Pivot Time Quotes

I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot. I don’t mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated. I don’t mind being told to stand on my own feet, not to cling, be all that I am capable of doing, but I am going to be pursued, fucked, possessed by the will of a male at his time, his bidding.

Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice every time.

He shrugs. "Doesn't help to waste my time thinking about would've-beens." Laila whispers, "He says to the girl with a mind full of them.

You like to assign roles to the people in your life. And when they don't play their parts right, you have a hard time accepting that.

Hate. Huh. He'd never hated himself. If anything, he'd always liked himself a little too much. Once, a human female had even accused him of picturing his own face while he climaxed. He hadn't denied it, either, and next time he'd slept with her, he'd made sure to scream, "Strider" at the pivotal moment." --Strider, keeper of the demon of Defeat--

All destruction eventually leads to construction, all death eventually leads to birth, all pain eventually leads to pleasure. In this life or the next, what goes down will come up. It’s a matter of how we see the challenge in front of us and how we engage with it. Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice every time.

The pivotal moments in your life are always made up of smaller pieces, things that seemed insignificant at time, but in fact brought you to where you needed to be.

He starts with the character's eyes and by the time he moves to her hair, a mess of blonde curls, I realize he's drawing me. "Superheroes. You can finally have those super powers you want.

Yes," I told her. "I'm angry, so what?" ..... I went on, giving her an executive summary of my crappy life. .... "So of course I feel angry," I said angrily. "What do you expect? It was a stupid thing to ask." "Yes," she agreed. "It was a stupid thing to ask. I see that you're angry. I don't need to ask such a stupid thing to understand that." "So why did you ask?" Slowly she turned herself around, pivoting on her knees, until finally she was facing me, "I asked for you," she said. "For me?" So you could hear the answer.

The problems we face today eventually turn into blessings in the rearview mirror of life. In time, yesterday’s red light leads us to a greenlight. All destruction eventually leads to construction, all death eventually leads to birth, all pain eventually leads to pleasure. In this life or the next, what goes down will come up. It’s a matter of how we see the challenge in front of us and how we engage with it. Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice every time.

The wait is as much journey as the motion, because timing is pivotal.

Be a life-long learner. Whether you are seeking to achieve peace and harmony, learn a new technology to do your work faster, or design a strategy to blow your competitors out of the water, retraining is a pivotal way to strengthen your knowledge and realize your goals

Time is the pivot of life activities. When you miss a second, you miss a time in your lifetime! Time is undoubtedly the greatest asset one can ever acquire. The ultimate and real time is in the mind. Time is thought and thought is time. To mind your time, mind your thought! To mind your life, mind your time!

Hey, I’m still in my-parents-just-got-a-divorce mode. Remember? This is the time when I’m allowed to question all relationships, wonder if true love exists at all anymore, and swear to a life of celibacy.

You know what else the average girl who’s acting out does?” Duke asks quietly. I glance once at Laila, but it’s obvious she can’t hear us. “What?” “She starts spending all her time with a boy who’s no good for her.

When you break up with someone, and I’m not talking casual breakups here, it’s hard to take the sudden absence of such an important person in your life. It reminded me of when I’d stopped going to school and the weird uneasy feeling I’d gotten afterward, like I was forgetting to do something. My life until that point had pivoted around some form of education, and all of a sudden, it was gone. Homework, classes, running around, and then – bam – nothing but a life of work stretching out before you. No one prepares you for that feeling or even mentions it. You just suddenly have a gap and have to decide how to fill it. A break up is like that gap, only much, much more painful. One day the person you talked to constantly or did stuff with is just absent. Gone. Poof. And even though I’m not one of those people who has to be in a relationship all the time, I was feeling at a loss.

It would mark the end of a year that he might look back on as hands, a pivot between two lines. Or not: maybe enough time, would pass that eventually he would look back on his life, all of it, as a series of events both logical and continuous.

I watched the water swirl away entirely before I twisted my head to look at him. His fingers were gentle, but firm where he’d fisted them in my hair. “You never failed them,” I rasped. “I did … horrible things to ensure that.” Those violet eyes near-glowed in the dim light. “So did I.” My sweat clung like blood—the blood of those two faeries— I pivoted, barely turning in time. His other hand stroked long, soothing lines down the curve of my back, as over and over I yielded my dinner. When the latest wave had ebbed, I breathed, “The flames?” “Autumn Court.” I couldn’t muster a response. At some point, I leaned against the coolness of the nearby bathtub and closed my eyes. When I awoke, sun streamed through the windows, and I was in my bed—tucked in tightly to the fresh, clean sheets.

When he heard light, rushing footfalls, he turned his head. Someone was racing along the second-floor balcony. Then laughter drifted down from above. Glorious feminine laughter. He leaned out the archway and glanced at the grand staircase. Bella appeared on the landing above, breathless, smiling, a black satin robe gathered in her hands. As she slowed at the head of the stairs, she looked over her shoulder, her thick dark hair swinging like a mane. The pounding that came next was heavy and distant, growing louder until it was like boulders hitting the ground. Obviously, it was what she was waiting for. She let out a laugh, yanked her robe up even higher, and started down the stairs, bare feet skirting the steps as if she were floating. At the bottom, she hit the mosaic floor of the foyer and wheeled around just as Zsadist appeared in second-story hallway. The Brother spotted her and went straight for the balcony, pegging his hands into the rail, swinging his legs up and pushing himself straight off into thin air. He flew outward, body in a perfect swan dive--except he wasn't over water, he was two floors up over hard stone. John's cry for help came out as a mute, sustained rush of air-- Which was cut off as Zsadist dematerialized at the height of the dive. He took form twenty feet in front of Bella, who watched the show with glowing happiness. Meanwhile, John's heart pounded from shock...then pumped fast for a different reason. Bella smiled up at her mate, her breath still hard, her hands still gripping the robe, her eyes heavy with invitation. And Zsadist came forward to answer her call, seeming to get even bigger as he stalked over to her. The Brother's bonding scent filled the foyer, just as his low, lionlike growl did. The male was all animal at the moment....a very sexual animal. "You like to be chased, nalla, " Z said in a voice so deep it distorted. Bella's smile got even wider as she backed up into a corner. "Maybe." "So run some more, why don't you." The words were dark and even John caught the erotic threat in them. Bella took off, darting around her mate, going for the billiards room. Z tracked her like prey, pivoting around, his eyes leveled on the female's streaming hair and graceful body. As his lips peeled off his fangs, the white canines elongated, protruding from his mouth. And they weren't the only response he had to his shellan. At his hips, pressing into the front of his leathers, was an erection the size of a tree trunk. Z shot John a quick glance and then went back to his hunt, disappearing into the room, the pumping growl getting louder. From out of the open doors, there was a delighted squeal, a scramble, a female's gasp, and then....nothing. He'd caught her. ......When Zsadist came out a moment later, he had Bella in his arms, her dark hair trailing down his shoulder as she lounged in the strength that held her. Her eyes locked on Z's face while he looked where he was going, her hand stroking his chest, her lips curved in a private smile. There was a bite mark on her neck, one that had very definitely not been there before, and Bella's satisfaction as she stared at the hunger in her hellren's face was utterly compelling. John knew instinctively that Zsadist was going to finish two things upstairs: the mating and the feeding. The Brother was going to be at her throat and in between her legs. Probably at the same time. God, John wanted that kind of connection.

There's a strange intimacy between a lost animal and the person who finds him. In terms of time, what you've shared is tiny and insignificant, but that moment is a vital pivot in the animal's life, the line between his old life and a better, new one. In some cases that fine line is the one between life and death.

The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivot where two A.M. changes to six A.M. You know this moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which all is gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings. Somewhere back there you could have cut your losses, but your rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder and now you are trying to hang on to the rush.

But at the same time, the humanist in me was always a bit troubled by the rather bleak, rather unappetizing picture the theory painted of the human condition—forever striving to justify our actions after the fact.

Once in a while, however, the future turns out to be very different from the past. It’s at these times that accurate forecasts would be of great value. It’s also at these times that forecasts are least likely to be correct. Some forecasters may turn out to be correct at these pivotal moments, suggesting that it’s possible to correctly

We know right from wrong because we learn it, one way or another, we learn it. Sometimes from our parents, who spend most of our early years teaching us how to survive, snatching our hands away from burners and electrical outlets, keeping us away from the bleach. Other times, we have to learn for ourselves, to touch our hands to the burner, to burn, before we know why there are things we can’t touch. These lessons that we learn by doing are pivotal to our development, but not everything can be learned that way.

Yes. So what are you packing for your dad’s house? Six weeks is a long time.

It’s a matter of how we see the challenge in front of us and how we engage with it. Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice every time.

Every day is an opportunity to stand in awe when witnessing the overpowering presence of nature, an apt time to pay reverence for the inestimable beauty of life. I must remain mindful to live in an ethical manner by paying attention to the threat of injustice towards other people and resist capitulating to the absurdity of being a finite body born into infinite space and time. I am part of the world, a spar in a sacred composition, a body of energy suspended in the cosmos. I seek to create a poetic personal testament to life. When I pivot and turn away from fixating upon the cruel artifices of my encysted orbit to face and outwardly embrace the cleansing swirl of heaven’s windmill, I feel gusting in the shank of my marrow the thump of onrushing primordial truths, the electric flush of those ineffable couplets of life that one may not utter.

We live in a pivotal juncture in time - a time when it is essential that we grow out of our adolescent, egotistical, and destructive ways, and blossom into the kind of people we have always yearned to be.

It fell open at a pivotal scene, the one where Jane meets Mr. Rochester for the first time, startling his horse in the woods and causing him to fall. Pilot is there too, the handsome, soulful-eyed hound. If the book has one failing, it’s that there is insufficient mention of Pilot. You can’t have too much dog in a book.

When your steps are destined... you can trust that your journey has a variety of processes. These processes will be disguised with a perfect strife; however, the struggle is pivotal in breeding greatness..." (T.luard)

Philosophers of all times have stressed the pivotal significance of being ourselves and the despair attendant on feeling barred from its approximation... "What other significance can our existence have than to be ourselves fully and completely?

When we dedicate ourselves to a plan and it isn’t going as we hoped, our first instinct isn’t usually to rethink it. Instead, we tend to double down and sink more resources in the plan. This pattern is called escalation of commitment. Evidence shows that entrepreneurs persist with failing strategies when they should pivot, NBA general managers and coaches keep investing in new contracts and more playing time for draft busts, and politicians continue sending soldiers to wars that didn’t need to be fought in the first place.

Once they’ve helped patients identify specific and vivid signs of progress, they pivot to a second question, which is perhaps even more important. It’s the Exception Question: “When was the last time you saw a little bit of the miracle, even just for a short time?

Thanks to a confluence of demographics and technology, we’ve pivoted further away from nature than any generation before us. At the same time, we’re increasingly burdened by chronic ailments made worse by time spent indoors, from myopia and vitamin D deficiency to obesity, depression, loneliness and anxiety.

Vargo climbed in, twisted and turned a few times to get comfortable on the pillow, then pulled the lid down and latched it. As the eye of narrative drew back from the coffin on its stand, two things happened. One happened comparatively slowly, and this was Vargo's realization that he never recalled the coffin having a pillow before. The other was Greebo deciding that he was as mad as hell and wasn't going to take it any more. He'd been shaken around in the wheely thing and then sat on by Nanny, and he was angry about that because he knew, in a dim, animal way, that scratching Nanny might be the single most stupid thing he could do in the whole world, since no one else was prepared to feed him. This hadn't helped his temper. Then he'd encountered a dog, which had tried to lick him. He'd scratched and bitten it a few times, but this had had no effect apart from encouraging it to try to be more friendly. He'd finally found a comfy resting place and had curled up into a ball, and now someone was using him as a cushion- There wasn't a great deal of noise. The coffin rocked a few times, and then pivoted around.

Man, they’d had fun falling in love. That time was the best in his life, without question.

The past is intrinsic to the present, despite any attempts to dismiss it. It is a part of the mechanism that pivots who we choose to be. I

A man’s life can pivot on the smallest hinge of time. No minute is without potential for momentous change, and each tick of the clock might be the voice of Fate whispering a promise or a warning.

A man's life can pivot on the smallest hinge of time. No minute is without potential for momentous change, and each tick of the clock might be the voice of Fate whispering a promise or a warning.

an empathic and patient listener, coaxing each of us through the maze of our feelings, separating out our weapons from our wounds. He cautioned us when we got too lawyerly and posited careful questions intended to get us to think hard about why we felt the way we felt. Slowly, over hours of talking, the knot began to loosen. Each time Barack and I left his office, we felt a bit more connected. I began to see that there were ways I could be happier and that they didn’t necessarily need to come from Barack’s quitting politics in order to take some nine-to-six foundation job. (If anything, our counseling sessions had shown me that this was an unrealistic expectation.) I began to see how I’d been stoking the most negative parts of myself, caught up in the notion that everything was unfair and then assiduously, like a Harvard-trained lawyer, collecting evidence to feed that hypothesis. I now tried out a new hypothesis: It was possible that I was more in charge of my happiness than I was allowing myself to be. I was too busy resenting Barack for managing to fit workouts into his schedule, for example, to even begin figuring out how to exercise regularly myself. I spent so much energy stewing over whether or not he’d make it home for dinner that dinners, with or without him, were no longer fun. This was my pivot point, my moment of self-arrest. Like a climber about to slip off an icy peak, I drove my ax into the ground. That isn’t to say that Barack didn’t make his own adjustments—counseling helped him to see the gaps in how we communicated, and he worked to be better at it—but I made mine, and they helped me, which then helped us. For starters, I recommitted myself to being healthy. Barack and I belonged to the same gym, run by a jovial and motivating athletic trainer named Cornell McClellan. I’d worked out with Cornell for a couple of years, but having children had changed my regular routine. My fix for this came in the form of my ever-giving mother, who still worked full-time but volunteered to start coming over to our house at 4:45 in the morning several days a week so that I could run out to Cornell’s and join a girlfriend for a 5:00 a.m. workout and then be home by 6:30 to get the girls up and ready for their days. This new regimen changed everything: Calmness and strength, two things I feared I was losing, were now back. When it came to the home-for-dinner dilemma, I installed new boundaries, ones that worked better for me and the girls. We made our schedule and stuck to it. Dinner each night was at 6:30. Baths were at 7:00, followed by books, cuddling, and lights-out at 8:00 sharp. The routine was ironclad, which put the weight of responsibility on Barack to either make it on time or not. For me, this made so much more sense than holding off dinner or having the girls wait up sleepily for a hug. It went back to my wishes for them to grow up strong and centered and also unaccommodating to any form of old-school patriarchy: I didn’t want them ever to believe that life began when the man of the house arrived home. We didn’t wait for Dad. It was his job now to catch up with

Don't flatter yourself to think this is your doing. Your problem is that you think things have happened for the first time to you, and that you're the fulcrum from which all people and the current world pivot.

…We need to remember that the most significant events in the last 2,000 years were not the marvels of science, technology, and travel. They were the Savior’s Atonement and the restoration of the gospel, with the priesthood keys and authority. These two singular events will continue to be of transcendent importance to mankind as we move forward in time. The past, present, and future pivot on these marvelous divine interventions.

And in the east, slipping over the mountains like molten gold, the sun began to rise. A hundred years she'd had with Asterin. She'd always thought they'd have a hundred more. Manon said softly to Sorrel, "Turn her around. My Second shall see the dawn one last time." Sorrel obediently stepped forward, pivoting Asterin to face the High Witches, the crowd by the rail--and the rare sunrise piercing through Morath's gloom. Blood stack through the back of her Second's leathers. And yet Asterin knelt, shoulders square and head high, as she looked not at the dawn--but at Manon herself while she stalked around her Second to take a place few feet before the Matrons.

Nice to have you back, girl,” he said softly. Then he turned to Alyss. “Ready to go?” She held up a hand. “One thing I have to take care of,” she said. She looked around the camp and spotted Petulengo, lurking guiltily by the goat pen. “Petulengo!” she called. Her voice was high and penetrating and he started, realizing he had been spotted. He looked around, seeking an escape route. But as he did so, Will unslung the massive longbow from his shoulder and casually plucked an arrow from his quiver. Suddenly, escaping didn’t seem like such a good idea. Then Alyss favored Petulengo with her most winning smile. “Don’t be frightened, dear,” she said soothingly. “I just want to say good-bye.” She beckoned to him, smiling encouragingly, and he stepped forward, gradually gaining in confidence as he realized that, somehow, he had won the favor of this young woman. Some of his old swagger returned as he approached and stood before her, urged a little closer by that smile. Underneath the ash and the dirt, he thought, she was definitely a looker. He gave her a smile in return. Petulengo, it has to be said, fancied himself with the ladies. Treat ’em rough and they’ll eat out of your hand, he thought. Then the smile disappeared like a candle being blown out. He felt a sudden jolt of agony in his right foot. Alyss’s heavy boot, part of Hilde’s wardrobe, had stamped down on his instep, just below the ankle. He doubled over instinctively, gasping with pain. Then Alyss pivoted and drove the heel of her open left hand hard into his nose, snapping his head back and sending him reeling. His arms windmilled and he crashed over onto the hard-packed dirt of the compound. He lay groggily, propped up on his elbows, coughing as blood coursed down the back of his throat. “Next time you throw firewood at an old lady,” Alyss told him, all traces of the winning smile gone, “make sure she can’t do that.” She turned to Will and dusted her hands together in a satisfied gesture. “Now I’m ready to go,” she said.

He would view each position as a test of character, effort, endurance, and will. He would keep nothing in reserve for some will-o-the-wisp future. Rather, he would regard each job as a pivotal test, a manifestation of his leadership skills.

Maybe it’s true that the people who live through the times that become history’s pivotal points are those least likely to understand them. I wonder if Abraham Lincoln himself could have answered the inevitable test questions about the causes of the Civil War.

It comes down to the deep and universal human need for autonomy. People need to feel in control. When you preserve a person’s autonomy by clearly giving them permission to say “No” to your ideas, the emotions calm, the effectiveness of the decisions go up, and the other party can really look at your proposal. They’re allowed to hold it in their hands, to turn it around. And it gives you time to elaborate or pivot in order to convince your counterpart that the change you’re proposing is more advantageous than the status quo.

Swimming in your own lane, or finding your genius, is about first spending the time to go deep within, before stepping out again and crafting a strategy to navigate the world as yourself, PROUD, yet textured by the nuances of the society and communities you live in.

Every hour is a new beginning—you just don’t realize it until you remember that every soul-shifting, life-changing experience you have happens in an otherwise ordinary day. In an instant, you meet a moment that changes your world forever. You find the job, you book the flight, you sign the papers, you choose to make the change that changes it all. Chapters of great transformation often feel like they carry on forever, but the truth is that they are often gardens that grow from tiny seeds that you’ve been planting for a very long time. 19 What

Goodbye,Nick," she said, starting to close the door. "And thank you for stopping by." He accepted her decision with a slight inclination of his head, and Lauren made herself finish closing the door. She forced herself to walk away on legs that felt like lead, reminding herself at the same time how insane it would be to let him near her. But halfway across the living room she lost the internal battle. Pivoting on her heel, she raced for the door, yanked it open and hurtled straight into Nick's chest. He was lounging with one hand braced high against the doorframe, gazing down at her flushed face with a knowing, satisfied grin. "Hello,Lauren.I happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to drop by." "What do you want,Nick?" she sighed, her blue eyes searching his. "You." Resolutely she started to close the door again, but his hand shot out to stop her. "Do you really want me to go?" "I told you on Wednesday that what I want has nothing to do with it. What matters is what's best for me, and-" He interrupted her with a boyish grin. "I promise I'll never wear your clothes,and I won't steal your allowances or your boyfriends either." Lauren couldn't help starting to smile as he finished, "And if you swear never to call me Nicky again, I won't bite you." She stepped aside and let him in, then took his jacket and hung it in the closet. When she turned, Nick was leaning against the closed front door, his arms crossed over his chest. "On second thought," he grinned, "I take part of that back.I'd love to bite you." "Pervert!" she returned teasingly, her heart thumping so much with excitement that she hardly knew what she was saying. "Come here and I'll show you just how perverted I can be," he invited smoothly. Lauren took a cautious step backward. "Absolutely not.

The wind you hear is the birth of memory when the moment hatches in time’s womb there will be no art talk. The only poem you will hear will be the spear point pivoted in the punctured marrow of the villain; the timeless native son dancing like crazy to the retrieved rhythms of desire fading in- to memory.

There’s a pause in my conversation with Holes, one I’ve come to anticipate in discussions about the case. It’s knockdown time. The verbal pivot is akin to the moment when you’ve talked too much about an ex, catch yourself, and stop to emphasize that the ex in question is, of course, a worthless piece of shit.

I hear your cries for justice and change. And I realize that trust is earned, not given. But I want you to know that I am ready to brave the long road ahead. I’m ready to make the hard choices. I’m ready to grow and learn and regain control. Past wounds will heal and past wrongs will be corrected. The life we used to know will return. We are all part of the most dramatic time we’ve ever faced in our long history. But it’s an exciting time. An inspiring time. A time we will look back on centuries from now as a pivotal moment. A chance to prove the superiority of the Elvin Way. And I am honored to help us rise to the occasion.

Longest. Elevator. Ride. Of. His. Life. As Trez stood next to Selena in a glass-walled torture chamber, he was resolutely facing the closed doors—and praying for some kind of Dr. Who time warp thingy that had him stepping out of the goddamn thing rightfuckingnow. Eyeballs locked on the glowing line of numbers above the chrome doors, he wanted to vomit. L . . . 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50. “44” had yet to light up because they were in the screaming-fast, liver-in-your-loafer, express part of the joyride. “Oh, you should look out here,” Selena said, pivoting toward the all-access pass to vertigo. “This is so much fun!” A quick glance over his shoulder and he nearly hurled. His beautiful queen had not just gone over to the glass, but put her palms on it and leaned into the ever-higher view. Trez snapped back around. “Almost there. We’re almost at the top.” “Can we go down and come up again? I wonder what the descent is like!” Actually, maybe they should head back to the lobby. He was fairly sure he’d left his manhood there when this rocket ride had ignited.

It seemed to him that the Square, itself the accidental masonry of many years, the chance agglomeration of time and of disrupted strivings, was the center of the universe. It was for him, in his soul's picture, the earth's pivot, the granite core of changelessness, the eternal place where all things came and passed, and yet abode forever and would never change.

opened the book at random, in the manner of a lucky dip. It fell open at a pivotal scene, the one where Jane meets Mr. Rochester for the first time, startling his horse in the woods and causing him to fall. Pilot is there too, the handsome, soulful-eyed hound. If the book has one failing, it’s that there is insufficient mention of Pilot. You can’t have too much dog in a book.

Nights with bright pivots, departure, matter, uniquely voice, uniquely naked each day. Upon your breasts of still current, upon your legs ofharshness and water, upon the permanence and pride of your naked hair, I want to lie, my love, the tears now cast into the raucous basket where they gather, I want to lie, my love, alone with a syllable of destroyed silver, alone with a tip of your snowy breast.   It is not now possible, at times, to win except by falling, it is not now possible, between two people, to tremble, to touch the river’s flower: man fibers come like needles, transactions, fragments, families of repulsive coral, tempests and hard passages through carpets of winter.   Between lips and lips there are cities of great ash and moist crest, drops of when and how, indefinite traffic: between lips and lips, as if along a coast of sand and glass, the wind passes.   That is why you are endless, gather me up as if you were all solemnity, all nocturnal like a zone, until you merge with the lines of time.   Advance in sweetness, come to my side until the digital leaves of the violins have become silent, until the moss takes root in the thunder, until from the throbbing of hand and hand the roots come down.

From the perspective of sixties radicals, who regularly watched antiwar demonstrations attacked by nationalist teamsters and construction workers, the reactionary implications of corporatism appeared self-evident. The corporate suits and the well-paid, Archie Bunker elements of the industrial proletariat were clearly on the same side. Unsurprising then that the left-wing critique of bureaucracy at the time focused on the ways that social democracy had more in common with fascism than its proponents cared to admit. Unsurprising, too, that this critique seems utterly irrelevant today.* What began to happen in the seventies, and paved the way for what we see today, was a kind of strategic pivot of the upper echelons of U.S. corporate bureaucracy—away from the workers, and towards shareholders, and eventually, towards the financial structure as a whole. __________ *Though it is notable that it is precisely this sixties radical equation of communism, fascism, and the bureaucratic welfare state that has been taken up by right-wing populists in America today. The internet is rife with such rhetoric. One need only consider the way that 'Obamacare' is continually equated with socialism and Nazism, often both at the same time.

had placed myself on the wrong side of her, she pivoted round me so skillfully that I found her arm resting on my own and fell quite naturally into her rhythm of precise and noble deportment. I yielded to this all the more readily because the Guermantes attached no more importance to it than a truly learned man does to his learning, with the result that one is less intimidated in his company than in that of an ignoramus;

But in dissecting this shameful medical apartheid, an important cause is usually neglected: the history of ethically flawed medical experimentation with African Americans. Such research has played a pivotal role in forging the fear of medicine that helps perpetuate our nation’s racial health gulf. Historically, African Americans have been subjected to exploitative, abusive involuntary experimentation at a rate far higher than other ethnic groups.

Plainly, the strength of a hundred-odd Jedi couldn’t keep the galaxy from falling to this menace. One misstep--at one critical moment, by one pivotal person--could doom everyone they’d sworn to protect. No military force could stop this invasion, because it was a spiritual battle. And if one pivotal person fell to the dark side--or even used the ravishing, terrifying power of light in a wrong way--then this time, everything they knew might slide into stifling darkness.’ -Jacen Solo

In 1994, Friedman wrote a memo marked “Very Confidential” to Raymond, Mortimer, and Richard Sackler. The market for cancer pain was significant, Friedman pointed out: four million prescriptions a year. In fact, there were three-quarters of a million prescriptions just for MS Contin. “We believe that the FDA will restrict our initial launch of OxyContin to the Cancer pain market,” Friedman wrote. But what if, over time, the drug extended beyond that? There was a much greater market for other types of pain: back pain, neck pain, arthritis, fibromyalgia. According to the wrestler turned pain doctor John Bonica, one in three Americans was suffering from untreated chronic pain. If that was even somewhat true, it represented an enormous untapped market. What if you could figure out a way to market this new drug, OxyContin, to all those patients? The plan would have to remain secret for the time being, but in his memo to the Sacklers, Friedman confirmed that the intention was “to expand the use of OxyContin beyond Cancer patients to chronic non-malignant pain.” This was a hugely audacious scheme. In the 1940s, Arthur Sackler had watched the introduction of Thorazine. It was a “major” tranquilizer that worked wonders on patients who were psychotic. But the way the Sackler family made its first great fortune was with Arthur’s involvement in marketing the “minor” tranquilizers Librium and Valium. Thorazine was perceived as a heavy-duty solution for a heavy-duty problem, but the market for the drug was naturally limited to people suffering from severe enough conditions to warrant a major tranquilizer. The beauty of the minor tranquilizers was that they were for everyone. The reason those drugs were such a success was that they were pills that you could pop to relieve an extraordinary range of common psychological and emotional ailments. Now Arthur’s brothers and his nephew Richard would make the same pivot with a painkiller: they had enjoyed great success with MS Contin, but it was perceived as a heavy-duty drug for cancer. And cancer was a limited market. If you could figure out a way to market OxyContin not just for cancer but for any sort of pain, the profits would be astronomical. It was “imperative,” Friedman told the Sacklers, “that we establish a literature” to support this kind of positioning. They would suggest OxyContin for “the broadest range of use.” Still, they faced one significant hurdle. Oxycodone is roughly twice as potent as morphine, and as a consequence OxyContin would be a much stronger drug than MS Contin. American doctors still tended to take great care in administering strong opioids because of long-established concerns about the addictiveness of these drugs. For years, proponents of MS Contin had argued that in an end-of-life situation, when someone is in a mortal fight with cancer, it was a bit silly to worry about the patient’s getting hooked on morphine. But if Purdue wanted to market a powerful opioid like OxyContin for less acute, more persistent types of pain, one challenge would be the perception, among physicians, that opioids could be very addictive. If OxyContin was going to achieve its full commercial potential, the Sacklers and Purdue would have to undo that perception.

The attack in Charleston prompted a brief national debate on guns that pivoted to the Confederate flag, which Roof had been pictured with multiple times. As pressure began to mount over the symbol, there were several black churches set on fire in the South. I drove from one decimated house of worship to another and found the areas teeming with more Confederate symbols, as well as frequent scrawlings of swastikas and hate speech. There seemed, at that moment, to be something incredibly ugly and dangerous starting to seep out from under the country’s veneer.

Hate. Huh. He’d never hated himself. If anything, he’d always liked himself a little too much. Once, a human female had even accused him of picturing his own face while he climaxed. He hadn’t denied it, either, and next time he’d slept with her, he’d made sure to scream, “Strider” at the pivotal moment. She hadn’t appreciated his sense of humor, and that had been the final nail in their relationship coffin. He was too intense, too jaded, too warped and too…everything for most women to take for long. But so what. He was made of awesome. Anyone who couldn’t see that wasn’t smart enough to be with him, anyway. Haidee,

I’ve lived near here at several different stretches across time, but once, when I lived here a few hundred years ago, I had a camel I named Oded. He was just about the laziest creature ever to talk the Earth. He would pass out when I was in the middle of feeding him, and making it to the closest Bedouin camp for tea was a minor miracle. But when I first met you in that lifetime-“ “Oded broke into a run,” Luce said without thinking. “I screamed because I thought he was going to trample me. You said you’d never seen him move like that.” “Yeah, well,” Daniel said. “He liked you.” They paused and looked at each other, and Daniel started laughing when Luce’s jaw dropped. “I did it!” she cried out. “It was just there, in my memory, a part of me. Like it happened yesterday. I came to me without thinking!” It was miraculous. All those memories from all those lives that had been lost each time Lucinda died in Daniel’s arms were somehow finding their way back to her, the way Luce always found her way back to Daniel. No. She was finding her way to them. It was like a gate had been left open after Luce’s quest through the Announcers. Those memories stayed with her, from Moscow to Helston to Egypt. Now more were becoming available. She had a sudden, keen sense of who she was-and she wasn’t just Luce Price from Thunderbolt, Georgia. She was every girl she’d ever been, an amalgamation of experience, mistakes, achievements, and, above all, love. She was Lucinda. “Quick,” she said to Daniel. “Can we do another?” “Okay, how about another desert life? You were living in the Sahara when I found you. Tall and gangly and the fastest runner in your village. I was passing through one day, on my way to visit Roland, and I stopped for the night at the closest spring. All the other men were very distrustful of me, but-“ “But my father paid you three zebra skins for the knife you had in your satchel!” Daniel grinned. “He drove a hard bargain.” “This is amazing,” she said, nearly breathless. How much more did she have in her that she didn’t know about? How far back could she go? She pivoted to face him, drawing her knees against her chest and leaning in so that their foreheads were almost touching. “Can you remember everything about our pasts?” Daniel’s eyes softened at the corners. “Sometimes the order of things gets mixed up in my head. I’ll admit, I don’t remember long stretches of time I’ve spent alone, but I can remember every first glimpse of your face, every kiss of your lips, every memory I’ve ever made with you.

Nights with bright pivots, departure, matter, uniquely voice, uniquely naked each day. Upon your breasts of still current, upon your legs ofharshness and water, upon the permanence and pride of your naked hair, I want to lie, my love, the tears now cast into the raucous basket where they gather, I want to lie, my love, alone with a syllable of destroyed silver, alone with a tip of your snowy breast.   It is not now possible, at times, to win except by falling, it is not now possible, between two people, to tremble, to touch the river’s flower: man fibers come like needles, transactions, fragments, families of repulsive coral, tempests and hard passages through carpets of winter.   Between lips and lips there are cities of great ash and moist crest, drops of when and how, indefinite traffic: between lips and lips, as if along a coast of sand and glass, the wind passes.   That is why you are endless, gather me up as if you were all solemnity, all nocturnal like a zone, until you merge with the lines of time.   Advance in sweetness, come to my side until the digital leaves of the violins have become silent, until the moss takes root in the thunder, until from the throbbing of hand and hand the roots come down.   VALS Yo toco el odio como pecho diurno, yo sin cesar, de ropa en ropa, vengo durmiendo lejos.

The Irish butter market, like its competition around the world, wouldn’t have existed without the manual labor of women. All together, their ability to transform a daily tide of milk into tubs, balls, bricks, mottes, and prints of butter constituted a cottage industry of global proportion. Although their production varied in quality and quantity across the buttermaking world, the basic techniques and tools dairywomen used were nearly identical across time and place. It’s easy to forget that the simple equipment women wielded to make butter also drove dairy trade, and more than any other tools they were proof of women’s pivotal economic role on the farm.

He laughed quietly. 'A family is a strange thing,' he said. 'A family has to exist as its own premise, or else the system won't function. In that sense, my useless legs are kind of a banner that my family rallies around. My legs are the pivot around which things revolve.' He was tapping at the table top again. Not in irritation – merely moving his fingers and quietly contemplating things in his own time zone. One of the main characteristics of this system is that lack gravitates towards greater lack, excess towards greater excess. When Debussy was seeming to get nowhere with an opera he was composing, he put it this way: "I spend my days pursuing nothingness, –

What had become of the singular ascending ambition that had driven young Roosevelt from his earliest days? What explains his willingness, against the counsel of his most trusted friends, to accept seemingly low-level jobs that traced neither a clear-cut nor a reliably ascending career path? The answer lies in probing what Roosevelt gleaned from his crucible experience. His expectation of and belief in a smooth, upward trajectory, either in life or in politics, was gone forever. He questioned if leadership success could be obtained by attaching oneself to a series of titled positions. If a person focused too much on a future that could not be controlled, he would become, Roosevelt acknowledged, too “careful, calculating, cautious in word and act.” Thereafter, he would jettison long-term career calculations and focus simply on whatever job opportunity came his way, assuming it might be his last. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are,” he liked to say. In a very real way, Roosevelt had come to see political life as a succession of crucibles—good or bad—able to crush or elevate. He would view each position as a test of character, effort, endurance, and will. He would keep nothing in reserve for some will-o-the-wisp future. Rather, he would regard each job as a pivotal test, a manifestation of his leadership skills.

Suppose, Paley wrote, a man walking across a heath happens upon a watch lying on the ground. He picks up the instrument and opens it to find an exquisite system of cogs and wheels turning inside, resulting in a mechanical device that is capable of telling time. Would it not be logical to assume that such a device could only have been manufactured by a watchmaker? The same logic had to apply to the natural world, Paley reasoned. The exquisite construction of organisms and human organs-"the pivot upon which the head turns, the ligament within the socket of the hip joint"-could point only to one fact: that all organisms were created by a supremely proficient designer, a divine watchmaker: God.

I had been trying to find some sort of exercise program that wasn’t overly bourgeois, but I was having a problem. Weight-lifting was too obviously fascist in nature. Horseback riding was too imperialistic. I gave a lot of thought to starting a co-ed softball league, but that turns out to be closely tied to beer consumption, and I didn’t need the carbohydrates. I had to do something to improve my health that didn’t compromise my revolutionary ethics. (I went so far as to ask my mother for advice on the subject, and she sent me a link to a Chinese tour company that specialized in re-enactments of the Long March, which sounded fascinating but would take me away from Washington at a pivotal time in history, so I didn’t sign up.)

we live in a world where logic is massively overrated, emotions are seen as a weakness and decisions based on intuition have little or no place. We have forgotten where we came from. Over time, we have neglected the limbic brain that got us to the pivotal moment in our evolution, and instead placed the cortex on a pedestal. We have demoted depth, passion and instinct and come to rely on the surface-level capabilities—such as exams, rote-learning or transactional relationships—that are more connected with material gain than true joy. We live a life dominated by stress and are too busy to really take notice of who we are, where we are going and what we want from life. We are now at a moment where technology will disrupt our minds and bodies more than we can begin to imagine.

Did you step in?' Dain demands. 'Did I what?' Xaden arches a dark brow and levels a look on Dain that would make a lesser person wither. 'Did I see her outnumbered and already wounded? Did I think her bravery was as admirable as it was fucking reckless?' He turns that stare on me, and I feel the impact all the way to my toes. 'And I would do it again.' I raise my chin. 'Well-the-fuck-aware,' Xaden roars, losing his temper for the first time since I met him on Parapet. I pull in a quick breath, and Xaden does the same, as if he's just as shocked by his outburst as I am. 'Did I see her fight off three bigger cadets?' His gaze pivots to Dain. 'Because the answer to all of those is yes. But you're asking the wrong question, Aetos. What you should be asking is if Sgaeyl saw it, too.

And one cold Tuesday in December, when Marie-Laure has been blind for over a year, her father walks her up rue Cuvier to the edge of the Jardin des Plantes. "Here, ma chérie, is the path we take every morning. Through the cedars up ahead is the Grand Gallery." "I know, Papa." He picks her up and spins her around three times. "Now," he says, "you're going to take us home." Her mouth drops open. "I want you to think of the model, Marie." "But I can't possibly!" "I'm one step behind you. I won't let anything happen. You have your cane. You know where you are." "I do not!" "You do." Exasperation. She cannot even say if the gardens are ahead or behind. "Calm yourself, Marie. One centimeter at a time." "I'm far, Papa. Six blocks, at least." "Six blocks is exactly right. Use logic. Which way should we go first?" The world pivots and rumbles. Crows shout, brakes hiss, someone to her left bangs something metal with what might be a hammer. She shuffles forward until the tip of her cane floats in space. The edge of a curb? A pond, a staircase, a cliff? She turns ninety degrees. Three steps forward. Now her cane finds the base of a wall. "Papa?" "I'm here." Six paces seven paces eight. A roar of noise - an exterminator just leaving a house, pump bellowing - overtakes them. Twelve paces farther on, the bell tied around the handle of a shop door rings, and two women came out, jostling her as they pass. Marie-Laure drops her cane; she begins to cry. Her father lifts her, holds her to his narrow chest. "It's so big," she whispers. "You can do this, Marie." She cannot.

There is a deep stillness in the Fakahatchee, but there is not a moment of physical peace. Something is always brushing against you or lapping at you or snagging at you or tangling in your legs, and the sun is always pummeling your skin, and the wetness in the air makes your hair coil like a phone cord. You never smell plain air in a swamp - you smell the tang of mud and the sourness of rotting leaves and the cool musk of new leaves and the perfumes of a million different flowers floating by, each distinct but transparent, like soap bubbles. The biggest number in the universe would not be big enough to count the things your eyes see. Every inch of land holds up a thatch of tall grass or a bush or a tree, and every bush or tree is girdled with another plant’s roots, and every root is topped with a flower or a fern or a swollen bulb, and every one of those flowers and ferns is the pivot around which a world of bees and gnats and spiders and dragonflies revolve. The sounds you hear are twigs cracking underfoot and branches whistling past you and leaves murmuring and leaves slopping over the trunks of old dead trees and every imaginable and unimaginable insect noise and every kind of bird peep and screech and tootle, and then all those unclaimed sounds of something moving in a hurry, something low to the ground and heavy, maybe the size of a horse in the shape of a lizard, or maybe the size, shape and essential character of a snake. In the swamp you feel as if someone had plugged all of your senses into a light socket. A swamp is logy and slow-moving about at the same time highly overstimulating. Even in the dim, sultry places deep within it, it is easy to stay awake.

Always seeking to open channels to new dimensions of consciousness and reach new heights of enlightenment, he spent a lot of time and money endearing himself to and worming his way into the trust of secretive tribal healers and shamans. Under their guidance, he experimented with all kinds of psychoactive substances and entheogens—mostly plant-derived concoctions that played a pivotal role in the religious practices of the tribal cultures he was exploring. He started with more easily accessible, local mind-altering substances like psilocybin mushrooms and Salvia divinorum, under the guidance of Mazatec shamans in the isolated cloud forests of the Sierra Mazateca, then he moved on to more obscure, and more intense, hallucinogens like ayahuasca, the vine of the soul; iboga, the sacred visionary root; borrachero; and others that few outsiders had ever been offered. He

What is the future of men who have lost sight of the past? Earl Hollsopple lived on the edge of civilization in a deserted shack for nearly forty years. His life was one beautiful night of stargazing after another, until a helicopter flies overhead, and exposing his meager world. It is a sign; it is time for him to return to civilization. Unknowingly, Earl’s journey parallels another he had deeply repressed, and that is his return from the Vietnam War. The lone survivor of a plane crash, Earl waits for rescue that never came. He is left to find his way home alone. On both his quests, old Earl and young Earl learn lessons of survival, overcoming isolation and handling conflicts; his travels teach him not just about himself, but humankind. Reaching pivotal points in both journeys, Earl meets fateful loves, leading to destinies that are ultimately intertwined. Everything in life circles until we are able to answer the riddles that plaque man and humanity. Only until we take the journey, solve the problems of our own existence, do we find our way home.

Elle’s chin lifted. “I just told you how you could put your hands on me. One night. None of this dating bullshit.” A harsh noise came out of my throat, because the woman could be infuriating. I’d never thrown out an offer like this and having it pitched back in my face sucked ass. “Tell me why. What’s your hang up, woman? I get that I’m fucked up in a helluva lot of ways, but I’m not a bad guy. I don’t even deserve a shot?” The ice in her expression melted a degree. “It’s not you—” My laugh was gravelly. “Let me guess, it’s you?” That ice? It was back, in spades. She pivoted for the door, but I moved faster. I trapped her against it, a hand pressed to the wood on either side of her fiery red hair. “You’re going to tell me why before you leave this room.” “You’re not a bad guy? Just the kind that traps women against their will in a room they want to leave?” I smiled. “Not women—just you.” This time it was Elle who growled. She shoved against my chest, but I was an immovable rock where she was concerned. I didn’t budge. “You’re a caveman too, just like your brother, aren’t you? I’ve heard the stories. Is this a genetic issue?

For a long time he frowned at the brick path that lay between himself and the bird, and then he let go of the wall. He took one step and then more, buoyed up by some impossible antigravity. After two steps the hummingbird was gone, but Nicholas still headed for the air it had occupied, his hands grasping at vapour. It was as if an invisible balloon floated above him, tied to his overall strap, dragging him along from above. He swayed and swaggered, stabbing one toe at a time down at the ground, pivoting on the ball of one foot, and then suddenly the string was cut and down he bumped on his well-padded bottom. He looked at me and screamed. ‘You’re walking,’ I told Nicholas. ‘I promise you it gets easier. The rest of life doesn’t, but this really does.’ I stayed out there with my book for the rest of the afternoon, surreptitiously watching as he tried it over and over. He was completely undeterred by failure. The motivation packed in that small body was a miracle to see. I wished I could bottle that passion for accomplishment and squeeze out some of the elixir, one drop at a time, on my high-school students. They would move mountains.

If talking pictures could be said to have a father, it was Lee De Forest, a brilliant but erratic inventor of electrical devices of all types. (He had 216 patents.) In 1907, while searching for ways to boost telephone signals, De Forest invented something called the thermionic triode detector. De Forest’s patent described it as “a System for Amplifying Feeble Electric Currents” and it would play a pivotal role in the development of broadcast radio and much else involving the delivery of sound, but the real developments would come from others. De Forest, unfortunately, was forever distracted by business problems. Several companies he founded went bankrupt, twice he was swindled by his backers, and constantly he was in court fighting over money or patents. For these reasons, he didn’t follow through on his invention. Meanwhile, other hopeful inventors demonstrated various sound-and-image systems—Cinematophone, Cameraphone, Synchroscope—but in every case the only really original thing about them was their name. All produced sounds that were faint or muddy, or required impossibly perfect timing on the part of the projectionist. Getting a projector and sound system to run in perfect tandem was basically impossible. Moving pictures were filmed with hand-cranked cameras, which introduced a slight variability in speed that no sound system could adjust to. Projectionists also commonly repaired damaged film by cutting out a few frames and resplicing what remained, which clearly would throw out any recording. Even perfect film sometimes skipped or momentarily stuttered in the projector. All these things confounded synchronization. De Forest came up with the idea of imprinting the sound directly onto the film. That meant that no matter what happened with the film, sound and image would always be perfectly aligned. Failing to find backers in America, he moved to Berlin in the early 1920s and there developed a system that he called Phonofilm. De Forest made his first Phonofilm movie in 1921 and by 1923 he was back in America giving public demonstrations. He filmed Calvin Coolidge making a speech, Eddie Cantor singing, George Bernard Shaw pontificating, and DeWolf Hopper reciting “Casey at the Bat.” By any measure, these were the first talking pictures. However, no Hollywood studio would invest in them. The sound quality still wasn’t ideal, and the recording system couldn’t quite cope with multiple voices and movement of a type necessary for any meaningful dramatic presentation. One invention De Forest couldn’t make use of was his own triode detector tube, because the patents now resided with Western Electric, a subsidiary of AT&T. Western Electric had been using the triode to develop public address systems for conveying speeches to large crowds or announcements to fans at baseball stadiums and the like. But in the 1920s it occurred to some forgotten engineer at the company that the triode detector could be used to project sound in theaters as well. The upshot was that in 1925 Warner Bros. bought the system from Western Electric and dubbed it Vitaphone. By the time of The Jazz Singer, it had already featured in theatrical presentations several times. Indeed, the Roxy on its opening night in March 1927 played a Vitaphone feature of songs from Carmen sung by Giovanni Martinelli. “His voice burst from the screen with splendid synchronization with the movements of his lips,” marveled the critic Mordaunt Hall in the Times. “It rang through the great theatre as if he had himself been on the stage.

Here he comes,” Blake said. When Kaidan climbed the steps to the deck he came straight for me, his hair slicked back with sweat from running. He took my face in his hands, breathing hard, lips tight, eyes like blue blazes. “Don’t ever do that again,” he ground out. It took a second to process his words and remember what exactly I wasn’t supposed to do again. Then I recalled interfering. “I know it was dangerous,” I admitted, “but there were five of them—” “I can bloody well handle myself, Anna!” His hands flung away from my face. “Maybe if there were only a couple, but there were five pissed-off psychos with weapons! I couldn’t just stand there and watch!” Kaidan, exasperated, pivoted like he was going to walk away, raked his fingers through his hair, and turned to me again. “What did you think you could do?” he asked. “You got in a lucky shot when you racked him, but what if it hadn’t worked? As you saw today your mind powers don’t always work!” Ah. He had no idea what I was capable of now. I held a hand out. “Give me your knife.” His eyebrows went together. “What?” “Just give it to me.” I stepped closer, feeling edgy. “No, Anna, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but this is ridic—” My movements were fast as I went for him full force, using all my body weight and strength to hook a foot behind his knee and slam my palm into his shoulder. He landed on his back with a surprised oof and I crouched over him. “Give me your knife,” I said again. “Holy . . .” Blake let out a long whistle from where he watched at the rail. Kaidan lay there with a whimsical sort of look and said, “God, that was hot.” I held out my hand. This time he fished the knife from his waistband and placed the onyx handle in my palm. From my crouched position I momentarily eyed a wooden bird statue perched at the top of the deck rail twenty feet away, then let the cool metal fly from my fingers. It spun through the air with a sound like rapid wing beats, then a whump as it stuck into the side of the bird’s head. “Dude!” Blake yelled. Beneath me, where Kaidan lay, burst a vivid cloud of red so brief I wondered if I’d imagined it. I stared down at him in shock. “You showed your colors!” I said. “Did not.” He pushed himself up and we both stood. “You totally let ’em out, brah,” Blake told him with a grin. “Shut up.” When he peered down at me I said, “I’ve been training. I’m not completely helpless anymore.” “I can see that,” he murmured.

at the moment—and looking for other boats. Kelly advanced the port throttle a notch farther as he turned the wheel, allowing Springer to pivot all the more quickly in the narrow channel, and then he was pointed straight out. He advanced the starboard throttle next, bringing his cruiser to a mannerly five knots as he headed past the ranks of motor and sail yachts. Pam was looking around at the boats, too, mainly aft, and her eyes fixed on the parking lot for a long couple of seconds before she looked forward again, her body relaxing more as she did so. “You know anything about boats?” Kelly asked. “Not much,” she admitted, and for the first time he noticed her accent. “Where you from?” “Texas. How about you?” “Indianapolis, originally, but it’s been a while.” “What’s this?” she asked. Her hands reached out to touch the tattoo on his forearm. “It’s from one of the places I’ve been,” he said. “Not a very nice place.” “Oh, over there.” She understood. “That’s the place.” Kelly nodded matter-of-factly. They were out of the yacht basin now, and he advanced the throttles yet again. “What did you do there?” “Nothing to talk to a lady about,” Kelly replied, looking around from a half-standing position. “What makes you think I’m a lady?” she asked. It caught him short, but he was getting used to it by now. He’d also found that talking to a girl, no matter what the subject, was something that he needed to do. For the first time he answered her smile with one of his own. “Well, it wouldn’t be very nice of me if I assumed that you weren’t.” “I wondered how long it would be before you smiled.” You have a very nice smile, her tone told him. How’s six months grab you? he almost said. Instead he laughed, mainly at himself. That was something else he needed to do. “I’m sorry. Guess I haven’t been very good company.” He turned to look at her again and saw understanding in her eyes. Just a quiet look, very human and feminine, but it shook Kelly. He could feel it happen, and ignored the part of his consciousness that told him that it was something he’d needed badly for months. That was something he didn’t need to hear, especially from himself. Loneliness was bad enough without reflection on its misery. Her hand reached out yet again, ostensibly to stroke the tattoo, but that wasn’t what it was all about. It was amazing how warm her touch was, even under a hot afternoon sun. Perhaps it was a measure of just how cold his life had become. But he had a boat to navigate. There was

He was taking another hit from his short-and-squat of Goose when his eyes skipped to the arched doorway of the room. Jane hesitated as she glanced inside, her white coat opening as she leaned to the side, as if she were looking for him. When their eyes met, she smiled a little. And then a lot. His first impulse was to hide his own grin behind his Goose. But then he stopped himself. New world order. Come on, smile, motherfucker, he thought. Jane gave a short wave and played it cool, which was what they usually did when they were together in public. Turning away, she headed over to the bar to make herself something. “Hold up, cop,” V murmured, putting his drink down and bracing his cue against the table. Feeling like he was fifteen, he put his hand-rolled between his teeth and tucked his wife-beater tightly into the waistband of his leathers. A quick smooth of the hair and he was . . . well, as ready as he could be. He approached Jane from behind just as she struck up a convo with Mary—and when his shellan pivoted around to greet him, she seemed a little surprised that he’d come up to her. “Hi, V . . . How are—” Vishous stepped in close, putting them body to body, and then he wrapped his arms around her waist. Holding her with possession, he slowly bent her backward until she gripped his shoulders and her hair fell from her face. As she gasped, he said exactly what he thought: “I missed you.” And on that note, he put his mouth on hers and kissed the ever-living hell out of her, sweeping one hand down to her hip as he slipped his tongue in her mouth, and kept going and going and going . . . He was vaguely aware that the room had fallen stone silent and that everything with a heartbeat was staring at him and his mate. But whatever. This was what he wanted to do, and he was going to do it in front of everyone—and the king’s dog, as it turned out. Because Wrath and Beth came in from the foyer. As Vishous slowly righted his shellan, the catcalls and whistling started up, and someone threw a handful of popcorn like it was confetti. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” Hollywood said. And threw more popcorn. Vishous cleared his throat. “I have an announcement to make.” Right. Okay, there were a lot of eyes on the pair of them. But he was so going to suck up his inclination to bow out. Tucking his flustered and blushing Jane into his side, he said loud and clear: “We’re getting mated. Properly. And I expect you all to be there and . . . Yeah, that’s it.” Dead. Quiet. Then Wrath released the handle on George’s harness and started to clap. Loud and slow. “About. Fucking. Time.

People often ask me, “Do you seriously expect this idea of God to change the world? What about all the fanatics and terrorists?” All I can say is that the only thing that changes the world is an idea that lights our fire at a moment when we are surrounded by dry, dead kindling. Today is that kind of time. Spiritual transformation doesn’t require a majority vote. It doesn’t matter if most people don’t get it. All it takes is a committed minority, because the committed lead culture. The new scientific picture of the universe is a modern revelation. For many the realization that God can be real and is emerging from human aspirations will also be a revelation. That these revelations are both happening now, at so pivotal a moment for our species, is truly grace. They have helped me move into the new universe and feel blessed and awestruck every day, as though I’d moved from a dark basement apartment into a mountain aerie with a hundred-mile view in all directions. I don’t expect millions of people to change their ideas of God overnight, but to those who care about the human future and can see beyond ideology, to those who believe that truth matters, and to those who recognize the potential of humanity but don’t see how to make us rise to that potential, it could make all the difference to discover a God that is real.

Syn’s head snapped back at Furi’s rant. “Alright. You’re upset about what just happened and you’re projecting. I’m gonna give you some alone time. There’s beer in the fridge, guest bath is down the hall. Make yourself at home.” Syn turned to go to his bedroom. He’d be damned if he was going to let Furi turn this into a fight about him accepting who he was. “Fucking coward,” Furi mumbled. Syn halted at his bedroom door. Did he really just fucking say that? Syn pivoted on his heels and hurried back into the living room. “What the fuck did you just call me?” Furi’s eyes bulged at Syn’s anger. He rose slowly from his seated position and eased around to the other side of the couch. The fear on his face quickly turned to anger. “You want to fight me? Beat me up, Detective?” “What?” Syn gasped at the absurdity of that question. He faced Furi head on and held his angry, black glare with his own. “First of all, how dare you even think for a second that I would put my hands on you in anger? Just because the bastard you chose to marry did, doesn’t mean all men hit.” Syn pointed at his chest. “I’m not a coward, Furious. In case you forgot, I just saved your goddamn life.” “Oh no, I haven’t forgotten, but yes you’re the worst kind of coward. You’re not scared of being shot at or throwing yourself in front of two tons of speeding metal, but you’re afraid to hold a man’s hand, a man you claim to like, in public. Such a badass in the fucking street, but too pussy to admit what you really are.” Syn wasn’t sure how long he stared at Furi before turning walking to his room, slamming the door behind him.

Last year, I did a comprehensive study of T. E. Lawrence—Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence played a pivotal role in the development of the modern Arab world. He was both pro-Arab and a Zionist. Unlike today, during this time period, this was not a contradiction. I read the entirety of Lawrence’s tome, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, as well as his personal letters. Colonel Lawrence had a comprehensive and personal relation with the emerging Arab political leaders during World War I. He also encountered the Persians (the Iranians of today). He made an interesting and important observation regarding their unique view of Islam. Lawrence observed that the “Shia Mohammedans from Pershia . . . were surly and fanatical, refusing to eat or drink with infidels; holding the Sunni as bad as Christians; following only their own priests and notables.” Each of these three leaders provides valuable insight into the intrigue that is the Middle East today, because the lessons they learned from their leadership in their eras can instruct us on the challenges we face in our own time. A new alliance has developed in the last few years that has created what I call an unholy alliance. History often repeats itself. We no longer have the luxury of simply letting history unfold. We must change the course of events, rewriting the history if needed, to preserve our constitutional republic. In this volume, I discuss and analyze the history and suggest a path of engagement to end what is the latest in a history-spanning line of attempts to export Sharia law and radical jihad around the world. We will win. We must win. We have no option.

crucial that we acknowledge two cardinal truths. First, whining and complaining about unfavorable conditions does nothing to resolve them. Second, it can too easily introduce a host of negative emotions that result in further despair and disappointment. Maintaining a positive mindset is pivotal to facing adversity with courage. Each morning, reflect on things that have gone right for you. Each afternoon, think about everything you have for which to be thankful. Each evening, before you go to bed, contemplate the small victories you enjoyed throughout the day. Practice gratitude daily. Habit #5: Build a tolerance for change. Mental toughness requires that you be flexible to your circumstances. When things go wrong, you must be able to adapt in order to act with purpose. Most of us dread change. We enjoy predictability because it reduces uncertainty. Fear of uncertainty is one of the chief impediments to taking purposeful action. Building this habit entails leaving your comfort zone. It calls for actively seeking changes that you can incorporate into your life. The upside is that doing so will desensitize you to changing circumstances, increasing your tolerance for them. As your tolerance increases, your fear will naturally erode. The great thing about habit development is that you can advance at your own pace. Again, it’s best to start with small steps and progress slowly. But each of us is different with regard to what “small” and “slowly” mean. Design a plan that aligns with your existing routines and caters to your available time, attention, and energy. EXERCISE #6 Write down three habits you’d like to develop. Next to each one, write down

5. Move toward resistance and pain A. Bill Bradley (b. 1943) fell in love with the sport of basketball somewhere around the age of ten. He had one advantage over his peers—he was tall for his age. But beyond that, he had no real natural gift for the game. He was slow and gawky, and could not jump very high. None of the aspects of the game came easily to him. He would have to compensate for all of his inadequacies through sheer practice. And so he proceeded to devise one of the most rigorous and efficient training routines in the history of sports. Managing to get his hands on the keys to the high school gym, he created for himself a schedule—three and a half hours of practice after school and on Sundays, eight hours every Saturday, and three hours a day during the summer. Over the years, he would keep rigidly to this schedule. In the gym, he would put ten-pound weights in his shoes to strengthen his legs and give him more spring to his jump. His greatest weaknesses, he decided, were his dribbling and his overall slowness. He would have to work on these and also transform himself into a superior passer to make up for his lack of speed. For this purpose, he devised various exercises. He wore eyeglass frames with pieces of cardboard taped to the bottom, so he could not see the basketball while he practiced dribbling. This would train him to always look around him rather than at the ball—a key skill in passing. He set up chairs on the court to act as opponents. He would dribble around them, back and forth, for hours, until he could glide past them, quickly changing direction. He spent hours at both of these exercises, well past any feelings of boredom or pain. Walking down the main street of his hometown in Missouri, he would keep his eyes focused straight ahead and try to notice the goods in the store windows, on either side, without turning his head. He worked on this endlessly, developing his peripheral vision so he could see more of the court. In his room at home, he practiced pivot moves and fakes well into the night—such skills that would also help him compensate for his lack of speed. Bradley put all of his creative energy into coming up with novel and effective ways of practicing. One time his family traveled to Europe via transatlantic ship. Finally, they thought, he would give his training regimen a break—there was really no place to practice on board. But below deck and running the length of the ship were two corridors, 900 feet long and quite narrow—just enough room for two passengers. This was the perfect location to practice dribbling at top speed while maintaining perfect ball control. To make it even harder, he decided to wear special eyeglasses that narrowed his vision. For hours every day he dribbled up one side and down the other, until the voyage was done. Working this way over the years, Bradley slowly transformed himself into one of the biggest stars in basketball—first as an All-American at Princeton University and then as a professional with the New York Knicks. Fans were in awe of his ability to make the most astounding passes, as if he had eyes on the back and sides of his head—not to mention his dribbling prowess, his incredible arsenal of fakes and pivots, and his complete gracefulness on the court. Little did they know that such apparent ease was the result of so many hours of intense practice over so many years.

John Doerr, the legendary venture capitalist who backed Netscape, Google, and Amazon, doesn’t remember the exact day anymore; all he remembers is that it was shortly before Steve Jobs took the stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on January 9, 2007, to announce that Apple had reinvented the mobile phone. Doerr will never forget, though, the moment he first laid eyes on that phone. He and Jobs, his friend and neighbor, were watching a soccer match that Jobs’s daughter was playing in at a school near their homes in Palo Alto. As play dragged on, Jobs told Doerr that he wanted to show him something. “Steve reached into the top pocket of his jeans and pulled out the first iPhone,” Doerr recalled for me, “and he said, ‘John, this device nearly broke the company. It is the hardest thing we’ve ever done.’ So I asked for the specs. Steve said that it had five radios in different bands, it had so much processing power, so much RAM [random access memory], and so many gigabits of flash memory. I had never heard of so much flash memory in such a small device. He also said it had no buttons—it would use software to do everything—and that in one device ‘we will have the world’s best media player, world’s best telephone, and world’s best way to get to the Web—all three in one.’” Doerr immediately volunteered to start a fund that would support creation of applications for this device by third-party developers, but Jobs wasn’t interested at the time. He didn’t want outsiders messing with his elegant phone. Apple would do the apps. A year later, though, he changed his mind; that fund was launched, and the mobile phone app industry exploded. The moment that Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone turns out to have been a pivotal junction in the history of technology—and the world.

listen. it wouldn't have hurt so much if she wasn't the girl i always wanted to be. in high school i carved the word ugly into my skin so that even if i once reached that pivotal point of high self esteem i would always be reminded of who i was underneath it all and i wanted so badly to be the athletic girl who put makeup on effortlessly who knew a thing or two about fashion whose laughter sounded like flowers blooming who knew what it meant to be sad, and anxious, but in the beautiful way in the mysterious way in the way that could be cured by true love's kiss whose skin was always soft and hair always brushed - sometimes styled - long, and long, and dark, and wavy a fine contrast against her light eyes and pale skin that never led anyone to question just where she was from whose body hair was fine, or at least taken care of so frequently and expertly, that no one ever questioned just where she fell in human evolution whose body curved in all the right places whose skin was taut with muscle and soft with and inviting where it should be who ate right who never smoked and never tried to end her life; once, twice, seventeen times who liked art but didn't really understand it who studied hard even though she hated it who cared about injustice but not to the point that too much thought would led her to unending, selfish tears whose eyes could stop an army and whose lips never fell into a thin line whose kisses you remember and whose body you miss when you're lying in a bed without her whose warmth you reach out for not just from habit or desire but need - desperate need who didn't make loving her hard who you missed, even when you were with another the girl who everyone knew was beautiful - they just knew, ok. they just knew her name and they would say: 'yes, her. she's very beautiful.' (...) it wouldn't hurt so much if you weren't everything i was looking for, everything i wanted, and so was she

ON THE MODUS OPERANDI OF OUR CURRENT PRESIDENT, DONALD J. TRUMP "According to a new ABC/Washington Post poll, President Trump’s disapproval rating has hit a new high." The President's response to this news was "“I don’t do it for the polls. Honestly — people won’t necessarily agree with this — I do nothing for the polls,” the president told reporters on Wednesday. “I do it to do what’s right. I’m here for an extended period of time. I’m here for a period that’s a very important period of time. And we are straightening out this country.” - Both Quotes Taken From Aol News - August 31, 2018 In The United States, as in other Republics, the two main categories of Presidential motivation for their assigned tasks are #1: Self Interest in seeking to attain and to hold on to political power for their own sakes, regarding the welfare of This Republic to be of secondary importance. #2: Seeking to attain and to hold on to the power of that same office for the selfless sake of this Republic's welfare, irregardless of their personal interest, and in the best of cases going against their personal interests to do what is best for this Republic even if it means making profound and extreme personal sacrifices. Abraham Lincoln understood this last mentioned motivation and gave his life for it. The primary information any political scientist needs to ascertain regarding the diagnosis of a particular President's modus operandi is to first take an insightful and detailed look at the individual's past. The litmus test always being what would he or she be willing to sacrifice for the Nation. In the case of our current President, Donald John Trump, he abandoned a life of liberal luxury linked to self imposed limited responsibilities for an intensely grueling, veritably non stop two year nightmare of criss crossing this immense Country's varied terrain, both literally and socially when he could have easily maintained his life of liberal leisure. While my assertion that his personal choice was, in my view, sacrificially done for the sake of a great power in a state of rapid decline can be contradicted by saying it was motivated by selfish reasons, all evidence points to the contrary. For knowing the human condition, fraught with a plentitude of weaknesses, for a man in the end portion of his lifetime to sacrifice an easy life for a hard working incessant schedule of thankless tasks it is entirely doubtful that this choice was made devoid of a special and even exalted inspiration to do so. And while the right motivations are pivotal to a President's success, what is also obviously needed are generic and specific political, military and ministerial skills which must be naturally endowed by Our Creator upon the particular President elected for the purposes of advancing a Nation's general well being for one and all. If one looks at the latest National statistics since President Trump took office, (such as our rising GNP, the booming market, the dramatically shrinking unemployment rate, and the overall positive emotive strains in regards to our Nation's future, on both the left and the right) one can make definitive objective conclusions pertaining to the exceptionally noble character and efficiency of the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And if one can drown out the constant communicative assaults on our current Commander In Chief, and especially if one can honestly assess the remarkable lack of substantial mistakes made by the current President, all of these factors point to a leader who is impressively strong, morally and in other imperative ways. And at the most propitious time. For the main reason that so many people in our Republic palpably despise our current President is that his political and especially his social agenda directly threatens their licentious way of life. - John Lars Zwerenz

Visible over Madame’s shoulder was a clock, hanging on the wall between a flag and a poster. The poster was for a new brand of beer, featuring three bikini-clad young women sprouting breasts the size and shape of children’s balloons; the flag was of the defeated Republic of Vietnam, three bold red horizontal stripes on a vivid field of yellow. This was the flag, as the General had noted more than once to me, of the free Vietnamese people. I had seen the flag countless times before, and posters like that one often, but I had never seen this type of clock, carved from hardwood into the shape of our homeland. For this clock that was a country, and this country that was a clock, the minute and hour hands pivoted in the south, the numbers of the dial a halo around Saigon. Some craftsman in exile had understood that this was exactly the timepiece his refugee countrymen desired. We were displaced persons, but it was time more than space that defined us. While the distance to return to our lost country was far but finite, the number of years it would take to close that distance was potentially infinite. Thus, for displaced people, the first question was always about time: When can I return? Speaking of punctuality, I said to Madame, your clock is set to the wrong time. No, she said, rising to fetch the beer. It’s set to Saigon time. Of course it was. How could I not have seen it? Saigon time was fourteen hours off, although if one judged time by this clock, it was we who were fourteen hours off. Refugee, exile, immigrant—whatever species of displaced human we were, we did not simply live in two cultures, as celebrants of the great American melting pot imagined. Displaced people also lived in two time zones, the here and the there, the present and the past, being as we were reluctant time travelers. But while science fiction imagined time travelers as moving forward or backward in time, this timepiece demonstrated a different chronology. The open secret of the clock, naked for all to see, was that we were only going in circles.

Thinking it Ranulf, she tugged the garment down and beamed the incomer a smile. The smile changed to one of shock at seeing her sisters-both up and already dressed. Seeing her initial jubilant welcome, Edythe snorted and rubbed her arms vigorously in an attempt to get warmer. Lily, on the other hand, laughed. "Sorry. You obviously hoped we were someone else," she mumbled, not meaning it at all. Tyr poked his head in and, looking at Edythe, said, "We are to be leaving soon.Be ready." Edythe issued him a scowl and rubbed her very red nose. "I heard you the first five times," she moaned. "The man does not believe in sleep and cannot seem to get it through his head that some do," she added, speaking to Bronwyn but keeping her gaze on him. Tyr arched a single brow and stepped inside. "I sleep,just not all day." Edythe sniffed.She wasn't feeling her best, but she was not about to let Tyr chide her without consequences. "You may have been the one standing beside me at the alter, but that doesn't give you permission to act like my husband." "I know your husband well, and Garik's going to feel the same way," Tyr responded, crossing his arms. Edythe lifted her chin and several locks of her red hair fell around her shoulders. "Not after I'm done with him. He'll be glad to have a wife. And the fact that I like to sleep in bed, he's going to consider a bonus." Then with a manufactured flair, she stepped around him and plopped down on the fur blankets with enough force that her hastily made braid came totally undone. Few outside of family had ever seen Edythe's auburn tresses completely free, but those who did were blessed with a sight that denied description. Tyr just stared at her for several seconds. Every muscle in his body had gone tight and he looked as if he were struggling just to breathe. A second later,he pivoted and abruptly exited the tent, stomping off with no effort to hide his displeasure. Edythe, who refused to look at him, could no longer pretend to be ignorant of Tyr's mood. "The man is a menace," she mumbled as she once again rubbed her nose.

We need to leave as soon as possible." "Okay," Luce said. "I have to go home, then, pack, get my passport..." Her mind whirled in a hundred directions as she started making a mental to-do list. Her parents would be at the mall for at least another couple of hours, enough time for her to dash in and get her things together... "Oh, cute." Annabelle laughed, flitting over to them, her feet inches off the ground. Her wings were muscular and dark silver like a thundercloud, protruding through the invisible slits in her hot-pink T-shirt. "Sorry to butt in but...you've never traveled with an angel before, have you?" Sure she had. The feeling of Daniel's wings soaring her body through the air was as natural as anything. Maybe her flights had been brief, but they'd been unforgettable. They were when Luce felt closest to him: his arms threaded around her waist, his heart beating close to hers, his white wings protecting them, making Luce feel unconditionally and impossibly loved. She had flown with Daniel dozens of times in dreams, but only three times in her waking hours: once over the hidden lake behind Sword & Cross, another time along the coast at Shoreline, and down from the clouds to the cabin just the previous night. "I guess we've never flown that far together," she said at last. "Just getting to first base seems to be a problem for you two," Cam couldn't resist saying. Daniel ignored him. "Under normal circumstances, I think you'd enjoy the trip." His expression turned stormy. "But we don't have room for normal for the next nine days." Luce felt his hands on the backs of her shoulders, gathering her hair and lifting it off her neck. He kissed her along the neckline of her sweater as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Luce closed her eyes. She knew what was coming next. The most beautiful sound there was-that elegant whoosh of the love of her life letting out his driven-snow-white wings. The world on the other side of Luce's eyelids darkened slightly under the shadow of his wings, and warmth welled in her heart. When she opened her eyes, there they were, as magnificent as ever. She leaned back a little, cozying into the wall of Daniel's chest as he pivoted toward the window. "This is only a temporary separation," Daniel announced to the others. "Good luck and wingspeed.

He finds a basket and lays fish inside it. Charcoal is in a wooden bucket. Enrique lifts it, basket in his other hand, and moves through shadow toward daylight. A presence makes him turn his head. He sees no one, yet someone is there. He sets down fish and charcoal. Straightening up, Enrique slips his Bowie knife clear of its sheath. He listens, tries to sense the man’s place. This intruder lies low. Is concealed. Behind those barrels? In that corner, crouched down? Enrique shuts his eyes, holds his breath a moment and exhales, his breath’s movement the only sound, trying to feel on his skin some heat from another body. Where? Enrique sends his mind among barrels and sacks, under shelves, behind posts and dangling utensils. It finds no one. He is hiding. Wants not to be found. Is afraid. If he lies under a tarpaulin, he cannot see. To shoot blind would be foolish: likely to miss, certain to alert the others. Enrique steps around barrels, his boots silent on packed sand. Tarps lie parallel in ten-foot lengths, their wheaten hue making them visible in the shadowed space. They are dry and hold dust. All but one lies flat. There. Enrique imagines how it will be. To strike through the tarp risks confusion. Its heavy canvas can deflect his blade. But his opponent will have difficulty using his weapon. He might fire point-blank into Enrique’s weight above him, bearing down. To pull the tarpaulin clear is to lose his advantage; he will see the intruder who will see him. An El Norte mercenary with automatic rifle or handheld laser can cut a man in half. Knife in his teeth, its ivory handle smooth against lips and tongue, Enrique crouches low. Pushing hard with his legs, he dives onto the hidden shape. The man spins free as Enrique grasps, boots slipping on waxed canvas. His opponent feels slight, yet wiry strength defeats Enrique’s hold. He takes his knife in hand and rips a slit long enough to plunge an arm into his adversary’s shrouded panic. Enrique thrusts the blade’s point where he believes a throat must be. Two strong hands clamp his arm and twist against each other rapidly and hard. Pain flares across his skin. Enrique wrests his arm free and his knife flies from his grasp and disappears behind him. He clenches-up and, pivoting on his other hand, turns hard into a blind punch that smashes the hidden face. The dust of their struggle rasps in Enrique’s throat. His intended killer sucks in a hard breath and Enrique hits him again, then again, each time turning his shoulder into the blow. The man coughs out, “Do not kill me.” Enrique knows this voice. It is Omar the Turk. [pp. 60-61]

Chicago, Illinois 1896 Opening Night Wearing her Brünnhilda costume, complete with padding, breastplate, helm, and false blond braids, and holding a spear as if it were a staff, Sophia Maxwell waited in the wings of the Canfield-Pendegast theatre. The bright stage lighting made it difficult to see the audience filling the seats for opening night of Die Walküre, but she could feel their anticipation build as the time drew near for the appearance of the Songbird of Chicago. She took slow deep breaths, inhaling the smell of the greasepaint she wore on her face. Part of her listened to the music for her cue, and the other part immersed herself in the role of the god Wotan’s favorite daughter. From long practice, Sophia tried to ignore quivers of nervousness. Never before had stage fright made her feel ill. Usually she couldn’t wait to make her appearance. Now, however, nausea churned in her stomach, timpani banged pain-throbs through her head, her muscles ached, and heat made beads of persperation break out on her brow. I feel more like a plucked chicken than a songbird, but I will not let my audience down. Annoyed with herself, Sophia reached for a towel held by her dresser, Nan, standing at her side. She lifted the helm and blotted her forehead, careful not to streak the greasepaint. Nan tisked and pulled out a small brush and a tin of powder from one of the caprious pockets of her apron. She dipped the brush into the powder and wisked it across Sophia’s forehead. “You’re too pale. You need more rouge.” “No time.” A rhythmic sword motif sounded the prelude to Act ll. Sophia pivoted away from Nan and moved to the edge of the wing, looking out to the scene of a rocky mountain pass. Soon the warrior-maiden Brünnhilda would make an appearance with her famous battle cry. She allowed the anticpaptory energy of the audience to fill her body. The trills of the high strings and upward rushing passes in the woodwinds introduced Brünnhilda. Right on cue, Sophia made her entrance and struck a pose. She took a deep breath, preparing to hit the opening notes of her battle call. But as she opened her mouth to sing, nothing came out. Caught off guard, Sophia cleared her throat and tried again. Nothing. Horrified, she glanced around, as if seeking help, her body hot and shaky with shame. Across the stage in the wings, Sophia could see Judith Deal, her understudy and rival, watching. The other singer was clad in a similar costume to Sophia’s for her role as the valkerie Gerhilde. A triumphant expression crossed her face. Warwick Canfield-Pendegast, owner of the theatre, stood next to Judith, his face contorted in fury. He clenched his chubby hands. A wave of dizziness swept through Sophia. The stage lights dimmed. Her knees buckled. As she crumpled to the ground, one final thought followed her into the darkness. I’ve just lost my position as prima dona of the Canfield-Pendegast Opera Company.

Without thinking, she delivered a stinging slap, all her hurt and disappointment behind the impact. The imprint of her hand on his cheek shocked her. And though she immediately regretted her childish action, pride forbade her to own up to it. "Mind your manners, next time, Sinclair!" Across the yard, Luter Hicks halted and burst into guffaws. "Guess she told you, lapdog! Hey, honey," he called to Willow, "if he ain't satisfying you, how 'bout lettin' me warm your bed tonight?" An angry growl rolled out of Rider's throat. He pulled Willow up on her tiptoes, mashing her breasts against his hard chest. His fingers plowed through her thick tresses, knocking her bonnet off and scattering her hair pins. Then clasping her chin between his thumb and fingers, he tipped her head back and took fierce possession of her mouth. When he finally released her lips, he set her down a little harder than necessary. "I'll kill the first man who even blinks at you," he ground out loud enough for Hicks to hear. Then in a low, no-nonsense voice,meant for her ears alone, he ordered, "Kiss me and make it look good!" Willow glanced over at Hick's eager face and cringed. Her pride be damned! Sinclair was by far the lesser evil. She swept her arms around his neck. "Whatever you say...lover," she hissed in his ear. Standing on tiptoe again, she slowly brought his head down and pasted her lips to his. But he would have none of her stiff-lipped kiss and increased the pressure on her mouth until she opened to his brazen tongue. As the kiss deepened, he spread one big hand at the base of her spine and molded her stomach against his hard, hot need. Willow's blood sang, her anger instantly gone in the heat of the moment. "Mr. Sinclair!" Miriam interrupted in a berating tone. "You degrade this young lady with your public display. Unhand her at once!" Without his supporting arms, Willow's weak knees barely held her upright. She stumbled backwards, thoroughly stunned by her backfiring emotions. A loud crash snapped her to her senses when Luther threw his plate against the house and stomped off to the bunkouse. Rider collected himself and stooped to pick up Willow's discarded bonnet. Carefully brushing the dust off, he handed it to her without a word. Willow took her hat, gave him a perfunctory nod, and ground her heel into his toe as she pivoted to enter the house. Unaware of the young man's pained expression, Miriam followed on the girl's heels. "Talk about circuses!" she exclaimed, closing the door behind them. "It was just an act for Hick's benefit," Willow defended. Feeling the need to escape Miriam's all-too-knowing glance,she headed down the hall to her room. A heavy boot kicked at the door. Miriam opened it and Rider limped in. "Where do you want these?" he growled testily from behind a tower of packages. "Put them on the settee for now, thank you," Miriam said. "I'd have you carry them back to Willow's room but it isn't a healthy place for you right now." Rider only grunted,dumped the bundles, and returned to the wagon for another armload.

Democracy, the apple of the eye of modern western society, flies the flag of equality, tolerance, and the right of its weaker members to defense and protection. The flag bearers for children's rights adhere to these same values. But should democracy bring about the invalidation of parental authority? Does democracy mean total freedom for children? Is it possible that in the name of democracy, parents are no longer allowed to say no to their children or to punish them? The belief that punishment is harmful to children has long been a part of our culture. It affects each and every one of us and penetrates our awareness via the movies we see and the books we read. It is a concept that has become a kingpin of modern society and helps form the media's attitudes toward parenting, as well as influencing legislation and courtroom decisions. In recent years, the children's rights movement has enjoyed enormous momentum and among the current generation, this movement has become pivotal and is stronger than ever before. Educational systems are embracing psychological concepts in which stern approaches and firm discipline during childhood are said to create emotional problems in adulthood, and liberal concepts have become the order of the day. To prevent parents from abusing their children, the public is constantly being bombarded by messages of clemency and boundless consideration; effectively, children should be forgiven, parents should be understanding, and punishment should be avoided. Out of a desire to protect children from all hardship and unpleasantness, parental authority has become enfeebled and boundaries have been blurred. Nonetheless, at the same time society has seen a worrying rise in violence, from domestic violence to violence at school and on the streets. Sweden, a pioneer in enacting legislation that limits parental authority, is now experiencing a dramatic rise in child and youth violence. The country's lawyers and academics, who have established a committee for human rights, are now protesting that while Swedish children are protected against light physical punishment from their parents (e.g., being spanked on the bottom), they are exposed to much more serious violence from their peers. The committee's position is supported by statistics that indicate a dramatic rise in attacks on children and youths by their peers over the years since the law went into effect (9-1). Is it conceivable, therefore, that a connection exists between legislation that forbids across-the-board physical punishment and a rise in youth violence? We believe so! In Israel, where physical punishment has been forbidden since 2000 (9-2), there has also been a steady and sharp rise in youth violence, which bears an obvious connection to reduced parental authority. Children and adults are subjected to vicious beatings and even murder at the hands of violent youths, while parents, who should by nature be responsible for setting boundaries for their children, are denied the right to do so properly, as they are weakened by the authority of the law. Parents are constantly under suspicion, and the fear that they may act in a punitive manner toward their wayward children has paralyzed them and led to the almost complete transfer of their power into the hands of law-enforcement authorities. Is this what we had hoped for? Are the indifferent and hesitant law-enforcement authorities a suitable substitute for concerned and caring parents? We are well aware of the fact that law-enforcement authorities are not always able to effectively do their jobs, which, in turn, leads to the crumbling of society.

At least tell me the truth about Blakeborough,” he said hoarsely. “Do you love him?” “Why does it matter?” His eyes ate her up. “If you do, I’ll keep my distance. I’ll stay out of your life from now on.” “You’ve been doing that easily enough for the past twelve years,” she snapped. “I don’t see why my feelings for Edwin should change anything.” “Easily? It was never easy, I assure you.” His expression was stony. “And you’re avoiding the question. Are you in love with Blakeborough?” How she wished she could lie about it. Dom would take himself off, and she wouldn’t be tempted by him anymore. Unfortunately, he could always tell when she was lying. “And if I say I’m not?” “Then I won’t rest until you’re mine again.” The determination in his voice shocked her. Unsettled her. Thrilled her. No! “I don’t want that.” His fingers dug into her arm. “Because you love Blakeborough?” “Because love is a lie designed to make a woman desire what is only a figure of smoke in the wind. Love is too dangerous.” He released a heavy breath. “So you don’t love him.” His persistence sparked her temper, and she pushed free of him. “Oh, for pity’s sake, if you must know, I don’t.” She faced him down. “Not that it matters one whit. I don’t need love to have a good marriage, an amiable marriage. I don’t even want love.” It hurt too much when her heart was trampled upon. Dom had done that once before. How could she be sure he wouldn’t do it again? Eyes gleaming in the firelight, he said in a low voice, “You used to want love.” “I was practically a child. I didn’t know any better. But I do now.” “Do you? I wonder.” He circled her like a wolf assessing its prey’s weaknesses. “Very well, let’s forget about love for the moment. What about passion?” “What about it?” she asked unsteadily as he slipped behind her. Nervous, she edged nearer the impressively massive pianoforte that sat in the center of the room. “What part does passion play in your plan for a safe and loveless marriage?” She pivoted to face him, startled to find that he’d stepped to within a breath of her. “None at all.” He chuckled. “Does Blakeborough know that?” “Not that it’s any of your concern, but Edwin and I have an arrangement. He’ll give me children; I’ll help him make sure Yvette finds a good husband. We both agree that passion is…unimportant to our plans.” “Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “It certainly aids in the production of those children you’re hoping for. To quote a certain lady, ‘You can set a plan in motion, but as soon as it involves people, it will rarely commence exactly as you wish.’ You may not want passion to be important, sweeting, but it always is.” “Not to us,” she said, though with him standing so close her legs felt like rubber and her blood raced wildly through her veins. “Not to me.” With his gaze darkening, he lifted his hand to run his thumb over the pounding pulse at her throat. “Yes, I can tell how unimportant it is to you.” “That doesn’t mean…anything.” “Doesn’t it?” He backed her against the pianoforte. “So the way you trembled in my arms this morning means nothing.” It meant far too much. It meant her body was susceptible to him, even when her mind had the good sense to resist. And curse him to the devil, he knew it. He slipped his hand about her waist to pull her against him. “It means nothing that every time we’re together, we ignite.” “People do not…ignite,” she said shakily, though her entire body was on fire. “What an absurd idea.” She held her breath and waited for his attempt to kiss her, determined to refuse it this time. But he didn’t kiss her. Instead he fondled her breast through her gown, catching her so by surprise that she gasped, then moaned as the feel of his hand caressing her made liquid heat swirl in her belly. Devil take the man.

The Islamic faith and ideology is at another pivotal moment in its history. Having survived for a thousand years or more after the Western Crusades it has been hauled back into the fire by some of its frustrated followers. Followers who have literally re interpreted or re translated the many open verses and chapters of the holy Qu’ran. These followers of the extreme Islamic beliefs are hankering to take our social order back and return it to the time of the prophet (mpbuh). The very turbulent dark and bloody days of religion and cults when ideologies were spread by the sword.