Mile 22 Quotes

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No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages 1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5. 3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.” 4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank. 5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13. 6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14. 7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15. 8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil. 9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19. 10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961. 11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936. 12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23 13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24 14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record 15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity 16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France 17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28 18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world 19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter 20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean 21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind 22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest 23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream." 24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics 25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight 26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions. 27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon. 28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" 29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas 30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger 31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States 32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out. 33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games" 34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out. 35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa. 36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president. 37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels. 38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat". 40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived 41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise 42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out 43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US 44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats 45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President
Pablo
     Illicit flight Alfa Bravo Charlie quickly reached a predetermined altitude and stopped dead. The passengers on board screamed the way people do on fairground rides. The shuttle hesitated momentarily and then shot forward accelerating rapidly to reach a blistering 145,222 miles per hour. They were in a Mach 22 situation. The cries from on-board could not be heard from the ground. Neither did anyone in the great metropolis of Llar witness the bright blue vapour trail the craft left behind in its wake. It was after all overcast and raining heavily.
A.R. Merrydew (Our Blue Orange)
Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.
Muhammad Ali
Rincewind had always been happy to think of himself as a racist. The One Hundred Meters, the Mile, the Marathon -- he'd run them all.
Terry Pratchett (The Last Continent (Discworld, #22; Rincewind, #6))
We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the sign started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides -- pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book. "No one sees the barn," he said finally. A long silence followed. "Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn." He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others. We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies." There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides. "Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism." Another silence ensued. "They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said.
Don DeLillo (White Noise)
...It also taught me that while cruelty can be fun for a few moments, compassion has a much longer shelf life.
Doreen Orion (Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own)
Something is very wrong with Bunce. She's collapsed in the back seat like a dead rabbit. But I can't really focus on it because of the sun and also the wind and because I'm very busy making a list. Things I hate, a list: 1. The sun. 2. The wind. 3. Penelope Bunce, when she hasn't got a plan. 4. American sandwiches. 5. America. 6. The band, America. Which I didn't know about an hour ago. 7. Kansas, also a band I've recently become acquainted with. 8. Kansas, the state. Which isn't that far from Illinois, so it must be wretched. 9. The State of Illinois, for fucking certain. 10. The sun. In my eyes. 11. The wind in my hair. 12. Convertible automobiles. 13. Myself, most of all. 14. My soft heart. 15. My foolish optimism. 16. The words "road" and "trip" when said together with any enthusiasm. 17. Being a vampire, if we're being honest. 18. Being a vampire in a fucking convertible. 19. A deliriously thirsty vampire in a convertible at midday. In Illinois, which is apparently the brightest place on the planet. 20. The sun. Which hangs miles closer to Minooka, Illinois, than it does over London blessed England. 21. Minooka, Illinois. Which seems dreadful. 22. These sunglasses. Rubbish. 23. The fucking sun! We get it - you're very fucking bright! 24. Penelope Bunce, who came up with this idea. An idea not accompanied by a plan. Because all she cared about was seeing her rubbish boyfriend, who clearly cocked it all up. Which we all should have expected from someone from Illinois, land of the damned - a place that manages to be both hot and humid at the same time. You might well expect hell to be hot, but you don't expect it to also be humid. That's what makes it hell, the surprise twist! The devil is clever!
Rainbow Rowell (Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2))
In WASP families, if you don't get along with someone, you have as little to do with them as possible. In Jewish families, you move next door, to make them as miserable as possible.
Doreen Orion (Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own)
Reardan is the rich white farm town that sits in the wheat fields exactly 22 miles away from the Rez. And it's a hick town I suppose filled with farmers and rednecks and racists cops who stop every Indian that drives through. During one week when I was little dad got stopped three times for DWI- Driving While Indian.
Sherman Alexie
...for most of the ride through British Columbia we were treated to stunning scenery ranging from majestic peaks shrouded in mist to more barren vistas reminiscent of the Old West ... to churning rivers fed by waterfalls twisting down mountains like the woven tassels on the white summer Chanel bag I'd left back home. Do waterfalls ever feel unfashionable after Labor Day
Doreen Orion (Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own)
I took my autocannon off my back and swung it around to my front, holding it like I meant business. Every gun means business, that’s what they’re for. Laugh all you want at a little .22, you get shot by one you’re not laughing. But an autocannon that hurls a grenade four or eight or whatever miles, takes business to a whole other level. It was an advanced degree in business.
Steven Campbell (Basketful of Crap (Hard Luck Hank, #2))
And what a joy it is to walk in it. England and Wales have 130,000 miles of public footpaths, about 2.2 miles of path for every square mile of area.
Bill Bryson (The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island)
While Japan and Britain look at a glance similar in area and isolation, Japan is actually five times farther from the continent (110 versus 22 miles), and 50% larger in area and much more fertile.
Jared Diamond (Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis)
As Tim followed me up the narrow stairwell, he playfully pinched my butt with every step, a pleasant (and painful--in a black-and-blue sort of way) reminder that all I had yearned for as a student twenty-five years before had come true, even if I hadn't taken the time to notice it until now: I was happy. At twenty years old, had I articulated what I thought I needed in life, I would have probably said a big house, a successful husband, and a great career. Yet all I really needed for true happiness was the homeless, unemployed bus driver right behind me, pinching my butt every step of the way.
Doreen Orion (Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own)
Gliding across an imaginary line that splits the Pacific Ocean from the north to the south polar caps, the sunrise acquired a new label, June 23. Behind that line, June 22 had just dawned. This murky international convention, amid world chaos, still stood. For the globe still turned as always in the light of the sun, ninety million miles away in black space, and the tiny dwellers on the globe still had to agree, as they went about their mutual butcheries, on a way to tell the time.
Herman Wouk (The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1))
The formal surrender took place shortly after 18.30 hours on Saturday, 22 June 1940, signed by the French General Charles Huntzinger in the same railway carriage at Compiègne, 50 miles north-east of Paris, where the Germans had themselves surrendered in 1918.
Andrew Roberts (The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War)
If you want to run faster, it’s hard to improve on the training haiku penned by Mayo Clinic physiologist Michael Joyner, the man whose 1991 journal paper foretold the two-hour-marathon chase: Run a lot of miles Some faster than your race pace Rest once in a while22
Alex Hutchinson (Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance)
Salii sulla mia Sunliner, e mentre uscivo dal parcheggio in retromarcia, vidi la faccia lunga e diffidente del signor Keene che mi spiava dal drugstore. Abbassai il finestrino, misi fuori il braccio gli mostrai il dito medio. Poi risalii Up-Mile Hill e lasciai Derry per sempre.
Stephen King (11/22/63)
The world’s first commercial railroad opened for business in 1830, in Britain. By 1850, Western nations were criss-crossed by almost 25,000 miles of railroads – but in the whole of Asia, Africa and Latin America there were only 2,500 miles of tracks. In 1880, the West boasted more than 220,000 miles of railroads, whereas in the rest of the world there were but 22,000 miles of train lines (and most of these were laid by the British in India).5 The first railroad in China opened only in 1876. It was 15 miles long and built by Europeans – the Chinese government destroyed it the following year. In 1880 the Chinese Empire did not operate a single railroad. The first railroad in Persia was built only in 1888, and it connected Tehran with a Muslim holy site about 6 miles south of the capital. It was constructed and operated by a Belgian company. In 1950, the total railway network of Persia still amounted to a meagre 1,500 miles, in a country seven times the size of Britain.
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
Heart disease is the Jeffrey Dahmer of modern ailments. It kills more than 25 percent of us. That’s one person in the United States dying of it every 37 seconds. Expanding fitness just a bit—the equivalent of a person improving their max running speed from five to six miles an hour—reduces the risk of heart disease by 30 percent, according to the American Heart Association. Next is cancer. It kills 22.8 percent of us. The most fit people face a 45 percent lower risk of dying from the disease, according to a study in the Annals of Oncology. Then we have accidents. They take 6.8 percent of us. If a person is in a serious car accident, being in shape drops their chances of dying by 80 percent, according to a study in the Emergency Medical Journal. If the docs have to operate—regardless of whether it’s an emergency or a planned surgery—fitter people also face fewer surgical complications and recover faster than unfit people, say scientists in Brazil.
Michael Easter (The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self)
The volume usually chosen is that occupied by a mole of the gas (its molecular weight in grams), which is 22.4 liters at standard temperature and pressure. The number of molecules under such conditions later became known as Avogadro’s number. Determining it precisely was, and still is, rather difficult. A current estimate is approximately 6.02214 × 1023. (This is a big number: that many unpopped popcorn kernels when spread across the United States would cover the country nine miles deep.)29
Walter Isaacson (Einstein: His Life and Universe)
Having seen several hundred lease agreements entered into by people I have counseled, my financial calculator confirms that the average interest rate is 14 percent. Shouldn’t you lease or rent things that go down in value? Not necessarily, and the math doesn’t work on a car, for sure. Follow me through this example: If you rent (lease) a car with a value of $22,000 for three years, and when you turn it in at the end of that three-year lease the car is worth $10,000, someone has to cover the $12,000 loss. You’re not stupid, so you know that General Motors, Ford, or any of the other auto giants aren’t going to put together a plan to lose money. Your fleece/lease payment is designed to cover the loss in value ($12,000 spread over 36 months is equal to $333 per month), plus provide profit (the interest you pay). Where did you get a deal in that? You didn’t! On top of that, there is the charge of 10 to 17 cents per mile for going over the allotted miles and the penalties everyone turning in a lease has experienced for “excessive wear and tear,” which takes into account every little nick, dent, carpet tear, smudge, or smell. You end up writing a large check just to walk away after renting your car. The whole idea of the back-end penalties is twofold: to get you to fleece/lease another one so you can painlessly roll the gotchas into the new lease, and to make sure the car company makes money.
Dave Ramsey (The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness)
The stars of the Milky Way galaxy trace a big, flat circle. With a diameter-to-thickness ratio of one thousand to one, our galaxy is flatter than the flattest flapjacks ever made. In fact, its proportions are better represented by a crépe or a tortilla. No, the Milky Way’s disk is not a sphere, but it probably began as one. We can understand the flatness by assuming the galaxy was once a big, spherical, slowly rotating ball of collapsing gas. During the collapse, the ball spun faster and faster, just as spinning figure skaters do when they draw their arms inward to increase their rotation rate. The galaxy naturally flattened pole-to-pole while the increasing centrifugal forces in the middle prevented collapse at midplane. Yes, if the Pillsbury Doughboy were a figure skater, then fast spins would be a high-risk activity. Any stars that happened to be formed within the Milky Way cloud before the collapse maintained large, plunging orbits. The remaining gas, which easily sticks to itself, like a mid-air collision of two hot marshmallows, got pinned at the mid-plane and is responsible for all subsequent generations of stars, including the Sun. The current Milky Way, which is neither collapsing nor expanding, is a gravitationally mature system where one can think of the orbiting stars above and below the disk as the skeletal remains of the original spherical gas cloud. This general flattening of objects that rotate is why Earth’s pole-to-pole diameter is smaller than its diameter at the equator. Not by much: three-tenths of one percent—about twenty-six miles. But Earth is small, mostly solid, and doesn’t rotate all that fast. At twenty-four hours per day, Earth carries anything on its equator at a mere 1,000 miles per hour. Consider the jumbo, fast-rotating, gaseous planet Saturn. Completing a day in just ten and a half hours, its equator revolves at 22,000 miles per hour and its pole-to-pole dimension is a full ten percent flatter than its middle, a difference noticeable even through a small amateur telescope. Flattened spheres are more generally called oblate spheroids, while spheres that are elongated pole-to-pole are called prolate. In everyday life, hamburgers and hot dogs make excellent (although somewhat extreme) examples of each shape. I don’t know about you, but the planet Saturn pops into my mind with every bite of a hamburger I take.
Neil deGrasse Tyson (Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (Astrophysics for People in a Hurry Series))
crear un mercado de órganos humanos completo con «granjas de cuerpos» humanos en países subdesarrollados y una demanda casi insaciable de compradores ricos y desesperados. Tales granjas de cuerpos bien pudieran valer cientos de miles de millones de dólares. Pero las leyes han impedido el libre comercio de partes del cuerpo humano, y aunque existe un mercado negro de dichos órganos, es mucho menor y se halla más circunscrito de lo que cabría esperar.[22] Reducir el ritmo del cambio quizá nos proporcionaría tiempo para crear suficientes puestos de trabajo que sustituyeran a la mayoría de los que se perderán. Pero, como se ha dicho, el espíritu emprendedor económico tendrá que ir acompañado de una revolución en la educación y la psicología. Suponiendo que los nuevos empleos no sean solo sinecuras
Yuval Noah Harari (21 lecciones para el siglo XXI (Spanish Edition))
Instead it was an undergraduate named Charley Kline, under the eye of Crocker and Cerf, who put on a telephone headset to coordinate with a researcher at SRI while typing in a login sequence that he hoped would allow his terminal at UCLA to connect through the network to the computer 354 miles away in Palo Alto. He typed in “L.” The guy at SRI told him that it had been received. Then he typed in “O.” That, too, was confirmed. When he typed in “G,” the system hit a memory snag because of an auto-complete feature and crashed. Nevertheless, the first message had been sent across the ARPANET, and if it wasn’t as eloquent as “The Eagle has landed” or “What has God wrought,” it was suitable in its understated way: “Lo.” As in “Lo and behold.” In his logbook, Kline recorded, in a memorably minimalist notation, “22:30. Talked to SRI Host to Host. CSK.”101
Walter Isaacson (The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution)
By the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Eisenhower’s test ban had failed, and the United States and the Soviet Union had both returned to nuclear weapons testing. Twice during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, on October 20 and October 26, 1962, the United States detonated two nuclear weapons—code-named Checkmate and Bluegill Triple Prime—in space. These tests, which sought to advance knowledge in ARPA’s pursuit of the Christofilos effect, are on the record and are known. What is not known outside Defense Department circles is that in response, on October 22 and October 28, 1962, the Soviets also detonated two nuclear weapons in space, also in pursuit of the Christofilos effect. In recently declassified film footage of an emergency meeting at the White House, Secretary of Defense McNamara can be heard discussing one of these two Soviet nuclear bomb tests with the president and his closest advisors. “The Soviets fired three eleven-hundred-mile missiles yesterday at Kapustin Yar,
Annie Jacobsen (The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency)
On May 21, 1941, Camp de Schirmeck, Natzweiler-Struthof, located 31 miles southwest of Strasbourg in the Vosges Mountains, was opened as the only Nazi Concentration Camp established on present day French territory. Intended to be a transit labor camp it held about 52,000 detainees during the three and a half years of its existence. It is estimated that about 22,000 people died of malnutrition and exertion while at the concentration camp during those years. Natzweiler-Struthof was the location of the infamous Jewish skeleton collection used in the documentary movie “Le nom des 86” made from data provided by the notorious Hauptsturmführer August Hirt. On November 23, 1944, the camp was liberated by the French First Army under the command of the U.S. Sixth Army Group. It is presently preserved as a museum. Boris Pahor, the noted author was interned in Natzweiler-Struthof for having been a Slovene Partisan, and wrote his novel “Necropolis,” named for a large, ancient Greek cemetery. His story is based on his Holocaust experiences while incarcerated at Camp de Schirmeck.
Hank Bracker
Many potential readers will skip the shopping cart or cash-out clerk because they have seen so many disasters reported in the news that they’ve acquired a panic mentality when they think of them. “Disasters scare me to death!” they cry. “I don’t want to read about them!” But really, how can a picture hurt you? Better that each serve as a Hallmark card that greets your fitful fevers with reason and uncurtains your valor. Then, so gospeled, you may see that defeating a disaster is as innocently easy as deciding to go out to dinner. Remove the dread that bars your doors of perception, and you will enjoy a banquet of treats that will make the difference between suffering and safety. You will enter a brave new world that will erase your panic, and release you from the grip of terror, and relieve you of the deadening effects of indifference —and you will find that switch of initiative that will energize your intelligence, empower your imagination, and rouse your sense of vigilance in ways that will tilt the odds of danger from being forever against you to being always in your favor. Indeed, just thinking about a disaster is one of the best things you can do —because it allows you to imagine how you would respond in a way that is free of pain and destruction. Another reason why disasters seem so scary is that many victims tend to see them as a whole rather than divide them into much smaller and more manageable problems. A disaster can seem overwhelming when confronted with everything at once —but if you dice it into its tiny parts and knock them off one at a time, the whole thing can seem as easy as eating a lavish dinner one bite at a time. In a disaster you must also plan for disruption as well as destruction. Death and damage may make the news, but in almost every disaster far more lives are disrupted than destroyed. Wit­ness the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011 and killed 158 people. The path of death and destruction was less than a mile wide and only 22 miles long —but within thirty miles 160,000 citizens whose property didn’t suffer a dime of damage were profoundly disrupted by the carnage, loss of power and water, suspension of civic services, and inability to buy food, gas, and other necessities. You may rightfully believe your chances of dying in a disaster in your lifetime may be nearly nil, but the chances of your life being disrupted by a disaster in the next decade is nearly a sure thing. Not only should you prepare for disasters, you should learn to premeditate them. Prepare concerns the body; premeditate concerns the mind. Everywhere you go, think what could happen and how you might/could/would/should respond. Use your imagination. Fill your brain with these visualizations —run mind-movies in your head —develop a repertoire —until when you walk into a building/room/situation you’ll automatically know what to do. If a disaster does ambush you —sure you’re apt to panic, but in seconds your memory will load the proper video into your mobile disk drive and you’ll feel like you’re watching a scary movie for the second time and you’ll know what to expect and how to react. That’s why this book is important: its manner of vivifying disasters kickstarts and streamlines your acquiring these premeditations, which lays the foundation for satisfying your needs when a disaster catches you by surprise.
Robert Brown Butler (Architecture Laid Bare!: In Shades of Green)
At the end of the oak-lined avenue, the girls came to a weather-stained loggia of stone. Its four handsomely carved pillars rose to support a balcony over which vines trailed. Steps led to the upper part. After mounting to the balcony, Nancy and her friends obtained a fine view of the nearby gardens. They had been laid out in formal sections, each one bounded by a stone wall or an un-trimmed hedge. Here and there were small circular pools, now heavy with lichens and moss, and fountains with leaf-filled basins. Over the treetops, about half a mile away, the girls could see two stone towers. “That’s the castle,” said George. Amid the wild growth, Nancy spotted a bridge. “Let’s go that way,” she suggested, starting down from the balcony. In a few minutes the trio had crossed the rickety wooden span. Before them lay a slippery moss-grown path. “The Haunted Walk,” Nancy read aloud the name on a rustic sign. “Why not try another approach?” Bess said with a shiver. “This garden looks spooky enough without deliberately inviting a meeting with ghosts!” “Oh, come on!” Nancy laughed, taking her friend firmly by the arm. “It’s only a name. Besides, the walk may lead to something interesting.
Carolyn Keene (The Clue in the Crumbling Wall (Nancy Drew, #22))
Before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the very word conspiracy was seldom used by most Americans. The JFK assassination was the seminal national event in the lives of the Baby Boomer generation. We’ve heard all the clichés about the loss of our innocence, and the beginning of public distrust in our government’s leaders, being born with the events of November 22, 1963, but there’s a good deal of truth in that. President Kennedy tapped into our innate idealism and inspired a great many people, especially the young, like no president ever had before. John F. Kennedy was vastly different from most of our elected presidents. He was the first president to refuse a salary. He never attended a Bilderberg meeting. He was the first Catholic to sit in the Oval Office, and he almost certainly wasn’t related to numerous other presidents and/or the royal family of England, as is often the case. He was a genuine war hero, having tugged an injured man more than three miles using only a life preserver’s strap between his teeth, after the Japanese had destroyed the boat he commanded, PT-109. This selfless act seems even more courageous when one takes into account Kennedy’s recurring health problems and chronic bad back. He was an intellectual and an accomplished author who wrote many of his memorable speeches. He would never have been invited to dance naked with other powerful men and worship a giant owl, as so many of our leaders do every summer at Bohemian Grove in California.
Donald Jeffries (Hidden History: An Exposé of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics)
On the evening of Wednesday, June 22, 1955, there was an official re-election ceremony being held on the open porch behind the Executive Mansion. As usual it was hot and steamy in Monrovia and without air-conditioning the country’s President and several members of his administration were taking in the cooler, but still damp, night air. Without warning, several shots were fired in the direction of the President. In the dark all that could be seen were the bright flashes from a pistol. Two men, William Hutchins, a guard, and Daniel Derrick, a member of the national legislature, fell wounded, but fortunately President Tubman had escaped harm and was hurried back into the building. In the dark no one was certain, but Paul Dunbar was apparently seen by someone in the garden behind the mansion. James Bestman, a presidential security agent, subdued and apprehended the alleged shooter in the Executive Pavilion, best known for its concrete painted animals. It was said that Bestman had used his .38 caliber “Smith and Wesson,” revolver. Members of the opposition party were accused of participating in the assassination plot and a dragnet was immediately cast to round up the alleged perpetrators. It didn’t take long before the son of former President William Coleman, Samuel David Coleman, was indicted, as was his son John. The following day, warrants for the arrest of Former President Barclay, and others in opposition to Tubman, were also issued for allegedly being accomplices. Coleman and his son fled to Clay-Ashland, a township 15 miles north of Monrovia in the St. Paul River District of Montserrado County. Photo Caption: The (former) Liberian Executive Mansion.
Hank Bracker
We had little money but didn’t think of ourselves as poor. Our vision, if I can call it that, was not materialistic. If we had a concept about ourselves, it was egalitarian, although we would not have known what that word meant. We spoke French entirely. There was a bond between Cajuns and people of color. Cajuns didn’t travel, because they believed they lived in the best place on earth. But somehow the worst in us, or outside of us, asserted itself and prevailed and replaced everything that was good in our lives. We traded away our language, our customs, our stands of cypress, our sugarcane acreage, our identity, and our pride. Outsiders ridiculed us and thought us stupid; teachers forbade our children to speak French on the school grounds. Our barrier islands were dredged to extinction. Our coastline was cut with eight thousand miles of industrial channels, destroying the root systems of the sawgrass and the swamps. The bottom of the state continues to wash away in the flume of the Mississippi at a rate of sixteen square miles a year. Much of this we did to ourselves in the same way that a drunk like me will destroy a gift, one that is irreplaceable and extended by a divine hand. Our roadsides are littered with trash, our rain ditches layered with it, our waterways dumping grounds for automobile tires and couches and building material. While we trivialize the implications of our drive-through daiquiri windows and the seediness of our politicians and recite our self-congratulatory mantra, laissez les bons temps rouler, the southern rim of the state hovers on the edge of oblivion, a diminishing, heartbreaking strip of green lace that eventually will be available only in photographs.
James Lee Burke (The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux #22))
LIMPIEZA ÉTNICA Para entonces, las matanzas ya habían comenzado. Mile Budak, ministro de Educación del gobierno croata, declaraba en Gospic el 22 de julio de 1941: Las bases del movimiento ustasha son la religión. Para las minorías, como los serbios, judíos y gitanos, tenemos tres millones de balas. Mataremos a un tercio de la población serbia, deportaremos a otro tercio, y al resto lo convertiremos a la fe católica para que, de esta forma, queden asimilados a los croatas. Así destruiremos hasta el último rastro suyo, y todo lo que quede será una memoria aciaga de ellos…
Anonymous
policemen and five civilians on Monday. The officer says the explosion also wounded 22 people. The town of Suwayrah is located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Baghdad. A medical official confirmed the causality figures. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information. Iraq is undergoing a surge in attacks since last year, with violence reaching levels unseen since 2008. It has become the Shiite-led government's most serious challenge as the nation prepares to hold parliamentary elections. Posted: Apr 21 6:31 am
Anonymous
Another reason why disasters seem so scary is that many victims tend to see them as a whole rather than divide them into much smaller and more manageable problems. A disaster can seem overwhelming when confronted with everything at once —but if you dice it into its tiny parts and knock them off one at a time, the whole thing can seem as easy as eating a lavish dinner one bite at a time. In a disaster you must also plan for disruption as well as destruction. Death and damage may make the news, but in almost every disaster far more lives are disrupted than destroyed. Wit­ness the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011 and killed 158 people. The path of death and destruction was less than a mile wide and only 22 miles long —but within thirty miles 160,000 citizens whose property didn’t suffer a dime of damage were profoundly disrupted by the carnage, loss of power and water, suspension of civic services, and inability to buy food, gas, and other necessities. You may rightfully believe your chances of dying in a disaster in your lifetime may be nearly nil, but the chances of your life being disrupted by a disaster in the next decade is nearly a sure thing. Not only should you prepare for disasters, you should learn to premeditate them. Prepare concerns the body; premeditate concerns the mind. Everywhere you go, think what could happen and how you might/could/would/should respond. Use your imagination. Fill your brain with these visualizations —run mind-movies in your head —develop a repertoire —until when you walk into a building/room/situation you’ll automatically know what to do. If a disaster does ambush you —sure you’re apt to panic, but in seconds your memory will load the proper video into your mobile disk drive and you’ll feel like you’re watching a scary movie for the second time and you’ll know what to expect and how to react. That’s why this book is important: its manner of vivifying disasters kickstarts and streamlines your acquiring these premeditations, which lays the foundation for satisfying your needs when a disaster catches you by surprise.
Robert Brown Butler (Architecture Laid Bare!: In Shades of Green)
They drove within half a mile of the road block they planned to take out. One thing they didn’t have was any suppressed weapons save Rayland’s old Ruger pistol so they had brought 22 rifles loaded with HP ammo and small plastic pop bottles tapped on the muzzles.
T.J. Reeder (The Valley: Book 1)
Sometime around mid-August, the ship’s carpenter, Richard Frobisher—described by Strachey as “a painful and well-experienced shipwright and skillful workman”—set about making the ship’s boat ready for a sea voyage.22 Using hatches salvaged from the wreck, he built a deck and made the longboat “so close that no water could go in her.”23 He fitted the little vessel with sails and checked its caulking and made the boat—probably about twenty-four feet in length and unballasted—as ready as he could for a voyage across almost six hundred miles of dangerous, open ocean.
Kieran Doherty (Sea Venture: Shipwreck, Survival, and the Salvation of Jamestown)
When Boeing prepared to launch the design of the 727 passenger plane in the 1960s, its managers set a goal that was deliberately concrete: The 727 must seat 131 passengers,8 fly nonstop from Miami to New York City, and land on Runway 4-22 at La Guardia. (The 4-22 runway was chosen for its length—less than a mile, which was much too short for any of the existing passenger jets.) With a goal this concrete, Boeing effectively coordinated the actions of thousands of experts in various aspects of engineering or manufacturing. Imagine how much harder it would have been to build a 727 whose goal was to be “the best passenger plane in the world.
Chip Heath (Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck)
Not Exactly Speeding A cop was watching the traffic on Highway 22 when he saw a car puttering along at way below the speed limit. “Well,” he said, “they’re not exactly speeding, but driving that slow is just as dangerous.” So he turned on the flashing lights and pulled the car over. Inside were five little old ladies, two in front and three in the back. All of them looked scared and shaken up. After getting the license and registration of the driver, the police officer explained that while they certainly weren’t speeding, it was also dangerous for them to drive a lot slower than the speed limit and he had to write them a ticket for that. “Slower than the speed limit?” the driver asked. “Officer, I don’t understand. We were going exactly the speed limit – twenty-two miles an hour.” The officer suppressed a laugh at their expense and explained politely that twenty-two was the route number, not the speed limit, and the speed limit was actually sixty-five. The driver seemed to understand and promised to do better in the future, and the police officer decided to let them off with a warning. As they were about to drive away, he asked, “Ma’am, are all of you ladies all right?” because they seemed so frightened and shaken. “Oh, we’ll be fine in a few minutes, officer, don’t worry,” the driver said. “We just got off of Highway 118.
Ronald T. Boggs (The Funniest Joke Book! Best Collection Of Jokes In The Kindle Library!)
Juan Fernandez islands.” Cochrane drew on the cigar and watched its smoke drift out the window. “The islands are three hundred fifty miles off the coast, in the middle of nothing! They’re where Robinson Crusoe was marooned, or rather where Alexander Selkirk, who was the original of Crusoe, spent four not uncomfortable years.
Bernard Cornwell (Sharpe's Devil (Sharpe, #22))
One report described how on June 22, 1998, forty Chechens were quietly brought to a secret military camp located seventy-five miles southeast of Riyadh. Over the next four months, they were trained in explosives, hand-to-hand combat, and small weapons. A lot of time was set aside for indoctrination into Wahhabi Islam. Salman, the governor of Riyadh and the full brother of King Fahd, was the camp’s sponsor.
Robert B. Baer (Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude)
I followed them out. The street at the end of the walk was jammed with media people and broadcast vans and uniformed cops trying to clear a path. Hernandez and Flutey flanked Jonathan and we crossed under the tape, and the media people surged around us, pushing their cameras and microphones at Jonathan and shouting their questions. There were so many broadcast vans that it looked as if we were in a forest of transmitters, each spindly stack pointing at the same invisible satellite 22,500 miles above in geosynchronous orbit, like so many coyotes crying at the moon. I said, “This is nuts.
Robert Crais (Sunset Express (Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, #6))
Some additional stats: according to Tesla, the upgraded S will be able to run the quarter mile in 10.9 seconds and reach 155 mph in 22% less time. Ludicrous Mode will also be available on the upcoming Model X crossover SUV. Musk estimates the Ludicrous Mode-equipped Model X cars to be able to hit 60 mph in 3.2 seconds.
Wiroon Tanthapanichakoon (Elon Musk: 2nd Edition - A Billionaire Entrepreneur Changing the World Future with SpaceX, Tesla Motors, Solar City, and Hyperloop)
NASA was concerned with the newly discovered twenty-five million ton, 820 foot wide asteroid called Apophis, which is on a course likely passing dangerously close (within 22,000 miles) to the Earth on April 13, 2029 and April 13, 2036.55 Apophis was the ancient Egyptian god of destruction.
Jeffrey Goodman (THE COMETS OF GOD- New Scientific Evidence for God: Recent archeological, geological and astronomical discoveries that shine new light on the Bible and its prophecies)
Jerusalem, the rebuilt city in Israel, on earth, during the Millennium, should not be confused with the heavenly city known as “New Jerusalem,” referred to in the New Testament, (Hebrews 11:16, 12:18–29, Revelation 21–22) which seems to take the form of a great orbiting or stationary satellite above the earth. This vast city whose dimensions are of the order of 1500 miles on a side, may be connected to the millennial temple by a space-time gate way. The New Jerusalem does not include a temple (Revelation 21:22, 23)—“The Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb, are its temple.” During the millennial kingdom sin will continue to exist on the earth, but all
Thomas Horn (The Rabbis, Donald Trump, and the Top-Secret Plan to Build the Third Temple: : Unveiling the Incendiary Scheme by Religious Authorities, Government Agents, and Jewish Rabbis to Invoke Messiah)
Chislehurst Caves are actually mines which were first excavated in the 13th century to mine chalk and flint. Mining finally ended in the 1830s and left a network of tunnels beneath suburban south-east London covering 22 miles. The caves were used to store ammunition during the First World War and became an underground city during the Second World War when thousands of families slept there to escape the bombs. During this time the caves accommodated 15,000 people and had a cinema, three canteens, a barber, a hospital and a chapel.
Emily Organ (The Bermondsey Poisoner (Penny Green, #6))
Por ejemplo, hay gente que otorga tanto valor al hecho de ver a su equipo en directo, que está dispuesta a pagar miles de euros por mirar a 22 personas detrás de un balón; sin embargo, hay otros que no le damos tanto valor a ese momento y no pagamos más de 40 euros por 90 minutos de ocio.
Carlos Luna Calvo (Sé más persuasivo)
The distance record holder was the black and white Arctic tern, with its 22,000-mile yearly journey between polar ice caps, but in fall 2006, a team of researchers published news of sooty shearwaters captured in their New Zealand breeding burrows and outfitted with satellite tracking devices. Flying in a giant figure eight over the Pacific basin, they journey 39,000 miles a year. (The birds can also dive beneath the ocean’s surface, searching for squid, to 225 feet.) In 2007, an even more astonishing record was established by a bar-tailed godwit. Satellite tracking allowed researchers to follow a female shorebird who flew 7,145 miles nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand. In nine days, she crossed the vast Pacific, without a single meal, rest, or drink.
Sy Montgomery (Birdology: Adventures with a Pack of Hens, a Peck of Pigeons, Cantankerous Crows, Fierce Falcons, Hip Hop Parrots, Baby Hummingbirds, and One Murderously Big Living Dinosaur)
[At Gunung Padang] First, the drill cores contained evidence--fragments of worked columnar basalt--that more man-made megalithic structures lay far beneath the surface. Secondly, the organic materials brought up in the drill cores began to yield older and older dates--3000 BC to 5000 BC, then 9600 BC as the drills bit deeper, then around 11,000 BC, then 15,000 BC and finally, at depths of 27.5 meters (90 feet) and more, an astonishing sequence of dates of 20,000 BC to 22,000 BC and earlier. [...] The problem is that those dates going back before 9600 BC take us deep into the last Ice Age, when Indonesia was not a series of islands as it is today but was part of a vast antediluvian Southeast Asian continent dubbed "Sundaland" by geologists. Sea level was 122 meters (400 feet) lower then. Huge ice caps 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) deep covered most of Europe and North America until the ice caps began to melt. Then all the water stored in them returned to the oceans and sea-level rose, submerging many parts of the world where humans had previously lived.
Graham Hancock (Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilization)
If we take ocean basins and bring them up and take mountain ranges and continents and bring them down to a level position, there is enough water to cover the earth 1.6 miles deep (2.57 km deep), so there is plenty of water on the earth for a global Flood. Yet there was only the need for the highest underwater peak during the Flood to be covered by 15 cubits (22.5 feet or ~6.8 meters based on the small cubit to 25.5 feet or ~7.8 meters based on the long cubit) per Genesis 7:20.
Ken Ham (A Flood of Evidence: 40 Reasons Noah and the Ark Still Matter)
The weapon was one of the variants of the standard SAS sniper rifle, the British-made Accuracy International PM — Precision Marksman — or L96A1. Designed for covert operations, the rifle Dekker had chosen was the AWS, or Arctic Warfare Suppressed, model. The name was a hangover from the days when the manufacturer produced a modified version for the Swedish armed forces, a move which spawned several different models generically known as the AW range. The stainless-steel barrel was fitted with an integrated suppressor which reduced the sound of a shot to about that of a standard .22 rifle. It was a comparatively short-range weapon, because of the subsonic ammunition, effective only to about three hundred yards in contrast to other versions and calibres of the rifle, some of which were accurate at up to a mile. Both the stock, its green polymer side panels already attached, and the barrel were a tight fit in the case, each lying diagonally across its interior. He pulled them both out, fitted and secured the barrel, and lowered the bipod legs mounted at the fore-end of the machined-aluminium chassis to support it, while he completed the assembly. Then he took a five-round magazine out of the recess in the briefcase, along with an oblong cardboard box containing twenty rounds of 7.62 x 51-millimetre rifle ammunition.
James Barrington (Manhunt (Paul Richter, #6))
The largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons on Mars, is about 300,000 square kilometers in area and about 22 kilometers (14 miles) tall.
Chip Heath (Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers)
Yet many were banished upon the result of the synod of 1637, and the Baptist meeting-house in Boston was nailed up, after the synod of 1679. Yea, and he was now earnest to have Congregational ministers supported by taxes imposed “in the king’s name.” He approved of the practice of some towns, who involved the salary for ministers in a general town tax; [Ibid. p. 21, 22] and there never was any law made here to exempt the Baptists from taxes to Congregational ministers, until after Dr. Mather died, February 13, 1728, aged 65. But in May following, an act was made to exempt the persons of Baptists and Quakers from such taxes, if they lived within five miles of their respective meetings, and usually attended worship there on Lord’s-days; of which they must give an account to their county courts in June annually, upon oath or affirmation, after which the clerk of each court was to give a list of their names to the assessors of each town or precinct.
Isaac Backus (Your Baptist Heritage: 1620-1804)
I say you are reading to slow. You need to read at least 93.5 mph. According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Around 2.2 million new titles are published worldwide each year. If a book is in average 250 pages. Or 3 cm. That is 66 km of books every year. Or just 180 meters of books every day. If you can spend 4h/day to read you just need to read 45 meters of books an hour or 1500 bph (Books Per Hour). You are probably reading at 0.025-0.1 books per hour. But if you practice, you might have a chance? If each book contains 250 pages. And each page is on average 20 cm tall. And you can spend 4h on average each day reading. That means you have to read text at a speed of 187.5 km/h to keep up. However that is probably a bit too fast, since there is usually some white space on each page of a book so lets round it down to 150km/h. According to Stephen Hawking “if you stacked the new books being published next to each other, at the present rate of production you would have to move at ninety miles an hour just to keep up with the end of the line.” 90mph equals 144.841 km/h. I say, Stephen Hawking was a bit too generous. I calculated the reading speed needed on my own and came to the same approximately the same conclusion as Hawking. Yes I know. Great minds think a like, but since I think my calculation was a bit better. It must mean I'm a bit smarter than him, right? Not that I would want to flatter myself, just a little bit smarter is enough. Now I just need to study physics so I can solve how we may travel back in time to keep up reading all the books or make an alternative world with less authors so we can keep up reading. If you like me, think this situation is unacceptable. You too may sign my petition to forbid anyone from writing more than one book of 250 pages in their entire life for the next 2000-10.000 years. So we can catch up with reading all those books. You will have to excuse me but I tried to set my goal of reading 2.3 million books next year here on goodreads. But it only allowed to set the counter to 99 thousand so unfortunately it will have to wait until they fix this. I suspect the limit is there by intent. Since if everyone read all the books published each year and a few millions more, goodreads would not be needed. Their business model is based on you not reading 150kmbookpages/h. I have contacted customer support, unfortunately they did not take my suggestion seriously, if you could please help me and also email them then hopefully they will come to their senses and fix this once they see there is a demand. (Don't do this, it's just a joke.) In the meantime I will just go back to reading 10-20 books a year.
myself and Stephen Hawking?
After re-entering the forest, the trail begins a steady climb, reaching a bench at an overlook at mile 20.4 (9,778). Cross a jeep road at mile 21.2 (9,863). There are several potential campsites in this area. Walk over a footbridge at Fiddler Creek, mile 21.7 (9,967), then continue south until reaching US Hwy 24 at mile 22.1 (9,966). Cross the highway, then a set of railroad tracks, followed by footbridges over three small creeks. After leaving the swampy area, the CT turns to the southwest and follows Mitchell Creek in a wide grassy meadow, which features several potential campsites. At mile 23.6 (10,180), the trail turns east and begins following an old railroad grade. After bending to the south, the trail crosses a footbridge over a seasonally wet area and a railroad bridge before reaching the remains of old coke ovens at mile 25.2 (10,382). Reach the parking area for Tennessee Pass and US Hwy 24 at mile 25.4 (10,424). Camping is allowed more than 100 feet from the trail and parking lot. This is the end of Segment 8.
Colorado Trail Foundation (The Colorado Trail)
heresy. Jesus is God, and He created the material universe. By studying the creation, one can gain a glimpse of the power, knowledge, and wisdom of the Creator. The sheer size of the universe is staggering. The sun, for example, has a diameter of 864,000 miles (one hundred times that of earth’s) and could hold 1.3 million planets the size of earth inside it. The star Betelgeuse, however, has a diameter of 100 million miles, which is larger than the earth’s orbit around the sun. It takes sunlight, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, about 8.5 minutes to reach earth. Yet that same light would take more than four years to reach the
John F. MacArthur Jr. (Colossians and Philemon MacArthur New Testament Commentary (MacArthur New Testament Commentary Series Book 22))
nearest star, Alpha Centauri, some 24 trillion miles from earth. The galaxy to which our sun belongs, the Milky Way, contains hundreds of billions of stars. And astronomers estimate there are millions, or even billions of galaxies. What they can see leads them to estimate the number of stars in the universe at 1025. That is roughly the number of all the grains of sand on all the world’s beaches. The universe also bears witness to the tremendous wisdom and knowledge of its Creator. Scientists now speak of the Anthropic Principle, “which states that the universe appears to be carefully designed for the well-being of
John F. MacArthur Jr. (Colossians and Philemon MacArthur New Testament Commentary (MacArthur New Testament Commentary Series Book 22))
Among the companies vying to control space communications, one possibility was to launch several satellites that circled the earth at about 22,300 miles, which was the height at which their orbits would keep pace with the earth’s rotation. Such “geostationary” satellites would stay fixed in the sky above a particular point on earth, and could theoretically be available for transmission at any time.
Jon Gertner (The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation)
Miles didn’t move. This wasn’t part of the plan. “What is it?” said Barkin. “The plans to your next big prank?” Miles tried to look calm. “No,” said Miles. “Principal Barkin,” said Niles, “it’s just a party invitation!” “A party invitation?” Principal Barkin’s nostrils flared. Niles put his hand over his mouth and directed a loud whisper toward Miles. “It’s fine. Show it to him.” Miles had no choice now. He gave up the invitation. Principal Barkin slowly put on a pair of reading glasses and peered at the paper. “Interesting. Very interesting. Cody Burr-Tyler, eh?” He snapped his gaze back to Miles. “Well, well, well,” he said. “Well, well, well.” Barkin folded the invitation and put it in his shirt pocket. “Well.” “Well?” said Miles. Principal Barkin stared at Miles for four whole seconds. Then he pointed to a sign on the wall. Miles exhaled. He turned, feeling flustered, and walked down the hallway in the wrong direction. Niles called after him. “No, it’s this way, Miles! We need to go this way!” Miles turned around and followed Niles toward Room 22. “Miles!” Principal Barkin shouted after him. “Remember: I’m on to you.” Barkin pointed at another sign on the wall. This sign hadn’t been there
Mac Barnett (The Terrible Two)
Al final, fue por culpa de esa incomprensión del marxismo que muchos de ellos alcanzaron a ver cómo desaparecía la Unión Soviética y cómo Cuba se sumía en la más humillante pobreza. De triunfo en triunfo, y de década en década, esos viejos comunistas lograron destruir los sueños de ellos mismos y de la revolución cubana: el democrático en el año 1960, el económico en 1970, el social en 1980 y el ideológico en 1990. Al final dejaron un país devastado. Cuba pasó del monocultivo al cero-cultivo, de protestar por los intereses de los préstamos bancarios a vivir de las remesas, de luchar contra la prostitución a tener que aceptar el jineterismo, de una balanza migratoria positiva a miles de ahogados en el Estrecho de la Florida, de una pirámide poblacional sana a un país envejecido y con cada vez menos ciudadanos en edad productiva, de una patria unida bajo un mismo cielo a una diáspora de refugiados en las cuatro esquinas del mundo. Todo eso sucedió mientras la propaganda repetía, hasta el hastío, que la familia era la célula fundamental de la sociedad. Hoy, aunque pocos estén dispuestos a aceptarlo, o muchos se refugien en el consuelo de negarlo, es difícil encontrar a un cubano que no sea parte de una familia destrozada. Montreal, 22 de diciembre de 2016
Cesar Reynel Aguilera (El soviet caribeño: La otra historia de la revolución cubana)
was amazing how human traits and affairs could so reliably and continuously be guided by a succession of big balls of plasma billions of miles away, most of whom have never even heard of humanity.
Terry Pratchett (The Last Continent (Discworld, #22))
Practice & Ash 2. Scales of the Malefic Viper 3. Lucenti Plains 4. Pondering on Ponds 5. Introspection 6. Intermission 1 – Viridia (1/2) 7. Intermission 1 – The Malefic Viper (2/2) 8. Moment of Curiosity 9. Cleaning Up the Plains 10. The Great White Stag 11. No Rest for the Wicked 12. Loot & Healing 13. True Protagonist 14. Into the Dark 15. The Right Way 16. Dark Mana & Dark Tunnels 17. Many Rats! Handle it! 18. Dark Attunement 19. Nest Watcher 20. A Final Gift 21. Willful Ignorance 22. The Balance Broken 23. Beers & Exposition 24. Of Fate & Destiny 25. William & Jake 26. Spring Cleaning = Loot 3.0 27. Valley of Tusks 28. Going with the Flow 29. The Right Way Forward 30. Mana 101 31. A Thoughtful Touch 32. Pigs for Slaughter 33. Limit Break 34. Falling Rocks 35. Horde Leader 36. Next Target: King of the Forest 37. King 38. Eclipse 39. Fall 40. When the Curtains Fall 41. Tutorial Rewards: Titles & Math 42. Tutorial Rewards: Narrowing Down Options 43. Tutorial Rewards: Getting Stuff 44. Intermission 2 - Life after Death (Casper) 45. Records 46. A Godlike Getaway 47. Danger Bath 48. Second Part? 49. Embracing Power 50. Defiance & Gains 51. You know, I'm something of a sage myself 52. Homecoming 53. Intermission 3 - Carmen 54. Intermission 4 - Noboru Miyamoto 55. Intermission 5 - Eron 56. The Blue Marble 57. One Step Mile 58. Pylon of Civilization 59. Intermission 6 - Matteo (1/2) 60. Intermission 6 - Matteo (2/2) 61. The Times They Are A-Changin' 62. Monsters 63. Living with the Consequences 64. Points of View 65. Going Down 66. Two Kinds of People 67. Big Blue Mushroom 68. Delegating (avoiding) Responsibilities 69. Construction Plans 70. First World Problems 71. How to Train Your Dragon Wings 72. Freedom
Zogarth (The Primal Hunter 2 (The Primal Hunter, #2))
Because of this, the moon is sometimes closer to the earth, exerting more gravitational influence, and sometimes farther away, exerting less (see figure above). When the moon is closest, in perigee, it’s 222,000 miles away, and the tidal force is 22 percent greater than average.
Jonathan White (Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean)
On the second day of a Classic at Olympic and World Championship level, the "speed and endurance" test length totaled 22 miles, which included a 2-mile steeplechase, and a 5-mile cross-country phase.
James Wofford (Still Horse Crazy After All These Years: If It Didn't Happen This Way, It Should Have)
Expanding fitness just a bit—the equivalent of a person improving their max running speed from five to six miles an hour—reduces the risk of heart disease by 30 percent, according to the American Heart Association. Next is cancer. It kills 22.8 percent of us. The most fit people face a 45 percent lower risk of dying from the disease, according to a study in the Annals of Oncology. Then we have accidents. They take 6.8 percent of us. If a person is in a serious car accident, being in shape drops their chances of dying by 80 percent, according to a study in the Emergency Medical Journal. If the docs have to operate—regardless of whether it’s an emergency or a planned surgery—fitter people also face fewer surgical complications and recover faster than unfit people, say scientists in Brazil.
Michael Easter (The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self)
then a small stream just above the bottom of the canyon. There are good campsites in this area. Cross the bridge over the Middle Fork of the Swan River and go right for 50 feet on Middle Fork Road at mile 17.1 (10,203). The Colorado Trail diverges left into the woods onto a single-track trail. The trail crosses a small stream and curves right in the next 2 miles. Reach the North Fork of the Swan River and marshy bottom at about mile 19.4, crossing on a raised walkway and bridge, beyond which there is good camping. The trail turns right (east) and then curves left as it follows the perimeter of the camping area. Cross a road at mile 19.7 (9,981). Go right at an intersection at mile 20.1 (10,067). From here, the trail begins to climb out of the drainage. Keystone Ski Resort eventually comes into view along the high point of the ridge to the northeast. Where the trail twice intersects the West Ridge Loop Trail (from Keystone Gulch), first at mile 22.6 (11,114) and then at mile 23.8 (11,022), stay left. After a long descent on a series of switchbacks, the trail intersects Red Trail at mile 26.1 (10,035) and goes to the left again. After dropping into a small valley and passing a power line, take a right at the fork at mile 27.5 (9,973). Cross Horseshoe Gulch at mile 28.8 (9,458) and follow the trail as it heads north with camping 0.2 mile ahead. Intersect and go left at Blair Witch Trail at mile 29.4 (9,458). Intersect and go left at Hippo Trail at mile 29.7 (9,700). Descending with Breckenridge coming in view, at a switchback intersect Campion Trail at mile 31.8 (9,240), and go left. Reach neighborhood and pond at mile 31.9 (9,200). Cross Swan River on a bridge, then cross Revette Drive where one could park for a few hours. At mile 32.5 (9,203), cross CO Hwy 9 adjacent to where the free Summit Stage bus stops. Go right (north) on bike path, cross Blue River on a bridge, and reach Gold Hill Trailhead at mile 32.7 (9,197). Follow the bike path for 0.2 mile until reaching the Gold Hill Trailhead on the left and the end of Segment 6 at mile 32.9 (9,197).
Colorado Trail Foundation (The Colorado Trail)
I walked an increasing number of miles per day. I was flagellating myself, circling the town like an anchorite. At the time I thought I was practicing good health. At the time I didn’t see I was seeking ways to manipulate my body, and the hours my body moved through, as a way to prevent myself from looking at the chaos.
Natalie Eve Garrett (The Lonely Stories: 22 Celebrated Writers on the Joys & Struggles of Being Alone)
As evidence, a Pew Research Center survey, conducted in 2014, gave Americans two options about the places they would choose to reside if they had a choice. They could live in communities with larger houses, but in which schools, stores, and restaurants were miles away. Or they could live in smaller houses, but in neighborhoods in which schools, stores, and restaurants were within walking distance. By a staggering 77 to 21 percent margin, the people Pew defined as “consistent liberals” preferred the latter set of arrangements. By an equally stark 75 to 22 margin, “consistent conservatives,” as identified by Pew, preferred the former.
Marc Hetherington (Prius Or Pickup?: How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America's Great Divide)
Oil Change instructions for Women: 1. Pull up to Dealership when the mileage reaches 5,000 miles since the last oil change. 2. Relax in the waiting room while enjoying a cup of coffee. 3. 15 minutes later, scan debit card and leave, driving a properly maintained vehicle. Money spent: Oil Change:$24.00 Coffee: Complementary TOTAL: $24.00 Oil Change instructions for Men: 1. Wait until Saturday, drive to auto parts store and buy a case of oil, filter, kitty litter, hand cleaner and a scented tree, and use your debit card for $50.00. 2. Stop to buy a case of beer, (debit $24), drive home. 3. Open a beer and drink it. 4. Jack truck up. Spend 30 minutes looking for jack stands. 5. Find jack stands under kid's pedal car. 6.. In frustration, open another beer and drink it. 7. Place drain pan under engine. 8. Look for 9/16 box end wrench. 9. Give up and use crescent wrench. 10. Unscrew drain plug. 11. Drop drain plug in pan of hot oil: splash hot oil on you in process. Cuss. 12. Crawl out from under truck to wipe hot oil off of face and arms. Throw kitty litter on spilled oil. 13. Have another beer while watching oil drain. 14. Spend 30 minutes looking for oil filter wrench. 15. Give up; crawl under truck and hammer a screwdriver through oil filter and twist off. 16. Crawl out from under truck with dripping oil filter splashing oil everywhere from holes. Cleverly hide old oil filter among trash in trash can to avoid environmental penalties. Drink a beer. 17. Install new oil filter making sure to apply a thin coat of oil to gasket surface. 18. Dump first quart of fresh oil into engine. 19. Remember drain plug from step 11. 20. Hurry to find drain plug in drain pan. 21. Drink beer. 22. Discover that first quart of fresh oil is now on the floor. Throw kitty litter on oil spill. 23. Get drain plug back in with only a minor spill. Drink beer. 24. Crawl under truck getting kitty litter into eyes. Wipe eyes with oily rag used to clean drain plug. Slip with stupid crescent wrench tightening drain plug and bang knuckles on frame removing any excess skin between knuckles and frame. 25. Begin cussing fit. 26. Throw stupid crescent wrench. 27. Cuss for additional 5 minutes because wrench hit truck and left dent. 28. Beer. 29. Clean up hands and bandage as required to stop blood flow. 30. Beer. 31. Dump in five fresh quarts of oil. 32. Beer. 33. Lower truck from jack stands. 34. Move truck back to apply more kitty litter to fresh oil spilled during any missed steps. 35. Beer. 36. Test drive truck. 37. Get pulled over: arrested for driving under the influence. 38. Truck gets impounded. 39. Call loving wife, make bail. 40. 12 hours later, get truck from impound yard. Money spent: Parts: $50.00 DUI: $2,500.00 Impound fee: $75.00 Bail: $1,500.00 Beer: $20.00 TOTAL: $4,145.00 But you know the job was done right!
James Hilton
In the third week of April the stalemate on the Western Front was marked by a new and unpleasant phase: one that was intended by the Germans to end the stalemate and lead to victory. It was on April 22 that gas was used for the first time in the First World War. That evening, near Langemarck in the Ypres Salient, the Germans discharged, within five minutes, 168 tons of chlorine from 4,000 cylinders against two French divisions, one Algerian, the other Territorial, and against the adjacent Canadian Division, over a four-mile front.
Martin Gilbert (The First World War: A Complete History)
Much more interesting was what lay further to the south. The next right off the two-lane after Mule Crossing came three miles later. It was a forest service track into a nature preserve labeled Roosevelt National something. It was right at the bottom of the map. Right on the state line. The third word would be on the first Colorado sheet. Forest, presumably. Teddy Roosevelt, Reacher supposed, not Franklin. The great naturalist, except for when he was shooting things like tigers and elephants. People were complicated.
Lee Child (The Midnight Line (Jack Reacher, #22))
All Hadza women dig, but grandmothers dig more than mothers in part because they don’t have to nurse or spend as much time taking care of little ones. According to measurements by Kristen Hawkes and colleagues, a typical Hadza mother forages about four hours a day, but grandmothers forage on average five to six hours a day.18 On some days they dig less and spend more time collecting berries, but overall they work longer hours than mothers do. And just as grandmothers spend about seven hours every day foraging and preparing food, grandfathers continue to hunt and to collect honey and baobab fruits, traveling just as far on most days as younger men do. According to the anthropologist Frank Marlowe, “Old men are the most likely to fall out of tall baobab trees to their deaths, since they continue to try to collect honey into old age.”19 How many elderly Americans dig several hours a day, let alone climb trees and hunt animals on foot? We can, however, compare how much Americans and Hadza walk. A study of thousands found that the average twenty-first-century woman in the United States aged eighteen to forty walks 5,756 steps a day (about two to three miles), but this number declines precipitously with age, and by the time they are in their seventies, American women take roughly half as many steps. While Americans are half as active in their seventies as in their forties, Hadza women walk twice as much per day as Americans, with only modest declines as they age.20 In addition, heart rate monitors showed that elderly Hadza women actually spent more of their day engaged in moderate to vigorous activity than younger women who were still having children.21 Imagine if elderly American women had to walk five miles a day to shop for their children and grandchildren, and instead of pulling items off the shelves, they had to dig for several hours in hard, rocky soil for boxes of cereal, frozen peas, and Fruit Roll-Ups. Not surprisingly, hard work keeps elderly hunter-gatherers fit. One of the most reliable measures of age-related fitness is walking speed—a measure that correlates strongly with life expectancy.22 The average American woman under fifty walks about three feet per second (0.92 meter per second) but slows down considerably to two feet per second (0.67 meter per second) by her sixties.23 Thanks to an active lifestyle without retirement, there is no significant age-related decline in walking speed among Hadza women, whose average pace remains a brisk 3.6 feet per second (1.1 meters per second) well into their seventies.24 Having struggled to keep up with elderly Hadza grandmas, I can attest they maintain a steady clip even when it is blisteringly hot. Older Hadza men also walk briskly.
Daniel E. Lieberman (Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding)
12-13 So they left the mountain called Olives and returned to Jerusalem. It was a little over half a mile. They went to the upper room they had been using as a meeting place:   Peter John James Andrew Philip Thomas Bartholomew Matthew James son of Alphaeus Simon the Zealot Judas, son of James.   14 They agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer, the women included. Also Jesus’ mother, Mary, and his brothers. REPLACING JUDAS 15-17 During this time, Peter stood up in the company—there were about 120 of them in the room at the time—and said, “Friends, long ago the Holy Spirit spoke through David regarding Judas, who became the guide to those who arrested Jesus. That Scripture had to be fulfilled, and now has been. Judas was one of us and had his assigned place in this ministry. 18-20 “As you know, he took the evil bribe money and bought a small farm. There he came to a bad end, rupturing his belly and spilling his guts. Everybody in Jerusalem knows this by now; they call the place Murder Meadow. It’s exactly what we find written in the Psalms:   Let his farm become haunted So no one can ever live there.   “And also what was written later:   Let someone else take over his post.   21-22 “Judas must now be replaced. The replacement must come from the company of men who stayed together with us from the time Jesus was baptized by John up to the day of his ascension, designated along with us as a witness to his resurrection.” 23-26 They nominated two: Joseph Barsabbas, nicknamed Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed, “You, O God, know every one of us inside and out. Make plain which of these two men you choose to take the place in this ministry and leadership that Judas threw away in order to go his own way.” They then drew straws. Matthias won and was counted in with the eleven apostles.
Eugene H. Peterson (The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language--Numbered Edition)
But, in reality, we're all dying. We should remind ourselves of that on a daily basis, appreciate we're still around and try to squeeze as much as possible into what's left.
Steven Primrose-Smith (No Place Like Home, Thank God: A 22,000 Mile Bicycle Ride Around Europe)
The implications of this speech were not long in coming. On 22 September, emulating the brilliant Israeli gambit of the Six Day War in 1967, Iraqi aircraft pounded ten airfields in Iran in an attempt to destroy the Iranian air force on the ground. This failed, but the next day Iraqi forces crossed the border in strength and advanced into Iran in three simultaneous thrusts along a front of some 400 miles (644 km).
Efraim Karsh (The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988 (Essential Histories series Book 20))
Berlin, April 22, 1945. That afternoon, with the Soviet front lines just a few miles away, the Führer held a final conference with his most senior generals. It would be the last time many would see Hitler alive. The news he relayed was, for the first time, stripped of all fantasy and optimism. The Reich was almost at an end. Berlin would be encircled in a matter of hours. Defeat was inevitable. But it was not Hitler's fault. Then began a wild stream of invective and crude abuse. His generals, his people, and his soldiers had failed him.
Alex Kershaw (The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau)
Eventually, at 7:22 A.M. on the morning of May 26, 1998, with tears still pouring down my frozen cheeks, the summit of Mount Everest opened her arms and welcomed me in. As if she now considered me somehow worthy of this place. My pulse raced, and in a haze I found myself suddenly standing on top of the world. Alan embraced me, mumbling excitedly into his mask. Neil was still staggering toward us. As he approached, the wind began to die away. The sun was now rising over the hidden land of Tibet, and the mountains beneath us were bathed in a crimson red. Neil knelt and crossed himself on the summit. Then, together, with our masks of, we hugged as brothers. I got to my feet and began to look around. I swore that I could see halfway around the world. The horizon seemed to bend at the edges. It was the curvature of our earth. Technology can put a man on the moon but not up here. There truly was some magic to this place. The radio suddenly crackled to my left. Neil spoke into it excitedly. “Base camp. We’ve run out of earth.” The voice on the other end exploded with jubilation. Neil passed the radio to me. For weeks I had planned what I would say if I reached the top, but all that just fell apart. I strained into the radio and spoke without thinking. “I just want to get home.” The memory of what went on then begins to fade. We took several photos with both the SAS and the DLE flags flying on the summit, as promised, and I scooped some snow into an empty Juice Plus vitamin bottle I had with me.* It was all I would take with me from the summit. I remember having some vague conversation on the radio--patched through from base camp via a satellite phone--with my family some three thousand miles away: the people who had given me the inspiration to climb. But up there, the time flew by, and like all moments of magic, nothing can last forever. We had to get down. It was already 7:48 A.M. Neil checked my oxygen. “Bear, you’re right down. You better get going, buddy, and fast.” I had just under a fifth of a tank to get me back to the Balcony. I heaved the pack and tank onto my shoulders, fitted my mask, and turned around. The summit was gone. I knew that I would never see it again. *Years later, Shara and I christened our three boys with this snow water from Everest’s summit. Life moments.
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
Run a lot of miles Some faster than your race pace Rest once in a while22
Alex Hutchinson (Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance)
Rincewind had always been happy to think of himself as a racist. The One Hundred Meters, the Mile, the Marathon—he’d run them all. Later, when he’d learned with some surprise what the word actually meant, he’d been equally certain he wasn’t one. He was a person who divided the world quite simply into people who were trying to kill him and people who weren’t. That didn’t leave much room for fine details like what color anyone was. But he’d be sitting by the campfire, trying out a simple conversation, and suddenly people would get upset over nothing at all and drive him off. You didn’t expect people to get nasty just because you’d said something like, “My word, when did it last rain here?” did you?
Terry Pratchett (The Last Continent (Discworld, #22))
miles away, but it was the first stop. There
Lee Child (The Midnight Line (Jack Reacher, #22))
In the meantime, the Germans established numerous bridgeheads on the south bank of the Somme, to be used when the southward advance began. Panzers invested Boulogne on May 22nd, and on May 23rd, the British evacuated their troops at midnight. The French garrison surrendered at noon two days later on May 25th, recognizing their utterly hopeless position. The British government ordered an evacuation of Dunkirk on May 26th, but the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French forces accompanying them could not escape that easily, however. Near catastrophe struck on May 28th when the Belgians surrendered to Germany, opening a colossal gap in the Allied lines. King Leopold III, showing consistency of character at least if not moral courage, informed the British and French of his planned capitulation only hours prior to the actual surrender, leaving them with practically no time to prepare for its disastrous military consequences. The action earned Leopold III such sobriquets as “King Rat” and “the Traitor King,” nicknames he did little to disprove when he evinced more willingness to negotiate with Hitler for restoration of Belgian independence than he had shown in dealing with France and Britain, which sought to defend Belgium's freedom in the first place. British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill blasted the Belgian monarch's abrupt surrender in a detailed speech summarizing the repercussions: “The surrender of the Belgian Army compelled the British at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 miles in length. Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the fate to which King Leopold had condemned the finest army his country had ever formed. So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anyone who followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between the British and two out of the three corps forming the First French Army.” (Churchill, 2013, 174).
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
A smaller, deterrent force could have been kept in place long enough for the sanctions to have had a significant effect; an army of half a million couldn’t. The purpose of the quick military build-up was to ward off the danger that Iraq might be forced out of Kuwait by peaceful means. Why was a diplomatic resolution so unattractive? Within a few weeks after the invasion of Kuwait on August 2, the basic outlines for a possible political settlement were becoming clear. Security Council Resolution 660, calling for Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait, also called for simultaneous negotiations of border issues. By mid-August, the National Security Council considered an Iraqi proposal to withdraw from Kuwait in that context. There appear to have been two issues: first, Iraqi access to the Gulf, which would have entailed a lease or other control over two uninhabited mudflats assigned to Kuwait by Britain in its imperial settlement (which had left Iraq virtually landlocked); second, resolution of a dispute over an oil field that extended two miles into Kuwait over an unsettled border. The US flatly rejected the proposal, or any negotiations. On August 22, without revealing these facts about the Iraqi initiative (which it apparently knew), the New York Times reported that the Bush administration was determined to block the “diplomatic track” for fear that it might “defuse the crisis” in very much this manner. (The basic facts were published a week later by the Long Island daily Newsday, but the media largely kept their silence.)
Noam Chomsky (How the World Works (Real Story (Soft Skull Press)))
Rincewind had always been happy to think of himself as a racist. The One Hundred Meters, the Mile, the Marathon—he’d run them all. Later, when he’d learned with some surprise what the word actually meant, he’d been equally certain he wasn’t one. He was a person who divided the world quite simply into people who were trying to kill him and people who weren’t. That didn’t leave much room for fine details like what color anyone was.
Terry Pratchett (The Last Continent (Discworld, #22; Rincewind, #6))
Hurricane Daisy delayed the continuing surveillance, however when they could resume flying on October 14th, the crystal-clear photos indicated that launch sites were being prepared for both mobile medium-sized missiles, and more extensive sites for the larger-sized ballistic missiles. Although the actual missiles were not yet in place, the CIA understood the enormity of the threat. Missiles that could reach 2,000 miles into the United States could not be ignored! With Cuba only 90 miles to the south of Key West, it posed an extreme threat to national security. On October 22, 1962, the discovery of these missiles was finally announced to the public, and a naval quarantine was implemented around Cuba. President Kennedy was careful not to call it a “blockade,” since use of the word would be considered an act of war! Regardless, U.S. warships were deployed that would intercept and board any ship heading to the island. Castro announced that Cuba had the right to defend itself from American aggression. He added that the decision to deploy missiles was a joint action on the part of both Cuba and the Soviet Union. Kennedy discounted Castro’s bluster but not the threat. The final decision to remove the missiles from Cuban soil would be between Khrushchev and Kennedy, without any Cuban involvement. Allowing Khrushchev to save face, Kennedy agreed to remove American missiles aimed at the Soviet Union from Italy and Turkey. It also included a commitment that the United States would not invade Cuba.
Hank Bracker
In the end, the most effective limit-changers are still the simplest—so simple that we’ve barely mentioned them. If you want to run faster, it’s hard to improve on the training haiku penned by Mayo Clinic physiologist Michael Joyner, the man whose 1991 journal paper foretold the two-hour-marathon chase: Run a lot of miles Some faster than your race pace Rest once in a while22
Alex Hutchinson (Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance)
Allow me to clarify something, when I say running, I am referring to everything between a 7-minute mile to a 17-minute mile. Some may say that 17 and 18-minute miles are not running, try to tell that to the 75-year-old lady that just passed the 22-mile marker in a marathon. The key point here is being out there doing something, and the speed is not that important. Although I must add, it would be nice to get home sometime today.
J Vigil (Seniors on the Run: Extending Your Life One Step at a Time)
and you’re a good match.’ ‘You have a very precise memory.’ ‘It was yesterday.’ ‘I should have told you he keeps a mistress and ignores me.’ Reacher smiled. He said, ‘Good night, Mrs Mackenzie.’ She left him there, the same as the night before, alone in the dark, on the concrete bench, looking at the stars. At that moment a mile away, Stackley clicked off a phone call and parked his beat-up old pick-up truck in a lot behind an out-of-business retail enterprise three blocks from the centre of town. Earlier in his life he had favoured expensive haircuts, and one time when waiting in the salon he had read a magazine that said success in business depended entirely on ruthless control of costs. Thus wherever possible he slept in his truck. Hence the camper shell. A motel would take what he made on two pills. Why give it away? The old gal across the Snowy Range had bought a box of fentanyl patches, but he had given her one he had already opened, an hour before, very carefully, so he could skim out a patch all his own, for his pocket, for later. The old gal would never notice. If she did, she would assume she was too stoned to count right. A natural reaction. Addicts learned to blame themselves. The same the world over. He took scissors from his glove box, and he cut a quarter-inch strip off the patch, and he slipped it under his tongue. Sublingual, it was called. Another magazine in the same salon said it was the best method of all. Stackley couldn’t argue. At that moment sixty miles away, in the low hills west of town, Rose Sanderson was putting herself to bed. She had pulled down her hood, and taken off her silver track suit top. Under it was a T-shirt, which she took off, and a bra, likewise. She peeled the foil off her face. She used her toothbrush handle to scrape excess ointment off her skin. She buttered it back on the foil. With luck she might get one more day out of it. She ran her sink full of cool water. She took a breath, and held her face under the surface. Her record was four minutes. She came up and shook her head. Her
Lee Child (The Midnight Line (Jack Reacher, #22))
In 1941, after a year’s experience of bombing Germany, a crucial Air Ministry analysis of photographic evidence had revealed that only 22 per cent of bomber crews who claimed to have hit their target actually got within five miles of it.5 In the more heavily defended Ruhr
John Nichol (Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944-45)
I wish I was on a desert island all alone,” said the Senior Wrangler gloomily, watching Ridcully running on the spot. “Is it just me,” the Dean asked, “or are we marooned thousands of miles and thousands of years from home?” “Yes.” “I thought so. Is there any breakfast?” “Stibbons found some soft-boiled eggs.” “What a useful young man he is,” the Dean groaned. “Where did he find them?” “On a tree.” Bits of last night came back to the Dean. “A soft-boiled-egg tree?” “Yes,” said the Senior Wrangler. “Nicely runny. They’re quite good with breadfruit soldiers.” “You’ll be telling me next he found a spoon tree…” “Of course not.” “Good.” “It’s a bush.” The Senior Wrangler held up a small wooden spoon. It had a few small leaves still attached to it. “A bush that fruits spoons…
Terry Pratchett (The Last Continent (Discworld, #22))
Vice Admiral William S. Pye relieved Admiral Kimmel on 17 December 1941 as temporary Commander of the Fleet. He was number two in the fleet echelon of command and assumed the job as additional duty until a regular relief arrived. Admiral Pye was hard put to decide whether to take action in relieving Wake Island. He had two task forces near enough to the island to subject the Japanese forces to an aircraft carrier raid. But to do so required him to risk the loss of a carrier, which at that stage he could ill afford. Hindsight proves that action even against the land-based planes of the Japanese from the Marshall Islands only about 500 miles away would have been successful. But Wake is nearer to Japan than Hawaii, and holding it would have been impossible without changing the whole complexion of the war which lay ahead. The relief of Wake would have prevented the capture of military and some 650 civilian personnel which the Japanese took into custody. There were a number of other considerations involved, including the state of the weather, the shortage of fleet oilers, and the lack of loading and unloading facilities at Wake. As it appears now, Admiral Pye acted wisely, about 22 December 1941, in sacrificing the manpower on Wake without risking the loss or crippling of one or more aircraft carriers. 7.
Homer N. Wallin (Why, How, Fleet Salvage And Final Appraisal [Illustrated Edition])
down instead of from Twenty-Third Street looking up—things look quite a bit different. From that angle, the annoyed, hustling and bustling, highly important people angling their way through the obstacle course of onlookers seem insignificant. Our sun and moon and eight planets are just one little neighborhood among an estimated 200 billion neighborhoods that make up our universe.19 If we think of the Milky Way galaxy as being the size of the entire continent of North America, our solar system would fit into a coffee cup.20 Two Voyager spacecrafts are cruising toward the edge of the solar system at a rate of more than 35,000 miles per hour. They’ve been doing that for more than forty years and have traveled more than 11 billion miles, with no end in sight.21 When NASA sends communication to one of those Voyagers traveling at that velocity, it takes about seventeen hours to get there.22 That data has led scientists to estimate that to send a “speed of light” message to the edge of the universe would take more than 15 billion years to arrive.23 “So, yes, Chelsea art dealer, you are very important. But when we think about what we’re all gazing at while you make your agitation known through grunts and mumbles, you’re also impossibly young, urgently expiring, and unbelievably small.” You and I see the world with our own two eyes, and from that minuscule perspective, we tend to convince ourselves that we are (or at least should be) in control, directing our own lives, and scripting our future. We come back again to the truth that Philip Yancey reminded us of earlier in the chapter: “Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God’s point of view.” God is the one who calls us to “be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 8 marvels at this very wonder:
Tyler Staton (Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: An Invitation to the Wonder and Mystery of Prayer)