Mule Work Quotes

A slave mentality which had been built into him by years of carrot-and-whip grading, a mule mentality which said, “If you don’t whip me, I won’t work.” He didn’t get whipped. He didn’t work.

You'll want all your strength for the wedding night." I cannot think why I should need strength," she said, ignoring a host of spine-tingling images rising in her mind's eye. "All I have to do is lie there." "Naked," he said grimly. "Truly?" She shot him a glance from under her lashes. "Well, if I must, I must, for you have the advantage of experience in these matters. Still, I do wish you'd told me sooner. I should not have put the modiste to so much trouble about the negligee." "The what?" "It was ghastly expensive," she said, "but the silk is as fine as gossamer, and the eyelet work about the neckline is exquisite. Aunt Louisa was horrified. She said only Cyprians wear such things, and it leaves nothing to the imagination." Jessica heard him suck in his breath, felt the muscular thigh tense against hers. "But if it were left to Aunt Louisa," she went on,"I should be covered from my chin to my toes in thick cotton ruffled with monstrosities with little bows and rosebuds. Which is absurd, when an evening gown reveals far more, not to mention--" "What color?" he asked. His low voice had roughened. "Wine red," she said, "With narrow black ribbons threaded through the neckline. Here." She traced a plunging U over her bosom. "And there's the loveliest openwork over my...well, here." She drew her finger over the curve of her breast a bare inch above the nipple. "And openwork on the right side of the skirt. From here" --she pointed to her hip--"down to the hem. And I bought---" "Jess." Her name was a strangled whisper. "--slippers to match," she continued." Black mules with--" "Jess." In one furious flurry of motion he threw down the reins and hauled her into his lap.

Here sitting on the world, she thought, for she could not shake herself from the sense that everything this morning was happening for the first time, perhaps for the last time, as a traveller, even though he is half asleep, knows, looking out of the train window, that he must look now, for he will never see that town, or that mule-cart, or that woman at work in the fields, again.

Miss Dearheart gave him a very brief look, and shook her head. There was movement under the table, a small fleshy kind of noise and the drunk suddenly bent forward, colour draining from his face. Probably only he and Moist heard Miss Dearheart purr: ‘What is sticking in your foot is a Mitzy “Pretty Lucretia” four-inch heel, the most dangerous footwear in the world. Considered as pounds per square inch, it’s like being trodden on by a very pointy elephant. Now, I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking, “Could she press it all the way through to the floor?” And, you know, I’m not sure about that myself. The sole of your boot might give me a bit of trouble, but nothing else will. But that’s not the worrying part. The worrying part is that I was forced practically at knifepoint to take ballet lessons as a child, which means I can kick like a mule; you are sitting in front of me; and I have another shoe . Good, I can see you have worked that out. I’m going to withdraw the heel now.’ There was a small ‘pop’ from under the table. With great care the man stood up, turned and, without a backward glance, lurched unsteadily away. ‘Can I bother you?’ said Moist. Miss Dearheart nodded, and he sat down, with his legs crossed. ‘He was only a drunk,’ he ventured. ‘Yes, men say that sort of thing,’ said Miss Dearheart.

...solitary like a pool at evening, far distant, seen from a train window, vanishing so quickly that the pool, pale in the evening, is scarcely robbed of its solitude, though once seen. *** Here sitting on the world, she thought, for she could not shake herself free from the sense that everything this morning was happening for the first time, perhaps for the last time, as a traveller, even though he is half asleep, knows, looking out of the train window, that he must look now, for he will never see that town, or that mule-cart, or that woman at work in the fields, again.

Everybody's entitled to that forty acres and a mule. You're going to do the work, but you have to have something to work with. If you don't have a job, where do you go from there? You hear people say Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and you don't even have shoes. You're barefooted. What are you going to pull yourself up by? Our country owes every citizen of the United States of America a means of livelihood. Not a handout, but a way to make it.

I Have Walked Down Many Roads by Antonio Machado translated from the Spanish by Don Share I have walked down many roads and cleared many paths; I have navigated a hundred oceans and anchored off a hundred shores. All over, I have seen caravans of sadness, pompous and melancholy men drunk with black shadows, and defrocked pedants who stare, keep quiet, and think they know, because they don’t drink wine in the neighborhood bars. Bad people who go around polluting the earth . . . And all over, I have seen people who dance or play, when they can, and work their four handfuls of land. If they turn up someplace, they never ask where they are. When they travel, they ride on the backs of old mules, and don’t know how to hurry, not even on holidays. When there’s wine, they drink wine; when there’s no wine, they drink cool water. These are good people, who live, work, get by, and dream; and on a day like all the others they lie down under the earth.

As they were speaking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Odysseus had bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any enjoyment from him. In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in front of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away to manure the great close; and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw Odysseus standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Odysseus saw the dog on the other side of the yard, dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaeus seeing it, and said: 'Eumaeus, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap: his build is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept merely for show?' 'This dog,' answered Eumaeus, 'belonged to him who has died in a far country. If he were what he was when Odysseus left for Troy, he would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women take no care of him. Servants never do their work when their master's hand is no longer over them, for Zeus takes half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him.' So saying he entered the well-built mansion, and made straight for the riotous pretenders in the hall. But Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had fulfilled his destiny of faith and seen his master once more after twenty years…

It was an innocent question, made reasonable by the body of confused and often contradictory rumors that make Zora Neale Hurston’s own legend as richly curious and as dense as are the black myths she did so much to preserve in her classic anthropological works, Mules and Men and Tell My Horse, and in her fiction.

My Last Duchess That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said “Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not Her husband’s presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat”: such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace—all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, —E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master’s known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Dat's de reason de sister in black works harder than anybody else in the world. De white man tells de n****r to work and he takes and tells his wife.

But I was here then, and I don’t see it now, and that’s why I did it. I did it for them back there under them trees. I did it ’cause that tractor is getting closer and closer to that graveyard, and I was scared if I didn’t do it, one day that tractor was go’n come in there and plow up them graves, getting rid of all proof that we ever was. Like now they trying to get rid of all proof that black people ever farmed this land with plows and mules—like if they had nothing from the starten but motor machines. Sure, one day they will get rid of the proof that we ever was, but they ain’t go’n do it while I’m still here. Mama and Papa worked too hard in these fields. They mama and they papa worked too hard in these same fields. They mama and they papa people worked too hard, too hard to have that tractor just come in that graveyard and destroy all proof that they ever was. I’m the last one left. I had to see that the graves stayed for a little while longer. But I just didn’t do it for my own people. I did it for every last one back there under them trees. And I did it for every four-o’clock, every rosebush, every palm-of-Christian ever growed on this place.

child is father to the man," and with such training, whatever may be his natural disposition, it cannot well be otherwise than that, on arriving at maturity, the sufferings and miseries of the slave will be looked upon with entire indifference. The influence of the iniquitous system necessarily fosters an unfeeling and cruel spirit, even in the bosoms of those who, among, their equals, are regarded as humane and generous.         Young Master Epps possessed some noble qualities, yet no process of reasoning could lead him to comprehend, that in the eye of the Almighty there is no distinction of color. He looked upon the black man simply as an animal, differing in no respect from any other animal, save in the gift of speech and the possession of somewhat higher instincts, and, therefore, the more valuable. To work like his father's mules— to be whipped and kicked and scourged through life— to address the white man with hat in hand, and eyes bent servilely on the earth, in his mind, was the natural and proper destiny of the slave. Brought up with such ideas—in the notion that we stand without the pale of humanity—no wonder the oppressors of my people are a pitiless and unrelenting race.

It seems reasonable to assume that the minute Irma walks into Venera and Goderdzi's home she will take off her while wedding dress, take up the yoke of domestic duties and work like a mule until her dying breath.

Your thighs are soft like the nostrils of a mule. The yellow of saffron plays about your breasts. The sapphire pen of night has cleansed blue your white most blue. I'd be made of stone if I did not know your hidden behests.

Men are dogs ... they just are. They need constant praise and rewards. Women are pack mules—we work without praise for long days, recover quickly, and wake up the next day plodding right along again. No treats. No pats on the head. No belly rubs

How to Survive Racism in an Organization that Claims to be Antiracist: 10. Ask why they want you. Get as much clarity as possible on what the organization has read about you, what they understand about you, what they assume are your gifts and strengths. What does the organization hope you will bring to the table? Do those answers align with your reasons for wanting to be at the table? 9. Define your terms. You and the organization may have different definitions of words like "justice", "diveristy", or "antiracism". Ask for definitions, examples, or success stories to give you a better idea of how the organization understands and embodies these words. Also ask about who is in charge and who is held accountable for these efforts. Then ask yourself if you can work within the structure. 8. Hold the organization to the highest vision they committed to for as long as you can. Be ready to move if the leaders aren't prepared to pursue their own stated vision. 7. Find your people. If you are going to push back against the system or push leadership forward, it's wise not to do so alone. Build or join an antiracist cohort within the organization. 6. Have mentors and counselors on standby. Don't just choose a really good friend or a parent when seeking advice. It's important to have on or two mentors who can give advice based on their personal knowledge of the organization and its leaders. You want someone who can help you navigate the particular politics of your organization. 5. Practice self-care. Remember that you are a whole person, not a mule to carry the racial sins of the organization. Fall in love, take your children to the park, don't miss doctors' visits, read for pleasure, dance with abandon, have lots of good sex, be gentle with yourself. 4. Find donors who will contribute to the cause. Who's willing to keep the class funded, the diversity positions going, the social justice center operating? It's important for the organization to know the members of your cohort aren't the only ones who care. Demonstrate that there are stakeholders, congregations members, and donors who want to see real change. 3. Know your rights. There are some racist things that are just mean, but others are against the law. Know the difference, and keep records of it all. 2. Speak. Of course, context matters. You must be strategic about when, how, to whom, and about which situations you decide to call out. But speak. Find your voice and use it. 1. Remember: You are a creative being who is capable of making change. But it is not your responsibility to transform an entire organization.

Kay’s flying shuttle, Arkwright’s water frame, Crompton’s spinning mule, and Cartwright’s loom were all made possible with silver-working. Silver-working has catapulted Britain ahead of every other nation, and put thousands of labourers out of work in the process.

When I close my eyes to see, to hear, to smell, to touch a country I have known, I feel my body shake and fill with joy as if a beloved person had come near me. A rabbi was once asked the following question: ‘When you say that the Jews should return to Palestine, you mean, surely, the heavenly, the immaterial, the spiritual Palestine, our true homeland?’ The rabbi jabbed his staff into the ground in wrath and shouted, ‘No! I want the Palestine down here, the one you can touch with your hands, with its stones, its thorns and its mud!’ Neither am I nourished by fleshless, abstract memories. If I expected my mind to distill from a turbid host of bodily joys and bitternesses an immaterial, crystal-clear thought, I would die of hunger. When I close my eyes in order to enjoy a country again, my five senses, the five mouth-filled tentacles of my body, pounce upon it and bring it to me. Colors, fruits, women. The smells of orchards, of filthy narrow alleys, of armpits. Endless snows with blue, glittering reflections. Scorching, wavy deserts of sand shimmering under the hot sun. Tears, cries, songs, distant bells of mules, camels or troikas. The acrid, nauseating stench of some Mongolian cities will never leave my nostrils. And I will eternally hold in my hands – eternally, that is, until my hands rot – the melons of Bukhara, the watermelons of the Volga, the cool, dainty hand of a Japanese girl… For a time, in my early youth, I struggled to nourish my famished soul by feeding it with abstract concepts. I said that my body was a slave and that its duty was to gather raw material and bring it to the orchard of the mind to flower and bear fruit and become ideas. The more fleshless, odorless, soundless the world was that filtered into me, the more I felt I was ascending the highest peak of human endeavor. And I rejoiced. And Buddha came to be my greatest god, whom I loved and revered as an example. Deny your five senses. Empty your guts. Love nothing, hate nothing, desire nothing, hope for nothing. Breathe out and the world will be extinguished. But one night I had a dream. A hunger, a thirst, the influence of a barbarous race that had not yet become tired of the world had been secretly working within me. My mind pretended to be tired. You felt it had known everything, had become satiated, and was now smiling ironically at the cries of my peasant heart. But my guts – praised be God! – were full of blood and mud and craving. And one night I had a dream. I saw two lips without a face – large, scimitar-shaped woman’s lips. They moved. I heard a voice ask, ‘Who if your God?’ Unhesitatingly I answered, ‘Buddha!’ But the lips moved again and said: ‘No, Epaphus.’ I sprang up out of my sleep. Suddenly a great sense of joy and certainty flooded my heart. What I had been unable to find in the noisy, temptation-filled, confused world of wakefulness I had found now in the primeval, motherly embrace of the night. Since that night I have not strayed. I follow my own path and try to make up for the years of my youth that were lost in the worship of fleshless gods, alien to me and my race. Now I transubstantiate the abstract concepts into flesh and am nourished. I have learned that Epaphus, the god of touch, is my god. All the countries I have known since then I have known with my sense of touch. I feel my memories tingling, not in my head but in my fingertips and my whole skin. And as I bring back Japan to my mind, my hands tremble as if they were touching the breast of a beloved woman.

Clowns.” Clowns? “Really?” I tried to imagine a tiny Aiden crying over men and women with overly painted faces and red noses, but I couldn’t. The big guy was still facing me. His expression clear and even, as he dipped his chin. “Eh.” God help me, he’d gone Canadian on me. I had to will my face not to react at the fact he’d gone with the one word he usually used only when he was super relaxed around other people. “I thought they were going to eat me.” Now imagining that had me cracking a little smile. I slid my palm under my cheek. “How old were you? Nineteen?” Those big chocolate-colored eyes blinked, slow, slow, slow. His dark pink lips parted just slightly. “Are you making fun of me?” he drawled. “Yes.” The fractures of my grin cracked into bigger pieces. “Because I was scared of clowns?” It was like he couldn’t understand why that was amusing. But it was. “I just can’t imagine you scared of anything, much less clowns. Come on. Even I’ve never been scared of clowns.” “I was four.” I couldn’t help but snicker. “Four… fourteen, same difference.” Based on the mule-ish expression on his face, he wasn’t amused. “This is the last time that I come over to save you from the boogeyman.” Shocked out of my mind for a split second, I tried to pretend like I wasn’t, but… I was. He was joking with me. Aiden was in bed joking around. With me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I was just messing with you.” I scooted one more millimeter closer to him, drawing my knees up so that they hit his thighs. “Please don’t leave yet.” “I won’t,” he said, settling on his pillow with his hands under his cheek, his eyes already drifting to a close. I didn’t need to ask him to promise not to leave me; I knew he wouldn’t if he said so. That was just the kind of man he was. “Aiden?” I whispered. “Hmm?” he murmured. “Thank you for coming in here with me.” “Uh-huh.” That big body adjusted itself just slightly before he let out a long, deep exhale. Without turning around, I laid the flashlight down behind me and aimed the beam toward the wall. He didn’t ask if I was really going to leave the flashlight on all night—or at least however long the battery lasted—instead, I just smiled at him as I took my glasses off and set them on the unused nightstand behind me. Then I tucked my hands under my cheek and watched him. “Good night. Thank you again for staying with me.” Peeking one eye open, just a narrow slit, he hummed. “Shh.” That ‘shh’ was about as close to a ‘you’re welcome’ as I was going to get. I closed my eyes with a little grin on my face. Maybe five seconds later, Aiden’s spoke up. “Vanessa?” “Hmm?” “Why was I saved on your work phone as Miranda P.?” That had my eyes snapping open. I hadn’t deleted that entry off the contacts when I quit, had I? “It’s a long, boring story, and you should go to sleep. Okay?” The “uh-huh” out of him sounded as disbelieving as it should have. He knew I was full of shit, but somehow, knowing he knew, wasn’t enough to keep me from falling asleep soon after

They would tell you that governments could not manage things as economically as private individuals; they would repeat and repeat that, and think they were saying something! They could not see that “economical” management by masters meant simply that they, the people, were worked harder and ground closer and paid less! They were wage-earners and servants, at the mercy of exploiters whose one thought was to get as much out of them as possible; and they were taking an interest in the process, were anxious lest it should not be done thoroughly enough! Was it not honestly a trial to listen to an argument such as that? And yet there were things even worse. You would begin talking to some poor devil who had worked in one shop for the last thirty years, and had never been able to save a penny; who left home every morning at six o’clock, to go and tend a machine, and come back at night too tired to take his clothes off; who had never had a week’s vacation in his life, had never traveled, never had an adventure, never learned anything, never hoped anything—and when you started to tell him about Socialism he would sniff and say, “I’m not interested in that—I’m an individualist!” And then he would go on to tell you that Socialism was “paternalism,” and that if it ever had its way the world would stop progressing. It was enough to make a mule laugh, to hear arguments like that; and yet it was no laughing matter, as you found out—for how many millions of such poor deluded wretches there were, whose lives had been so stunted by capitalism that they no longer knew what freedom was! And they really thought that it was “individualism” for tens of thousands of them to herd together and obey the orders of a steel magnate, and produce hundreds of millions of dollars of wealth for him, and then let him give them libraries; while for them to take the industry, and run it to suit themselves, and build their own libraries—that would have been “Paternalism”!

ARNOLPHE. WAS SHE sad after I went away? Georgette. Sad? No. Arnolphe. No? Georgette. Yes, yes. Arnolphe. Why, then? Georgette. May I die on the spot, but she expected to see you return every minute; and we never heard a horse, an ass, or a mule pass by without her thinking it was you.

she could not shake herself free from the sense that everything this morning was happening for the first time, perhaps for the last time, as a traveller, even though he is half asleep, knows, looking out of the train window, that he must look now, for he will never see that town, or that mule-cart, or that woman at work in the fields, again.

His gut clenched. He’d thought she was different. Thought she appreciated the man he was, not the out-of-all-proportion legend the sensationalists depicted. Was that what she wanted? Some larger-than-life hero? If so, he didn’t stand a chance. She’d never be satisfied with a humble mule trainer. He’d worked hard to put life as a bounty hunter behind him. He wouldn’t be that man again. Not even for her.

She had curled up with those books on more than one occasion, and yes, she had dreamt of a handsome, red-haired man of action, but it hadn’t been Dead-Eye Dan, drat it all. She’d dreamt of Daniel Barrett, the man who worked her father’s cattle, who trained the finest mules in the county, and whose sky-blue eyes could melt her heart with a single glance. Daniel Barrett had stolen her heart before she’d ever even heard of Dead-Eye Dan. “I

For the gods keep hidden from men the means of life. Else you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste. But Zeus in the anger of his heart hid it, because Prometheus the crafty deceived him; therefore he planned sorrow and mischief against men. He hid fire; but that the noble son of Iapetus stole again for men from Zeus the counsellor in a hollow fennel-stalk, so that Zeus who delights in thunder did not see it. But afterwards Zeus who gathers the clouds said to him in anger: `Son of Iapetus, surpassing all in cunning, you are glad that you have outwitted me and stolen fire -- a great plague to you yourself and to men that shall be. But I will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction.

two things will stop them—Christmas and tragedy. He dismounts his albino steed, the horse’s pinked nostrils flaring, dirty mane matted with ice. The single-rig saddle is snow-crusted as well, its leather and cloth components—the mochila and shabrack—frozen stiff. He rubs George’s neck, speaking in soft, low tones he knows will calm the animal, telling him he did a good day’s work and that a warm stable awaits with feed and fresh water. The mule skinner opens his wallet, collects the pint of bust-head he bought at a bodega in Silverton, and swallows the remaining mouthful, whiskey

When I look back at my mule it was like he was one of these here spy-glasses and I could look at him standing there and see all the broad land and my house sweated outen it like it was the more the sweat, the broader the land; the more the sweat, the tighter the house because it would take a tight house for Cora, to hold Cora like a jar of milk in the spring: you've got to have a tight jar or you'll need a powerful spring, so if you have a big spring, why then you have the incentive to have tight, wellmade jars, because it is your milk, sour or not, because you would rather have milk that will sour than to have milk that wont, because you are a man.

Yet it wasn’t the Mississippi River that captured Jim Bridger’s imagination : it was the Missouri. A mere six likes from his ferry the two great rivers joined as one, the wild waters of the frontier pouring into the bromide current of the everyday. It was the confluence of old and new, known and unknown, civilization and wilderness. Bridger lived for the rare moments when the fur traders and voyageurs tied their sleek Mackinaws at the ferry landing, sometimes even camping for the night. He marveled at their tales of savage Indians, teeming game, forever plains, and soaring mountains. The frontier for Bridger became an aching presence that he could feel, but could not define, a magnetic force pulling him inexorably toward something that he had heard about, but never seen. A preacher on a swaybacked mule rode Bridger’s ferry one day. He asked Bridger if he knew God’s mission for him in life. Without pause Bridger answered, “Go to the Rockies”. The preacher was elated, urging the boy to consider missionary work with the savages. Bridger had no interest in bringing Jesus to the Indians, but the conversation stuck with him. The boy came to believe that going west was more than just a fancy for someplace new. He came to see it as a part of his soul, a missing piece that could only be made whole on some far-off mountain or plain.

for ordinary African Americans, coping with hegemonic gender ideology can be so demanding that generating alternatives can seem virtually impossible. But the importance of this task cannot be underestimated because African American survival may depend on it. One important task lies in rejecting dominant gender ideology, in particular, its use of the thesis of "weak men, strong women" as a source of Black social control. Because hegemonic masculinity equates strength with dominance, an antiracist politics must challenge this connection. Within this project, the fundamental premise of any progressive Black gender ideology is that it cannot be based on someone else's subordination. This means that definitions of Black masculinity that rely on the subordination of Black women, poor people, children, LGBT people, or anyone else become invalid. Definitions of Black femininity that do not challenge relations of sexism, economic exploitation, age, heterosexism, and other markers of social inequality also become suspect. Rather than trying to be strong within existing gender ideology, the task lies in rejecting a gender ideology that measures masculinity and femininity using gendered definitions of strength. In this endeavor to craft a more progressive Black gender ideology, African American men and women face similar yet distinctive challenges. The task for African American men lies in developing new definitions of masculinity that uncouple strength from its close ties to male dominance. Good Black men need not rule their families with an iron hand, assault one another, pursue endless booty calls, and always seem to be "in control" in order to avoid the sigma of weakness. The task for African American women lies in redefining strength in ways that simultaneously enable Black women to reclaim historical sources of female power, yet reject the exploitation that has often accompanied that power. Good Black women need not be stoic mules whose primary release from work and responsibility comes once a week on Sunday morning. New definitions of strength would enable Black men and women alike to be seen as needing and worthy of one another's help and support without being stigmatized as either overly weak or unnaturally strong.

I brought things to break curses,” he said. “I didn’t know who cursed you, or how, so I brought as many as I could find.” He gestured toward the mule. “There’s moly and salt and rowan and rue and candles, and a knife that my mother’s imam said duas over and also I had it blessed by the Benedictine monk who ran the library, so between the two of them, it ought to be quite holy by now. I couldn’t find a rabbi. Well, I did, but he wanted to come alone because he’d never met a fairy, and I thought you wouldn’t like that.” Toadling began to laugh because if she didn’t, she would cry immediately. “I told you, I wasn’t cursed!” Cursed by fortune. Cursed by circumstance. Cursed to be whatever I am… Halim seemed unbothered by this. “We’ll work something out.

The student’s biggest problem was a slave mentality which had been built into him by years of carrot-and- whip grading, a mule mentality which said, "If you don’t whip me, I won’t work." He didn’t get whipped. He didn’t work. And the cart of civilization, which he supposedly was being trained to pull, was just going to have to creak along a little slower without him. This is a tragedy, however, only if you presume that the cart of civilization, "the system," is pulled by mules. This is a common, vocational, "location" point of view, but it’s not the Church attitude. The Church attitude is that civilization, or "the system" or "society" or whatever you want to call it, is best served not by mules but by free men. The purpose of abolishing grades and degrees is not to punish mules or to get rid of them but to provide an environment in which that mule can turn into a free man.

The general, whom the boys knew as the commander of their division, looked at the other officer and spoke coolly, as if he were criticising his clothes. "Th' enemy's formin' over there for another charge," he said. "It'll be directed against Whiterside, an' I fear they'll break through there unless we work like thunder t' stop them." The other swore at his restive horse, and then cleared his throat. He made a gesture toward his cap. "It'll be hell t' pay stoppin' them," he said shortly. "I presume so," remarked the general. Then he began to talk rapidly and in a lower tone. He frequently illustrated his words with a pointing finger. The two infantrymen could hear nothing until finally he asked: "What troops can you spare?" The officer who rode like a cowboy reflected for an instant. "Well," he said, "I had to order in th' 12th to help th' 76th, an' I haven't really got any. But there's th' 304th. They fight like a lot 'a mule drivers. I can spare them best of any." The youth and his friend exchanged glances of astonishment. The general spoke sharply. "Get 'em ready, then. I'll watch developments from here, an' send you word when t' start them. It'll happen in five minutes." As the other officer tossed his fingers toward his cap and wheeling his horse, started away, the general called out to him in a sober voice: "I don't believe many of your mule drivers will get back." The other shouted something in reply. He smiled. With scared faces, the youth and his companion hurried back to the line. These happenings had occupied an incredibly short time, yet the youth felt that in them he had been made aged. New eyes were given to him. And the most startling thing was to learn suddenly that he was very insignificant. The officer spoke of the regiment as if he referred to a broom. Some part of the woods needed sweeping, perhaps, and he merely indicated a broom in a tone properly indifferent to its fate. It was war, no doubt, but it appeared strange.

That I haven’t told you the parable of the man, the boy, and the mule.” Cettie nodded eagerly. He stared down at the book, thumbing through its pages. “I heard this one when I first went away to study the Mysteries. It was shared with all of us, but I don’t think all of us heard it the same way. That’s the thing about stories. They can touch on truths that some people just are not ready to hear. The tale goes like this. Long before the first flying castles and sky ships and cauldrons of molten steel—before the Fells—life was simpler. A man and his son needed to sell their mule to buy food to last the winter. So they started walking to get to the market, which was very far. They met a fellow traveler along the way who criticized them for not riding the mule. So the man, realizing that his beast of burden wasn’t being used for its purpose, put his son on it to ride. But when they arrived at the first village on their path, some men in the square scoffed and said how inconsiderate the son was for making his father walk. They stopped and watered the beast, and so the father ordered the boy to walk while he rode. Again, they reached the next village, and what did they hear? Some washerwomen complained that the father must be evil to force his son to walk while he rode. Ashamed by their words, the father decided to change yet again. Do you know what he did?” Cettie shook her head no, eager for him to continue. Fitzroy wagged his finger at her. “So they both rode the mule into the next town. By this time, the mule was getting very tired, and when they reached the next village, they were ridiculed for being lazy and working the poor beast half to death! The market was in the very next town, and they feared they’d not be able to sell the poor creature, now it was so spent. And so the father and son cut down a sapling, lashed the mule to the pole, and carried it to the next town. You can imagine what the townsfolk thought as they saw the father and son laboring and exhausted as they approached the town. Who were these country bumpkins who carried a mule on their own shoulders? As they crossed the bridge into town, suffering the jeers and taunts of passersby, one of the ropes broke loose, and the mule kicked free. The boy dropped his end of the pole, and the beast fell into the river and drowned.” “No!” Cettie said, mouth wide open. Fitzroy nodded sagely. “A man with a crooked staff had been following them into town. As

Why do you go like this? Are you a thief?” “I’m going to kill him.” Shadows from the lamplight shifted on the old man’s features as he tilted his head. “What did he do?” “He kidnapped my wife.” “How do you know this?” “He threatened it. And it has been done.” The man stepped nearer the pickup, raising the lantern to see Arif better. “Truly?” “Truly.” “Is it tha’r?” A revenge killing. “Yes.” The old one kept the lantern high while he studied Arif from below. His tongue worked inside his cheeks, behind his gray beard. In the light, the man was not so old and blue-eyed. He pointed to the big house behind the wall. “You know who he is? This family, the Bayt Ba-Jalal?” “I know very well.” The old man squinted. “You have killed before?” “A long time ago.” “So you understand?” “Yes.” Slowly, the man inclined his head to Arif as if in the presence of someone exalted. “Insha’Allah.” If God wills. He turned to gesture the younger one forward. This man came leading the mule. The elder took the animal by the bridle while the younger man stepped onto the pickup truck bed. He was burly and the truck’s springs sagged under him. He bent, clasping his hands to make a step. The old man shook the lantern at Arif. “Up you go, then.

It was summer. The room was dark in spite of the door and window open on the great outer light. Through these narrow openings, far apart, the light poured, lit up a little space, then died, undiffused. It had no steadfastness, no assurance of lasting as long as day lasted. But it entered at every moment, renewed from without, entered and died at every moment, devoured by the dark. And at the least abatement of the inflow the room grew darker and darker until nothing in it was visible anymore. For the dark had triumphed. And Sapo, his face turned towards an earth so resplendent that it hurt his eyes, felt at his back and all about him the unconquerable dark, and it licked the light on his face. Sometimes abruptly he turned to face it, letting it envelop and pervade him with a kind of relief. Then he heard more clearly the sounds of those at work, the daughter calling to her goats, the father cursing his mule. But silence was in the heart of the dark, the silence of dust and the things that would never stir, if left alone. And the ticking of the invisible alarm-clock was as the voice of that silence which, like the dark, would one day triumph too. And then all would be still and dark and all things at rest for ever at last.

Why are you starting there?" Roe asked as he followed the young man curiously. Confused, Jesse looked down at the ground and then at the mule before he shrugged. "This is where I always start," he said. "This is where Pa showed me to start." Roe shook his head. "Well, that doesn't make sense, Jesse. You should start at the edge and go to the edge." Jesse gazed at one edge of the field and then at the other. His brow furrowed in concentration. "That ain't right," he said. "Of course it's right," Roe told him, smiling. "It makes perfect sense. Starting in the middle doesn't make any sense at all." Jesse bit his lip nervously as again he surveyed the field. "We got to start right here, Roe. I know we do." Roe sighed and shook his head. "Now, Jesse, you just told me yourself that I was smarter than folks around here. And I told you that a smart man can make light work of his labors. You do believe that, don't you?" Jesse nodded solemnly. "Then you've got to trust me when I tell you that the place to begin is at the beginning, not in the middle." To Roe's horror, tears welled up in Jesse's bright blue eyes. "We got to start right here," he insisted. "This is where Pa taught me to start and it's the way I know." Alarmed at the young man's emotion, Roe voluntarily touched his shoulder in an uncertain attempt to comfort him. "It's all right, Jesse. Don't cry," he said. "I ain't crying," the young man insisted through his tears. "I'm too big to cry.

In the early grey of the morning they reached the headquarter of General Genarius and found him working in a mountain of paperwork. Joey and Maya informed the general in detail about Libertine’s report. General Genarius closed his eyes and thought for a long moment until he said, “Wait a minute! Are you telling me that you want to enter the belly of darkness and liberate the mermaids and the unicorns?” “Yes Sir, we are determined to attack the center of demonic powers and believe in the great opportunity to liberate the mermaids and the unicorns from the cruel grip of the Empire!” Maya said. “Dangerous, dangerous…but the more I think about it, the more I can see that it could really work. However…this mission has to be well organized and of course…you must find the secret door to the Underworld… in time or you will be in big trouble. It is very risky but I will support this venture! Let me share with you some of my ideas and how this attempt could work. Take your six unicorns, all the equipment you need and leave the city of Selinka as soon as possible with Captain Goran and my assistant Captain Armstrong. You must cross the Thordis River behind the city, stay close to the Lagoon and move directly east from there. Let me take my map and show you exactly the way and… let me talk to Captain Armstrong. He is indeed a man with a strong arm, a clear mind in battle and he knows the way to Duanes Gate very well because his family lives somewhere in that area.

As they spoke, 290 Argos, the dog that lay there, raised his head and ears. Odysseus had trained this dog but with no benefit—he left too soon to march on holy Troy. The master gone, boys took the puppy out to hunt wild goats and deer and hares. But now he lay neglected, without an owner, in a pile of dung from mules and cows—the slaves stored heaps of it outside the door, until they fertilized the large estate. So Argos lay there dirty,300 covered with fleas. And when he realized Odysseus was near, he wagged his tail, and both his ears dropped back. He was too weak to move towards his master. At a distance, Odysseus had noticed, and he wiped his tears away and hid them easily, and said, “Eumaeus, it is strange this dog is lying in the dung; he looks quite handsome, though it is hard to tell if he can run, or if he is a pet, a table dog,310 kept just for looks.” Eumaeus, you replied, “This dog belonged to someone who has died in foreign lands. If he were in good health, as when Odysseus abandoned him and went to Troy, you soon would see how quick and brave he used to be. He went to hunt in woodland, and he always caught his prey. His nose was marvelous. But now he is in bad condition, with his master gone, long dead. The women fail to care for him.320 Slaves do not want to do their proper work, when masters are not watching them. Zeus halves our value on the day that makes us slaves.” With that, the swineherd went inside the palace, to join the noble suitors. Twenty years had passed since Argos saw Odysseus, and now he saw him for the final time— then suddenly, black death took hold of him.

The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence celestial, glistering on Dublin stone there under starshiny coelum. God's air, the Allfather's air, scintillant circumambient cessile air. Breathe it deep into thee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a doughty deed and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor barring none in this chaffering allincluding most farraginous chronicle. Astounding! In her lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility which thou hast fructified with thy modicum of man's work. Cleave to her! Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandog and let scholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all their daddies, Theodore. Art drooping under thy load, bemoiled with butcher's bills at home and ingots (not thine!) in the countinghouse? Head up! For every newbegotten thou shalt gather thy homer of ripe wheat. See, thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy Darby Dullman there with his Joan? A canting jay and a rheumeyed curdog is all their progeny. Pshaw, I tell thee! He is a mule, a dead gasteropod, without vim or stamina, not worth a cracked kreutzer. Copulation without population! No, say I! Herod's slaughter of the innocents were the truer name. Vegetables, forsooth, and sterile cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw, bleeding! She is a hoary pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps, quinsy, bunions, hayfever, bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney, Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious attacks, gallstones, cold feet, varicose veins. A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and all such congenital defunctive music! Twenty years of it, regret them not. With thee it was not as with many that will and would and wait and never do. Thou sawest thy America, thy lifetask, and didst charge to cover like the transpontine bison. How saith Zarathustra? Deine Kuh Trübsal melkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters. See! it displodes for thee in abundance. Drink, man, an udderful! Mother's milk, Purefoy, the milk of human kin, milk too of those burgeoning stars overhead rutilant in thin rainvapour, punch milk, such as those rioters will quaff in their guzzling den, milk of madness, the honeymilk of Canaan's land. Thy cow's dug was tough, what? Ay, but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. No dollop this but thick rich bonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch! Pap! Per deam Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum!

The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence celestial, glistening on Dublin stone there under starshiny coelum. God’s air, the Allfather’s air, scintillant circumambient cessile air. Breathe it deep into thee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a doughty deed and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor barring none in this chaffering allincluding most farraginous chronicle. Astounding! In her lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility which thou hast fructified with thy modicum of man’s work. Cleave to her! Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandog and let scholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all their daddies, Theodore. Art drooping under thy load, bemoiled with butcher’s bills at home and ingots (not thine!) in the countinghouse? Head up! For every newbegotten thou shalt gather thy homer of ripe wheat. See, thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy Darby Dullman there with his Joan? A canting jay and a rheumeyed curdog is all their progeny. Pshaw, I tell thee! He is a mule, a dead gasteropod, without vim or stamina, not worth a cracked kreutzer. Copulation without population! No, say I! Herod’s slaughter of the innocents were the truer name. Vegetables, forsooth, and sterile cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw, bleeding! She is a hoary pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps, quinsy, bunions, hayfever, bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney, Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious attacks, gallstones, cold feet, varicose veins. A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and all such congenital defunctive music! Twenty years of it, regret them not. With thee it was not as with many that will and would and wait and never—do. Thou sawest thy America, thy lifetask, and didst charge to cover like the transpontine bison. How saith Zarathustra? Deine Kuh Trübsal melkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters. See! it displodes for thee in abundance. Drink, man, an udderful! Mother’s milk, Purefoy, the milk of human kin, milk too of those burgeoning stars overhead rutilant in thin rainvapour, punch milk, such as those rioters will quaff in their guzzling den, milk of madness, the honeymilk of Canaan’s land. Thy cow’s dug was tough, what? Ay, but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. No dollop this but thick rich bonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch! Pap! Per deam Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum!

There was this new minister who went to the cemetery sorry, cemetery and he got his PhD and his DD and he’s got assign to his first church. I’ll never forget this. When he got there the church was a little lively but he was dead and he told the people now that am your new pastor we gonna do things a little different around here. He said, no more shouting, we’re going to do things in order. And theres going to be a quietness. He said I want you to follow my lead. He said I’ve graduated from the seminary and I’ve been educated and we’re going to do things in order and we’re going to take away this noise. It took him about 6 months to get things all tone down, he thought. He never even bothered to write his sermons out because some of the people were still shouting. But after 6 months he had everything under control and everything was dead. Dead quite. I mean quite. And finally he worked on his message all week long, had it all type written out on 15 pages, double space. Had everything perfect and now he is going to demonstrate his educational powers. Ready to wax eloquent and have them know they have an educated preacher/minister. He got into his message that he was reading. And he got to page 5, there was an ooooooooooooold fashion deacon in the back and let out one of them big old weeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllll gloryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy !!!!!. that was like an atom bomb that struck. And he became frustrated and all 15 pages of notes fell on the ground and he lost his place. He was never been so humiliated in all of his life. He could not finish his sermon. The only thing he could do is stop and pray and put the benediction on. He became so aggravated at the brother at the back. He said I did not know what I said to make him shout but he said am going to visit him in the morning and am going to found out what I said. And whatever I said am going to cut it out of my mind and I’ll never say it again so he won’t shout. Monday morning he headed out and he went to this brother who was a farmer. He didn’t even bother to go to the house. He wanted to handle this man to man. The brother offered a cup of coffee but the pastor refused it. He said I came out here to talk man to man sir. Do you remember when I first came to the church I said we were going to do things differently. He said yes sir I do remember. You remember I said nobody was going to make some noice. He said yes sir I remember that. He said yesterday you embarrassed me. I only got half way through my sermon. He said I want you to be honest with me brother. What was it that I said that made you shout because whatever it is am not going to say it no more. The brother breathed and said let get one thing straight pastor, you’ve been here six months. aint nothing you ever said made me shout. Nothing at all. But when I get to thinking how deep I was in sin and Jesus brought me out and cleaned me and wrote my name the book of life. How so good He’s been to me. When I was thinking of what He done for me, I couldn’t help but shoouuuuuuuuuuuuuuut to His gloryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. I don’t just shout in church, here with my mules thinking of Jesus, I feel another shouuuuuuuuuuuuut coming up.

Carrot and stick,” she said, nodding. “Wave it under his nose and start walking. Works every time with old men, mules, and dogs.

Nor for a woman,’ said another. ‘My bairns are growing wild for want of order.’ ‘But the factory is to your advantage as well as mine. If you all work at home, I have to employ men to bring you the wool and collect the cloth, and those men have to have horses or mules. It costs more, and so I pay you less. Don’t you see that?’ ‘Aye, that’s very well, but we had liefer be at home for all that. We have not been able to work for much of this winter. We could have worked if we had been at home.’ ‘Well I promise you that I will think about it,’ Paul said. ‘If I were to close the factory, it would take time to arrange matters, so for the time being you must continue with it the way it is. Does everyone who works in the factory agree with you?

Early motorcycles were not very convenient. They may have been more convenient than a horse (I can’t say), but surely not by much. More than today’s machines, they made an issue of certain intellectual and moral qualities of the rider; forgetfulness and overcautiousness would show themselves when the rider applied oil “as he thought fit.” One was drawn out of oneself and into a struggle, by turns hateful and loving, with another thing that, like a mule, was emphatically not simply an extension of one’s will.

The legacy of unions that kept African Americans, Latinos, Chinese, and others out of factory work—redlining, exclusionary immigration policies, the looting of Mexicans' land during the Mexican-American War, deportations of Mexicans during economic downturns—all created a gap that we are still trying to close. In a country where Black Americans have been viewed as 'biologically inferior,' Mexicans as 'an ignorant "hybrid race,"' and Chinese immigrants as the 'ideal human mule,' there is far from a fair chance to access the same economic opportunities as white people.

And so Andy was feeling what he could not yet know, but what in his old age, looking back in his tenderness upon that day, he completely knows. While he was there with Dick and the team of mules, trying his poor best to learn a skill and a patience already doomed, he was beginning to awaken in the rift rapidly widening between worlds of two different kinds. One was the world of town and school and automobility, a world forever tilted toward the future that would be always arriving and would never arrive, in which a man like Uncle Andrew could come to rest only by dying. The other world was the one that Andy at that moment stood in, which at that moment was still intact around him. There would be a few more moments and days yet in which he would know its coherence, but it was a world, as he would learn to see, that he had been born barely in time to know, and where for just a little while it still could be known. Maybe it was a foretaste of a dividing of time that caused Andy to say almost to his surprise, “Dick, if I didn’t have to go to school, I could live out here and work with you every day. Wouldn’t that be good?” Dick laughed his laugh of grownup responsibility. “Ho ho ho, now no, buddy. You got to keep in school.” But now that he had heard himself speak his wish, Andy could not easily give it up. “I don’t like it. If they didn’t make me, I wouldn’t go.

The body commences to turn to the work the way you bend a tree and make it grow whichever way you got a mind to. It don’t know no better. You know, Missus, there’s horses that you can work and work and they keep on workin till they drop dead. Your average mule won’t really do that, but your average horse will. The mule be smarter.” She was afraid that he would share more and she stood up

When they were off, Flood divided up our forces for the afternoon work. "It will never do," said he, "to get separated from our commissary. So, Priest, you take the wagon and remuda and go back up to the regular crossing and get our wagon over somehow. There will be the cook and wrangler besides yourself, and you may have two other men. You will have to lighten your load; and don't attempt to cross those mules hitched to the wagon; rely on your saddle horses for getting the wagon over. Forrest, you and Bull, with the two men on herd, take the cattle to the nearest creek and water them well. After watering, drift them back, so they will be within a mile of these bogged cattle. Then leave two men with them and return to the river. I'll take the remainder of the outfit and begin at the ford and work up the river. Get the ropes and hobbles, boys, and come on.

Foundation Number One was a world of physical scientists. It represented a concentration of the dying science of the Galaxy under the conditions necessary to make it live again. No psychologists were included. It was a peculiar distortion, and must have had a purpose. The usual explanation was that Seldon’s psychohistory worked best where the individual working units—human beings—had no knowledge of what was coming, and could therefore react naturally to all situations. Do you follow me, my dear—” “Yes, Doctor.” “Then listen carefully. Foundation Number Two was a world of mental scientists. It was the mirror image of our world. Psychology, not physics, was king.” Triumphantly. “You see?” “I don’t.” “But think, Bayta, use your head. Hari Seldon knew that his psychohistory could predict only probabilities, and not certainties. There was always a margin of error, and as time passed that margin increases in geometric progression. Seldon would naturally guard as well as he could against it. Our Foundation was scientifically vigorous. It could conquer armies and weapons. It could pit force against force. But what of the mental attack of a mutant such as the Mule?” “That would be for the psychologists of the Second Foundation!” Bayta felt excitement rising within her. “Yes, yes, yes! Certainly!” “But they have done nothing so far.” “How do you know they haven’t?” Bayta considered that, “I don’t. Do you have evidence that they have?” “No. There are many factors I know nothing of. The Second Foundation could not have been established full-grown, any more than we were. We developed slowly and grew in strength; they must have also. The stars know at what stage their strength is now. Are they strong enough to fight the Mule? Are they aware of the danger in the first place? Have they capable leaders?” “But if they follow Seldon’s plan, then the Mule must be beaten by the Second Foundation.

Rylan got a stubborn mule look, like he was going to demand she accept his apology and his proposal before he agreed to move. Then he looked around and said, “I think I can get up on my own. I’ll boost myself up on the back steps, then I should be able to stand from there.” Maizy stayed back. “Give it a try. You may not need my help.” “I will always need you, Maizy, and not just because I need your hard work.” They were looking right at each other. Her kneeling, him sitting. Then he smiled. “Don’t wander off.

I figured this guy was a fair dinkum Australian. The type of guy that worked the land all day, cracked open a beer or two at night and called girls 'sheilas'.

Once again, mules and their attendants would give him company. Often he thought he and the mules had no difference. Both carried other's loads.

I ran my hand over my face in disbelief. One minute I was thinking about the best way to end it all, and the next minute I was headed for Gulfport on a mule. My guardian angel was definitely working overtime.

The pit ponies, like the American mules, having been driven by oaths and curses since they first bore the yoke, are being retrained to do their work without the incentive of profanity.

The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. —Psalm 145:9 (KJV) The gray clouds hung below the mountain peaks, smothering the sun. A cold breeze brushed across my cheeks as I tossed hay in the feeder for the horses and mules. I glanced at the brown grass in the pasture rimmed by the skeletal trees. Not a sprig of life showed anywhere. The gloomies seeped into my soul. How I longed for signs of life! Lord, I need You to brighten my day. I heard a low bellow from the neighbors’ pasture a few hundred yards away. Uh-oh, it sounds like a cow’s having problems giving birth. The neighbors lived miles away and wouldn’t be back to check on the cows for a couple more hours. “C’mon, Sunrise,” I called to my golden retriever, “let’s go check it out.” As we neared the pasture, I noticed a lone black cow standing with her head down. Keeping my distance, I stood on tiptoes, craning my neck. A brand-new wet calf lay on the ground. “Isn’t this exciting? What a cute baby!” Sunrise’s nose wiggled as she caught the scent of the baby. For the next hour I sat in the pasture, watching the newborn struggle to stand on its stiltlike legs. I giggled as the calf sucked on its mom’s knees and elbows before it found the udder and slurped. Lord, when my days are glum, remind me to ask You to brighten them. —Rebecca Ondov Digging Deeper: Pss 8, 84:11

No pressuring them, Aunt Jennie,” Marion admonished with a straight face but laughing eyes. “They don’t like being hurried. They’re likely to baulk like mules and wait until they’re thirty.” “Jeepers, I hope not!” Frances cried, halting her knife and fork’s work at some beef. “I’m tired of waiting and guessing their intentions. I’ve been doing that for seven months. I just want to see them married!” Everett grinned. “So do I.

Rural Free Delivery (RFD) Home, upon that word drops the sunshine of beauty and the shadow of tender sorrows, the reflection of ten thousand voices and fond memories. This is a mighty fine old world after all if you make yourself think so. Look happy even if things are going against you— that will make others happy. Pretty soon all will be smiling and then there is no telling what can’t be done. Coca-Cola Girl Mother baked a fortune cake pale yellow icing, lemon drops round rim, hidden within treasures, a ring—you’ll be married, a button—stay a bachelor, a thimble—always a spinster, and a penny—you’re rich. Gee, but I am hungry. Wait a second, dear, until I pull my belt up another notch. There that’s better. So, you see, Hon, I am straighter than a string around a bundle. You ought to see my eye, it’s a peach. I am proud of it, looks like I’ve been kicked by a mule. You know, dear, that they can kick hard enough to knock all the soda out of a biscuit without breaking the crust Hogging Catfish This gives you a fighting chance. Noodle your right hand into their gills, hold on tight while you grunt him out of the water. This can be a real dogfight. Old river cat wants to go down deep, make you bottom feed. Like I said, boys, when you tell a whopper, say it like you believe it. Saturday Ritual My Granddad was a cobbler. We each owned two pairs of shoes, Sunday shoes and everyday shoes. When our Sunday shoes got worn they became our everyday shoes. Main Street Saturday Night We each were given a dime on Saturday opening a universe of possibilities. All the stores stayed open and people flocked into town. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds set up a popcorn stand on Reinheimer’s corner and soon after lighting a little stove, sounding like small firecrackers, popping began. Dad, laughing shooting the breeze with a group of farmers, drinking Coca Cola, finding out if any sheds needed to be built or barns repaired, discussing the price of next year’s seed, finding out who’s really working, who’s just looking busy. There is no object I wouldn’t give to relive my childhood growing up in Delavan— where everyone knew everyone— and joy came with but a dime. Market Day Jim Pittsford’s grocery smelled of bananas ripening and the coffee he ground by hand, wonderful smoked ham and bacon fresh sliced. He’d reward the child who came to pick up the purchase, with a large dill pickle Biking home, skillfully balancing Jim Pittsford’s bacon, J B’s tomatoes and peaches, while sniffing a tantalizing spice rising from fresh warm rolls, I nibbled my pickle reward.

them entertained and supplied with a surfeit of horseflesh. But none to really worry about. Their source of food and sustenance, the buffalo, roamed the plains in record numbers and still ranged into every corner of Comancheria. The tribe’s low birth rates virtually guaranteed that their nomadic life following buffalo herds was infinitely sustainable. Their world was thus suspended in what seemed to be a perfect equilibrium, a balance of earth and wind and sun and sky that would endure forever. An empire under the bright summer moon. For those who witnessed the change at a very intimate and personal level, including Cynthia Ann and her husband, the speed with which that ideal world was dismantled must have seemed scarcely believable. She herself, the daughter of pioneers who were hammering violently at the age-old Comanche barrier that had defeated all other comers, now adopted into a culture that was beginning to die, was the emblem of the change. Somehow she and her husband, Peta Nocona, survived the cataclysm. As nomads, they moved constantly. One imagines her on one of these migrations, on horseback, moving slowly across the open grassy plain with hundreds of others, warriors in the vanguard, toward a wide, hazy horizon that would have looked to white men like unalloyed emptiness. There were the long trains of heavily packed mules and horses and the ubiquitous Comanche dogs. There were horses dragging travois that carried the huge tent poles and piled buffalo hides and scored the earth as they went along—perfectly parallel lines drawn on the prairie, merging and vanishing into the pale-blue Texas sky. All trailed by the enormous horse remuda, the source of their wealth. It must have been something to behold. Cynthia Ann lived a hard life. Women did all of the brutally hard work, including most of the work that went into moving camp. They did it from dawn till dark, led brief difficult lives, and did not complain about it; they did everything except hunt and fight. Her camp locations show just how far she roamed. Pah-hah-yuco’s camps were found in 1843 north of the Red River and south of modern-day Lawton, Oklahoma, on Cache Creek (the encampment was on a creek bank on the open prairie and stretched for half a mile).25 In 1844 he was camped on the Salt Plains of present-day north-central Oklahoma, on the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River,26 well north of the Washita, where Williams found him in 1846. In 1847 his band was spotted a hundred miles north of Austin, in rolling, lightly timbered prairie, camped in a village of one hundred fifty lodges,27 and again that same year in a village in the limestone hills and mesas west of Austin. She was identified as being with the Tennawish band in 1847, who often camped with the Penateka (with whom Pah-hah-yuco was often

The extraordinary progress of the world since the Middle Ages has not been due to the mere expenditure of human energy, nor even to the flights of human genius, for men had worked hard since the remotest times, and some of them had been of surpassing intellect. No, it has been due to the accumulation of capital. That accumulation permitted labor to be organized economically and on a large scale, and thus greatly enhanced its productiveness. It provided the machinery that gradually diminished human drudgery, and liberated the spirit of the worker, who had formerly been almost indistinguishable from a mule.

Children are just work mules; nobody pays much attention to them. Elders are the wisest because they have lived the longest. Since knowledge is hard to come by, the best way to learn something is to ask an elder.

Time for him to hit the keys, stroke the consonants, pluck the vowels. When he gets back to the campsite, he immediately puts himself to work, smoking like a chimney in his tent, sitting cross-legged, and trying to keep pace with his mind. “Slow down, you bastard!” But it will not; he will have to speed up. “Come on, hands! Get your goddamn shit together.” He writes on well into the night, sweating like a mule, depositing a plethora of verbs and adjectives on paper and sending out contradictory vibes into the marshes and forest; he smiles like a dang fool during this ungodly hour, this evil hour, this hour of the wolf.

Freud put it one way. Ralph Helstein puts it another. He is president emeritus of the United Packinghouse Workers of America. “Learning is work. Caring for children is work. Community action is work. Once we accept the concept of work as something meaningful—not just as the source of a buck— you don’t have to worry about finding enough jobs. There’s no excuse for mules any more. Society does not need them. There’s no question about our ability to feed and clothe and house everybody. The problem is going to come in finding enough ways for man to keep occupied, so he’s in touch with reality.” Our imaginations have obviously not yet been challenged.

Don't you ever say that again about your fathers, because they are not cowards! You think I am brave because I carry a gun? Well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility, for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there's nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm, working like a mule every day with no guarantee anything will ever come of it. This is bravery. That's why I never even started anything like that... that's why I never will.

This was encouraging to the refugees, but what lay beyond was even more so. At Mule Springs they would find supplies and horses and there, if not sooner, they would meet Mr. Woodworth and old Caleb Greenwood with their men. Beyond Woodworth was Captain Kern who had moved up from the Fort to establish a relay camp. Beyond Kern was Johnson’s ranch and beyond Johnson’s was Sutter’s where Sutter, Sinclair and McKinstry were forwarding supplies. Finally, beyond Sutter’s was Yerba Buena where Alcalde Bartlett and Governor Hull were backing up the relief work with money and necessaries. There was something heart-moving in the way that California, war-harried and thinly peopled, had rallied to the cause of humanity. It was as if a strong chain were extending itself link by link across the mountains, finally to reach the camps and draw out the sufferers. The seven had merely gone ahead in the strength of their own stout bodies and stouter hearts, but the next relief would have the organized strength of many men behind it. . . .

We’re trying to jam an electric car charger into the backside of the mule pulling our buggy. It’s not working.

One More Round There ain’t no pay beneath the sun As sweet as rest when a job’s well done. I was born to work up to my grave But I was not born To be a slave. One more round And let’s heave it down, One more round And let’s heave it down. Papa drove steel and Momma stood guard, I never heard them holler ’cause the work was hard. They were born to work up to their graves But they were not born To be worked-out slaves. One more round And let’s heave it down, One more round And let’s heave it down. Brothers and sisters know the daily grind, It was not labor made them lose their minds. They were born to work up to their graves But they were not born To be worked-out slaves. One more round And let’s heave it down, One more round And let’s heave it down. And now I’ll tell you my Golden Rule, I was born to work but I ain’t no mule. I was born to work up to my grave But I was not born To be a slave. One more round And let’s heave it down, One more round And let’s heave it down.

The newer tactic of scattering bodies on city streets, as happened when Joaquín Guzmán’s goons pushed thirty-five bloody corpses (twelve of them women) off two trucks on Manuel Ávila Camacho Boulevard, near a shopping mall in the prettier part of the port city of Veracruz one day in September 2011, to terrorize their adversaries... Guzmán, known as El Chapo (Shorty) for his small stature, ran the largest airborne opera- tion in Mexico; he owned more aircraft than Aeromexico, the national air- line. Between 2006 and 2015, Mexican authorities seized 599 aircraft — 586 planes and 13 helicopters—from the Sinaloa cartel; by comparison, Aeromexico had a piddling fleet of 127 planes.... One Zeta atrocity I knew nothing about took place in 2010, in the small town of San Fernando, south of Reynosa. A roaming band of Zetas stopped two buses of migrants—men, women, and children from Central and South America, who were fleeing the violence in their countries. The Zetas demanded money. The migrants had no money. The Zetas demanded that the migrants work for them, as assassins or operatives or drug mules. The migrants refused. So they were taken to a building in the village of El Huizachal, blindfolded, their hands and legs bound, and each one was shot in the head. Seventy-two of them died. One man (from Ecuador) played dead, escaped, and raised the alarm... The gory details of this massacre became known when one of the perpetrators was arrested, Édgar Huerta Montiel, an army deserter known as El Wache, or Fat Ass. He admitted killing eleven of the migrants person- ally, in the belief (so he said) that they were working for a gang hostile to his own. A year later, near the same town, police found 47 mass graves containing 193 corpses — mostly migrants or passengers in buses hijacked and robbed while passing through this area of Tamaulipas state, about eighty miles south of the US border... But in the early 2000s headless bodies began to appear, tossed by the roadside, while human heads were displayed in public, at intersections, and randomly on the roofs of cars. This butchery was believed to be inspired by a tactic of the Guatemalan military’s elite commandos, known as Kaibiles. A man I was to meet in Matamoros, on my traverse of the border, explained how the Kaibiles were toughened by their officers. The officers encouraged recruits to raise a dog from a puppy, then, at a certain point in their training, the recruit was ordered to kill the dog and eat it.... When the Kaibiles became mercenaries in the Mexican cartels, the first beheadings occurred, the earliest known taking place in 2006: a gang in Michoacán kicked open the doors of a bar and tossed five human heads on the dance floor. Decapitations are now, according to one authority on the business, “a staple in the lexicon of violence” for Mexican cartels....

IV. FOR PSAUMIS OF KAMARINA, WINNER IN THE MULE-CHARIOT-RACE. Psaumis won this race in the year 452; therefore this ode and its companion, the next following, are the latest work of Pindar possessed by us to which we can assign a date.

The student’s biggest problem was a slave mentality which had been built into him by years of carrot-and-whip grading, a mule mentality which said, “If you don’t whip me, I won’t work.” He didn’t get whipped. He didn’t work. And the cart of civilization, which he supposedly was being trained to pull, was just going to have to creak along a little slower without him.

Did you see?’ said Brother John in Cadfael’s ear, pacing beside the sumpter mule. ‘Did you see how the beasts laboured towards that fellow not to escape the goad, only to go where he willed, only to please him? And such labour! That I should like to learn!’ ‘It’s labour for man as well as beast,’ said Brother Cadfael. ‘But for free goodwill! They wanted to go with him, to do what he wanted them to do. Brother, could devoted disciples do more? Do you tell me he takes no delight in what he does?’ ‘No man nor God who sees his faithful delight to serve him,’ said Brother Cafael patiently and carefully.

Somewhere beyond the ridgetop, Col Oaks was plowing tobacco with a single mule, old Red, and a walking plow. The air smelled of vegetation and stirred earth. Beside me, R.T. was filing his hoe. Standing there in the brilliance with my ears sticking out under the brim of my straw hat and my mouth probably hanging open (somebody was always telling me, "Shut your mouth, Andy!"), I saw how beautiful the field was, how beautiful our work was. And it came to me all in a feeling how everything fitted together, the place and ourselves and the animals and the tools and how the sky held us.

Thank God Ahab and Meshach were out of sight. He’d worked for Tarlander more than once and would surely have been recognized. “Was that who I think it was?” she asked Benjamin when he waited for her at a bridge crossing a wide creek. “Yessuh.” Benjamin shook his head. “Dat close.” He turned his horse. “Not far now.” They gathered in a small clearing bordering the creek, where Daniel awaited them. He was already gathering sticks for a fire. Jesselynn reached behind her to help a groggy Thaddeus climb up on the seat. “You been a mighty good boy. I’m right proud of you.” “Hungry?” He reached up and wrapped his arms around her neck. Burrowing into her chest like a little gopher, he repeated with more insistence. “Hungry. Want milk?” Jesselynn sighed. Where would they get milk Other fresh food too, for that matter. Her eyes felt as if they’d been rolling in the Sahara Desert, and her rear felt permanently glued to the hard seat. “I git some.” Benjamin remounted his horse. “You’d best take the mule, then,” Jesselynn said. “Oh.” He dismounted with a nod. “ ’Phelia, you got a jug?” Meshach unhitched the team and removed the harness from both horse and mule, then slipped a bridle with short reins on the mule. “You hurry.” After handing Benjamin a couple of their precious store of coins, Jesselynn climbed over the wagon wheel and, when her feet felt solid ground, leaned against the wheel until her knees no longer felt like buckling. She propped

It was funny, he thought, how the ruins of the past shaped everything that came after. It seemed to work on all levels; one of the truths of the universe. Back in the ancient days, when humanity still lived entirely down a well, the paths laid down by Roman legions had become asphalt and later ferroconcrete without ever changing a curve or a turn. On Ceres, Eros, Tycho, the bore of the standard corridor had been determined by mining tools built to accommodate the trucks and lifts of Earth, which had in turn been designed to go down tracks wide enough for a mule cart’s axle.

Use a 1 for victim syndromes (Vampire, Mule, Healer’s) that cause you to put others first or take on their energy. • Employ a 2 if you want to partner with someone, but not give away your power, such as when you’re afflicted with the Healer’s or Vampire Syndrome. • Try a 3 if you’re dealing with the No-Boundary or Environ Syndromes and are constantly in chaos. • Use a 4 if you are too often pulled on by others and need to ground yourself. This number benefits all the syndromes. • Utilize a 5 if you are overworked, such as in the Mule Syndrome, and need to perceive different directions. A 5 is also good for breaking the repetitive cycles of Paper Doll Syndrome. • Call on a 6 if you’re afflicted by evil, such as through the Psychic-Sensitive Syndrome, or to choose higher service instead of the chaos of the No-Boundary Syndrome. A 6 is also good for helping those with Paper Doll Syndrome face and release the unconscious benefit of a repetitive pattern and find a more joyful way to respond to life. • Try a 7 for any syndrome because it will invoke divine assistance. • Employ an 8 to break or erase cycles caused by the Paper Doll Syndrome. • Use a 9 with any other number to state you are done with a syndrome. • Insert a 10 to boost your new intention. • Formulate an 11 to access spiritual guidance and transform the storyline that established the syndrome. • When working on your spiritual boundaries, try a 12 to support forgiveness. • Add a 22 to a boundary to help achieve success. • Use a 33, especially for the No-Boundary and Psychic-Sensitive Syndromes, to open to our own wisdom.

One by one, Erasmus’s works poured out and were handed over to Venetian merchants, who loaded them aboard ships and pack mules to carry to every city in Europe. Aldus Manutius’s Aldine Press made Erasmus the first writer to earn a living with his pen.

Listening to a man brag about unloading the dishwasher or the incessant need to announce every single thing he did in a day. That stuff is worth something. Give him a bone! Men are dogs ... they just are. They need constant praise and rewards. Women are pack mules—we work without praise for long days, recover quickly, and wake up the next day plodding right along again. No treats. No pats on the head. No belly rubs.

They say a heart breaks, but it doesn't. It goes on working, mute and stubborn as a mule.

Embury was the first true cocktailian of the modern age, and he took time to analyze the components of a cocktail, breaking them down into a base (usually a spirit, it must be at least 50 percent of the drink); a modifying, smoothing, or aromatizing agent, such as vermouth, bitters, fruit juice, sugar, cream, or eggs; and “additional special flavoring and coloring ingredients,” which he defined as liqueurs and nonalcoholic fruit syrups. Embury taught us that the Ramos Gin Fizz must be shaken for at least five minutes in order to achieve the proper silky consistency, suggested that Peychaud’s bitters be used in the Rob Roy, and noted that “for cocktails, such as the Side Car, a three-star cognac is entirely adequate, although a ten-year-old cognac will produce a better drink.” In the second edition of his book, Embury mentioned that he had been criticized for omitting two drinks from his original work: the Bloody Mary, which he described as “strictly vile,” and the Moscow Mule, as “merely mediocre.” On the subject of Martinis, he explained that although most cocktail books call for the drink to be made with one-third to one-half vermouth, “quite recently, in violent protest of this wishy-washy type of cocktail, there has sprung up the vermouth-rinse method of making Martinis.” He describes a drink made from chilled gin in a cocktail glass coated in vermouth. Embury didn’t approve of either version, and went on to say that a ratio of seven parts gin to one part vermouth was his personal favorite. While Embury was taking his drinking seriously, many Americans were quaffing Martinis by the pitcher, and Playboy magazine commissioned cocktail maven Thomas Mario and, later, Emanuel Greenberg to deliver cocktail news to a nation of people who drank for fun, and did it on a regular basis. Esquire magazine issued its Handbook for Hosts as early as 1949, detailing drinks such as the Sloe Gin Fizz, the Pan American, the “I Died Game, Boys” Mixture, and the Ginsicle—gin with fruit juice or simple syrup poured over chipped ice in a champagne glass. A cartoon in the book depicts a frustrated bartender mopping his fevered brow and exclaiming, “She ordered it because it had a cute name.” The world of cocktails was tilting slightly on its axis, and liquor companies lobbied long and hard to get into the act. In the fifties, Southern Comfort convinced us to make Comfort Manhattans and Comfort Old-Fashioneds by issuing a booklet: How to Make the 32 Most Popular Drinks. By the seventies, when the Comfort Manhattan had become the Improved Manhattan, they were bringing us Happy Hour Mixology Plus a Primer of Happy Hour Astrology, presumably so we would have something to talk about at bars: “Oh, you’re a Virgo—discriminating, keenly analytical, exacting, and often a perfectionist. Wanna drink?

Thanks again to Alan Butler's work, this time I was able to inspect the work of Hesiod in connection with the Phaistos Disc for being calendrical, and now I view it through the lens of ancient Egypt by projecting it directly onto the circular zodiac of Dendera. Hesiod has used three different references to the days in his work: (the first ..); (the middle ..); and (.. of the month). With this system which he had used, I linked the "first" references to the zodiac's portals on the East; the "middle" references to the Fullmoon days of the month which are located on the zodiac's western portals; and the "of the month" references to the zodiac's days which are located right after passing by and finishing the rotation beyond the eastern portals. Therefore, Hesiod has recognized Egypt's month's count of days (And tell your slaves the thirtieth is the month's best-suited day). He has also explicitly identified the beginning of the Equinox and Solstice portals on the zodiac based on the zodiac's anticlockwise orientation while emphasizing the more prominent role of the Summer Solstice in the calendar system (The first and fourth and seventh days are holy days to men, the eighth and ninth as well). Hesiod has also issued a warning against, Apophis, the snake demon (But shun the fifth day, fifth days are both difficult and dread). Hesiod has recognized Egypt's royal-cosmic copulation event that takes place at the culmination of the Summer Solstice (The first ninth, though, for human beings, is harmless, quite benign for planting and for being born; indeed, it's very fine For men and women both; this day is never bad all through) Hesiod has identified the exact position of the newly born infant boy on the zodiac (For planting vines the middle sixth is uncongenial but good for the birth of males) and also established the Minoan bull's head rhyton connection with Egypt (The middle fourth, which is a day to soothe and gently tame the sheep and curved-horned), (Open a jar on the middle fourth),(And on the fourth the long and narrow boats can be begun). Hesiod gave Osiris' role in the ancient Egyptian agrarian Theology to men (two Days of the waxing month stand out for tasks men have to do, the eleventh and the twelfth) and pointed out the right location of the boar on the zodiac (Geld your boar on the eighth of the month) and counted on top of these days the days of the mule which comes afterward (on the twelfth day of the month [geld] the long-laboring mule) - since the reference to the mule in the historical text comes right after that of the boar's and both are grouped together conceptually with the act of gelding. He has also identified the role of Isis for resurrecting Osiris after the Summer Solstice event (On the fourth day of the month bring back a wife to your abode) and even referred to the two female figures on the zodiac and identified them as, Demeter and Persephone, the two mythical Greek queens (Upon the middle seventh throw Demeter's holy grain) where we see them along with the reference to Poseidon (i.e. fishes and water) right next to them as the account exists in the Greek mythology. Even more, Hesiod knows when the sequence of the boats' appearances begins on the zodiac (And on the fourth the long and narrow boats can be begun). Astonishingly enough, he mentions the solar eclipse when the Moon fully blocks the Sun (the third ninth's best of all, though this is known by few) and also glorifies sunrise and warns from sunset on that same day (Again, few know the after-twentieth day of the month is best ..) and identifies the event's dangerous location on the west (.. at dawn and that it worsens when the sun sinks in the west).

Oh, dey put me under arrest one day for vacancy in Bartow. When de judge found out Ah had a job of work. He took and searched me and when he found out Ah had a deck of cards on me, he charged me wid totin' concealed cards, and attempt to gamble, and gimme three months. Then dey made out another charge 'ginst me. 'Cused me of highway shufflin', and attempt to gamble. You know dese white folks sho hates tuh turn a n****r loose, if every dey git dey hands on 'im.

Jim Allen laughed just as loud as anybody else and then he said: "We better hurry on to work befo' de buckra [white people] get in behind us." "Don't never worry about work," says Jim Presley. "There's more work in de world than there is anything else. God made de world and de white folks made work.

God let down two bundles 'bout five miles down de road. So de white man and de n****r raced to see who would git there first. Well, de n****r out-run de white man and grabbed de biggest bundle. He was so skeered de white man would git it away from him he fell on top of de bundle and hollered back: "Oh, Ah got here first and dis biggest bundle is mine." De white man says: "All right, Ah'll take yo' leavings," and picked up de li'l tee-ninchy bundle layin' in de road. When de n****r opened up his bundle he found a pick and shovel and a hoe and a plow and chop-axe and then de white man opened up his bundle and found a writin'-pen and ink. So ever since then de n****r been out in de hot sun, usin' his tools and de white man been sittin' up figgerin', ought's a ought, figger's a figger; all for de white man, none for de n****r.

What yo' all reckon is the matter sho' 'nough?" "Must be something terrible when white folks get slow about putting us to work.

Dat mule is liable tuh be dead befo' de week is out. You won't git no work outa him." "Didn't buy 'im fuh no work. I god, Ah bought dat varmint tuh let 'im rest. You didn't have gumption enough tuh do it." A respectful silence fell on the place. Sam looked at Joe and said, "Dat's a new idea 'bout varmints, Mayor Starks. But Ah laks it mah ownself. It's uh noble thing you done." Everybody agreed with that.

Some say we will be doing all our field work with steam engines one day soon. Horses, mules, and oxen will become obsolete.

Men are dogs ... they just are. They need constant praise and rewards. Women are pack mules—we work without praise for long days, recover quickly, and wake up the next day plodding right along again. No treats. No pats on the head. No belly rubs.