O Block Quotes

And then we jerked to a stop. Jared was blocking the exit. "Have you lost your mind, Ian?" he asked, shocked and outraged. "What are you doing to her?" "Did you know about this?" Ian shouted back, shoving me toward Jared and shaking me at him. "You're going to hurt her!" "Do you know what she's planning?" Ian roared. Jared stared at Ian, his face suddenly closed off. He didn't answer. That was answer enough for Ian. Ian's fist struck Jared so fast that I missed the blow - I just felt the lurch in his body and saw Jared reel back into the dark hall. "Ian, stop," I begged. "You stop," he growled back at me. He yanked me through the arch into the tunnel, then pulled me north. I had to almost run to keep up with his longer stride. "O´Shea!" Jared shouted after us. "I'm going to hurt her?" Ian roared back over his shoulder, not breaking pace. "I am? You hypocritical swine!" There was nothing but silence and blackness behind us now. I stumbled in the dark, trying to keep up. He jerked me along faster, and my breath caught in a moan, almost like a cry of pain. The sound made Ian stumble to a stop. His breathing was hoarse in the darkness. "Ian, Ian, I..." I chocked, unable to finish. I didn't know what to say, picturing his furious face. His arms caught me abruptly, yanking my feet out from under me and then catching my shoulders before I could fall. He started running forward again, carrying me now. His hands were not rough and angry like before; he cradled me against his chest.

Sometimes when you are standing still and it’s snowing, you think that you hear music. You can’t tell where it’s coming from either. I wondered if we all really did have a soundtrack, but we just get so used to it that we can’t hear it anymore, the same way that we block out the sound of our own heartbeat.

On the way to discovering what we love we find what we hate and everything that blocks are path to what we desire

That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence.

Fundamentalist Christianity: fascinating. These people actually believe that the world is twelve thousand years old. Swear to God. Based on what? I asked them. "Well, we looked at all the people in the Bible and we added 'em up all the way back to Adam and Eve, their ages? Twelve thousand years." "Well, how fucking scientific, OK. I didn't know that you'd gone to so much trouble there. That's good. You believe the world's twelve thousand years old?" "That's right." "OK, I got one word to ask you, a one word question, ready?" "Uh huh." "Dinosaurs." You know, the world's twelve thousand years old and dinosaurs existed, and existed in that time, you'd think it would been mentioned in the fucking Bible at some point: And O, Jesus and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was blocked by a giant brontosaurus... with a splinter in its paw. And the disciples did run a-screamin'. "What a big fucking lizard, Lord!" "I'm sure gonna mention this in my book," Luke said. "Well, I'm sure gonna mention it in my book," Matthew said. But Jesus was unafraid. And he took the splinter from the brontosaurus paw, and the brontosaurus became his friend. And Jesus sent him to Scotland where he lived in a loch, O so many years, attracting fat American families with their fat fuckin' dollars to look for the Loch Ness Monster. And O the Scots did praise the Lord: "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!" Twelve thousand years old. But I actually asked this guy, "OK, dinosaur fossils-- how does that fit into your scheme of life? What's the deal?" He goes: "God put those here to test our faith." "I think God put you here to test my faith, dude. I think I've figured this out." Does that-- That's what this guy said. Does that bother anyone here? The idea that God might be fucking with our heads? Anyone have trouble sleeping restfully with that thought in their head? God's running around burying fossils: "Ho ho! We'll see who believes in me now, ha ha! I'm a prankster God. I am killing me, ho ho ho!" You know? You die, you go to St. Peter: "Did you believe in dinosaurs?" "Well, yeah. There were fossils everywhere. (trapdoor opens) Aaaaarhhh!" "You fuckin' idiot! Flying lizards? You're a moron. God was fuckin' with you!" "It seemed so plausible, aaaaaahh!" "Enjoy the lake of fire, fucker!" They believe this. But you ever notice how people who believe in Creationism usually look pretty unevolved. Eyes really close together, big furry hands and feet? "I believe God created me in one day." Yeah, looks like he rushed it. Such a weird belief. Lots of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he's gonna want to see a fucking cross, man? "Ow." Might be why he hasn't shown up yet. "Man, they're still wearing crosses. Fuck it, I'm not goin' back, Dad. No, they totally missed the point. When they start wearing fishes, I might show up again, but... let me bury fossils with you, Dad. Fuck 'em, let's fuck with 'em! Hand me that brontosaurus head, Dad.

Good Christian people, I am come hither to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that, whereof I am accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord. And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. O Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my soul.' After being blindfolded and kneeling at the block, she repeated several times: To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesu receive my soul.

O be not anxious, comrades, fear ye not! The siuation here hath been controll'd. All merry 'tis in the detention block!.... That conversation did my spirits bore! Now Luke, prepare thyself for company.

Most things are beyond me," Block said. "I ain't found anything yet that I thoroughly understood,

I have been told by the third grade teacher that my daughter Poppet is reading at middle school level. Yet if I leave Poppet a note in block letters telling her to feed the dogs I will come home to find the dogs have been ... given a swim in the above-ground pool, dressed in tutus, provided with hair weaves. What I will not find is that the dogs have been fed. 'I thought you wanted me to free the dogs,' says Poppet whose school district is not spending quite what D.C.'s is, thanks to voter rejection of the last school bond referendum.

Well, well, well,” Santa said once the elf had retreated. “Come and sit on my lap, little boy.” This Santa’s beard was real, and so was his hair. He wasn’t fucking around. “I’m not really a little boy,” I pointed out. “Get on my lap, then, big boy.” I walked up to him. There wasn’t much lap under his belly. And even though he tried to disguise it, as I went up there, I swear he adjusted his crotch. “Ho ho ho!” he chortled. I sat gingerly on his knee, like it was a subway seat with gum on it. “Have you been a good little boy this year?” he asked. I didn’t feel that I was the right person to determine my own goodness or badness, but in the interest of speeding along this encounter, I said yes. He actually wobbled with joy. “Good! Good! Then what can I bring you this Christmas?” I thought it was obvious. “A message from Lily,” I said. “That’s what I want for Christmas. But I want it right now.” “So impatient!” Santa lowered his voice and whispered in my ear. “But Santa does have a little something for you”—he shifted a little in his seat—“right under his coat. If you want to have your present, you’ll have to rub Santa’s belly.” “What?” I asked. He gestured with his eyes down to his stomach. “Go ahead.” I looked closely and saw the faint outline of an envelope beneath his red velvet coat. “You know you want it,” he whispered. The only way I could survive this was to think of it as the dare it was. Fuck off, Lily. You can’t intimidate me. I reached right under Santa’s coat. To my horror, I found he wasn’t wearing anything underneath. It was hot, sweaty, Geshy, hairy … and his belly was this massive obstacle, blocking me from the envelope. I had to lean over to angle my arm in order to reach it, the whole time having Santa laugh, “Oh ho ho, ho ho oh ho!” in my ear. I heard the elf scream, “What the hell!” and various parents start to shriek. Yes, I was feeling up Santa. And now the corner of the envelope was in my hand. He tried to jiggle it away from me, but I held tight and yanked it out, pulling some of his white belly hair with me. “OW ho ho!” he cried. I jumped o1 his lap. “Security’s here!” the elf proclaimed. The letter was in my hand, damp but intact. “He touched Santa!” a young child squealed.

The car was on the FDR drive now and, turning her head, she glanced out at the bleak brown buildings of the projects that stretched for blocks along the drive. Something inside her sank at the sight of all that sameness, and she suddenly felt defeated. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. In the past year, she'd started experiencing these moments of desperate emptiness, as if nothing really mattered, nothing was ever going to change, there was nothing new; and she could see her life stretching before her--one endless long day after the next, in which every day was essentially the same. Meanwhile, time was marching on, and all that was happening to her was that she was getting older and smaller, and one day she would be no bigger than a dot, and then she would simply disappear. Poof! Like a small leaf burned up under a magnifying glass in the sun. These feelings were shocking to her, because she'd never experienced world-weariness before. She'd never had time. All her life, she'd been striving and striving to become this thing that was herself--the entity that was Nico O'Neilly. And then, one morning, time had caught up with her and she had woken up and realized that she was there. She had arrived at her destination, and she had everything she'd worked so hard for: a stunning career, a loving (well, sort of) husband, whom she respected, and a beautiful eleven-year-old daughter whom she adored. She should have been thrilled. But instead, she felt tired. Like all those things belonged to someone else.

Elites do often make the environment worse and block solutions, but to blame the problem of elite capture entirely on their moral successes and failures is to confuse effect for cause. The true problem lies in the system itself, the built environment and rules of interaction that produced the elites in the first place.

It’s important to understand that in the Third World most driving is done with the horn, or “Egyptian Brake Pedal,” as it is known. There is a precise and complicated etiquette of horn use. Honk your horn only under the following circumstances: 1. When anything blocks the road 2. When anything doesn’t. 3. When anything might. 4. At red lights 5. At green lights. 6. At all other times.

It’s just three blocks from here,

Take my advice, you daft block o’ wood. Be happy while you’re living—you’ll be a long time dead.

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey?

Light clarity avocado salad in the morning after all the terrible things I do how amazing it is to find forgiveness and love, not even forgiveness since what is done is done and forgiveness isn’t love and love is love nothing can ever go wrong though things can get irritating boring and dispensable (in the imagination) but not really for love though a block away you feel distant the mere presence changes everything like a chemical dropped on a paper and all thoughts disappear in a strange quiet excitement I am sure of nothing but this, intensified by breathing

Out along the dim six-o’clock street, I saw leafless trees standing, striking the sidewalk there like wooden lightning, concrete split apart where they hit, all in a fenced-in ring. An iron line of pickets stuck out of the ground along the front of a tangleweed yard, and on back was a big frame house with a porch, leaning a rickety shoulder hard into the wind so’s not to be sent tumbling away a couple of blocks like an empty cardboard grocery box.

After ten whole minutes of painful silence, I finally raised my hand and told Mr. O'Hara I loved Miranda Blythe's romance novels, and I decided I liked him immediately when he didn't laugh or reassure me that we'd be reading real books. Like Mrs. Andrews had last year. He did say, 'I'm afraid Ms. Blythe is not on the curriculum this semester. We'll be starting your education with the epic poets—boring, I know, but necessary building blocks. However, an extra-credit book report is always welcome, and you're free to choose whatever topic you like.' Then Mr. O'Hara added, 'I think Ms. Blythe's works would be a particularly interesting topic for a report. In fact, if you want an example of the archetypal hero journey—' 'Wait, wait, wait.' Fred raised his hand. 'You read romance novels?' 'My dear boy,' Mr. O'Hara replied, 'I read everything.

Because I could kill every spider in her home, cute the roses off of every rose bush she might one day touch, block every speeding car that got within a mile o her, but there was no task I could preform that would make me something other than what I was.

Wise Blood has reached the age of ten and is still alive. My critical powers are just sufficient to determine this, and I am gratified to be able to say it. The book was written with zest and, if possible, it should be read that way. It is a comic novel about a Christian malgré lui, and as such, very serious, for all comic novels that are any good must be about matters of life and death. Wise Blood was written by an author congenitally innocent of theory, but one with certain preoccupations. That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for some readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. For them, Hazel Motes's integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author, Hazel's integrity lies in his not being able to do so. Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen. (Preface to second edition, 1962)

But I don’t wanna go to the grocery store!” Her forehead connected with the table’s surface. “It’s a mean nasty place with soccer moms blocking the aisles as they talk to their friends or on their cell phones, kids running and screaming all over the place.AndFred,theproduceguy,fondleshismelons 5o ways to hex your lover 45 while looking at mine. And I’m not allowed to zap any of them!” she moaned. “It’s so not fair!

I reached our building only to find a wide-eyed Southern belle wearing a Civil Way-era dress blocking the front door. A silk parasol and a full hoopskirt completed her ensemble. I wore something like it to a costume party once, but hers was an original. Frustration was back, and now it was in my way. In the form of freaking Scarlatt O'Hara. Sighing, I stuck my hand through her stomach to turn the knob, meeting no resistance. I rolled my eyes as she gasped, fluttered her eyelashes, and disappeared in a puff of air. "You know, Scarlett, Rhett didn't give a dang, and frankly, I don't either.

Wise Blood was written by an author congenitally innocent of theory, but one with certain preoccupations. That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. For them Hazel Motes' integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author Hazel's integrity lies in his not being able to. Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.

The world is not a prison house; it is a spiritual kindergarten where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell G-O-D wih the wrong blocks.

His soul stretched tight across the skies That fade behind a city block, Or trampled by insistent feet At four and five and six o’clock;

I stand on the corner of the block slinging amethyst rocks. Drinkin 40’s of mother earth’s private nectar stock. Dodgin cops. ’Cause Five-O be the 666 and I need a fix of that purple rain. The type of shit that drives membranes insane. Oh yeah, I’m in the fast lane. Snorting candy yams. That free my body and soul and send me like Shazaam! Never question who I am. God knows. And I know God, personally. In fact, he lets me call him me. I be one with rain and stars and things, with dancing feet and watermelon wings. I bring the sunshine and the moon. And wind blows my tune.

Scattered among these things are reminders that sound once existed: a metronome, a drumming pad, a guitar pick, a trumpet mouthpiece, a music stand, a tuning fork, a block of rosin...The older instruments bear the marks of those who have already played them, the scuffs and bites and dents that are the mysterious scars of sound. In their midst the house hangs, tenuous and enveloping, a sounding board waiting to be struck.

Doc bought a package of yellow pads and two dozen pencils. He laid them out on his desk, the pencils sharpened to needle points and lined up like yellow soldiers. At the top of a page he printed: OBSERVATIONS AND SPECULATIONS. His pencil point broke. He took up another and drew lace around the O and the B, made a block letter of the S and put fish hooks on each end. His ankle itched. He rolled down his sock and scratched, and that made his ear itch. “Someone’s talking about me,” he said and looked at the yellow pad. He wondered whether he had fed the cotton rats. It is easy to forget when you’re thinking.

I don't want to be alone," she whispered. "You won't be, through any of this." "It feels very alone. Death is like a cloud coming near that shadows and blocks the color from life." "I'll be here, Rae. Whatever you need. And God promised He would never leave you. He meant it. For the rest of eternity you will never be alone.

But William Dilworth English, M.D., was not thinking of the immediate punishment of his son; that was something which could be decided upon. He was not thinking of the glory of having a son who hopped freight trains. The thing that put him in the deep mood and gave him the heavy look that Julian saw on his face was that 'chip off the old block' refrain of Butch Doerflinger’s. William Dilworth English was thinking of his own life, the scrupulous, notebook honesty; the penny-watching, bill-paying, self-sacrificing honesty that had been his religion after his own father’s suicide. And that was his reward: a son who turned out to be like his grandfather, a thief.

Handwritten in neat block letters on a page torn from a novel by Nikolay Gogol, it read: S.O.S. I NEED YOUR HELP. I AM INJURED, NEAR DEATH, AND TOO WEAK TO HIKE OUT OF HERE I AM ALL ALONE, THIS IS NO JOKE. IN THE NAME OF GOD, PLEASE REMAIN TO SAVE ME. I AM OUT COLLECTING BERRIES CLOSE BY AND SHALL RETURN THIS EVENING. THANK YOU, CHRIS MCCANDLESS. AUGUST?

I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at nine o’clock every morning.” ~ William Faulkner

I apologize to my words for not nurturing you and giving you the attention that you deserve.

O Lord, we’ve erred!’* He sighed with heart aflame, ‘We lost the way as soon as darkness came!’ So destiny can block the sun’s bright light, Turn lions into mice because of fright.

Since the water turns into Ice Different physical shapes the eye See but indeed their building blocks still remain same easy, (H2O) Farah Said.

She had signed her own death-warrant. He kept telling himself over and over that he was not to blame, she had brought it on herself. He had never seen the man. He knew there was one. He had known for six weeks now. Little things had told him. One day he came home and there was a cigar-butt in an ashtray, still moist at one end, still warm at the other. There were gasoline-drippings on the asphalt in front of their house, and they didn't own a car. And it wouldn't be a delivery-vehicle, because the drippings showed it had stood there a long time, an hour or more. And once he had actually glimpsed it, just rounding the far corner as he got off the bus two blocks down the other way. A second-hand Ford. She was often very flustered when he came home, hardly seemed to know what she was doing or saying at all. He pretended not to see any of these things; he was that type of man, Stapp, he didn't bring his hates or grudges out into the open where they had a chance to heal. He nursed them in the darkness of his mind. That's a dangerous kind of a man. If he had been honest with himself, he would have had to admit that this mysterious afternoon caller was just the excuse he gave himself, that he'd daydreamed of getting rid of her long before there was any reason to, that there had been something in him for years past now urging Kill, kill, kill. Maybe ever since that time he'd been treated at the hospital for a concussion. ("Three O'Clock")

The government regulates them, or chooses not to, approves or blocks their mergers and acquisitions, and sets their tax policies (often turning a blind eye to the billions parked in offshore tax havens). This is why tech companies, like the rest of corporate America, inundate Washington with lobbyists and quietly pour hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions into the political system. Now they’re gaining the wherewithal to fine-tune our political behavior—and with it the shape of American government—just by tweaking their algorithms.

My father worked behind closed doors inside the house, had a huge ancient Latin dictionary on a wrought-iron stand, spoke Spanish on the phone, and drank sherry and ate raw meat, in the form of chorizo, at five o'clock. Until the day in the yard with my playmate I thought this was what fathers did. Then I began to catalog and notice. They mowed lawns. They drank beer. They played in the yard with their kids, walked around the block with their wives, piled into campers, and, when they went out, wore joke ties or polo shirts, not Phi Beta Kappa keys and tailored vests.

I pass a construction site, abandoned for the night, and a few blocks later, the playground of the elementary school my son attended, the metal sliding board gleaming under a streetlamp and the swings stirring in the breeze. There's an energy to these autumn nights that touches something primal inside of me. Something from long ago. From my childhood in western Iowa. I think of high school football games and the stadium lights blazing down on the players. I smell ripening apples, and the sour reek of beer from keg parties in the cornfields. I feel the wind in my face as I ride in the bed of an old pickup truck down a country road at night, dust swirling in the taillights and the entire span of my life yawning out ahead o me. It's the beautiful thing about youth. There's a weightlessness that permeates everything because no damning choices have been made, no paths committed to, and the road forking out ahead is pure, unlimited potential. I love my life, but I haven't felt that lightness of being in ages. Autumn nights like this are as close as I get.

half-breed, had his back to Coffin; Reno Holder himself sat facing the tents, sideways to Coffin; and Ian O’Kelly, partially blocked by Curly’s body, faced him across the fragrant fire. Damn, Coffin thought with a touch of joy, my luck must be changing. Reno Holder is the first

An old story is told about Rabia of Basra, an eighth-century Sufi mystic who was seen running through the streets of her city one day carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she said she wanted to burn down the rewards of paradise with the torch and put out the fires of hell with the water, because both blocked the way to God. "O, Allah," Rabia prayed, "if I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your Own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.

It's not good for me to run away from honest opinions. I can't let that block my writing. Otherwise, I'll never learn how to write more interesting stories. I enjoy writing books, but it isn't easy. But that's why I want to do the best I can. One day, I want to make everyone say, 'What a good book.' (spoken by Hisami Hishishii)

Go to Zillicks down the block. It has three booths at the back. Go in the middle one and wait. When you lamp me turning the pages of the directory outside, shove your money in the return-coin slot and walk out. Take it easy. Don't let the druggist see you. Your stuff'll be there when you go back for it. If you're even a dime short don't show up, it won't do ya no good. Twelve o'clock tonight.' 'Twelve o'clock;' Fisher agreed. They separated. How many a seemingly casual street-corner conversation like that on the city's streets has just such an unguessed, sinister topic. Murder, theft, revenge, narcotics. While the crowd goes by around it unaware. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")

Thus, the hallmark of Superstars is a focused and determined work ethic, the willingness to take leaps of faith, and the ability to hold on when the signs are not good and everybody is telling them to quit. All achievers have certain characteristics. They do not crumble in the face of adversity. They view problems as stepping stones instead of as stumbling blocks.

For the first 3 weeks of that month, I was also under internal segregation. This simply meant that no other political prisoner was allowed near me. During meals, I was made to sit apart from the others, often with a guard between us. During my ration of sunshine, I had to sit in my corner, often with a watchful guard to ensure that there was no talking or other contact between me & any of the others. Because we were all on the same block it wasn't easy for the warders to enforce total segregation. The other political prisoners would break through the cordon by shouting across to me or by finding any & every excuse for going past where I was sitting & hurriedly throwing in one or two words of solidarity...This was always touching coming from people who were in no better conditions.

He would keep what he would always believe had to be a false memory of her falling like a booted Icarus out of a lighted sky in which there was somehow falling snow and her mouth open in a lovely O that had started to shape a word, and her long legs against the electric light, shooting out of the blue plastic square that rose like a kite lifting on a whirlwind and one of her boots flying what seemed the length of the block

He turned the Corner onto Third Street and went up the block to Cup O'Joe. "Hey, Jack," said Marc, the barista, as he approached the Counter. "Latte?" "Mmm... nah. Gimme a large Mocha with a shot of hazelnut, skim, no Whip." "Okay." He rung up the sale. "By yourself tonight?" "My better half is home asleep. Just got back from a two-week trip." "Well, tell him I've got some 'regular goddamn coffee' here with his Name on it," Marc said, winking.

Who do you think made this world an' the things 'at's in it? Maybe it's your notion 'at somebody about your size whittled it from a block o' wood, scattered a little sand for earth, stuck a few seeds for trees, an' started the oceans with a waterin' pot! I don't know what paved streets an' stall feedin' do for a man, but any one 'at's lived sixty year on the ground knows 'at this whole old earth is jest teemin' with work 'at's too big for anything but a God, an' a mighty BIG God at that!

I'm older now, I'm a man getting near middle age, putting on a little fat and I still love to walk along Fifth Avenue at three o'clock on the east side of the street between Fiftieth and Fifty-seventh streets, they're all out then, making believe they're shopping, in their furs and their crazy hats, everything all concentrated from all over the world into eight blocks, the best furs, the best clothes, the handsomest women, out to spend money and feeling good about it, looking coldly at you, making believe they're not looking at you as you go past.

Myron headed down the steps. Without warning a man wearing a blue blazer and aviator sunglasses stepped in front of him. He was a big guy—six-four, two-twenty—just about Myron’s size. His neatly combed hair sat above a pleasant though unyielding face. He expanded his chest into a paddleball wall, blocking Myron’s path. His voice said, “Can I help you, sir?” But his tone said, Take a hike, bub. Myron looked at him. “Anyone ever tell you you look like Jack Lord?” No reaction. “You know,” Myron said. “Jack Lord? Hawaii Five-O?” “I’ll have to ask you to leave, sir.

In this march through a virtual lifetime, we’ve visited school and college, the courts and the workplace, even the voting booth. Along the way, we’ve witnessed the destruction caused by WMDs. Promising efficiency and fairness, they distort higher education, drive up debt, spur mass incarceration, pummel the poor at nearly every juncture, and undermine democracy. It might seem like the logical response is to disarm these weapons, one by one. The problem is that they’re feeding on each other. Poor people are more likely to have bad credit and live in high-crime neighborhoods, surrounded by other poor people. Once the dark universe of WMDs digests that data, it showers them with predatory ads for subprime loans or for-profit schools. It sends more police to arrest them, and when they’re convicted it sentences them to longer terms. This data feeds into other WMDs, which score the same people as high risks or easy targets and proceed to block them from jobs, while jacking up their rates for mortgages, car loans, and every kind of insurance imaginable. This drives their credit rating down further, creating nothing less than a death spiral of modeling. Being poor in a world of WMDs is getting more and more dangerous and expensive.

I've often thought that among all the afflicting sights of the world, none can be much more so than this one short walk along three city blocks, where night after night it's possible to see--indeed, it's impossible not to see--these faces from which hope and joy and dignity and light have been draining so steadily and for so long that now there is nothing left but this assortment of indifferent, damaged masks. They belong to human beings who, after a lifetime of struggling to become one thing or another, have succeeded only in becoming the rough sketches of their species, recognizable but empty, the bruised and wretched bodies and souls of the saddest people on earth: the people who no longer care.

Of the Poet’s Youth" When the man behind the counter said, “You pay by the orifice,” what could we do but purchase them all? Ah, Sandy, vou were clearly the deluxe doll, modish and pert in your plastic nurse whites, official hostess to our halcyon days, where you bobbed in the doorway of our dishabille apartment, a block downwind from the stockyards. Holding court on the corroded balcony, K. and I passed hash brownies, collecting change for the building’s monthly pool to predict which balcony would fall off next. That’s when K. was fucking M. and M. was fucking J., and even B. and I threw down once on the glass-speckled lawn, adrift in the headlights of his El Camino. Those were immortal times, Sandy! Coke wasn’t addictive yet, condoms prevented herpes and men were only a form of practice for the Russian novel we foolishly hoped our lives would become. Now it’s a Friday night, sixteen years from there. Don’t the best characters know better than to live too long? My estranged husband house-sits for a spoiled cockatoo while saving to buy his own place. My lover’s gone back to his gin and the farm-team fiancée he keeps in New York. What else to do but read Frank O’Hara to my tired three-year-old? When I put him to bed, he mutters “more sorry” as he turns into sleep. Tonight, I find you in a box I once marked “The Past.” Well, therapy’s good for some things, Sandy, but who’d want to forgive a girl like that? Frank says Destroy yourself if you don’t know! Deflated, you’re simply the smile that surrounds a hole. I don’t know anything.

September 1995: Mark and I had our well documented book entitled TRANCE Formation of America published, complete with irrefutable graphic details which are in themselves evidence to present to Congress, all factions of law enforcement including the FBI, CIA, DIA, DEA, TBI, NSA, etc., all major news media groups, national and international human rights advocates, both American Psychological and Psychiatric Associations, the National Institute of Mental Health, and more… to no avail. TRANCE thoroughly exposes many of the perpe-TRAITORS and their agenda replete with names, which raises the question “why haven't we been sued?” The obvious answer is that the same “National Security Act” that continues to block our access to all avenues of justice and public exposure also prevents these criminals from inevitably bringing mind control to light through court procedures, an opportunity we would welcome. Meanwhile, as reported by both APAs, survivors of U.S. Government sponsored mind control began to surface all across our nation. The first to encounter the vast number of survivors were law enforcement and mental health professionals, and these professionals began to ask questions. in other countries, answers are being provided through somewhat less controlled media, reflecting the CIA's involvement in Project MK Ultra human rights atrocities. A television documentary entitled The Sleep Room aired across Canada by the Canadian Broadcast Corp. in the spring of 1998. Dr. Martin Orne, an associate boasted by Dr. William Mitchell M.D., Ph.D. who thrust Kelly into Vanderbilt's cover-up attempt (re: p.14), is named as an accomplice to Dr. Ewing Cameron's MK Ultra 'experiments' in Montreal, Quebec. Additionally, it should be known that Dr. Cameron went on to found the American Psychiatric Association, which has helped to maintain America's mental health profession in the dark ages of information control.

It's only second period, and the whole school knows Emma broke up with him. So far, he's collected eight phone numbers, one kiss on the cheek, and one pinch to the back of his jeans. His attempts to talk to Emma between classes are thwarted by a hurricane of teenage females whose main goal seems to be keeping him and his ex-girlfriend separated. When the third period bell rings, Emma has already chosen a seat where she'll be barricaded from him by other students. Throughout class, she pays attention as if the teacher were giving instructions on how to survive a life-threatening catastrophe in the next twenty-four hours. About midway through class, he receives a text from a number he doesn't recognize. If you let me, I can do things to u to make u forget her. As soon as he clears it, another one pops up from a different number. Hit me back if u want to chat. I'll treat u better than E. How did they get my number? Tucking his phone back into his pocket, he hovers over his notebook protectively, as if it's the only thing left that hasn't been invaded. Then he notices the foreign handwriting scribbled on it by a girl named Shena who encircled her name and phone number with a heart. Not throwing it across the room takes almost as much effort as not kissing Emma. At lunch, Emma once again blocks his access to her by sitting between people at a full picnic table outside. He chooses the table directly across from her, but she seems oblivious, absently soaking up the grease from the pizza on her plate until she's got at least fifteen orange napkins in front of her. She won't acknowledge that he's staring at her, waiting to wave her over as soon as she looks up. Ignoring the text message explosion in his vibrating pocket, he opens the contain of tuna fish Rachel packed for him. Forking it violently, he heaves a mound into his mouth, chewing without savoring it. Mark with the Teeth is telling Emma something she thinks is funny, because she covers her mouth with a napkin and giggles. Galen almost launches from his bench when Mark brushes a strand of hair from her face. Now he knows what Rachel meant when she told him to mark his territory early on. But what can he do if his territory is unmarking herself? News of their breakup has spread like an oil spill, and it seems as though Emma is making a huge effort to help it along. With his thumb and index finger, Galen snaps his plastic fork in half as Emma gently wipes Mark's mouth with her napkin. He rolls his eyes as Mark "accidentally" gets another splotch of JELL-O on the corner of his lips. Emma wipes that clean too, smiling like she's tending to a child. It doesn't help that Galen's table is filling up with more of his admirers-touching him, giggling at him, smiling at him for no reason, and distracting him from his fantasy of breaking Mark's pretty jaw. But that would only give Emma a genuine reason to assist the idiot in managing his JELL-O.

In the bows of the Desaix there was a sudden movement, a response to an order. Jack stepped to the wheel, taking the spokes from the quartermaster’s hands and looking back over his left shoulder. He felt the life of the sloop under his fingers: and he saw the Desaix begin to yaw. She answered her helm as quickly as a cutter, and in three heartbeats there were her thirty-seven guns coming round to bear. Jack heaved strongly at the wheel. The broadside’s roar and the fall of the Sophie’s maintopgallantmast and foretopsail yard came almost together – in the thunder a hail of blocks, odd lengths of rope, splinters, the tremendous clang of a grape-shot striking the Sophie’s bell; and then a silence. The greater part of the seventy-four’s roundshot had passed a few yards ahead of her stem: the scattering grape-shot had utterly wrecked her sails and rigging – had cut them to pieces. The next broadside must destroy her entirely. ‘Clew up,’ called Jack, continuing the turn that brought the Sophie into the wind. ‘Bonden, strike the colours.

An old story is told about Rabia of Basra, an eighth-century Sufi mystic who was seen running through the streets of her city one day carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she said she wanted to burn down the rewards of paradise with the torch and put out the fires of hell with the water, because both blocked the way to God, 'O, Allah,' Rabia prayed, 'if I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your Own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.' In Christian tradition this comes under the heading of unconditional love, though it is usually understood as the kind of love God exercises toward humans instead of the other way around. Now, thanks to a Muslim mystic from Iraq, I have a new way of understanding what it means to love God unconditionally. Whenever I am tempted to act from fear of divine punishment or hope of divine reward, Rabia leans over from here religion into mine and empties a bucket of water on my head.

Para que algo quede escrito no hace falta solamente el deseo puesto en juego a través de la mano que escribe el texto, también hace falta un papel o equivalente (cualquier sustancia material) en el que el trazo pueda quedar registrado. Mientras escribimos, por lo general nos olvidamos del papel, atentos sólo a las palabras que queremos dejar allí; pero forzosamente pasamos a tenerlo en cuenta cuando alguna de las características materiales del papel dificulta que las letras queden escritas con claridad. Todo bebé nace inmerso en un baño de lenguaje. Esta cacofonía significante -insignificante para el bebé en sus primeros tiempos en cuanto a su sentido- le llega filtrada por el Otro real, encarnado en la persona que ejerce la función materna, quien va escribiendo las primeras letras en su cuerpo, desde cada acto cotidiano con el que posibilita el curso de su vida de bebé. Block maravilloso mediante, de una u otra manera, el archivo queda registrado en el sistema nervioso central. Sobre los bebés que nacen normales, los padres normales escriben sin siquiera darse cuenta. Una madre puede no recordar en qué momento su bebé dijo ajó por primera vez, o sostuvo la cabeza, o se sentó, o agarró un sonajero, o se paró solo agarrado a los barrotes de la cuna, puede ni siquiera saber si pasó o no pasó por la angustia d elos ocho meses, pero si su bebé pudo pasar por cada uno de semejantes avatares fue porque ella, sin saberlo, sabía qué tipo de sosten o de objeto, distintos cada día, requería la crianza de su hijo. (...) A veces nos encontramos con padres acerca de los cuales todo nos hace suponer que de haberles nacido un bebito orgánicamente normal, éste se habría convertido en un niño neurótico cualquiera, sin mayores complicaciones que su propia singularidad; pero les tocó un hijo que, al ser portador de una falla detectable, hirió su narcisismo de tal forma que no resultó posible que el pequeño bebé recibiera la serie de inscripciones que previsamente le estaba destinada. Otras veces, lo que toca es un hijo sin ninguna falla detectable en lo inmediato, pero cuya dotación biológica no ofrece las respuestas que normalmente realimentan el llamado del Otro, provocando una serie de desencuentros entre madre e hijo que sólo se advierte mucho más tarde, cuando las producciones del niño no alcanzan las esperables a su edad o lo hacen de manera muy extraña.

While I am free to speak my mind, Kelly, now 14, is not so fortunate. Kelly has yet to receive rehabilitation for her shattered personality and programmed young mind. The high tech sophistication of the Project Monarch trauma based mind-control procedures she endured, literally since birth, reportedly requires highly specialized, qualified care to aid her in eventually gaining control of her mind and life. Due to the political affluence of our abusers, all efforts to obtain her inalienable right to rehabilitation and seek justice have been blocked under the guise of so-called "National Security." As a result, Kelly remains warehoused in a mental institution in the custody of the state of Tennessee--a victim of the system—a system controlled and manipulated by our abusive government "leaders" a system where State Forms make no allowances to report military TOP SECRET abuses--a system that exists on federal funding directed by our perverse, corrupt abusers in Washington, D.C. She remains a political prisoner in a mental institution to this moment, waiting and hurting! Violations of laws and rights, Psychological Warfare intimidation tactics, threats to our lives, and various other forms of CIA Damage Containment practices thus far have remained unhindered and unchecked due to the National Security Act of 1947 AND the 1986 Reagan Amendment to same which allows those in control of our government to censor and/or cover up anything they choose.

To Anita Pollitzer Canyon, Texas 11 September 1916 Tonight I walked into the sunset — to mail some letters — the whole sky — and there is so much of it out here — was just blazing — and grey blue clouds were rioting all through the hotness of it — and the ugly little buildings and windmills looked great against it. But some way or other I didn't seem to like the redness much so after I mailed the letters I walked home — and kept on walking — The Eastern sky was all grey blue — bunches of clouds — different kinds of clouds — sticking around everywhere and the whole thing — lit up — first in one place — then in another with flashes of lightning — sometimes just sheet lightning — and sometimes sheet lightning with a sharp bright zigzag flashing across it —. I walked out past the last house — past the last locust tree — and sat on the fence for a long time — looking — just looking at the lightning — you see there was nothing but sky and flat prairie land — land that seems more like the ocean than anything else I know — There was a wonderful moon — Well I just sat there and had a great time all by myself — Not even many night noises — just the wind — I wondered what you are doing — It is absurd the way I love this country — Then when I came back — it was funny — roads just shoot across blocks anywhere — all the houses looked alike — and I almost got lost — I had to laugh at myself — I couldnt tell which house was home — I am loving the plains more than ever it seems — and the SKY — Anita you have never seen SKY — it is wonderful — Pat.

Mama made the coach stop at a barber shop around the corner from their house. 'Go in there,' she told Francie, 'and get your father’s cup.' Francie didn't know what she meant. 'What cup?' she asked. 'Just ask for his cup.' Francie went in. There were two barbers but no customers. One of the barbers sat on one of the chairs in a row against the wall. His left ankle rested on his right knee and he cradled a mandolin. He was playing 'O, Sole Mio.' Francie knew the song. Mr. Morton had taught it to them saying the title was 'Sunshine.' The other barber was sitting in one of the barber chairs looking at himself in the long mirror. He got down from the chair as the girl came in. 'Yes?' he asked. 'I want my father’s cup.' 'The name?' 'John Nolan.' 'Ah, yes. Too bad.' He sighed as he took a mug from the row of them on a shelf. It was a thick white mug with 'John Nolan' written on it in gold and fancy block letters. There was a worn-down cake of white soap at the bottom of it and a tired-looking brush. He pried out the soap and put it and the brush in a bigger unlettered cup. He washed Johnny’s cup. While Francie waited, she looked around. She had never been inside a barber shop. It smelled of soap and clean towels and bay rum. There was a gas heater which hissed companionably. The barber had finished the song and started it over again. The thin tinkle of the mandolin made a sad sound in the warm shop. Francie sang Mr. Morton’s words to the song in her mind. Oh, what’s so fine, dear, As a day of sunshine. The storm is past at last. The sky is blue and clear. Everyone has a secret life, she mused.

The date was November 23, 1965. One company was in contact. Machinegun fire rattled in the distance. Tom McEnry took pictures of artillery firing support for soldiers in the field. Just after eleven o’clock in the morning, McEnry complained about his light meter. “I can’t get a reading,” he said, shaking the small black instrument in front of him, banging it against his hand. At the same time, field commanders called in on their radios that something strange was happening. ‘I don’t know what it is,’ one officer called, ‘but it’s weird. It’s really gettin, uh, kinda eerie out here.’ The air became still. Insects went quiet. The artillery stopped firing. Radios were silent. The temperature, which had been about eighty-five degrees, dropped to around seventy or seventy-five. The light dimmed, though there were no clouds. The North Vietnamese broke contact. The war stopped. Someone said, ‘Look at the sun!’ Everyone looked up. A thin black disc appeared at the side of the white-yellow sun, obscuring part of it, blocking the light. ‘Far fucking out,’ a soldier said. ‘Would you believe it?’ said another. ‘A fucking ee-clipse? In fucking Veetnam?’ ‘I bet the VC think we done it,’ a GI said. ‘That’s why they took off.’ ‘Shee-it.’ Several minutes passed in near silence. The hand of an unseen presence seemed to move across the tropical savanna. No one spoke. Then the light brightened. The temperature warmed. Insects screeched. A few gunshots cracked. Field radios came alive with chatter and hiss. Artillery boomed. Helicopter blades whacked the air. The war, having skipped a beat, resumed as if nothing had happened.

Aunt Jane came around from the back of the house, her black silk cape fluttering from her shoulders, and a calico sunbonnet hiding her features in its cavernous depth. She walked briskly to the clothes-line and began patting and smoothing the quilts where the breeze had disarranged them. "Aunt Jane," I called out, "are you having a fair all by yourself?" She turned quickly, pushing back the sunbonnet from her eyes. "Why, child," she said, with a happy laugh, "you come pretty nigh skeerin' me. No, I ain't havin' any fair; I'm jest givin' my quilts their spring airin'. Twice a year I put 'em out in the sun and wind; and this mornin' the air smelt so sweet, I thought it was a good chance to freshen 'em up for the summer. It's about time to take 'em in now." She began to fold the quilts and lay them over her arm, and I did the same. Back and forth we went from the clothes-line to the house, and from the house to the clothes-line, until the quilts were safely housed from the coming dewfall and piled on every available chair in the front room. I looked at them in sheer amazement. There seemed to be every pattern that the ingenuity of woman could devise and the industry of woman put together, — "four-patches," "nine-patches," "log-cabins," "wild-goose chases," "rising suns," hexagons, diamonds, and only Aunt Jane knows what else. As for color, a Sandwich Islander would have danced with joy at the sight of those reds, purples, yellows, and greens. "Did you really make all these quilts, Aunt Jane?" I asked wondcringly. Aunt Jane's eyes sparkled with pride. "Every stitch of 'em, child," she said, "except the quiltin'. The neighbors used to come in and help some with that. I've heard folks say that piecin' quilts was nothin' but a waste o' time, but that ain't always so.

The phone rang. It was a familiar voice. It was Alan Greenspan. Paul O'Neill had tried to stay in touch with people who had served under Gerald Ford, and he'd been reasonably conscientious about it. Alan Greenspan was the exception. In his case, the effort was constant and purposeful. When Greenspan was the chairman of Ford's Council of Economic Advisers, and O'Neill was number two at OMB, they had become a kind of team. Never social so much. They never talked about families or outside interests. It was all about ideas: Medicare financing or block grants - a concept that O'Neill basically invented to balance federal power and local autonomy - or what was really happening in the economy. It became clear that they thought well together. President Ford used to have them talk about various issues while he listened. After a while, each knew how the other's mind worked, the way married couples do. In the past fifteen years, they'd made a point of meeting every few months. It could be in New York, or Washington, or Pittsburgh. They talked about everything, just as always. Greenspan, O'Neill told a friend, "doesn't have many people who don't want something from him, who will talk straight to him. So that's what we do together - straight talk." O'Neill felt some straight talk coming in. "Paul, I'll be blunt. We really need you down here," Greenspan said. "There is a real chance to make lasting changes. We could be a team at the key moment, to do the things we've always talked about." The jocular tone was gone. This was a serious discussion. They digressed into some things they'd "always talked about," especially reforming Medicare and Social Security. For Paul and Alan, the possibility of such bold reinventions bordered on fantasy, but fantasy made real. "We have an extraordinary opportunity," Alan said. Paul noticed that he seemed oddly anxious. "Paul, your presence will be an enormous asset in the creation of sensible policy." Sensible policy. This was akin to prayer from Greenspan. O'Neill, not expecting such conviction from his old friend, said little. After a while, he just thanked Alan. He said he always respected his counsel. He said he was thinking hard about it, and he'd call as soon as he decided what to do. The receiver returned to its cradle. He thought about Greenspan. They were young men together in the capital. Alan stayed, became the most noteworthy Federal Reserve Bank chairman in modern history and, arguably the most powerful public official of the past two decades. O'Neill left, led a corporate army, made a fortune, and learned lessons - about how to think and act, about the importance of outcomes - that you can't ever learn in a government. But, he supposed, he'd missed some things. There were always trade-offs. Talking to Alan reminded him of that. Alan and his wife, Andrea Mitchell, White House correspondent for NBC news, lived a fine life. They weren't wealthy like Paul and Nancy. But Alan led a life of highest purpose, a life guided by inquiry. Paul O'Neill picked up the telephone receiver, punched the keypad. "It's me," he said, always his opening. He started going into the details of his trip to New York from Washington, but he's not much of a phone talker - Nancy knew that - and the small talk trailed off. "I think I'm going to have to do this." She was quiet. "You know what I think," she said. She knew him too well, maybe. How bullheaded he can be, once he decides what's right. How he had loved these last few years as a sovereign, his own man. How badly he was suited to politics, as it was being played. And then there was that other problem: she'd almost always been right about what was best for him. "Whatever, Paul. I'm behind you. If you don't do this, I guess you'll always regret it." But it was clearly about what he wanted, what he needed. Paul thanked her. Though somehow a thank-you didn't seem appropriate. And then he realized she was crying.

rang. “Hello,” said the editor. “London calling,” came the voice of the operator. “All right,” replied the editor. He recognized the voice of Terry Masters, special correspondent. His voice came clearly over the transatlantic telephone. “The Horror is attacking London in force,” he said. “There are thousands of them and they have completely surrounded the city. All roads are blocked. The government declared the city under martial rule a quarter of an hour ago and efforts are being made to prepare for resistance against the enemy.” “Just a second,” the editor shouted into the transmitter. He touched a button on his desk and in a moment an answering buzz told him he was in communication with the press-room. “Stop the presses!” he yelled into the speaking tube. “Get ready for a new front make-up!” “O.K.,” came faintly through the tube, and the editor turned back to the phone. “Now let’s have it,” he said, and the voice at the London end of the wire droned on, telling the story that in another half hour was read by a world which shuddered in cold fear even as it scanned the glaring headlines. * * * * “Woods,” said the editor of the Press to a reporter, “run over and talk to Dr. Silas White. He phoned me to send someone. Something about this Horror business.” Henry Woods rose from his chair without a word and walked from the office. As he passed the wire machine it was tapping out, with a maddeningly methodical slowness, the story of the fall of London. Only half an hour before it had rapped forth the flashes concerning the attack on Paris and Berlin. He passed out of the building into a street that was swarming with terrified humanity. Six months of terror, of numerous mysterious deaths, of villages blotted out, had set the world on edge. Now with London in possession of the Horror and Paris and Berlin fighting hopelessly for their lives, the entire population of the world was half insane with fright. Exhorters on street corners enlarged upon the end of the world, asking that the people prepare

Only then did Shukhov catch on to what was up. He glanced at Kilgas. He'd understood, too. The roofing felt. Der had spotted it on the windows. Shukhov feared nothing for himself. His squad leader would never give him away. He was afraid for Tiurin. To the squad Tiurin was a father, for them he was a pawn. Up in the North they readily gave squad, leaders a second term for a thing like this. Ugh, what a face Tiurin made. He threw down his trowel and took a step toward Der. Der looked around. Pavlo lifted his spade. He hadn't grabbed it for nothing. And Senka, for all his deafness, had understood. He came up, hands on hips. And Senka was built solid. Der blinked, gave a sort of twitch, and looked around for a way of escape. Tiurin leaned up against him and said quite softly, though distinctly enough for everyone to hear: "Your time for giving terms has passed, you bastard. If you say one word, you blood-sucker, it'll be your last day on earth. Remember that." Tiurin shook, shook uncontrollably. Hatchet-faced Pavlo looked Der straight in the eyes. A look as sharp as a razor. "Now, men, take it easy." Der turned pale and edged away from the ramp. Without another word Tiurin straightened his hat, picked up his trowel, and walked back to his wall. Pavlo, very slowly, went down the ramp with his spade. Slo-o-owly. Der was as scared to stay as to leave. He took shelter behind Kilgas and stood there. Kilgas went on laying blocks, the way they count out pills at a drugstore--like a doctor, measuring everything so carefully--his back to Der, as if he didn't even know he was there. Der stole up to Tiurin. Where was all his arrogance? "But what shall I tell the superintendent, Tiurin?". Tiurin went on working. He said, without turning his head: "You will tell him it was like that when we arnved. We came and that's how it was." Der waited a little longer. They weren't going to bump him off now, he saw. He took a few steps and puthis hands in his pockets. "Hey, S 854," he muttered. "Why are you using such a thin layer of mortar?" He had to get back at someone. He couldn't find fault with Shukhov for his joints or for the straightness of his line, so he decided he was laying the mortar too thin.

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We've been here three days already, and I've yet to cook a single meal. The night we arrived, my dad ordered Chinese takeout from the old Cantonese restaurant around the corner, where they still serve the best egg foo yung, light and fluffy and swimming in rich, brown gravy. Then there had been Mineo's pizza and corned beef sandwiches from the kosher deli on Murray, all my childhood favorites. But last night I'd fallen asleep reading Arthur Schwartz's Naples at Table and had dreamed of pizza rustica, so when I awoke early on Saturday morning with a powerful craving for Italian peasant food, I decided to go shopping. Besides, I don't ever really feel at home anywhere until I've cooked a meal. The Strip is down by the Allegheny River, a five- or six-block stretch filled with produce markets, old-fashioned butcher shops, fishmongers, cheese shops, flower stalls, and a shop that sells coffee that's been roasted on the premises. It used to be, and perhaps still is, where chefs pick up their produce and order cheeses, meats, and fish. The side streets and alleys are littered with moldering vegetables, fruits, and discarded lettuce leaves, and the smell in places is vaguely unpleasant. There are lots of beautiful, old warehouse buildings, brick with lovely arched windows, some of which are now, to my surprise, being converted into trendy loft apartments. If you're a restaurateur you get here early, four or five in the morning. Around seven or eight o'clock, home cooks, tourists, and various passers-through begin to clog the Strip, aggressively vying for the precious few available parking spaces, not to mention tables at Pamela's, a retro diner that serves the best hotcakes in Pittsburgh. On weekends, street vendors crowd the sidewalks, selling beaded necklaces, used CDs, bandanas in exotic colors, cheap, plastic running shoes, and Steelers paraphernalia by the ton. It's a loud, jostling, carnivalesque experience and one of the best things about Pittsburgh. There's even a bakery called Bruno's that sells only biscotti- at least fifteen different varieties daily. Bruno used to be an accountant until he retired from Mellon Bank at the age of sixty-five to bake biscotti full-time. There's a little hand-scrawled sign in the front of window that says, GET IN HERE! You can't pass it without smiling. It's a little after eight when Chloe and I finish up at the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company where, in addition to the prosciutto, soppressata, both hot and sweet sausages, fresh ricotta, mozzarella, and imported Parmigiano Reggiano, all essential ingredients for pizza rustica, I've also picked up a couple of cans of San Marzano tomatoes, which I happily note are thirty-nine cents cheaper here than in New York.

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Well to hell with them. He’d done his duty, he’d paid his respects. He wouldn’t bother them any more. Let them live in their cramped flat, visited by this … gentleman, this mock adult. Rebus had more important things to do. Books to read. Notes to make. And another busy day ahead. It was ten o’clock. He could be back at his hotel by eleven. An early night, that’s what was needed. Eight hours’ sleep in the last two days. No wonder he was ratty, looking for a fight. He began to feel a little bit ashamed. Kenny was too easy a target. He’d crushed a tiny fly beneath a tower-block of resentment. Resentment, John, or plain jealousy? That was not a question for a tired man. Not a question for a man like John Rebus. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he might start getting some answers. He was determined to pay for his keep now that he had been brought to London. Tomorrow, the task began in earnest. He shook Kenny’s hand again and gave him a man-to-man half-wink before leaving the flat. Rhona offered to see him to the door. They went into the hall, leaving

It’s nice to see you.” Stupid, silly, banal little words. Luca smiles, his dark blue eyes sparking. “Nice?” he says, and he starts to take off his shoes. “This is a very strong word in English, non è vero?” “No,” I say quickly. “It’s not a strong word at all.” “Oh, peccato,” he says cheerfully, which means “what a shame.” He’s pulling off his socks. “What are you doing?” I ask, which is stupid too, as it’s obvious; he’s standing up now, his hands at his waistband, unbuckling his belt. The sight is incredibly disconcerting. I back away, into deeper water, on the tips of my toes now. “Luca--” “I am hot,” he says. “That’s correct, isn’t it? Not ‘I have hot.’” I know what he means: in Italian, you say you “have” hot or cold, not that you “are.” It takes a bit of getting used to. Especially with the double meaning, which I’m certainly not going to explain to him now. “Yes,” I say even more feebly as Luca’s jeans drop to the ground and he steps out of them. Thank goodness he’s wearing boxers! His legs are long and almost too thin, a bit stork-like. I’m ridiculously glad to have found a defect in him. As he starts to unbutton his shirt, I take another step back and find myself treading water frantically, out of my depth now. I can’t look at his mostly bare body: I turn away, feeling a blush suffusing my cheeks. So I hear, rather than see, him dive into the river. He surfaces next to me, shaking his wet hair back from his face. It plasters down to his skull, and that makes his bone structure much more pronounced, his cheekbones sharp as knives. I stare at him, tongue-tied, as he treads water easily next to me. “Now you must be cross with me,” he says, a thread of laughter in his voice. “You must tell me that I’m wrong, that we must not be alone together.” “We mustn’t,” I say, suddenly angry. “You know we mustn’t.” I can’t keep treading water; my legs feel too wobbly. I put my head down and swim away from him, a couple of strokes to the far bank, where I can stand. He follows me; he swims right to me, and when he comes up, he’s so close, so tall, that he blocks out the moon. His bare chest is dappled with drops of water clinging to his skin. I can’t look anymore, so I raise my eyes, and then I’m looking into his, and oh no, that’s a really terrible idea, that’s the worst idea in the world… “Se scorre un fiume dentro ad ogni cuore, arriveremo al mare prima o poi,” he says, looking down at me. “More Jovanotti,” he adds, smiling, as he sees me staring at him in confusion. Jovanotti is Luca’s favorite singer; he’s quoted songs of his before to me. But I don’t know this one. “‘If a river runs inside every heart, we will arrive at the sea,’” he translates. “I think of this because we are in a river.” “It’s very pretty,” I mumble. “The rest of the song is maybe not so pretty,” he says. “It is a love song, but Jovanotti tells the truth about love. That it is sometimes not pretty at all.” I nod, even though hearing the word “love” spoken by Luca is enough to make me feel as if I’m blushing all over.

El mundo no volverá a ser igual al que dejamos a nuestras espaldas. Ahí fuera están sucediendo muchas cosas. La guerra arrasará con todo. Será un mundo mejor. Desaparecerán los triángulos negros, rosas o rojos. Ya no habrá judíos, arios o negros. Nos mezclaremos todos en una gran Babel, pero esta vez no intentaremos erigir una torre más alta que el cielo. Nos limitaremos a vivir bien

Ha! little honour to be much believed, And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming! I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't: Sign me a present pardon for my brother, Or with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud What man thou art. ANGELO Who will believe thee, Isabel? My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i' the state, Will so your accusation overweigh, That you shall stifle in your own report And smell of calumny. I have begun, And now I give my sensual race the rein: Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite; Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes, That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother By yielding up thy body to my will; Or else he must not only die the death, But thy unkindness shall his death draw out To lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow, Or, by the affection that now guides me most, I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you, Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true. Exit ISABELLA To whom should I complain? Did I tell this, Who would believe me? O perilous mouths, That bear in them one and the self-same tongue, Either of condemnation or approof; Bidding the law make court'sy to their will: Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite, To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother: Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood, Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour. That, had he twenty heads to tender down On twenty bloody blocks, he'ld yield them up, Before his sister should her body stoop To such abhorr'd pollution. Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die: More than our brother is our chastity. I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request, And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. Exit From Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene IV

Twould take me half a lifetime to describe to you the wonders and the horrors of the future world. The garderobe, what they call the ODEC, is housed within a large chamber—a strange room with mechanical monstrosities and a dreadful buzz in the air as if lightning were always just about to strike, a sound they are all indifferent to, much as I became indifferent to the odors of Southwark. And this chamber in turn is inside a vast building, which is on a street full of vast buildings, in a city of streets with vast buildings. Larger than cathedrals some of them, but without ornament or even shape. Like building blocks for giants, so they are. No imagination or love of beauty at all. Everything functions without human or magical assistance, but I confess most breathlessly that whatever power keeps humanity and its many mechanical servants humming . . . it is far more dazzling than any magic I have ever seen performed. And I tell you straight out: suspicious this makes me, for what is the cause to bring magic back when it has been replaced by something clearly more serviceable? So the first riddle I put my mind to was this: in a world where carriages travel without beasts to pull them, and food is effortlessly abundant, and there is ample light to sunder any darkness, from all manner of peculiar torches, none of them given to burning down a place even if it is all wood, and where all and sundry wear grander clothes than most anyone in London and an astonishing variety what’s more . . . something there must be, some commodity or advantage, that magic can attain but mankind cannot yet. Nothing material can it be, for no magic I ever knew summoned such luxuries for royalty as everyday folk here take as commonplace.

Fighting a Mardi-Gras-In-New-Orleans crowd for eight blocks from Trahan’s Tavern on St. Peter to Bourbon O on Bourbon was like a man being willing to swim the Nile, climb Mount Everest, and cross the Sahara for true love.

Pinned to the left-hand wall opposite the construction schedule was another butcher-block-size sheet almost identical in form, except this one, O’Sullivan said, was called a “submittal schedule.” It was also a checklist, but it didn’t specify construction tasks; it specified communication tasks. For the way the project managers dealt with the unexpected and the uncertain was by making sure the experts spoke to one another—on X date regarding Y process. The experts could make their individual judgments, but they had to do so as part of a team that took one another’s concerns into account, discussed unplanned developments, and agreed on the way forward. While no one could anticipate all the problems, they could foresee where and when they might occur. The checklist therefore detailed who had to talk to whom, by which date, and about what aspect of construction—who had to share (or “submit”) particular kinds of information before the next steps could proceed.

How about a quick tub?” Steve said. That was Australian for bath. Somehow, the words “bath” and “crocodile” refused to go together in my mind. But into the Burdekin we went, in our shorts, barefoot, picking our way through the stones, sticks, and burrs until we got to the smooth rocks of the river. Steve jumped in. I was more cautious. As I edged toward deeper water, he blocked my path and moved himself around in front of me. “What are you doing?” He laughed. “I caught the last big male crocodile around here last year, but I can’t be too sure another one hasn’t moved in.” “So,” I said, “you want to make sure to keep yourself between me and the rest of the river.” “Right-o, mate,” he replied. I thought, Is this guy for real? Most guys think they’re doing a girl a favor by opening a door, and here Steve was, putting himself between me and a croc.

Stephen, what is the French for a double sister-block, coaked? With a pair of them and a proper hold-fast, I could raise the Temple.' 'A double sister-block, coaked? The Dear alone can tell. I do not even know what it is in English.

the Joneses could have their perfect house, indiscernible from every other house on the block, and they could spend their time gossiping over the neighbors, basing their self-worth on a sliding scale of comparisons, all while silently drowning in their own unhappiness.

The treatments for chronic pain come from several disciplines. Traditional analgesics may have only a marginal effect, but many other drugs have been found to be useful, including the anticonvulsants carbamazepine and gabapentin, the antidepressant amitriptyline, the hormone calcitonin, and the fiery extract of chilli pepper, capsaicin. Other interventions include nerve blocks, and even implantable devices such as spinal cord stimulators. These are supported by psychological treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

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A little after moonrise Stephen woke. Extreme hunger had brought on cramps in his midriff again and he held his breath to let them pass: Jack was still sitting there, the tiller under his knee, the sheet in his hand, as though he had never moved, as though he were as immoveable as the Rock of Gibraltar and as unaffected by hunger, thirst, fatigue, or despondency. In this light he even looked rock-like, the moon picking out the salient of his nose and jaw and turning his broad shoulders and upper man into one massive block. He had in fact lost almost as much weight as a man can lose and live, and in the day his shrunken, bearded face with deep-sunk eyes was barely recognizable; but the moon showed the man unchanged.

When properly designed, multithreaded programs can improve throughput by utilizing available processor resources more effectively. Using multiple threads can also help achieve better throughput on singleprocessor systems. If a program is single-threaded, the processor remains idle while it waits for a synchronous I/O operation to complete. In a multithreaded program, another thread can still run while the first thread is waiting for the I/O to complete, allowing the application to still make progress during the blocking I/O. (This is like reading the newspaper while waiting for the water to boil, rather than waiting for the water to boil before starting to read.) 1.2.2.

Unlike Vashti McCollum and Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Anne Nicol Gaylor and Annie Laurie Gaylor did not have a specific separationist dispute to compel them into secular humanist and atheist activism. As their activism was born out of women's rights advocacy and they identified religion as a perpetual stumbling block, their work exemplifies the convergence between the feminist movement and the atheist movement. They identified a gap in the market, and, learning from the mistakes from Madalyn Murry O'Hair, built a foundation which has grown into the largest organisation of its kind with over 20,000 members.

book The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction as a jumping off point, he takes care to unpack the various cultural mandates  that have infected the way we think and feel about distraction. I found his ruminations not only enlightening but surprisingly emancipating: There are two big theories about why [distraction is] on the rise. The first is material: it holds that our urbanized, high-tech society is designed to distract us… The second big theory is spiritual—it’s that we’re distracted because our souls are troubled. The comedian Louis C.K. may be the most famous contemporary exponent of this way of thinking. A few years ago, on “Late Night” with Conan O’Brien, he argued that people are addicted to their phones because “they don’t want to be alone for a second because it’s so hard.” (David Foster Wallace also saw distraction this way.) The spiritual theory is even older than the material one: in 1887, Nietzsche wrote that “haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself”; in the seventeenth century, Pascal said that “all men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.”… Crawford argues that our increased distractibility is the result of technological changes that, in turn, have their roots in our civilization’s spiritual commitments. Ever since the Enlightenment, he writes, Western societies have been obsessed with autonomy, and in the past few hundred years we have put autonomy at the center of our lives, economically, politically, and technologically; often, when we think about what it means to be happy, we think of freedom from our circumstances. Unfortunately, we’ve taken things too far: we’re now addicted to liberation, and we regard any situation—a movie, a conversation, a one-block walk down a city street—as a kind of prison. Distraction is a way of asserting control; it’s autonomy run amok. Technologies of escape, like the smartphone, tap into our habits of secession. The way we talk about distraction has always been a little self-serving—we say, in the passive voice, that we’re “distracted by” the Internet or our cats, and this makes us seem like the victims of our own decisions. But Crawford shows that this way of talking mischaracterizes the whole phenomenon. It’s not just that we choose our own distractions; it’s that the pleasure we get from being distracted is the pleasure of taking action and being free. There’s a glee that comes from making choices, a contentment that settles after we’ve asserted our autonomy. When

Don’t just stand there blocking the door,” came Harry’s voice. “Let her inside before the flies escape.

please note that this is a process. You have spent many, many years trying to block out any spirit communication. So you have to learn to tear down the very wall you have spent much time and many years building.

The apparent is never the real.

When Zuleikha tempted Joseph she cast a cloth over the face of the idol she used to worship. Joseph said to her, "O Zuleikha, thou art ashamed before a block of stone, and should I not be ashamed before Him who created the seven heavens and the earth?

Never close your circle. We all have room for growth. Every person you meet is not out to destroy you. Blessings can come from connecting with the right people. That's why wireless service providers are always accepting new customers. When you set limits on your relationships, you block the possibility of gaining new opportunities. So instead of closing your circle, screen those you let in it.

Leaving the Connecticut River March 8, 1704 Temperature 40 degrees By the time Mercy had sorted this out, her three brothers were gone. She panicked. “Sam!” she screamed. “John! Benny!” She ran from group to group, darting behind sledges, racing among the dogs, circling the fires. “Sam! John!” What was the matter with her? How could she have stayed separate from them? Why had she not kicked Tannhahorens in the shins, as Ruth would have, and marched with her brothers no matter what he said? Ruth was right, he was nothing but an Indian! O Father! she thought. O Mother! I let you down again. I didn’t protect Tommy. I didn’t save Marah or Stepmama or the baby. And now the boys are gone. On her second screaming circle of the camp, Tannhahorens caught her. “Boys go,” he said. “But are they all right? I didn’t say good-bye! You never let me talk to them at all! I don’t even know their masters’ names!” A new and even more horrifying thought struck Mercy. It tore the wind from her lungs and her voice broke. “Will my brothers and I go to the same place? Will I see them again?” Poor Father, come home to find his entire family ripped away in a night. Father would comfort himself that Mercy was taking care of the boys--and he would be wrong. Tannhahorens had fewer English words than Mercy had Mohawk. He could not understand this outpouring. He steered her back to his possessions. “Raquette,” he said. Mercy jumped in front of him, blocking his path. He was hung with weapons in preparation for departure: knives, tomahawk, hatchet, gun, two bows, quiver of arrows. But something new hanging from Tannhahorens’ chest gave her pause. A Catholic cross. Although in her whole life, Mercy had seen only one spoon and a belt buckle made of silver, she knew this cross to be silver. She wrenched her eyes from its beauty. It would be a sin to find a cross beautiful. Religion must be heart and soul, not scraps of metal. Tannhahorens pushed her along in front of him. “Raquette,” he said irritably. “Raquette?” she begged. “Is that your town? Is that Sam’s master’s name? Are the boys together? Is Same going to be able to watch out for John and Benny?” This time, ragged trousers and a torn stained coat blocked Tannhahorens’s way The Indian looked harshly at the Englishman in front of him, and Mercy wished she had learned words like please. But Tannhahorens walked on and left them together. “Oh, Uncle Nathaniel!” she said, and they wrapped their arms around each other. He held her tightly. He had to clear his throat several times to find his voice. “Your brothers are not together,” he said, “but they seemed all right. They were not afraid. Benny’s Indian has a sled and he will ride as he did yesterday. John’s with five other English, all adults. They will watch for him. And Sam is with the Kellogg girls. He’ll be busy taking care of Joanna and Rebecca.” Her three brothers, going in three directions in the hands of strangers. “They took my Will and my Mary in the last band,” said her uncle. “I have some hope. The Indians treat my children tenderly. When nobody else had a morsel to eat, their masters fed them.” Sam. John. Benny. Will. Little Mary. Gone.

It’s five o’clock, and I’m reaching into the fridge for a block of cheese when there’s a knock at the door. Stealth mode engaged, I abandon making what would have been the world’s most perfect sandwich and creep up the hall, eyeing the door like whoever is on the other side is going to burst right through it. We have a staredown then, the door and I. It’s pretty intense, just short of an evil sheriff hiding in the shadows, chewing on a matchstick. Another knock. Without moving my eyes, I pump a blob of antibacterial gel into my hands and rub it away. Because I’m sure the only thing on any home invader’s mind, after being polite enough to knock first, is a sanitary victim. I roll my eyes so hard they almost fall out of my skull.

Storm’s Fast-Flux and Conficker’s Domain-Flux In 2007, security researchers identified a new technique used by the infamous Storm botnet (Higgins, 2007). The technique, named fast-flux, used domain name service (DNS) records to hide the command and control servers that controlled the Storm botnet. DNS records typically translate a domain name to an IP address. When a DNS server returns a result, it also specifies the TTL that the IP address remains valid for before the host should check again. The attackers behind the Storm botnet changed the DNS records for the command-and-control server rather frequently. In fact, they used 2,000 redundant hosts spread amongst 384 providers in more than 50 countries (Lemos, 2007). The attackers swapped the IP addresses for the command-and-control server frequently and ensured the DNS results returned with a very short TTL. This fast-flux of IP addresses made it difficult for security researchers to identify the command-and-control servers for the botnet and even more difficult to take the servers offline. While fast-flux proved difficult in the takedown of the Storm botnet, a similar technique used the following year aided in the infection of seven million computers in over two hundred countries (Binde et al., 2011). Conficker, the most successful computer worm to date, spread by attacking a vulnerability in the Windows Service Message Block (SMB) protocol. Once infected, the vulnerable machines contacted a command-and-control server for further instructions. Identifying and preventing communication with the command-and-control server proved absolutely necessary for those involved with stopping the attack. However, Conficker generated different domain names every three hours, using the current date and time at UTC. For the third iteration of Conficker, this meant 50,000 domains were generated every three hours. Attackers registered only a handful of these domains to actual IP addresses for the command-and-control servers. This made intercepting and preventing traffic with the command-and-control server very difficult. Because the technique rotated domain names, researchers named it domain-flux. In the following section, we will write some Python scripts to detect fast-flux and domain-flux in the wild to identify attacks.

We’ve driven wedges between parents and children, between liberals and conservatives, between whites and ethnic groups, and between the religious and non religious. We’ve all but destroyed feelings of patriotism and blocked all attempts to stop illegal immigration, improve border control, and establish a national language. And with our nationwide campaign of law suits, we’ve stretched your Constitution almost beyond recognition."       Rulon paused to study O’Brien’s face. "Don’t see it yet? The tremendous influx of Hispanics will ultimately result in large portions of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Florida being dominated by people speaking English only as a second language or not at all. Add the immigration—legal and illegal—of Muslims from Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, with all their cultural baggage, and you’ve got real diversity.

I mostly saw Vince Foster in the hallways. He was Mrs. Clinton’s personal attaché, a lawyer from Arkansas. Word circulated that she berated him mercilessly. The first time I saw Foster I figured he wouldn’t last a year. He looked uncomfortable and unhappy in the White House. I knew what it was like to be yelled at by superiors, but Mrs. Clinton never hesitated to launch a tirade. Yet her staffers never dared say, “I don’t have to take this shit!” They reminded me of battered wives: too loyal, too unwilling to acknowledge they’d never assuage her. They had no one to blame but themselves, but they could never admit it. She criticized Foster for failing to get ahead of the constant scandals, for cabinet positions not confirmed, and for the slowness of staffing the White House. Foster eventually took his own life in Fort Marcy Park. In his briefcase was a note torn into twenty-seven pieces, blaming the FBI, the media, the Republicans—even the White House Ushers Office. A rumor circulated among law enforcement types that contended his suicide weapon had to be repaired in order for the forensics team to fire it since it wouldn’t function for them. Maybe his final shot misaligned the cylinders and later prevented contact with the bullet primers. But that, along with many other public details of the case (carpet fibers on his suit coat, etc.), made his case spooky. The last lines of his sparse suicide note read: “I was not meant for the job or the spotlight of public life in Washington. Here ruining people is considered sport.” A UD friend of mine, Hank O’Neil, was posted outside of Foster’s office as part of the FBI’s investigation of his suicide. Maggie Williams, Mrs. Clinton’s always well dressed chief of staff, physically pushed her way past Hank into Foster’s office, arguing that he had no right to block her entrance. She removed boxes that were never recovered; they were destroyed. Congressmen bashed Officer O’Neil’s integrity, but he held firm. He reported exactly what he saw and didn’t make any inferences about it, but they were sure he held some smoking gun and was protecting the Clintons.

We are not psychopaths. We are not monsters. We just figure things out differently. Do you know more than one route to the supermarket? If there were an intersection blocked off, could you get to work an alternate way? And if you did-would you not still be at work? Could you not still buy groceries? How you get there doesn't matter. It's whether you get there. And dang it all, people: we get there.

The church bells down the block chimed to signal eight o’clock—three minutes late, like they had for years. I’d always wondered if I should let someone at the church know about the delay, but I liked the imperfection of it all. Proof that we’re all living our lives slightly out of sync with one another.

At the station, Jean-Luc bangs the rooftop as a thank-you. I wave to him, then drive the few blocks to my new place of work. The excitement I feel as I stride away from my car is almost overwhelming. Things can change for the better as well as for the worse. Who would have foreseen, a mere few months ago, that I would find myself back in my home city, with a fine young man in my care, working for the Hillary for America campaign? President Hillary Clinton! Mr. Godwin Anibal! There is so much to look forward to.

The odour that pervaded the room was sickening. The sinister-looking man with the scar came in again and sniffed. I sniffed. Then the proprietor came in and sniffed. “Say,” I said in the toughest voice I could assume, “you got a leak. Wait. I seen the gas company wagon on the next block when I came in. I’ll get the man.” I dashed out and hurried up the street to the place where Kennedy was waiting impatiently. Rattling his tools, he followed me with apparent reluctance. As he entered the wine-shop he snorted, after the manner of gas-men, “Where’s de leak?” “You find-a da leak,” grunted Albano. “What-a you get-a you pay for? You want-a me do your work?” “Well, half a dozen o’ you wops get out o’ here, that’s all. D’youse all wanter be blown ter pieces wid dem pipes and cigarettes? Clear out,” growled Kennedy. They retreated precipitately, and Craig hastily opened his bag of tools. “Quick, Walter, shut the door and hold it,” exclaimed Craig, working rapidly. He unwrapped a little package and took out a round, flat disc-like thing of black vulcanised rubber. Jumping up on a table, he fixed it to the top of the reflector over the gas-jet. “Can you see that from the floor, Walter?” he asked under his breath. “No,” I replied, “not even when I know it is there.” Then he attached a couple of wires to it and led them across the ceiling