Offense Meant Quotes

...William wondered why he always disliked people who said 'no offense meant.' Maybe it was because they found it easier to to say 'no offense meant' than actually to refrain from giving offense.

Phaedra shook her head. “If your people mean no offense, they should not speak their thoughts out loud in front of their children, Tesadora. Because it will be their children who come to slaughter us one day, all because of careless words passed down by their elders who meant no harm.

Disappointment mixed with bitter acceptance flashed in her eyes. "Maybe you are real," she said. "It would require a dark side I don't have to create someone like you." "You forgot to say 'no offense' before making that statement." "No, I didn't. I meant offense." Bold little human, wasn't she? -Annabelle and Zacharel

William wondered why he always disliked people who said “no offense meant.” Maybe it was because they found it easier to say “no offense meant” than actually to refrain from giving offense.

That is the eternal folly of man. To be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realising that it is simply a pretty cover for the bones. Worm food. At night, you're rubbing against worm food. No offense meant.

It is a tragic and agonizing irony that instructions once delivered for the purpose of avoiding needless offense are now invoked in ways that needlessly offend, that words once meant to help draw people to the gospel now repel them.

And even then, it's not like you did all that much," I said, talking over him, because it was the only way to get a word in edgeways with Pritkin sometimes. He had filched the bottle back to take a drink, but at that he lowered it and looked at me, his eyes very green next to the amber liquor. "What?" "I just meant, it wasn't all that and a bag of chips. You know?" He blinked at me. "No offense," I added, because he was looking kind of poleaxed. Like maybe he hadn't had a whole lot of complaints before. Which was, frankly, pretty damn understandable. But I feigned indifference. "I mean, it couldn't have been that bad if -" "Bad?" "Well, not bad bad." He just looked at me. "I mean, I came and everything, so that has to count for some -" I cut off because I was suddenly enveloped in a strong pair of arms, and my head was crushed to a hard chest. A chest that appeared to be vibrating. It took me a few moments to get it, and even then I wasn't so sure, because Pritkin's face was buried in my hair. But I kind of thought - as impossible as it seemed - that he might be ... laughing?

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives... I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. Suppose any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party must, by the law of its constitution, be the stupidest party; and I do not see why honorable gentlemen should see that position as at all offensive to them, for it ensures their being always an extremely powerful party . . . There is so much dense, solid force in sheer stupidity, that any body of able men with that force pressing behind them may ensure victory in many a struggle, and many a victory the Conservative party has gained through that power." John Stuart Mill ( British philosopher, economist, and liberal member of Parliament for Westminster from 1865 to 68 )

That,” said Wednesday, driving off, “is the eternal folly of man. To be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realizing that it is simply a pretty cover for the bones. Worm food. At night, you're rubbing yourself against worm food. No offense meant.

I meant no offense.” “Yet you offend so well.

All these war scares are concocted by the Pentagon—no offense meant to your brother—to get more appropriations, and give more handouts to Europe, and jack up taxes. It’s all part of the damnable inflationary pattern that’s designed to cheat people on pensions and with fixed incomes and so forth. Now I know your brother thinks he’s doing the right thing, and I appreciate your telling Elizabeth.

In tiny Denmark the system wasso ingenious that if you knew some dirt about somebody, they also knew something just as bad about you. If it wasn't hushed up, the one person's offense quickly infected the other's. A strange, practical principle that meant that no one would say anything about anyone else, not even if they were caught with their hands in the biscuit tin.

To be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realizing that it is simply a pretty cover for the bones. Worm food. At night, you’re rubbing yourself against worm food. No offense meant.

Ah, the Hand of Glory!” said Mr. Borgin, abandoning Mr. Malfoy’s list and scurrying over to Draco. “Insert a candle and it gives light only to the holder! Best friend of thieves and plunderers! Your son has fine taste, sir.” “I hope my son will amount to more than a thief or a plunderer, Borgin,” said Mr. Malfoy coldly, and Mr. Borgin said quickly, “No offense, sir, no offense meant —” “Though if his grades don’t pick up,” said Mr. Malfoy, more coldly still, “that may indeed be all he is fit for —” “It’s not my fault,” retorted Draco. “The teachers all have favorites, that Hermione Granger —” “I would have thought you’d be ashamed that a girl of no wizard family beat you in every exam,” snapped Mr. Malfoy. “Ha!” said Harry under his breath, pleased to see Draco looking both abashed and angry.

If your people mean no offense, they should not speak their thoughts out loud in front of their children, Tesadora. Because it will be their children who come to slaughter us one day, all because of the careless words passed down by their elders who meant no harm.

Canada?" Ash said. "You didn't say it was in Canada. "I said Ontario." (Maya) "I thought you meant Ontario, California." "Seriously?" Tori said,rolling her eyes. "A helicopter to California? You may be hot,but your sister clearly inherited all the brains in the family." "Did she call me hot?" Ash whispered to me, looking more annoyed than he ever did when someone called him a jerk. "She hasn't been on a date in six months", Derek rumbled behind us. "No offense, but as long as aren't related to her, you're fair game. Hell, even--" Tori spun on him. "I didn't know." "Um, wait a sec," Corey said. "So Ash is hot and I'm seriously cute? Is there a difference?" "Yes," Hayley said, and propelled him through the line.

I mean no offense in what I’m about to say—” “I’m sure you mean absolutely no offense,” he purred. “Just like you meant no offense when you stabbed me.

Martise blushed and lowered her eyes. “I meant no offense.” “Ah, another way to apologize. You have an impressive arsenal of conciliatory statements. I’ve known slaves less contrite than you.

I could see he meant no offense, but in my thoughts I set it down as not very good manners. "Manners!" he said. "Why, it is merely the truth, and truth is good manners; manners are a fiction.

Kriss gives me a sibling-punch. Anyone who has a sibling will know what that is—a punch that really hurts quite a lot, and that is meant to, but that you cannot take offense at, or retaliate against, because you went out of your way to get it—because sometimes you want your sibling to punch you. No one knows why this is.

Those of us who oppose censorship believe that reading about something is a safe way to explore and understand it, and that it is the best way to prepare young people to deal with the issues they will face, both in school and later in life. It's true that some material is "offensive"--but to know how to respond to it, we need to understand it.

He smiled to show he meant no offense, but Scott takes offense like it is going out of style, and bristled.

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. —psalm 139:23–24

William wondered why he always disliked people who said “no offense meant.” Maybe it was because they found it easier to say “no offense meant”than actually refrain from giving offense.

I meant no offense. A laugh like that is richer than gold to a man of my position. I will make it my life's work to hear the sound again. Every day, if it pleases you. No—twice a day, and at least once before breakfast. A royal joker must set the highest of expectations. - The Joker

Not long ago-incredible though it may seem-I heard a clerk of Oxford declare that he 'welcomed' the proximity of mass-production robot factories, and the roar of self-obstructive traffic, because it brought his university into 'contact with real life.' He may have meant that the way men were living and working in the twentieth century was increasing in barbarity at an alarming rate, and that the loud demonstration of this in the streets of Oxford might serve as a warning that it is not possible to preserve for long an oasis of sanity in a desert of unreason by mere fences, without actual offensive action (practical and intellectual). I fear he did not. In any case the expression 'real life' in this context seems to fall short of academic standards. The notion that motor-cars are more 'alive' than, say, centaurs or dragons is curious; that they are more 'real' than, say, horses is pathetically absurd. How real, how startlingly alive is a factory chimney compared with an elm tree: poor obsolete thing, insubstantial dream of an escapist!

the smell was particularly toxic at that time. A devastatingly bad summer drought meant there was insufficient water to flush away the sewage. The resulting stink made the ward “almost uninhabitable from this source of offense.

That," said Wednesday, driving off, "is the eternal folly of man. To be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realizing that it is simply pretty cover for the bones. Worm food. At night, you're rubbing yourself against worm food. No offense meant.

That," said Wednesday, driving off, "is the eternal folly of man. To be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realizing that it is simply a pretty cover for the bones. Worm food. At night, you're rubbing yourself against worm food. No offense meant.

That,” said Wednesday, driving off, “is the eternal folly of man. To be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realizing that it is simply a pretty cover for the bones. Worm food. At night, you’re rubbing yourself against worm food. No offense meant.

To justify such direct forms of imperialism and oppression, whites developed the IDEA of whiteness to define a privileged social category elevated above everyone who wasn't included in it. This made it possible to reconcile conquest, treachery, slavery, and genocide, with the nation's newly professed ideals of democracy, freedom, and human dignity. If whiteness define what it meant to be human, then it was seen as less off an offense against the Constitution (not to mention God) to dominate and oppress those who happened to fall outside that definition as the United States marched onward toward what was popularly perceived as its Manifest Destiny.

That's the real distinction between people: not between those who have secrets and those who don't, but between those who want to know everything and those who don't. This search is a sign of love, I maintain. It's similar with books. Not quite the same, of course (it never is); but similar. If you quite enjoy a writer's work, if you turn the page approvingly yet don't mind being interrupted, then you tend to like that author unthinkingly. Good chap, you assume. Sound fellow. They say he strangled an entire pack of Wolf Cubs and fed their bodies to a school of carp? Oh no, I'm sure he didn't; sound fellow, good chap. But if you love a writer, if you depend upon the drip-feed of his intelligence, if you want to pursue him and find him -- despite edicts to the contrary -- then it's impossible to know too much. You seek the vice as well. A pack of Wolf Cubs, eh? Was that twenty-seven or twenty-eight? And did he have their little scarves sewn up into a patchwork quilt? And is it true that as he ascended the scaffold he quoted from the Book of Jonah? And that he bequeathed his carp pond to the local Boy Scouts? But here's the difference. With a lover, a wife, when you find the worst -- be it infidelity or lack of love, madness or the suicidal spark -- you are almost relieved. Life is as I thought it was; shall we now celebrate this disappointment? With a writer you love, the instinct is to defend. This is what I meant earlier: perhaps love for a writer is the purest, the steadiest form of love. And so your defense comes the more easily. The fact of the matter is, carp are an endangered species, and everyone knows that the only diet they will accept if the winter has been especially harsh and the spring turns wet before St Oursin's Day is that of young minced Wolf Cub. Of course he knew he would hang for the offense, but he also knew that humanity is not an endangered species, and reckoned therefore that twenty-seven (did you say twenty-eight?) Wolf Cubs plus one middle-ranking author (he was always ridiculously modest about his talents) were a trivial price to pay for the survival of an entire breed of fish. Take the long view: did we need so many Wolf Cubs? They would only have grown up and become Boy Scouts. And if you're still so mired in sentimentality, look at it this way: the admission fees so far received from visitors to the carp pond have already enabled the Boy Scouts to build and maintain several church halls in the area.

I meant no offense. A laugh like that is richer than gold to a man of my position. I’ll make it my life’s work to hear the sound again. Every day, if it pleases you.

it’s important not to take offense unless offense is meant.

My apologies. I meant no offense." Except that his tone told her he didn't mean a word he'd just spoken.

No offense taken,” Binx said. “That’s a shame,” Considine said. “I very much meant to be offensive.

You are not going to pass off your many ineptitudes on the students of Hogwarts. I shall not permit it.” “Excuse me?” Amycus moved forward until he was offensively close to Professor McGonagall, his face within inches of hers. She refused to back away, but looked down at him as if he were something disgusting she had found stuck to a lavatory seat. “It’s not a case of what you’ll permit, Minerva McGonagall. Your time’s over. It’s us what’s in charge here now, and you’ll back me up or you’ll pay the price.” And he spat in her face. Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and said, “You shouldn’t have done that.” As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “Crucio!” The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor. “I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.” “Potter!” whispered Professor McGonagall, clutching her heart. “Potter--you’re here! What--? How--?” She struggled to pull herself together. “Potter, that was foolish!” “He spat at you,” said Harry. “Potter, I--that was very--very gallant of you--but don’t you realize--?” “Yeah, I do,” Harry assured her. Somehow her panic steadied him. “Professor McGonagall, Voldemort’s on the way.” “Oh, are we allowed to say the name now?” asked Luna with an air of interest, pulling off the Invisibility Cloak. This appearance of a second outlaw seemed to overwhelm Professor McGonagall, who staggered backward and fell into a nearby chair, clutching at the neck of her old tartan dressing gown. “I don’t think it makes any difference what we call him,” Harry told Luna. “He already knows where I am.

The general idea is that we must weigh our freedom of speech against the right of others to not be offended. No! Freedom of speech is precisely meant to protect the most obnoxious, offensive, and disgusting speech. It does not exist to ensure that you only levy beautiful compliments at me. Occasionally being offended is the price that one pays for living in a truly free society.

an aristocracy come to power, convinced of its own disinterested quality, believing itself above both petty partisan interest and material greed. The suggestion that this also meant the holding and wielding of power was judged offensive by these same people, who preferred to view their role as service, though in fact this was typical of an era when many of the great rich families withdrew from the new restless grab for money of a modernizing America, and having already made their particular fortunes, turned to the public arena as a means of exercising power. They were viewed as reformers, though the reforms would be aimed more at the newer seekers of wealth than at those who already held it. (“First-generation millionaires,” Garry Wills wrote in Nixon Agonistes, “give us libraries, second-generation millionaires give us themselves.”)

It is ironic that some people, like Guy, will minimize the emotional involvement to lessen the offense (“It meant nothing!”), while others, like Charmaine, will highlight the emotional nature of the bond for exactly the same purpose (“Nothing happened!”).

For many Highly Sensitive People, fear can be debilitating.  After years of being browbeaten or otherwise treated as abnormal, we might as well own that sucker.  We are abnormal in that normal is the 80-85% of the world that are not HSPs.  Normal is the large bunch that follows the crowd and succumbs to mob mentality.  Normal is loud and inconsiderate; at least that’s how it feels in our sensitive skin (sorry normals, I’m writing for the HSP and trying to make a point – no offense meant).  Do we really want to be normal?

I can tell you,” my colleague went on, “of a man in Leipzig, a judge. He was not a Nazi, except nominally, but he certainly wasn’t an anti-Nazi. He was just—a judge. In ’42 or ’43, early ’43, I think it was, a Jew was tried before him in a case involving, but only incidentally, relations with an ‘Aryan’ woman. This was ‘race injury,’ something the Party was especially anxious to punish. In the case at bar, however, the judge had the power to convict the man of a ‘nonracial’ offense and send him to an ordinary prison for a very long term, thus saving him from Party ‘processing’ which would have meant concentration camp or, more probably, deportation and death. But the man was innocent of the ‘nonracial’ charge, in the judge’s opinion, and so, as an honorable judge, he acquitted him. Of course, the Party seized the Jew as soon as he left the courtroom.” “And the judge?” “Yes, the judge. He could not get the case off his conscience—a case, mind you, in which he had acquitted an innocent man. He thought that he should have convicted him and saved him from the Party, but how could he have convicted an innocent man? The thing preyed on him more and more, and he had to talk about it, first to his family, then to his friends, and then to acquaintances. (That’s how I heard about it.) After the ’44 Putsch they arrested him. After that, I don’t know.” I said nothing.

Anyone who has a sibling will know what that is—a punch that really hurts quite a lot, and that is meant to, but that you cannot take offense at, or retaliate against, because you went out of your way to get it—because sometimes you want your sibling to punch you. No one knows why this is.

Nine Southern states adopted vagrancy laws - which essentially made it a criminal offense not to work and were applied selectively to blacks - and eight of those states enacted convict laws allowing for the hiring-out of county prisoners to plantation owners and private companies. Prisoners were forced to work for little or no pay. One vagrancy act specifically provided that 'all free negroes and mulattoes over the age of eighteen' must have written proof of a job at the beginning of the year. Those found with no lawful employment were deemed vagrants and convicted. Clearly, the purpose of the black codes in general and the vagrancy laws in particular was to establish another system of forced labor. In W.E.B. Du Bois's words: 'The Codes spoke for themselves. . . . No open-minded student can read them without being convinced they meant nothing more nor less than slavery in daily toil.

Oh, you're right. I'm just a human with thick skin, purple eyes, and hard bones. Which means you can go home. Tell Galen I said hi." Toraf opens and shuts his mouth twice. Both times it seems like he wants to say something, but his expression tells me his brain isn't cooperating. When his mouth snaps shut a third time, I splash water in his face. "Are you going to say something, or are you trying to catch wind and sail? A grin the size of the horizon spreads across his face. "He likes that, you know. Your temper." Yeahfreakingright. Galen's a classic type A personality-and type A's hate smartass-ism. Just ask my mom. "No offense, but you're not exactly an expert at judging people's emotions." "I'm not sure what you mean by that." "Sure you do." "If you're talking about Rayna, then you're wrong. She loves me. She just won't admit it." I roll my eyes. "Right. She's playing hard to get, is that it? Bashing your head with a rock, splitting your lip, calling you squid breath all the time." "What does that mean? Hard to get?" "It means she's trying to make you think she doesn't like you, so that you end up liking her more. So you work harder to get her attention." He nods. "Exactly. That's exactly what she's doing." Pinching the bridge of my nose, I say, "I don't think so. As we speak, she's getting your mating seal dissolved. That's not playing hard to get. That's playing impossible to get." "Even if she does get it dissolved, it's not because she doesn't care about me. She just likes to play games." The pain in Toraf's voice guts me like the catch of the day. She might like playing games, but his feelings are real. And can't I relate to that? "There's only one way to find out," I say softly. "Find out?" "If all she wants is games." "How?" "You play hard to get. You know how they say. 'If you love someone, set them free. If they return to you, it was meant to be?'" "I've never heard that." "Right. No, you wouldn't have." I sigh. "Basically, what I'm trying to say is, you need to stop giving Rayna attention. Push her away. Treat her like she treats you." He shakes his head. "I don't think I can do that." "You'll get your answer that way," I say, shrugging. "But it sounds like you don't really want to know." "I do want to know. But what if the answer isn't good?" His face scrunches as if the words taste like lemon juice. "You've got to be ready to deal with it, no matter what." Toraf nods, his jaw tight. The choices he has to consider will make this night long enough for him. I decide not to intrude on his time anymore. "I'm pretty tired, so I'm heading back. I'll meet you at Galen's in the morning. Maybe I can break thirty minutes tomorrow, huh?" I nudge his shoulder with my fist, but a weak smile is all I get in return. I'm surprised when he grabs my hand and starts pulling me through the water. At least it's better than dragging me by the ankle. I can't but think how Galen could have done the same thing. Why does he wrap his arms around me instead?

Daisy and I need an aristocratic sponsor,” Lillian said with a sigh. “Not to mention some etiquette lessons. And unfortunately, Annabelle, since you’ve married a commoner, you’ve got no real social influence, and we’re no farther along than when we started.” Hastily she added, “No offense meant, dear.” “None taken,” Annabelle replied mildly. “However, Simon does have some friends in the peerage— Lord Westcliff in particular.” “Oh, no,” Lillian said firmly. “I want nothing to do with him.” “Why not?” Lillian raised her brows as if surprised by the need to explain. “Because he’s the most insufferable man I’ve ever encountered?” “But Westcliff is very highly placed,” Annabelle wheedled. “And he is Simon’s best friend. I have no great liking for him myself, but he could be a useful ally. They say that Westcliff’s title is the oldest one in England. Blood doesn’t get any bluer than his.” “And well he knows it,” Lillian said sourly. “Despite all his populist talk, one can see that he’s inwardly thrilled to be a peer with lots of minions he can order about.” “I wonder why Westcliff hasn’t married yet,” Daisy mused. “Despite his flaws, one has to admit that he is a whale-sized catch.” “I’ll be thrilled when someone harpoons him,” Lillian muttered, making the other two laugh.

In tiny Denmark the system was so ingenious that if you knew some dirt about somebody, they also knew something just as bad about you. If it wasn't hushed up, the one person's offense quickly infected the other's. A strange, practical principle that meant that no one would say anything about anyone else, not even if they were caught with their hands in the biscuit tin.

For many Highly Sensitive People, fear can be debilitating.  After years of being browbeaten or otherwise treated as abnormal, we might as well own that sucker.  We are abnormal in that normal is the 80-85% of the world that are not HSPs.  Normal is the large bunch that follows the crowd and succumbs to mob mentality.  Normal is loud and inconsiderate; at least that’s how it feels in our sensitive skin (sorry normals, I’m writing for the HSP and trying to make a point – no offense meant).  Do we really want to be normal?   I thought not.  So, let’s understand that our fear of being rolled over by others is much of what holds us back.  Having to deal with the ones who mock us and act as if our very being is an aberration can put a damper on anyone’s spirit, not to mention the highly sensitive one’s.

No longer was a defection, a leaked document, or some other treasonous act a prerequisite for being deemed an SP, though only serious offenses like those would seem to merit such severe condemnation. It meant, after all, expulsion from the church and the loss of salvation—a severe penalty. But now anyone who expressed even the smallest criticism of church policy or leadership was in danger of being cast out.

Humor is so subjective, not everyone is going to get what you are peddling. Others will be offended when what you meant no offense whatsoever. Those are the stakes. You have to be able to stand up for yourself and what you’ve written. Comedy pushes limits, makes people uncomfortable, and is a natural reaction to the environment. Otherwise, as I said, it is forced. Let it flow and give your characters permission to cross a line or two, but only if you can take the heat afterward.

The principles of war are the same as those of a siege. Fire must be concentrated on one point, and as soon as the breach is made, the equilibrium is broken and the rest is nothing.' Subsequent military theory has put the accent on the first clause instead of on the last: in particular, on the words 'one point' instead of on the word 'equilibrium'. The former is but a physical metaphor, whereas the latter expresses the actual psychological result which ensures 'that the rest is nothing'. His own emphasis can be traced in the strategic course of his campaigns. The word 'point' even, has been the source of much confusion, and more controversy. One school has argued that Napoleon meant that the concentrated blow must be aimed at the enemy's strongest point, on the ground that this, and this only, ensures decisive results. For if the enemy's main resistance be broken, its rupture will involve that of any lesser opposition. This argument ignores the factor of cost, and the fact that the victor may be too exhausted to exploit his success-so that even a weaker opponent may acquire a relatively higher resisting power than the original. The other school-better imbued with the idea of economy of force, but only in the limited sense of first costs-has contended that the offensive should be aimed at the enemy's weakest point. But where a point is obviously weak this is usually because it is remote from any vital artery or nerve centre, or because it is deliberately weak to draw the assailant into a trap. Here, again illumination comes from the actual campaign in which Bonaparte put this maxim into execution. It clearly suggests that what he really meant was not 'point', but 'joint'-and that at this stage of his career he was too firmly imbued with the idea of economy of force to waste his limited strength in battering at the enemy's strong point. A joint, however, is both vital and vulnerable. It was at this time too, that Bonaparte used another phrase that has subsequently been quoted to justify the most foolhardy concentrations of effort against the main armed forces of the enemy. 'Austria is our most determined enemy....Austria overthrown, Spain and Italy fall of themselves. We must not disperse our attacks but concentrate them.' But the full text of the memorandum containing this phrase shows that he was arguing, not in support of the direct attack upon Austria, but for using the army on the frontier of Piedmont for an indirect approach to Austria.

So . . ." Campbell took up position next to me. "What's the plan?" She'd kept her voice low, but I still cast a glance at Lily, who was focusing on driving the boat, and Sadie-Grace, who was "helping Lily focus," before I supplied a response. "The plan," I murmured, "is to talk to Victoria again." I'd caught Campbell up on the conversation I'd had with Victoria Gutierrez at The Big Bang. Cam was as invested in finding Ana's baby—her half sibling—as I was. And that meant that she was just as interested in what Victoria had to say. "I didn't actually expect you to answer my question," Campbell murmured beside me. "It was more of a courtesy question, really. You were supposed to ask what my plan was." Having seen one of Campbell's schemes up close and personal, I was almost afraid to ask. "What's your plan?" "Talk to Victoria." She smiled. her teeth a flash of white in the dark. "No offense, but I'm better at talking than you are." "Me too!" Sadie-Grace appeared between us. "I'm so good at talking that sometimes, once I start, I can't even stop!" Neither Campbell nor I had a reply for that.

Dear Sadie, I played your “game,” and I honestly don’t know what to say. It is disgusting and offensive, and you are a sick person. I’m cc’ing Dov on this email. I’m not sure if I will be able to attend class, because I’m too disturbed. This class is no longer a safe space for me.—Hannah Sadie smiled when she read this email. She took her time crafting a reply: Dear Hannah, I’m not entirely sorry that you were disturbed by my game. The game is meant to be disturbing, and as I mentioned in class, it was inspired by my grandmother. Hannah replied, Fuck you, Sadie.

His eyes dragged over her. “Arin, your slave looks positively wild.” Lack of sleep made her thoughts broken and shiny, like pieces of mirrors on strings. Cheat’s words spun in her head. Arin tensed beside her. “No offense,” Cheat told him. “It was a compliment to your taste.” “What do you want, Cheat?” Arin said. The man stroked a thumb over his lower lip. “Wine.” He looked straight at Kestrel. “Get some.” The order itself wasn’t important. It was how Cheat had meant it: as the first of many, and how, in the end, they translated into one word: obey. The only thing that kept Kestrel’s face clean of her thoughts was the knowledge that Cheat would take pleasure in any resistance. Yet she couldn’t make herself move. “I’ll get the wine,” Arin said. “No,” Kestrel said. She didn’t want to be left alone with Cheat. “I’ll go.” For an uncertain moment, Arin stood awkwardly. Then he walked to the door and motioned a Herrani girl into the room. “Please escort Kestrel to the wine cellar, then bring her back here.” “Choose a good vintage,” Cheat said to Kestrel. “You’ll know the best.” As she left the room, his eyes followed her, glittering. She returned with a clearly labeled bottle of Valorian wine dated to the year of the Herran War. She placed it on the table in front of the two seated men. Arin’s jaw set, and he shook his head slightly. Cheat lost his grin. “This was the best,” Kestrel said.

The embrace of safety and protection now extends to course readings, which must be sanitized to remove anything that might offend someone. In his piece “I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me,” Edward Schlosser noted that many faculty members have changed their syllabi for fear of being fired if students complain about offensive material in the course readings. One adjunct professor, he noted, was let go when “students complained that he exposed them to ‘offensive’ texts written by Edward Said and Mark Twain. His response, that the texts were meant to be a little upsetting, only fueled the students’ ire and sealed his fate.” The focus, he says, is now on students’ emotional state rather than on their intellectual development, sacrificing challenging discussions for the possibility that a student might feel upset.

A few minutes later the Witch herself walked out on to the top of the hill and came straight across and stood before Aslan. The three children, who had not seen her before, felt shudders running down their backs at the sight of her face; and there were low growls among all the animals present. Though it was bright sunshine everyone felt suddenly cold. The only two people present who seemed to be quite at their ease were Aslan and the Witch herself. It was the oddest thing to see those two faces--the golden face and the dead-white face--so close together. Not that the Witch looked Aslan exactly in his eyes; Mrs. Beaver particularly noticed this. “You have a traitor there, Aslan,” said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said. “Well,” said Aslan, “his offense was not against you.” “Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?” asked the Witch. “Let us say I have forgotten it,” answered Aslan gravely. “Tell us of this Deep Magic.” “Tell you?” said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller. “Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the trunk of the World Ash Tree? Tell you what is engraved on the scepter of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea? You at least know the magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill.” “Oh,” said Mr. Beaver. “So that’s how you came to imagine yourself a Queen--because you were the Emperor’s hangman. I see.” “Peace, Beaver,” said Aslan, with a very low growl.

A powerful example of this is seen in the first war of Indian independence, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny, of 1857. Indian soldiers—sepoys—serving in the British East India Company’s army rebelled when it became known that the bullets they were issued were greased in either tallow, derived from cows, or lard, from pigs—major offenses to the Hindu and Muslim soldiers, respectively. Mind you, this was not the British colonial overlords doing something offensive to the core cultural values of either group—for example, declaring Allah a false prophet or banning polytheistic worship. Virtually every culture on earth has food prohibitions, often pretty arbitrary ones meant to merely signal core values (kosher laws for Orthodox Jews, for example, revolve around zoological arcana about whether a species has a cloven hoof) but that eventually gain a huge power. Before it was over, the Sepoy Mutiny killed more than 100,000 Indians.

Cheat wore a Valorian jacket Kestrel was sure she had seen on the governor the night before. He sat at the right hand of the empty head of the dining table, but stood when Kestrel and Arin entered. He approached. His eyes dragged over her. “Arin, your slave looks positively wild.” Lack of sleep made her thoughts broken and shiny, like pieces of mirrors on strings. Cheat’s words spun in her head. Arin tensed beside her. “No offense,” Cheat told him. “It was a compliment to your taste.” “What do you want, Cheat?” Arin said. The man stroked a thumb over his lower lip. “Wine.” He looked straight at Kestrel. “Get some.” The order itself wasn’t important. It was how Cheat had meant it: as the first of many, and how, in the end, they translated into one word: obey. The only thing that kept Kestrel’s face clean of her thoughts was the knowledge that Cheat would take pleasure in any resistance. Yet she couldn’t make herself move. “I’ll get the wine,” Arin said. “No,” Kestrel said. She didn’t want to be left alone with Cheat. “I’ll go.” For an uncertain moment, Arin stood awkwardly. Then he walked to the door and motioned a Herrani girl into the room. “Please escort Kestrel to the wine cellar, then bring her back here.” “Choose a good vintage,” Cheat said to Kestrel. “You’ll know the best.” As she left the room, his eyes followed her, glittering. She returned with a clearly labeled bottle of Valorian wine dated to the year of the Herran War. She placed it on the table in front of the two seated men. Arin’s jaw set, and he shook his head slightly. Cheat lost his grin. “This was the best,” Kestrel said. “Pour.” Cheat shoved his glass toward her. She uncorked the bottle and poured--and kept pouring, even as the red wine flowed over the glass’s rim, across the table, and onto Cheat’s lap. He jumped to his feet, swatting wine from his fine stolen clothes. “Damn you!” “You said I should pour. You didn’t say I should stop.” Kestrel wasn’t sure what would have happened next if Arin hadn’t intervened. “Cheat,” he said, “I’m going to have to ask you to stop playing games with what is mine.

In 1978, [sociologist Albert] Bergesen used Durkheim to illuminate the madness that erupted in Beijing in May 1966, when Mao Zedong began warning about the rising threat of infiltration by pro-capitalist enemies. Zealous college students responded by forming the Red Guards to find and punish enemies of the revolution. Universities across the country were shut down for several years. During those years, the Red Guards rooted out any trace they could find- or imagine- of capitalism, foreign influence, or bourgeois values. In practice, this meant that anyone who was successful or accomplished was suspect, and many professors, intellectuals, and campus administrators were imprisoned or murdered... Over the next few years, tens of millions were persecuted, and hundreds of thousands were murdered. How could such an orgy of self-destruction have happened? Bergesen notes that there are three features common to most political witch hunts: they arise very quickly, they involve charges of crimes against the collective, and the offenses that lead to charges are often trivial or fabricated.

His first interruption came immediately after she explained that she’d examined Mr. Wilson while he was still in bed. “In his nightclothes?” the duke gasped. Although he did not turn pink at the notion, his discomfort was plain and Bea had to squelch the laughter that rose in her throat. It was so impossibly funny that she, a spinster of advancing years, was less prudish than a duke who must have had several if not dozens of mistresses. “Yes, in his nightclothes. It didn’t strike me as prudent to have the butler dress him in his afternoon attire and arrange him in the sitting room. For one thing, it would have been ghoulish to see a dead man with the affect of an alive one. Furthermore, it would have ruined any opportunity for me to gather useful information from the scene itself. But that is just my opinion and you should of course feel free to attire and arrange the next corpse you examine in whatever way is least offensive to your sensibilities.” She’d meant to make him feel ridiculous for his scruples, but he merely thanked her for the suggestion and promised he would indeed keep it in mind should the situation arise.

Don’t worry,” he said flippantly, taking her arm and starting to walk back toward the house. “I’m not going to make the ritualistic proposal that followed our last encounters. Marriage is out of the question. Among other things, I’m fresh out of large rubies and expensive furs this season.” Despite his joking tone, Elizabeth felt ill at how ugly those words sounded now, even though her reasons for saying them at the time had nothing to do with a desire for jewels or furs. You had to give him credit, she decided miserably, because he obviously took no offense at it. Evidently, in sophisticated flirtations, the rule was that no one took anything seriously. “Who’s the leading contender these days?” he asked in that same light tone as the cottage came into view. “There must be more than Belhaven and Marchman.” Elizabeth struggled valiantly to make the same transition from heated passion to flippancy that he seemed to find so easy. She wasn’t quite so successful, however, and her light tone was threaded with confusion. “In my uncle’s eyes, the leading contender is whoever has the most important title, followed by the most money.” “Of course,” he said dryly. “In which case it sounds as if Marchman may be the lucky man.” His utter lack of caring made Elizabeth’s heart squeeze in an awful, inexplicable way. Her chin lifted in self-defense. “Actually, I’m not in the market for a husband,” she informed him, trying to sound as indifferent and as amused as he. “I may have to marry someone if I can’t continue to outmaneuver my uncle, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d like to marry a much older man than I.” “Preferably a blind one,” he said sardonically, “who’ll not notice a little affair now and then?” “I meant,” she informed him with a dark glance, “that I want my freedom. Independence. And that is something a young husband isn’t likely to give me, while an elderly one might.” “Independence is all an old man will be able to give you,” Ian said blntly. “That’s quite enough,” she said. “I’m excessively tired of being forever pushed about by the men in my life. I’d like to care for Havenhurst and do as I wish to do.” “Marry an old man,” Ian interjected smoothly, “and you may be the last of the Camerons.” She looked at him blankly. “He won’t be able to give you children.” “Oh, that,” Elizabeth said, feeling a little defeated and nonplussed. “I haven’t been able to work that out yet.” “Let me know when you do,” Ian replied with biting sarcasm. “There’s a fortune to be made from a discovery like that one.

Early on it is clear that Addie has a rebellious streak, joining the library group and running away to Rockport Lodge. Is Addie right to disobey her parents? Where does she get her courage? 2. Addie’s mother refuses to see Celia’s death as anything but an accident, and Addie comments that “whenever I heard my mother’s version of what happened, I felt sick to my stomach.” Did Celia commit suicide? How might the guilt that Addie feels differ from the guilt her mother feels? 3. When Addie tries on pants for the first time, she feels emotionally as well as physically liberated, and confesses that she would like to go to college (page 108). How does the social significance of clothing and hairstyle differ for Addie, Gussie, and Filomena in the book? 4. Diamant fills her narrative with a number of historical events and figures, from the psychological effects of World War I and the pandemic outbreak of influenza in 1918 to child labor laws to the cultural impact of Betty Friedan. How do real-life people and events affect how we read Addie’s fictional story? 5. Gussie is one of the most forward-thinking characters in the novel; however, despite her law degree she has trouble finding a job as an attorney because “no one would hire a lady lawyer.” What other limitations do Addie and her friends face in the workforce? What limitations do women and minorities face today? 6. After distancing herself from Ernie when he suffers a nervous episode brought on by combat stress, Addie sees a community of war veterans come forward to assist him (page 155). What does the remorse that Addie later feels suggest about the challenges American soldiers face as they reintegrate into society? Do you think soldiers today face similar challenges? 7. Addie notices that the Rockport locals seem related to one another, and the cook Mrs. Morse confides in her sister that, although she is usually suspicious of immigrant boarders, “some of them are nicer than Americans.” How does tolerance of the immigrant population vary between city and town in the novel? For whom might Mrs. Morse reserve the term Americans? 8. Addie is initially drawn to Tessa Thorndike because she is a Boston Brahmin who isn’t afraid to poke fun at her own class on the women’s page of the newspaper. What strengths and weaknesses does Tessa’s character represent for educated women of the time? How does Addie’s description of Tessa bring her reliability into question? 9. Addie’s parents frequently admonish her for being ungrateful, but Addie feels she has earned her freedom to move into a boardinghouse when her parents move to Roxbury, in part because she contributed to the family income (page 185). How does the Baum family’s move to Roxbury show the ways Betty and Addie think differently from their parents about household roles? Why does their father take such offense at Herman Levine’s offer to house the family? 10. The last meaningful conversation between Addie and her mother turns out to be an apology her mother meant for Celia, and for a moment during her mother’s funeral Addie thinks, “She won’t be able to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me anymore.” Does Addie find any closure from her mother’s death? 11. Filomena draws a distinction between love and marriage when she spends time catching up with Addie before her wedding, but Addie disagrees with the assertion that “you only get one great love in a lifetime.” In what ways do the different romantic experiences of each woman inform the ideas each has about love? 12. Filomena and Addie share a deep friendship. Addie tells Ada that “sometimes friends grow apart. . . . But sometimes, it doesn’t matter how far apart you live or how little you talk—it’s still there.” What qualities do you think friends must share in order to have that kind of connection? Discuss your relationship with a best friend. Enhance

The movement actually managed to succeed in lobbying for the passage of involuntary sterilization laws in thirty American states. This meant that the state could neuter people who fell below a particular IQ without their having any say in the matter. That each state eventually repealed the laws is a testament to common sense and compassion. That the laws existed in the first place is a frightening indication of how dangerously limited any standardized test is in calculating intelligence and the capacity to contribute to society. IQ tests can even be a matter of life and death. A criminal who commits a capital offense is not subject to the death penalty if his IQ is below seventy. However, IQ scores regularly rise over the course of a generation (by as much as twenty-five points), causing the scale to be reset every fifteen to twenty years to maintain a mean score of one hundred. Therefore, someone who commits a capital offense may be more likely to be put to death at the beginning of a cycle than at the end. That’s giving a single test an awful lot of responsibility. People can also improve their scores through study and practice. I read a case recently about a death row inmate who’d at that point spent ten years in jail on a life sentence (he wasn’t the trigger man, but he’d been involved in a robbery where someone died). During his incarceration, he took a series of courses. When retested, his IQ had risen more than ten points—suddenly making him eligible for execution.

At the risk of oversimplifying a topic that deserves entire books, we can summarize like this: During enslavement, many Black cooks learned their way around kitchens because their lives could depend on having that knowledge and skill. After slavery was abolished, many took to slinging fried chicken (or cooking in general) as one way to make a living. Interestingly, it wasn’t until Black folks began navigating their supposed freedoms-applying to schools, looking for paid work, seeking housing-that cartoonish, offensive images of Black folks eagerly consuming chicken or stealing chickens began to appear in essays, comics, advertisements, and postcards, perpetuating a narrative by white society that Black people were subhuman and needed to be controlled, policed, and locked out of mainstream opportunities. Exacerbated by the deep white resentment of Black people’s increasing social and political mobility (this period saw the largest representation of Black people in Congress than any time since), the idea took root that being Black meant that you loved fried chicken so much that you couldn’t resist it. This narrative is a painful legacy of slavery that wasn’t of our own making and is ironic, given that people all over the world get down with wings and things. But the essence of this stereotype persists. We know folks who refuse to eat fried chicken around white people, or chefs who don’t cook it in their restaurants, because they feel that’s the only thing certain diners expect from them…American fried chicken tastes good. It’s also complicated.

Come over early tomorrow morning,” Marlboro Man asked over the phone one night. “We’re gathering cattle, and I want you to meet my mom and dad.” “Oh, okay,” I agreed, wondering to myself why we couldn’t just remain in our own isolated, romantic world. And the truth was, I wasn’t ready to meet his parents yet. I still hadn’t successfully divorced myself from California J’s dear, dear folks. They’d been so wonderful to me during my years of dating their son and had become the California version of my parents, my home away from home. I hated that our relationship couldn’t continue despite, oh, the minor detail of my breaking up with their son. And already? Another set of parents? I wasn’t ready. “What time do you want me there?” I asked. I’d do anything for Marlboro Man. “Can you be here around five?” he asked. “In the evening…right?” I responded, hopeful. He chuckled. Oh, no. This was going to turn out badly for me. “Um…no,” he said. “That would be five A.M.” I sighed. To arrive at his ranch at 5:00 A.M. would mean my rising by 4:00 A.M.--before 4:00 A.M. if I wanted to shower and make myself presentable. This meant it would still be dark outside, which was completely offensive and unacceptable. There’s no way. I’d have to tell him no. “Okay--no problem!” I responded. I clutched my stomach in pain. Chuckling again, he teased, “I can come pick you up if you need me to. Then you can sleep all the way back to the ranch.” “Are you kidding?” I replied. “I’m usually up by four anyway. That’s when I usually do my running, as you well know.” “Uh…huh,” he said. “Gotcha.” Another chuckle. Lifeblood to my soul.

Now the muted setting made sense: a neutral setting, soothing light, a book. The deep magic fed the beast within him. It took a monumental effort of will to restrain it. With the flare so close, Curran was a powder keg with a short fuse. I had to be careful not to light that fuse. Nobody outside the Pack, except for Andrea, knew I was here. He could kill me right now and they would never find my body. We shared a silence for a long moment. Magic blossomed, filling me with giddy energy. The short waves again. They would ebb in a minute, and then I’d be exhausted. Guilt gnawed at me. He could control himself in my presence, but I apparently couldn’t control myself in his. “Curran, up on the roof . . . That is, my brakes don’t work sometimes.” He leaned forward, suddenly animated. “Do I smell an apology?” “Yes. I said things I shouldn’t have. I regret saying them.” “Does this mean you’re throwing yourself at my feet?” “No. I pretty much meant that part. I just wish I could’ve put it in less offensive terms.” I glanced at him and saw a lion. He didn’t change, his face was still fully human, but there was something disturbingly lionlike in the way he sat, completely focused on me, as if ready to pounce. Stalking me without moving a muscle. The primordial urge to freeze shackled my limbs. I just sat there, unable to look away. A slow, lazy, carnivorous smile touched Curran’s lips. “Not only will you sleep with me, but you will say ‘please.’” I stared at him, shocked. The smile widened. “You will say ‘please’ before and ‘thank you’ after.” Nervous laughter bubbled up. “You’ve gone insane. All that peroxide in your hair finally did your brain in, Goldilocks.

On his coronation in 1802, Gia-long wished to call his realm ‘Nam Viêt’ and sent envoys to gain Peking’s assent. The Manchu Son of Heaven, however, insisted that it be ‘Viêt Nam.’ The reason for this inversion is as follows: ‘Viêt Nam’ (or in Chinese Yüeh-nan) means, roughly, ‘to the south of Viêt (Yüeh),’ a realm conquered by the Han seventeen centuries earlier and reputed to cover today’s Chinese provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, as well as the Red River valley. Gia-long’s ‘Nam Viêt,’ however, meant ‘Southern Viêt/Yüeh,’ in effect a claim to the old realm. In the words of Alexander Woodside, ‘the name “Vietnam” as a whole was hardly so well esteemed by Vietnamese rulers a century ago, emanating as it had from Peking, as it is in this century. An artificial appellation then, it was used extensively neither by the Chinese nor by the Vietnamese. The Chinese clung to the offensive T’ang word “Annam” . . . The Vietnamese court, on the other hand, privately invented another name for its kingdom in 1838–39 and did not bother to inform the Chinese. Its new name, Dai Nam, the “Great South” or “Imperial South,” appeared with regularity on court documents and official historical compilations. But it has not survived to the present.’3 This new name is interesting in two respects. First, it contains no ‘Viet’-namese element. Second, its territorial reference seems purely relational – ‘south’ (of the Middle Kingdom).4 That today’s Vietnamese proudly defend a Viêet Nam scornfully invented by a nineteenth-century Manchu dynast reminds us of Renan’s dictum that nations must have ‘oublié bien des choses,’ but also, paradoxically, of the imaginative power of nationalism. If

One of the issues that animated the Tea Party in South Carolina and nationally during my campaign for governor was bailouts. The debate started with the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) passed by Congress in 2008 and signed by President Bush. The TARP bailout was a perfect example of government not understanding the value of a dollar. It was a quick fix to get everyone to calm down. But what did it actually do? The banks that received the money didn’t expand lending to businesses. They used the cash to help their own books, and the taxpayers were put on the hook as loan guarantors. No one—not the politicians who encouraged the recklessness, not the quasi-governmental entities like Fannie Mae that got rich off it, and certainly not the Wall Street firms that got bailed out—was ever held accountable. And the American people ended up worse off than they were before. As a small businessperson, I found the message government was sending incredibly offensive. In my version of capitalism, if a company succeeds, you don’t punish it by raising its taxes; and if a company fails, you don’t reward it by having the taxpayers bail it out. TARP opened the floodgates for a wave of unaccountable spending that flowed out of Washington. Soon afterward, President Obama bailed out the auto industry to rescue big labor. His allies in Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus bill, most of them without having read it. And he forced through a trillion-dollar health-care takeover. With each bailout, more and more of us felt we were getting further and further from what America was meant to be: a free and striving people with a limited and accountable government. Instead, Washington was revealing itself to be an inside game, with the rules fixed to benefit the establishment. The rules favor the well connected, while the rest of us in flyover country pay the bills.

Many other inhabitants of the city were similarly afflicted. Every day, more and more people took to saving time, and the more they did so, the more they were copied by others - even by those who had no real desire to join in but felt obligated to. Radio, television, and newspapers daily advertised and extolled the merits of new, time saving gadgets that would one day leave people free to live the 'right' kind of life. Walls and billboards were plastered with posters depicting scenes of happiness and prosperity. The real picture, however, was very different. Admittedly, timesavers were better dressed than the people who lived near the old amphitheater. They earned more money and had more to spend, but they looked tired, disgruntled and sour, and there was an unfriendly light in their eyes. They'd never heard the phrase, "Why not go and see Momo?' nor did they have anyone to listen to them in a way that would make them reasonable or conciliatory, let alone happy. Even had they known such a person, they would have been highly unlikely to pay him or her a visit unless the whole affair could be dealt with in five minutes flat, or they would have considered it a waste of time. In their view, even leisure time had to be used to the full, so as to extract the maximum of entertainment and relaxation with the minimum amount of delay. Whatever the occasion, whether solemn or joyous, timesavers could no longer celebrate it properly. Daydreaming they regarded almost as a criminal offense. What they could endure least of all, however, was silence, for when silence fell they became terrified by the realization of what was happening to their lives. And so, whenever silence threatened to descend, they made a noise. It wasn't a happy sound, of course, like the hubbub in a children's playground, but an angry ill tempered din that grew louder every day. It had ceased to matter that people should enjoy their work and take pride in it; on the contrary, enjoyment merely slowed them down. All that mattered was to get through as much work as possible in the shortest possible time, so notices to the effect were prominently displayed in every factory and office building. They read: TIME IS PRECIOUS - DON'T WASTE IT! or: TIME IS MONEY - SAVE IT! Last but not least, the appearance of the city itself changed more and more. Old buildings were pulled down and replaced with modern ones devoid of all the things that were now through superfluous. No architect troubled to design houses that suited the people who were to live in them, because that would have meant building a whole range of different houses. It was far cheaper, and above all, more time saving to make them identical. Huge modern housing developments sprang up on the city's outskirts - endless rows of multi-storied tenements as indistinguishable as peas in a pod. And because all the buildings looked alike, so of course, did the streets. [.....] People never seemed to notice that, by saving time, they were losing something else. No one cared to admit that life was becoming even poorer, bleaker, and more monotonous. The ones who felt this most keenly were the children, because no one had time for them any more. But time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. And the more people saved, the less they had.

After the debacle of the combined allied counterattack on 21/22 May, Gort had concluded that his French allies were unravelling and he therefore had no choice but to disobey direct orders from his French commanders, and the implicit orders from London. He ordered the BEF to make all speed for Dunkirk, and he asked the commander of III Corps, Lieutenant-General Sir Ronald Adam, to make arrangements for a defensive line around the beaches. It was a critical and historic decision. On the face of it, Gort was right. His decision to withdraw made the Dunkirk evacuation possible and meant that Britain could fight on, and that the war would eventually be won. But it relied on an extreme series of strokes of luck and good weather, and there is another view – because Gort’s decision also destroyed Weygand’s plan for an Anglo-French offensive.

Ah, yes,” Mrs. Wilmington said, apparently recognizing the picture. “All the roses. Aren’t they lovely?” With a gentle tug, Gage coaxed the paper from Miranda’s hand. She didn’t even realize she’d grabbed it away from him. “What about the roses?” gage’s tone was casual, but Miranda could hear an underlying hint of excitement. “There’s so many of them.” “And hundreds more you can’t even see here,” Parker’s mother informed him. “Red roses had a special significance at the opera house.” Miranda had begun to shiver. From some distant place, she was vaguely aware of Gage’s hand on her back. “And,” the woman added, “when red roses lined the driveway and spilled from every door and window of the opera house, it always meant that Mademoiselle DuVrey was performing that night.” “And why was that?” Roo stared pensively into Mrs. Wilmington’s enraptured face. “Did she have body odor or offensive personal habits?” Gage choked down a laugh. Ashley looked horrified. Etienne shifted from one foot to the other and mumbled under his breath. Mrs. Wilmington maintained her dignity.

I meant no offense, but sometimes being a reporter and being offensive can’t be pulled apart, no matter how politely you phrase the question.

When I was in Ireland," Letty blurted out, "Vaughn was there, too." "A hanging offense, to be sure," Mary drawled, in her very best imitation of Vaughn. The furrows in Letty's brow dug a little deeper, but she didn't allow herself to be deterred. "There was a woman . . ." "With Vaughn, I imagine there would be," replied Mary thoughtfully, abandoning the drawl. "He's that sort of a man." "You almost sound as though you admire him for it." "I do," said Mary coolly, and was surprised to realize she meant it. He was a man who knew what he wanted and took it. She had had enough of poets and moralists, the sort who sighed and yearned and never had the backbone to act. It had taken months to coax, wheedle, and maneuver Geoffrey into taking the final steps towards elopement, and even then he had done so with a heavy conscience and an inauspicious eye. A conscience, Mary decided, was a damnably unattractive trait in a man.

As I was thinking this, the new news reported that the offensive was delayed and then quickly canceled. Suddenly, a report came in that a tactical nuclear weapon would be launched against a target in Kashmir, but this was aborted at the last instant. All sides were already at the negotiating table. Accurate futuring technology was bringing out random behavior—phuturecasting meant everyone could see you coming, so being unpredictable and random had its advantages, usually at the expense of lacking strategic intent. The irony that “knowing the future” seemed to make things even less predictable didn’t escape me, but the serious strategists on the topic said that this perception was just the result of our primary subjectives being stuck in a single timeline. I sighed.

As the Brother’s words sank in, John signed automatically, She’s not my female. “Yeah, she is. And the two of you make so much sense. You have no idea what kind of sense you make together.” John shook his head. Not sure who you’re talking about there. No offense. “Doesn’t have to be easy to be right.” In that case, we’re meant for each other. There was a long silence, during which John had the oddest sense that life was resetting itself, that the gears which had previously been slipping and missing had once more locked into place.

I know I'm asking a lot. You'd need to start talking, stop growling, and bathe. No offense meant, but you look like a crazy man the way you are.

Personal Questions As you move further into the realm of conversational intimacy, you may be tempted to ask a more personal question. Such questions entail risk that you will offend the other person. Ask them with extreme caution—especially on subjects such as financial matters, past relationships, and religion. If you feel you are developing a close rapport, you could broach a subject carefully by softening it with a qualifier such as: “Excuse me for asking, but . . .” “I don’t mean to get personal, but . . .” Don’t take it as a personal rejection should your interactive partner choose not to answer the question. Again, keep the conversation going. And if someone asks you a personal question that you don’t wish to answer, be prepared with an easy way to demur: “I’d rather not talk about that. But I was wondering . . .” Then use the techniques described in this chapter to change the subject gracefully. Being asked an overly personal question may embarrass you. Let your comfort level be your guide. If you do not wish to answer, that’s okay. The person probably meant no offense and was asking only out of genuine interest. Try to continue on in the conversation to see what else is there. If you find your anxiety level rising, use relaxation techniques to bring it under control.

Y'all know that little gal Kelly Crawford that works down at Tuckers?" Tuckers Jiffy Lube was the only gas station and mechanical shop in town. Jena Lynn's face contorted in disapproval. "You referring to that scantily clad girl who runs the register?" I asked as Jena Lynn hopped up to retrieve the coffeepot. "That's the one." Betsy curled up her lip in disgust. "That girl is barely legal!" I was outraged. "I know! I'm going to tell her granny. She'll take a hickory switch to the girl when she finds out what she's been up to. She was all over Darnell." Betsy wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She was right about that. Her granny wasn't the type to spare the rod; she parented old-school style. Jena Lynn's tone rose as she stirred raw sugar into her coffee. "You caught them?" "Well, I called him after what happened with poor Mr. Ledbetter---" We shook our heads. "---told him I was going to be late 'cause I was taking that extra shift. Guess he thought late meant real late 'cause when I got home, they we're rootin' around on my couch, the one my meemaw gave me last spring when she had her house redecorated." We sat in stunned silence. "I threw his junk out last night. And when he still didn't budge from the TV"---she paused for effect---"I set it all on fire, right there in the front yard." She leaned back and crossed her arms over her expansive chest. "That's harsh." Sam stacked his empty plates. "Maybe it wasn't Darnell's fault." Jena Lynn and I gave him a disapproving glare. He appeared oblivious to his offense, and the moron had the audacity to reach into the container for a cream cheese Danish. "Sam, if you value that scrawny hand of yours, I'd pull it out real slow or you'll be drawing back a nub," Betsy warned. "Sheesh!" Sam jerked backward. It was obvious he didn't doubt her for a second. He marched toward the kitchen and dropped the plates in the bus tub with a loud thud. "He should know better. You don't touch a gal's comfort food in a time of crisis," I said, and my sister nodded in agreement. Jena Lynn patted Betsy on the arm. "Ignore him, Bets. He's a man." I stood. "And if I may be so bold as to speak for all the women of the world who have been unfortunate enough to be in your shoes, we applaud you." A satisfied smile spread across Betsy's lips. "Thank you." She took a little bow. "That's why my eyes look like they do. Smoke got to me." She leaned in closer. "I threw all his high school football trophies into the blaze while he was hollering at me. The whole neighborhood came out to watch." I chuckled. The thought of Darnell Fryer running around watching all his belongings go up in smoke was hilarious. I wished I'd been there. "Did anyone try to step in and help Darnell?" "Hell nah. He owes his buddies so much money from borrowing to pay his gambling debts, the ones that came out brought their camping chairs and watched the show while tossing back a few cold ones." She got up from the counter to scoop a glass full of ice and filled it with Diet Coke from the fountain. "Y'all, I gotta lose this weight now I'm back on the market." Betsy was one of a kind.

The president reddened, stood up, and shook his finger at Paul. “That sounds like a threat!” he said. Expressionless, Paul slowly rose from his chair, looking directly at the president. The two Secret Service guards on either side of the president’s desk unbuttoned their jackets and took a step forward. “I meant no offense to the Presidency,” Paul said evenly. “I was merely conveying the mood of the Negro people who constitute ten percent of the U.S. population.” Then he waited for the president to sit down. Truman sat down and abruptly terminated the meeting.

This Higher Power was the least offensive and most inclusive belief system I could find. I liked the fact that people found it agreeable because that meant they would also likely find me agreeable. My world was still about me, everything still revolved around me, what I thought about myself, and what I could get others to think about me. I was always changing in order to fit in, and after a while, I realized that my Higher Power was doing the same thing.

Call it archaic, but I think confession is liberation. It is easy to think that in injustice only the oppressed have their freedom to gain. In truth, the liberation of the oppressor is also at stake. Whether it’s the privilege we’ve inherited or space we’ve stolen, what began as guilt will mutate into shame, which is much more sinister and decidedly heavier on the soul. It doesn’t just weigh on the heart; it slithers into the gap of every joint, making everything swollen and tender. We learn to walk differently in order to carry the shame, but then we become prone to manipulate things like nearness and connection just to relieve our own swelling. When wounders, finally becoming exhausted of their dominion, dismantle their delusion of heroism or victimhood and begin to tell the truth of their offense, a sacred rest becomes available to them. You are no longer fighting to suspend the delusion of self. You can just lie down and be in your own flawed skin. And as you rest, the conscience you were born with slowly begins to regenerate, and your mobility changes. You walk past the shattered porch light without your nose to the ground. You can look your father in the eyes. You realize there are other ways to move in the world. It’s not only relief, it’s freedom. Truth-telling is critical to repair. But confession alone—which tends to serve the confessor more than the oppressed—will never be enough. Reparations are required. To expect repair without some kind of remittance would be injustice doubled. What has been stolen must be returned. This is not vengeance, it’s restoration. Maybe you know the verse that says if someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and bare your left cheek to them too. But before all that, Exodus says eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burn for burn. Payment, consequence. Any injustice demands something of us. But the only thing more healing than forcing someone to pay is when a person chooses to pay by their own conviction. I have always wondered why Christ had to die. If we needed saving, if wrath was to be had, couldn’t God just snap his fingers or send a great wind or blink and have everything wrong made right again? Why is it nothing but the blood? Nothing else? This will always be strange to me. But if it’s true, the law is cosmic and eternal. Maybe it’s written into everything, and even God themself is not too bold to undo the way things were meant to be. Maybe they needed to show us what the most tragic and noble reparation could look like, the sacrifice of life itself, so we might learn the courage to choose to make repairs when our moments come. But some will die in their cowardice.

The “I believe in free speech but” crowd violates the foundational ethos of what it means to have free speech. Usually, what comes after the “but” is an appeal to refrain from hurting people’s sensibilities and feelings. The general idea is that we must weigh our freedom of speech against the right of others to not be offended. No! Freedom of speech is precisely meant to protect the most obnoxious, offensive, and disgusting speech. It does not exist to ensure that you only levy beautiful compliments at me. Occasionally being offended is the price that one pays for living in a truly free society. Your feelings might get hurt. Grow a pair and move on.

Taking control of the key Byzantine port cities meant that Orhan had the means to launch further offensives

I don’t have much confidence,” she said. “A lot of what I’ve been taught isn’t making sense.” “That’s the nature of teaching. Something happens, and intelligence first apprehends it, then makes up a rule about it, then tries to pass the rule along. Very small beings invariably operate in that way. However, by the time the information is passed on, new things are happening that the old rule doesn’t fit. Eventually intelligence learns to stop making rules and understand the flow.” “I was told that the eternal verities—” “Like what?” God laughed. “If there were any, I should know! I have created a universe based on change, and a very small being speaks to me of eternal verities!” “I didn’t mean to offend. It’s just, if there are no verities, how do we know what’s true?” “You don’t offend. I don’t create things that are offensive to me. As for truth, what’s true is what’s written. Every created thing bears my intention written in it. Rocks. Stars. Very small beings. Everything only runs one way naturally, the way I meant it to. The trouble is that very small beings write books that contradict the rocks, then say I wrote the books and the rocks are lies.” He laughed. The universe trembled. “They invent rules of behavior that even angels can’t obey, and they say I thought them up. Pride of authorship.” He chuckled. “They say, ‘Oh, these words are eternal, so God must have written them.

My father smeared an oyster with horseradish, seemingly oblivious to the offense he had just caused. But I knew he was not. My father took great pains to appear laid-back, but that was a tactic too, one that belied his meticulous diction. His comment had been a deliberate, targeted attack on Brian, meant to remind him—his daughter had gotten into Columbia Law, but his daughter’s boyfriend had not.

Rather than a state of equal brotherhood and sisterhood, Kim had introduced an elaborate social order in which the eleven million ordinary North Korean citizens were classified according to their perceived political reliability. The songbun system, as it was known, ruthlessly reorganized the entire social system of North Korea into a communistic pseudofeudal system, with every individual put through eight separate background checks, their family history taken into account as far back as their grandparents and second cousins. Your final rating, or songbun, put you in one of fifty-one grades, divided into three broad categories, from top to bottom: the core class, the wavering class, and the hostile class. The hostile class included vast swathes of society, from the politically suspect (“people from families of wealthy farmers, merchants, industrialists, landowners; pro-Japan and pro-U.S. people; reactionary bureaucrats; defectors from the South; Buddhists, Catholics, expelled public officials”) to kiaesaeng (the Korean equivalent of geishas) and mudang (rural shamans). Although North Koreans weren’t informed of their new classification, it quickly became clear to most people what class they had been assigned. North Koreans of the hostile class were banned from living in Pyongyang or in the most fertile areas of the countryside, and they were excluded from any good jobs. There was virtually no upward mobility—once hostile, forever hostile—but plenty downward. If you were found to be doing anything that was illegal or frowned upon by the regime, you and your family’s songbun would suffer. Personal files were kept locked away in local offices, and were backed up in the offices of the Ministry for the Protection of State Security and in a blast-resistant vault in the mountains of Yanggang province. There was no way to tamper with your status, and no way to escape it. The most cunning part of it all was that Kim Il-Sung came up with a way for his subjects to enforce their own oppression by organizing the people into inminban (“people’s groups”), cooperatives of twenty or so families per neighborhood whose duty it was to keep tabs on one another and to inform on any potentially criminal or subversive behavior. These were complemented by kyuch’aldae, mobile police units on constant lookout for infringers, who had the authority to burst into your home or office at any time of day or night. Offenses included using more than your allocated quota of electricity, wearing blue jeans, wearing clothes bearing Roman writing (a “capitalist indulgence”) and allowing your hair to grow longer than the authorized length. Worse still, Kim decreed that any one person’s guilt also made that person’s family, three generations of it, guilty of the same crime. Opposing the regime meant risking your grandparents, your wife, your children—no matter how young—being imprisoned and tortured with you. Historically, Koreans had been subject to a caste system similar to India’s and equally as rigid. In the early years of the DPRK, the North Korean people felt this was just a modernized revitalization of that traditional social structure. By the time they realized something was awfully wrong, that a pyramid had been built, and that at the top of it, on the very narrow peak, sat Kim Il-Sung, alone, perched on the people’s broken backs, on their murdered families and friends, on their destroyed lives—by the time they paused and dared to contemplate that their liberator, their savior, was betraying them—in fact, had always betrayed them—it was already much, much too late.

There had been incidents meant to remind them that they were being watched. Yet there had also been more arrests and darker threats and cruel floggings. The religious authorities had no intention of letting the group continue unchallenged. When any possible reason for an offense could be generated, they took full advantage.

Many have thought it unfair that all of us should suffer the consequences of their offense. Instead, we can have a much more charitable attitude toward Adam and Eve when we realize that it is not that they initiated a situation that was not already there; it is that they failed to achieve a solution to that situation that was in their reach. Their choices resulted in their failure to acquire relief on our behalf. Their failure meant that we are doomed to death and a disordered world full of sin. These are profoundly significant consequences for what was a serious offense. In contrast, Christ was able to achieve the desired result where Adam and Eve failed. We are all doomed to die because when they sinned we lost access to the tree of life. We are therefore subject to death because of sin. Christ succeeded and actually provided the remedy to sin and death.

Mr. Grattingly, while we might tarry in the conservatory in plain sight of the open door, the location you’ve chosen—ooph!” “The location I’ve chosen is perfect,” Grattingly said as he mashed his body against Louisa’s. He’d shoved her back against a tree, off the path, into the shadows. “Mr. Grattingly! How dare—” Wet lips landed on Louisa’s jaw, and the scent of wine-soured breath filled her head. “Of course, I dare. You all but begged me to drag you in here. With your tits nigh falling from your bodice, how do you expect a man to act?” He thrust his hand into the neckline of Louisa’s gown and closed his fingers around her breast. Louisa was too stunned for a moment to think, then something more powerful than fear came roaring forward. “You slimy, presuming, stinking, drunken, witless varlet!” She shoved against him hard, but he wasn’t budging, and those thick, wet lips were puckering up abominably. Louisa heard her brother Devlin’s voice in her head, instructing her to use her knee, when Grattingly abruptly shifted off her and landed on his bottom in the dirt. “Excuse me.” Sir Joseph stood not two feet away, casually unbuttoning his evening coat. His expression was as composed as his tone of voice, though even when he dropped his coat around Louisa’s shoulders, he kept his gaze on Grattingly. “I do hope I’m not interrupting.” “You’re not.” Louisa clutched his jacket to her shoulders, finding as much comfort in its cedary scent as she did in the body heat it carried. “Mr. Grattingly was just leaving.” “Who the hell are you,” Grattingly spat as he scrambled to his feet, “to come around and disturb a lady at her pleasures?” Somewhere down the path, a door swung closed. Louisa registered the sound distantly, the way she’d notice when rain had started outside though she was in the middle of a good book. Though this was not a good book. Instinctively Louisa knew she was, without warning or volition, in the middle of something not good at all. “I was not at my pleasures, you oaf.” She’d meant to fire the words off with a load of scathing indignation, but to Louisa’s horror, her voice shook. Her knees were turning unreliable on her, as well, so she sank onto the hard bench. “What’s going on here?” Lionel Honiton stood on the path, three or four other people gathered behind him. “Nothing,” Sir Joseph said. “The lady has developed a megrim and will be departing shortly.” “A megrim!” Grattingly was on his feet, though to Louisa it seemed as if he weaved a bit. “That bitch was about to get something a hell of a lot more—” Sir Joseph, like every other guest, was wearing evening gloves. They should not have made such a loud, distinct sound when thwacked across Grattingly’s jowls. Lionel stepped forth. “Let’s not be hasty. Grattingly, apologize. We can all see you’re a trifle foxed. Nobody takes offense at what’s said when a man’s in his cups, right?” “I’m not drunk, you ass. You—” “That’s not an apology.” Sir Joseph pulled on his gloves. “My seconds will be calling on yours. If some one of the assembled multitude would stop gawping long enough to fetch the lady’s sisters to her, I would appreciate it.” He said nothing more, just treated each member of the small crowd to a gimlet stare, until Lionel ushered them away. Nobody had a word for Grattingly, who stomped off in dirty breeches, muttering Louisa knew not what. Sir

What is it ye hope to gain from sharing my bed?” His voice stopped her. “You already have a bairn.” The creak of a stall door followed his question. Footsteps whispered on the packed-dirt floor. With her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw him as a towering shadow emerging into the broad aisle of the barn. He must have been checking on Rand. She frowned at his question. He made it sound like she had some ulterior motive besides being attracted to him. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she hedged. “You want to couple with me. Why?” She rolled her eyes; she’d understood that much of the question. It was the part where he seemed to have a problem with “sharing a bed” with her she didn’t get. Tamping down her offense was getting old. If he was going to be bold, she would be, too. “You’re easy on the eyes,” she clipped. “I’m attracted to you, and we’re married, so why not, right? Am I missing something here? Shouldn’t I be the one asking you why you don’t want to ‘couple’? Oh, wait, I did. And you wouldn’t give me a straight answer.” He moved closer, stopping a foot away, which meant his voice now came from high above her. “Are you a wanton woman?” The question had been dark. Dangerous. And it kicked her offense into full-on anger. “I’m knocked up and I want sex with my husband. If that makes a girl wanton, then I suppose I am. What of it?” She lifted her chin in challenge. “I’ll ask again. What is it ye hope to gain? The truth, Melanie.” Her heart sank to hear him call her by her given name, and this sudden edge of hostility confused her. It felt like he was accusing her of something, but what? She was also insanely aroused. Not only had her eyes adjusted to the dark well enough to see his serious and seriously handsome face, but his looming presence filled her with an irrational sense of security. Add to that his scent of leather and man, and her lips trembled for another kiss. She didn’t want to lash out any more. Anger released itself to the night like steam from a mug of cocoa. “Pleasure,” she whispered, her breasts reaching for him with her quickening breath. “That’s the truth. I want to feel your body under my hands. I want to feel you inside me as you make me your wife in more than just name. And I want pleasure for you, too. Especially for you. You’ve given up almost everything for me. Giving you pleasure is the only way I can think of to thank you.” He blinked with surprise. “I dinna expect your thanks. ’Tis not why I stole ye away from Steafan.” She rolled her eyes, but this time with affection instead of annoyance. “Duh, I know that. You’re so darned honorable you’d never do anything for something as paltry as my thanks. It’s not just about thanks. I love you, you stubborn Highlander.” She cupped her hand over her mouth. The ornery thing had just blurted that which she had yet to fully admit to herself. Considering how much it hurt to have Darcy reject her physical advances, she was in no mood to bear his inevitable rejection of her heart. Mortified, she turned to run away. But his arms went around her. He hadn’t lied when he’d claimed to be quicker. “Do ye mean that, lass?” he asked, bending over her back, holding her. “No,” she lied, trying to pry his arms away. “I’m out of my mind. Don’t listen to a thing I say. Let me go.” “No. I willna. And I think a confession spoken in ire is more trustworthy than one spoken in calm.” He turned her around and lifted her face to his. “I love you, too, lass.” He kissed her.

Christopher walked back home with Albert padding calmly beside him. For some reason the dog seemed improved after meeting Beatrix Hathaway. As Christopher gave him a damning glance, Albert looked up at him with a toothy grin, his tongue lolling. “Idiot,” Christopher muttered, although he wasn’t certain if the word was directed at his dog or himself. He felt troubled and guilty. He knew he’d behaved like an ass to Beatrix Hathaway. She had tried to be friendly, and he had been cold and condescending. He hadn’t meant to be offensive. It was just that he was nearly mad with longing for Prudence, for the sweet, artless voice that had saved his sanity. Every word of every letter she’d sent him still resonated through his soul. “I’ve done a great deal of walking lately. I seem to think better outdoors…” And when Christopher had set out to find Albert, and found himself walking through the forest, a mad idea had taken hold of him…that she was nearby, and fate would bring them together that quickly, that simply. But instead of finding the woman he had dreamed of, craved, needed for so long, he had found Beatrix Hathaway. It wasn’t that he disliked her. Beatrix was an odd creature, but fairly engaging, and far more attractive than he had remembered. In fact, she had become a beauty in his absence, her gangly coltish shape now curved and graceful… Christopher shook his head impatiently, trying to redirect his thoughts. But the image of Beatrix Hathaway remained. A lovely oval face, a gently erotic mouth, and haunting blue eyes, a blue so rich and deep it seemed to contain hints of purple. And that silky dark hair, pinned up haphazardly, with teasing locks slipping free. Christ, it had been too long since he’d had a woman. He was randy as the devil, and lonely, and filled with equal measures of grief and anger. He had so many unfulfilled needs, and he didn’t begin to know how to address any of them. But finding Prudence seemed like a good start.

America today is not the same nation as when you were born. Depending on your age, if you were born in America, your home nation was a significantly different land than it is today:   ·                    America didn’t allow aborting babies in the womb; ·                     Same sex marriage was not only illegal, no one ever talked about it, or even seriously considered the possibility; (“The speed and breadth of change (in the gay movement) has just been breathtaking.”, New York Times, June 21, 2009) ·                    Mass media was clean and non-offensive. Think of The I Love Lucy Show or The Walton Family, compared with what is aired today; ·                    The United States government did not take $500 million dollars every year from the taxpayers and give it to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. ·                    Videogames that glorify violence, cop killing and allow gamesters who have bought millions of copies, to have virtual sex with women before killing them, did not exist. ·                    Americans’ tax dollars did not fund Title X grants to Planned Parenthood who fund a website which features videos that show a “creepy guidance counselor who gives advice to teens on how to have (safe) sex and depict teens engaged in sex.” ·                    Americans didn’t owe $483,000 per household for unfunded retirement and health care obligations (Peter G. Peterson Foundation). ·                    The phrase “sound as a dollar” meant something. ·                    The Federal government’s debt was manageable.            American Christian missionaries who have been abroad for relatively short times say they find it hard to believe how far this nation has declined morally since they were last in the country. In just a two week period, not long ago, these events all occurred: the Iowa Supreme Court declared that same sex marriage was legal in the State; the President on a foreign tour declared that “we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation…” and a day later bowed before the King of the nation that supplied most of the 9/11 terrorists; Vermont became the first State to authorize same sex marriage by legislative action, as opposed to judicial dictate; the CEO of General Motors was fired by the federal government; an American ship was boarded and its crew captured by pirates for the first time in over 200 years; and a major Christian leader/author apologized on Larry King Live for supporting California’s Proposition 8 in defense of traditional marriage, reversing his earlier position. The pace of societal change is rapidly accelerating.

I’ve had people say that they simply can’t meditate, that they cannot quiet their mind, that they are too busy, that they have no good place to meditate or that they tried it and didn’t find it helpful. These people are God’s kids and my brothers and sisters, so no offense is meant when I calmly reply bullshit.

The notion of a crucified Lord was a scandal to the first-century world. Crucifixion was a public form of execution, and its cruelty was well known. For Jews, death by crucifixion meant that a person was under the curse of God, while pagans protested that it was sheer madness.502 To associate God with the world of suffering was therefore utterly inappropriate. But in spite of the offensive nature of Jesus’ suffering and death, that is precisely the way God has worked, and Hebrews gives it a central place. It was fitting503 that God should effect his glorious saving purposes through Christ’s sufferings.504

If you wanted, Thymara, you could come to my cabin this evening. I could show you a different way to do your hair. And you’d have some privacy if you wished to take a bath, even if the tub is scarcely big enough to stand in.” “I know how to wash myself!” Thymara retorted, stung. “I’m sorry,” Alise said immediately. Her cheeks had gone very red. She blushed more scarlet than anyone Thymara had ever known. “My words were not…I didn’t express what I was trying to say. I saw you look at yourself, and thought how selfish I’ve been, to have privacy to bathe and dress while you and Sylve and Jerd have had to live rough and in the open among the boys and men. I didn’t mean—” “I know.” Were they the hardest words Thymara had ever had to say? Probably not, but they were hard enough. She didn’t meet Alise’s eyes. She forced out other words. “I know you meant it kindly. My father often told me that I take offense too easily. That not everyone wants to insult me.” Her throat was getting smaller and tighter. The pain of unsheddable tears was building at the inner corners of her eyes. From forcing words, suddenly she couldn’t stop them. “I don’t expect people to like me or be nice to me. It’s the opposite. I expect—” “You don’t have to explain,” Alise said suddenly. “We’re more alike than you think we are.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Sometimes, do you find reasons to disdain people you haven’t met yet, just so you can dislike them before they dislike you?” “Well, of course,” Thymara admitted, and the laughter they shared had a brittle edge. A bird flew up from the river’s edge, startling them both, and then their laughter became more natural, ending when they both drew breath.

If you wanted, Thymara, you could come to my cabin this evening. I could show you a different way to do your hair. And you’d have some privacy if you wished to take a bath, even if the tub is scarcely big enough to stand in.” “I’m sorry,” Alise said immediately. Her cheeks had gone very red. She blushed more scarlet than anyone Thymara had ever known. “My words were not…I didn’t express what I was trying to say. I saw you look at yourself, and thought how selfish I’ve been, to have privacy to bathe and dress while you and Sylve and Jerd have had to live rough and in the open among the boys and men. I didn’t mean—” “I know.” Were they the hardest words Thymara had ever had to say? Probably not, but they were hard enough. She didn’t meet Alise’s eyes. She forced out other words. “I know you meant it kindly. My father often told me that I take offense too easily. That not everyone wants to insult me.” Her throat was getting smaller and tighter. The pain of unsheddable tears was building at the inner corners of her eyes. From forcing words, suddenly she couldn’t stop them. “I don’t expect people to like me or be nice to me. It’s the opposite. I expect—” “You don’t have to explain,” Alise said suddenly. “We’re more alike than you think we are.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Sometimes, do you find reasons to disdain people you haven’t met yet, just so you can dislike them before they dislike you?” “Well, of course,” Thymara admitted, and the laughter they shared had a brittle edge. A bird flew up from the river’s edge, startling them both, and then their laughter became more natural, ending when they both drew breath.

I'm sure you mean absolutely no offense,' he purred. 'Just like you meant no offense when you stabbed me.

The term “microaggressions” refers to a way of thinking about brief and commonplace indignities and slights communicated to people of color (and others). Small acts of aggression are real, so the term could be useful, but because the definition includes accidental and unintentional offenses, the word “aggression” is misleading. Using the lens of microaggressions may amplify the pain experienced and the conflict that ensues. (On the other hand, there is nothing “micro” about intentional acts of aggression and bigotry.) By encouraging students to interpret the actions of others in the least generous way possible, schools that teach students about microaggressions may be encouraging students to engage in emotional reasoning and other distortions while setting themselves up for higher levels of distrust and conflict. Karith Foster offers an example of using empathy to reappraise actions that could be interpreted as microaggressions. When she interpreted those actions as innocent (albeit insensitive) misunderstandings, it led to a better outcome for everyone. The number of efforts to “disinvite” speakers from giving talks on campus has increased in the last few years; such efforts are often justified by the claim that the speaker in question will cause harm to students. But discomfort is not danger. Students, professors, and administrators should understand the concept of antifragility and keep in mind Hanna Holborn Gray’s principle: “Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think.

Athletic hospitality” meant always looking for a win, whether you were playing offense (making an already great experience even better) or defense (apologizing for and fixing an error).

Dev doesn’t get the happily ever after, but he would settle for less if it meant being with Charlie. Because the alternative—losing Charlie—is going to destroy him.