureau, nous aurions discuté de nos différends et peut-être, je dis bien peut-être, serions-nous arrivés à un accord. Mais là, au vu des circonstances et de tout ce qui nous sépare, il n’y a plus de discussion possible. J’ai choisi mon camp. Je serai le dominant et lui le dominé. Les rôles sont donc changés. — Qu’est-ce que tu m’as fait ? m’indigné-je en recrachant la fumée de ma tige sur son visage. Non, mais tu te fous de moi ? Ça fait un an que tu me pourris la vie ! Douze mois consécutifs, bordel de merde ! — Je… je ne vous ai pas… je ne t’ai pas pourri la vie ! Jamais ! Vous… tu… tu sais que tu vas au-devant de graves ennuis ? Adam a tout entendu et là, il est parti donner l’alerte. Les forces d’intervention vont arriver ici d’une minute à l’autre ! Tu ne sais pas dans quel pétrin tu t’es fourré, mon pauvre ami. Alors le mieux pour toi, c’est que tu me détaches de ce fauteuil et que l’on oublie rapidement cette histoire ! La sonnerie du téléphone stoppe subitement ses « conseils avisés ». J’hésite un instant. Je n'ai pas forcément envie de décrocher et à vrai dire, j'ai une vague idée de la personne qui se trouve derrière le combiné, mais comme je suis de nature curieuse, je décide tout de même d'en savoir un peu plus. Deux secondes après avoir répondu « allô », j’arrache violemment le fil qui relie le téléphone à la prise murale et envoie valdinguer l’appareil à l’autre bout de la pièce. Fin de la discussion. — C’est bien ce que je pensais… un négociateur. — Tu aurais dû écouter ce qu’il avait à te dire, reprend l’autre empaffé en me gratifiant d’un sourire qui pue la haine. Maintenant, c’est sûr que tu vas devoir te coltiner le RAID. Et crois-moi, ça va te coûter cher ! Ils sont sans pitié avec les preneurs d’otage… Non vraiment, Adam a fait du bon boulot. Je suis fier de… Un mollard gros comme une balle de 22 Long Rifle fuse alors sur son visage. Façon de lui signifier qu’il peut d’ores et déjà la mettre en sourdine. Adam, c’est le veilleur de nuit de la tour. Je ne le connais pas bien. La seule chose que je peux dire sur lui, c’est que je le croise plus souvent que ma femme et mon fils… À mon grand désarroi. Je lui rétorque quand bien même : — Ces graves ennuis comme tu dis si bien, je ne les ai eus qu’avec toi ! Alors tu sais, les flics peuvent descendre en rappel par les fenêtres ou balancer des lance-roquettes sur cette tour de merde, ce ne sera que de la roupie de sansonnet à côté de ce que j’ai subi ! Tiens, prends ça ! Clac ! Cette baffe est douloureuse. Je le vois à sa grimace. C’est vrai que je ne l’ai pas raté. Ça fait deux heures que je suis sur lui à viser sa joue rougie par le feu de mes allers-retours, alors forcément, à un moment donné on attrape le coup de main. Je craque mes phalanges pour lui faire comprendre

We came to a cave at one point—a place named Tham Kaeng Luang (GrandRapids Cave)—where we spent three nights. It was a comfortable place to stay, very peaceful and quiet. We went for alms in a nearby village, but no one paid much attention to us. For two days we had nothing to eat but rice—not even a grain of salt.

...historical and literary scholarship continues to follow Aristotle’s eminently just dictum that the benefit of doubt is to be given to the document. This means that one must listen to the claims of the document under analysis, and not assume fraud or error unless the author disqualifies himself by contradictions or known factual inaccuracies. (John Warwick Montgomery, Where Is History Going? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1969), 46.)

zipped through the Hamilton’s lobby, disdained the elevators, took the stairs three at a time, and thundered down the hallway to Hazel’s cubicle. “Hello, hello, and good morning, and great morning to you,” I cried, beaming at Hazel’s back. “Isn’t it grand?” She was rapidly punching instructions into the IBM PC’s keyboard before her, while rows of letters formed dancing word-graph patterns on the monitor’s amber face, her compact but dandy derriere planted on the padded leather seat of a four-wheeled stool.

Il est naturel, lorsqu’un accident ou une terreur subite nous surprend au milieu d’un plaisir, que l’impression en soit plus grande qu’en tout autre temps, soit à cause du contraste, soit parce que tous nos sens, étant vivement éveillés, sont plus susceptibles d’éprouver une émotion forte et rapide.

The earliest examples date to 1901, and the first manufacturer was the H.M. Reynolds Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan, which sold its product under the slogan “The Roof That Stays Is the Roof That Pays.” Asphalt occurs naturally in a few places on Earth—the tar sands of Alberta, for instance, are mostly bitumen, which is the geologist’s word for asphalt. But the asphalt used in shingles comes from the oil-refining process: it’s the stuff that still hasn’t boiled at five hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Vacuum distillation separates it from more valuable products such as gasoline, diesel, and naphtha; it then is stored and transported at high temperatures until it can be used, mostly for making roads.

Just like Creation author Steve Grand had predicted, the creatures were evolving in ways that Bezos could not have imagined. It was the combination of EC2 and S3—storage and compute, two primitives linked together—that transformed both AWS and the technology world. Startups no longer needed to spend their venture capital on buying servers and hiring specialized engineers to run them. Infrastructure costs were variable instead of fixed, and they could grow in direct proportion to revenues. It freed companies to experiment, to change their business models with a minimum of pain, and to keep up with the rapidly growing audiences of erupting social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

From there, the rapid left-right eye movements begin. The therapist pauses occasionally to see what’s going on inside the client. The internal experience of the client is called processing, and it is actually a focused, powerful form of mindfulness. The client is guided to uncritically observe, step-by-step, what they experience, including memories, thoughts, emotions, or sensations in their body. When the therapist ultimately brings the client back to the original image, to see how it and its emotional charge have changed, hopefully the intensity of the memory has been reduced.

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976.   Bruce, F. F. The Epistle to the Galatians. Grand

Bob called these goggles “Schiffer glasses.” Harvard psychologist Fredric Schiffer, he told me, theorized that each brain hemisphere almost has a separate personality of its own. For most people, the left brain tends to be more optimistic and the right brain more vulnerable. For about a quarter of the population, the reverse is true. The goggles help isolate these two “personalities” so the therapist can interact with each of them separately. When helping a client process a troubling issue, Schiffer started with the positive side. Then after a while, he guided the client to switch goggles and experience things from the other side. As the client moved back and forth, spending more time on the positive, Schiffer observed that each side began to influence the other. So first you isolate each side, then you effectuate a crossover effect from side to side.

Two recent books that make this case are by James K. A. Smith: Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009); and Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013). Smith builds on Augustine’s idea that what makes us what we are is the order of our loves, and therefore what changes us is changing not what we think but what we love. Smith rightly critiques an approach to ministry that is too rationalistic and focused on information transfer and the transmission of right doctrine and beliefs. His response is that we change not by changing what we think as much as by changing what we worship—what we love and fill our imaginations with. He gives much more attention, however, to the liturgy and the shape of worship services, and little to preaching. I believe preaching can carry much of the weight of the ministry task of reshaping the heart. True to Smith’s critique, however, there is a relative dearth of evangelical books on preaching to the heart, in comparison with how to exegete and explain a biblical text. Some exceptions are Sinclair Ferguson, “Preaching to the Heart,” in Feed My Sheep: A Passionate Plea for Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Soli Deo Gloria, 2002), pp. 190–217; Samuel T. Logan, “The Phenomenology of Preaching,” in The Preacher and Preaching (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1986), pp. 129–60; and Josh Moody and Robin Weekes, Burning Hearts: Preaching to the Affections (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2014). I would add that “preaching to the heart” not only is quite biblical but also is an important way to adapt to our secular age, in which inherited religion will be on the decline. People will be coming to church not because they ought to, because it is an entailment of being part of a social body or community, but only if they choose with their hearts to do so.

The technique was simple, but the response was complex. I also discovered that eye wobbles and eye freezes were not the only reflexes that revealed the presence of traumas held deep in the brain; I observed many other reactions when I stopped my hand movement, such as multiple or hard blinks and eye widening or narrowing. Any reflex of the face (or ultimately the body) seemed to manifest when the eyes arrived at a position of relevance. I experimented with stopping my hand when I observed a cough, a deep inhale or exhale, a hard swallow, lip licking, a head tilt, a nostril flare, or a change in facial expression.

37. On this point, and the whole paragraph, see especially Oliver O'Donovan, The Ways of Judgment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005).

Men dream of starting over. Not even necessarily with another woman. They dream of a clean slate, of disappearing, of walking off a plane on a layover and making a new life for themselves in a strange city--Grand Rapids say, or Nashville. They dream of an apartment all of their own, of silence, of joining Delta Force and fighting in Iraq, of introducing themselves by the nickname they'd always wished they had. Of a time and place where they can use everything they know now that they hadn't known then--that is, before they were married. And then they might be happy.

It was like a dance of connection and attunement between client and therapist, much more than a mechanical process. Clients would often ask how I knew to stop my hand where I did. When I asked if they had any idea why I’d stopped, they seemed to have no clue—even when it was their own nodding head that had stopped me!

Whatever the client was experiencing changed. Images and memories came more quickly. Emotions and body experience went deeper and moved on more rapidly and easily. Clients also got to observe the process while they were in it. The process was fascinating and still is.

She reshelved the sixpack and wrenched herself away to less compelling parts of the store, but it was hard to plan dinner when you felt like throwing up. She returned to the beer shelves like a bird repeating its song. The various beer cans had different decorations but all contained the identical weak low-end brew. It occurred to her to drive to Grand Rapids and buy some actual wine. It occurred to her to drive back to the house without buying anything at all. But then where would she be? A weariness set in as she stood and vacillated: a premonition that none of the possible impending outcomes would bring enough relief or pleasure to justify her current heart-racing wretchedness. She saw, in other words, what it meant to have become a deeply unhappy person.

6. CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH Nor is this movement confined to liberal denominations. The Christian Reformed Church (CRC) is still thought to be largely evangelical, and it was only in 1995 that the CRC approved the ordination of women. But now the First Christian Reformed Church in Toronto has “opened church leadership to practicing homosexual members ‘living in committed relationships,’ a move that the denomination expressly prohibits.”24 In addition, Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the college of the Christian Reformed Church, has increasingly allowed expressions of support for homosexuals to be evident on its campus. World magazine reports: Calvin has since 2002 observed something called “Ribbon Week,” during which heterosexual students wear ribbons to show their support for those who desire to sleep with people of the same sex. Calvin President Gaylen Byker . . . [said], “. . . homosexuality is qualitatively different from other sexual sin. It is a disorder,” not chosen by the person. Having Ribbon Week, he said, “is like having cerebral palsy week.” Pro-homosexuality material has crept into Calvin’s curriculum. . . . At least some Calvin students have internalized the school’s thinking on homosexuality. . . . In January, campus newspaper editor Christian Bell crossed swords with Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association’s Michigan chapter, and an ardent foe of legislation that gives special rights to homosexuals. . . . In an e-mail exchange with Mr. Glenn before his visit, Mr. Bell called him “a hate-mongering, homophobic bigot . . . from a documented hate group.” Mr. Bell later issued a public apology.25 This article on Calvin College in World generated a barrage of pro and con letters to the editor in the following weeks, all of which can still be read online.26 Many writers expressed appreciation for a college like Calvin that is open to the expression of different viewpoints but still maintains a clear Christian commitment. No one claimed the quotes in the article were inaccurate, but some claimed they did not give a balanced view. Some letters from current and recent students confirmed the essential accuracy of the World article, such as this one: I commend Lynn Vincent for writing “Shifting sand?” (May 10). As a sophomore at Calvin, I have been exposed firsthand to the changing of Calvin’s foundation. Being a transfer student, I was not fully aware of the special events like “Ribbon Week.” I asked a classmate what her purple ribbon meant and she said it’s a sign of acceptance of all people. I later found out that “all people” meant gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. I have been appalled by posters advertising a support group for GLBs (as they are called) around campus. God condemned the practice, so why cannot God’s judgment against GLB be proclaimed at Calvin? I am glad Calvin’s lack of the morals it was founded on is being made known to the Christian community outside of Calvin. Much prayer and action is needed if a change is to take place.—Katie Wagenmaker, Coopersville, Mich.27 Then in June 2004, the Christian Reformed Church named as the editor of Banner, its denominational magazine, the Rev. Robert De Moor, who had earlier written an editorial supporting legal recognition for homosexuals as “domestic partners.” The CRC’s position paper on homosexuality states, “Christian homosexuals, like all Christians, are called to discipleship, to holy obedience, and to the use of their gifts in the cause of the kingdom. Opportunities to serve within the offices and the life of the congregation should be afforded to them as they are to heterosexual Christians.”28 This does not indicate that the Christian Reformed Church has approved of homosexual activity (it has not), but it does indicate the existence of a significant struggle within the denomination, and the likelihood of more to come.

So first you isolate each side, then you effectuate a crossover effect from side to side.

I don’t know’,” he said. “Those three words from a willing soul are the start of a grand and magnificent voyage.” And with that he began a discourse that lasted for several weeks, covering scene-setting, establishing conflict, plot twists, and first- and third-person narration. [ I learned in these rapid-fire mini-dissertations that like most literature lovers I would come to know, Henry was a book snob. He assumed that if a current author was popular and widely enjoyed, then he or she had no merit. He made a few exceptions, such as Kurt Vonnegut, although that was mostly because Vonnegut lived on Cape Cod and so he probably had some merits as a human being, if not as a writer. I think that the way Henry saw it was that he was not being a snob. In fact I would venture that in his view of things, snobbery had nothing to do with it. Rather, it was a matter of standards. It was bout quality in the author’s craftsmanship.

Mon grand-pere Boana, qui avait la chance de ne pas ressembler a un Rom, avait pu faire un peu d'etudes dans sa jeunesse. Un privilege pour un Rom! Il a donc rapidement pu trouver un emploi a la ville.

We are three quarters of a mile in the depths of the earth, and the great river shrinks into insignificance, as it dashes its angry waves against the walls and cliffs, that rise to the world above; they are but puny ripples, and we but pigmies, running up and down the sands, or lost among the boulders. We have an unknown distance yet to run; an unknown river yet to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls rise over the river, we know not. Powell wasn’t overstating their ignorance. At this point, they had no clear idea how far they had come or how much canyon lay ahead of them. They did not know how many turns the river would make, how many rapids there might be, or whether their supplies would sustain them through the time it would take to negotiate these obstacles. And they had no way of knowing that their most serious challenges lay ahead. Just

Le premier point à prendre en compte est le fait que la production globale actuelle est quantitativement suffisante pour assurer l'alimentation de l'ensemble de la population mondiale. La disponibilité alimentaire mondiale est de 2 790 calories par jour et par personne (données de 2001-2003), ce qui pourrait être suffisant. La sous-alimentation qui affecte aujourd'hui un milliard d'individus pourrait être éradiquée par ure réorganisation de la production, notamment avec une réorientation vers la multiplicité des cultures vivrières et par un rééquilibrage du stock calorique, fort mal distribué (3 490 calories par jour et par personne dans les pays développés, contre 2 254 en Afrique subsaharienne). Quant à la malnutrition (carences en vitamines et minéraux) et à son envers, l'obésité et le surpoids (provoqués essentiellement par la diffusion des habitudes alimentaires promues par le secteur agroalimentaire et la grande distribution), qui affectent chacune un milliard d'individus, ils pourraient être résorbés, sans augmentation quantitative globale, par une réorientation vers une agriculture paysanne développant des pratiques agro-écologiques. Si l'agriculture industrielle actuelle fait valoir de manière tronquée sa supériorité, notamment en termes de productivité par hectare, une évaluation plus globale, incluant l'ensemble des coûts directs et indirects (notamment écologiques), invite à faire pencher la balance de l'efficacité du côté de l'agriculture paysanne. De fait, l'agriculture industrialisée est entraînée dans un cercle vicieux, marqué notamment par l'épuisement et la salinisation des sols, la multiplication des insectes résistant aux pesticides, la hausse des pathologies du bétail ; en outre, elle provoque une baisse du pouvoir nutritif des produits, notamment des fruits et légumes à croissance rapide. Enfin, il faut indiquer que les surfaces agricoles consacrées à des cultures non alimentaires (agrocarburants notamment) doivent être restituées à leur vocation initiale, ce qui offre une marge de manœuvre importante pour assurer à l'ensemble de l'humanité une alimentation quantitativement et qualitativement satisfaisante. On dispose également de deux leviers importants pour atteindre et maintenir cet impératif élémentaire : d'une part, une limitation de l'élevage, particulièrement glouton en énergie et en surfaces (40 % des grains actuellement produits sont destinés à l'alimentation animale) et écologiquement dangereux (importantes émissions de gaz à effet de serre) ; d'autre part, une élimination du gâchis alimentaire (évalué à 30 % au moins dans le système alimentaire industriel mondial, et à 100 milliards de dollars par an uniquement aux États-Unis). (p. 190-192)

According to Packer, “The word [orthodoxy] expresses the idea that certain statements accurately embody the revealed truth content of Christianity and are therefore in their own nature normative for the universal church.” J. I. Packer, “Orthodoxy,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 875.

En dix ans, six entreprises françaises, dont Alcatel, Alstom, Arcelor, Areva et Lafarge, ont disparu du classement des 500 plus grandes mondiales. L'Etat et les entreprises ont péché par naïveté en embrassant tous les credo des marchés financiers. La fiscalité est le levier le plus rapide pour favoriser un « capitalisme de propriétaires » qui fait défaut.

NIAGARA FALLS. Niagara, thou mighty flood. I've seen thee fall, I've heard thee roar, And on the frightful verges stood, That overhang thy rocky shore. I've sailed o'er surging waves below, And view'd the rainbow's colour'd light, And felt the spray, thy waters throw, When leaping, with resistless might. I've seen the rapids in their course, Like madden'd, living things rush on, With wild, unhesitating force, To where thy mighty chasms yawn. And there to take the awful leap, And fall, with hoarse and sullen roar, Into th' unfathomable deep, Which rolleth on, from shore to shore. Niagara, thou'rt mighty, grand, Thou fill'st human souls with awe, For thee, and for that mighty Hand, Which maketh thee, by nature's law. Thou'rt great, thou mighty, foaming mass Of water, plunging, roaring down, But so are we, yea, we surpass Thee, and we wear a nobler crown. Thy mighty head is crowned with foam, And rainbows wreathe thy robes of blue; Our earthly forms—our present home— Are insignificant to you. But look, thou mighty thund'rer, thou, Tho' puny be our forms to thine, These forms possess, yea, even now, A spark, a ray of life divine. Rush on, O waters! proudly hurl Thyself to roaring depths below, And let the mists of ages curl, And generations come and go. But know, stupendous wonder, know, Thy rocks would crumble, at the nod Of Him, who lets thy waters flow; Thy Maker, but our Friend and God. Thy rocks shall crumble, fall they must; Thy waters, then, shall plunge no more, But we shall rise, e'en from the dust, To live upon another shore.

The 1950s witnessed especially rapid expansion of electronic and electrical firms, of tobacco, soft drink, and food-processing companies, and of the chemical, plastics, and pharmaceutical industries. IBM blossomed as a leader in the computer business, soon to become a guiding star of the American economy.

It is also possible to exaggerate the impact of ERP on the European economies. Americans, certain of their rectitude, power, and wealth, tend to do this without recognizing the important role that the industrious and efficient west Europeans played in their own recovery. Indeed, the Europeans deserve much of the credit for their economic revitalization after 1948. The plan gave them considerable autonomy and initiative, and they took it, reviving their historical possibilities in rapid time.58 In later years, when the United States directed aid at other less developed parts of the world, the results were by no means so felicitous.

Thanks in part to the rapid mechanization of cotton production in the early 1940s, which ultimately threw millions of farm laborers out of work, and in part to the opening up of industrial employment in the North during the wartime boom, roughly a million blacks (along with even more whites) moved from the South during the 1940s. Another 1.5 million Negroes left the South in the 1950s. This was a massive migration in so short a time—one of the most significant demographic shifts in American history—and it was often agonizingly stressful.22 The black novelist Ralph Ellison wrote in 1952 of the hordes of blacks who "shot up from the South into the busy city like wild jacks-in-the-box broken loose from our springs—so sudden that our gait becomes like that of deep-sea divers suffering from the bends."23

THESE MANIFESTATIONS OF BACKLASH—against family breakup, illegitimacy, welfare, crime, riots, black activists, anti-war demonstrators, long-haired hippies, government programs that favored minorities, elitists, liberals generally—exposed a major development of the mid-1960s: rapidly rising polarization along class, generational, and racial lines.

Few Americans—or members of Congress—read The Public Interest. Still, the rapid rise of the "neo-cons" to intellectual respectability was revealing. And their complaints, especially about the "dead hand of bureaucracy," epitomized a new mood of doubt.

Many of those who railed against family break-up assailed the rise of welfare, especially the Aid to Families of Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which mainly aided low-income divorced, separated, or single women and their children. The rolls of AFDC, like divorce and illegitimacy, rose rapidly in the 1960s, from 3.1 million recipients in 1960 to 4.4 million in 1965 to 6.1 million in 1968. Costs of the program, which was supported by both the federal and state governments, increased during the same eight years from $3.8 billion to $9.8 billion.

After 1970, however, many American institutions—corporations, unions, universities, others—were required to set aside what in effect were quotas, a process that engaged the federal government as never before in a wide variety of personnel decisions taken in the private sector. This dramatic and rapid transformation of congressional intent took place as a result of executive decisions—especially Nixon's—and court interpretations. Affirmative action of this sort never had the support of democratically elected representatives.41

Those fearful noises are loudly re-echoed by all the other men, who strain themselves so vigorously at the oars, that the boat, flying forwards, almost keeps way with the wave, on the back of which it is the object of the steersman to keep her. As she is swept impetuously towards the bar, a person seated in the boat can distinctly feel the sea under him gradually rising under a sheer wave, and lifting the boat up—and up—and up, in a manner exceedingly startling. At length the ridge, near the summit of which the boat is placed, begins to curl, and its edge just breaks into a line of white fringe along the upper edge of the perpendicular face presented to the shore, towards which it is advancing with vast rapidity. The grand object of the boatmen now appears to consist in maintaining their position, not on the very crown of the wave, but a little further to seaward, down the slope, so as to ride upon its shoulders, as it were.

Lisez tous les livres écrits en Angleterre sur le paupérisme; étudiez les enquêtes ordonnées par le Parlement britannique; parcourez les discussions qui ont eu lieu à la Chambre des lords et à celle des communes sur cette difficile question; une seule plainte retentira à vos oreilles: on déplore l'état de dégradation où sont tombées les classes inférieures de ce grand peuple! Le nombre des enfants naturels augmente sans cesse, celui des criminels s'accroît rapidement; la population indigente se développe outre mesure; l'esprit de prévoyance et d'épargne se montre de plus en plus étranger au pauvre; tandis que dans le reste de la nation les lumières se répandent, les moeurs s'adoucissent, les goûts deviennent plus délicats, les habitudes plus polies, --lui reste immobile, ou plutôt il rétrograde; on dirait qu'il recule vers la barbarie, et, placé au milieu de ces merveilles de la civilisation, il semble se rapprocher par ses idées et par ses penchants de l'homme sauvage.

A l'époque de la révolution réligieuse qui changea la face de l'Angleterre, sous Henri VIII, presque toutes les communautés charitables du royaume furent supprimées, et comme les biens de es communautés passèrent aux nobles et ne furent point partagés entre les mains du peuple, il s'ensuivit que le nombre de pauvres alors existants resta le même, tandis que les moyens de pourvoir à leurs besoins étaient en partie détruits. Le nombre des pauvres s'accrut donc outre mesure, et Elisabeth, la fille de Henri VIII, frappée de l'aspect repoussant des misères du peuple, songea à substituer aux aumônes que la suppression des couvents avait fort réduites, une subvention annuelle, fournie par les communes. Une loi promulguée dans la quarante-troisième année de la règne de cette princesse dispose que dans chaque paroisse des inspecteurs des pauvres seront nommés; que ces inspecteurs auront le droit de taxer les habitants à l'effet de nourrir les indigents infirmes, et de fournir du travail aux autres. A mesure que le temps avançait dans sa marche, l'Angleterre était de plus en plus entraînée à adopter le principe de la charité légale. Le paupérisme croissait plus rapidement dans la Grande-Bretagne que partout ailleurs.

The nature of the moment is familiar but bears repeating: whether or not industrialized countries begin deeply cutting our emissions this decade will determine whether we can expect the same from rapidly developing nations like China and India next decade. That, in turn, will determine whether or not humanity can stay within a collective carbon budget that will give us a decent chance of keeping warming below levels that our own governments have agreed are unacceptably dangerous. In other words, we don’t have another couple of decades to talk about the changes we want while being satisfied with the occasional incremental victory. This set of hard facts calls for strategy, clear deadlines, dogged focus—all of which are sorely missing from most progressive movements at the moment. Even more importantly, the climate moment offers an overarching narrative in which everything from the fight for good jobs to justice for migrants to reparations for historical wrongs like slavery and colonialism can all become part of the grand project of building a nontoxic, shockproof economy before it’s too late.