Last Crusade Quotes

Henry Jones: I didn't know you could fly a plane! Indiana Jones: Fly -- yes, land -- no.

I made that up. You know Marcus. He got lost once in his own museum.

Does anyone here speak English? Or even Ancient Greek? — A very lost Marcus Brody

It is a natural human instinct to turn our fears into symbols, and destroy the symbols, in the hope that it will destroy the fear. It is a logic that keeps recurring throughout human history, from the Crusades to the witch hunts to the present day.

I always find that if I sit down, a solution presents itself!

Now is the time to ask yourself, what you believe.

Only the penitent man will pass...

They are living out their last years in a messy, poor, crony capitalist country, and they are told almost every single day it was a crime for them to want something different.

Pippin ordered Childeric III tonsured and sent to a monastery, where he died five years later, the last of the Merovingians.

You are the world’s last adventurer. The last crusader. How that must please you, Roland!

Well—er—Batwoman—I thought we were going to die—and I wanted to make your last moments happy ones!” he says. Jerk.

One does not contemplate failure, or even death, when one believes oneself to be on a crusade.

The important thing is to keep them pledging,' he explained to his cohorts. 'It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what "pledge" and "allegiance" mean.' To Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren, the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a glorious pain in the ass, since it complicated their task of organizing the crews for each combat mission. Men were tied up all over the squadron signing, pledging and singing, and the missions took hours longer to get under way. Effective emergency action became impossible, but Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren were both too timid to raise any outcry against Captain Black, who scrupulously enforced each day the doctrine of 'Continual Reaffirmation' that he had originated, a doctrine designed to trap all those men who had become disloyal since the last time they had signed a loyalty oath the day before. It was Captain Black who came with advice to Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren as they pitched about in their bewildering predicament. He came with a delegation and advised them bluntly to make each man sign a loyalty oath before allowing him to fly on a combat mission.

And then there was Nationalism -- the theory that the state you happen to be subject to is the only true god, and that all other states are false gods; that all these gods, true as well as false, have the mentality of juvenile delinquents; and that every conflict over prestige, power or money is a crusade for the Good, the True and the Beautiful. The fact that such theories came, at a given moment of history, to be universally accepted is the best proof of Belial's existence, the best proof that at long last He'd won the battle.

Could I, I thought, be the last coward on earth? How terrifying!… All alone with two million stark-raving heroic madmen, armed to the eyeballs? With and without helmets, without horses, on motorcycles, bellowing, in cars, screeching, shooting, plotting, flying, kneeling, digging, taking cover, bounding over trails, sputtering, shut up on earth as if it were a loony bin, ready to demolish everything on it, Germany, France, whole continents, everything that breathes, destroy, destroy, madder than mad dogs, worshipping their madness (which dogs don’t), a hundred, a thousand times madder than a thousand dogs, and a lot more vicious! A pretty mess we were in! No doubt about it, this crusade I’d let myself in for was the apocalypse.

Christianity and Islam are sister religions, and in Iberia they long lived side by side. If you are about to hunt your sister out of your home, you need to work yourselves into a much more self-righteous frenzy than if you were expelling a stranger.

The world remembers the battle ever since by the taxis. A hundred of them were already in the service of the Military Government of Paris. With 500 more, each carrying five soldiers and making the sixty-kilometer trip to the Ourcq twice, General Clergerie figured he could transport 6,000 troops to the hard-pressed front. The order was issued at 1:00 P.M., the hour for departure fixed for 6:00 P.M. Police passed the word to the taxis in the streets. Enthusiastically the chauffeurs emptied out their passengers, explaining proudly that they had to “go to the battle.” Returning to their garages for gas, they were ordered to the place of assembly where at the given time all 600 were lined up in perfect order. Gallieni, called to inspect them, though rarely demonstrative, was enchanted. “Eh bien, voilà au moins qui n’est pas banal!” (Well, here at least is something out of the ordinary!) he cried. Each with its burden of soldiers, with trucks, buses, and assorted vehicles added to the train, the taxis drove off, as evening fell—the last gallantry of 1914, the last crusade of the old world.

Regardless of who leads it, the professional-class liberalism I have been describing in these pages seems to be forever traveling on a quest for some place of greater righteousness. It is always engaged in a search for some subject of overwhelming, noncontroversial goodness with which it can identify itself and under whose umbrella of virtue it can put across its self-interested class program. There have been many other virtue-objects over the years: people and ideas whose surplus goodness could be extracted for deployment elsewhere. The great virtue-rush of the 1990s, for example, was focused on children, then thought to be the last word in overwhelming, noncontroversial goodness. Who could be against kids? No one, of course, and so the race was on to justify whatever your program happened to be in their name. In the course of Hillary Clinton’s 1996 book, It Takes a Village, the favorite rationale of the day—think of the children!—was deployed to explain her husband’s crime bill as well as more directly child-related causes like charter schools. You can find dozens of examples of this kind of liberal-class virtue-quest if you try, but instead of listing them, let me go straight to the point: This is not politics. It’s an imitation of politics. It feels political, yes: it’s highly moralistic, it sets up an easy melodrama of good versus bad, it allows you to make all kinds of judgments about people you disagree with, but ultimately it’s a diversion, a way of putting across a policy program while avoiding any sincere discussion of the policies in question. The virtue-quest is an exciting moral crusade that seems to be extremely important but at the conclusion of which you discover you’ve got little to show for it besides NAFTA, bank deregulation, and a prison spree.

On the ninth day, the hobo died. So it goes. His last words were, "You think this is bad? This ain't bad.

.. The slaughter lasted the best part of two days. When it was over, the crusade leaders went in solemn procession to the church of the Holy Sepulchre to give thanks to God'' !!

It’s not strength that makes the hero. It’s weakness. It’s the crack in the armor.

Comics are full of wounded people whose pain makes them stronger.

There’s a crack in our armor, and no fixing it. But Iron Man is proof that even broken hearts can still beat strong.

maybe the reason I wanted to solve everyone else’s problems is that there wasn’t anything I could do about my own.

Blood is thicker than ink.

It was Islam’s armies and the empire they spread across three continents that reduced Christianity, with a few scattered exceptions, to a European faith.

The motives of the invasion were both economic and religious. The Martians sought water and vegetable matter; but they came also in a crusading spirit, to "liberate" the terrestrial diamonds.

I was ripe for the first escapist avenue that came my way. I will forever be grateful that it came in the form of books. When my world became too much to handle alone, I always had a way out. Even if only for a little while.

Taft explained that the great issue in this campaign is "creeping socialism." Now that is the patented trademark of the special interest lobbies. Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people. When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all. What he really means is, "Down with Progress--down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That is what he means. (Rear Platform and Other Informal Remarks in SYRACUSE, NEW YORK (Near station, 1:25 p.m. October 10, 1952 ) trumanlibrary dot org publicpapers

Thus identified with astronomy, in proclaiming truths supposed to be hostile to Scripture, Geology has been denounced as the enemy of religion. The twin sisters of terrestrial and celestial physics have thus been joint-heirs of intolerance and persecution—unresisting victims in the crusade which ignorance and fanaticism are ever waging against science. When great truths are driven to make an appeal to reason, knowledge becomes criminal, and philosophers martyrs. Truth, however, like all moral powers, can neither be checked nor extinguished. When compressed, it but reacts the more. It crushes where it cannot expand—it burns where it is not allowed to shine. Human when originally divulged, it becomes divine when finally established. At first, the breath of a rage—at last it is the edict of a god. Endowed with such vital energy, astronomical truth has cut its way through the thick darkness of superstitious times, and, cheered by its conquests, Geology will find the same open path when it has triumphed over the less formidable obstacles of a civilized age.

The Crusaders had not only taken into themselves the notion that they would become better people through violence; they also projected onto the victims of their violence their own inner demons. This is probably the most obvious and long-lasting heritage of the crusade. We still do it.

The most compelling and dangerous villains in life and literature aren’t so terribly obvious—it’s the ones who might try to do good, before fate deals them one too many blows. The ones who continue to believe, even in their darkest moments, that their motives are pure—that any destruction they cause to the ones they genuinely love is unavoidable.

You cling to culture like an orphan drags her rag doll from foster home to foster home. It is your last soiled reminder of what you think you were. You'd rather die at the stake than adapt or evolve because change is scary. So you guard the same tired shit as if it's a precious, sacrosanct relic from the holy crusades of your ancestors when, in fact, it is a withered turn wrapped in butcher paper.

Washington shares guilt for every death. The United States was part and parcel of the operation at every stage, starting well before the killing started, until the last body dropped and the last political prisoner emerged from jail, decades later, tortured, scarred, and bewildered. At several points that we know of--and perhaps some we don't--Washington was the prime mover, and provided crucial pressure for the operation to move forward or expand.

But in an age of selfishness and cynicism, when empathy and generosity seem to be in short supply, it’s enough in the real world just to be a good guy, someone who doesn’t battle supervillains but who simply goes out of his or her way to make the world a slightly more decent place. Superheroes take the good and bad we can do and just magnify it to larger-than-life perspectives. Still, we find inspiration in them, just like we have since storytelling began.

During the first two days of travel north of Miles City, in a country tht was custom-made for pronghorn antelope, they did not see a single one; the only living creatures they saw were prairie dogs, rabbits, and turkey vultures, wheeling high overhead as if scouting for the last meal in Montana. It was forlorn, abandoned country, a country of great absences, which had once been filled by the dust and noise and dung of one of the planet's greatest zoological spectacles but ws now almost completely silent.

Okay," she murmured. "I love you." "I love you too." She looked up at Holgar and realized that he didn't understand. She could feel her heartbeat speeding up, and she shook her head. His smile began to fade. "Not as a friend, or as a partner. Holgar, I—I love you, and I want to be with you." His smile faded, and his eyes took on a strange look. She could feel herself beginning to panic. He doesn't feel the same way. That's okay. At least I told him. "Like a mate?" he asked. She almost started laughing. A mate was British slang for a best friend. But that's not what Holgar was likely referencing. He was a werewolf, and they called their spouses mates. "Like a mate," she said, managing not to giggle at the unexpected language barrier. He still looked confused and a little lost. "For helvede," she said, using his favourite curse word. And then she leaned forward and kissed him. She tasted surprise on his lips for just a moment, and then he wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to him. she would have to do a healing spell on her bruised ribs later, but at the moment she didn't care. All she cared about was the passion, the yearning, she felt from him. When at last they broke apart, she whispered again, "I love you." "I love you too," he said. And looking into his eyes this time, she knew that they were talking about the same thing. "So, do we want to give us a shot?" she asked, breathless. He looked at her, confusion again returning to his eyes. "You love me, ja?" "Yes, ja," she said. He grinned at her. His eyes danced. "Then marry me.

Hallie didn't believe she was invulnerable. She was never one of those daredevil types; she knew she could get hurt. What I think she meant was that she was lucky to be on her way to Nicaragua. It was the slowest thing to sink into my head, how happy she was. Happy to be leaving. We'd had one time of perfect togetherness in our adult lives, the year when we were both in college in Tucson-her first year, my last-and living together for the first time away from Doc Homer. That winter I'd wanted to fail a subject just so I could hang back, stay there with her, the two of us walking around the drafty house in sweatshirts and wool socks and understanding each other precisely. Bringing each other cups of tea without having to ask. So I stayed on in Tucson for medical school, instead of going to Boston as I'd planned, and met Carlo in Parasitology. Hallie, around the same time, befriended some people who ran a safehouse for Central American refugees. After that we'd have strangers in our kitchen every time of night, kids scared senseless, people with all kinds of damage. Our life was never again idyllic. I should have seen it coming. Once she and I had gone to see a documentary on the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which was these Americans who volunteered without our government's blessing to fight against Franco and Hitler in the Spanish Civil War. At that point in U.S. history fascism was only maybe wrong, whereas communism was definitely. When we came home from the movie Hallie cried. Not because of the people who gave up life and limb only to lose Spain to Franco, and not for the ones who came back and were harassed for the rest of their lives for being Reds. The tragedy for Hallie was that there might never be a cause worth risking everything for in our lifetime. She was nineteen years old then, and as she lay blowing her nose and sobbing on my bed she told me this. That there were no real causes left. Now she had one-she was off to Nicaragua, a revolution of co-op farms and literacy crusades-and so I guess she was lucky. Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain. Almost no one really gets the chance to alter the course of human events on purpose, in the exact way they wish for it to be altered.

South Carolina had thirteen lynchings last year, ten were charged with assault on white women, one with horse stealing and two with being impudent to white women. The first of the ten charged with rape, named John Peterson, was declared by the white woman in the case to be the wrong man, but the mob said a crime had been committed and somebody had to hang for it. So John Peterson, being the available ‘somebody,’ was hanged. At Columbia, South Carolina, July 30th, a similar charge was made, and three Negroes were hanged one after another because they said they wanted to be sure they got the right one.

One thing that the history of Jerusalem teaches is that nothing is irreversible. Not only have its inhabitants watched their city destroyed time and again, they have also seen it built up in ways that seemed abhorrent. When the Jews heard of the obliteration of their Holy City, first by Hadrian's contractors and then by Constantine's, they must have felt that they would never win their city back. Muslims had to see the desecration of their beloved Haram by the Crusaders, who seemed invincible at the time. All these building projects had been intent on creating facts, but ultimately bricks and mortar were not enough. The Muslims got their city back because the Crusaders became trapped in a dream of hatred and intolerance. In our own day, against all odds, the Jews have returned to Zion and have created their own facts in the settlements around Jerusalem. But, as the long, tragic history of Jerusalem shows, nothing is permanent or guaranteed. The societies that have lasted the longest in the holy city have, generally, been the ones that were prepared for some kind of tolerance and coexistence in the Holy City. That, rather than a sterile and deadly struggle for sovereignty, must be the way to celebrate Jerusalem's sanctity today.

The Kingdom of God is Within You —Tolstoy 2. What is Art? —Tolstoy 3. The Slavery of Our Times —Tolstoy 4. The First Step —Tolstoy 5. How Shall We Escape? —Tolstoy 6. Letter to a Hindoo —Tolstoy 7. The White Slaves of England —Sherard 8. Civilization, Its Cause and Cure —Carpenter 9. The Fallacy of Speed — Taylor 10. A New Crusade —Blount 11. One the Duty of Civil Disobedience —Thoreau 12. Life Without Principle —Thoreau 13. Unto This Last —Ruskin 14. A Joy for Ever —Ruskin 15. Duties of Man —Mazzini 16. Defence and Death of Socrates —From Plato 17. Paradoxes of Civilization —Max Nordau 18. Poverty and Un–British Rule in India —Naoroji

Ottoman provinces were re-formed and cobbled together into states. The region was carved up with little regard to ethnic, religious, or territorial concerns. The flawed and cavalier treaties of World War I explain to a large degree why the Middle East remains unstable and angry today. Every Muslim schoolchild is taught this arc of history and resents it: Islam’s golden era of the Arab caliphate, the Crusades, the Mongol devastation, the rise of the Ottomans, World War I, the carving up of the Middle East by Europe, and the poverty, weakness, and wars in the Muslim world of the last century. This is the basic and sad narrative taught at every mosque, and it has the benefit of being broadly accurate.

‎"Politicians and ideologues may continue to appeal to national essences based on imagined ethnicities or races to exclude new groups of undesirables, but there is, in the end, no escaping the fact that 'we are all Moors," that we are all minorities in a world of diversities. It is high time we banish the specter of the Moor from our consciousness and embrace the differences that enrich us all. It is far more sensible to start preparing for a new golden age when every human being on earth and every cultural tradition will be embraced with the love and care now accorded to any species threatened with extinction. For the margin between life and death seems to have narrowed considerably in the last few years.

From being a tiny, despised community, the Muslims were now a force with which the pagans of Arabia had to reckon—and they began to strike terror in the hearts of their enemies. Muhammad’s claim to be the last prophet of the One, True God appeared validated by a victory against enormous odds. With this victory, certain attitudes and assumptions were being planted in the minds of Muslims, which remain with many of them to this day. These include: Allah will grant victory to his people against foes that are superior in numbers or firepower, so long as they remain faithful to his commands. Victories entitle the Muslims to appropriate the possessions of the vanquished as booty. Bloody vengeance against one’s enemies belongs not solely to the Lord, but also to those who submit to him on earth. That is the meaning of the word Islam: submission. Prisoners taken in battle against the Muslims may be put to death at the discretion of Muslim leaders. Those who reject Islam are “the vilest of creatures” (Qur’an 98:6) and thus deserve no mercy. Anyone who insults or even opposes Muhammad or his people deserves a humiliating death—by beheading if possible. (This is in accordance with Allah’s command to “smite the necks” of the “unbelievers” (Qur’an 47:4)). Above all, the battle of Badr was the first practical example of what came to be known as the Islamic doctrine of jihad—a doctrine that holds the key to the understanding of both the Crusades and the conflicts of today.

And thank you for bringing me." "A pleasure." Bartel returned politely, and stole one last look at the incredible smiling Hairy. Rider stood. Though he was relieved to hear that she planned on staying for a while, he was glad for an excuse to escape his landlady's inquisition. "I'll give you a hand, Bartel." Just short of grabbing the older man's arm, he hustled him out the door. Once outside, bartel chortled jovially. "Ease up,son. She isn't coming after us." Rider exhaled deeply and grinned. "Who put the burr under the lady's saddle?" he asked as they approached the carriage. "Don't know, but she came flying into my store saying she had to get out here and get out here now! I tried to tell her I was too busy to be gallivanting all over hell's half acre, but do you think she'd listen? Uh-uh. Kept ranting and raving something 'bout Miss Willow's welfare. The woman was in a real dither all the way here." Rider groaned. Bartel slapped his back. "I can commiserate with you,son. There isn't anything scarier than a virtuous woman on a crusade.

Charles Ryder, the successful dilettante, the antiquarian, the Bohemian poseur, is finally woven into what is a true culture. Brideshead is his home, not because he grew up there (he did not), but because it has placed him, as if he were a stone, in an ancient edifice of meaning. He is in communion with the Crusaders who fought at Acre, now in ruins, and Jerusalem, also in ruins. He is in communion with the friend of his youth, the alcoholic Sebastian, now an exile, a pilgrim, and a man with a home, half in and half out of a community of monks in North Africa, where one morning, as his sister Cordelia foretells, “after one of his drinking bouts, he’ll be picked up at the gate dying, and show by a mere flicker of the eyelid that he is conscious when they give him the last sacraments. It’s not such a bad way of getting through one’s life.”12 It beats secular exhaustion and a shot of morphine. This being home is not a sentiment. It is a felt reality, and from this day on it gives form to Charles’s life. “You’re looking unusually cheerful today,” a soldier tells him in the last line of the book.

...the letters begin to cross vast spaces in slow sailing ships and everything becomes still more protracted and verbose, and there seems no end to the space and the leisure of those early nineteenth century days, and faiths are lost and the life of Hedley Vicars revives them; aunts catch cold but recover; cousins marry; there is the Irish famine and the Indian Mutiny, and both sisters remain, to their great, but silent grief, for in those days there were things that women hid like pearls in their breasts, without children to come after them. Louisa, dumped down in Ireland with Lord Waterford at the hunt all day, was often very lonely; but she stuck to her post, visited the poor, spoke words of comfort (‘I am sorry indeed to hear of Anthony Thompson's loss of mind, or rather of memory; if, however, he can understand sufficiently to trust solely in our Saviour, he has enough’) and sketched and sketched. Thousands of notebooks were filled with pen and ink drawings of an evening, and then the carpenter stretched sheets for her and she designed frescoes for schoolrooms, had live sheep into her bedroom, draped gamekeepers in blankets, painted Holy Families in abundance, until the great Watts exclaimed that here was Titian's peer and Raphael's master! At that Lady Waterford laughed (she had a generous, benignant sense of humour); and said that she was nothing but a sketcher; had scarcely had a lesson in her life—witness her angel's wings, scandalously unfinished. Moreover, there was her father's house for ever falling into the sea; she must shore it up; must entertain her friends; must fill her days with all sorts of charities, till her Lord came home from hunting, and then, at midnight often, she would sketch him with his knightly face half hidden in a bowl of soup, sitting with her notebook under a lamp beside him. Off he would ride again, stately as a crusader, to hunt the fox, and she would wave to him and think, each time, what if this should be the last? And so it was one morning. His horse stumbled. He was killed. She knew it before they told her, and never could Sir John Leslie forget, when he ran down-stairs the day they buried him, the beauty of the great lady standing by the window to see the hearse depart, nor, when he came back again, how the curtain, heavy, Mid-Victorian, plush perhaps, was all crushed together where she had grasped it in her agony.

In any event, should you doubt that your knowledge of Western history is distorted by the work of these distinguished bigots, consider whether you believe any of the following statements: The Catholic Church motivated and actively participated in nearly two millennia of anti-Semitic violence, justifying it on grounds that the Jews were responsible for the Crucifixion, until the Vatican II Council was shamed into retracting that doctrine in 1965. But, the Church still has not made amends for the fact that Pope Pius XII is rightfully known as “Hitler’s Pope.” Only recently have we become aware of remarkably enlightened Christian gospels, long ago suppressed by narrow-minded Catholic prelates. Once in power as the official church of Rome, Christians quickly and brutally persecuted paganism out of existence. The fall of Rome and the ascendancy of the Church precipitated Europe’s decline into a millennium of ignorance and backwardness. These Dark Ages lasted until the Renaissance/Enlightenment, when secular scholars burst through the centuries of Catholic barriers against reason. Initiated by the pope, the Crusades were but the first bloody chapter in the history of unprovoked and brutal European colonialism. The Spanish Inquisition tortured and murdered huge numbers of innocent people for “imaginary” crimes, such as witchcraft and blasphemy. The Catholic Church feared and persecuted scientists, as the case of Galileo makes clear. Therefore, the Scientific “Revolution” occurred mainly in Protestant societies because only there could the Catholic Church not suppress independent thought. ► Being entirely comfortable with slavery, the Catholic Church did nothing to oppose its introduction in the New World nor to make it more humane. Until very recently, the Catholic view of the ideal state was summed up in the phrase, “The divine right of kings.” Consequently, the Church has bitterly resisted all efforts to establish more liberal governments, eagerly supporting dictators. It was the Protestant Reformation that broke the repressive Catholic grip on progress and ushered in capitalism, religious freedom, and the modern world. Each of these statements is part of the common culture, widely accepted and frequently repeated. But, each is false and many are the exact opposite of the truth! A chapter will be devoted to summarizing recent repetitions of each of these statements and to demonstrating that each is most certainly false.

Postscript, 2005 From the Publisher ON APRIL 7, 2004, the Mid-Hudson Highland Post carried an article about an appearance that John Gatto made at Highland High School. Headlined “Rendered Speechless,” the report was subtitled “Advocate for education reform brings controversy to Highland.” The article relates the events of March 25 evening of that year when the second half of John Gatto’s presentation was canceled by the School Superintendent, “following complaints from the Highland Teachers Association that the presentation was too controversial.” On the surface, the cancellation was in response to a video presentation that showed some violence. But retired student counselor Paul Jankiewicz begged to differ, pointing out that none of the dozens of students he talked to afterwards were inspired to violence. In his opinion, few people opposing Gatto had seen the video presentation. Rather, “They were taking the lead from the teacher’s union who were upset at the whole tone of the presentation.” He continued, “Mr. Gatto basically told them that they were not serving kids well and that students needed to be told the truth, be given real-life learning experiences, and be responsible for their own education. [Gatto] questioned the validity and relevance of standardized tests, the prison atmosphere of school, and the lack of relevant experience given students.” He added that Gatto also had an important message for parents: “That you have to take control of your children’s education.” Highland High School senior Chris Hart commended the school board for bringing Gatto to speak, and wished that more students had heard his message. Senior Katie Hanley liked the lecture for its “new perspective,” adding that ”it was important because it started a new exchange and got students to think for themselves.” High School junior Qing Guo found Gatto “inspiring.” Highland teacher Aliza Driller-Colangelo was also inspired by Gatto, and commended the “risk-takers,” saying that, following the talk, her class had an exciting exchange about ideas. Concluded Jankiewicz, the students “were eager to discuss the issues raised. Unfortunately, our school did not allow that dialogue to happen, except for a few teachers who had the courage to engage the students.” What was not reported in the newspaper is the fact that the school authorities called the police to intervene and ‘restore the peace’ which, ironically enough, was never in the slightest jeopardy as the student audience was well-behaved and attentive throughout. A scheduled evening meeting at the school between Gatto and the Parents Association was peremptorily forbidden by school district authorities in a final assault on the principles of free speech and free assembly… There could be no better way of demonstrating the lasting importance of John Taylor Gatto’s work, and of this small book, than this sorry tale. It is a measure of the power of Gatto’s ideas, their urgency, and their continuing relevance that school authorities are still trying to shut them out 12 years after their initial publication, afraid even to debate them. — May the crusade continue! Chris Plant Gabriola Island, B.C. February, 2005

In A.D. 1223 an infant was born, clutching a jewel in her tiny fist. Her peasant father ran to the castle to bring back a priest, but by the time they returned to the hut, the jewel had disappeared. The priest declared that such would be the child's life: all good would slip through her fingers. The years passed, and the girl's beauty became celebrated. Knights and kings journeyed far to gaze into her eyes before leaving her on their crusades. Women and children made pilgrimages to look upon her angelic face. All who saw her felt blessed. But an ancient evil called the Atrox also saw her unearthly perfection and pursued her, offering her father great treasures if she would betroth it. The girl saw her father's poverty and agreed to the union, making only one request for herself--- that her beauty should last forever. The Atrox agreed, and she pledged her devotion for eternity. A Follower of the Atrox came to take the young woman to the underworld, but when he saw her beauty and grace, he fell desperately in love with her and she, too, with him. They tried to hide their love, but the Atrox saw through their deception. When the young woman stepped into the Cold Fire to receive immortality, instead of preserving her beauty for eternity, the flames consumed her flesh and bones, turning her into a wind spirit. The knight could not endure life without her. The force of his love drove him across the world, searching for a sorceress with the power to restore her human form. As he was crossing the sea, a storm broke out and sent his ship off course to the island of Aeaea, where Circe, an ancient enchantress, lived. Circe gave him a magic potion. With it, his beloved could possess any body she desired. Since then many young women have felt her presence and wondered afterward what made them act so wickedly, never understanding that for a brief time, the spirit of the wind had taken over their mind and soul.

With every achievement, his estimation of himself had grown smaller. Early on, Paul went from strength to strength in his accomplishments for the gospel. In AD 55 he wrote to the church in Corinth that he was no less than any of the other apostles. Two years later, he wrote something very different to the Ephesians, stating, “I am the least of all saints.” Finally, in his last known letter, Paul wrote, “I am the chief of sinners.” That was my father. In the beginning of his ministry, David Wilkerson was a crusading young zealot, making a massive imprint on the world for Christ. Later, as he gazed hard into his own brokenness, he realized, “I am dependent on God for everything,” and he offered genuine encouragement to others in their sufferings. By the end of his life, amid his anguished battle to know love, he claimed, “I can do nothing. He did it all. ‘It is finished.

Exotic, vaguely sinister with its skyline of onion-domed mosques and slender minarets, its ornate Topkapi Palace housing the sultan's seraglio, its noisome Haydarpasar stews, the luxury hotels overlooking the Bosporus, the Golden Horn separating the city from its wealthy suburbs, Constantinople had seen Saracens and Crusaders eviscerate one another, had watched red-bearded Sultan "Abdul the Damned" butcher his subjects in the streets, and seemed stained by its memories.

On a more positive slant, the Crusades created lasting trade between the Christian and Islamic worlds, and the cultural exchange is thought to have been a major factor in the European Renaissance.

Even centuries after the last unsuccessful Crusade, the Crusades had a lasting impact on medieval Europe. The kingdom of Jerusalem was essentially Europe’s first colony and inspired later monarchs and military leaders to embark on massive projects of colonization.

Dome of the Rock (the al-Aqsa mosque on the Jewish Temple Mount) must

she said.

The Crusades, waged intermittently from 1095 to 1291, but which continued in waves for centuries after that, were military campaigns sanctioned principally by the Roman Catholic Church to reclaim the Holy Land. American students barely learn about the Crusades, but they are essential to understanding the wars of the last decade.

This approach is now the focus of a crusading group of economists who have transformed international development over the last decade. They do not come up with grand designs; rather, they look for small advantages. As Esther Duflo, the French-born economist who is at the forefront of this approach, put it: “If we don’t know if we are doing any good, we are not any better than the medieval doctors and their leeches. Sometimes the patient gets better; sometimes the patient dies. Is it the leeches or something else? We don’t know.”6

Before they became junkies, these young people were sitting in a room alone, cut off from meaning. Most of them could hope at best for a McJob with a shrinking minimum wage—a lifelong burger-flip punctuated by watching TV and scrimping for minor consumer objects. “My job was basically to say—why don’t you stop taking drugs?” Bruce says. “And one guy explained to me very beautifully. He said, ‘Well, think about that for a minute. What would I do if I stopped taking drugs? Maybe I could get myself a job as a janitor or something like that.’ ” Compare that, he said, to “what I’m doing right now, which is really exciting. Because I’ve got friends down here and we do exciting things like rob stores and hang around with hookers.” Suddenly you are part of a world where, together with other addicts, you are embarked on a crusade—a constant frenetic crusade to steal enough to buy the drugs, dodge the police, keep out of jail, and stay alive. If your problem is being chronically starved of social bonds, then part of the solution is to bond with the heroin itself and the relief it gives you. But a bigger part is to bond with the subculture that comes with taking heroin—the tribe of fellow users all embarked on the same mission and facing the same threats and risking death every day with you. It gives you an identity. It gives you a life of highs and lows, instead of relentless monotony. The world stops being indifferent to you, and starts being hostile—which is at least proof that you exist, that you aren’t dead already.

It’s a funny thing, strength. People call you strong, when all you’ve really had the strength to do was keep breathing and putting one foot in front of the other.

On this Easter Sunday evening, eight hundred thousand living beings, and thousands of dead ones, were making their peaceful assault on the Western World. Tomorrow it would all be over. And now, rising up from the coast to the hills, to the village, to the house and its terrace, a gentle chanting, yet so very strong for all its gentleness, like a kind of singsong, droned by a chorus of eight hundred thousand voices. Long, long ago, the Crusaders had sung as they circled Jerusalem, on the eve of their last attack.

Bruce realizes that in all his months and years interviewing addicts about their lives, they had been telling him the answer all along. “People explained over and over before I got it,” Bruce tells me. Before they became junkies, these young people were sitting in a room alone, cut off from meaning. Most of them could hope at best for a McJob with a shrinking minimum wage—a lifelong burger-flip punctuated by watching TV and scrimping for minor consumer objects. “My job was basically to say—why don’t you stop taking drugs?” Bruce says. “And one guy explained to me very beautifully. He said, ‘Well, think about that for a minute. What would I do if I stopped taking drugs? Maybe I could get myself a job as a janitor or something like that.’ ” Compare that, he said, to “what I’m doing right now, which is really exciting. Because I’ve got friends down here and we do exciting things like rob stores and hang around with hookers.” Suddenly you are part of a world where, together with other addicts, you are embarked on a crusade—a constant frenetic crusade to steal enough to buy the drugs, dodge the police, keep out of jail, and stay alive. If your problem is being chronically starved of social bonds, then part of the solution is to bond with the heroin itself and the relief it gives you. But a bigger part is to bond with the subculture that comes with taking heroin—the tribe of fellow users all embarked on the same mission and facing the same threats and risking death every day with you. It gives you an identity. It gives you a life of highs and lows, instead of relentless monotony. The world stops being indifferent to you, and starts being hostile—which is at least proof that you exist, that you aren’t dead already. The heroin helps users deal with the pain of being unable to form normal bonds with other humans. The heroin subculture gives them bonds with other human beings.

He's a whole new species. He's audacious. He's resourceful. He's ingenious. He's cool. He's bad. He's scary. He's got a two-foot cock. Aye, very good. He's a wanker, that's what he is. All terrorists are wankers. Whatever flags they wrapped themselves in, whatever religions, histories or myths they attached to their crusades, they were to a man, just wankers. They told themselves and anyone bored enough to listen that they were in it for the glory of their cause or the welfare of their 'people' (few of whom were ever consulted about this), but the truth was they were in it because they liked killing people. Every last fucking one of them.

Evil genius is genius nonetheless. In the early 1970s, at the zenith of liberal-left influence, an improbable, quixotic, out-of-power economic right—intellectuals, capitalists, politicians—launched their crusade and then kept at it tenaciously. The unthinkable became the inevitable in a single decade. They envisioned a new American trajectory, then popularized and arranged it with remarkable success. How was that fundamentally different American future—that is, our present—designed and enacted? And how might it happen again in the other direction? There are lessons to be learned: having big ideas and strong convictions, keeping your eye on the ball, playing a long game. There are also some relevant cautionary tales from the last few decades—it’d be nice if in success the left could avoid some of the viciousness, lying, cynicism, nihilism, and insanity that overtook the right after victory.

Soldiers,' he made an insult of the word. 'Once we were crusaders Khayon, and now we're warriors, but we were never soldiers. Keep that foolishness to yourself.' I swallowed my argument, following his train of thought. It was not the first time legionaries have disagreed over those semantics, and it would be far from the last. Some believed soldiering came down to discipline, or fighting for a state or a leader rather than for yourself. Some believed warriorhood was a matter of heart that elevated them above a soldier's station, while others considered it a state of barbarity that dragged them beneath it. Some questions have no answers. No matter how seriously we took warfare, no matter how adamantly we clung to our disciplined roots as a Space Marine Legion, many of our number were ultimately the raiders and marauders that time had made them. For better or worse, we would never have the ironclad discipline of a Throne-loyal Adeptus Astartes force. Even back then, we had lost much of the discipline we had once possessed as Legions of the Great Crusade.

by the armies of the Fourth Crusade in 1261. The Latin Christians, who diverted from their original goal of capturing the Holy Land,

Bayezid’s quick vanguard was able to crush the crusaders from the sides while the main infantry advanced forward

Antioch was the last of the great cities of Arab Asia to have fallen under the domination of the Seljuk Turks: in 1084 it was still a dependency of Constantinople. Thirteen years later, when the Frankish knights laid siege to the town, Yaghi-SiyÁn was naturally convinced that this was part of an attempt

Bayezid I’s conquests alarmed the rest of Christian Europe, and Pope Boniface IX called for a new crusade to stop Ottoman

In early 1396, the crusaders started their march down the Danube River with the goal of defeating the Ottomans

targeting the crucial city of Nicopolis and pillaging and raiding the lands on their way in true crusader fashion.

Sigismund’s forces started a mass retreat, with the different contingents of the crusader army being routed one by one.

Atlantis, I called her and she will sink in my last Crusade.

My father fought against the infidels during the last crusade. It cost him his life. But even if one who had served among the Mohammadan rabble sought sanctuary at the chapel gates, I would give it to him. The laws of the Almighty stand above the laws of men.

I will give you NOTHING! Shall I tell you what I believe, Thagus?...I believe you are likewise trapped in the storm. I believe the Warp aided your pursuit of us, then cut you adrift in our wake, leaving you becalmed and with no idea why. I believe that the malignant essences we call Gods have brought us together in the heart of this storm to play out a game of kings and pawns, just to see where their favour should fall...I believe, most of all, that you are frightened of us. You fear us because despite your raving speeches that we are betraying the Legions, and despite your petty crusades to destroy us, we not only survive, but THRIVE. We grow with every conflict. The icons of the failed Legions are sheared from ever more suits of armour, and the colours of shame are eclipsed in numbers no other warband can match. You fear that we are right and you are wrong. You fear us, more than any other reason, because you had to chase us. Because we were here first. Because we are the ones on the verge of breaking free, despite all your attempts in these last decades to hinder us. We have been working towards this fate, while you have done nothing but seek to stop us. We've fought for true unity, all brothers beneath the black banner, while you've fought against it in the guise of preserving the old, failed ways. We, Thagus, have acted. You have reacted. And here we stand at our prison's edge. Even now you have no answers to give your men. Instead, you force this meeting with us, praying you can glean insight into our plans and scavenge victory through threats. You'll lose this war, Thagus. You'll lose because you desire the Gods' favour and you fear it falling upon anyone else.

I really have no experience,” he began. “No one has any experience,” said the other, “of the Battle of Armageddon.” “But I am really unfit—” “You are willing, that is enough,” said the unknown. “Well, really,” said Syme, “I don’t know any profession of which mere willingness is the final test.” “I do,” said the other—“martyrs. I am condemning you to death. Good day.” Thus it was that when Gabriel Syme came out again into the crimson light of evening, in his shabby black hat and shabby, lawless cloak, he came out a member of the New Detective Corps for the frustration of the great conspiracy. Acting under the advice of his friend the policeman (who was professionally inclined to neatness), he trimmed his hair and beard, bought a good hat, clad himself in an exquisite summer suit of light blue-grey, with a pale yellow flower in the button-hole, and, in short, became that elegant and rather insupportable person whom Gregory had first encountered in the little garden of Saffron Park. Before he finally left the police premises his friend provided him with a small blue card, on which was written, “The Last Crusade,” and a number, the sign of his official authority. He put this carefully in his upper waistcoat pocket, lit a cigarette, and went forth to track and fight the enemy in all the drawing-rooms of London. Where his adventure ultimately led him we have already seen. At about half-past one on a February night he found himself steaming in a small tug up the silent Thames, armed with swordstick and revolver, the duly elected Thursday of the Central Council of Anarchists.

This world disappoints you, does it not?” Quinn asked. “Your crusade was intended to create something exceptional, exquisite even. But you have become lost amongst your own desires, my friend. What you are doing no longer falls under the rubric of surgery… you work in darker hues. Kelly must be the last. Any more and the East End of London will explode. We already have Lusk and his Vigilante Committee roaming the streets, accosting every fletcher, leather apron and anyone trading with a knife. Warren is poised to retire, people are afraid. What you have accomplished cannot be understated. We have large plans for this city and our vision of social reform has been led by you… you should be proud. But the increased enthusiasm for your work threatens to undermine those plans. You are upsetting the status quo, for want of a better word.

the ruined Rose City is now an archaeological landscape that has been made famous as a UNESCO World Heritage site, a “new” wonder of the world, and as the repository of the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

The site has experienced a tremendous surge in visitor numbers over the past decade, especially following the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989 and Petra’s inclusion in the New Seven Wonders of the World campaign in 2007.  The valley can comfortably accommodate between one thousand and one thousand five hundred visitors per day, according to UNESCO’s Petra Management Plan.

fiends.

Darren McGrady Darren McGrady was personal chef to Princess Diana until her tragic accident. He is now a private chef in Dallas, Texas, and a board member of the Pink Ribbons Crusade: A Date with Diana. His cookbook, titled Eating Royally: Recipes and Remembrances from a Palace Kitchen, will be released in August 2007 by Rutledge Hill Press. His website is located at theroyalchef. I knew Princess Diana for fifteen years, but it was those last four years after I became a part of her everyday life that I really got to know her. For me, one of the benefits of being a Buckingham Palace chef was the chance to speak to “Lady Di.” I had seen her in the newspapers; who hadn’t? She was beautiful. The whole world was in love with her and fascinated by this “breath of fresh air” member of the Royal Family. The first time I met her, I just stood and stared. As she chatted away with the pastry chef in the Balmoral kitchen, I thought she was even more beautiful in real life than her pictures in the daily news. Over the years, I’ve read account after account of how the Princess could light up a room, how people would become mesmerized by her natural beauty, her charm, and her poise. I couldn’t agree more. In time, I became a friendly face to the Princess and was someone she would seek out when she headed to the kitchens. At the beginning, she would pop in “just for a glass of orange juice.” Slowly, her visits became more frequent and lasted longer. We would talk about the theater, hunting, or television; she loved Phantom of the Opera and played the CD in her car. After she and Prince Charles separated, I became her private chef at Kensington Palace, and our relationship deepened as her trust in me grew. It was one of the Princess’s key traits; if she trusted you, then you were privy to everything on her mind. If she had been watching Brookside--a UK television soap opera--then we chatted about that. If the Duchess of York had just called her with some gossip about “the family,” she wanted to share that, too. “You’ll never believe what Fergie has just told me,” she would announce, bursting into the kitchen with excitement. She loved to tell jokes, even crude ones, and would laugh at the shock on my face--not so much because of the joke, but because it was the Princess telling it. Her laughter was infectious.

pouring into

He looked at his wife. She had turned her back on him and moved a few steps away, perhaps embarrassed that she'd lost her temper, perhaps just giving his a chance to cool. She was bent over the baby, who was finally — thank God — beginning to quiet, her piercing screams fading to choking, hiccupping sobs. Gareth raked a hand through his hair, trying to think, trying to steady himself. Then, leading Crusader, he came up behind her. "Juliet?" She didn't turn, and Gareth was suddenly filled with shame. Shame at the way he'd behaved in front of her. Shame that he was so unprepared to deal with this situation. And shame that he had regretted, even for a moment, that he'd married her and now had full responsibility for both her and Charlotte. Responsibility. 'Sdeath, it was the worst word in the entire English language. "Juliet."  She still did not turn around. Her head was bent, and he could just see the pale curve of her nape beneath the upsweep of dark hair. Gareth swallowed — hard. Then, bowing his head, he said awkwardly, "My apologies. Perry's right, you know. I've got a temper, and sometimes it gets away from me." She turned then and gave him a level, unforgiving stare. "I don't mind your temper, Gareth. What I do mind is the fact that we don't seem to have a place to stay tonight. I suspect we don't have a place to stay tomorrow night, either, let alone next week, next month, or next year." He shrugged. "We can go to a hotel or something." "Yes, and how long will our money last if we live like that?" He flushed and looked away. "Didn't you even think about any of this before you asked to marry me and took on the responsibility of caring for us?" "Juliet, please." She looked suddenly weary. And disgusted. "No, I didn't think so." And now she was moving away again, as though she couldn't bear to be near him, much less look at him. "Juliet!" He swore and hurried after her, Crusader trotting behind him. This scrape was getting worse by the moment. "Juliet, please —" "I wish to be alone for a few minutes, Gareth. I need to think." "Everything will turn out just fine, I'm sure of it!" "I'm glad that one of us is." He picked up his pace. "Look, I know you're angry with me, but I am rather new at this husband-stuff. I'll get better at it. Just takes a bit of practice, you know? Why, even Charles would surely have made a few mistakes along the way —" She kept walking. "I doubt it." "I beg your pardon?" "I said, I doubt it." He halted in his tracks, Crusader's broad head crashing into his shoulder blades as he watched her walk away. The words had cut deeply, and he could think of nothing to say in his defense. The truth was, of course, that the incomparable Charles probably wouldn't have made any mistakes. She took a few more steps before she, too, paused. Her shoulders slumped, and she gave a heavy, tired sigh. She stood there for a moment, her back to him as though she was fighting some inner battle, and then, slowly, she turned and faced him, her face haunted by sadness. "That was unfair. I'm sorry." He

Gareth didn't need to open his eyes to know his brother was there, gazing down at him with his black stare that was severe enough to freeze the Devil in his lair of fire. And he didn't need to see Lucien's stark face to know what he would read there:  blatant disapproval. Fury. He felt Lucien's cool hand on his cheek. "Ah, Gareth," the duke said blandly, in a tone that didn't fool anyone in the room. "Another scrape you've got yourself into, I see. What is it this time, eh? No, let me guess. You were posing as a target and taking bets that none of your friends could hit you. Or perhaps you got so foxed that you fell from Crusader and impaled yourself on a fence? Do tell, dear boy. I have all night." "Go to hell, Luce." "I'm sure I will, but I'll have an explanation from you first." Bastard. Gareth refused to respond to the mocking taunts. Instead, he reached up, his fingers closing around Lucien's immaculate velvet sleeve. "Don't send her away, Luce. She's here. She needs us.... We owe it to Charles to take care of her and the baby." Footsteps came running down the hall, into the room. "Over here, Dr. Highworth!" Chilcot cried, suddenly. Lucien never moved. "Take care of whom, Gareth?" he inquired, with deadly menace. Weakly, Gareth turned his head on the pillow and looked up at his brother through a swirling fog of pain and alcohol. "Juliet Paige," he whispered, meeting Lucien's cool, veiled gaze. "The woman Charles was to marry ... she's here ... downstairs ... with his baby. Don't send her away, Lucien. I swear I'll kill you if you do." "My dear boy," Lucien murmured, with a chilling little smile, "I would not dream of it." But he had straightened up and was already moving toward the door. Gareth raised himself on one elbow even as the doctor tried to hold him down. "Lucien ... damn you, don't!" The duke kept walking. "Lucien!"  With the last of his strength, Gareth lunged from the bed, but the effort — and the Irish whiskey — did him in at last. As his feet hit the rug, his legs gave out beneath him, and he crashed heavily to the floor in a dead faint. Doctor, servants, and friends all rushed to his assistance. The duke never looked back.   ~~~~

The villagers call him 'the Wild One,' you know. Why, just last week he had the Den of Debauchery members make a pyramid of themselves down on the village green, took bets from all those who'd gathered to watch, and jumped Crusader over the lot of them. Won himself a fortune that day. The week before that —" "That's enough, Andrew," the duke interrupted, straightening up. "Come now, Luce, even you have to admit that his getting Mrs. Dorking's pig foxed was hilariously funny." "It was not hilariously funny, it was uncommonly stupid. Especially in light of all the damage the animal went on to cause." Nerissa,

Shhhhhh!" Bang! "Damn it, Chilcot, I said toss the pebble, not break the damned window!  Here, I'll do it." They had found her after checking every coaching inn on the London road in a desperate race to catch her before she reached the capital and was lost to them forever. The proprietor of this inn just outside Hounslow had confirmed their frantic queries. Yes, a pretty young woman with dark hair had taken a room for the night. Yes, she spoke with a strange accent. And yes, she had a baby with her. "Put her upstairs, Oi did," the garrulous landlord had said. "She wants an early start, so I gave 'er the east bedroom. Catches the mornin' sun, it does." But Gareth had no intention of waiting until morning to see Juliet. Now, standing in the muddy road beside the inn, he unearthed a piece of flint with his toe, picked it up, and flung it at the black square of the east-facing upstairs window. Nothing. "Throw it harder," urged Perry, standing a few feet away with his arms folded and the reins of both Crusader and his own mare in his hands. "Any harder and I'll break the damned thing." "Maybe you don't have the right window." "Maybe you ought to just do it the easy way and ask the bloody innkeeper to rouse her." "Yes, that would save time and trouble, Gareth. Why don't you do that?" Gareth leveled a hard stare at them all. His temper was short tonight. "Right. And just what do you think that's going to do to her reputation if I go knocking on the door at three-o'-bloody-clock in the morning asking after her, eh?" Chilcot shrugged. "As for her reputation, she's already ruined it herself, getting a bastard babe off your brother and all —" Without warning, Gareth's fist slammed into Chilcot's cheekbone and sent him sprawling in the mud. "'Sdeath, Gareth, you didn't have to take it so personally!" Chilcot cried, scowling and rubbing the side of his face. "She's family. Any slur upon her name and I will take it personally. Understand?" "Sorry," Chilcot muttered, sulking as he gingerly touched his cheek. "But you didn't have to thump me so damned hard." "Another remark like the last one and I'll thump you even harder. Now, stop whining before you wake everyone in town and word gets back to my damned brother." With

cooperating with Russia)

While Dominion theology may sound like an outlier in modern Christianity, this relatively small group wields a surprising amount of influence with the conservative right in America. Elements of Dominionist doctrine have found their way into such mainstream evangelical events as the National Day of Prayer.

in full view of the conclave.

One of the most influential founding fathers, and the only one of them to have signed all of the original founding documents (the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the US Constitution) was Benjamin Franklin. Franklin

and Bill Clinton broke with this archetype to devote their post-presidencies to humanitarian and other public causes. Previously, William Howard Taft, president

Choose wisely, for the true grail will bring you life; the false grail will take it from you.1 —THE GRAIL KNIGHT, IN INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE

In another time and place, the Texeiras would have been hailed as model citizens, environmental stewards, exactly the kind of decent, hardworking settlers an Ohio-born nun named Dorothy Stang was organizing farther east in the state of Pará to resist powerful ranchers who were razing the forest to plant pastureland for their cattle, a crusade for which she would eventually pay with her life.

That the good they did was largely leavened with evil may be said of every war that has ever been waged; that bad men rose by them while good men fell, is and must be true wherever and whenever the race is to the swift and the battle to the strong. But that, in the end, they were a benefit to the world no one who reads can doubt; and that in their course they brought out a love for all that is heroic in human nature—the love of freedom, the honour of prowess, sympathy with sorrow, perseverance to the last, and patient endurance without hope—the chronicles of the age abundantly prove; proving, moreover, that it was by the experience of those times that the former of those virtues were realised, and presented to posterity.

It tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them.

It tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them.

Eh bien, voilà au moins qui n’est pas banal!” (Well, here at least is something out of the ordinary!) he cried. Each with its burden of soldiers, with trucks, buses, and assorted vehicles added to the train, the taxis drove off, as evening fell—the last gallantry of 1914, the last crusade of the old world.

Needless to say, Columbus’s journey in 1492 changed the world. His announcement of new territories full of things to trade or steal, and teeming with people to subjugate, convert or kill, helped to usher in a new phase of global history. After Columbus, the future for Europe lay to the west, not the east. And gradually, all the energy, excitement and terrible, merciless, zealotry that had inspired previous generations to make perilous journeys to the Holy Land flooded back, as Christian adventurers fell over themselves to strike out in the opposite direction. It had taken a long time, but at last the realms of Western Christendom had found their new Jerusalem. They swarmed across the sea there in their thousands, as though God himself had willed

Make no mistake about this: destroy the liberty of the least among us and you destroy the principle that guarantees liberty to all.

The Mafia paid Harry Anslinger to launch his crusade because they wanted the drug market all to themselves.