Mining Disaster Quotes

I belong to my beloved, and my beloved is mine.

I need to hear you say it. I need to know you’re mine.” “I’ve been yours since the second we met.

I fucking love you!” He grabbed each side of my face, slamming his lips against mine. “I love you so much, Pigeon,” he said, kissing me over and over. “Just remember that in fifty years when I’m still kicking your ass in poker,” I giggled. He smiled, triumphant. “If it means sixty or seventy years with you, Baby…you have my full permission to do your worst.” I raised one eyebrow, “You’re gonna regret that.” “You wanna bet?” I smiled with as much deviance as I could muster.

I was his exception, and as much as I had tried to fight my feelings, he was mine.

You just asked me to marry you," he said, still waiting for me to admit some kind of trickery. "I know." "That was the real deal, you know. I just booked two tickets to Vegas for noon tomorrow. So that means we're getting married tomorrow night." "Thank you." His eyes narrowed. "You're going to be Mrs. Maddox when you start classes on Monday." "Oh," I said, looking around. Travis raised an eyebrow. "Second thoughts?" "I'm going to have some serious paperwork to change next week." He nodded slowly, cautiously hopeful. "You're going to marry me tomorrow?" I smiled. "Uh huh" "You're serious?" "Yep." "I fucking love you!" He grabbed each side of my face, slamming his lips against mine. "I love you so much, Pigeon," he said, kissing me over and over.

Boo, Forever Spinning like a ghost on the bottom of a top, I'm haunted by all the space that I will live without you.

I saw thousands of pumpkins last night come floating in on the tide, bumping up against the rocks and rolling up on the beaches; it must be Halloween in the sea

The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster When you take your pill it's like a mine disaster. I think of all the people lost inside you.

The Beautiful Poem" I go to bed in Los Angeles thinking about you. Pissing a few moments ago I looked down at my penis affectionately. Knowing it has been inside you twice today makes me feel beautiful.

the sweet juices of your mouth are like castles bathed in honey. i've never had it done so gently before. you have put a circle of castles around my penis and you swirl them like sunlight on the wings of birds.

I'll make you mine, lovers said in old books. They never said, I'll make you me.

Adrian tipped my face up toward his and kissed me. Like always, the world around me stopped moving. No, the world became Adrian, only Adrian. Kissing him was as mind-blowing as ever, full of that same passion and need I had never believed I’d feel. But today, there was even more to it. I no longer had any doubt about whether this was wrong or right. It was a culmination of a long journey . . . or maybe the beginning of one. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. I didn’t care that we were out in public. I didn’t care that he was Moroi. All that mattered was that he was Adrian, my Adrian. My match. My partner in crime, in the long battle I’d just signed on for to right the wrongs in the Alchemist and Moroi worlds. Maybe Marcus was right that I’d also signed myself up for disaster, but I didn’t care. In that moment, it seemed that as long as Adrian and I were together, there was no challenge too great for us. I don’t know how long we stood there kissing. Like I said, the world around me was gone. Time had stopped. I was awash in the feel of Adrian’s body against mine, in his scent, and in the taste of his lips. That was all that mattered right now.

Do you want the whole school to think I’m one of your sluts?” My sluts? They weren’t mine. Hence them being sluts.

I feel horrible. She doesn't love me and I wander around the house like a sewing machine that's just finished sewing a turd to a garbage can lid.

For reasons unknown to me, I was his exception, and as much as I had tried to fight my feelings, he was mine.

I want to ruin her so that she’s mine, my beautiful disaster. My wild creature. My goddess of chaos.

We’re both drunk,” “This isn’t right,” he said. “I want you.” “I need you to say it,” he said. “I’ll say whatever you want.” “Then say that you belong to me. Say that you’ll take me back. I won’t do this unless we’re together.” “We’ve never really been apart, have we?” “I need to hear you say it. I need to know you’re mine.” “I’ve been yours since the second we met.” “Say it again,”he said. “I’m yours,” I breathed. Every nerve, inside and out ached for more. “I don’t ever want to be apart from you again.” “Promise me,” “I love you. I’ll love you forever.

Your Catfish Friend If I were to live my life in catfish forms in scaffolds of skin and whiskers at the bottom of a pond and you were to come by one evening when the moon was shining down into my dark home and stand there at the edge of my affection and think, “It's beautiful here by this pond. I wish somebody loved me,” I'd love you and be your catfish friend and drive such lonely thoughts from your mind and suddenly you would be at peace, and ask yourself, “I wonder if there are any catfish in this pond? It seems like a perfect place for them.

I need to hear you say it.” “I love you,” she said. She touched her lips to mine, and then pulled a few inches away. “Now quit being such a baby.” Once she kissed me, my heart slowed, and every muscle in my body relaxed. How much I needed her terrified me. I couldn’t imagine love was like this for everyone, or men would all be walking around like lunatics the second they were old enough to notice girls. Maybe it was just me. Maybe it was just me and her. Maybe together we were this volatile entity that would either implode or meld together. Either way, it seemed the moment I met her, my life had been turned upside down. And I didn’t want it any other way.

What is that?” I asked, squinting at the vertical symbols. “It’s Hebrew,” Travis smiled. “What does it mean?” “It says, ‘I belong to my beloved, and my beloved is mine.” My eyes darted to his. “You weren’t happy with just one tattoo, you had to get two?” “It’s something I always said I would do when I met The One. I met you…I went and got the tats.” His smile faded when he saw my expression. “You’re pissed, aren’t you?” he said, pulling his shirt down.

Gee, You're so Beautiful That It's Starting to Rain Oh, Marcia, I want your long blonde beauty to be taught in high school, so kids will learn that God lives like music in the skin and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord. I want high school report cards to look like this: Playing with Gentle Glass Things A Computer Magic A Writing Letters to Those You Love A Finding out about Fish A Marcia's Long Blonde Beauty A+!

I shook my head, sweeping my lips across hers. Not good enough. “I need to hear you say it. I need to know you’re mine.” “I’ve been yours since the second we met,” she said, begging. I stared into her eyes for a few seconds, and then felt my mouth turn up into a half smile, hoping her words were true and not just spoken in the moment. I leaned down and kissed her tenderly, and then she slowly pulled me into her. My entire body felt like it was melting inside of her. “Say it again.” Part of me couldn’t believe it was all really happening. “I’m yours.” She breathed. “I don’t ever want to be apart from you again.” “Promise me,” I said, groaning with another thrust. “I love you. I’ll love you forever.” She looked straight into my eyes when she spoke, and it finally clicked that her words weren’t just an empty promise.

He shook his head, cupped each side of my face, and looked into my eyes. “Did you sleep with him?” Hot tears filled my eyes as I shook my head no. He slammed his lips against mine, and his tongue entered my mouth without hesitation. Unable to control myself, I gripped his shirt in my fists, and pulled him to me. He hummed in his amazing, deep voice, and gripped me so tight that it was difficult to breathe.

Kiss me!” I pleaded. “Please, Pigeon! I told him no!” Abby shoved me away. “Leave me alone, Travis!” She shouldered passed me, but I grabbed her wrist. She kept her arm straight, outstretched behind her, but she didn’t turn around. “I am begging you.” I fell to my knees, her hand still in mine. My breath puffed out in white steam as I spoke, reminding me of the cold. “I’m begging you, Abby. Don’t do this.” Abby glanced back, and then her eyes drifted down her arm to mine, seeing the tattoo on my wrist. The tattoo that bared her name. She looked away, toward the cafeteria. “Let me go, Travis.” The air knocked out of me, and with all hope obliterated, I relaxed my hand, and let her slip out of my fingers. Abby didn’t look back as she walked away from me, and my palms fell flat on the sidewalk. She wasn’t coming back. She didn’t want me anymore, and there was nothing I could do or say to change it.

He didn’t speak; his lips continued working against mine. His solid arms enveloped me, and then he buried his face in my neck. “You’re quiet th

Travis let his knees give way, sending her tumbling to the floor. “Ouch!” she squealed, looking up at Travis. “America’s a friend of mine. You need to find another lap, Lex.

Samantha sent in mercenaries so fingers could not be pointed at the Minton Mining Company,” Morley replied. “Okay. Where is this leading?” “The operation was a total disaster. The Fyfield Valley is the homeland of The Great Ones. They learnt of her plans and prepared an ambush. The only survivor is Claire Hyndman. She was the woman you just saw in the suspension unit.

I don’t think we’re in love anymore. I think about sex constantly. I hate your parents. I’m pretty sure they hate me. Do you have any idea how fucked up this is? I’ve been sleeping with my back to you for months now, and you haven’t touched me once. I almost went home with the guy who gave me change at the bank. I almost asked his name. I don’t think we’re in love anymore. We don’t kiss like we used to. Your lips are always cold and mine are always chapped. Neither of us even apologize. I haven’t shaved in days and you haven’t noticed. I am insatiable. I am a disaster just waiting to remember the storm in her bones. I am proud of this. I want someone to fuck me so hard that something inside of me snaps and I can’t stop screaming ‘I love you, oh my God, I love you.’ I don’t think we’re in love anymore. Sometimes, I genuinely think the sky is bleeding, and I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t think I am capable of staying put. My bags are already packed. I’ve been waiting for you to check the bedroom. I don’t think we’re in love anymore. I don’t know whose fault it is. Let’s stop trying to make a broken thing work. We were brave for trying. We were brave for trying.

When we met, something inside both of us had changed, and whatever that was, it made us need each other. For reasons unknown to me, I was his exception, and as much as I had tried to fight my feelings, he was mine.

Travis grabbed my face and planted his mouth on mine, and then he lifted me off the floor, setting me on the counter. His tongue begged entrance into my mouth, and when I let him in, he moaned. His fingers dug into my hips, pulling me closer. “You are so fucking hot when you’re mad,” he said against my lips.

Do you trust me, Pidge?” I asked, a little nervous. “Yeah, why?” “C’mere,” I said, pulling her against me. I waited for her to protest, but she only froze for a few moments before letting her body melt into mine. Her cheek relaxed against my chest. Instantly, my eyes felt heavy. Tomorrow I would try to think of a way to postpone her departure, but in that moment, sleeping with her in my arms was the only thing I wanted to do.

Come on.” He pressed his forehead against mine, grinning. “You’re happy about this. I can tell. It wasn’t exactly what we had planned, but it’s a surprise, not a disaster. A surprise is a good thing. Right?

He rolled his eyes and took my hand. His hand was hard and calloused, tough with muscle and old scars. The night settled around us like a blanket. I could hear the water lapping against the dock. We were totally alone. “You’re . . . ,” he began, and I waited, heart throbbing in my throat. “Such a pain,” he concluded. “What?” I asked, just as his head swooped in and his mouth touched mine. I tried to speak, but one of Fang’s hands held the back of my head, and he kept his lips pressed against me, kissing me softly but with a Fanglike determination. Oh, jeez, I thought distractedly. Jeez, this is Fang, and me, and . . . Fang tilted his head to kiss me more deeply, and I felt totally lightheaded. Then I remembered to breathe through my nose, and the fog cleared a tiny bit. Somehow we were pressed together, Fang’s arms around me now, sliding under my wings, his hands flat against my back. It was incredible. I loved it. I loved him. It was a total disaster. Gasping, I pulled back. “I, uh—,” I began oh so coherently, and then I jumped up, almost knocking him over, and raced down the dock. I took off, flying fast, like a rocket.

Abby closed her eyes and leaned down. I knew she meant to kiss the corner of my mouth, but I turned so that our lips met. It was my last chance. I had to kiss her goodbye. She froze for a moment, but then her body relaxed, and she let her lips linger on mine.

How could she even wonder? “You know why I want you? I didn’t know I was lost until you found me. I didn’t know what alone was until the first night I spent without you in my bed. You’re the one thing I’ve got right. You’re what I’ve been waiting for, Pigeon.” Abby reached up to take my face between her hands, and I wrapped my arms around her, lifting her off the floor. Our lips pressed together gently, and as she worked her lips against mine, I made sure to silently communicate how much I loved her in that kiss, because I could never get it right with just words.

The truest love that ever heart Felt at its kindled core, Did through each vein, in quickened start, The tide of being pour. Her coming was my hope each day, Her parting was my pain; The chance that did her steps delay Was ice in every vein. I dreamed it would be nameless bliss, As I loved, loved to be; And to this object did I press As blind as eagerly. But wide as pathless was the space That lay our lives between, And dangerous as the foamy race Of ocean-surges green. And haunted as a robber-path Through wilderness or wood; For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath, Between our spirits stood. I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned; I omens did defy: Whatever menaced, harassed, warned, I passed impetuous by. On sped my rainbow, fast as light; I flew as in a dream; For glorious rose upon my sight That child of Shower and Gleam. Still bright on clouds of suffering dim Shines that soft, solemn joy; Nor care I now, how dense and grim Disasters gather nigh. I care not in this moment sweet, Though all I have rushed o'er Should come on pinion, strong and fleet, Proclaiming vengeance sore: Though haughty Hate should strike me down, Right, bar approach to me, And grinding Might, with furious frown, Swear endless enmity. My love has placed her little hand With noble faith in mine, And vowed that wedlock's sacred band Our nature shall entwine. My love has sworn, with sealing kiss, With me to live--to die; I have at last my nameless bliss. As I love--loved am I!

Mine is the disaster, if disaster there be; and to be severely distressed at one's own misfortunes does not show that you love your friend, but that you love yourself.

We walked to his Harley, and when I wrapped my arms around him, he rested his hand on mine. “I’m glad you were there tonight, Pidge. I’ve never had so much fun at a fight in my life.” I perched my chin on his shoulder and smiled. “That was because you were trying to win our bet.” He angled his neck to face me. “Damn right I was.” There was no amusement in his eyes, he was serious, and he wanted me to see it. My eyebrows shot up. “Is that why you were in such a bad mood today? Because you knew they’d fixed the boilers, and I would be leaving tonight?” Travis didn’t answer; he only smiled as he started his motorcycle. The drive to the apartment was uncharacteristically slow. At every stoplight, Travis would either cover my hands with his, or he would rest his hand on my knee.

I rested my cheek against his back and closed my eyes, breathing in his scent. It reminded me of his apartment, and his sheets, and the way he smelled when he walked around with a towel around his waist. The city blurred past us, and I didn’t care how fast he was driving, or how cold the wind was as it whipped across my skin; I wasn’t even paying attention to where we were. The only thing I could think about was his body against mine. We had no destination or time frame, and we drove the streets long after they had been abandoned by everyone but us.

I’m going to stay the hell out of Vegas, and away from Benny…I’m going to finish school. But I need you. I need you. You’re my best friend.” His voice was desperate and broken, matching his expression. In the dim light I could see a tear fall from his eye, and in the next moment he reached out for me and I was in his arms, his lips on mine. He squeezed me tight against his chest as he kissed me, and then cradled my face in his hands, pressing his lips harder against my mouth, desperate to get a reaction.

Is that from the fight or the window?” “The window,” he answered, frowning at my bloodied nails. “You saved my life, you know.” His eyebrows pulled together. “I wasn’t leaving without you.” “I knew you’d come,” I smiled, squeezing his fingers between mine.

There was a fine thing about that trout. I only wish I could have made a death mask of him. Not of his body though, but of his energy. I don't know if anyone would have understood his body. I put it in my creel.

Travis slammed into my back, wrapping his arms around my waist. “You scared the shit outta me!” I complained. He ran his hands over my skin. I noticed they felt different; slow and deliberate. I closed my eyes when he pulled me against him and buried his face in my hair, nuzzling my neck. Feeling his bare skin against mine, it took me a moment to protest. “Travis…,” He pulled my hair to one side and grazed his lips along my back from one shoulder to the other, unsnapping the clasp of my bra. He kissed the bare skin at the base of my neck and I closed my eyes, the warm softness of his mouth felt oo good to make him stop. A quiet moan escaped from his throat when he pressed his pelvis against mine, and I could feel how much he wanted me through his boxers. I held my breath, knowing the only thing keeping us from that big step I was so opposed to a few moments before was two thin pieces of fabric. Travis turned me to face him, and then pressed against me, leaning my back against the wall. Our eyes met, and I could see the ache in his expression as he scanned the bare pieces of my skin. I had seen him peruse women before, but this was different. He didn’t want to conquer me; he wanted me to say yes. He leaned in to kiss me, stopping just an inch away. I could feel the heat from his skin radiating against my lips, and I had to stop myself from drawing him in the rest of the way. His fingers were digging into my skin as he deliberated, and then his hands slid from my back to the hem of my panties. His index fingers slid down my hips, in between my skin and the lacey fabric, and in the same moment that he was about to slip the delicate threads down my legs, he hesitated. Just when I opened my mouth to say yes, he clenched his eyes shut. “Not like this,” he whispered, brushing his lips across mine. “I want you, but not like this.

Her hand covered mine, and she spoke softly. “Travis needs work. Trust me, I understand any and all reservations you have about him, but look how much he’s already changed for you. Think about the last two weeks, Abby. He’s not Mick.” “I’m Mick! I get involved with Travis and everything we’ve worked for…poof!” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that!

He watched me expectantly, and I couldn’t help but smile. I had never seen this side of him. “I trust you, you know.” He pressed his lips to mine. “I wouldn’t blame you if you expected me to earn it.” “I’ve got to get in the shower. I’ve already missed one class.” “See? I’m a good influence already.

My sluts? They weren't mine. Hence them being sluts.

Thousands of graveyards were parked in rows like cars.

Likewise, civilizations have throughout history marched blindly toward disaster, because humans are wired to believe that tomorrow will be much like today — it is unnatural for us to think that this way of life, this present moment, this order of things is not stable and permanent. Across the world today, our actions testify to our belief that we can go on like this forever, burning oil, poisoning the seas, killing off other species, pumping carbon into the air, ignoring the ominous silence of our coal mine canaries in favor of the unending robotic tweets of our new digital imaginarium. Yet the reality of global climate change is going to keep intruding on our fantasies of perpetual growth, permanent innovation and endless energy, just as the reality of mortality shocks our casual faith in permanence.

One of my deep thoughts was that it is not so much particular disasters that make people cry, but something always there in life itself, something that a light falls on when we are trying to enjoy ourselves

Natural gas is highly explosive, invisible, poisonous, and odorless. Yet we accept natural gas, even though it kills not two but 400 Americans a year, because it was introduced before we got crazy about risk. We accept coal, even though mining it is nasty and filthy and kills dozens of people every year. By contrast, we're terrified of nuclear energy. Chernobyl, the worst nuclear power disaster ever, killed only 30 people. Some say the radiation may eventually kill others, but even if that's true, natural gas kills more people every year.

The Return of the Rivers All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. It is raining today in the mountains. It is a warm green rain with love in its pockets for spring is here, and does not dream of death. Birds happen music like clocks ticking heaves in a land where children love spiders, and let them sleep in their hair. A slow rain sizzles on the river like a pan full of frying flowers, and with each drop of rain the ocean begins again.

You just asked me to marry you,” he said, still waiting for me to admit some kind of trickery. “I know.” “That was the real deal, you know. I just booked two tickets to Vegas for noon tomorrow. So that means we’re getting married tomorrow night.” “Thank you.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re going to be Mrs. Maddox when you start classes on Monday.” “Oh,” I said, looking around. Travis raised an eyebrow. “Second thoughts?” “I’m going to have some serious paperwork to change next week.” He nodded slowly, cautiously hopeful. “You’re going to marry me tomorrow?” I smiled. “Uh huh.” “You’re serious?” “Yep.” “I fucking love you!” He grabbed each side of my face, slamming his lips against mine. “I love you so much, Pigeon,” he said, kissing me over and over. “Just remember that in fifty years when I’m still kicking your ass in poker,” I giggled. He smiled, triumphant. “If it means sixty or seventy years with you, Baby…you have my full permission to do your worst.” I raised one eyebrow, “You’re gonna regret that.” “You wanna bet?” I smiled with as much deviance as I could muster. “Are you confident enough to bet that shiny bike outside?” He shook his head, a serious expression replacing the teasing smile he had just seconds before. “I’ll put in everything I have. I don’t regret a single second with you, Pidge, and I never will.

That was when I saw it: behind the beauty and fake innocence was something else, something cold and calculating. Even when she smiled, I could see sin so deeply ingrained in her that no cardigan could hide it. [...] To anyone else, she was pure and naive, but this girl was hiding something. I knew only because the same sin had dwelled in me my entire life. The difference was she held it deep within her, and I let mine out of cage on a regular basis.

I assigned myself the role of Lot’s wife, because her behavior seemed the most human, the most sinful, and therefore closest to mine. Consumed by curiosity, I was drawn to the magnificent, horrible sight of fire and disaster as houses collapsed and towers folded like dominoes amidst human wailing that rose to the sky. My curiosity, brought to an explosive point by the divine warning, was suddenly transformed into my sole trait, overwhelming reason and the feeling of fear, turning me into a weakling of a woman, unable to resist my inquisitiveness, and I would turn around abruptly with my whole body as if rotated by the centrifugal force of my curiosity, which had passed through me like a sword.

A syndrome is small, portable, not weighed down by theory, episodic. You can explain something with it and then discard it. A disposable instrument of cognition. Mine is called Recurrent Detoxification Syndrome. Without the bells and whistles, its description boils down to the insistence of one’s consciousness on returning to certain images, or even the compulsive search for them. It is a variant of the Mean World Syndrome, which has been described fairly exhaustively in neuropsychological studies as a particular type of infection caused by the media. It’s quite a bourgeois ailment, I suppose. Patients spend long hours in front of the TV, thumbing at their remote controls through all the channels till they find the ones with the most horrendous news: wars, epidemics, and disasters. Then, fascinated by what they’re seeing, they can’t tear themselves away. The symptoms themselves

A list of just 32 notable coal mining accidents totals almost 10,000 fatalities,

Lady Sarah gazes at Henry’s shiny shoes, her face heartbroken. “Do you ever think . . . that perhaps you should be with—” “Do not even think of finishing that fucking sentence,” Henry warns. “Why not?” She lifts her chin. “It’s the truth.” “The truth?” Henry mocks. “The truth is I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you. I don’t know where I’d be or what I’d be doing, but I know it wouldn’t be pretty." “He’s right, you know, Sarah.” Prince Nicholas steps over to them. “Before you, Henry was an unmitigated disaster. Reckless, spoiled, self-destructive—” “Thank you, Nicholas,” Henry says. “I think she gets the picture.” Nicholas smacks his brother on the back and grins cheekily. “Happy to help.” Henry slips his hands into his pockets, rocking on his heels, telling Sarah, “I could say the same thing, you know. You don’t think I know you’d be better off with someone whose everyday life doesn’t send you reeling into a panic attack?” Sarah shakes her head. “No, that’s not true. I could never be better off with anyone else. I would never want to be. You’re mine, Henry, and I’m keeping you.

What is truth to one may be disaster to another. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine. If I were to attempt to give you specific advice, it would be too much like the blind leading the blind.

Then they decided that the fleas that lived on Siamese cats would probably be more intelligent than the fleas that lived on just ordinary alley cats. It only made sense that drinking intelligent blood would make intelligent fleas.

Everything about her is disastrous. She’s nothing more than a mess.” “And yet?” he urged me on. And yet, I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to be an odd character, a freak of nature. I wanted to stumble and laugh out loud. I wanted to find her beautiful disaster and mix it together with my own mess. I wanted the freedom she swam in, and her fearlessness of living in the moment. I wanted to know what it meant to be a part of her world. To be a man who felt everything. I wanted to hold her, but still have her move freely in my arms. I wanted to taste her lips and breathe in a part of her soul as I gave her a glimpse of mine. I didn’t want to be her friend – now. I wanted to be so much more.

Once, while cleaning the trout before I went home in the almost night, I had a vision of going over to the poor graveyard and gathering up grass and fruit jars and tin cans and markers and wilted flowers and bugs and weeds and clods and going home and putting a hook in the vise and tying a fly with all that stuff and then going outside and casting it up into the sky, watching it float over clouds and then into the evening star. (from Trout Fishing on the Bevel, page 21)

Everything smelled of sheep. The dandelions were suddenly more sheep than flower, each petal reflecting wool and the sound of a bell ringing off the yellow. But the thing that smelled the most like sheep, was the very sun itself. When the sun went behind a cloud, the smell of the sheep decreased, like standing on some old guy's hearing aid, and when the sun came back again, the smell of the sheep was loud, like a clap of thunder inside a coffee cup. (from "On Paradise", page 50)

How did you lose you leg?" "Afghanistan." "You're a soldier?" "Used to be. Now I bake cookies." "Which one do you find more dangerous?" Jay asked, and I laughed. "Oh, you laugh, but I bet I can cause a bigger disaster in the kitchen that a land mine.

He told me it was for men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortune on the other, who when abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprize, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that these things were all either too far above me, or to far below me; that mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low life, which he had found by long experience was the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries of hardships, the labour and sufferings of the mechanick part of mankind, and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper part of mankind. He told me I might judge of the happiness of this state by this one thing, viz. that this was the state of life which all other people envied, that kings had frequently lamented the miserable consequences of being born to great things, and wished they had been placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this as the just standard of true felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty or riches. He bid me observe it, and I should always find, that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were so subjected to so many distempers and uneasiness, either of body or mind, as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagancies on one hand, and by hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kinds of vertues and all kinds of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the hand-maids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversion, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessing attending the middle station of life; that this way men went silently and smoothly thro’ the world, and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with the labour of their hands or of the head, not sold to the life of slavery for daily bread, or harrast with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace and the body of rest; not enraged with the passion of envy, or secret burning lust of ambition for great things; but in easy circumstances sliding gently thro’ the world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living without the bitter, feeling that they are happy and learning by every day’s experience to know it more sensibly.

She's everywhere, in every drop of my blood, in every spark of thought, and I want to fucking destroy her for it. To shatter her just like she's broken me. Because she brings me to my fucking knees. I want to ruin her so that she's mine, my beautiful disaster. My wild creature. My goddess of chaos.

She was right, though, in the end. I never should have given her so much credit. It all got tangled together, her appearance and Toby coming back into my life and the first time I ever read a book that spoke to me, and the question of who I wanted to be in the aftermath of my personal tragedy. Because I made a decision that year, to start mattering in a way that had nothing to do with sports teams or plastic crowns, and the reality is, I might have made that decision without her, or if I’d never fallen in love with a girl who considered love to be the biggest disaster of all. The truth of it was, I’d been running the wrong experiment my whole life, and while Cassidy was the first person to realize, she didn’t add the elements that allowed me to proceed down a different path. She lent a spark, perhaps, or tendered the flame, but the arson was mine. Oscar Wilde once said that to live is the rarest thing in the world, because most people just exist, and that’s all. I don’t know if he’s right, but I do know that I spent a long time existing, and now, I intend to live.

In some ways, he and I had the most confusing relationship in the world. We were close friends who didn’t spend time together. We were lovers who rarely got even a kiss. We had a long history together with a big gap in the middle. In short, we were a tangle of disasters. But there was nobody I’d ever felt so close to. Laying my hands on him felt like coming home. He felt like mine.

Moments after the waitress left us, Tommy whipped out both copies of our chosen play and handed me mine. “All right,” he said. “Now we do scene.” “Wait,” I said. “Now?” Tommy was unperturbed. “So what? Yes. We do it now.” I looked around. All the tables around us were full. “Shouldn’t we eat first?” “What? Are you not dedicated actor? Rehearsal is very important.” Tommy was already demonstrating a lot of promise in knowing how to embarrass the shit out of me.

I call him from the car and ask him about his morning, tell him about mine. 'What kind of hoarder was she?' he asks. 'Books and cats, mainly,' I tell the man who loves his cats and who I know is now actively considering his extensive book collection. 'What's the difference between a private library and a book hoarder?' he wonders. We are both silent before chuckling and answering in unison: 'Faeces.' But the difference is this phone call. And the others like it I could make. And how strong we are when we are loved.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I blinked them back, grabbed some tissue, and started awkwardly trying to daub leftover dye into my pale eyebrows, praying it would make a difference. Through the mirror, I saw Tori walk in. She stopped. "Oh. My. God." It would have been better if she'd laughed. Her look of horror, then something like sympathy, meant it was as bad as I thought. "I told Derek to let me pick the color," she said. "I told him." "Hey," Simon called in. "Everyone decent?" He pushed open the door, saw me and blinked. "It's Derek's fault," Tori said. "He—" "Don't, please," I said. "No more fighting." Simon still shot a glare over his shoulder as Derek pushed open the door. "What?" Derek said. He looked at me. "Huh." Tori hustled me out the door, brushing past the guys with a whispered "jerk" for Derek. "At least now you know never to go dark again," she said as we walked. "A couple years ago, I let a friend dye mine blond. It was almost as bad. My hair felt like straw and..." And so, Tori and I bonded over hair horror stories.

...it reveals the legacy of an environmental catastrophe, its human tolls and triumphs, its corporate greed and indifference, its governmental lapses and neglect. In its historic sweep, it stands as a cautionary tale -- timeless and time-bound -- in a country divided by class and religion, buffeted by corporate misconduct, and dismantling its environmental protection laws. This is the story of a dying coal town ensnared in the Reagan Revolution's afterbirth, of a small community rent by one of the mining industry's worst disasters, and of the irreplaceable bond of home.

Even political systems follow a form of rational tinkering, when people are rational hence take the better option: the Romans got their political system by tinkering, not by “reason.” Polybius in his Histories compares the Greek legislator Lycurgus, who constructed his political system while “untaught by adversity,” to the more experiential Romans, who, a few centuries later, “have not reached it by any process of reasoning [emphasis mine], but by the discipline of many struggles and troubles, and always choosing the best by the light of the experience gained in disaster.

Her eyes, even when fixed on an object, gave one the impression of motion, just as on days of high wind the air, although invisible, lets us perceive the speed with which it courses between us and the unchanging azure. For a moment her gaze intersected mine, like those travelling skies on stormy days which hurry after a rain-cloud that moves less rapidly than they, overtake, touch, cover, pass it and are gone; but they do not know one another, and are soon driven far apart. So our eyes were for a moment confronted, neither pair knowing what the celestial continent that lay before their gaze held of future blessing or disaster.

Not expecting to see you again before the Spring campaign opens, I wish to express, in this way, my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I neither know, or seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster, or the capture of our men in great numbers, shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine—If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now with a brave Army, and a just cause, may God sustain you.

I had better come clean now and say that I do not believe that art (all art) and beauty are ever separate, nor do I believe that either art or beauty are optional in a sane society." "That puts me on the side of what Harold Bloom calls 'the ecstasy of the privileged moment. Art, all art, as insight, as transformation, as joy. Unlike Harold Bloom, I really believe that human beings can be taught to love what they do not love already and that the privileged moment exists for all of us, if we let it. Letting art is the paradox of active surrender. I have to work for art if I want art to work on me." (...) We know that the universe is infinite, expanding and strangely complete, that it lacks nothing we need, but in spite of that knowledge, the tragic paradigm of human life is lack, loss, finality, a primitive doomsaying that has not been repealed by technology or medical science. The arts stand in the way of this doomsaying. Art objects. The nouns become an active force not a collector's item. Art objects. "The cave wall paintings at Lascaux, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the huge truth of a Picasso, the quieter truth of Vanessa Bell, are part of the art that objects to the lie against life, against the spirit, that is pointless and mean. The message colored through time is not lack, but abundance. Not silence but many voices. Art, all art, is the communication cord that cannot be snapped by indifference or disaster. Against the daily death it does not die." "Naked I came into the world, but brush strokes cover me, language raises me, music rhythms me. Art is my rod and my staff, my resting place and shield, and not mine only, for art leaves nobody out. Even those from whom art has been stolen away by tyranny, by poverty, begin to make it again. If the arts did not exist, at every moment, someone would begin to create them, in song, out of dust and mud, and although the artifacts might be destroyed, the energy that creates them is not destroyed. If, in the comfortable West, we have chosen to treat such energies with scepticism and contempt, then so much the worse for us. "Art is not a little bit of evolution that late-twentieth-century city dwellers can safely do without. Strictly, art does not belong to our evolutionary pattern at all. It has no biological necessity. Time taken up with it was time lost to hunting, gathering, mating, exploring, building, surviving, thriving. Odd then, that when routine physical threats to ourselves and our kind are no longer a reality, we say we have no time for art. "If we say that art, all art is no longer relevant to our lives, then we might at least risk the question 'What has happened to our lives?

Story time. In September of 1869, there was a terrible fire at the Avondale coal mine near Plymouth, Pennsylvania. Over 100 coal miners lost their lives. Horrific conditions and safety standards were blamed for the disaster. It wasn’t the first accident. Hundreds of miners died in these mines every year. And those that didn’t, lived in squalor. Children as young as eight worked day in and out. They broke their bodies and gave their lives for nothing but scraps. That day of the fire, as thousands of workers and family members gathered outside the mine to watch the bodies of their friends and loved ones brought to the surface, a man named John Siney stood atop one of the carts and shouted to the crowd: Men, if you must die with your boots on, die for your families, your homes, your country, but do not longer consent to die, like rats in a trap, for those who have no more interest in you than in the pick you dig with. That day, thousands of coal miners came together to unionize. That organization, the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association, managed to fight, for a few years at least, to raise safety standards for the mines by calling strikes and attempting to force safety legislation. ... Until 1875, when the union was obliterated by the mine owners. Why was the union broken so easily? Because they were out in the open. They were playing by the rules. How can you win a deliberately unfair game when the rules are written by your opponent? The answer is you can’t. You will never win. Not as long as you follow their arbitrary guidelines. This is a new lesson to me. She’s been teaching me so many things, about who I am. About what I am. What I really am. About what must be done. Anyway, during this same time, it is alleged a separate, more militant group of individuals had formed in secret. The Molly Maguires. Named after a widow in Ireland who fought against predatory landlords, the coal workers of Pennsylvania became something a little more proactive, supposedly assassinating over two dozen coal mine supervisors and managers. ... Until Pinkerton agents, hired by the same mine owners, infiltrated the group and discovered their identities. Several of the alleged Mollies ended up publicly hanged. Others disappeared. You get the picture. So, that’s another type of secret society. The yeah-we’re-terrorists-but-we-strongly-feel-we’re-justified-and-fuck-you-if-you-don’t-agree society. So, what’s the moral of this little history lesson? This sort of thing happens all day, every day across the universe. It happens in Big Ways, and it happens in little ways, too. The strong stomp on the weak. The weak fight back, usually within the boundaries of the rat trap they find themselves confined. They almost always remain firmly stomped. But sometimes, the weak gather in secret. They make plans. They work outside the system to effect change. Like the Mollies, they usually end up just as stomped as everyone else. But that’s just life. At least they fucking tried. They died with their boots on, as much as I hate that expression. They died with their boots on for their people, their family, not for some rich, nameless organization that gives no shits whether they live or die. Or go extinct. Or are trapped for a millennia after they’re done being used. In my opinion, that’s the only type of society that’s worth joining, worth fighting for. Sure, you’re probably gonna die. But if you find yourself in such a position where such an organization is necessary, what do you have to lose? How can you look at yourself if you don’t do everything you can? And that brings us to the door you’re standing in front of right now. What does all this have to do with what you’re going to find on the other side? Nothing!

The very next day, delegates from Moscow visited mining towns around the USSR to recruit miners for an operation to cool the ground beneath the destroyed reactor. They were bussed to Chernobyl and began work on the 13th. One miner described the plan: “Our mission was this: dig a 150-meter tunnel, from the third block to the fourth. Then dig a room 30 meters long and 30 meters wide [and 2 meters tall] to hold a refrigeration device for cooling down the reactor.”210 Scientists worried that pneumatic drills would stress the building’s fragile foundations, so the miners were ordered to dig their tunnel by hand. To limit exposure, they dug down 12 meters before heading towards Unit 4. The project took one month and four days, with miners digging 24 hours a day - in a normal mine, that distance would have taken three times as long. Due to the nature of the dig, it wasn’t possible to install ventilation holes, so there was a lack of oxygen and the temperature reached highs of 30°C.

I pulled the sheet off their faces. Their faces were black with coal dust and didn't look like anything was wrong with them except they were dirty. The both of them had smiles on their faces. I thought maybe one of them had told a joke just before they died and, pain and all, they both laughed and ended up with a smile. Probably not true but but it made me feel good to think about it like that, and when the Sister came in I asked her if I could clean their faces and she said, "no, certainly not!" but I said, "ah, c'mon, it's me brother n' father, I want to," and she looked at me and looked at me, and at last she said, "of course, of course, I'll get some soap and water." When the nun came back she helped me. Not doing it, but more like showing me how, and taking to me, saying things like "this is a very handsome man" and "you must have been proud of your brother" when I told her how Charlie Dave would fight for me, and "you're lucky you have another brother"; of course I was, but he was younger and might change, but she talked to me and made it all seem normal, the two of us standing over a dead face and cleaning the grit away. The only other thing I remember a nun ever saying to me was, "Mairead, you get to your seat, this minute!

So much for Caligula as emperor; we must now tell of his career as a monster.... He lived in habitual incest with all his sisters, and at a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while his wife reclined above. Many men of honourable rank were first disfigured with the marks of branding-irons and then condemned to the mines, to work at building roads, or to be thrown to the wild beasts; or else he shut them up in cages on all fours, like animals, or had them sawn asunder. Not all these punishments were for serious offences, but merely for criticising one of his shows, or for never having sworn by his genius. Having asked a man who had been recalled from an exile of long standing, how in the world he spent his time there, the man replied by way of flattery: "I constantly prayed the gods for what has come to pass, that Tiberius might die and you become emperor." Thereupon Caligula, thinking that his exiles were likewise praying for his death, sent emissaries from island to island to butcher them all. Wishing to have one of the senators torn to pieces, he induced some of the members to assail him suddenly, on his entrance into the House, with the charge of being a public enemy, to stab him with their styles, and turn him over to the rest to be mangled; and his cruelty was not sated until he saw the man's limbs, members, and bowels dragged through the streets and heaped up before him. He used to say that there was nothing in his own character which he admired and approved more highly than what he called his ἀδιατρεψία, that is to say, his shameless impudence. He seldom had anyone put to death except by numerous slight wounds, his constant order, which soon became well-known, being: "Strike so that he may feel that he is dying." When a different man than he had intended had been killed, through a mistake in the names, he said that the victim too had deserved the same fate. He even used openly to deplore the state of his times, because they had been marked by no public disasters, saying that the rule of Augustus had been made famous by the Varus massacre, and that of Tiberius by the collapse of the amphitheatre at Fidenae,​ while his own was threatened with oblivion because of its prosperity; and every now and then he wished for the destruction of his armies, for famine, pestilence, fires, or a great earthquake. While he was lunching or revelling capital examinations by torture were often made in his presence, and a soldier who was adept at decapitation cut off the heads of those who were brought from prison. At a public banquet in Rome he immediately handed a slave over to the executioners for stealing a strip of silver from the couches, with orders that his hands be cut off and hung from his neck upon his breast, and that he then be led about among the guests.

In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was mentioned that upon first breaking ground in the whale’s back, the blubber-hook was inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend upon the monster’s back for the special purpose referred to. But in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall remain on the whale till the whole flensing or stripping operation is concluded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting the immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten feet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about, half on the whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like a tread-mill beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured in the Highland costume—a shirt and socks—in which to my eyes, at least, he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better chance to observe him, as will presently be seen. Being the savage’s bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead whale’s back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by a long cord. Just so, from the ship’s steep side, did I hold Queequeg down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his waist. It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed. So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of two; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another’s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have so gross an injustice. And yet still further pondering—while I jerked him now and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten to jam him—still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg’s monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.

George Arthur, a tribal council delegate, spoke on behalf of the tribe. Arthur was a chairman, too, of the Navajo legislature's resources committee. . . ."Uranium mining and milling on and near the reservation has been a disaster for the Navajo people. The Department of the Interior has been in the pocket of the uranium industry, favoring its interest and breaching its trust duties to the Navajo mineral owners. We are still undergoing what appears to be a never-ending federal experiment to see how much devastation can be endured by a people and a society from exposure to radiation in the air, in the water, in mines and on the surface of the land. We are unwilling to be the subjects of that ongoing experiment any longer.

When a coal company gets a permit to strip-mine, it literally attacks the mountain with all manner of heavy equipment. First it clear-cuts the trees, total deforestation with no effort at saving the hardwoods. They are bulldozed away as the earth is scalped. Same for the topsoil, which is not very thick. Next comes the layer of rock, which is blasted out of the ground. The trees, topsoil, and rock are often shoved into the valleys between the mountains, creating what’s known as valley fills. These wipe out vegetation, wildlife, and natural streams. Just another environmental disaster. If you’re downstream, you’re just screwed. As you’ll learn around here, we’re all downstream.

Mountaintop removal is nothing but strip-mining on steroids. Appalachian coal is found in seams, sort of like layers of a cake. At the top of the mountain there is the forest, then a layer of topsoil, then a layer of rock, and finally a seam of coal. Could be four feet thick, could be twenty. When a coal company gets a permit to strip-mine, it literally attacks the mountain with all manner of heavy equipment. First it clear-cuts the trees, total deforestation with no effort at saving the hardwoods. They are bulldozed away as the earth is scalped. Same for the topsoil, which is not very thick. Next comes the layer of rock, which is blasted out of the ground. The trees, topsoil, and rock are often shoved into the valleys between the mountains, creating what’s known as valley fills. These wipe out vegetation, wildlife, and natural streams. Just another environmental disaster. If you’re downstream, you’re just screwed. As you’ll learn around here, we’re all downstream.

wealthy Georgian named Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar, who bought the Wanderer, a luxury yacht, in New York and outfitted her for slaving. Around the time Meaher made his bet, Lamar was being lionized as a hero in newspapers across the nation as tales of the Africans he smuggled into the country spread. Relying on family money to make his start, Lamar was involved in horse racing, gold mining, road building, and the shipping of cotton. However, it appears he was not particularly good at any of those endeavors, and was repeatedly bailed out of financial disasters by his father, Gazaway. A family history going back three hundred years contains a small mention of Charles, describing him as “a dangerous man, and with all his apparent recklessness and lawlessness, a cautious man, too.” Perhaps not too cautious, as he was known to often resort to violence. While serving as an alderman on the Savannah City Council in 1853, he was arrested for “disorderly conduct and fighting in the streets.” In 1858, he shot out a friend’s eye while attempting to defend his uncle in a fight. Ultimately, he was the last person killed in the Civil War, in a small battle fought in Columbus, Georgia, seven days after the surrender at Appomattox.

I never thought I’d live long enough to see my twentieth birthday after that disaster raged back in Miami years ago. I dig my fingernails into my palms as I stomp toward my office, the only place where I can get any bit of peace and quiet. It’s not in the basement like Nate’s. Mine is upstairs, tucked away from the rest of the club, and the only way you can get to it is by using a hidden staircase. I force a smile for the patrons guzzling expensive liquor and champagne, swaying into each other, drunk, high, and without a single care in the world

I woke up every morning at six to study—because it was easier to focus in the mornings, before I was worn out from scrapping. Although I was still fearful of God’s wrath, I reasoned with myself that my passing the ACT was so unlikely, it would take an act of God. And if God acted, then surely my going to school was His will. The ACT was composed of four sections: math, English, science and reading. My math skills were improving but they were not strong. While I could answer most of the questions on the practice exam, I was slow, needing double or triple the allotted time. I lacked even a basic knowledge of grammar, though I was learning, beginning with nouns and moving on to prepositions and gerunds. Science was a mystery, perhaps because the only science book I’d ever read had had detachable pages for coloring. Of the four sections, reading was the only one about which I felt confident. BYU was a competitive school. I’d need a high score—a twenty-seven at least, which meant the top fifteen percent of my cohort. I was sixteen, had never taken an exam, and had only recently undertaken anything like a systematic education; still I registered for the test. It felt like throwing dice, like the roll was out of my hands. God would score the toss. I didn’t sleep the night before. My brain conjured so many scenes of disaster, it burned as if with a fever. At five I got out of bed, ate breakfast, and drove the forty miles to Utah State University. I was led into a white classroom with thirty other students, who took their seats and placed their pencils on their desks. A middle-aged woman handed out tests and strange pink sheets I’d never seen before. “Excuse me,” I said when she gave me mine. “What is this?” “It’s a bubble sheet. To mark your answers.” “How does it work?” I said. “It’s the same as any other bubble sheet.” She began to move away from me, visibly irritated, as if I were playing a prank. “I’ve never used one before.” She appraised me for a moment. “Fill in the bubble of the correct answer,” she said. “Blacken it completely. Understand?” The test began. I’d never sat at a desk for four hours in a room full of people. The noise was unbelievable, yet I seemed to be the only person who heard it, who couldn’t divert her attention from the rustle of turning pages and the scratch of pencils on paper. When it was over I suspected that I’d failed the math, and I was positive that I’d failed the science. My answers for the science portion couldn’t even be called guesses. They were random, just patterns of dots on that strange pink sheet. I drove home. I felt stupid, but more than stupid I felt ridiculous. Now that I’d seen the other students—watched them march into the classroom in neat rows, claim their seats and calmly fill in their answers, as if they were performing a practiced routine—it seemed absurd that I had thought I could score in the top fifteen percent. That was their world. I stepped into overalls and returned to mine.

Don’t look at me like that,” I muttered, trying to shake him off but he didn’t budge. “Like what?” “Like you didn’t take part in that whole shoving me in a pit bullshit right before the Nymph attack. Like we aren’t on two different sides of some fight I never asked to be in,” I spat, surprising myself with how angry I felt at him. “We are on two different sides of it though,” he said and there was no apology in his voice, just acceptance. “But shit, Tory you don’t understand how freaking much I like playing this game with you. Ever since we got back from that party I’ve hardly been able to think about anything else. The feeling of you in my arms, the taste of your blood on my lips, the rush I get when you run from me...” My pulse spiked in response to his words despite myself and as he drew a little closer to me, I didn’t push him back. “You’re not even sorry, are you?” I breathed. “Can’t be sorry for it. I’ve got responsibilities. To the other Heirs, my family, Solaria... I have to think of what’s best for all of them and if you take the throne then the Nymphs might just get the leg up they need to win this war. You have to know I can’t let that happen.” He hadn’t released me and I found I didn’t really want him to. “I have a bit of a weakness for assholes,” I admitted slowly. “But I’m used to them lying about what they are. At least you own it.” “I do,” Caleb said with a smirk, his hand travelling up my neck ever so slowly. “I’m an honest to god asshole. Do you want to keep playing with me, Tory?” “Maybe,” I breathed because in that moment I didn’t even know anymore. I should have been trying to keep away from him and his psycho friends but one way or another our lives all seemed to be destined to tangle up with each other's. And at least Caleb wasn’t lying to me. He wasn’t offering me the world, but he was offering me freedom, at least in this. So maybe I could try keeping the two things separate, when we were alone we could forget about being an Heir and a lost princess. And outside of that, we could stay on opposite sides of this stupid feud. It seemed kinda like a recipe for disaster but maybe I wanted a little rebellion. “I’ll take maybe.” Caleb leaned forward to kiss me and I didn’t make any move to stop him. His mouth was hot and demanding against mine and the passion that burned between us sprang to life instantly, urging me on. My heart thumped harder and his fingers twisted into my hair, tugging just enough to elicit a moan from my lips. (tory)

You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that man’s sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those evils which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty. “You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins, it is the product and the image of your virtues. It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection. You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, you have wished it, and I—I am the man who has granted you your wish. “Your ideal had an implacable enemy, which your code of morality was designed to destroy. I have withdrawn that enemy. I have taken it out of your way and out of your reach. I have removed the source of all those evils you were sacrificing one by one. I have ended your battle. I have stopped your motor. I have deprived your world of man’s mind. “Men do not live by the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those who do. The mind is impotent, you say? I have withdrawn those whose mind isn’t. There are values higher than the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those for whom there aren’t. “While you were dragging to your sacrificial altars the men of justice, of independence, of reason, of wealth, of self-esteem—I beat you to it, I reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you were playing and the nature of that moral code of yours, which they had been too innocently generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by another morality—mine. It is mine that they chose to follow.

Kit de reparación de karma: Ítems 1-4 1. Consigue suficiente comida para comer, y cómela. 2. Encuentra un lugar tranquilo para dormir, y duerme allí. 3. Reduce el ruido intelectual y emocional hasta que llegues al silencio de ti mismo, y escúchalo. 4. "Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4" en el libro de "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster

Red Ash mine was also the location of a disaster in 1900, which killed forty-six miners. This earlier catastrophe outraged Mother Jones, who spoke of it often on her organizing campaign that year, and it had triggered public pressure to improve the state’s mine safety laws. The legislature rejected all proposals for reform, however. The lawmakers apparently agreed with West Virginia’s Republican governor, G. W. Atkinson, who said in 1901: “It is but the natural course of mining events that men should be injured and killed by accidents.

On my return from the first exploration of the canyons of the Colorado, I found that our journey had been the theme of much newspaper writing. A story of disaster had been circulated, with many particulars of hardship and tragedy, so that it was currently believed throughout the United States that all the members of the party were lost save one. A good friend of mine had gathered a great number of obituary notices, and it was interesting and rather flattering to me to discover the high esteem in which I had been held by the people of the United States. In my supposed death I had attained to a glory which I fear my continued life has not fully vindicated.

At least we don’t have to worry about messing our hair,” Celeste laughed. “Mine’s already a disaster anyway.” Susan turned onto Sheikh Zayed Road, the main thoroughfare that ran north-south connecting two of the seven United Arab Emirates, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It was a highway that inspired hair-raising stories around the world, with the YouTube videos to prove it.

Large crowds, estimated by some as several thousand gathered for news at the pit head. Orders were given that none of those who had perished should be brought to the surface until late at night, in the chance and hope that the assembled crowd would have diminished, thus avoiding the scenes of woe. At 10.17 pm the cage was wound slowly to the surface bringing up the first of the dead men and boys. The

It has been stated that the Wigan District of Lancashire, and the surrounding areas had three females for every male in the population right up to the turn of the twentieth century. Fine for the boys you might think, but this was a direct result of the men folk being wiped out in mining accidents, whether they were such as this, an explosion, or the multitude of individual accidents that took away life in the coal mines of the district. The Saw Mill Pit, with its dark and deathly past was finally abandoned in 1898. (24)

So you understand about Steve?” she blurted into the darkness, unable to stop her confessions to this man she didn’t really know but somehow felt was integral to her life. “I wasn’t nice when I woke up from the coma: I cried uncontrollably. Raged. Had hysterical fits of temper. He didn’t even blink when I’d lashed out or yelled at him to go away. He just stayed right by my side. My whole world was in upheaval, my family in chaos, and he was like an unmovable rock.” Mitch’s fingers squeezed hers, but he said nothing, so she went on. “It endeared him to my family in a way nothing else could have. My mom, in particular, treated him like a son. Steve grew up in a very bad home. All he ever wanted was a normal family, so mine adopted him. I didn’t want to make them unhappy, not after . . .” She swallowed, unable to think about the rest. The real reason she was going straight to hell with no chance at redemption. Mitch pulled her closer. “So, can you see? Do you understand why I couldn’t leave him?” “I understand, Maddie.” His voice was a soft, sure whisper in the darkness. “Why couldn’t I love him the way I should?” It was the same question she’d asked herself millions of times. No matter how hard she’d tried, she’d been unable to talk herself into it. “Because life’s not that neat.” No, it wasn’t, which made her wonder what kind of disaster lurked around the corner.

I’m in love with the lady in the picture book Long before the new skinny generation I adore her with her bustle and her wide-eyed look I know she’ll never be mine   I know my heart’s a technological disaster And, I was born far too soon for a time machine I guess I’m caught between a quest and a dilemma I know I’ll never get home   I was born 88 years too late A victim of cruel fate – yes I am

Time to cut the cake, newlyweds." Caroline ushers us over to the sweet little two-tier cake, round and covered in white fondant with what appear to be traditional henna tattoo patterns drawn on it in pale gold. We take the mother-of-pearl-handled knife, apparently the one Caroline and Carl used at their wedding, and, his hand on mine, cut a small slice. We feed each other a generous bite, marveling at the tender almond cake with the poached apricots and white chocolate mousse, light-as-air buttercream scented with vanilla and orange blossom water.

The Wall Street Journal (The Wall Street Journal) - Clip This Article on Location 1055 | Added on Tuesday, May 5, 2015 5:10:24 PM OPINION Baltimore Is Not About Race Government-induced dependency is the problem—and it’s one with a long history. By William McGurn | 801 words For those who see the rioting in Baltimore as primarily about race, two broad reactions dominate. One group sees rampaging young men fouling their own neighborhoods and concludes nothing can be done because the social pathologies are so overwhelming. In some cities, this view manifests itself in the unspoken but cynical policing that effectively cedes whole neighborhoods to the thugs. The other group tut-tuts about root causes. Take your pick: inequality, poverty, injustice. Or, as President Obama intimated in an ugly aside on the rioting, a Republican Congress that will never agree to the “massive investments” (in other words, billions more in federal spending) required “if we are serious about solving this problem.” There is another view. In this view, the disaster of inner cities isn’t primarily about race at all. It’s about the consequences of 50 years of progressive misrule—which on race has proved an equal-opportunity failure. Baltimore is but the latest liberal-blue city where government has failed to do the one thing it ought—i.e., put the cops on the side of the vulnerable and law-abiding—while pursuing “solutions” that in practice enfeeble families and social institutions and local economies. These supposed solutions do this by substituting federal transfers for fathers and families. They do it by favoring community organizing and government projects over private investment. And they do it by propping up failing public-school systems that operate as jobs programs for the teachers unions instead of centers of learning. If our inner-city African-American communities suffer disproportionately from crippling social pathologies that make upward mobility difficult—and they do—it is in large part because they have disproportionately been on the receiving end of this five-decade-long progressive experiment in government beneficence. How do we know? Because when we look at a slice of white America that was showered with the same Great Society good intentions—Appalachia—we find the same dysfunctions: greater dependency, more single-parent families and the absence of the good, private-sector jobs that only a growing economy can create. Remember, in the mid-1960s when President Johnson put a face on America’s “war on poverty,” he didn’t do it from an urban ghetto. He did it from the front porch of a shack in eastern Kentucky’s Martin County, where a white family of 10 eked out a subsistence living on an income of $400 a year. In many ways, rural Martin County and urban Baltimore could not be more different. Martin County is 92% white while Baltimore is two-thirds black. Each has seen important sources of good-paying jobs dry up—Martin County in coal mining, Baltimore in manufacturing. In the last presidential election, Martin Country voted 6 to 1 for Mitt Romney while Baltimore went 9 to 1 for Barack Obama. Yet the Great Society’s legacy has been depressingly similar. In a remarkable dispatch two years ago, the Lexington Herald-Leader’s John Cheves noted that the war on poverty sent $2.1 billion to Martin County alone (pop. 12,537) through programs including “welfare, food stamps, jobless benefits, disability compensation, school subsidies, affordable housing, worker training, economic development incentives, Head Start for poor children and expanded Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.” The result? “The problem facing Appalachia today isn’t Third World poverty,” writes Mr. Cheves. “It’s dependence on government assistance.” Just one example: When Congress imposed work requirements and lifetime caps for welfare during the Clinton administration, claims of disability jumped. Mr. Cheves quotes

I saw Trout Fishing in America Shorty passed out in the front window of a Filipino laundromat. He was sitting in his wheelchair with closed eyes staring out the window. There was a tranquil expression on his face. He almost looked human. He had probably fallen asleep while he was having his brains washed in one of the machines. (from "The Shipping of Trout Fishing in America Shorty to Nelson Algren", page 47)

Yet neither their stop-at-nothing tactics nor their social Darwinist message would have gained much traction were it not for the stunning failure of Democrats to make the case for a strong and effective government that responds to the needs of average people. There is no shortage of evidence—globalizing corporations, rip-roaring CEO pay, mass layoffs, declining pay for the bottom 90 percent, mine disasters, exploding oil rigs, malfeasance on Wall Street, and wildly escalating costs of health insurance—and it is not especially difficult to connect the dots. Yet too frequently Democrats have appeared timid and defensive; too often they’ve given in to regressive demands without a fight; and they’ve allowed the regressives’ big lies to go unrebutted for too long.